Tuesday, 6 December 2022
Volume 765
Sitting date: 6 December 2022
TUESDAY, 6 DECEMBER 2022
TUESDAY, 6 DECEMBER 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 upon 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.]
Visitors
Vietnam—National Assembly, President
SPEAKER: I’m sure members would wish to welcome His Excellency, Mr Vương Đình Huệ, President of the National Assembly, Republic of Vietnam, who is to my left, and to his delegation in the gallery.
Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills
Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills
SPEAKER: Members, petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.
CLERK:
Petition of Groundswell NZ requesting that the House ask the Government to end the agricultural emissions pricing proposal
petition of Peter Marra requesting that the House lower the age of eligibility for the National Bowel Screening Programme to 45 and make it lower than 45 for anyone with a family history of bowel cancer
petition of Katharine Moody requesting that the House regulate residential rent via a formula specified in the petition.
SPEAKER: Those petitions are referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered reports.
CLERK:
2021-22 annual reports for the:
Accreditation Council
Broadcasting Standards Authority
Electricity Authority
Network for Learning
New Zealand Film Commission
Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board
2022-23 statements of performance expectations for the:
Broadcasting Standards Authority
Law Commission
New Zealand Film Commission
2021-22 statement of performance expectations for the Human Rights Commission
2022-26 statement of intent for the New Zealand Film Commission
The Treasury: Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand 2022.
SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.
CLERK:
Reports of the Education and Workforce Committee on the:
petition of Julia Lê, and the
petition of Julia Zhang and David Barker
report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill
report of the Governance and Administration Committee on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill
reports of the Health Committee on the:
continuation to 13 May 2023 of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020, and the
Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill
report of the Justice Committee on the Electoral Amendment Bill
reports of the Petitions Committee on the:
petition of Aaron Cross, Aaron Hendry, Brian Borland, Chris Williams, Claire Dale, Greg Rzesniowiecki, Hāwea Flat School Board, Janaya Fowles, Open Forum for Health Information, Save Women’s Sport Australasia, and Sona Kaur
report of the Regulations Review Committee on the Secondary Legislation Confirmation Bill
report of the Transport Infrastructure Committee on the petition of Rosemary Penwarden.
SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. No bills have been introduced.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Question No. 1—Health
1. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has Pharmac advised him of relating to rare disorders?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): I am pleased to say that on Sunday, the national drug funding agency Pharmac announced they have initiated consultation on the funding of Trikafta for people aged six years and above. Trikafta is a treatment for cystic fibrosis, a health condition affecting the lungs. It’s a condition that typically shortens a sufferer’s life considerably. Trikafta is a breakthrough treatment which radically addresses the condition and extends life expectancy for cystic fibrosis sufferers by 27 years on average. One of the recommendations in the review of Pharmac published earlier this year was that Pharmac should be more proactive in addressing treatments for rare disorders. Consultation over a new treatment is a very important step in Pharmac’s process—it’s how Pharmac checks that people who will get the most benefit from the medicines will be able to get access to them. Since 2017, this Government has increased the medicines budget by 43 percent, letting Pharmac make more than 200 additional medicines available for thousands of people. This means better access to medicines and treatments for New Zealanders, helping more people lead healthier lives.
Tangi Utikere: What other drugs for rare disorders has Pharmac recently announced they will be funding?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: In September this year, Pharmac announced that they are consulting over the spinal muscular atrophy medicine nusinersen, which is marketed as Spinraza, which would be the first medicine to be publicly funded for spinal muscular atrophy. Spinraza will make a substantial difference to the lives of the young people who receive it, and confirms the renewed attention Pharmac is giving to rare disorders.
Tangi Utikere: How do these announcements fit with the Pharmac review?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We committed to an independent review to look at how well Pharmac performs against its objectives and whether those objectives need changing. This Government agrees with the independent review panel that Pharmac must put much more emphasis on equity across communities, including for those who have rare diseases as well as their families. Pharmac’s recent decisions to fund Spinraza and Trikafta—the first medicines to be publicly funded for spinal muscular atrophy and the miracle drug for cystic fibrosis—indicates it’s shown a greater awareness of the need to carefully consider rare disorders.
Tangi Utikere: What other progress has been made on the Pharmac review recommendations?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have now received and accepted Pharmac’s response to the review. In their response, Pharmac has identified five priorities to drive and guide their performance improvement in the years ahead. The priorities are, firstly, enhancing assessment methods; secondly, stronger partnerships and engagement with Māori; thirdly, strengthening their focus on equity; fourth, better incorporating consumer voices; and fifth, sharing more impactful information about what work is being done. We are already seeing changes to how Pharmac is conducting itself with the funding decisions that they’ve recently announced.
Question No. 2—Prime Minister
2. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and policies?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly the Government’s investments in infrastructure. Around 30,000 rural homes and communities will soon have access to faster, improved connectivity, with an expansion of the Rural Capacity Upgrade programme. Last week, 21 contracts signed by Crown Infrastructure Partners will accelerate upgrades to towers and broadband connections in areas with poor coverage, including the Far North, Gisborne, Manawatū, Whanganui, Taranaki, Southland, and Waikato. This is something our rural communities have called for and it’s something we as a Government have responded to.
David Seymour: How does it feel to be the first Prime Minister in 168 years of Parliament to try and entrench her own policies without even knowing she was doing it?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, the House is well aware that entrenchment provisions will come back before the House today and will be removed. We have acknowledged that a mistake was made and we’re fixing it.
David Seymour: Was it the Government’s policy to entrench that water services entities must own water assets, and, if not, why did she vote for it?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve already said in the public domain on multiple occasions, the entrenchment provision and the fact that it was supported was a mistake and one that we are fixing.
David Seymour: Was it Government policy to entrench clause 116 of the Water Services Entities Bill, and, if not, why did her Minister of Local Government vote for it—or was that just a mistake too?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I refer the member to my two prior answers. In answer to the first question, the member will, of course, be aware that the entrenchment provision was not part of the Government bill. It was a Supplementary Order Paper from another party, and that therefore answers his first question.
David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister accept that through her recklessness—her Government trying to pass 24 bills in one week under urgency—she created a major constitutional cluster and has shown no contrition for doing so?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member’s claim is incorrect, first of all; and, second of all, the bill has not passed. And, finally, there have been a number of occasions in which Governments have extended sittings in order to debate legislation. That policy is not new.
David Seymour: What does it say that no other Government in 168 years has been arrogant enough to try and entrench their own policies—up with the voting right provisions that protect our most basic democratic rights?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I totally disagree with the member’s characterisation of the issue.
David Seymour: Why has the Government explicitly ruled out the COVID-19 royal commission inquiring into the private sector, saying, in its terms of reference, that the commission must not inquire into “the operation of the private sector, except where the private sector delivers services integral to a pandemic response.”, and who exactly does she think’s going to pay for the $106 billion of extra net core Crown debt that her Government racked up over the last four years?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m sure the member would agree that if you’re looking into a Government response, one of the parameters should be looking at the Government response. We wanted to be clear that the inquiry wasn’t about any other private sector’s decision-making or their contribution to the pandemic. It needs to be focused on what we as a Government need to learn from the pandemic response so that we’re best prepared for the future.
David Seymour: Has the Prime Minister talked to any business people lately, or is she just not aware that the Government’s response had some pretty big effects on the private sector?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Despite the nature of the member’s question, which I have to say is slightly hard, I’m taking question time seriously; it would be good if he did too. In response to his question, economic and monetary policy are absolutely in scope. We absolutely agree that the COVID response had an impact on everyone’s lives and livelihoods, including the operation of business. That is why it is included. I stand by our response, but so much so that I welcome an inquiry into it and a comparison against it, relative to other countries, because I absolutely believe in the outcomes, which are saving people’s lives and our economy. We did an excellent job.
Nicola Willis: How can she possibly claim that the royal commission’s terms of reference include a comprehensive evaluation of the economic response when they are explicitly restricted to examining “settings required to support New Zealand’s immediate economic response to a future pandemic;”?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because the terms of reference say, and I quote, “The legislative, regulatory, and operational settings required to support New Zealand’s immediate economic response to a future pandemic relating to fiscal and monetary policy responses, including co-ordination and preparedness to implement large-scale changes quickly and monitor their impacts:”. It is on page 5 of the terms of reference. For the sake of clarity and to give due, the member may have only read the summary of the terms of reference. The full terms of reference state it very clearly.
David Seymour: Does she have confidence in broadcasting Minister, Willie Jackson, after he made repeated suggestions that an interviewer in the chair should be responsible for his company’s commercial and political decisions and vice versa on Q+A on Sunday morning?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, I do. Secondly, I also support the legislation’s very clear position on the editorial independence of our public service broadcasters. And, thirdly, Minister Jackson himself has said it wasn’t his best interview.
Question No. 3—Housing
3. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister of Housing: What progress has the Government made in delivering public housing?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): We are rebuilding public housing in New Zealand by building more public housing, renewing our existing housing stock faster than any Government since the 1970s. Since we’ve come into Government, we have now added 10,763 public homes and delivered over 4,000 new transitional homes. Kāinga Ora has delivered 9,133 new warm, dry public houses, with 743, or 77 percent, being new builds, and 11.5 percent of the current public housing stock—or over one in nine of our current public homes—has been delivered during our term in Government. But we know we cannot do it alone, and this is why we have also been working closely with community housing providers (CHPs) to deliver public housing places, too.
Angie Warren-Clark: What contribution have community housing providers made to the public housing programme?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: There are now 11,785 public housing places provided by our community housing providers. This has more than doubled since 2017, when there were less than 5,000 places provided by community housing providers. Community housing providers bring strong community connections, knowledge, and expertise in delivering housing for vulnerable New Zealanders, but, of course, it requires the Government to partner with them and deliver the funding for income-related rent subsidies.
Angie Warren-Clark: How has the Government supported community housing providers?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Community housing provider stock, as I said, has more than doubled since October 2017 as a result of our Government’s record investment in housing. This has been possible through the Government significantly increasing the funding available to our community housing providers through consistent recommitments in successive Budgets. In the financial year ended June 2017, total funding for CHPs was just $95 million. As of June 2022, the annual figure was $535 million in operational funding for our CHPs—an increase of 463 percent.
Angie Warren-Clark: What notable community housing provider - led public housing projects has the Government supported?
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The Government supported Auckland City Mission to open their HomeGround facility, the largest project that they have ever undertaken. HomeGround is an 80-unit housing and social services facility that incorporates a detox facility, a medical centre, and education services. The whole-of-life funding the Government is putting into HomeGround is expected to total $114 million. CHP housing delivery is not just happening in our city centres. In the past few years, because of changes we have made to operational funding, we are now seeing community houses being delivered outside of our cities.
Question No. 4—Prime Minister
4. CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly this Government’s decision to increase the medicines budget by 43 percent since we took office, enabling Pharmac to make more than 200 medicines available for thousands of people. This funding has enabled Pharmac to reach a provisional agreement with medicines supplier Vertex to fund Trikafta for people with cystic fibrosis who are aged six and over and who meet eligibility criteria. Funding of Trikafta is proposed to start from 1 April next year. It shows what a difference the Government’s budget boost is making. When we came into Government, the medicines budget, like other parts of the health system, had been starved of investment despite record population growth. In 2020, we promised we’d increase Pharmac’s budget by $200 million over four years. We’ve not only kept that promise but put in an additional $71 million more this year with another $120 million boost next year.
Christopher Luxon: Why did she claim that Radio New Zealand would collapse if it’s not merged with TVNZ, when Radio New Zealand is 100 percent funded by taxpayers?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My reference was not only to the funding of TVNZ and RNZ, but the general issue of listenership and viewership. We know that since 2014, for instance, daily audience share for television has dropped from 83 percent to 56 percent. We know for radio it’s dropped from 67 percent to 47 percent. This is a changing environment. Public service broadcasting is important to New Zealanders; no matter what, we need to change the way that we are funding these services because, particularly for TVNZ, their revenue is declining.
Christopher Luxon: Is she aware that Radio New Zealand’s revenue has nothing to do with how many listeners it has?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: And nor are the reforms solely about revenue source. It’s also about lifting and making sure that listeners are able to access public service broadcasting across multiple platforms. One of the concerns I have in this debate is this is actually one of the first times that the member’s acknowledging that taxpayer money already goes into public service broadcasting. The issue is that without recognising that the environment they’re in is changing, we will keep having to increase the amount that goes in because revenue is declining for TVNZ. Things need to change.
Christopher Luxon: What is her response to Stuff political editor Luke Malpass, who said of the merger, “It has no clear rationale, no clear plan, and no obvious problem it is willing to fix.” And, to be honest, isn’t this merger just an ideological solution in search of a problem?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the business case has demonstrated, which was produced by Deloitte, change is required.
Christopher Luxon: Why did broadcasting Minister, Willie Jackson, criticise a TVNZ journalist, saying “I am very disappointed in you.”, and isn’t she concerned that he made these threatening statements during an interview about editorial independence?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I refer the member to my answers earlier on in question time. The editorial independence is safeguarded in the legislation itself.
Christopher Luxon: Does she have confidence in her Minister of Broadcasting, Willie Jackson, when he has been unable to explain why this merger is happening and clearly has no understanding of the concept of editorial independence?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, I do.
Christopher Luxon: Why, as Prime Minister, is she continuing to support a Minister who is so grossly incompetent?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I totally disagree with the member’s assertion.
Christopher Luxon: What does it say about her leadership that she is willing to tolerate this level of incompetence from her Ministers?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I again reject the assertion by the member. The member for broadcasting has direct experience from working in the broadcasting industry. He knows all too well that the environment our broadcasters are operating is declining. The numbers of journalists in this country has halved. New Zealanders say misinformation is one of their biggest concerns; we have just seen, in a pandemic, how important it is that they were able to access information they trust and to access their own stories. The fact is, taxpayers already fund public service broadcasting. We need to make sure that that money is well invested.
Question No. 5—Police
5. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Police: What recent announcements has he made on supporting small businesses to tackle retail crime?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): Last week, the Prime Minister and I announced an extended package of measures to combat retail crime, with new initiatives to partner with small businesses and local councils. While overall youth crime is now much lower than in the past, the risks and harm from ram raids and other retail crime is concerning communities and creating victims. Shop owners and workers feel targeted, and the Government recognises that. The range of initiatives that we announced last week make the most significant direct support crime prevention financial package in recent memory, and it backs up the work that the police have been doing through supporting crime prevention measures and undertaking other measures to help business owners stay safe.
Ginny Andersen: What further details are available on these packages?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The measures that we announced last week include a new fog cannon subsidy scheme where the Government will provide $4,000 to small shops and dairies in New Zealand who want to have a fog cannon installed; a new $4 million fund to support local councils in Auckland, Hamilton, and the Bay of Plenty with crime prevention programmes; and extending the eligibility of the existing retail crime prevention fund.
Ginny Andersen: What changes will be made to the retail crime prevention fund?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The retail crime prevention fund was set up for small shops and dairies earlier on this year as offending shifted to ram raiding. Last week’s announcement has seen the expansion of its eligibility to small businesses who experience an aggravated robbery, including those committed in the past 12 months. Police are already making good progress on the number of stores accessing the fund. More than 100 shops now have installations approved, and there are 431 security measures under way.
Ginny Andersen: What work is the Government doing alongside of local government to help support small-business owners?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As mentioned, the $4 million has been targeted to support local councils with local crime prevention measures. This will be made up of $2 million for the Auckland Council, $1 million for the Hamilton City Council, and $1 million for the councils in the Bay of Plenty, which will be matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis by those councils. These partnerships will be focused on crime prevention through environmental design measures in geographic areas where small retailers are commonly targeted, and that can include things like street lighting, CCTV cameras, and planter boxes. Conversations have already taken place between police and Government officials and the Auckland Council, Hamilton City Council, and the Bay of Plenty councils to identify opportunities that can get started soon.
Question No. 6—Prime Minister
6. CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement about entrenching a provision of the Water Services Entities Bill that “we accept a mistake here has been made”; if so, when did she realise it was a mistake?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, I stand by my statement. In answer to the second part of the member’s question, Cabinet determined it would resolve the issue at the first Cabinet meeting that was held after the committee of the whole House.
Christopher Luxon: When was she first made aware that her Government was supporting a provision to entrench parts of the three waters legislation?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I believe I’ve already referred to in the public domain, I was, obviously, made aware after the vote was taken. What I would also state is that I also stand by, however, our Government’s position that the privatisation of water assets is something that we are strongly opposed to. Regardless of the debate that’s currently being had about our mechanism of entrenchment provisions, I would encourage the member to give due consideration to the letter that we have issued him today seeking for the National Party’s commitment to not privatise these incredibly important assets.
Christopher Luxon: Why, as the Prime Minister and chair of Cabinet, was the embedding of an entrenchment clause in a deeply unpopular piece of legislation “Not something I would necessarily be aware of.”?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member needs to put the context around that quote—I was asked whether or not I had seen the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I would ask the member whether or not every single amendment to every single bill that is put up by the Opposition or the Greens or by ACT is something that is routinely examined. I did not see the SOP, but nor would I expect to.
Christopher Luxon: Is it acceptable that neither Minister Mahuta nor any other Minister failed to tell her about the entrenchment provision before her Government passed it?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I refer to every public statement that I’ve made on this matter regarding the consideration of entrenchment, and then I come back to, ultimately, the House coming back today to consider the issue. We agree it is a mistake and it will be removed.
Christopher Luxon: Does she think it’s appropriate to force through both a major confiscation of local water assets and significant changes to our constitutional conventions under urgency?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I totally disagree with the characterisation of that question. It is utterly factually wrong.
Christopher Luxon: Was her Government’s attempt to entrench part of her unpopular three waters reforms a sign of incompetence or arrogance, or both?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I also disagree with the characterisation; the entrenchment provision related only to the privatisation of assets. On the principle of the privatisation of assets, we are totally opposed. My question is: is the National Party?
David Seymour: How can the Prime Minister demand the Opposition rule out privatisation, when her own Government is taking the assets off democratically elected councils who had ratepayers pay for them, and putting them into new entities that will not be fully democratically run?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The new entities are public shareholdings of council representatives. It is being held by local communities. We have an illustration of the issue with this entire debate: the member’s mischaracterisation of what is ultimately a bill to ensure public ownership and management of water entities. The member needs to be honest. The way that he is portraying this bill is wrong, dishonest, and factually incorrect.
David Seymour: Point of order. Mr Speaker, as you well know and the Prime Minister well knows, to call another member dishonest is unparliamentary. She knew the rules, she did it, and she should be asked to withdraw and apologise. And it includes calling another member’s actions in the House dishonest.
Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to the point of order. Firstly, the Prime Minister said that making a statement like that would be dishonest. It wasn’t a direct comment on a member, to take on Mr Seymour’s point of order. My second point is that almost all—I think I’ll be correct—of the Opposition’s supplementary questions today have contained assertions, some of which arguably are outside of the Standing Orders in terms of the words that we use, let alone being outside of the Standing Orders around oral questions, in terms of the content of them—Standing Orders 395, 396, 397. So, unfortunately, we are in a position where there’s been, in my opinion, a response when the Prime Minister has got up today several times to say that she disagrees with the contents of a question because those questions have contained assertions. That seems to be how it goes, which way it will go both ways.
SPEAKER: Thank you to the Deputy Prime Minister. That is correct. I counted three assertions in that supplementary. I listened—I’ve been listening very carefully to all the answers, as I thought to myself, sooner or later someone’s going to complain. And today is that day. The fact of the matter is, I’m quite happy—as I have stated in this debating chamber at question time before—to rule questions that are significantly out of order to be out of order. That one was; I could have easily ruled it out. I allowed it to be asked on the basis that the member knew and understood the likely response. Are there any further supplementaries on this?
Question No. 7—Forestry
7. JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata) to the Minister of Forestry: What announcements has he made on transforming the forestry sector?
Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Forestry): Last week at the Forestry Hub at national Fieldays, I launched the Forestry and Wood Processing Industry Transformation Plan, which provides a detailed road map to increase wood processing in New Zealand and grow a low-carbon, high-value industry. The Government has worked closely with the industry to develop the industry transformation plan that will both boost the value of our forestry sector and futureproof it to provide greater economic security for all New Zealanders through good times and bad.
Jo Luxton: How will increasing onshore processing boost New Zealand’s economy?
Hon STUART NASH: New Zealand is currently the world’s largest softwood log exporter. Today, roughly 60 percent of our harvest is exported as logs to a small number of markets. We want to create a future for the forestry industry that doesn’t just rely on exporting logs but one that opens up domestic opportunities. More processing in New Zealand will create jobs, drive growth, and provide more wood residues to support the growing bioeconomy.
Jo Luxton: How will this transformation plan help drive down emissions?
Hon STUART NASH: The first goal of the industry transformation plan is to reduce carbon emissions by 6.9 million tonnes by 2030 and by 54 million tonnes by 2050. This will be achieved through, for example, using wood fibre to help decarbonise transport and process heat and using wood products to replace high-emissions materials in construction.
Jo Luxton: What other investment has the Government made to support the forestry sector?
Hon STUART NASH: The Government supported the forestry sector with $385 million in Budget 2022 to help transform the sector. This includes support to increase woody biomass supplies, to replace coal, to develop long-term carbon sinks, and to create a resilient and diverse sector.
Question No. 8—Finance
8. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with the Reserve Bank that “worker shortages are holding the economy back and increasing inflation”, and what steps, if any, will the Government now take to lessen the risk of economic recession next year, as outlined in the Reserve Bank’s November Monetary Policy Statement?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): In answer to the first part of the question, with more New Zealanders in work now than ever before and the highest participation rate on record, I do agree that global worker shortages are contributing to worker shortages here as businesses look to hire more employees due to strong profits and the resilient economy. That’s why, under the immigration rebalance, Immigration New Zealand has given approval for 90,000 positions under the accredited employer work visa as well as more than 39,000 working holidaymakers. In answer to the second part of the question, I’m sure the member will be aware that immigration on its own is not the only answer to growing the economy. The Government continues to take steps to invest in our infrastructure, provide targeted support to New Zealanders on low and middle incomes, and continue to invest in quality public services.
Nicola Willis: Does he agree with economist Brad Olsen that the Reserve Bank is “quite clearly saying … that the Government is contributing to inflation, or certainly not helping the case to get it under control”, and does he take any responsibility for the worsening cost of living crisis?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, when the Reserve Bank spoke last week at the release of their Monetary Policy Statement, they, among other things, indicated, as I have in this House before, that the overall direction of Government spending continues to track down and, in fact, the fiscal impulse is contractionary over the forecast period.
Nicola Willis: Does he stand by his commitment to starting a more comprehensive evaluation of the economic response to COVID-19, and how will the royal commission do that when its terms of reference do not include any assessment of the impact economic decision-making has had on today’s cost of living crisis?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’m not 100 percent sure how that relates to the primary question, but, in answer to that, the member has already heard from the Prime Minister, quoting the part of the terms of reference that includes fiscal and monetary policy responses and the overall economic policy response. The purpose is to learn the lessons of this pandemic and be able to apply them to any future one; that absolutely includes fiscal and monetary policy responses.
Nicola Willis: Why was he unable to name a single example of where he has reined in Government spending, on Newshub Nation last weekend, despite being asked multiple times, and would he like to use this opportunity to give one specific example?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s interesting because the question actually related to whether or not I agreed with all of the knee-jerk responses that the National Party had put in place. Because if, as a Government, we were being irresponsible and we hadn’t planned for the fact that there would be a global economic slowdown, the member might have a point. I invite the member to think about what would have happened to the New Zealand economy had we taken her advice and her leader’s advice and done tax cuts in the May Budget. If we’d done that, the New Zealand economy would be in a far, far worse position than it is now.
Nicola Willis: How can New Zealanders have any hope for the future when his Government has totally failed to get the cost of living crisis under control and they are now staring down a recession next year?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’ve got enormous hope for the future of New Zealand, because I see New Zealanders every single day working hard, lifting their skills, innovating, exporting. The member really just does need to look at how hard New Zealanders have worked, have a bit of faith in them. On this side of the House, we do and we know New Zealanders know they’ve got a Government that backs them.
Question No. 9—Commerce and Consumer Affairs
9. JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What recent reports has he seen regarding competition for residential building supplies?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Today, the Minister for Building and Construction, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, and I were delighted to receive the Commerce Commission’s final report on the building supplies market study. The commission’s report found two key factors negatively impact competition in this crucial sector: incentives that favour familiar building products in the building regulatory system, and quantity-forcing rebates. These things mean it’s harder for alternative products that offer consumers a keener price or more choice to get into, or expand in, the market. We welcome these findings, and we’ll consider the recommendations to understand what changes are necessary to help increase competition and, ultimately, bring down costs to consumers.
Jamie Strange: How will the recommendations make a difference for everyday Kiwis?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: We know that market studies improve competition, and competition improves prices. Low levels of competition hurt everyday New Zealanders across the board—at the pump and at the checkout. With building supplies, we pay higher prices because of a lack of competition. The commission has suggested changes, including to the current regulatory settings, to improve competition among building suppliers. These changes are expected to support better prices, quality, range, and innovation for New Zealanders over time.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Name just one.
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Take a question, Mr Brownlee—take a question.
SPEAKER: Order!
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Responding to an interjection.
SPEAKER: Don’t.
Jamie Strange: What other initiatives did the Commerce Commission highlight as a way to improve competition for building supplies?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I’m pleased to see the Commerce Commission noted the actions taken by the Government to alleviate the plasterboard shortage earlier this year. This includes the ministerial plasterboard taskforce, set up by the building and construction Minister, Dr Megan Woods, and guidance to the sector on how to substitute plasterboard. Taken together, these actions resulted in more plasterboard being in the market. The commission’s view is that the measures could be considered for a wider range of key building supplies to better support competition.
Jamie Strange: What reaction has he seen in response to the report?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: More good news: I’m pleased to see there’s already been some preliminary moves to improve competition by dominant players in the building-supplies market. Winstone Wallboards announced just this morning that it will discontinue the use of quantity-forcing rebates. It’s hard not to see this as a response to a key recommendation in the Commerce Commission’s report. I think the House can see there is real merit in putting the spotlight on a sector through a market study process. While the Government immediately starts work to explore the recommendations, there’s nothing stopping market players from making moves, right now, that will improve competition in the market.
Question No. 6 to Minister
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’d like to raise a matter at the first possible instance. On question No. 6, the finance Minister took a point of order and stated that the Prime Minister had not directly accused me of dishonesty, but only proposed a hypothetical circumstance where I might be. Since then, I’ve had the video transcript sent through to me, and it says that she said, “The way he is portraying this bill is wrong, dishonest, and factually incorrect.”, after saying, “The member needs to be honest.” The Prime Minister did accuse me of dishonesty. That is unparliamentary, and I would put it that the finance Minister misled the House when he said that she didn’t.
SPEAKER: I have made a ruling. The way to question the Speaker’s ruling is not to take another point of order like you have just done, so that is out of order. Now—
David Seymour: No, it’s not.
SPEAKER: It is. I made a ruling based on what I heard, without the benefit of going back and having a look at a Hansard—in real time—and I made my ruling accordingly. Now, there are a number of ways you can question the Speaker’s ruling. Bringing it up now is not the way to do it. There is a correct procedure to do it.
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well, a fresh point of order, Mr Speaker. I was not questioning your ruling. I was raising a fresh point of order in relation to the finance Minister and his claim, which is now demonstrably untrue. That’s the point of order I am raising now. It in no way questions your ruling. However, I would ask you to use Speaker Wall’s ruling at 45/2, which says, “The offence of calling another member a liar, or implying that another member of the House is a liar,” is an injustice to the whole House. It’s a very serious matter that can’t be brushed off by saying it was provoked.
SPEAKER: And, again, this is not the correct way of addressing it. You can address it by making, in writing, a matter of privilege. That is the correct way.
Question No. 10—Immigration
10. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he consider that current immigration policies are fair and equitable towards migrant families?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): Yes, I do, and, in particular, I’m pleased recently with the progress that we have made on 2021 Resident Visa which, according to the most recent information, has provided 121,392 people with residency in New Zealand; providing much-needed certainty for those people and their families who are contributing to our country. I’m also very pleased that the first draw under the parent category occurred on 14 November, and that will potentially provide a pathway for up to 600 parents to be reunited with their families through that pathway here in New Zealand.
Ricardo Menéndez March: What feedback has he received from stakeholders regarding the planned removal of automatic working rights from most partners of temporary visa holders, as mentioned in his press release yesterday?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The proposed changes that I put a press release out about yesterday relate to the work rights for partners—it is important to clarify that the Government has, at all points, proposed to retain working rights for partners, but potentially to change them from being open work rights to work rights that are obtained through the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme. That has been an important change that was put in place in order to ensure that partners had the protection of working for an accredited employer; that we reduced instances of exploitation; and that we ensure that those people would be paid a fair rate, which is something that we can ensure through the Accredited Employer Work Visa scheme. Some of the concerns and feedback that we received related to whether that had got the balance right in terms of ensuring that partners would have the ability to independently and easily seek work on their own terms—that is the feedback that I have taken on board, and that’s why we’re just taking a little bit more time to streamline and make sure we get that policy right.
Ricardo Menéndez March: Does he agree with Dhilum Nightingale—a community lawyer who works with migrant survivors of domestic violence—who called these changes patriarchal and said at a seminar that “This new policy is not supportive, in my view, of the realities, and once again allows an abuser to control a victim’s immigration status”; if not, why not?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: No, I don’t agree with that statement—in the first instance, I note that in a relatively broad-brush way, it assumes who is the primary visa holder and who is the partner, and that can’t always be assumed. Secondly, what I would note is that in taking a bit more time to work through this change, we are going to make sure that we do address any concerns of that nature.
Ricardo Menéndez March: How many, if any, front-line organisations working with migrant survivors of family violence were consulted prior to the decision to remove the automatic working rights of most partners of temporary work visa holders?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: If I can just re-affirm that the Government at no point has proposed to take away work rights for partners. There has been a proposal to change them to an Accredited Employer Work Visa pathway, which will ensure in some respects greater protections for those people. What I can confirm to the member is that I do consult widely—and discuss widely with a range of groups—immigration policy as it is being developed. This is a topic which has been raised with me by a number of those groups in recent weeks. For example, I’ve met with the immigration reference group which has a wide variety of stakeholders—including those who work with these groups and communities, and Community Law Centres Aotearoa, and I’ll continue to work with those groups as I refine this policy and other settings within the immigration system.
Ricardo Menéndez March: How many organisations working with migrant survivors of family violence were consulted when the immigration rebalance was being produced?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: That’s a very, very specific question which the member would need to provide to me and I would be able to—through checking through the records—give a more accurate answer, but what I can confirm to him is that I regularly meet with immigration sector stakeholders, including those groups who work with vulnerable migrant communities, and I’ve done so as I’ve been considering this issue. And one of the things—if the Opposition will just pause for a moment—that I would like to reiterate is that one of the ways in which we do take forward immigration policy is to listen, and what we’ve done this week has been to listen to some of those views that have come forward; and we’ve said we’ll spend a few more months taking that on board to make sure that the policy is right. I recognise that the National Party, in their supreme arrogance, can’t understand that, but that’s the way that we develop policy on this side of the House.
Ricardo Menéndez March: Will he commit to extensively seeking and considering feedback from front-line advocates working with migrant survivors of family violence and unions before taking any decision to go ahead with the changes to the rights of partners of temporary visa holders; if not, why not?
Hon MICHAEL WOOD: As per answers to previous questions, what I announced yesterday is that we have been listening to groups within the sector, and that is why in fact we have said we’ll take a few more months to refine and streamline this policy, to make sure that those concerns are taken into account.
Question No. 11—Broadcasting and Media
11. 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 WILLIE JACKSON (Minister for Broadcasting and Media): Absolutely. In particular, I would point the member to the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday that the reforms are about valuing and protecting public media in New Zealand, giving it the best possible chance of thriving, and ensuring that all New Zealanders—young and old—can continue to access trusted news and information.
Melissa Lee: How does the Minister expect New Zealanders to have confidence he will not interfere in the editorial independence of Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM) when, according to Thomas Coughlan, “Jackson’s repeated bizarre insinuations about editorial independence left viewers none the wiser on this point and raised serious questions about whether he had the capability to be the Minister of the entity he is so keen on creating.”?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I can’t make this any clearer: editorial independence is so vital. It’s protected specifically in the legislation—clause 15(3). The Government’s intent is that ANZPM should have extremely strong protections in relation to its editorial independence. If that member understands the importance of editorial independence, she will understand that it’s all about context sometimes—and I’ve already said that it was a misstep in the interview, and I stand by that. Everyone makes mistakes, even Mr Luxon.
Melissa Lee: Has the Minister breached section 28(1)(c) of the Television New Zealand Act of 2003 that states, “No shareholding Minister … may give a direction to TVNZ … or [any] employee of TVNZ … in respect of the gathering or presentation of news or the preparation or presentation of any current affairs programme or content.” in respect of his TVNZ Q+A interview criticisms on 4 December 2022; and, regardless, how did the Minister’s comment improve trust in ANZPM?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No.
Melissa Lee: Who is correct: the Prime Minister, who just told the House that TVNZ revenue is falling, or public records, which shows the TVNZ revenue has increased by “record” levels this year despite COVID restrictions?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: The Prime Minister is 100 percent correct. For the sake of the member opposite, can I refer her to Television New Zealand’s own statement of intent, where in their own words, they acknowledge declining revenue as a major risk. The undeniable fact is that linear advertising revenue has been declining globally for the last 10 years. Over the last decade, TVNZ’s operating revenue has steadily declined. In 2008, they made over $390 million; in 2020, it was $310 million. That makes the Prime Minister, for the member, 100 percent correct.
Melissa Lee: What, if anything, does the Minister take from the fact that only 22 percent of New Zealanders are in favour of his ANZPM plans and that “New Zealanders are overwhelmingly opposed to the Government’s plan to merge TVNZ and RNZ.”?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That was a Taxpayers’ Union poll. I take comfort in the fact that there were 900 submitters and 60 to 70 percent of them support the merger.
Melissa Lee: Point of order. I seek leave to table a series of minutes of the Strong Public Media establishment board for the new public media entity ANZPM, released to my office under the Official Information Act.
SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none; it can be tabled.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Question No. 12—Local Government
12. SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore) to the Minister of Local Government: Does she stand by her statement on entrenching a provision of the Water Services Entities Bill, “We know that while this particular SOP may not pass the constitutional threshold, there is a moral obligation of people who believe that privatisation should not occur to support that particular SOP”, and does she stand by all her statements on entrenchment provisions?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Yes. Ensuring continued public ownership of New Zealand’s water services infrastructure has been a bottom line for this Government in the development of the new water services delivery system. Let me be clear: it was a mistake to use entrenchment for that purpose, and we’ll fix it.
Simon Watts: Did she inform the Prime Minister about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 285, in the name of the Hon Eugenie Sage, before it was voted on; if so, when?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: The member knows that the SOP was tabled in the House during the committee of the whole House debate, so we were made aware of the details of the SOP at the same time he was.
Chris Bishop: Point of order. That was not the question, and the answer went no way to addressing the question. The question was: did she inform the Prime Minister, in words to that effect, and, if so, when?
SPEAKER: I’ll ask the member to—in my mind, it was very, very close to being addressed, but I’ll get the member to ask it again, and I’ll listen to the answer again.
Simon Watts: Did she inform the Prime Minister about Supplementary Order Paper 285, in the name of the Hon Eugenie Sage, before it was voted on; if so, when?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: The member knows that the SOP was tabled in the House during the committee of the whole House debate. We were made aware of the details of the SOP at the same time as he was.
Chris Bishop: Point of order. It’s the same point. It’s a really, really clear, specific, and, I would say, actually important question, and the Minister is not addressing it—she’s not answering it and not addressing it.
SPEAKER: Well, you can’t expect to have an explicit answer to any question. Still, in my mind, it is addressed. The member has other supplementaries that he can further ask. I mean, the answer is that it was available to all members at the same time. That is addressing the question.
Simon Watts: Does she stand by the statement, given in her name by a spokesperson, that the entrenchment Supplementary Order Paper was discussed at Labour’s caucus, and, if so, how does she reconcile that statement with the Prime Minister, who said it was “Not something I’d necessarily be aware of”.
SPEAKER: The Minister doesn’t have ministerial responsibilities for discussions at their caucus. I’m going to give the member an opportunity to reword the question to get it in order.
Chris Bishop: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The question is not about what was discussed in the caucus meeting; the question is about the statement of the Minister, in her ministerial capacity, about the Water Services Entities Bill, and the reconciliation of that statement by the Minister, in that capacity, with statements by the Prime Minister in that capacity. Surely it is in order that ministerial comments from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Local Government are in order.
SPEAKER: Again, the Minister doesn’t have any ministerial responsibility. I’m going to ask the member to reword the question to get it in order.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order.
SPEAKER: A new point of order or are you just relitigating this one?
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yes, it is. The question has to be asked in respect of this: would Ms Mahuta have been asked that question had she not been the Minister of Local Government, and the answer is emphatically not. That would have been a question—
SPEAKER: That is not a new point of order. You are just relitigating what I ruled. Now, the member has an opportunity whether to use it or not to use it, but he can have the question again to reword it, to get it in order.
Simon Watts: Is she aware of statements given in her name by a spokesperson that the entrenchment Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) was discussed at Labour’s caucus and, if so, how does she reconcile that statement with the Prime Minister, who said, “It was not something I’d necessarily be aware of.”
SPEAKER: In so far as the Minister has responsibility.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: While I won’t disclose the specific discussions at caucus, there has been confirmed comments by the Prime Minister and myself that the matter of entrenchment was discussed more broadly. But let me be specific. I first raised the matter of entrenchment with my Cabinet colleagues in April 2022. Cabinet noted that I had written to all political parties seeking their support for entrenchment of provisions that protect against privatisation of water services infrastructure, but that Standing Order 270 will require entrenchment to be carried by a 75 percent majority when the bill reaches the committee of the whole House. This was the result of the recommendation of the Working Group on Representation, Governance and Accountability. I raised it again on 30 May 2022, prior to the introduction of the Water Services Entities Bill, when I noted that cross-party support for entrenchment of these provisions had not emerged and that the Government would not entrench privatisation provisions of that nature in the bill.
Simon Watts: Did Cabinet authorise her to make a decision on any entrenchment amendment tabled on the Water Services Entity Bill; if so, when?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: If that member is speaking in relation to the SOP that the Green Party—
Chris Bishop: No, no, any entrenchment.
Hon Member: The question is: any entrenchment.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Can I be clear on the question that’s being asked of me? There’s two members yelling out across the House.
SPEAKER: We’ll have the question again.
Simon Watts: Did Cabinet authorise her to make a decision on any entrenchment amendments tabled on the Water Services Entities Bill; if so, when?
Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. A Minister is not responsible for Supplementary Order Papers tabled by other parties. Parties vote on Supplementary Order Papers.
Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order. The question is really specifically worded, which is whether Cabinet authorised her as the responsible Minister to make a decision about support, or otherwise, for Supplementary Order Papers. That’s well within Cabinet’s remit. It may or may not have happened in this case. That’s what the question is; we want to know the answer to it.
SPEAKER: It can be answered.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: The SOP that was tabled by the Greens on the day was made aware to us on the day that it was tabled.
Chris Bishop: Point of order. With respect, that, again, is miles away from addressing the very specific question which relates to Cabinet authorisation for her as Minister of Local Government to support a particular amendment or SOP.
Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order. Speaking to that point of order, the Cabinet cannot authorise a Minister in terms of how a party votes in Parliament.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, come on. That’s ridiculous.
SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! The question is in order. The member is simply asking whether or not Cabinet gave blanket authorisation to the Minister to agree or disagree to such an amendment. But there are a number of ways a Minister could answer it.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: The Cabinet papers that I referred to in the previous question in relation to reports in April 2022 and 30 May 2022, and the context of the entrenchment conversations that we had, have been publicly released.
Questions to Members
Question No. 1—Economic Development, Science and Innovation
1. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Chairperson of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee: Is the report date for the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill currently before the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee still 26 January 2023?
JAMIE STRANGE (Chairperson of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee): The answer is yes; the full six-month period for submissions, as instructed to the committee by this House.
Melissa Lee: How many times will the chair call the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to meet to consider the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill during the summer recess before the report-back date of 26 January 2023?
JAMIE STRANGE: That is a matter for the committee.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Without disputing the chair’s answer, actually that’s not a matter for the committee. Only the chair can call a meeting.
Dr Duncan Webb: Speaking to the point of order: in fact, the committee may call meetings at its meeting for the next meeting and chairs can only call meetings if the committee doesn’t itself call a meeting.
SPEAKER: Both members are correct. The committee or the chair can call a meeting.
INTRODUCTION OF BILLS
INTRODUCTION OF BILLS
SPEAKER: Members, we missed something earlier. The Clerk has received bills for introduction.
CLERK:
Therapeutic Products Bill, introduction.
Climate Change Response (Late Payment Penalties and Industrial Allocation) Amendment Bill, introduction.
SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.
Voting
Correction—Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill (No 2)
SPEAKER: Members, on 22 November, when the House was considering the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill (No 2), the result of the vote on the question that the bill be now read a third time was incorrectly recorded as Ayes 99, Noes 20. The correct result is Ayes 99, Noes 19.
Bills
Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill
Procedure
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill to not be considered in committee and to be set down for third reading immediately, following discussions across the House.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none. The bill is set down for third reading immediately.
Third Reading
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I present a legislative statement on the Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill.
SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move, That the Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill be now read a third time.
I acknowledge the people of Rangitāne o Wairarapa, Rangitāne o Tamaki nui-ā-Rua, and Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua. For those who are watching, for those that are here, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.
This is a joint redress bill for the benefit, principally, of iwi whose—for whom I will use the shorthand Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu—two iwi are based in Wairarapa and including Tāmaki nui-a-Rua, the area around Dannevirke. I am pleased to stand and to support the third reading of this bill in this House.
There is a history behind this joint redress bill that also links to two other pieces of legislation. One has already been enacted, in 2015; that was the legislation for Rangitāne. The other is legislation that has yet to complete its journey through the House, and that is Ngāti Kahungunu. I want to acknowledge the efforts of those of Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne who have made this joint redress, this agreement possible—and indeed, this legislation possible. I want to particularly acknowledge those who were involved and who have passed on, those who lead the charge to return their taonga to their people, which is what this bill does. It focuses on the Wairarapa Moana and the lake bed, as well as the Ruamāhanga River and a number of other discrete areas that are also part of this joint redress—redress that will be enjoyed by the people of both iwi.
I want to acknowledge the efforts of the various negotiators for both iwi. For Rangitāne: John Sproat, Jason Kerehi, Mavis Mullins, Tipene Chrisp, and Richard Jones. For Ngāti Kahungunu, I want to acknowledge the Hon Ron Mark, Ian Perry, Robin Potangaroa, Hayden Hape, Haami Te Whaiti, Marama Tuuta, and Rawiri Smith. I want to thank them for their hard work; their cooperation; their dedication to their people, their whenua, and their moana. I want to acknowledge the Rangitāne Tū Mai Rā chair, Sonya Rimene, and Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua Settlement Trust chair, Haami Te Whaiti, for their leadership and for getting things this far. I should also acknowledge—because, for redress such as contained in this joint redress bill, the local government plays an important role. So I want to acknowledge the local authorities that will have a key role to play in the redress in this legislation: the Greater Wellington Regional Council, South Wairarapa District Council, Carterton District Council, Masterton District Council, and the Tararua District Council, all of whom will be involved. I also want to thank my ministerial colleagues and their agencies for making sure the redress in this bill could come together and therefore could be enacted.
This bill, as I’ve said, will bring to life provisions in the respective deeds of settlement for Rangitāne and for Ngāti Kahungunu that had been signed in the last seven years. This journey started, of course, way before then—it started in 1853 with the purchase by the Crown of lands surrounding Wairarapa Moana. The Wairarapa Moana plays an essential role in the life—the wairua—of that area, and has been a jewel in the lives of the people of Wairarapa for generations. The annual hinurangi, or flooding, historically provided kai moana which enabled iwi to trade far outside the Wairarapa region. The purchases of land surrounding Wairarapa Moana hindered the trade and led to years of dispute. Those disputes led to a commission of inquiry, and, in 1896, the lake was gifted to the Crown by iwi as tuku rangatira with the intention of ending the disputes and to, hopefully, protect the lakes. But it didn’t. The lake continued to be degraded and this led to further alienation of local hapū from the Moana. The various agreements reached with Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu have included, in the Crown apology, recognition, and acknowledgment of the harm that has been done to the Moana, and it’s hoped that this bill and the redress in it will facilitate a long-overdue return of the Crown-owned lake bed to its rightful kaitiaki.
I think what has been important, too, in the negotiation and the engagement between the Crown and iwi, is an acknowledgment and an understanding of the intergenerational suffering that treatment of the lake has inflicted upon Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne—not only for the treatment of the Moana and the awa but also the fact that previous agreements haven’t been properly honoured. So both iwi have entered into negotiations on that basis.
I now want to turn to some issues that relate to the relationship between Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu. The House is entitled to know that, even as recently as in the last 10 days, there have been engagements between the Crown and Rangitāne, the Crown and Ngāti Kahungunu, to address an issue that Rangitāne has raised right from the outset, when engagement first started over redress in 2013, and has not—in their view—been satisfactorily resolved. That relates to the reference in each of the settlements for Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne, particularly, to two Wairarapa hapū: Ngāti Hamua and Ngāti Rangiwhakaewa. In Rangitāne’s view, those hapū are exclusively hapū of Rangitāne. It was first raised when terms of negotiation were being agreed between the Crown and each iwi, and an agreement between those two iwi called the Treaty settlement engagement policy process document. It’s important to note that, when that agreement was reached in 2013, signed by both iwi on 15 March 2013, a particular acknowledgment was made that, and I quote: “Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu have different narratives about their respective rohe and relationships with various hapū. This is the normal nature of tribal histories. Given that, both Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua and the Rangitāne Settlements Negotiation Trust believe it is unhelpful and unreasonable to seek to construct a single global narrative that can be agreed by all Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu people in the rohe. This is because iwi affiliation is a personal whānau matter based on deeply held beliefs.” And, on the basis of that, negotiations were entered into between the Crown and between each iwi.
If we just follow through—and I’ll go as quickly as I can—these aspects. An Agreement in Principle was signed with Rangitāne in March 2014, although Ngāti Kahungunu continued to raise its concerns about the possible inclusion of these two hapū in the agreement with Ngāti Kahungunu. In any event, in June 2015 Rangitāne, in communication with the Crown, noted that they exclusively claimed Ngāti Hamua and Ngāti Rangiwhakaewa. There were further discussions and workshops ongoing between the parties, but on 9 November, the then Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Chris Finlayson, wrote to Rangitāne advising of his final decisions on overlapping interests and also referred to the hapū issue and had appointed, as a pūkenga, Tāmati Kruger to deal with the two iwi to try and achieve a resolution. On 1 December 2015, Mr Kruger provided his findings in a report and said the Crown was misplaced as a default arbiter in regard to claimant definition.
On 9 December, the then Minister, the Hon Chris Finlayson, wrote to Rangitāne and said, and I quote: “In view of Crown policy and advice from Mr Kruger, the Crown considers it appropriate to allow both groups to include hapū, where there is evidence of whakapapa and reasonable evidence of affiliation over time.” He went on to say, “I do not propose to enter into discussions with you on the Ngāti Kahungunu claimant definition, nor will I enter into discussions with Ngāti Kahungunu on your claimant definition.” He pointed out that the claimant definition in a Treaty settlement is not determinative of whakapapa; it is describing who benefits from a Treaty settlement. The upshot is that Rangitāne signed their deed of settlement, and so did Ngāti Kahungunu, on the basis that both understood that those two hapū would be included in their respective statements, as well as in this joint settlement as well.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Dr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill, the Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill, and I thank the Minister for providing some of that background. National will be supporting this redress bill through its further stages. This bill provides for a settlement, as per the deed of settlement, which was signed many years ago, actually, between Ngāti Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu.
What we understand from the deed of settlement is that there’ll be several provisions here. First of all, the first part to the bill talks about primarily administrative actions that you would find normally in a settlement bill. The second part looks to address cultural redress. It particularly points out a provision for an overlapping classification over Castlepoint Scenic Reserve, and a provision for the making of regulations for the management of customary fishing in Wairarapa Moana and the Ruamahanga River catchment. It also provides for vesting in fee simple of three cultural redress properties—either jointly in the joint redress trustees or in a tupuna—to be jointly managed by a joint management board. Part 3 of the bill talks more specifically to the Wairarapa Moana framework, including provision for the establishment of the statutory board—the Wairarapa Moana Statutory Board—giving it certain powers and functions.
In 2010, the Waitangi Tribunal report Wairarapa ki Tararua identified 28 claims and boiled them down into three particular grievances shared by Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne. These included the Crown’s acquisition of vast areas of land and its failure to ensure that adequate reserves were protected in their ownership; the Crown’s failure to provide ample reserves near Lake Wairarapa, as it had agreed to under the tuku rangatira of the lakes; and the Crown’s failure to protect the iwi from virtual landlessness and from the erosion of their tribal structures—the social deprivation that resulted in the loss of te reo Māori.
I want to acknowledge, here, the select committee who has progressed this bill—the Māori Affairs Committee—and done a lot of work in this regard; the negotiators; and the key stakeholders, which the Minister mentioned in his offering, for the work that has brought it to this point. Now, yes, there have been some challenges in these past few days, but, in fact, if we look back, the issue that’s been particularly challenging was first raised as far back as 2016, if not further. That is more specifically the whakapapa for these two hapū and whether they sit with Ngāti Kahungunu or with Ngāti Rangitāne or with both. And, you know, that’s been a point of disagreement from many decades ago, and it sits as a point of disagreement here today. And there are some things in Treaty settlement bills that are just unable to be resolved. They progress, and the iwi progress, which is what we all want, but these particular items are never resolved. On one level, they are somewhat unresolvable. And we find ourselves in this position today with Ngāti Rangitāne being desirous of these two hapū to maintain their whakapapa relationships to them rather than Ngāti Kahungunu.
To put this in context, let’s remember that Ngāti Rangitāne has completed their Treaty settlement and that slowing down the progress of this redress bill also slows down the progress of settlement for Ngāti Kahungunu. So this is a stepping stone in progress. It may well be that, even at the completion of this bill and a deed of Ngāti Kahungunu’s settlement, both parties will still disagree on this point. Let this not be the barrier. Certainly it’s not for us to debate and reach a final point on whakapapa—that is for them to decide; that is for iwi to decide. But I think what we all have unanimity on is the desire for iwi to benefit from the sort of Treaty settlement legislation that we’re progressing here today. And so what I’m saying here is we acknowledge this difference in opinion. It has been long held, and it was not able to be resolved through select committee. I note that Ngāti Rangitāne, who feel the most aggrieved, did complete their deed of settlement, which does come with some responsibilities.
In the documentation provided to my colleague Joseph Mooney, who helps us lead this role, one of the key issues of contention was around advisory provisions from Te Arawhiti that Ngāti Rangitāne had agreed that the hapū could be jointly shared, if you like—if you can do that—between them. And they have grievous concerns around that advice, and they have put as much in writing to us. My understanding is that, as that was reported back to the departmental report, it was incorrect. And we are acknowledging—and certainly I and we on this side of the House are acknowledging—that this has been a point of contention that was unresolved decades ago when it was raised, that was unresolved through the select committee, and that will be unresolved as we pass through this bill here today. Our hope is that we can find a position of peace and progress with that unresolved issue, that does not hinder these iwi from getting the enablement and facilitation that these Treaty settlements will bring.
So we acknowledge this difference in opinion and acknowledge the letter that we received, and would seek to redress it here in this third reading by acknowledging that, in our view, the report back from Te Arawhiti and its documentation in the departmental report was incorrect and did not accurately spell out the position of Ngāti Rangitāne in its entirety. And for that, I will certainly apologise if I’m in a position to have that mandate to say, “I’m sorry; that that was wrong—in my view and in our view—to Ngāti Rangitāne.” And then, hopefully, that provides some peace and addresses one of the key issues, if not the major issue, that came to us in the past 24 hours. So we want to see progress for Ngāti Rangitāne. We certainly want to see progress for Ngāti Kahungunu. Ngāti Rangitāne already has their settlement. This contributes to it, and we hope that Ngāti Kahungunu can then move forward and progress the benefits that we all want them to have, and that on one level there may be some finding of peace around this issue over time. I commend this bill to the House.
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, e te Māngai o te Whare. Tēnā koutou ōku rangatira. Rangitāne o Wairarapa, Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, tēnā koutou. Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, tēnā koutou, kei te mihi, kei te mihi, nau mai, whakatau mai.
Nau mai whakatau mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E takatū nei, he hōnore nui tēnei ki te tū ki te tautoko i tēnei pire. Tēnā koutou i te mahi tahi, te mahi tahi kei roto i tēnei pire. Ngā mate huhua o te wā, haere, haere, haere atu koutou. Ko tātou te kanohi ora e pae nei, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.
[Greetings, Mr Speaker. Greetings to my esteemed colleagues. To Rangitāne o Wairarapa, Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, I acknowledge you. To Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, I acknowledge you, greetings and welcome.
Welcome to the House of Parliament. I am prepared and it is an honour for me to stand in support of this bill. I acknowledge the collaboration, the collaborative work that we see in this bill. To the many dead of the time, may you rest in peace. To us here today, the representatives of the living, greetings, greetings one and all.]
Indeed, it’s an honour to speak in support of this bill, the Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill. Usually this esteemed position in the debate is taken by the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, and I’m pleased, as a former chair of the committee—whilst I haven’t actually examined this bill or had the honour of being able to hear the submitters and to go into great detail on all the provisions of this bill—I want to acknowledge the work of the committee that has done that work. I have the easy part to just rise to tautoko the good work of the committee and everyone that has been involved in this bill.
As with all Treaty settlement bills, this is a very significant day. I do want to again just extend my welcome to our manuhiri, who have travelled to be here for this third reading, and I want to acknowledge everyone, as has been outlined by the Minister and Dr Reti, who has been involved. These Treaty settlements span decades in terms of the work that’s undertaken, whether it’s on both sides—on the iwi side, on the negotiators—and the actual work that the Crown conducts through Te Arawhiti and their officials. So I want to commend Minister Little and his officials and everyone that’s been involved in working through these issues. They are not easy issues to work through, when we are dealing with Treaty settlements, but I want to commend the innovation, really, that is encompassed in this bill, being a joint redress bill. I’ve been here a few terms but this is the first of its kind, I believe, where we’ve got a separate bill which actually combines joint redress and deals with joint redress issues from different iwi. So I want to commend just the foresight and the mahi that is encapsulated within this bill.
I know that there are some controversial aspects, but I want to actually just focus on what this bill actually does, which is all about joint cultural redress—“joint” being the two iwi or the three iwi, Rangitāne with Kahungunu—over some significant taonga within their takiwā. I think being able to have those connections to that taonga is so vitally important and that’s what this bill does.
So, when we talk about taonga such as Wairarapa Moana, taonga such as the awa—these are areas of, I guess, mahinga kai, great abundance, great historical settlements, traverses, I guess, of the many hapū, the many tribes of these great iwi. And to be able to have both of the iwi—all of the iwi—jointly recognised in this redress, I think, is a testament to the work of everyone that’s taken part in these negotiations and, finally, in this settlement.
There are two separate deeds of settlement—one with Rangitāne and one with Ngāti Kahungunu—and both of those deeds refer to the creation of this joint redress. This is what this bill does in terms of being able to complete that aspect of this important part of both of those deeds. It also ushers in the way for the completion of the Ngāti Kahungunu settlement as well, which is also coming through this House. So it’s really important.
I was just doing a read of it, and it’s a pleasure to see a statutory board being created over the Wairarapa Moana, the return of the Crown land parts to be vested, and separate boards to be created with iwi representatives and those among local authorities and other appointees. So I guess that’s all about progress, as Dr Reti mentioned; it’s all about moving forward. And I know these are really important markers in the ground for the iwi, the mana whenua of the beautiful areas of the Wairarapa and up into the Hawke’s Bay.
So this is very significant legislation. It is innovative and I’m pleased that the parties have been able to follow through and be able to create the provisions in this bill which actually give effect to the return of those taonga, or the ability to have overlay classifications and recognition of the mana of the iwi within the area and across those very special taonga—waterbodies, wetlands, and other very special whenua for all the iwi of the takiwā.
Finally, I note from the bill that there is recognition around customary fisheries in relation to Wairarapa Moana and, I believe, also the awa. I commend the work that all of the iwi of the Hawke’s Bay and the Wairarapa are doing in the customary fisheries area. I know, in relation to the coastal fisheries, there is a very active and well-organised iwi forum—the Mai Paritu tae atu ki Turakirae Fisheries Forum—and that actual group actually now includes Ngāi Tāmanuhiri up on the East Coast and it goes all the way down through Māhia, through the Hawke’s Bay, and all the way down to the Wairarapa and to Cape Palliser. And, within that takiwā, are Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu, and there is a great deal of cooperation and working together in a marine fisheries sense on their rohe take, on their rohe moana, and on looking after the customary fisheries which are so important to these people.
I commend the work that they are doing at an iwi forum fisheries level. That goes all the way down to their individual marae and to their individual whānau. They have a very forward-looking plan of being able to upskill and being able to play their role as kaitiaki, which is so very important. And that also extends through this bill—the elements of kaitiaki, of upholding customary fisheries, also complying with the law, whether it be fisheries legislation or conservation legislation—but having those bodies in place which can regulate those very special customary rights, which our people hold so dearly.
So, with that, I once again want to just acknowledge the manuhiri who’ve come to witness this occasion, and it has indeed been an honour to be able to tautoko this bill. I’ve done many a Treaty settlement bill and, again, they are all just hugely significant, and especially this, which captures the cultural redress aspects which are held so dearly by all of these iwi. I do want to acknowledge the tupuna from both Rangitāne and from Kahungunu, who is vested in the taonga that is vested from this bill. I think that’s hugely significant that that shared tupuna is acknowledged in that way. And with that, I congratulate everyone involved and I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora mai tātau.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I take a short call on this matter. This is unusual for a settlements bill, because there is obviously an ongoing dispute essentially relating to whakapapa between Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu, and I take whakapapa very seriously, having had my own disrespect in this House, including my surname—my family name. I find it deeply offensive when people don’t take that seriously, so I understand that this is an ongoing and disturbing issue.
I note also, though, that the deed of settlement was signed between Rangitāne and the Crown on 6 August 2016 and that the deed of settlement signed between Ngāti Kahungunu and the Crown was signed on 29 October 2021. Sometimes it is important to move on. It is important to be able to help people to be able to make the most of what there is, and then to sort out the dispute that is still existing.
I see that the Crown has worked long and hard to try and come to some sort of settlement between both parties. I think that it is actually a good thing that the Crown has tried very hard to do that, and I know that the select committee has heard submissions for quite some time on this matter. It is, however, important that this matter is addressed, and I’m sure that once the settlement bill goes through, it will be easier for those who are concerned about some of the aspects to be able to deal with those whakapapa issues between themselves.
I don’t think it is possible for the Crown to adjudicate with the judgment of Solomon on these issues. It is simply not possible. I think it would be lovely if that was possible, but I just know that the Crown will be accused of getting it wrong, and I understand why they might not want to do so. It is simply too important.
Some of the cultural redress provided to Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne includes provision of an overlay classification over Castlepoint Scenic Reserve and provision for the making of regulations for the management of customary fishing in Wairarapa Moana and the river catchment, and it is important that these matters be addressed. I think it’s time for some of these big settlements to be completed, it’s time for people to be able to know where they stand, and it’s time for the iwi to be able to get on with their job of providing not only for their people of today but the people of tomorrow, for family and for grandchildren.
As to the issue itself, as I said, it’s unusual for this matter to come to the House. The National Party had some approaches from Rangitāne about this, and I know that some of our colleagues met with the Minister earlier today to address and to raise some of those issues. The decision was, essentially, that there was no way that we could bring this matter to a better conclusion than to ask both parties to be able to sort it out. It is simply not going to happen, and so I think that’s really the best that we can do. I think the fact that one settlement deed was signed under a National-led Government and the second was signed under a Labour Government probably tends to indicate that this has been taking quite a long time and, before that, no doubt, decades of grievance, and it’s time for us to be able to draw a line in the sand.
ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, and ngā mihi ki a Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua me Rangitāne o Wairarapa me Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua. It’s a pleasure to take a call as the deputy chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, which heard these submissions, and I want to also acknowledge the hard work of the chair of the committee, Tāmati Coffey, for leading what has been, I think, a very constructive and very discursive and in-depth process that the committee has gone through to examine the submissions on this bill and to really understand the history of the settlement to date.
I also want to acknowledge the negotiators of Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu, and particularly for their work for the people they represent now but also for future generations, and for always having that in mind. The negotiators who come to the table on this represent so much—not only the hopes of the people now but also the weight of the expectations and the hopes of our tūpuna, and they have done that with dignity.
This bill, as the Minister said, brings to life agreements made in those rooms, in those discussions between rangatira of the iwi and the Crown. It’s a real privilege to sit on the Māori Affairs Committee, which comes to see the very end point of the Treaty negotiations process and all of the work that has gone into that, not just from the Crown side but from the iwi themselves.
I will take us through some of the detail of what this bill does, as someone who’s had the privilege of examining it at the committee stage, but first, let me tell you about my favourite memory of sitting for this issue. It was on 12 May that the select committee went to Pāpāwai Marae in Greytown, and we were invited there to hear from the 21 submitters who wanted to be heard in person at Pāpāwai Marae. It’s a really important site for many iwi, not just the two iwi that we are talking about here today. It was the site of what was once a Māori Parliament. It has been a site of debate and discussion in Te Ao Māori for many generations, and it was really special to be there.
I remember standing at the mahau as the very light rain began—the marangai—and a rainbow emerged from outside. You know, in Te Ao Māori, that is a sign that these discussions are important, and I felt the weight of that. When we heard the mamae within the wharenui expressed in such personal terms—you know, these were people telling us their stories not only of their own deep feelings about the names of their tūpuna but also about the stories that they had learnt as children from their grandparents in that very whare that we were sitting in. It was very special, but also it’s not like another select committee where you hear from submitters and experts and then you’re able to weigh a sort of linear narrative about what is factually correct. This was asking us to make very careful judgment calls about how we expressed the select committee’s position on behalf of Parliament and reported back, and we took that job really seriously.
But it wasn’t actually in that wharenui that was the most important discussion. For me, it was in the wharekai over morning tea with—the hau kāinga had put on an incredible spread, and I got around the room and I got to sit with nannies and uncles and aunties and their cousins, and some nieces and nephews—some only 20 years old—who were presenting to the committee later in the day. And I just got to see—whether they were from what one might see as the Kahungunu side of the dispute or what one might see as Te Rangiwhakaewa side of the dispute or whatever it was—I saw them talking to each other about their hopes and what they wanted to see from this settlement.
In this space that was the wharekai, it really hit me how these relationships are so deeply felt and so important, and the Crown’s got really nothing to do with that. It’s really incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to appreciate just how irrelevant we are to the strength of those relationships which exist between the hapū, between the iwi, and between the inter-iwi relationships that go along with these settlements, and that it is for the leaders of these iwi to set a strong signal of leadership when these settlements go through and then for the people to keep them accountable and to make sure that they are working for our people.
So I’m pleased that at this third reading we will be passing this bill, and then we can step back from that role. We still owe a duty as the Crown to make sure that the commitments are honoured, and we will honour those into the future, but for these relationships that hinge on whakapapa and the right way to acknowledge whakapapa, those are not for us. I thank the member Judith Collins for what she said: the Crown cannot adjudicate on those matters. I heard, also, Dr Shane Reti when he said we want to leave this in a position of peace and progress. That is what we hope in this House. It is not a political position; that is the right thing to do, and I support those comments.
Now, let me just talk a little bit about this joint redress bill. It recognises that, while Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne are very separate and claim lineage from different ancestors, they are closely interconnected in the way that I spoke about and saw with my own eyes at Pāpāwai. They share whakapapa throughout the Wairarapa and Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua regions, and that is why having a separate piece of legislation like this, which deals with their joint redress, lets them—the iwi—have their own separate settlements that are for them to do with what they please.
It doesn’t mean that all of their joint redress is included in this bill, because, of course, both of their individual settlements will be for the benefit of many individuals who claim lineage to both Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu. It’s important for us to bear in mind that, while we heard from individuals who claim that settlement of a certain piece of land or settlement of certain assets should be to one individually, many of the individuals that we would have heard from can claim the benefit of both individual settlements and the joint redress.
The thing to know about the joint redress is that, as my colleague Rino Tirikatene has said, the joint redress deals with much of the cultural property. Cultural property in Treaty settlements is things like statutory recognition of the importance of a particular landmark or site—in this case, for instance, the Wairarapa Moana—that has been taken for the Crown wrongly and it will be recognised, going further, as significant to that iwi. It affects things like taonga tūturu protocols, which I’m really keen on. Those are things like when a taonga is discovered on private or public land—those are protocols that the Ministry of Culture and Heritage has to decide who might put up their hand and say, “We would like to care for that; we are the kaitiaki of that thing which our tūpuna used and is a taonga to us.” They’re important for things like signs and things like who gets input into the naming of certain sites. They seem small, but they’re actually really important about the way that we conceptualise the land around us. So that’s why these are particularly important.
I think it’s useful for the House to look at how Subpart 1 in Part 2 of this bill provides for the overlay classification of Castlepoint. That was a piece of land that the committee heard a lot about. It’s significant for both Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne, through their traditional cultural and spiritual and historical stories for that piece of land. We heard from submitters—and many submitters, in fact—that it was significant for both iwi, and so this is why it’s in the joint redress bill.
It also deals in Subpart 2 of Part 2 with the management of customary fishing in Wairarapa Moana, and later in the bill it deals with the land associated with Wairarapa Moana. This is something the committee considered really carefully, about how those arrangements will work in future, particularly around the penalties for people who break the rules around them, because this is something that the Crown and the iwi will be responsible for, going forward, around the management of that land. We delved closely into that because it is a common provision which officials gave us some really useful advice about, and, I think, we’ve got it right for the future.
There were also a lot of submissions around the Mākirikiri property, and I want to put on record for the House that we carefully considered the evidence provided to us regarding the vesting of Mākirikiri reserve in the tupuna Te Rangi Rangiwhakaewa. We sought advice from officials on the circumstances leading to the ratification of that Mākirikiri property. Some of the discussion has come back to that issue of whakapapa, and, again, I’m really supportive of where we have landed with this and believe in the leadership of both iwi to continue to work with that property and the rest of this joint settlement. That’s why I commend this bill to the House.
Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Whare. I rise on behalf of the Green Party in the third reading of Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill. I acknowledge the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, Tāmati Coffey, and my colleagues on the committee who joined for this and the companion bill. I mihi to the Minister and all of the officials because we know that these are difficult to get through.
This bill gives effect to specific cultural redress shared between Rangitāne o Tamaki nui-ā-Rua, Rangitāne o Wairarapa, and Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua, as provided for in their respective deeds of settlement. Me tuku mihi, ki a koutou katoa.
The redress includes sites to be jointly vested, including the Mākirikiri reserves, the Mataikona property, the bed of Lake Wairarapa—which forms part of Wairarapa Moana—a wetland of international significance, and an overlay classification of the Castlepoint Scenic Reserve, which enables Rangitāne o Tamaki nui-ā-Rua and Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua to identify protection principles and value statements.
During the hearings for this bill at Pāpāwai Marae, we heard from many of the whānau, including the settlement trusts of all of these iwi. We heard from all parties about how this has been a long, long time coming, especially since the Rangitāne Tū Mai Rā (Wairarapa Tamaki nui-ā-Rua) Claims Settlement Bill came into effect way back in 2017. We acknowledge all of the negotiators whose work led to this bill and its companion bill, the Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua Claims Settlement Bill, which is coming up for its third reading next week. We note the massive amount of research done by the parties involved and the depth of matauranga and whakapapa that they shared with us, and, of course, only a tiny, tiny bit of that could we hear in the hearings and the submissions we received.
These Treaty bills are quite different from other legislation we have, because they’re based on deeds of settlement which have already been signed, and that means, once it’s been drafted and it comes to us, there are not going to be many changes. It’s not going to be much changed from that point, but that means that the issues that are raised in the submissions at the hearings are unlikely to be resolved through the rest of this process. So our job on the select committee is to hear those things. For many of us on the select committee, it means we get sent letters and we get many phone calls. I haven’t had any subsequent meetings with any of the members since the hearings, but that’s part of our job to hear those things, and even though we know that it doesn’t mean that we’re going to be able to resolve them, part of our job is then to give a voice to that.
Some of those issues needed to be sorted out beforehand, and I know, and we have heard, how hard Ngāti Kahungunu has worked to try and resolve those issues and have hui with other complainants to resolve those issues beforehand, and they could not. We believe it was a responsibility of the Crown to do that mediation so that Ngāti Kahungunu wasn’t having to bear that burden, and, of course, we have heard only a little bit, again, of the distress and trauma that the whānau are still experiencing because they disagree. Matters of whakapapa are very, very personal and we have no doubt that both Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne are absolutely correct in their own understandings of their own whakapapa. That is, again, not ever for us to have a say on. Of course, the key issue, then, is where they disagree, and particularly for the hapū of Ngāti Hāmua and—the pronunciation according to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa o Tāmaki nui-a-Rua—Ngāti Te Rangiwhakaewa, and, according to Rangitāne, Ngāti Te Rangiwhakaewa.
I’ve stated in the House that not only is it not our job to determine whakapapa, we still end up colluding with the fact that that’s what’s happening, and that’s a very uncomfortable position to be in as a Māori in this Whare. Nobody wins—nobody wins in that circumstance.
We supported this bill at the last reading and we had, right up until yesterday, intended to support it today, because we understood that even though the concerns were raised about those particular hapū in the submissions, we understood that both parties had agreed right from the beginning that they would appear in both bills. We thought “Oh well, that decision’s been made. That’s already happened.”, and that agreement was made even if maybe one party was thinking subsequently that maybe they’d like to change it. We have now learnt—and the Minister has confirmed today—that the select committee was given incorrect advice and that Rangitāne has never supported the inclusion of both hapū in both bills, and, of course, that impacts on this one, which is their joint redress. Yesterday, we received a letter from Rangitāne Tū Mai Rā Trust saying that they were pulling out of this process and that they did not support this bill. This is their own redress. This is the finalisation of all of these issues being dragged through Parliament, and a chance for everybody to take a sigh of relief and to be able to celebrate, and my heart goes out to everybody involved, because this is awful.
We asked in our office, and no one in the Greens’ office has any experience of this happening before. I’m happy to be corrected. We were shocked by this, and to be clear, the Crown owes all of these iwi significant amends. So much harm has been caused, so much loss has occurred, and today this bill will go through. It absolutely will go through. For us, we don’t understand how a joint redress bill can be durable if one party refuses to agree to it. So, sadly, on that basis alone—and not because we think it shouldn’t happen—the Greens will be abstaining on this bill.
KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand here today and have a short call on this joint redress bill. Lots has been said today around concerns where the two parties have not come to an agreement in regards to this, but I still would like to say how proud I am to stand here and be part of a process like this—even if it’s just a small process; even if it’s just the small bit of me standing here and saying we need to right the wrongs of the past. Unless we right the wrongs of the past as well as we can, we can’t move forward together, in this country, to create the beautiful country that we want to see. I think that we can’t fully right the wrongs of the past, but we can do the best we can and hope it goes some way to healing the pain and helping us move forward as a country. So we, the ACT Party, will be supporting this bill.
This is a story about two iwi that have their own journeys and stories about losing their assets, losing their connections with their land, and losing so much that they held dear to themselves—to the point that many, I’m sure, have already passed, before this has come before the House. Many have heard stories that have been handed down from generation to generation, and many will still feel the pain of their great-great-grandparents. I think it’s important that we acknowledge that, that we acknowledge the history, which has been handed down from generation to generation, so that we don’t repeat the wrongs of the past. These conversations need to be had. And I’m really proud that, as a parliament, we can come together—the whole House together—and agree that what happened was wrong, and we can agree that we need to acknowledge this and we need to acknowledge the pain of generations passed and generations today that have fought to right those wrongs.
So I want to acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee, because it can’t be easy not being able to help when you really want to, not being able to acknowledge issues that are outside of the scope of the bill, although you understand the pain that these submitters are going through in trying to address an issue on which, quite frankly, the select committee had their hands tied and weren’t able to. So I just want to acknowledge the select committee in how it must have felt to not be able to address those issues.
I understand whakapapa and how important it is because I’ve spent most of my life not knowing my whakapapa—and that hurts. So, when you’re finally feeling like you’re fighting for that right to feel belonging, or fighting for that right to have your whakapapa acknowledged, I can understand how painful that might be—not feeling like you have a sense of belonging and not knowing where you belong. So I feel that and I understand that, and I’m sorry that that has not been able to be addressed. I hope that the two iwi can come together and sort this between themselves in the future so that those who feel they don’t belong can have a sense of belonging sometime in the future. So ACT will be supporting this bill and, hopefully, this brings a little bit of closure to that pain.
SORAYA PEKE-MASON (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. Whakamoemiti ki a koe e Ihoa o ngā mano, ko te Matua, Tama, Wairua Tapu, me ngā Anahera Pono me te Māngai āianei, āke nei, āe. E mihi ana ki te hunga mate o Aotearoa i tēnei wā, haere, haere, oki wairua. Ki a tātou te hunga ora, te Mana Whakawā anō tēnā koe. Tēna koutou ngā kaumātua, nga kuia, ngā rangatira, ngā pakeke, ngā uri o Rangitāne me Ngāti Kahungunu.
[Greetings, Mr Speaker. I give thanks to the Lord God of the countless multitudes, to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Faithful Angels, and The Mouthpiece, now and forevermore. I acknowledge the dead at this time in Aotearoa, may you rest in peace.
To us, the living, to you again, Mr Speaker, greetings. Greetings to the elders, the chiefs, and the adults and the descendants of Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu.]
It is with humility I take this call. Humility because all the hard work has been done. It’s been done and carried out as a result of me only just recently coming into the House. I want to acknowledge everyone that’s been involved with this, both settlements—and this bill, in particular—each and every one of you all, and in particular Ngā Iwi.
I want to acknowledge the passing of time on this bill, and all the claims involved here. It is said by the old people—which is a term of endearment—“There is no such thing as time; it takes the time it needs.” Rangitāne me Ngāti Kahungunu, this is your time. This claim dates back to the early 1840s, but, as we hear today, there is still more work to do—a lot of work, mamae to be worked through. But what’s important is that we find a way today—and this is a way—to be able to try and make those little steps forward.
I want to acknowledge—in saying that and acknowledging the 1840s—those who have passed behind the veil. It is because of them that we are here today; it is because of their sacrifices; it is because of their hard work that we are able to stand here today to work with tangata whenua, Te Ao Māori, Aotearoa New Zealand.
I want to acknowledge my three-year-old mokopuna, Caesar Te Ariki Paewae-Meihana, uri o Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu; the next generations—his generation and others to come—who deserve and have the right to move through life in a way that upholds their mana motuhake, their tino rangatiratanga, that was handed down to them by their tīpuna.
I want to touch very briefly, but in a simple way, on what this all means—this bill, the redress—in a simple, plain English way. I’m no lawyer; I come here because others thought I should be here. But I always think, when I attend these meetings and I’m learning about being in Parliament, how easy it would be if we can do things in a simple, plain English language way.
I just want to talk about the cultural redress. You’ve got overlay classification over Castlepoint Scenic Reserve and Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne. What I see here: it’s a place where you can build that relationship, where you can work together. Our mokopuna, they have no boundaries. We all whakapapa to our boundaries. Most of us do; that’s the way whakapapa works. But here we are today: we are in a colonial mainstream construct and this is what we’ve got to work with today. This is a way that we can look at, to continue to try and find steps that progressively move us forward. They don’t have to be big steps; they can be little steps. Nevertheless, for our mokopuna, let’s look at them as being a step forward no matter how big or small. So that’s how I think about the boundaries when it comes to Treaty settlement—not the easiest for anyone by no means, for any iwi to navigate through.
Customary fishing makes me think of growing up as a little girl when—might be showing my age here, but hey—my pāpā used to go fishing over there at Ōpunake and come home with kai moana; there was plenty of kai for us. It was cool. We didn’t know back then, actually, how rich and how valuable that was to us. But what I see here in terms of the customary fishing—because we’re in a world today that’s changed dramatically since then; some good, some not so good. But nevertheless, this is a chance for us to be able to hold on to that which is dear to us, our kai moana; to be able to go and fish and to feed our whānau.
The next one is the cultural redress of properties. I think we’ve all been involved in the redress of our properties, our whenua. We’ve all been involved in it somehow, shape, or form with regards to land utilisation of what we’ve got left—albeit a lot of it’s landlocked, a lot of it’s unproductive, underutilised for whatever reasons. But I see the opportunity here for you to work together, to be able to do something with this land, whatever that might be; whatever you decide.
Lastly, a framework. It sounds very business-like—that’s the world we live in today—but what I like about these frameworks, from my experience, is that they actually bring people to account. It brings the Crown to account; it brings stakeholders, it brings councils to account around what’s being proposed here. They have responsibilities; it’s up to us to hold them to account.
I’m reminded of a kupu o T W Ratana back in 1918, when he tirelessly worked to unite Te Ao Māori and restore Te Tiriti o Waitangi to its rightful place as the founding document of this nation. It was a time when he brought our people out of the darkness and into the light. And here we are today, finding a way how we can continue to do that as a people, as a nation.
So I’m humbled, in many ways, to be here, to be able to share with you all and to speak to this really important redress on behalf of us all, and, more importantly, those that have done the hard work before me. I commend Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill to the House. Kia ora.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Chris Penk—a five-minute call shared with the Māori Party.
CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, sir. It’s always an honour as well as a pleasure to rise to speak on settlement and redress bills. And I feel as though it’s also appropriate to acknowledge a sense of responsibility. I think we’ve heard this afternoon that sense of responsibility is felt by all colleagues across the House as we have explored the path that has been trod to this place, at this, the third reading of Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill. We’ve heard in relation to Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne the cultural redress that’s clearly important from a historical perspective, but also acknowledging, in the present, the issues that have formed the background to these discussions. And when we talk about the issues in the present, it’s worth acknowledging that it’s as recently as the last couple of days that further substantive discussion about these has taken place.
If I can just step back briefly from reflections on what’s at stake in the particular bill, I think it’s worth remembering that Parliament is called on to approve the actions of the Government of the day, acting as the Crown. Parliament’s not a rubber stamp but it is called upon, effectively, to ratify the decisions of the Minister on behalf of the Crown. For that reason, Opposition members can be, I suppose, at somewhat of a disadvantage in the sense that we are not so actively involved in that direct discussion and negotiation. But where good engagement takes place between the Minister and members of the Opposition—as has taken place in this case, I understand, through discussion with my good friend and colleague Joseph Mooney—then we can have a greater degree of confidence that we are collectively doing the right thing in this space.
Others have referred to challenging aspects of the passage of the legislation. And another colleague and friend Dr Shane Reti has made, I think, some, if I may say, very intelligent remarks in that space, as have others across the House, actually, including even the party that has determined, ultimately, that it can’t support the bill at its third reading. And the fact that Parliament cannot resolve these issues, can’t determine whakapapa, I think, is part of the point, and the rest of the point is that it should not attempt to do so. It shouldn’t purport to be able to make those decisions, even if that were possible. Even if we had the competence, it shouldn’t be something that we feel is within our jurisdiction. Of course, we do need to turn our mind to these issues to the extent that we need to understand what the legislation says about recognising different groupings and the same groups, in some cases, that have been affected by the historical wrongs of the past.
So others have spoken, therefore, about the settlement process and the need for progress. And, at the risk of stating the matter too bluntly, I think it’s always worth us bearing in mind the desire, I think, of the whole nation. Now, I don’t purport to speak on behalf of the nation, but I think those with goodwill, including those in the House who want to assist as many as possible in as timely a fashion as possible, do need to acknowledge that, whereas points of contention—again, to borrow the phrase of my colleague and friend Dr Reti—will arise, nevertheless it’s worth us working through and understanding as best as we can where this has been based on misunderstandings or conceived advice and so forth, and to provide if not finality, then as much certainty as possible.
I will take no more of the House’s time. I haven’t been intimately connected with the discussions at select committee level but I acknowledge those who have. I acknowledge those who have contacted members of Parliament, Government and otherwise, to make their feelings and thoughts on the matter clear. And if I can presume to finish on a note that I suppose is more reflective than informative, but it seems to me that the pain of the past that we sometimes feel as a nation inevitably means that the present is complex, but it’s only by grappling with that past and that present that we can hope to have a future that is better. So I join others from around the House today who ultimately, at this, the third reading of the bill, commend it to the House.
RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Ka tangohia taku pōtae. Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, Rangitāne o Wairarapa, me Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou i runga i te āhuatanga o ō tātou mate, ngā mate putuputu o te wā, ngā mate o te hunga nā rātou i kawe, pīkau ngā mamaetanga o ngā iwi e rua i roto i tau maha kua hipa ake. Kei te tangi tonu, kei te mihi tonu, kei te poroaki tonu, rātou ki a rātou.
Whakahaerengia tēnei kaupapa ki runga i a Pāpāwai. Ka mihi rā ki te tipuna a Te Mānihera Te Rangitakaiwaho, ki a Hāmuera Tamahou Mahupuku, me te āhuatanga o Te Kotahitanga o ngā iwi i raro i te maru o Ihoa o ngā mano, tēnei rā ka mihi atu nei ki a koutou.
[I will doff my hat. Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, Rangitāne o Wairarapa, and Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, greetings. I greet you and acknowledge our dead, the frequent deaths of the time, the dead of those who have carried the burden of pain of the two tribes in the past many years. We grieve you still, we acknowledge you still, and we farewell you still, let the dead be with the dead.
The work on this issue was done at Pāpāwai. I acknowledge the ancestors Te Mānihera Te Rangitakaiwaho and Hāmuera Tamahou Mahupuku, as well as the aspects of unification of tribes under the safeguard of the Lord God of the countless multitudes, I stand here and acknowledge you.]
Joint redress should not be determined by Government, but by iwi, and not the Crown, who has inflicted and forced process that has been designed to divide and conquer our people. Whakapapa is about connection. Boundaries are about connection, and not separation. This House cannot preach peace and prosperity for any iwi when this House has sponsored State terrorism on our people. It continues to do so today. It all feels like empty words to us: you can’t cry about whakapapa when you are part of parties that continue to denigrate the mana or the whakapapa of tangata whenua through race-baiting policies. I want to acknowledge the mamae that the Crown has caused throughout this process.
Te whakawehewehe i ngā iwi. I mua noa atu i te hē kau ngā whakahaere o tēnei Kāwanatanga i ngā kerēme Tiriti kāore tēnei tūāhuatanga i heipū ki waenganui i a tātou. Nā Te Karauna tēnei mahi, nā Te Kāwanatanga tēnei mahi, me ōna kaupapa whakahaere katoa.
[The separation of tribes. This Government has long erred in its management of Treaty claims, and this situation didn’t merely come about by chance amongst us. But, rather, it is a result of the Crown, with all its attendant administration.]
This mamae has only intensified in the last two years’ decisions made by the judiciary. Our Government flaunts itself as a beacon for indigenous rights on the international stage, while exploiting the generosity of tangata whenua at home. Crown negotiation policies such as large natural groupings and the fiscal envelope have determined this, engineering further division, further harm, and further breaches of Te Tiriti itself. That is why the Māori Party does not accept the settlements are full or final. The Crown may give us 1 percent of our land back, but our mokopuna must fight for the other 99 percent. I would also like to remind the Crown that the Treaty was never about tangata whenua. We had mana motuhake long before the Dutch cartographer conferred the name Nova Zeelandia or the Latin equivalent of the Dutch New Zealand—the name of one of the last ports that transferred African slaves to America. The Treaty is what gives the Crown the right to be here, and so I’m not sure why they’re in such a rush to settle this.
But we have the answers; Te Paati Māori have always had the answers to our mana motuhake policy. Te Paati Māori would transform the negotiation process, ending Crown-imposed policies such as the full and final or large natural groupings. Instead, we will affirm the right to all hapū and iwi to continue the struggle for the recognition of their rights and interests, and for the return of their land; overhaul Te Tiriti settlement process and end the fiscal envelope; insert relativity clauses into all Te Tiriti settlements to ensure all iwi have parity with Ngāi Tahu and Waikato-Tainui who have paved the way; make Waitangi Tribunal recommendations binding on the Crown and implement all unaddressed Wai claims and recommendations; abolish full and final settlements, like I’ve said, and large natural groupings; return conservation land to whānau, hapū, iwi, and Māori; introduce a first right of refusal policy for mana whenua when private land or historical significant lands come up for sale, just like Ihumātao. Wērā āhuatanga katoa ka kitea i te oranga o ngāi tātou. E kore te rino e piri ki te keretū, koinā hoki tētahi kōrero.
[All those approaches lead to the benefit of all. There is another saying, clay and iron will not stick.]
The clay and iron will not stick. And this is the reason why we are here. There’s another saying that we used at Te Whānau-ā-Apanui: it is like Rangi trying to fit her foot into Cinderella’s slipper. Nō reira, e hika mā, ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, Joe, koutou Rangitāne, Kahungunu, ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.
[Therefore, friends, many thanks to you all, Joe, Rangitāne, Kahungunu, many thanks. Greetings to you all, be well one and all.]
TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a fairly brief call in support on this side for Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill, and, in doing so, I want to acknowledge the work that colleagues around the House on the Māori Affairs Committee have done in terms of progressing this bill up to this point. Colleagues that have spoken before me have touched on some of the issues that were raised, and certainly the process and the experience—and the opportunity—that that particular part of the process did provide for them as well.
Bills of this nature, generally, in this Chamber are moments of significance: moments of significance for our country, for our community, for iwi, and for our sense of identity. And so this particular bill, which will, as a mechanism, give effect to, essentially, all cultural redress that’s shared between Rangitāne o Wairarapa and Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-ā-Rua, and also Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-ā-Rua—that’s contained within the relative deeds of settlement; some that have been signed more recently than others. I do, however, want to acknowledge all of those that have played an active role to get this piece of legislation to this particular point in time, before the Parliament. I’ve said that my contribution will be brief because it means that there will be no further waiting in terms of being able to pass this piece of legislation through the Parliament, and, on that basis, I commend the bill to the House.
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Oh, I’ll straighten myself out, Mr Speaker.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: We haven’t got that long, Mr McKelvie!
IAN McKELVIE: I’ve participated in, I think, all three readings of this particular piece of legislation without having been any part of the discussions around the Māori Affairs Committee, but I have listened carefully, however, to what’s gone on in this House. I also have great respect for both Ngāti Kahungunu and the Rangitāne, and I think my role really here is to try and put a bit of perspective on this from my point of view.
I just want to say a couple of other things first, though. I thought that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations did a pretty good job of explaining the situation with respect to this joint redress bill. I think he also made another point which I want to emphasise, and that is that the redress in this bill can only be put into place with the goodwill of the councils involved, and I hope those councils enter into the spirit of this bill in the manner in which the bill has been agreed.
However, I said that I wanted to put my perspective on this, and I want to speak about the concerns raised by the Rangitāne Tū Mai Rā Trust, and they were explained well, I believe, by the Minister, as I’ve said. However, I come from a family that’s been around New Zealand for quite a few generations now, probably eight or so—maybe more if you count the females in the beginning of it—and I can understand very well the trepidation with which iwi and Māori enter into these Treaty settlements, because, effectively, what they’re trying to do is settle something that happened in the 1850s and 1860s. I know full well that in my own situation—and I’m the oldest survivor in my family now, which shows I’ve been around a while—it would be extraordinarily difficult to commit my family to a settlement of something that had happened in the 1850s and 1860s.
So I’ve the greatest admiration for all of those who participate in these Treaty settlement claims, because it’s an extraordinarily difficult thing to go back 150 years and think that we’re going to get some agreement on what happened 150 years ago. Whilst in a family like mine, we might get some agreement on it, we’d never document it, because the moment you document it, it’s fact, and you can absolutely see the trepidation with which these Treaty settlements are entered into. I think that for iwi or for all sorts of entities to enter into these agreements and document stuff that happened 150 and 160 years ago—and that then becomes a perpetual settlement—it would be extremely terrifying for those people involved, and I’ve seen that, I guess, in my time. I’ve spoken on a lot of Treaty settlement bills in this House and been a participant in a lot of the discussion around some of my local Treaty settlement bills, and I think that it’s extraordinarily brave.
So what I’m really saying is that I think that, whilst there’s some disagreement on the terms that might sit behind these two Treaty settlement bills, at the end of the day, the two Treaty settlement bills have been entered into in good faith by both Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne, and they’re going to have to sort the issues out. I wouldn’t want the Crown interfering in my family affairs, and I don’t think anyone else should have the Crown interfering in theirs, either.
So I think that, from the perspective of this Parliament, the select committee has done as good a job as they could possibly do in what are extremely difficult circumstances, and I also think the participants in these bills do an admirable job of trying to resolve something that’s bugged this country for nearly 200 years. I think that great credit goes to those people who are involved in this, and I say that from Parliament’s perspective; this is the best effort we can make. I think that that’s where we need to get to as a country, and I have great admiration, as I said, for those people involved in this.
All I want to say is that I think we’ve done our best with it, the Parliament has done its best with it, and I think the two parties concerned have done their best with it. They are going to have to get on and resolve the issues that are outstanding from here on. With that, I support the bill fully. Thank you.
WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe, otirā tēnā tātou katoa e noho nei i roto i tō tātou Whare i te ahiahi nei. He hōnore tēnei mōku tū hei kaikōrero whakamutunga mō te pānuitanga tuatoru o tēnei pire i tēnei ahiahi.
Ko taku mihi tuatahi ki ngā iwi o Rangitāne o Wairarapa, o Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua, o Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua. Nō koutou tēnei rā. Ko koutou te kaupapa i tēnei rā mō tēnei pire kei mua i te aroaro o te Whare i tēnei ahiahi, nō reira, tēnā koutou. Ki a koutou i roto i te Whare i tēnei ahiahi, ki a koutou tēnā pea e whakarongo mai ana mai i te kāinga, mai i ngā tōpito o te motu, tēnā tātou katoa.
[Greetings, Mr Speaker, and greetings to all of you here in the House this afternoon. I am honoured to stand as the final speaker for the third reading of this bill this afternoon.
Firstly, I wish to greet the tribes of Rangitāne o Wairarapa, Rangitāne o Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua and Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua. This is your day. You are the focus of the day regarding this bill in front of the House this afternoon, therefore I acknowledge you. To you, who are in the House this afternoon and to you, who are perhaps listening at home right around the country, greetings one and all.]
It is an honour and a privilege to be the final speaker on the third reading of Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill. Like the speaker prior to me, Ian McKelvie, I think I have spoken on this at the various stages, but I have not been intimately involved with this particular redress bill. I have subbed in and out of the Māori Affairs Committee at times, but I just really want to acknowledge those members across the House who sit on the Māori Affairs Committee, who have followed this bill through its various stages from first reading to the select committee process, second reading—we didn’t have the committee stage—and the third reading this afternoon. I know I was listening to the contributions of the member Arena Williams, where she spoke about actually attending a hearing of the submissions at the marae, and it was lovely to hear her recount the most memorable parts of that visit and those submissions from—I think it was about 21 submitters that she referred to.
Like others, I want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Andrew Little, who has now left, although he was here earlier for much of the debate. I want to acknowledge the Minister for the work that he has done. But also I want to acknowledge the contribution made by the Hon Judith Collins—
Hon Judith Collins: Oh, don’t worry about me.
WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Yes, well, she actually mentioned that this whole settlement has been through the previous Government, as well as this one, and I think the point that she was making is about the length of time that this has taken to get to this point.
What this bill does is it is giving effect to the joint redress that is in the various deeds of settlement that have been signed by the iwi. It is noted here that the deed of settlement signed between Rangitāne and the Crown was on 6 August 2016, and the deed of settlement signed between Ngāti Kahungunu and the Crown on 29 October 2021. And it has been noted in the contributions to the debate this afternoon that we have the Ngāti Kahungunu settlement bill third reading shortly, so it is important that we pass this bill, and then we are then able to pass that one. That will then conclude the settlements for all of the iwi involved in this particular one.
I know that previous contributions have outlined some of the nature of the redress. This is to give effect to the cultural redress in particular, which is the overlay classifications, customary fishing—I heard the contribution of Rino Tirikatene regarding that—and also the vesting of cultural redress properties, and the Wairarapa Moana framework.
This will be a short contribution because I’m the final speaker and we’ve got everybody here in the gallery to witness the passing of this. So, once again, I just want to acknowledge the Minister; the officials; the negotiators; the iwi who, over a long period of time, have been negotiating this settlement; and that, with the passage of this legislation, we’ll be able to give effect to the joint redress, and then we will have the final deed of settlement pass through legislation when the Ngāti Kahungunu bill passes its third reading. So, with that, e tautoko ana ahau i tēnei pire pau te kaha [I wholeheartedly support this bill].
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Te Rohe o Rongokako Joint Redress Bill be now read a third time.
Ayes 109
New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.
Abstentions 10
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Waiata
Bills
Water Services Entities Bill
Recommittal
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): I move, That the order of the day for the third reading of the Water Services Entities Bill be discharged and the bill be recommitted to the committee of the whole House to consider Supplementary Order Paper 310 in my name.
Motion agreed to.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of Supplementary Order Paper 310.
In Committee
Deletion of Subpart 4A of Part 6
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the House has resolved to recommit the Water Services Entities Bill to the committee of the whole House to consider the Minister’s amendment deleting subpart 4A of Part 6, set out on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 310. Members, this is a limited debate, and all contributions must be relevant to the question of deleting that provision. The question is that the Minister’s amendment deleting subpart 4A of Part 6, set out on SOP 310, be agreed to.
SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 310. And isn’t it ironic that we’re back here in the House when only a few—or literally last week, or the week before, we were in here under urgency undertaking a debate in the committee of the whole House stage lasting nearly 10 hours and a debate that went well into the night and bright and early in the next morning. But the fact is, we’re here today because of, basically, a significant mistake that was made on that evening. And there should be lessons that are taken from what occurred at that point from the Government, in terms of the decisions that were made and the impact of that decision, in terms of the controversial nature of it—and also, I think, what was a dangerous precedent in terms of our democracy.
The Government has, apparently by accident or by mistake, defied a constitutional precedent that is a result of where we are today, now on an embarrassing backtrack. And so let’s go back on some of the time line in terms of what led us to where we are. In December of last year, the concept of entrenchment was first raised by the parties of the House from a letter from the Minister. And on that basis—as has been clearly made—National did not support the Water Services Entities legislation, in general, and we did not support the entrenchment aspect, and therefore we opposed Labour’s first proposal around this model.
But during this time—and as we saw in the debate that occurred last week, in the committee stage, when the Hon Eugenie Sage tabled her Supplementary Order Paper 285 to entrench the privatisation provisions within this bill. But the challenge with that Supplementary Order Paper is that it reduced the usual percentage of 75 percent majority within this House down to 60 percent, and that was quite simply because it was known that National—and, I’m sure, other members of the Opposition—would not support that Supplementary Order Paper or that entrenchment.
But irrespective of that point, and irrespective of the public impression and the pressure around this, the Government used its majority to ram through this change. And I think there’s a perception out there, potentially, by some members of the public, that this was slipped in under the radar. Well, I can be very clear—and for those that were members in the Chamber and in here when that occurred—that is absolutely false. In truth, the senior Labour Ministers and the PM missed this, because it was debated extensively in this House, and during that debate that evening, the Minister herself admitted, under questioning, that the Attorney-General had submitted advice against the entrenchment provisions. She said it in as many words, and I quote, “We know that while this particular SOP may not pass the constitutional threshold, there is a moral obligation of people who believe that privatisation should not occur to support that particular SOP”.
And during that call I made on the topic, I said, and I quote, “it’s quite interesting where, in effect, against the recommendations of the Attorney-General, we’re going to now imply this new trigger point, which is our moral obligation! Who cares what everyone else thinks; we’re just going to come up with a new position! … [and] that’s a real disappointment, but that is what is going on here—and against the advice of other players. They know that it is not practical mechanism—that, even an eventuality which would never occur, this would [not] be effective.” It was very clear that despite the points made by the Minister that there was a moral obligation for the Minister to support this, they clearly did not communicate to the other members within their own party that this amendment was going to be voted for.
So my question for the House today is: how did we get to this place—how did we get to this place? I asked oral questions today to the Minister, in the hopes of an answer, and I wasn’t satisfied in terms of that. So my questions are as follows. When did the Minister become aware of the amendment to push for a 60 percent entrenchment—in particular, what correspondence did the Minister have before the Supplementary Order Paper was tabled? When were the Prime Minister and other members, senior members within the Labour Party, made aware of this Supplementary Order Paper? And what correspondence was entered into before making the decision of what occurred in the House that has led us to where we are today?
We then saw an extended process of back and forward, and as played out further today between Ministers and other members of the Labour Party in terms of basically saying that they were not aware of what occurred on that evening. So what exactly occurred to lead to this screw-up? With all the talk of referrals to the Business Committee that occurred over the weekend—and on Sunday, the Government finally admitted that it got it wrong. And I have a question about that: why was it that the Minister did not recognise that this was a mistake, even when Opposition members in this House raised it in the debate before the Supplementary Order Paper was voted upon, and Opposition parties voted against the Supplementary Order Paper—and, when the Minister knew that the Attorney-General and other senior legal academics had raised it, why did they wait until as late as Sunday to be able to say that this was a mistake? Or was it only when they saw that the public outcry, in regards to this mistake, was clear—they knew there was no way back?
This has obviously raised a number of issues in regards to the outrage of Kiwis across this country, and it’s worth noting why. The New Zealand Parliament can only change some of its statutes simply by amending these statutes, usually by a simple majority of the House of Representatives, and it can therefore amend the New Zealand Constitution. To prevent abuse of this amending power, a very small number—only six statutory provisions are entrenched, and these provisions can only be changed by a 75 percent majority of the House of Representatives, or by more than 50 percent at referendum. All but one of these provisions are contained in the Electoral Act 1993, and one in the Constitution Act 1986. These are all constitutional provisions that protect us and our democracy from dictatorships and long parliaments; all are absolutely fundamental to our democratic rights. It is utterly inappropriate to attempt to entrench a particular policy outcome regardless of the support that it enjoys at a particular time. What is equally inappropriate—indeed, it is cynical—is to attempt to reduce the entrenchment threshold to a level that is lower than what has been used before at 75 percent, simply because it was inevitable that this would not be passed if it remained at 75 percent. All these facts were known leading in to that evening and that decision when that was voted upon, and opposed by National and also ACT at the committee of the whole House stage, when the Minister first raised it.
So I go back to my questions to the Minister: how did we get to where we are today? This is not a new concept. Never in the history of this country have we seen an ability or an action by a Government to try and institute entrenchment around such public policy. This was well understood. So what does that say about this Government and their ability to make decisions and to lead this country into the future? Whether this mistake was deliberate, or simply one where Government of the day here did not care—irrespective; it doesn’t matter. The reality is the decision was made, the vote was taken, and we are now dealing with a colossal mess of having to reverse that change and that is completely inappropriate in a democracy such as ours in this country—one of the earliest and longest-lasting democracies—to have that occur.
NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): Today we have the grovelling back-down, but the stain on our democracy, the damage to our constitution, will remain. And that must sit on the conscience of the members opposite, who sought, under urgency, in the dark of the night, to entrench a policy position against all constitutional norms, against all democratic norms. Not content with confiscating community-owned water assets, not content with introducing a Byzantine co-governance structure without the support of the people, not content with riding roughshod over the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who have spoken out against three waters reform, of the councils up and down the country who have begged to maintain ownership and control of their assets, this Government thought it would push its votes even further. And it took the extraordinary, unprecedented, non-constitutional step of entrenching a matter of public policy.
Hon Chris Hipkins: It’s not non-constitutional, otherwise it wouldn’t have passed.
NICOLA WILLIS: And these are not my words, Minister Hipkins. These are the words of the New Zealand Law Society, who said that it was undemocratic, constitutionally objectionable, and inappropriate. And be that on the conscience of the members opposite, that when given the opportunity that is how they sought to abuse their seats in Parliament.
Rachel Brooking: Then why are we here?
NICOLA WILLIS: And it’s fine for Rachel Brooking to shake her head, but she should answer this question: who was it that directed that the whip vote in support of this measure? Because there’s been a lot of ducking and diving on that one, hasn’t there? First we had the Prime Minister trying to blame Minister Mahuta. Then we had Minister Mahuta let the media know that, in fact, this had been discussed by the caucus. Now we learn that, actually, it was the responsibility of the Labour members on the Finance and Expenditure Committee.
Now, I think my colleague Simon Watts has been charitable. He’s accepted that this was a grand and incompetent mistake. I’m inclined to see something a little darker going on here, which is that the members opposite thought they could get away with it—they thought they could get away with it. That is the arrogance that has set in to this Government—that they are prepared to thumb their noses at basic principles of our democracy if they think they can get away with it. Well, they got caught this time. They tried doing it under urgency, they tried doing it at night, and they got caught. And I say thank you to the constitutional experts and lawyers across the country who raised the red flag and said, “No, not in our New Zealand.”, because we can too easily take for granted the principles that have underpinned the continuous democracy that we have in this country, the unwritten constitution which has been respected by blue Governments, red Governments, and all the bits in between. But it took a Labour-led Government with its majority to abuse those principles.
And today in the House, they attempt to turn back the clock. Well, New Zealand will not forget, because those who are prepared to act in an anti-democratic way when they think people aren’t watching, they are people that can’t be trusted. And this is not the first step. First they came for one person, one vote with the Rotorua bill. Then they decided to push on with three waters without public mandate or council consent. Then they went for entrenchment. New Zealanders will remember. And when you’ve woken up and decided who you’re going to blame, they’ll be listening and they will remember that the only people to blame are the Labour Party, its leadership, and every member opposite.
Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. National obviously has privatisation on its mind. Some of the first things that Mr Watts said were that this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in my name attempted to entrench the privatisation provision. It did not; it sought to embody and embed in the legislation a commitment to public ownership of key public assets. I would like to note that this was about entrenching one clause in the bill, not the whole bill, as some people writing to me seem to think. It was one clause, and it reinforces the Green Party’s commitment to public ownership of key three waters assets: the provision of drinking water, waste water, and stormwater. Water is essential to life. We could not vote without having water, so the Greens believe that this is of such importance, constitutionally, that the public ownership of three waters assets deserves entrenchment. It’s certainly not the 75 percent supermajority that you have for matters in the Electoral Act, but it is the 60 percent majority.
We would have preferred that is wasn’t debated under urgency, but, as members of the National Party well know, the committee stage is the only stage when you can table and have amendments voted on. And National Party members should also know that the Standing Orders indeed provide for entrenchment, provided the same majority in the House pass the provision the SOP was seeking to entrench. That happened.
The Green Party has a long history of supporting assets being managed and operated in public ownership. As a first-term MP back in 2012, I and hundreds of others stood and gathered signatures on the citizens initiated referendum to keep our assets. Hundreds of people all around the motu signed that petition—as many as a thousand people in a day. More than 300,000 people signed the petition. We got a citizens initiated referendum; 67 percent of people voting in that referendum—more than 1 million New Zealanders—voted to keep our energy companies, to keep Air New Zealand, and to keep Solid Energy in public ownership. What did the John Key National Government do? It totally ignored the result.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! The member is getting too wide of the mark. The debate today on this SOP relates to the provisions contained in this SOP in the bill, and I’d ask the member to confine her comments to that—and anyone else in the Chamber who wants to make a contribution.
Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of the context, though, it was because, feeling as an MP, what was I doing in a Parliament where a simple majority of the Parliament could move to reject the views of such a substantial number of New Zealanders, hence the commitment to maintain public ownership of these assets. That’s why the SOP—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. I’ve asked the member to confine her comments to the SOP. Now, I’m also letting the committee know that that will apply to any other contribution today. So, again, I’m going to ask the Hon Eugenie Sage—have you stopped the clock? Yup—to confine her comments to this SOP on the Water Services Entities Bill.
Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Point of order, Madam Chair. It was just that previous speakers have spoken at length about the Electoral Act—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, no. The member won’t dispute my ruling, but I do want to be fair to the member. The member has one minute and seven seconds to go. Again, I’m going to ask the member to stick to the bill at hand and to the SOP that is being addressed by way of this SOP.
Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The Green Party won’t be supporting the SOP, because a key way to guarantee a water-secure future for our children is to reduce emissions, is to protect the climate, and is to keep our three waters infrastructure in public ownership. This SOP removes that protection of entrenchment in the bill. It removes the entrenched provision, which would require any future Government wanting to amend the Water Services Entities Bill to get a 60 percent majority of the Parliament. The SOP would mean that a Government could just change that obligation, in clause 116, to maintain water services to not divest water services by a simple majority. For the Green Party, the public ownership and operation of three water services is essential to the way in which we operate as communities and to good environmental outcomes to ensure that our waste water is well managed, that discharges are of a high quality, and that we protect the sources of our drinking water and ensure that everybody has access to it. In our view, entrenching—[Time expired]
SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Minister Mahuta appears to feel no contrition at all for being the first Minister in 168 years of Parliament to try and entrench her own Government’s policies, creating a constitutional crisis in the process. For a moment, it was also the greatest win the Green Party had ever had in this Parliament, having failed to achieve anything else practical around transport or the environment, but it turns out that it was just another pyrrhic victory—like declaring a climate emergency. In 168 years, with all that has happened in New Zealand politics, no Government has been arrogant enough to think that its own politics, its own policies, are so important that they should survive and endure longer than the next Parliament, which has the right to change the laws of New Zealand. Even if it’s true that the Minister says that she was not aware or she didn’t realise what would be the consequences of this particular amendment to the bill—it was tabled during the committee stage—the Minister should still take responsibility for what has been a constitutional disaster, which New Zealand had avoided for 168 years, until Labour and the Greens teamed up to deliver this outrage.
Now, as ACT said in our reply to the letter that the Minister sent to ACT, this is a shallow political stunt, Minister, this entrenchment provision and this claim that it was only intended to protect these water assets from privatisation. ACT’s been clear throughout the entire three waters process that our position is to return the assets to local government control. It’s the Government that is transferring assets out of local democratic control into new statutory corporations that it is allocating governance—50 percent of the governance—to unelected, appointed iwi Māori elites who will have the ability—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! Order! Order! Order! I’m going to say it again: the member is straying into matters provided for in other parts of the Water Services Entities Bill. I’m going to ask him to confine his comments to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which is in front of him.
SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Chair. So for 168 years, every Parliament has been sovereign, which means that New Zealanders can vote out the Government which doesn’t deliver, and replace the members in the House with new members and a new Government which will deliver for them. ACT fully intends to be part of that new Government. But I just want to come back to the provisions, which most likely will be repealed at the end of this committee stage, which are around the entrenchment of provisions against privatisation in the Act. So the section that’s being repealed requires an obligation to maintain ownership and control of water services and significant assets, and it goes on to say that the reserved provision cannot be repealed or amended unless the proposal is passed by a majority of 60 percent of all of the members of the House of Representatives, or under a referendum.
Now, I do have a question for the Minister: what does the Minister understand privatisation to mean? Is this the partial sale, Minister, of a share in assets or a sale of assets, such as the Government’s enabling legislation which will allow Kiwibank to be floated—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. No. No. Sorry.
SIMON COURT: Madam Chair?
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. No. The member is to confine himself to the very narrow question of what is contained in the SOP, and I’m speaking to the whole committee again, and I’m warning the member that he has strayed several times now. This is a very, very targeted and confined debate.
SIMON COURT: Just to be clear, I will confine myself to discussion of the clauses which are to be amended and the purpose of this proposed amendment.
So if we look at Subpart 4A, the “Reserved provision”, 206AA, the restrictions on amendment or repeal of certain provisions as they relate to ownership and control of water services and significant assets. The Minister will be aware that when I come to the House to ask questions, it is not in the pursuit of some flippant political objective. As a civil and environmental engineer, I speak for many people around New Zealand who are really genuinely interested in reforming the way water services are delivered so that we have better outcomes. So I wanted to ask the Minister: what does the Minister understand privatisation to mean? And I just wanted to give the Minister—with your grace, Madam Chair—a couple of examples around the mixed-ownership model, such as Air New Zealand or the big power generators like Genesis, which have 50 percent or less Government shareholding in what are otherwise—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. No. Sorry. Again. Again, the member still has six seconds left, which I will preserve for him, but I’ve already ruled that another member may not stray as far as that member is attempting to stray. So, in his remaining six seconds, I invite Simon Court to stick to the SOP in front of him.
SIMON COURT: The ACT Party will support this amendment on the basis that it restores constitutional—[Time expired]
CHRIS BISHOP (National): Every now and then, New Zealand seems to go through a constitutional crisis—call it a crisis, call it an inflection point. We had one in 1976 when Rob Muldoon turned up after the 1975 election and purported to suspend the provisions of the New Zealand Superannuation Act and said to public servants, “No need to pay anymore—I’ve decreed it.” The High Court sorted that out in Fitzgerald v Muldoon and I’m proud to say I have a copy of the judgment in my office. After the 1984 election, again, Mr Muldoon had to be sorted out by the National Party caucus, and that led, of course, to the Constitution Act 1986.
Now we have a similar crisis where either through conspiracy or a cock-up—and I’m one that tends towards the conspiracy element of this—the Government has sought to entrench a matter of public policy into New Zealand law. It was a constitutional collusion, a collaboration between the Green Party and the Labour Party—and, frankly, I thought better of the Greens. I will tell you something for free: Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons would not have gone along with this constitutional chicanery. Here’s the test: if the National Party had got up and said, “Three strikes is fundamentally important to the National Government and the public policy of this country, and we’re going to collaborate with ACT and put into law that the three strikes sentencing regime is so fundamental, so critical, to the confidence that people have in the judicial system”—
Hon Eugenie Sage: Point of order. Other speakers in the debate have been reminded to stay on the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP).
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Can the member bring it back to the entrenchment in this SOP.
CHRIS BISHOP: If the National Government of the time or a future National Government had done this, the Greens would be up in arms—and I’m responding specifically to what Eugenie Sage raised in her speech. They would be up in arms, and rightly so, because entrenching a matter of contentious public policy in law and making it more difficult for a future Government or future Parliament to repeal, is wrong.
So my question for the Minister is a really simple one: what on earth were you thinking? What on earth possessed the Government to think that this was appropriate or constitutional? We have three particular concerns about this that I want the Minister to address. The first is the process point—it was done under urgency, and a long stretch of urgency. It’s not correct that the Government was trying to pass 24 bills, but they certainly were trying to get the House to deal with around 24 or maybe 25 bills at the time. And quite rightly it was a long stretch and there were people in the House for that long stretch, and it’s not appropriate that something so constitutionally significant should be dealt with in a long stretch of urgency.
The second point is the point I made around precedent. What precedent does entrenching a provision like this set into law? I made reference to other things that other Governments might consider to be important, and the constitutional scholars have rightly made that point.
Then the third point is the undesirability of having non-constitutional provisions entrenched into law, because there are just five or six parts of our constitution that are entrenched, and that’s at a 75 percent majority—nothing else, other than one provision of the Constitution Act 1986 and the Electoral Act 1993. It is undesirable, as the Law Society and various other public law commentators pointed out, to entrench non-constitutional provisions in legislation.
I have a further question for the Minister. How did this come about? What we have at the moment is like that Spider-Man cartoon—everyone in the Government is pointing at everyone else and saying, “They’re to blame.” Jacinda Ardern says this is Nanaia Mahuta’s fault. Nanaia Mahuta says, “It’s nothing to do with me. I’m blaming the Finance and Expenditure Committee.” David Parker says, “I’ve always been opposed to entrenchment.”, and then everybody just wants to hang it on the Greens, and, ultimately, it was their SOP in the first place.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): I want to, for a start, agree with some of the comments that have been made by the Opposition—that I agree, and the Government agrees, that the entrenchment of the anti-privatisation clause is an inappropriate use of the entrenchment tool, which is why we have brought the amendment to the House today in order to fix what the Prime Minister has called and what the Minister in the chair has agreed was a mistake.
I want to deal with some of the exaggeration that we’ve had from the other side. This bill didn’t proceed through any more stages in urgency than it would have in ordinary business—the second reading was done previously, the third reading wasn’t done in urgency. It’s actually a good example of why we should be—in respect of contentious legislation—slow to put a big bill like this through all stages of urgency. And because we didn’t, it is easier to fix the mistake that was made in respect of this particular clause.
The other comparison that was made by Chris Bishop was to say this was comparable to Fitzgerald v Muldoon: no, it’s not. On that occasion, what happened was that the Prime Minister of the day broke the law. There’s no law being broken here. Neither is it the same as the refusal of the Rt Hon Robert Muldoon to, effectively, let the Treasury cooperate with the incoming Lange Government in the face of a run on the currency which cost the country hundreds of millions—if not billions—of dollars. Arguably, you can say there would have been a serious constitutional mistake made if this Act was passed with this provision in place, but it is not going to be, because, a week after the mistake was made, we are fixing it. Now, that—
Erica Stanford: Only after significant pressure.
Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, actually, the Cabinet minute, which the media have referred to and the Minister herself referred to at question time today, records that Cabinet agreed that the bill should not entrench privatisation provisions in bills. So there is a mistake that has been made here. I can understand why the Greens promoted this idea and I can understand why even some members of the Labour Party were attracted to the idea, because we don’t like privatisation.
Simeon Brown: You were too.
Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I wasn’t ever attracted—
Simeon Brown: Well, you voted for it.
Hon DAVID PARKER: I was never attracted to this idea and—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! I did not vote for it.
Hon DAVID PARKER: —I have stood against using entrenchment clauses for policy purposes throughout this process.
Now, as Chris Bishop has said, there is very limited use of our entrenchment provisions in respect of constitutional norms that are long settled. It’s very important that we keep it that narrow for a number of reasons. There are two main reasons: one is that this Parliament cannot bind a subsequent Parliament, that’s how democracy works in respect of policy choices. If we get kicked out and someone else gets elected on a different platform, it is the right of the new Parliament to change the law. Whether it’s important to us on privatisation of water issues or on tax rates or on labour relations laws, it’s really the same, and there are only very limited exceptions in respect of constitutional matters.
I also want to say why it’s so important to guard that boundary around constitutional matters, because it’s always been a moot point as to whether those constitutional entrenchments in respect of Electoral Act provisions or the Constitution Act work at law. You know, they have been upheld by convention now for 50 years or so, and it’s fantastic that this Parliament has upheld that convention so that convention has not been abused for that lengthy period of time, but it remains a moot point as to whether those entrenched provisions could themselves be repealed by a simple majority of the Parliament repealing either the section that includes the entrenchment or the Act which includes the entrenchment. Now, that’s not a legal issue that we ever want to approach in this House, and one of the ways we don’t approach that, and the way we protect the entrenchment provisions that importantly sit in our constitutional legislation, is to not use them for policy processes, which, if we started to, you would find that a subsequent Government that couldn’t get to the 60 percent majority would just come here and they would repeal the section by simple majority of 50 percent plus one. They could come to a future Parliament and repeal the entrenchment provision by a majority of plus one and it would probably be effective against a challenge through the courts because I can’t see the courts wanting to intervene in respect of that.
The issue of whether the courts, after this long period of entrenchment of the constitutional provisions, would see it as something that is a convention that can be overridden by a future Parliament by simple majority overriding the 75 percent entrenchment provisions in the Electoral Act or the Constitutional Act is a debate that I hope never to see. I hope that we maintain the strength of that convention by not undermining it, and I leave open the moot point as to if a future Parliament did try and override those voting provisions by simple majority, I think there would be a contest before the courts and it would be a very, very interesting constitutional question for the courts to grapple with then. On the one side, you would have the people that would say that the legal effect of those clauses is not to bind a future Parliament, that they have political, maybe moral force in support of a convention not to abuse those provisions and always change them either by way of 75 majority or a referendum. And the referendum route was what was used to change these provisions, most recently, in respect of the MMP change to how you cast a vote in an election.
So that’s one view, that it just has a moral or political force that causes Parliament to always honour it; the other is that it does actually have some legal effect that can be given force before the courts. I hope in my lifetime that we never have to explore that boundary, and that’s why I am grateful to the Minister for bringing this amendment before Parliament. Even though I understand the will of other people to want to guard against privatisation, from my perspective it is wrong in principle to entrench—
Erica Stanford: She spoke in favour of the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP).
Hon DAVID PARKER: I’ve spoken in favour of—
Erica Stanford: She spoke in favour of the SOP.
Hon DAVID PARKER: I am speaking in favour of this SOP, which the Minister has rightly—
Erica Stanford: The original SOP—the Minister spoke in favour.
Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, actually, the Minister wasn’t in the chair when the SOP was put to the House, and that is perhaps a fair criticism in respect of the effective urgency, because we do sit longer hours and the Minister can’t always be in the chair. So, you know, I put that on the record as well.
So, for those reasons, I’m pleased that this mistake is being fixed. There is no constitutional crisis, this bill is being fixed before the third reading. It is not yet law. It is the debates that we have in this place, and, because of good work by members of the Opposition and members of the Government and members of academia, we are fixing the mistake that was made and protecting that convention properly in respect of constitution—in respect of which there are provisions in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that ought to be entrenched.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. That was a very interesting speech from the Attorney-General. I suppose the fundamental question I have in relation to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 285 is: is this SOP to fix a mistake or does it represent a change in policy? That is the question that I want the Minister ultimately to answer, because we heard from the Attorney-General that he didn’t believe in entrenchment provisions. But it’s my understanding that the Labour caucus did agree to entrenching at 75 percent and then they wrote to other parties trying to achieve that, and we declined. Then, it’s my understanding that this SOP that we’re trying to overturn occurred because having failed at 75 percent—the clear rule of Parliament is that no party can entrench anything without the same percentage voting for it—of Parliament to agree to entrench at 75, the next step was to get 60 percent of Parliament, which Labour and the Greens combined represent; they could do that and they did do that.
So the question I have for the chair is: was there a policy on the part of the Government coming in here to entrench at 60 percent or not? Or was it a genuine mistake? Or was that the policy? That is not clear and it’s very fuzzy to hear the Attorney-General saying that he is not in favour of entrenchment, but it was clearly the policy of his party to entrench at 75 percent, if not at 60 percent. And so that’s what’s not clear there. What’s happened is that the Labour Party and the Government voted for the entrenchment at 60 percent. Now, what’s not clear is again whether that was a clerical mistake—that they didn’t mean to vote for it—or not.
Hon Dr David Clark: Point of order, Madam Chair. The member seems to be broadening the debate somewhat to previous debates rather than focusing on the SOP that is before the committee now.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I will ask the Hon Paul Goldsmith to come back to the SOP.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes, well, my understanding is that it’s quite legitimate to be talking about why the vote was cast and the series of events leading up to and post the vote and that’s what I’m talking about. So that’s what I’m trying to understand and unravel: was this a technical mistake of standing up and saying “We vote for it.” or not, or was it a political mistake that they voted for it and then found out that, actually, everybody disagreed with them and then they went back on it?
Because the reality is that if it wasn’t for the constitutional experts putting up their hand and us recognising the importance of it, this would have been enacted. And there is a strong argument to say that the Government indeed intended this to happen and they were hoping that they were going to get away with it and they were keeping their heads down and everything was all quiet for a couple of days and they thought they might have got away with it and they were quite happy with that.
The alternative that they’re expecting us to believe is that this went through and nobody in the Government noticed it.
Hon Dr David Clark: Point of order, Madam Chair. The Chair prior to you, and I think you have also, reinforced that this is a narrow debate on the SOP in front of us now. The member continues to expand into a broader debate about the previous debate that was had in the committee and the merits of it. I would ask, respectfully, that he is brought back to the order of the House.
Tim van de Molen: Speaking to the point of order—thank you, Madam Chair. We’ve had a few instances now where members from the Government and from the party that put the original SOP in have tried to close this debate down, and you will be well aware that it’s your role only to decide on what is or is not within scope, and points of order, such as we’ve seen taken by those members, are actually out of order and bring the House into disrepute by impacting or reflecting on your ability to rule the committee stage appropriately, Madam Chair.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I’m well aware that it is within my ambit to actually rule, and the advice that the Clerk had just given me was talking about the mistake or how we got here to this mistake that we’re trying to fix today is actually within—well, it’s in order. So keep it limited. Don’t stray too far.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m trying to get to the bottom of the mistake. Was it a mistake? Was it a technical mistake or a political mistake or was it a change in policy? And that’s what I want to hear from the Minister on. I want her to explain that, because, as I outlined, it seemed that the Government was keen on 75 percent entrenchment and couldn’t get that over the line and therefore did vote for 60 percent entrenchment. Was it the case that they were hoping to get away with it and failed and then, once it blew up, they realised that, actually, New Zealanders didn’t want these sorts of constitutional experimentations and they didn’t want to move away from conventions that are well understood and they have back pedalled? They’re quite different things.
It’s not clear at all from everything that’s been said from the Attorney-General, from the Prime Minister, and from the Minister herself, as to what actually transpired, and I think it’s a reasonable thing for the committee to get a better understanding of. So what was the intention? Did she, the Minister, believe when this was voted for originally—the previous SOP—that she had the support of her party to vote for it? It’s a very basic question.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): For those listening to this debate, we are still in the committee stage of the Water Services Entities Bill. And, all the way along, the Government has been very clear that we want to protect the public ownership of water infrastructure assets as we move towards improving the services that people get to assure themselves that they’ll have safe drinking water, better environmental outcomes, and more sustainable ways of financing infrastructure, recognising that households are facing a cost of living crisis.
But let me come back to the specific Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) and what we want to ensure. Through this parliamentary process, we want to ensure that we are fixing a mistake, because, as the debate has transpired and I have made through the committee stages of the House, we have been unable to get cross-parliamentary support for a 75 percent entrenchment of privatisation, and we accept that that is why the Government did not put forward an entrenchment clause in the bill as introduced, as debated in the House. However, Standing Order 270 creates the opening which the Green Party utilised to be able to offer another threshold, 60 percent, to be able to re-put the consideration of an entrenchment threshold. At this point, I want to reflect on the Leader of the House’s indication that, actually, perhaps the Standing Orders Committee needs to consider the basis on which entrenchment clauses should be used to give guidance to lawmakers for matters other than constitutional issues, of which the convention is a 75 percent threshold, and I think that is worthy of consideration. I hope other members in this House do too, because we do want to ensure that we are making good laws.
So the mistake that is being fixed is that it is inappropriate as far as we can see to take a piecemeal approach to using an entrenchment clause for this particular purpose. So, once we ensure that the SOP can be supported across the House, we will, effectively, not use an entrenchment provision in this particular way without further consideration by the Standing Orders Committee to provide proper guidelines in the way that matters, other than those constitutional in nature could be considered. I hope that all parties will see fit to support the SOP.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. So I think we have got some clarity from the Minister that this was not a technical mistake—they didn’t accidentally vote for it—but it was a political mistake that they voted for it. They wanted to have that Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 285 passed, bringing in a 60 percent entrenchment. They voted for it, but when the cat got out of the bag and people saw it for what it is, they realised that it was a political mistake, and they have reversed it after a week and a half of growing tensions across the country.
Why should people be concerned about these things? Why has it touched such a chord in the New Zealand voting public and New Zealanders as a whole? Well, I think we can offer some suggestions. This Government, frankly, has been quite experimental in its approach to the constitution. We’ve heard the Attorney-General talk about electoral law being something that has elements of it that have been entrenched as part of our conventions, but this is a Government that has actually moved away from some fundamental things such as equal voting rights at local government without any support, and so people are rightly suspicious of the constitutional appropriateness of how this Government operates.
Most people would think that something as fundamental to how our democracy operates as equal voting rights would be something that wouldn’t be changed without widespread support, but the Government has done that, so the people’s antennae are up to what the Government is doing on constitutional matters. Then, in this broader three waters context, there have been very widespread demonstrations against it, so it’s by no means a policy that’s universally agreed to or admired across the country, and yet it has been pushed through regardless. Again, it has involved taking away properties that have been owned by councils and moving them into a central operation.
Again, suspicions or nervousness or doubt has been widespread about the intentions of the Government in this operation, and so that, I think, is why New Zealanders have been concerned and why cooler heads—and there does seem to be very marked division within the Government on these matters, because we’ve just heard the Attorney-General saying that he is opposed to such entrenchments for policy matters. But, clearly, the Government decided to do it. They voted for it, and so he was obviously outvoted in that internal debate which led to the passing of the SOP that we are now trying to un-pass by Government actions.
So there’s clearly a division within the Government about how to handle these matters, but the political heads such as Mr Hipkins over there decided that the Government couldn’t get away with carrying on—
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member will come back to this SOP.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The only point I was making was that I was talking about the constitutional implications of this series of events that has led us to this very unusual situation, as—I’m sure we all know—it’s pretty rare that you find a piece of legislation introduced to the House, it goes through the first reading; it goes through the second reading; it goes through the committee stage of the House, where we go through a bill line by line—and it took about 10 hours of debate. It concludes that debate, and then the next and final step is the third reading, and it’s very unusual to have a bill brought back and pushed back to the committee stage to undo something.
This is an unusual situation and one of constitutional meaning and understanding. So what we’re trying to understand is how this happened, why it happened, and whether this is the sort of thing that we can expect to happen again and again under this Government. Do they push a little bit here and see if anybody reacts, and if they do—if they’re caught red-handed—then they’ll pull back and say it was a mistake, and will they try that again somewhere else? It’s a fair question for all of us to be asking, and it is part of the reason why I think there is widespread distrust about the motives of this Government when it comes to how it operates at a constitutional level.
So I’ve raised those many questions. Was it a technical mistake or a political mistake? My assertion is that it was a political mistake, and they’ve realised that and they’ve sought to undo it, but I’d be very interested to understand the Minister’s impressions on that.
ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Madam Chair. It doesn’t happen very often, but there are moments when you realise that there are events that happened that are shameful. And I think this is one such event.
This has been a shamble and it has been a shameful episode in this Parliament. I think, having coming back today to debate this, after many of us spent hours in here going through on this bill with much opposition not only across this House but from the general public, and to be able to have to deal with this issue today, I think just shows how—what a shambles, really.
The issue with this is that we’ve heard smoothing words from the Attorney-General, talking about how he opposes entrenchment. And yet, as my good colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith’s been saying, the Labour caucus clearly agreed to entrenching this in this legislation prior to this coming to the House. It just makes you wonder, how could Mr Parker, as the Attorney-General, have lost the debate in caucus when he’s made it so clear just a few moments ago that he is opposed to and always has been opposed to entrenchment, where he is the Minister responsible for these matters in the House and to have lost that debate in caucus. And yet, this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) was passed by the same Labour Government. It just doesn’t make sense, and it just makes you wonder what in the dickens went on in that caucus, and it also may draw you to the conclusions that the comments from Mr Parker must—or could—be construed as being a snow job, because the comments do not reconcile with what’s actually gone on.
Now, I also want to just turn to this issue. The Minister, in her contribution—and I thank her for standing up and I hope she’s going to stand up again—is saying the reason why Labour’s supported this SOP of the Greens was to protect the ownership of these assets. I just want to say that I believe that the Greens have been scaremongering this whole issue and just show how out of touch they are with their whole issue about privatisation and wanting to make sure that there were further provisions in this bill.
I think the first thing I would say here—many people have sort of forgotten about this—but in the bill, the provisions that this relate to are set out in Schedule 4. And what people don’t realise is that first thing, if there is even the concept of talking about privatising the assets, it requires a 75 percent majority of the regional representative group who must, prior to coming to that view or that vote, have talked about and talked to all of the territorial local authority owners of the water services, mana whenua, and also the Minister, before they can decide—and then they must decide with 75 percent approval.
The second thing is: the proposal to go out to the general public on it requires 100 percent approval—or unanimous approval—by all of the territorial authorities. So, many of these water companies will have so-called owners or territorial councils of up to 20, 22 councils. It requires unanimous agreement by all of those councils before you can even put a poll to the general public.
And having got through those two hurdles, it then requires the general public to approve by 75 percent. So the thought of privatising these assets is absolutely just about virtually impossible under this legislation. We’ve heard the Greens, we’ve heard Labour going on in these spurious arguments about “National wanting to privatise this asset”. You can’t even contemplate how it could possibly occur under the current bill that has been passed through and rammed through by the Labour Government.
This bill—this SOP—is a shocker, should never have occurred, and here now we’re seeing Labour backtracking. And I’ll tell you why it’s backtracking—nothing to do with David Parker, or whatever, thinking it’s the wrong thing—it’s because the general public and the media have suddenly said, “This is wrong” and it’s a political back-down. It’s shameful.
SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a call on this Supplementary Order Paper. I think the words need to be said: never again. Never again should we be in this House doing what this Government has done to our constitution and to its constitutional provisions around entrenchment. I’ve heard the rhetoric from members on the other side where they’re trying to call this a mistake. They’re trying to say it was a mistake that this even got into the bill in the first place. It was a mistake that they voted on it, it was a mistake that it was there, and “We’re just cleaning up a mistake.”
Well, I ask the Minister: where did this mistake begin and when did they know it was a mistake, if it actually was one? Are they thinking that New Zealanders are so foolish to think that this Government just operates on a whim? They just go, “Oh well, this Supplementary Order Paper, we’ll see how we’ll vote on this one today, shall we? We’ll just vote—we might vote Yes on this one from the Green Party, we might vote No for that one from the National Party.” No, this is not how this Government operates. They are deliberate, they are intentional, and they know what they are doing. The Minister knew full well what she was doing when she authorised the Labour Party to support the Supplementary Order Paper from the Greens. And so I call out the language which we are hearing from the Government, from the Prime Minister, from the Minister, from others, saying this was just a mistake because mistakes like this—one, they shouldn’t happen; and secondly, they don’t just happen, particularly when it comes to such important provisions around entrenchment in our legislation. We’ve seen the commentary from the constitutional lawyers, the Law Society, and others who have called out this Government.
The speech from the Hon David Parker—he almost sounded like a true believer. It almost sounded like he was the guy actually speaking against the Supplementary Order Paper that was installed in the first place, when he actually voted for it to be put in the bill. He voted for that Supplementary Order Paper to go through. And there he is with all of the arrogance of this Labour Government to say “Actually, no, I disagree with that approach and it shouldn’t happen.”, and to give us a lecture—a lecture—as to why this shouldn’t happen again. Well, shame on this Government for putting this country through this. They say, “Well, it didn’t happen.” Well, it didn’t happen, because they were caught out. They were caught out by the public of New Zealand, the constitutional watchdogs, the media, and the National and ACT parties who stood up against this constitutional outrage and said, “This is enough, this is not right, and it should stop because it sets an incredibly bad precedent.”
I say never again, because never again should be what all members of this Parliament are saying. But I note that the Green Party, in their righteousness—superiority, should I say, their righteous superiority are still intending to support this Supplementary Order Paper because they think it’s the right thing to do. Well, what National Party policy should be entrenched that you don’t like, Green Party? Because that’s the kind of question that the Green Party needs to think about in supporting this Supplementary Order Paper, because there will be a range of policies that you don’t agree with from across this House, which, if those parties entrenched those political views, the Green Party would be calling out a constitutional outrage, and rightly so.
But where’s the consistency? The Green Party used to stand up in this Parliament, and they used to be the conscience of democracy. They used to stand against urgency being used, they used to stand against the constitutional outrage that we’re seeing here. But they’ve lost all of their principles, and this vote that they’re about to push tonight just shows they had none in the first place. And so I call out the Green Party for their moral superiority which has completely, completely gone tonight. I call out the Government for saying that this was just a mistake, because it clearly wasn’t. I ask the Minister to take a call and explain to the House and answer the questions that my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith has very articulately placed on the Chamber, to say: when did the Government make these decisions? Was it a political mistake? Was it a legal mistake? Was it just simply an error in terms of how they decided to vote? And when were those decisions actually made?
I think my colleague Simon Watts had a question which was not answered in question time today, which was: did Cabinet authorise the Minister to make those decisions, and, if so, when? The Minister needs to answer those questions and put the actual facts out there for the public because they’ve had enough. They’ve said, “Never again.” I hope we never see this happening again in this Parliament.
Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it’s really unfortunate that the National Party is just trying to score political points. They’re not engaging with the substance of the issue. The Minister has noted that the Standing Orders Committee is going to consider the whole issue of entrenchment and whether there should be public policies which merit entrenchment—whether we could review the 160 years that we’ve gone without entrenching anything else except electoral law. But from the contributions from the Opposition, they won’t engage with that substantively at all. All they’re interested in doing is trying to score political points about process.
And the other thing that’s really disappointing: thank you, Mr Bayly, for pointing out the detail of clause 116 and the process in Schedule 4 and, yes, that does provide some protection at the regional representative group against any proposals for divestment—it ensures that there is thorough consideration of that. But the whole point of my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), which the Minister’s SOP will repeal, was to entrench that provision so that a simple majority in a future Parliament couldn’t pull that provision and just not require the regional representative group to go through that 75 percent support for divestment.
So National is not engaging with the substance of what their views are about the future of three waters assets. They have said that, heaven forbid, if they get into Government, they would repeal the legislation, but what do they want for the future of three waters? Because again and again they’ve just focused on process and not the substance of what the original SOP was about, which was to ensure that it is not easy for a future Government to sell off our water assets to the highest bidder, that it is not easy for a Government to ram through provisions which would reduce the consideration by the regional representative group and the requirement for a referendum. Our water assets are too precious to risk, and the original SOP made sure that any decision about their future management carried the support of a large number of New Zealanders.
So National has signalled that it’s not going to engage in any genuine way with discussions about what issues of public policy could be protected by entrenchment, and nor, as it seems, is it going to respond in any positive way to a letter from the Government which suggests that their attitude to three waters is, again, to not be at all worried about future privatisation. That’s why the Green Party won’t be supporting this SOP, because we think that this issue of three waters assets is of critical public importance and reaches that threshold.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Before I call the next member, I’d like to warn everyone that this debate is beginning to be repetitive. I’m not hearing any new points being raised.
SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, look, you make a great point, Madam Chair, that it’s important that we focus on those aspects which the Supplementary Order Paper proposes to repeal, and that is the entrenchment provisions, section 206AA the reserved provision, Subpart 4A, which relates to the obligation on the Water Services Entities Minister to maintain ownership and control of water services and significant assets.
So, Minister Mahuta, I’d like you to respond to a couple of specific questions. Through ownership or control, you’ve stated a number of times that the water services entities will not be in control of the assets and that local councils will retain control, but they can’t sell them, they can’t leverage any debt against them, they can’t generate revenue from the assets. So the challenge, Minister, is to understand whether these provisions, which apparently prevent privatisation, and which the Minister has tabled an amendment seeking to repeal, are actually to stop the water services entities from returning assets to councils, from which they will be taken. So, Minister, could you please give us a response to that in a moment? After this Supplementary Order Paper has been passed, will that allow the water services entities to return water assets to councils, if they wish to in the future, even if this legislation is passed?
And, Minister, I want to ask for your understanding of this concept of privatisation, which this Supplementary Order Paper relates to, because, Minister, you’ve written to the ACT Party today—and, I understand, to other parties—asking will these parties support a motion or the concept that these assets should not be privatised. So, Minister, I want to clarify what “privatisation” means to you. Does it mean a public-private partnership (PPP) where, say, KiwiSaver, ACC, and other institutions invest shareholders’ or investors’ funds in public assets? And that could be schools, such as seven schools and two corrections facilities established as public-private partnerships, including Auckland prison; the schools PPP bundle; Hobsonville School; Auckland South Corrections Facility, Wiri Prison—all established with private capital. So, Minister, did you intend that private capital—investors’ funds, people who wanted to invest in infrastructure—would be excluded from doing so by the provisions of this entrenchment which prevents ownership and control of water services and significant assets?
So, now, Minister, do you support, by repealing this entrenchment clause, here in this SOP, the inclusion of private capital and institutional—like ACC and super funds, my KiwiSaver fund, for example—investing in water infrastructure? All kinds of organisations want to be able to invest in infrastructure, it has fantastic long-term guaranteed rates of return for investors and it also provides the additional capital that’s needed where the taxpayer or the ratepayer doesn’t have any more capital to contribute.
Minister, you’ve made the point a number of times that the reforms, which relate to this reserved position and this proposed amendment, actually would allow water services entities to achieve balance sheet separation. Minister, I’m assuming that that allows for the inclusion of private capital investments in water service entities. So, Minister, will you confirm that the Government and the Minister are open to private capital being invested in water service entities and water services infrastructure?
SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to get back to the point around why this vote was cast and the events leading up to that point. I reflect back on that evening in terms of when the vote was actually cast on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 285, and the Hon Kieran McAnulty was actually the Minister in the chair at that point of the evening because, as the Hon David Parker noted, the Minister here was not in the chair. The Chair of the committee was Greg O’Connor and the whip on the Labour side was Duncan Webb. So it is no—I mean, I think, to rule out in terms of who was in the room at that point when this was passed through, and when this was voted upon, those were the individuals that were in the chair.
I want to go back to Hansard from the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, Minister, when we were questioned about this exact Supplementary Order Paper, and I quote: “We accepted the advice of the Attorney-General, which says that there is a high constitutional threshold, and that came from the Crown Law Office. Select committee members will be well aware of that advice.” So the Minister articulated on the evening when we were talking about this Supplementary Order Paper that she was fully aware of the fact that the Attorney-General had provided advice in regards to the constitutional threshold of the entrenchment provision that’s on the table. It was also acknowledged that that advice had come through from Crown Law and that the select committee members were aware of that advice.
The Finance and Expenditure Committee, as part of their deliberations, pushed back strongly around the entrenchment of 75 percent. I go on and quote: “There is a high constitutional threshold to be reached in order to put such a threshold within legislation.” The Minister was fully aware on the evening when the Supplementary Order Paper was tabled that this constitutional matter that was in front of us was something that is absolutely breaching a normal constitutional threshold. And I go on and quote: “and often it’s on constitutional matters, of which this bill is not.” The Minister knew that the Water Services Entities Bill was not a bill in which entrenchment measures would be appropriate. And I go on and quote: “and it would be a novel approach to include an entrenchment clause.” The Minister was aware of the fact that while the entrenchment clauses did not meet constitutional thresholds, there was a clear—and I would go as far as saying premeditated, i.e., the issue had been thought about in advance, it had been considered, and when the Minister made the comment that it would be a novel approach to insert this entrenchment order, the Minister knew exactly what was going on.
The definition of a mistake—and this is the language that has been used by the Government around this issue—is “An act or a judgment that was misguided.” What does misguided mean? It is a decision that is based on faulty judgment. I have just categorically quoted from the Hansard that occurred on that evening—before that Supplementary Order Paper was voted on by the Minister, the Hon Kieran McAnulty, who was a Minister in the chair—that the issues and regards that were noted by the Attorney-General on this evening were all known. All of these points were known.
In taking a simple definition of what is a mistake and not a mistake: this was not a mistake. This decision—in the Minister’s words, “and it would be a novel approach to include an entrenchment clause.”, I go on: “We know that while this particular SOP may not pass the constitutional thresholds, there is a moral obligation of people who believe that privatisation should not occur to support that particular SOP.” The Minister was using the opportunity to put in play a new provision in regards to our constitution, one that completely conflicted with the history of this country, our constitution, and our democracy. The Minister, as I have quoted, knew what was going on. There are other members of the caucus that were fully aware in terms of what was and when the vote was taken. This was not a mistake. And so that is in Hansard, that is recorded, and we are now here looking to try and reverse a decision that they knew was wrong.
WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.
Motion agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the Minister’s amendment deleting Subpart 4A of Part 6 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 310 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 104
New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 30; ACT New Zealand 10.
Noes 10
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.
Amendment agreed to.
Bill to be reported with amendment.
House resumed.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Water Services Entities Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.
Motion agreed to.
Report adopted.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, it’s time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7 p.m.
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Bills
Electoral Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Electoral Amendment Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
Mr Speaker—Madam Speaker; aroha mai—this bill makes a number of changes to the Electoral Act 1993.These changes will increase public trust in the transparency of the rules around political donations and loans and extend the eligibility of overseas voters to enrol to vote in the 2023 general election.
As I stated when I introduced this bill, it is clear New Zealanders want greater transparency about how our political parties and candidates are funded. Seventy percent of respondents to a recent Victoria University of Wellington survey indicated that they did not trust the current political funding framework. In simple terms, voters want to know, and have a right to know, how we as politicians butter our bread.
The changes in this bill will increase public disclosure about party funding by providing more information about the sources of political funding. This bill will increase transparency and therefore trust in our democracy. It is my hope that when Victoria University of Wellington next conducts its survey of public attitudes on our public funding framework, the levels of public trust will have increased, due in some small part to the provisions in this bill.
These provisions include the crucial step of lowering the threshold for disclosing the identity of party donors from $15,000 to $5,000. The new $5,000 threshold represents a careful balance between transparency, privacy, the compliance burden placed on parties, the right to freedom of expression, and sufficient donation revenue for parties.
Other changes in this bill include disclosure of a donor’s identity within 10 working days when their donations to a party exceed $20,000 during election years, and disclosure of the proportion of total party donations that are in kind—non-monetary donations. This bill also requires additional information to be disclosed for the very first time. Under the bill, the number and total value of non-anonymous donations under $1,500 will need to be disclosed, meaning that for the first time New Zealanders will be able to see a complete picture of all donations received by political parties. In addition, candidates will be required to disclose loans received from unregistered lenders for the first time.
Coupled with these changes to political donations and loan settings, the bill also requires all registered parties to disclose their annual financial statements. This important step towards greater transparency about the financial affairs of parties was supported by over 85 percent of respondents to the same Victoria University of Wellington survey from last year. This will allow the general public to view the full income, expenditure, and asset base of parties for the very first time.
The bill also addresses risks identified in the High Court’s judgment in the New Zealand First Foundation case. These risks pose a threat to the integrity of our electoral system and public trust in that system. This bill addresses those risks before we head into election year in 2023.
The bill as reported back from select committee incorporates the Supplementary Order Paper I introduced to address those risks into the bill. The bill now clarifies that party donations include any donation made to a person or group of people if there are reasonable grounds to believe such a donation was intended for the benefit of a political party. The bill also creates an offence for anyone who receives a donation and fails without reasonable excuse to transmit it to the intended recipient, being either a candidate or a party secretary, within 10 working days, as the Electoral Act currently requires.
I’d like to acknowledge Ginny Andersen, the chair of the Justice Committee, and the members of that committee for both scrutinising the proposals in the Supplementary Order Paper and their sensible approach in agreeing to incorporate the Supplementary Order Paper into the bill as reported back.
Additionally, the bill extends the overseas voting eligibility periods for the 2023 general election from three years to six years for New Zealand citizens and 12 months to four years for permanent residents—the amendment in response to the COVID-19 travel restrictions that prevented New Zealand citizens and permanent residents living overseas returning to New Zealand with the required time frames to be eligible to enrol to vote. This extension, of course, only applies for the 2023 general election to address those anomalies. The independent review of electoral law can consider permanent arrangements for overseas voters, and we look forward to their findings in due course towards the end of next year.
Again, I want to acknowledge the Justice Committee for its careful consideration of the bill, and, of course, all of those members of the public who made submissions. The committee received 42 submissions. The majority of submitters were supportive of the bill’s objective to support the delivery of and participation in elections to maintain public trust and confidence in our electoral system. Submitters in support of the bill observed that increased transparency will force politicians and donors to reflect on how the public would view their financial relationships and noted that it is likely to be more difficult to work around the rules designed to protect the system. I believe that this can only be considered a good thing.
The committee recommended some changes to the bill to improve its operations. Specifically, the committee has recommended that all provisions in the bill, excluding those relating to overseas voters, would commence on 1 January 2023. The committee has also recommended inserting a transitional provision into the bill to specify that returns for party donations for the 2022 calendar year should be completed according to the requirements in the Act as at 31 December 2022. These amendments clarify that all reporting requirements in the bill relating to political donations and loans only apply from the start of the 2023 calendar year and do not have retrospective effect.
The committee also recommended amending clause 27 of the bill so the requirements for registered parties relating to annual financial statements apply only to annual financial statements for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2023. This amendment also ensures these requirements do not have any retrospective effect and means that parties will have time to prepare their annual financial statements for public consumption from 2024 onwards.
I look forward to working with the members of other parties during the remaining parliamentary stages for this bill. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and it’s my pleasure to speak on this, the Electoral Amendment Bill, although National is opposing this bill, and we’re sad that the Government has chosen to bring about changes to the rules of the game when it comes to the election of parties and the way that democracy operates in New Zealand. They’re changing the electoral rules without any notion of bipartisan support when it comes to financing of political parties. They’ve just decided to use the bare majority that they have available to them and they’re changing the rules, fundamentally, to suit them, and we don’t think that’s a good approach to electoral reform and we don’t support it.
So what, fundamentally, are they doing? The biggest change in this legislation is to reduce the public disclosure threshold for donations for New Zealanders who freely decide to give political parties money—they’re free to give as much as they like, but over particular thresholds, their identity needs to be made public. It has for the last 15 or so years been set for party donations—so people donating to the Labour Party or the National Party or the Greens—at $15,000 for more than a decade. So over time the value of that money has eroded. And for electorate contests, such as in this by-election in Hamilton, or in Epsom where I’m based, or wherever, it’s set at $1,500. That is because candidates are only allowed to spend $30,000 in their electorates, so $1,500 is a significant portion of that—5 percent. But the $15,000, of course, is the proportion of the total amount of money that a party can spend, which, if you stand in all the seats, like the National Party does, can be over $3 million.
So the proposition is somehow that there is something dangerous about somebody donating, say, $14,000 anonymously to a party as part of a $3 million fund-raising exercise, and that is supposed to be a problem. So they haven’t really identified what the issue is. What they have identified is that they want to make it fundamentally more difficult for parties to raise funds.
Now, I don’t like to upset anybody with stating the obvious, but the reality is that political parties need money in order to campaign—it’s not a free exercise. You have to buy hoardings, you have to get radio broadcasts, you need to send letters, you need to do a whole bunch of things, and it’s expensive. I don’t know if you people have noticed, driving around you’ll see hoardings up—they’re not cheap. And so it costs a lot of money to campaign—nothing like it costs in the United States of America, where they spend hundreds of millions and billions of dollars on campaigns. Here they’re relatively cheap, but it does cost money. So that money has to come from somewhere.
Now, there’s a couple of basic choices. Either New Zealanders can volunteer to give money to parties that they support, or the alternative proposition is that the State seizes that money and gives it to political parties in order for them to campaign. And the fundamental direction of this bill and the Government policy is to move more and more of the funding of political parties away from voluntary donations to compulsory acquisition by the State of money to give to political parties.
Now, no system is perfect, and I’m not going to stand here and say that the current system is perfect. Of course there are problems in any way that you arrange the funding, but the only point I’d make is if you make it a State-funded political parties operation, such as the trend and the direction of this legislation, well, that creates its own problems. Most notably it’s great for incumbent parties that have been around and they’ve got numbers and they get the money. It’s much more difficult for newcomers to crack into the system, notwithstanding the fact that it actually ultimately makes politicians less accountable, because actually persuading somebody to vote for you is quite hard but persuading somebody to give you some money is even harder. And it means you actually have to listen to people and engage with people and to listen to what they have to say and go out, meet people, have functions, fund-raise, all those sorts of things, which gets very tiring. It’s much easier—as the Greens would no doubt argue—just to get the State to pay for it, and to get taxpayers to pay for it, and then you don’t have to be nice to anybody; you can just do whatever you want. And that seems to be the approach taken by the Greens. But that’s by the by—we’ll let them explain their policy and we’ll get to it.
So the only point we’re making is—and this has been a day of great, I suppose, constitutional moment, where we’ve had the Government come in and try and entrench a piece of legislation. And they’ve had to backtrack on that and we’ve had a bit of a debate about that, and hackles were raised about their movement away from constitutional norms.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Come back to the bill.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m just creating the context, and the context is one where people are quite rightly suspicious of the way this Government operates when it comes to electoral law and constitutional matters. They’ve moved away from such principles as equal voting rights, they’ve been fiddling around with the entrenchment. They got caught out and they’ve backtracked very fast. Here, when it comes to the financing of electoral parties and running elections and campaigning, they’ve been brazen. They’ve just said, “Well, we’re going to change the rules to suit us.”
Now, the other way, of course, that political parties can operate—yes, they can raise funds from voluntary people handing over their cash or they can seize it from taxpayers and use it for campaigning. The third option, of course, is to get people to work for you for free. And that is, I suppose, the approach that most of the Labour Party takes. They get their union friends to campaign for them, and that’s fine, nothing wrong with that. But it all needs to be associated with how campaigns are funded and accounted for.
And so the rules that we have in place should be agreed by everybody and they should be followed, because of course it’s very important that everybody should have trust and confidence in the political system that we operate. I totally agree with the Minister when she said that it’s important that New Zealanders should have confidence in the conduct of the political system and the electoral rules. That’s why we have rules and that’s why we on this side stick to the rules and why transparency is important and we should have thresholds. And we have thresholds. We’ve got thresholds exactly where they should be, perfectly legitimate political debates, and this Government has made no good case for substantially reducing those thresholds.
So people listening in might say, “Well, what’s all the fuss about? Why do people worry about being named as donators to particular political parties?” Well, I can come up with a couple of good reasons. One is that quite a lot of people operate businesses and quite a lot of those businesses make a living by doing contracts, sometimes with Government departments. And they fear if they were to give money to the National Party, for example, and the Labour Party happens to be in Government at the time, they might get in trouble or there might be blowback or they may fail to get the contracts. Now, the Government, of course, will deny this, but people are worried about that, and they’re quite rightly worried about it. So they’d prefer not to have it publicised that they’re giving money to the National Party, because they fear that the people on the other side might not be pleased and there might be repercussions for them. That is one of the reasons why—
Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. The member is making allegations about the conduct of the Government and Labour Party that suggest an improper motive for their actions, which is clearly unparliamentary.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I’ll ask Paul Goldsmith to stick to the bill.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you. And that was complete nonsense from the opposite member.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): OK, all right. The member will continue without reflecting on the ruling from the Chair.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I accept your ruling, Madam Speaker, entirely. The only point I was making was that there were some stories that came from the Gaurav Sharma episode which showed that member—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, no, no. Just as well I’m in a good humour, so the member will continue his speech, focusing on the Electoral Amendment Bill.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So, rounding up, in summarising, what we have here is a piece of legislation that the Government has introduced. It’s about the rules that cover the conduct of how we fund-raise for political parties. We do need to fund-raise. The only question is whether that is done on a voluntary basis by politicians and their parties—particularly the parties—persuading people to support them voluntarily, or whether we make it more and more difficult for that to happen. Inevitably, the alternative is taxpayers being forced to fund political parties. Now, neither is perfect, and at the moment we have a bit of a hybrid. There is State funding for political parties for broadcasting, but primarily it’s fund-raised. The Greens want it all publicly funded, Labour seems to be halfway, and we’re standing up for parties actually not being funded by taxpayers. We haven’t seen any good arguments put forward, particularly as the Government has set up an independent panel to review all matters relating to electoral reform and they haven’t waited for the report from that group. They’ve just gone out and rushed through legislation that, as I say, we believe is designed to skew the system in favour of the Government. And, of course, when we come back to the point that the Minister was making at the start, it’s all about trying to improve credibility and public confidence in the system, and my point is that this doesn’t help.
GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity of taking a call on the Electoral Amendment Bill. Look, I was really confused by that member’s contribution. I really did not know where that was coming from. I felt like I was transported to another time warp or something. I felt that it’s important that if there are any people listening at home, they’re made quite clear about what’s happening. I think the best way to convey what this bill aims to achieve—which was clearly missed by the member the Hon Paul Goldsmith, who’s just resumed his seat—was when the Minister of Justice came before the Justice Committee. And under the new Speakers’ rulings, there’s a requirement there that, if wanted, the Minister responsible for a bill can actually come to the committee and speak to the bill at an early stage. This is a new process that Minister Allan has taken up, and it was great to hear from her and to understand her views on what the importance of this bill is at this point in time. And she made it plain and clear to the committee that it’s important that New Zealanders know where their bread is buttered when it comes to political donations.
And that’s exactly what this bill does. If people are donating to a political party, the general public deserve to have the trust and confidence in their democratic system to know where that money is coming from. And who would want to hide that? So that’s a question that Paul Goldsmith was unable to answer in his 10 minutes that he contributed to the House just earlier. So this bill addresses the risks and the issues that are highlighted by not having a greater amount of transparency.
The bill does three main things, and those are all important things that I think are good to outline. Firstly, it makes changes to the political donations and loans settings, which I’ll speak to a bit further; secondly, it requires registered parties to disclose their annual financial statements, which is also important; and, thirdly, it temporarily extends the overseas voter eligibility for the 2023 general election—clearly something that Mr Bishop’s cottoned on to because he shot off overseas to try and round some up. And let’s hope that there’s some parliamentary purpose in that if anyone ever takes a look at it. So in relation to the donations and loans—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! I’m going to be very even-handed in this debate, and a point of order was raised about impugning motives to a political party. And I’m going to apply the same encouragement, as I did previously to the member, to stick to the bill.
GINNY ANDERSEN: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. In relation to the donations and loans framework, the bill’s main changes include lowering the public disclosure threshold for donations and contributions to registered political parties from $15,000 to $5,000, amending the reporting requirements for donations to registered parties received from the same donor exceeding $30,000 by reducing the threshold to $20,000, but only requiring disclosure of such donations within 10 working days in a general election year. It also requires registered parties to report the sum total value of donations separately as monetary and in-kind donations in their annual returns. It requires registered parties to report the number and total volume of donations under $1,500 that are not made anonymously, it removes the requirement for audited party donations and loan returns for registered parties who receive total donations of $50,000 or less annually and who have no loans, and, finally, it requires candidates to publicly report on loans received to support their campaign.
In the consideration and the submissions received in the Justice Committee, we also received a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that has been included in this bill. It clarifies the definition of “party donation” in section 207(2) of the Electoral Act to ensure a donation made for the benefit of a party is considered a party donation. This bill addresses the risks that have been identified in the High Court’s judgment in the New Zealand First Foundation case. These risks pose a threat to the integrity of our electoral system and public trust in that system, and this bill addresses those risks before we head into election year in 2023.
For this bill, we received a number of submissions in the case of that, and it was good to hear all those people as they came forward. Over two separate periods, the committee received a total of 42 submissions—41 on the bill and one submission on the SOP. And we heard some really good oral submissions from different parts of our community who wanted to have their say in this bill. The majority of submitters were in support of the bill’s main objective, to support the delivery of, and participation in, elections, to maintain public trust and confidence in our electoral system. It’s really important that we stress the fact that people need to know what’s in and behind an election to have confidence in it. We have a great system in New Zealand where we have high levels of participation in our democracy. In order to maintain that and continue that, it’s important we have a good level of transparency. I’m really proud of a bill that has increased the level of transparency that we currently have around submissions, and it’s looking to strengthen our democratic system here in New Zealand, and I commend it to the House.
HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As is known, the National Party is opposing this bill. The member who’s just addressed the House, Ginny Andersen, indicated in the earlier stages of her speech “if there’s anybody watching this debate”. I acknowledge a kaumātua I met at Ōhinemutu in Rotorua on the weekend—at the posthumous medal ceremony awards for the 28th Māori Battalion whānau—Pita Anaru, who does watch Parliament TV. Ngā mihi ki a koe e kaumātua.
Turning to the bill, I acknowledge the kaumātua, because there are many of our elderly who value, along with the rest of New Zealand and New Zealanders, the importance of democracy, and democracy is about New Zealanders’ rights and the protection of those rights. The concern that the National Party has about this bill is that it’s well known that the amendment is to make a number of changes to the Electoral Act 1993 but it’s also well known that the Labour Government has initiated a review panel, and that review panel is to report back next year, looking at the wider issues of electoral reform.
So there’s concern as to why’s there’s such earnest and haste again from this Labour Government to rush through this legislation when there is a review panel, in the same way that there’s been the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care and that the Government chose to rush through in haste legislation by dismissing and dispensing with the wider public opinion and view. That is the concern that the National Party has. This Government talks big about transparency, this Government talks big about valuing the rights of New Zealanders, and again here we have another piece of law that’s being rushed through, dispensing with the fact that this Government has engaged a review panel to report back and is going to ignore that and the value of that work.
Parliamentary colleagues in the House who have sat on the Justice Committee have addressed in detail this bill. I was not a member. My colleagues Paul Goldsmith, Mark Mitchell, and Simon O’Connor did sit on the Justice Committee and as a result scrutinised with the other 41 submitters to this bill, with nine oral submissions heard, the detail of the bill. And as a result, the New Zealand National Party has in that Justice Committee report, which has been reported back to the House, a differing view and opinion, and the concern is, effectively, again highlighting the fact that we are far better to wait for the review and to do the electoral law reform all together—all substantively rather than piecemeal, and this is a piecemeal approach.
It seems that the primary purpose of this bill is to make it harder for parties to raise funds. We’ve heard in the House tonight my colleague Paul Goldsmith mention that those donors who willingly donate do not wish to have their privacy breached and have it disclosed—who it’s from, how much it is—and the threshold has been lowered in terms of the amounts.
The detail of the bill, this being the second reading, will go to the committee of the whole House. Understandably, there are likely to be anticipated Supplementary Order Papers, which, for the benefit of the public listening in, means an amendment to amendments that have been proposed at select committee and reported back to the House this evening, being spoken to.
So the detail—in the six minutes that I have left—is that it’s proposed in this bill to change the donations and loans framework, which includes lowering, reducing, the public disclosure threshold of donations and contributions to political parties from $15,000 to $5,000. It’s quite a significant threshold reduction. Also, it amends the reporting requirements for donations received from the same donor in excess of $30,000, either in one lump sum or in total over the preceding year by reducing the threshold to $20,000 but requiring disclosure within 10 working days—within 10 working days; under the pump—only in a general election year. So perhaps that’s a redeeming factor; perhaps not, bearing in mind there is a review panel to report back next year before the general election. Go figure! Also, the bill requires the annual return of party donations to separately state the total amount of monetary and in-kind donations received.
What I picked up, which is of some interest—again, because this has some bearing in terms of my family situation—is that, at present, New Zealand citizens who are living overseas must have been in New Zealand within the last three years to be registered as an elector. I have an adult son living overseas, who hasn’t been home—he tried to get home during COVID. But part of the reason for an amendment within this bill is recognising the fact that so many New Zealanders were locked out during the COVID times and not allowed back. So provision is made and there’s an extension in terms of their having to have been back to New Zealand within the last three years—that period is extended out. So that would be a benefit for the purposes of many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, my son being one of those.
That amendment acknowledges the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on international travel and therefore would apply only to the 2023 general election. Now, we know that the COVID-19 impact is going to be long term. This is a long game, and here we are. We’ve got a Government that for some reason sees that there’s urgency and is in haste, despite a review panel being set up by this Government to look at the wider implications of electoral law reform, and is going to rush this bill through. It does not have the support of the National Party, and that is an anticipation of not having the support of many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders. I do not commend the bill to the House, Madam Speaker.
Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a brief call on this bill, but first to perhaps bring a little transparency to my respected colleague across the House as to the nature of the way in which this bill has progressed, because I am a member of the Justice Committee and was lucky enough to get to work on it.
There has been nothing in haste about this bill. It has proceeded in the normal way, and the reason it’s proceeded in the normal way is actually for the benefit of precisely the sort of people that Ms Harete Hipango was talking about: people like her son.
If we do not pass this bill in respect of the timeframes that people are able to be out of New Zealand and still cast a vote, then people like her son will miss out on that opportunity next year. If we wait to go through the wider and deeper matters that are being traversed in the review, then people like her son will miss out on the important—and, in fact, vital—act of contributing to our democracy.
And if there is one thing that we have learnt in the last couple of years over COVID—over watching what has happened overseas—it is that democracy deserves every act of protection and strengthening we can give it. Because while we may regard it as inviolable and forever and everlasting, it is, in fact, fragile. We need to give serious consideration at all times to how each and every next election coming up can be better.
We want this bill in place because we are concerned that numbers of people—especially over the last couple of years—have begun to lose faith in democracy. We are aware of surveys—for example, in 2021 by Victoria University of Wellington, as the Minister said—which show that 70 percent of the population do not trust the way in which parties are funded. They feel that the people paying for us may also be paying us to do their bidding. We know that that is not so, but the thought that they could consider that that is a possibility: we have to act. We need to make sure that there is absolute clarity.
My mother always said that if you find yourself too embarrassed to tell someone what you have done, then perhaps it is an indication that you’re doing the wrong thing. Just a little thought for those who are scared to announce that they are funding certain political parties.
Nothing wrong with transparency; very important for democracy; very important for our next election. Let’s pass the bill.
GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Democracy is a human right, and it is in lots and lots of ways the one right that underpins them all. Taking account of the rights of those whose rights haven’t always been central to the workings of this Parliament is what that one vote per person democracy that we hold so dear is all about. This bill is about ensuring that that “one vote per person, everybody’s voice counts” model of democracy is at least some way close to being real, and it’s not necessarily all that close to being real if it’s all about the donors, that big money—I’ll say corruption—that people out there do fear when they think about the way that money operates in politics.
We had, I think, a moment just a couple of speeches ago that was, to quote the Hon Paul Goldsmith—because he says this a lot—a chilling moment for democracy, but I don’t think he realises that we was actually the cause of it. He said, in articulating why it’s important for members of this House and politicians out there in New Zealand to receive big money, secret big money, that it’s about being accountable—accountable to big, secret money; not voters but donors who donate secretly with no limit. That was the policy being championed through the auspices of accountability. That isn’t the type of democracy that most New Zealanders think we have. That’s not the kind of democracy that would ever really deliver for, for example, beneficiaries, or, as we know if we look overseas, for climate action, for labels on cigarette packets for health, for the type of mining and deep sea drilling that we want to ban in this nation, for the environment, or for marginalised communities like migrant workers. We want a democracy that delivers for all of those groups. We want the decisions being made in this House to be strong, not the kind of accountability that prioritises big, secret money.
The way that this bill came about is because, some might remember, I had a member’s bill ambitiously named the Strengthening Democracy Amendment Bill that did suggest limits to donations and in particular limits to secret donations. That didn’t proceed through its first reading, but this bill is related to that work, because last term when first I raised the issue of donations reform and was told repeatedly by various Ministers that it wasn’t a priority because it wasn’t an issue, something happened. Three of the five political parties in this Parliament got into some form of trouble around donations. It became clear that New Zealanders needed assurance that we are not beholden to big money, that we are not beholden to secret, big money, that the rules are clear and transparent, and that our democracy is functional. It was through that work that this bill came through. We heard from the public, and just last month we had the first, in the living MMP democracy, piece of comprehensive research delivered by Lisa Marriott and Max Rashbrooke into political donations in New Zealand. They spent a year interviewing the general secretaries of all of our political parties, big donors, members of Parliament past and present, and they came out with recommendations.
One of the findings that is in line with the accidental admission that Paul Goldsmith made earlier, is that the big donors did feel entitled to influence as a result of their donations. They said that in their interviews with the researchers. They said that they gained special access, through successive Governments, to Ministers, to leaders of the Opposition, and that it was expected that that would result in influence on policy. It’s on the record.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member is skating very close to contravening a number of Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings relating to imputing impropriety in the House. I just want the member to be very mindful of not making any allegations of impropriety within the context of this House and the Government.
GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Maureen Pugh: Including corruption.
GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: It’s not about what anyone in here did—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, no. Yes, the member is right; the word is “corruption”, but also the imputation of impropriety. I’m very happy to have a yarn with her later.
GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So I come back to the bill, a bill that aims to ensure that New Zealanders have trust in our system and that we know who is taking a stake in our democracy, and that if there is influence we at least know who they are. It is about transparency. But I will come back to that piece of research because it did recommend limits to secret donations—and the limit they proposed was in line with my bill; it was $1,500, not as high as this bill proposes so we’re not quite there yet—and it also suggested that we need limits on donations altogether. Actually, to say that we have this sort of gentlemen’s agreement where New Zealand doesn’t have that kind of political interference is one thing, but to leave us vulnerable to the kind of politics that has come about elsewhere in the world, like in the United States, because there has been no limit, means that that culture change is very much on the table here. It could happen here, and it may or not have in different ways, but we are vulnerable.
This bill is a good bill in that it at least acknowledges the problem. It acknowledges some of the research and acknowledges that the Electoral Commission came to the Justice Committee in the general election review and said that it’s really hard to investigate whether there have been donation breaches because the limit in terms of transparency is so high that people can slip donations and they just don’t know and can’t do it properly.
This bill makes it easier to enforce the law. It makes it easier for New Zealanders to know what’s in fact happening in terms of political donations, but it doesn’t go far enough in terms of what the research shows. One of the things that is left out is an actual limitation to donations. So we don’t have a limit. I don’t think most New Zealanders would expect that that would be the law. I hope that through the select committee process we hear from some of the researchers, some of the people who were involved in giving evidence to researchers, and some of the groups that came forward, and that that finding, that New Zealand’s democracy is still vulnerable, becomes more clear and we can engage more meaningfully with what those limits need to look like, not only in terms of transparency but in terms of getting big money out of our democracy altogether and coming back to the kind of accountability that democracy should be about. And that is accountability to voters, to communities whether or not they can afford $5,000, or $15,000, or $35,000, and whether they want to be on the record or not, it’s about those conversations. It’s about saying that actually beneficiaries, solo mums on the benefit, migrant workers, and the disability community all deserve the same level of influence in our politics as those big corporate donors that want to remain nameless and want a limitless stake in our democracy. I do commend the bill to the House.
NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to oppose this bill, the Electoral Amendment Bill. Before I get stuck in, so to speak, I’d just like to start off with something a bit more positive than what I’m going to end with, and that is to acknowledge the work of the Justice Committee, and also of the Minister who attended our select committee to answer questions, especially around the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) and other aspects of this bill. It was great to be able to have a Minister within the select committee available to answer our questions and our queries. I also would like to acknowledge the 42 submitters on this bill: 41 of them were for the bill itself, and, once the SOP came in, we actually had to go back out for submissions for which we received one. Out of those submissions we had nine people that appeared and gave us oral submissions as well.
But I have listened to some of the debate here this evening, and I do have to fight back, I guess, on some aspects of it. One member from the Labour Party said that this bill has proceeded in a normal way. I disagree that it’s proceeded in a normal way. In fact, I believe that it’s been rushed, because we are going through a process before a review has even been completed. We’re going through this process before we’re finishing the year off so it can be implemented before the next election. This is rushing law, but I guess when law is being rushed the way that it is recently, maybe it doesn’t feel like it if we give it an extra few days as opposed to trying to do it all in a week. It’s wrong that one party, having won in an election, is going about changing the electoral laws without the consensus of other parties, especially when we’re talking about electoral laws—changing it so that it advantages themselves but nobody else within the House. So I think that this is nothing more than a grudge bill. I mean, why else would you put this legislation through in such a shortened time, especially with that review that is due next year. I mean, what’s the hurry?
Harete Hipango: It’s become par for the course.
NICOLE McKEE: Yes, that’s right. It has become par for the course; under this Government it certainly has. But the hurry that we know is upon us is the 2023 election, and we can see why they’re trying to rush it through, because the writing is on the wall. Labour looks like they’re going to be out next year. The numbers are falling, they’re on their way. Perhaps they wondered, “How could we make electioneering difficult for the Opposition parties? I know, let’s say that people who do donate more than $5,000 to a political party only do it for political gain, and they need to be outed. We need to name them.” No doubt cancel them in the left woke wayward way that Labour chardonnay socialists like to do.
The current public disclosure threshold is $15,000. What political influence can be bought for $15,000? I’ve heard a member from the Green Party actually say that there is no accountability for anything over that, when there is. There always has been. She mentioned the word “corruption”. I just can’t see how any political party in New Zealand can be made corrupt by a $15,000 donation. And if Labour are worried about that figure—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Just stick to the bill. There are some certain phrases which are unparliamentary and shouldn’t be said in this House, because that could well lead to disorder.
NICOLE McKEE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. If one would be worried about a figure of $15,000 one should ask why—is this something of concern that a particular party may be alluding to? Perhaps they can’t raise $15,000 themselves in donations, and maybe the thought is that other parties should be restricted in that ability as well. But the way that this Government wants to, perhaps, out some of the donors is to name them. And the thing is, as well, if you’re raising funds within an electorate the figure now goes down to only $1,500 dollars.
There’s nothing that anyone is trying to hide in the Opposition parties. We want donors to be able to donate, to be able to do so lawfully, and also to be able to keep in confidence what they give to other political parties. Some may be donating to more than one party. Some may be donating a bit more to one party over another. They should not be outed over that. There’s nothing for anyone to hide here. We expect that private and confidential information should remain just that, because they are private people, because they don’t want to be stigmatised for their political support, because they don’t want to be closed, cancelled, or suffer potential retribution for the financial support that they offer, and because they have every right to their autonomy without fear of cancellation or retribution for who they wish to support in politics.
Perhaps they said, “Let’s make it harder for the volunteers that work in these Opposition parties; let’s make them report a whole lot more, because there is no real purpose for it, but let’s make it difficult for Opposition in 2023.” This bill touts that it’s all about transparency and improving it for the voters—for whom, and for what purpose? Is it for just two political parties that are currently sitting on the other side of the House who get the least amount of financial support to know and then potentially target funders of opposing parties? This bill means that people either won’t financially support or will not support the party of their choice because their rights to autonomy are eroded by this bill.
This bill restricts freedom of expression and party funding. Everyone loses here. I thought that the Government wanted more people to be involved and to participate in elections. If that’s the case, why are there restrictions being placed on them? Why delve into where and how people spend their hard-earned cash, the money they have in their pockets after the Government has taken their share of it?
People donate because they are free to do so here in New Zealand. It’s called democracy. Democracy has freedom of expression attached to it. Now this Government are wanting to put conditions on it, and when Minister Jackson told us democracy has changed, maybe this is what he was talking about. I’ll call it what it is; it’s a bill to try and defund the current Opposition parties from raising funds for the upcoming election. It’s been pushed through quickly so it’s in place for the 2023 election, and I believe it’s because Labour are very worried about their position.
Writing legislation so that the people’s choice can be corrected before the next election is wrong. If that’s not what the Government are doing, then support my SOP to amend the start date for reporting to 31 December 2023. I’ll bring it to the Table on Thursday. Think of the volunteers and the unnecessary work that is being placed on them heading into an election year. Prove and show to New Zealanders that this isn’t a bill about stopping the freedom of expression to play politics into the Government’s own hands, but a genuine attempt at transparency. They won’t because it’s not. It’s about damage control now that Labour know that they’re on their way out. It’s about damage control because Labour knows that the Opposition parties are better at fundraising than them and they want to try to reduce the flow of funding that will be advocating to get this Government out. Government interfering in people’s lives, interfering in their decisions—you used to stop at the front gate, now you’re going through the front door. The Government is going through the front door and not stopping at the gate. They are going into private homes. There is no adequate policy justification for this bill and there is no consensus across Parliament. Big Brother needs to get back out the gate and stay there.
ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s been a bit of funny business in this debate, and I will take us through what this bill actually does, because I feel a bit sorry for the punters at home who are a bit confused. But first, I want to offer the House some reflections. I’m a relatively new member, and I really enjoyed working in the Justice Committee and on this piece of legislation with Nicole McKee, who’s just spoken. I wanted to reflect upon this idea that she’s spoken about, about there not being consensus on this bill. Nicole McKee and I are people who try to find consensus; we love to get to get our heads together in select committee and think about the people out there who we are here to serve as parliamentarians, and to think about the good ideas that we can do, and the things that are holding people back and that we can take away. There’s nothing I love more than having those discussions with Nicole McKee, and finding consensus on that basis—this isn’t what this is.
Our emotions are high tonight because this is actually not about the people out there, is it? It’s about us. We are trying to have a discussion about consensus around this House, on something which affects us very personally. You know, if we tried to find consensus around this House on things that just affected us, we might get together and put our pay up; we might get together and give ourselves a really nice retirement package, or extend our benefits. Consensus around the House is about the people out there and the expectations of New Zealanders, on us, to serve them. It’s not about what suits us in an election year, and so I’m comfortable with the fact that this bill serves the interests of people out there. It gives them more confidence in our electoral system. It makes us stop and think about who is involved in politics in New Zealand, and those are good things. These are things that a brave Government advances, and I’m really happy to be able to commend this bill.
Now, my first point is something that the Hon Paul Goldsmith raised, which might be confusing everyone. He said New Zealanders can volunteer to give money or the Government seizes that money to give to political parties—that’s not what this bill is, is it? That’s not actually what we’re discussing in Parliament tonight. The Government is not seizing anyone’s money to give to political parties, and we’re not stopping people from volunteering anything. All this bill does is that it lowers the public disclosure threshold for donations and contributions to political parties from $15,000 to $5,000, which means that somebody giving over $5,000 simply needs to give their name, and we need to know who they are.
I heard one argument only advanced by the Hon Paul Goldsmith about why this would be a bad thing—why simply naming someone was so egregious. It was because of this idea that people don’t want their names published because the Government will take retribution. Now, in relation to corporate donors, I actually think it’s a good thing, and I think most New Zealanders do think it’s a good thing that around the board table everyone stops and says, “Oh, will this be a good look for us? Will it be a good look that we’re putting more than $5,000, more than $10,000, maybe more than $100,000, into a particular political party with a particular political persuasion and point of view? Will people like that; will our customers like that; will the people we serve like that? Will this do our brand any good?” That’s probably a conversation that I want them to have, and I think members on the other side have shown themselves who they are for when they come to this House and say, “Actually, no, we don’t want those conversations to happen. We should be able to have lots of money going into political parties which has no name attached to it.”
I think the ideas here are quite simple—that people deserve to know who is involved. In the Labour Party, that means that when we get door knockers along to volunteer for us—when they put up their signs—their names, their faces: they’re all known. You cannot volunteer for a political party in that way without putting yourself out there, putting your credibility on the line, and thinking to yourself, “Is this a good look that I’m involved with this party? Do I want people in my community; my neighbourhood, my neighbours to know that I’m aligned with this political party?” You have to make those calls. There’s no way that you can do that anonymously, and there’s no way that you can give more of your labour than 40 hours a week. But in a situation where we have people giving large amounts of money without their names attached to it, they have a huge advantage over those people who put themselves out there with their names and their faces. I think that should be evened up for the good of transparency and people knowing who’s involved in politics.
I want us to find consensus on these issues. I do think it’s important that we agree on really important principles like this. But I am comfortable with us setting a very sensible threshold of $5,000 for this kind of disclosure, and that’s why I commend this bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Simon Watts—five minutes.
SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I tell you what: listening to that speech from a fellow classmate of the class of 2020, Arena Williams—who is, I’m sure, a well-meaning MP for the electorate of Manurewa and does a lot of good work in that electorate—definitely reinforced that they’ve been drinking the cordial. They’ve been drinking the cordial on that side of the House in terms of why this bill is such an amazing bill. I’ll be honest, I haven’t touched that cordial, but I can tell you that when I’m looking at this bill, it’s very clear that this is just another one of these bills that is looking for a problem.
The articulation from the prior member in regards to what this bill is trying to do in trying to make sure that people are making donations that are fully disclosed—well, there is a threshold. Any donation over $15,000 is publicly disclosed, right? So we’re not talking about people being able to make political donations in this country that aren’t disclosed; we’ve simply got a Labour Party electoral amendment bill that is looking to move this threshold down from 15 grand to five grand.
We can navel-gaze a lot around whether that is appropriate or not, and around disclosure and transparency and all of that, but, as the Minister articulated in the opening statements around this bill, the purpose of this bill—the purpose—is to improve trust and confidence in Government. Well, oh well, I tell you what, for anyone who’s been watching Parliament TV in the last four hours, you might have seen a few other bills that have come through this House which pretty much appease and epitomise that contrast around why this Government cannot be trusted in regards to protecting our democracy. So I just simply do not buy it that the true intent of this bill is to try and increase trust in the population of hard-working Kiwis in our democracy—what a load of rubbish. A load of rubbish—absolute rubbish—and it’s pretty clear when you look at this that that is the case.
The other thing is some of the amendments—which is another element of the bill—around the reporting requirements for donations exceeding $30,000, and they’re wanting to reduce that to $20,000. Again, this isn’t going to make any material impact in regards to disclosure. I think there was a degree of consensus in the Justice Committee around the time period in which disclosure of information should be made—absolutely. There is agreement. Getting disclosure into the public arena at pace is something that I understand all parties at the select committee agreed on.
But moving these thresholds is, in our view, not going to fix a problem which we face in this country, and, heck, don’t we have a lot of problems in this country today, right? I don’t know if anyone at home is thinking, “You know what? In terms of the top three issues that are on the West Coast, or the top three issues on the North Shore or in Invercargill”—[Interruption] Is the Electoral Amendment Bill, Penny Simmonds, among the top three issues in Invercargill?
Penny Simmonds: It’s not featuring.
SIMON WATTS: No, it’s not featuring at all, because it’s not, is it?
Arena Williams and I—we’re going to get consensus and agreement. Surely, we can agree that this isn’t a top three issue or top five issue, and it’s not going to improve trust and confidence in Government. The actions that a Government takes are the things that build trust. The reality is that Kiwis across this country will make an assessment around trust in this Government, as they do every three years in this democracy, and that will be wholeheartedly based on what this Government has delivered, not on whether they have implemented the Electoral Amendment Bill and changed the threshold for public donations from 15 grand to five grand. I’m chuckling under my breath, but it is a reality that this is actually something that we’re seriously pushing through off the back of the significant issues that our country faces.
So National opposes this bill. It’s a waste of time. We don’t think it’s going to make any impact, and I don’t think we can do much more categorically on that. I’m looking forward to the next speaker on our behalf—Simon O’Connor—who will no doubt bring a lot more comprehension to this because he’s on the select committee. But at that, we do not commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Dr Duncan Webb—five minutes.
Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s always good to take a call unexpectedly when the Māori Party choose not to speak on a matter, which I must say I find unusual given the importance of this. This is a simple bill, and the crux of it is that there are two kinds of donations: there are open donations that everyone knows about, and there are secret donations, and we want to shift the needle away from secret donations and towards open and transparent donations. Given the noise that comes from the other side of the House on transparency, I’m surprised that they’re so vociferously opposed to this bill—draw your own conclusions. We support this bill.
WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour—Northland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I too will just take a short call on this. I have been listening to the contributions in the House this evening, and it is really concerning me, actually, that there’s such, I think—as the previous speaker just said—vociferous opposition to this. So what is it that they are worried about? I think, as the member that just sat down said, you can draw your own conclusions.
I want to just highlight, you know, one of the reasons for doing this was the public support that there is for making these changes. One of the earlier contributions was that this is hardly the most important issue on people’s radars right now—and that is true, there are much bigger issues out there facing our country and we are dealing with those too. But there is public support for what is proposed in this bill and I just want to highlight that a survey undertaken by Victoria University of Wellington in 2021 found that almost 70 percent of respondents indicated they did not have a reasonable amount of trust in party funding.
The Ministry of Justice undertook public and targeted consultations from 3 December 2021 to 21 January 2022, and the feedback from the consultation generally supported the changes to the Electoral Act to increase transparency. And the committee received 42 submissions, the majority of which were supportive of the bill’s objective to support the delivery of, and participation in, elections to maintain public trust and confidence in our electoral system. I commend this bill to the House.
SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): The left wing, once again, are trying to screw the electoral scrum. If you want to take only one lesson away from me tonight, it’s that the left wing are so quaking in their boots that they are ramming, once again, through Parliament a piece of law to try and assure that they can win the election next year. And the thing is, the lefties on the other side—looking all a bit confused, that’s normal, too. They’ve got form in this space because old Helen Clark—sorry, that was not meant to be an age-related thing, it was just a phrase—tried this with electoral finance eight years ago. In fact, it was the first protest I was ever involved with. The Labour Party and its Green mates have form when it comes to screwing the electoral scrum. So what—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member is skating close to impugning or suggesting improper motive. Equally, a couple of members across this side of the House have done the same thing. I won’t take any more of it.
SIMON O’CONNOR: So the left wing don’t want New Zealanders to exercise one of their most fundamental rights, which is the right to privacy. The thing about the right to privacy is one should be able to donate to the political parties of their choice without harassment. I’m going to put out the suggestion, which, hopefully, is not an imputation, but there’s form again on the left wing to harass, cancel, deplatform, and discourage those they disagree with. By lowering these thresholds to an arbitrary number, I might suggest, an arbitrary number, they are more than happy to try and dissuade New Zealanders from donating to any parties of their choice other than, of course, the Labour or the Green Party. They’re very, very happy with that. They have very good friends in the union movement, which, obviously, can provide financial but often non-financial incentives. I personally think, again, without impugning my left-wing colleagues, they would be very happy for us to be moving towards complete State funding—complete State funding—once again, removing an ability of democratic society to actually contribute to the extent they wish to the political parties of their choice.
Now, let me be really, really clear. I do not want to see a system that we see in the likes of the United States or other countries where you can donate enormous amounts of money with basically no oversight. I’m actually relatively comfortable with current New Zealand law. Personally, I think dropping the thresholds from $15,000 to $5,000 is not going to achieve any greater transparency or trust. As I said earlier, I think it’s arbitrary. I’ve heard other speeches from the other side, “Oh, well, it’s not too bad.” But why not make it $1? Why not flush out every single New Zealander who dares—who dares—to give money to a political party other than the Labour or the Green Party? Why not a dollar? In fact, could I make the suggestion, because we’re now looking at $5,000—I might be making a bit of a mockery of the $1 thing, but of course with current inflation, $5,000 ain’t going to be worth that much in a few months’ time. It just doesn’t make sense.
The other element, and actually two elements I might touch on is around this whole trust and transparency side of things. If you look at our current electoral laws, particularly around donations, it’s actually working. It’s actually working. The parties know the system, the individuals donating know the system. In fact, you would argue—I would, certainly—the courts are working. They are rightly hauling up, catching those people involved. That’s a positive thing. In fact, if I wanted to make a suggestion to Government and future Governments, it’s actually begin to look at foreign funds which get funnelled into this country in different ways, not the Kiwis trying to donate a little bit of money to the political party of their choice.
But trust and transparency would start, one might suggest, if actually—I actually don’t know the answer to this question, but I know when this whole process started, and, by the way, as context even to the second reading, the Government went out to consult around electoral law changes. They went out to consult and then they slipped this bill in before the consultation. They’re trying to tweak the bill before the consultation properly finished. I’m not sure how that fits “trust and transparency”. The answer to my wider question too is I believe the Labour Party and maybe the Greens, maybe other parties, refused to release their submissions to the Ministry of Justice. Now, they may have done so now—I suspect not because of the silence and the head bows—but just because so many members have talked about trust and transparency, let’s put it really clearly on the record: the Labour Party refused to release its submission to the Ministry of Justice on this bill, which they wax lyrical about being trust and transparent. And then, if we want to keep belabouring that point, which may be a terrible pun, to belabour the point, we just had a constitutional outrage in this House, a constitutional outrage which cuts to the heart of the trust and transparency of this Government.
But of course, this is more about money and also voting age, as the Speaker has rightly pointed out. Fundamentally, the right to privacy means, in my view and I think the National Party view, that New Zealanders have that right to be able to donate a certain degree of money without fear of any harassment or anything else—anything else. We can certainly debate where that line is and I think fundamentally, fundamentally, that’s where I see this debate tonight. I have not heard anyone in this House, and certainly not myself, arguing for open slather. But to drop it so low, so low, is very much, as I suggested, a means to bring about an end which is not healthy to the democracy of New Zealand.
Fundamentally, too, I suspect we will see further changes in the future if a left-wing Government maintains its power in this country, God forbid. However, despite having been so heavy and negative, there is one bouquet to give to the Government, and that is the aspect of this law which addresses overseas voting. Citizens now can be away for six years—please come home, we desperately need you; we have a crisis everywhere and we need you back in this country. People on permanent residence up to four years—same message to you as permanent residents: we desperately need you in our hospitals, prisons, you name it; come back home. Wages are terrible, inflation terrible, but we’re still nice people—and National is going to win the 2023 election.
But that is a positive that we’re doing the overseas voting. That is a positive. It’s something actually that this side of the House has called for for quite a lot of time. In fact, I think a number of parties across the House have called for it—including, I think, the Green Party as well. So it’s good to see that this is finally here. But for those at home, do not be caught out by those on the left and those in Government talking to you about this bill and how wonderful it is because of overseas voting. It’s an attempt, somewhat, to pull the wool over one’s eyes, because fundamentally this is an attempt to undermine the ability of New Zealanders to easily and freely donate to a certain degree, to a certain degree, the moneys they wish.
Finally, and fundamentally, I don’t think this is going to really make, at one level, a lick of difference to trust and transparency, which again seems to be the supposed fundamental driver to this. I don’t see how New Zealanders are going to feel things are more trusted and transparent around this. I think they’re just going to find their ability to participate in the democratic systems that we have even harder. I do want to finish by stressing that—even harder. Because things which have happened in this country over the last, arguably, five years, but certainly 2.5 years, have done enormous damage to our democracy. I’m not going to go through them, as that would not be appropriate on the second reading. But our democracy has been damaged in many, many ways by this Government, and this bill is just one more dangerous little nail. Thank you.
HELEN WHITE (Labour): It’s a pleasure to take the last call on this matter. I wasn’t on the Justice Committee, and I’ve listened to these speeches, really, with very fresh eyes, and I’m really disappointed in what I’ve heard from the Opposition. What I’ve heard is accusations of things like a lack of freedom of expression because you can’t put your cash on the table at $15,000 without putting your name on it. I’ve heard accusations of wokeness, and I’ve heard accusations of left-wingness, which apparently is some sort of crime.
This isn’t a communist plot; this is something that cuts both ways. This is all about democracy and transparency. This is something that everybody should be supporting in this House today, because $5,000 is a lot of money. And, quite frankly, if I was a person sitting out listening to this, I’d be thinking, “Do I want to know that my politician is being supported by, perhaps, Shell Oil, or they’re supported by the National Rifle Association, or they are supported by, perhaps, even the unions? I want to know those things because they’re the context.” And, yes, there is an attempt here to prevent some of the soft lobbying that can happen. It’s a very insidious thing when somebody gives you $5,000. It’s actually quite a thing, and we want to know. Actually, our voters want to know that kind of thing. And, yes, it’s a pain in the neck writing out all that information for people when we are bringing down the amount, but it’s very, very important because our democracy is actually quite delicate.
That is something that struck me over many years—that we often think that we are safer than we are in our democracy. It’s this sort of thing, this sort of adjustment, that makes the difference. It is something we can get complacent about. I, for one, don’t want to be complacent.
I like this piece of law because it’s sensible. I don’t believe that privacy is something that we should be so concerned about when people are actually donating $5,000 or $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000 or $30,000—I’d want to know that if I was a voter. I’m glad we’re going to know that.
I’m glad we’re including the people from overseas who’ve been outside of the country but have a very real stake in it. I’m glad we’re doing that before the election. I’m glad we’re doing this. And I hope that this kind of thing, which has got nothing to do with being left-wing or right-wing—it’s got to do with being democratic and aware that we’re in a world where people trust each other less and less when it comes to this sort of thing. It’s got to do with being democratic. This is an important, fundamental step, and I’m proud to support this bill. I commend it to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 74
New Zealand Labour 64; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.
Noes 40
New Zealand National 30; ACT New Zealand 10.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Bills
Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): I present a legislative statement on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I move, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
I want to address my thanks to the members of the Health Committee, chaired by my colleague Tangi Utikere, and to all those involved in this process, which included almost 2,000 written submissions from the public, including 84 submitters who made an oral submission to the committee. I want to acknowledge that the committee did not significantly change the bill. In the final report, the committee recommended that the bill proceed with a limited number of amendments, including setting the number of retail outlets allowed to sell tobacco and including the nicotine concentration in the primary legislation. In addition to those amendments, I am also proposing minor amendments based on advice from the Ministry of Health for further clarity, transparency, and consistency of the bill.
It is not every day that members get to vote on legislation that is as lifesaving, as life extending, and as life changing as this bill. This legislation will help us save thousands of lives a year. There are 4,500 people who die of tobacco in New Zealand each year. It is our leading preventable cause of death. That is not even overselling what a difference it will make for people. We have the chance once and for all to take control of a product so deadly that it kills half the people that use it. Even COVID or the 1918 influenza pandemic cannot compete with the death toll that tobacco exacts on our people. There are many families who have lost an aunt, an uncle, a grandma, a grandfather, a brother, a sister, or parents to smoking. Many whānau are missing members who never got to live to old age and who died earlier than they should have. Tobacco has done no good whatsoever, and we have the chance to get rid of it.
Today, all MPs in this House have the chance to stand on the right side of history, but time and time again parties in this House have slowed, voted against, halted, and blocked action to tackle tobacco, and this has been going on for decades. In this House in 1990, Opposition health spokesperson at the time Don McKinnon claimed that New Zealand’s first piece of smoke-free legislation, the Smoke-free Environments Act of 1990, was an assault on freedoms, it was anti-employer, anti-worker, and it might destroy jobs. He said that a National Government would ensure that the bill did not survive.
The bill did survive, and so did many New Zealanders whose lives were prolonged as a result. The National Party have been making the same tired old arguments for decades. They claimed back then that legislation to stop smoking would destroy New Zealand hospitality businesses. Well, what’s changed in hospitality? It’s going from strength to strength—you just come home from a night out without your clothes smelling of smoke. That doesn’t stop them from making these repetitive arguments.
Now, we move to control the number of retail settings in which tobacco can be sold. Independent studies—and I’m not talking about those published by Imperial Tobacco in our media lately—show that only a tiny percentage of sellers’ profits, less than 5 percent, comes from tobacco. That’s why around the country many retailers are leading the way by ditching tobacco and going smoke-free, like in Northland where 25 retailers have taken the step to stop selling tobacco. Most of them recommend other retailers follow their lead. The vast majority of tobacco-free retailers, 88 percent, experienced a neutral or positive financial impact from ditching tobacco.
I believe that it is our duty as legislators to pass laws and take actions that save the lives of New Zealanders, and I know it is my duty as a doctor and a member of this House to bring proposals here that will save lives. Dr Reti, now is not the time for arguing about the evidence or delaying these proposals—lives are on the line. Vote for this bill or renounce your oath. This legislation will reduce the burden on our health system. It will reduce numerous types of cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and amputations.
Cigarettes are products that the tobacco industry has engineered to be so addictive that it overwhelms the will of people who know they are dying from them, and they can’t give up the very product that is about to cut their life short. This is what addiction does to people; there is so much human misery caused by it. If I reflect on the people I have met who have been trapped by tobacco: unable to walk to their letterbox because their lungs were so damaged, people who have lost their limbs because of tobacco, mothers who have been unable to hold their babies in their arms because tobacco smoking meant that their child had to be taken to neonatal intensive care, people who have had cancers, who have had repeated surgeries. There is absolutely no good that comes from this product.
I hope members of this House fulfil their duty to the people of New Zealand to serve in their best interest and vote for the good of our health system and the good health of our people. In 1990, the Smoke-free Environments Act was world leading. Today, the smoked tobacco amendment bill is again world leading. Everyone in this House has the opportunity to free the next generation and everyone that comes after from the burden of disease and premature death that comes from smoked tobacco. I am proud to be a part of that, and so is this Government. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Dr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I certainly enjoyed the virtue signalling from that member, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall—“Now, let’s get pragmatic. Now, let’s talk about what can be deployed.” How interesting it is that what she’ll actually find out is that, of the three operative actions in the bill, we’re actually supporting them all—just changing the timing. So it’s kind of ironic to say that we’re not in favour of what’s being put on the table here. It’s just the timing and what’s actually going to work—amongst other things. Let’s remember, National supports nicotine reduction. We support these smoke-free goals—we created them, for goodness’ sake!
Before we get to the crux of this bill, here’s some context because this is a second reading and we should reflect back on what happened in select committee. The Health Committee received 1,965 written submissions—1,194 of them, the majority, were from small business and community retailers. There were 84 oral submissions. The select committee went to Wellington and to Auckland to hear them. I want to thank everyone who submitted. But here for the first time in the Health Committee’s hands, we see the heavy hand of the health reforms centralising everything to Wellington. Because, I ask you, where are the local public health unit submissions? Go back and look over previous vaping and smoking legislation and look at the submissions f rom the public health units, those local units that represent the view and the experience of the small communities.
In fact, it’s kind of ironic to hear the member before me talk about the Northland example, considering they weren’t allowed to submit. Why weren’t they allowed to submit? Because, now, under these health reforms, all advocacy for legislation of this type has to go through Health New Zealand. Oh, and while we’re talking about it, look back at the second-hand smoking in cars. Where did that come from? Well, that actually came from Northland school children through the Northland Cancer Society and through the Northland public health unit. There’s no voice for them here in this bill, because under these health reforms, advocacy on bills like this now all has to go through Health New Zealand. So what did they end up doing? What did the public health unit advocate and—at what was previously the Northland District Health Board—end up doing? Putting the bill in her personal name—how disgraceful is that? Representing the community and to avoid the sanitisation, if you like, from Health New Zealand to this bill, she had to put it forward in her personal name. Here is the heavy hand of the health reforms and centralisation showing itself to the Health Committee. Those voices are now lost.
National will not be supporting this bill as we have concerns that, of the three initiatives, many are untried and some of them are indeed, in our view, just virtue signalling. We are also very concerned that small community retailers are the sacrifice for this virtue signalling. Let’s break it down then and look at the three smoke-free initiatives. The smoke-free generation: effectively, untried and not widely deployed. Denicotinisation: now, this we do support; it is modelled, and it is modelled on implementing the greatest impact. Studies have shown up to 70 percent product acceptance and, at 20 weeks, 50 percent reduction in cigarettes per day. I think this is something—certainly as the modelling shows—that could do the heavy lifting towards the objectives that we’re talking about. I’ll come back to this, and I am aware that there have been differences in opinion around the effects or the benefits, particularly, of denicotinisation, and I have weighed them up in this submission and in the proposals that we will make. Retail reduction: this is where the rubber really hits the tarmac, because this is who pays the price for this virtue signalling. Retailers, small businesses, and community dairies pay the price for Labour’s virtue signalling. The price they pay is a reduction from 6,000 to 600 retailers.
Where did that number come from, this magic 600? Well, it’s clearly 10 percent. What is the science behind the 10 percent if anyone can tell me? No one could bring it to select committee. How was that 10 percent selected? They just put a finger in the air and took a guess. And who pays for that guess? It’s the small community retailers. There was no science—there is no science—around that reduction number. And at a time when small retailers are hurting—desperately hurting—and marching in the streets because they’re being ram-raided and because they have burglaries, this Government puts the knife in, this Government says, “We will now reduce your ability to earn a livelihood; we will cut your ability to retail cigarettes and smoking products from 6,000 retailers down to 600.” They’re already on their knees, and now this Government pushes them down on to their face with very little thought for their own ethereal virtue-signalling that this is a good thing to do. In fact, if we want to look at what the Minister actually said about this, she said when she spoke to the Health Committee on 28 September that compared to denicotinisation, retail reduction “has much uncertainty about it.”—much uncertainty. And yet this Government will proceed with retail reduction first off in 2024 on numbers that cannot be scientifically evidenced. In fact, in that presentation to the Health Committee, the Minister alluded that retail reduction was simply easier to do, and that’s why it was being implemented first. Well, good luck telling retailers who will lose their livelihood that they’re kicking off first because it was easier to do. That is not a rational scientific argument at all.
During the select committee stage, we raised the question of snus and why that wasn’t being considered, because we needed to explain to New Zealanders that we’d thought of all the tools in the tool box. And if you look at the Scandinavian experience, it has been a significant contributor. We were told, no, it’s currently illegal. Well, that’s an observation, not persuasive reasoning. The unanswered question is: why was this apparently effective treatment not considered further? It’s been determined it’s illegal. We can likewise determine it is not illegal. We think this should have been considered further and is a missed opportunity.
The black market received much discussion through the select committee, with a range of views. I think everyone would agree that there will be, from all of these three initiatives, some impact on the black market, on the illegal market, for cigarettes. And that range varied significantly, but I think everyone does agree that there will be an impact on that. It’s also been raised with me that we should be paying attention to the recently changing volumes of loose tobacco and what that might say about the impact of this bill and the impact of the illegal market.
As we said when the Minister challenged us to be a part of this, we’re not actually going to oppose, at this point, the three operative initiatives in this bill—which are retail reduction, which are denicotinisation, and the smoke-free generation—but we do disagree with the timing of them. We disagree significantly with the timing of them, and that’s why we’re going to vote against this, because they’re going to sacrifice retailers, first of all, when there is much uncertainty, much unknown. The first out of the breach are the retailers. They’re the ones who are going to pay the price for this virtue signalling.
So we have an alternative plan, one that we actually put to the Minister in a bipartisan approach. We said, “Minister, would you entertain,“—go back and look at the transcript—“that maybe we denicotinise first.” And she said, “Oh, the member wants to go hard and fast.” I’m happy to be ambitious for this. I’m happy to go hard and fast. And speaking with manufacturers, I do believe that we can denicotinise first and just maybe we reach the goal just with that. The modelling suggests 85 percent of the heavy lifting will be done with denicotinisation. So why are we throwing retailers under the bus first off? Maybe what we should actually be doing is doing that first, deploying it, and then watching and seeing if it has the effect that we’re expecting it would and if it actually meets the modelling. Why don’t we do that?
And then if you recall, to select committee, retailers said, “If this was going to happen, we would need two years to actually do a transition period where we could maybe move to new business models.”—some of the things that the member has talked about. Well, why don’t we give them that opportunity? Why don’t we denicotinise and, over that two-year period, give retailers the chance to change their business model? And at the same time, let’s see if denicotinisation has done everything that was promised. This is the suggestion, and this is why we’re opposing this at this reading, because we put this to the Minister and she wasn’t interested. We were prepared to collaborate with a bipartisan approach. In fact, we were prepared to say that if denicotinisation fails after an observation period, then maybe we would have to look at retail reduction and then maybe the smoke-free generation, even though the modelling shows they do a very small part. Again, all the heavy lifting is done with denicotinisation. We proposed this, and the Minister wasn’t interested, so we brought collaboration to the table.
The other thing that I want to talk about is vaping. Vaping is tightened up in this bill, and this is a good thing, recognising that vaping is having the hoped-for impact on adult smokers, particularly with recently encouraging figures. I think that’s a good thing. We do, however, recognise the concern that parents, schools, and communities are expressing around underage vaping and the helplessness that they feel. Vaping in young people has tripled, and while some have said, “Don’t worry; there’s minimal harm, but look at the benefit it is doing for their parents.” I think the National Party shares the concerns of parents and communities, and we’ll propose Supplementary Order Papers that require the proximity of other specialist vape retailers to be taken into account when new licences are issued, and increased monitoring and compliance of underage use and access.
National supports nicotine reduction. We have an alternative plan that will not savage, cannibalise, and run retailers into the ground. We put it to the Minister. We were prepared to collaborate. She wasn’t interested. We have a plan.
TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise as the chair of the Parliament’s Health Committee to speak in support of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill.
Can I acknowledge the leadership of Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall in this particular space, who is prepared to save lives rather than put an additional life at risk. So I want to place on the record the acknowledgment of the Minister’s leadership in this space. Can I also thank colleagues on the Health Committee, committee staff, the officials from the Ministry of Health who provided a huge level of support for us, the team at Parliamentary Counsel Office, and also the submitters.
Nearly 2,000 submitters throughout New Zealand took the opportunity to share their views, their perspectives with the select committee. We did hear some evidence in oral form from 84 submitters and we also had two subcommittees that were set up to hear those, and I want to acknowledge the deputy chair of the committee, Dr Tracey McLellan, who also assisted in chairing one of those subcommittees.
When we started this process, we heard from a number of individuals such as Hone Harawira, and also Tau Henare, who encouraged the select committee to go out into the communities and hear directly from the people for whom this will make a huge difference. So we did. We went to South Auckland and we sat down for the better part of a day and we heard from the community there. Chlöe Swarbrick, who’s been part of this process, gave her apologies for that—couldn’t be in two places at once—but when other Labour members of that subcommittee turned up, not a single National member of Parliament fronted to that community in South Auckland to hear the submissions that those people wanted to make. Not a single member of the National Party turned up to listen to communities. They did not even bother to turn up. I think that is absolutely appalling—absolutely appalling.
So I just think that the suggestion that the National Party will support three of the mechanisms or vehicles is nothing but a low shot and an easy opt-out. When members of this House are not prepared to listen to community members and organisations—people like Catherine Manning, who I see is in the gallery, who has taken time to submit to this process—it is absolutely an indictment on how the National Party view this particular bill and piece of legislation.
I want to just touch on some of the changes that were made as a result of this bill going through the Health Committee. One was a limit to the number of retail premises, and that’s contained in new section 20M in clause 13. Now, initially the advice was a suggestion that the number could actually be set by way of secondary legislation in regulations. We heard overwhelmingly from those oral submissions that they would far prefer to have an element of certainty and that the number or limit should be specified in legislation. That’s one change that the select committee is recommending. That responds to the views that were expressed by submitters and also provides that certainty.
The committee also made some changes in terms of specifying the level that would assist with denicotisation, and that level, based on advice, is 0.8 micrograms per gram in an individual smoked tobacco product. You’ll find that at new section 57H in clause 31.
The issue of enforcement and responsibility for non-compliance is something, and where we landed, in terms of the committee’s report, was at a place which was consistent with other pieces of legislation, including within this space, and also the requirement for the burden of proof of reasonable excuse resting with the defendant and no one else.
One other addition that the select committee turned its mind to was one of reviewing the provisions within this piece of legislation. And so the select committee has recommended inserting new Subpart 7, in clause 52, which would, effectively, require the Ministry of Health to undertake a review of aspects of this piece of legislation to ensure that it’s working as is intended, and there would be a requirement for it to be reported back to the Parliament via the relevant Minister.
I’ll conclude by saying that this is a piece of legislation that will save lives, and I am just dumbfounded that members opposite are not willing to step up and do something in that space. We heard from a submitter from Te Rōpu Tupeka Kore—and I’ll conclude with this. The submitter said that pāua shells are a whakapapa species; they’re not ashtrays, and isn’t it sad that we currently have a community for whom the whakapapa species is known as ashtrays? It’s time that we did something about this, because it is hurting our Māori and our Pasifika communities. This bill will address that. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Before I call the next speaker, can I just reflect to all the members in this House that the reference to members not being in this particular House also refers to when members do not attend select committee. I call on Harete Hipango.
HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The debate in the House has been rather enlightening this evening.
I don’t intend it to be any pun, but with the lighting up of this discussion, it’s certainly triggered a lot of memories. My parents were smokers; my mother died of lung cancer. During the course of mum’s lifetime, she attempted to give up smoking, and she did. And she made the conscientious decision to do so without any medical intervention.
Now, I am saying that that was her experience. My father, who was Māori, was a smoker also for most of his lifetime. Intermittent periods of giving up smoking without medicinal, medical support. It was mind over matter for them.
What was the driving factor for them to finally terminate a lifelong commitment to smoking was for them to be around a lot longer for their mokopuna. So what I’m saying is the motivating driving factor for everybody is different.
To stand in this House and speak after sitting and listening to members across the House criticise my colleague Dr Shane Reti—who has been a medical practitioner of a number of decades, dedicated to saving lives—and suggesting for a moment that he doesn’t prioritise the importance of saving lives and also to suggest that the National Party is of that same standing and mind, is, quite frankly, galling.
Also to hear the suggestion that the National Party members did not front to a public meeting. To put it in context, two of my colleagues—only two of 11—sit on the Health Committee. So the expectation that two members can be everywhere when necessary is not an indication.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): If I could just remind the member: before I called her, I did actually say there was a Speaker’s ruling about referring to members of select committee and their absences. Can we please move on. Make a different point.
HARETE HIPANGO: Madam Speaker, noted. In saying that, the committee process—I was not a member of the Health Committee—this bill, which is the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill, was referred to the committee on 26 July, 2022. There were some 1,927—although my colleague Dr Reti indicated 1,965, and if that’s the case, the record needs to be amended in terms of what’s been submitted back to the House—made submissions, and there was oral evidence heard from 84 submitters.
Now, the National Party has filed a minority view, which Dr Reti has spoken to at some detail. Not having been privy to the detail of that select committee, but I am privy and do know that the champion for Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 is a relation of mine, Dame Tariana Turia. And driving this campaign with her at the time—back in, I believe the bill passed its first reading back in December 2010—were champions and continue to be champions.
But I am also aware that there comes a time, too, when: how much does the Government take responsibility for driving these health matters? How much more investment does the Government put into people’s lives in driving and determining what is best for them?
I started this speech by referring to my parents both as smokers. They made a determination, they made a choice—without Government intervention—to decide what was the most compelling factor for them during their lifetime, and it was their grandchildren.
I won’t talk further to this bill. My colleague has outlined in the minority view the differing view, and there will be colleagues who did sit on that select committee talk further to it. I commend the bill to the House.
Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to also make a contribution on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill tonight at this second reading.
Like colleagues previously, I would like to very sincerely and warmly commend the Associate Minister of Health, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall, for being the person who has been bold enough and had the foresight to tackle what is, essentially, a wicked problem. I’d also like to acknowledge the members of the Health Committee, a committee that I’m very proud and pleased to be on, and I thank all of the submitters who took the time to make submissions. Most of the submissions were really informative. There was a wide range of submissions. There were submissions from all over the world. There were submissions from academics who had dedicated their life to looking at smoking cessation and addiction, who were up in the middle of the night to do their five or 10 minutes on Zoom so that they could be part of what they described as a truly innovative and bold piece of legislation, going through our Parliament in a world-first context.
When I think about smoking and the relationship that I’ve had with smoking for almost as long as I can remember, one of my earliest memories is coming home, opening the back door to the cloud of smoke that would fill the family home, stealing cigarettes to the shed and at primary school, and practising smoking because we thought that was just something that everybody aspired to. If you were going to do it, you may as well do it properly and learn how to do that drawback as quickly as possible.
To one of my early working experiences, working at Telecom in the 1980s—it wasn’t the 1950s or the 1960s; it was the 1980s—there was a black ashtray on all of the desks. It was around about that time that at least you had to go to a separate room to have your cigarette break. To flying to Australia when I was 18, my first time going overseas, and the smoking section was roughly in the middle of the plane so that it distributed toxins evenly to everybody throughout that travel. I suppose that the point I’m trying to make is that the world being any different, smoking being any different, to what it was in front of me seemed like an impossibility. It seemed like it would be something that would always be part of our everyday life.
I remember working in a bar when the law was changed so that people couldn’t smoke at bars and we literally had strategic plans in place for how we were going to deal with the downturn, which never happened—absolutely never happened. There’s always going to be those arguments put in front of us to say why we shouldn’t do something that’s bold and innovative, but when we weigh up those arguments against the sheer numbers of lives that are saved and the sheer number of people whose quality of life would be improved, then there simply is no contest.
When we’re dealing with complex behaviours, which we always are when we’re looking at something in relation to addiction, there must be a multi-prong response, and that’s why there’s three pieces to this legislation—three legs, so to speak. Cues and reasons why people do things aren’t the same for everybody.
So the fact that there will be a smoke-free generation, which, again, is revolutionary, the fact that we will be reducing the number of outlets and the supply, all of which provides visual clues for people—and it’s no coincidence that a lot of those outlets are clustered in lower socio-economic areas as well—and the ability to reduce the nicotine in cigarettes all adds up to a cocktail, so to speak, of remedies for tackling what is an atrocious situation in this country, in terms of smoking.
So I’d like to, again, say that this bill represents an opportunity for us, in this House, to do something that’s actually profound. It’s not always often that we get to do something that’s profound. It’s world-leading; it’s something we should be proud of. I commend this bill to the House.
CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. It’s a pleasure to stand on behalf of the Green Party on the second reading of this legislation tonight, and I just want to acknowledge, as others have, the Minister for bringing this legislation before the House. I also want to acknowledge the Health Committee, for indulging me; and also the officials, who were incredible; an impeccable display of—again, indulging many questions from members’ scattergun approach of just canvassing every single thing that came out of submitters and submissions, effectively to ensure that we were getting the most robust and most tested version of legislation possible. And there have been a number of changes that have been made to this legislation throughout that select committee process, and I’ll get to those in a minute, because that select committee process was—as others have alluded to—quite profound. It was incredibly profound to hear from community members who have been directly impacted by losing loved ones as a result of this product of tobacco, but also to hear from many public health experts and advocates, and those who work in cessation treatment—and I want to acknowledge the many who are in the gallery tonight.
But I also really want to acknowledge one of the many tamariki who came in front of our committee—the committee that I was subbed in to—to express her aspirations for the future of Aotearoa. And I promised her that I would read this in the second reading, so here it is, from a few months ago. This is Tiger who came with her mum to submit to us at select committee. And she said, and I read from her declaration to our Health Committee, “Tēnā koutou katoa. My name is Tiger. I really want tobacco to get out of Aotearoa because it is bad for our whānau. It is bad for their lungs and their heart. My nanny died from smoking tobacco. I miss her so much. That’s why I want them out of the shops and out of Aotearoa. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.” That’s kind of the point; that’s why we’re doing this.
And I also want to acknowledge some of the good-faith interactions that I think have been demonstrated by some members of the Opposition. However, I would like to see them extend that same logic that they throw out around evidence-based approaches and concerns about the black market to other substances that they’re very happy to hand control over to the unregulated black market. Because when we’re talking about substances, whether they be cannabis or alcohol or tobacco, you’re, effectively, provided with a spectrum of different regulatory opportunities which we in this House have the opportunity to legislate for. On one end, you have a complete commercial free market, and, on the other end, you have complete criminal prohibition. And at both ends of that extreme, without interventions for harm reduction and recognising the fact that we aren’t going to completely eradicate some of these substances from planet Earth—because by God, we’ve been trying for the past few decades and ratcheting up penalties as a result of that trying, throwing more and more people in prison and not getting any better outcomes. At both ends of that spectrum, what you see is the maximisation of harm. That can really be whittled down to an equivalence of—whether it is in the complete, free legal market or under complete criminal prohibition, you have entities, whether they are commercial entities or criminal entities, who are operating from an incentive to exploit vulnerable communities in order to make a quick buck. How do we draw back from those extremes? Through regulation, through sensible regulation of supply and dealing also with the reality of that demand and no meaningful regulation to reduce that harm is going to be able to not grapple with either side of that equation.
So to speak to some of the things which we did end up chewing through in that select committee process—and I’d here refer members to my first reading speech, where I also spoke about a sense of unease with some of the untested provisions in this legislation. We really did kick them around and pull them apart, and it’s why I feel particularly stoked about the introduction of the review clause—which the chair, doctor Tangi Utikere, has mentioned—because that review clause was really important to us in the Greens to make sure that we ended up with ultimately looking at whether these novel measures were having the efficacy that they were promised to with regard to reducing smoking rates and getting us towards that goal of Smokefree 2025. So too, it was really important for us to look at penalties, because we did not want to see those structurally marginalised communities—who happen to be the exact same communities who are suffering the brunt of harm as a result of tobacco—to be those who end up criminally prosecuted or penalised or in trouble or experiencing even further harm as a result of our criminal justice system with the introduction of new penalties. So I think it’s really important for people to know that there are no new criminal penalties in this legislation; there are civil fines. And that, again, is a really important mechanism when it comes to drug harm reduction.
However, still outstanding as others have canvassed in their speech—and I think it’s actually acknowledged in the select committee report and I think many members of the Health Committee, even on the Government side, will be completely upfront about the fact that there’s still so much more work to do on vaping. You know, it wasn’t until last term when we finally introduced, Madam Chair, with some of your leadership—some controls around vaping. I don’t think most New Zealanders recognise or understand or know that, until that point of that legislation last term it was entirely self-regulated. That’s why we had the proliferation of advertising in YouTube advertising and storefronts and billboards and everything else. It is a really hard process to bring things back under control after that genie is out of the bottle. But again, there is still more work to do. There’s some important provisions in this legislation for testing vaping products, and that may go some way, particularly for making sure that consumers know what they are getting. But again, there’s still more work to do there.
There’s also more work to do in the space of education and cessation support, and this is a point made particularly by Māori and Pasifika advocacy organisations. My understanding, and what was put to us in the select committee, is that while we’ve seen across demographics a reduction in smoking rates for pretty much all groups, we haven’t seen that same reduction in smoking rates amongst Pasifika. There is a real need to ensure that we are supporting those at the coalface, at the grassroots who are doing that work to support people and understand their experiences and how to get them out of that trap of addiction—again, that’s a basic tenet of drug harm reduction.
Finally, this is just a funny one that I think I picked up on as a Green, which is cigarette filters. I did not know that cigarette filters are pretend drug harm reduction. Cigarette filters do not make cigarettes safer; all they do is make cigarettes more palatable for the people who are consuming them. They are a faux drug harm reduction device, which tends to make consumers think that smoking is safer when in fact it is not, but makes the product nicer and easier to consume and therefore something that is all the more addictive—and then they end up in the ocean, eaten by the fishies. So, obviously, as a Green, interested in evidence-based policy and also wanting to save the fishies—acknowledging my colleague the Hon Eugenie Sage—we need to be acting on this. It’s daft single-use plastic which is being taken by consumers to be making their product safer when it’s not; it’s just making cigarettes nicer to smoke. And, frankly, that’s daft. We shouldn’t be enabling that.
So, finally, I just think it’s also really important for us to reflect on the pace of progress and how both structural and cultural norms—structural being kind of the laws that all of us in this place debate, the framework or the blueprint of how we’re supposed to run our society, but culture really being the thing that validates those laws but also kind of brings them to life. It was only in 2015, seven years ago—it was only in 2015—when smoking was no longer allowed on the forecourt and the lawn of this Parliament; it was only 2015. And as other members have spoken to, I remember, growing up, going to restaurants and to cafes with my family and particularly in restaurants, experiencing being in those smoke-filled rooms. And obviously as the research continued to develop; obscured really intentionally by the industry—and once again, that points to the real challenges and the problems when it comes to drug harm reduction: being that profit and that commercialisation. But that change has happened inside of my lifetime, and it’s happened inside of all of our lifetimes. And, obviously, as all of us have spoken to, the reason that we’re doing this is for future generations, and is for our tamariki, who will grow to be our rangatahi who will grow to be our rangatira, who will grow to be the leaders of this country.
So I just want to acknowledge Tiger once again in my closing remarks, her mum, who obviously inspired her to be in that place and to give that submission to the Health Committee. And I want to commend the House and commend the select committee for really, really pulling this bill apart and seeing the best that we could possibly do with it, because while there are novel and untested measures in this, the fact that there is a review and there will be the opportunity for reflection is important.
There’s so much more to do, but the Greens, on balance, have come to the conclusion that this is a really important first step for continual tobacco harm reduction in this country, so I commend this bill to the House.
BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be here on behalf of the ACT Party tonight in opposition to this piece of legislation. The ACT Party is standing opposed to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. I firstly want to acknowledge the hard work that was put in by my colleague Toni Severin who was sitting in on the Health Committee while this bill was being taken through select committee. I know it took an awful lot of work from the committee staff, and I also want to acknowledge Toni’s role in the ACT Party on this bill.
But I want to start by getting out of the way many things that I believe that Government MPs and other people across the public may wish to say about the ACT Party not supporting this piece of legislation. So I want to make some statements to make it perfectly clear that personally I don’t smoke. That is not our reason for not supporting this. In fact, I’ve never had a cigarette. And secondly, I don’t condone smoking. I don’t take a huge step in either direction; it’s not our reason for opposing this bill. But what is really important is that we’re bringing laws to this Parliament that are actually good public policy and they’re based on principles and they’re based on putting in place legislation that will actually see better outcomes. When I look at this piece of legislation I don’t see better outcomes. There are many actions that people take in life that I wouldn’t personally do myself. I take another example, here: I think about a year ago I stood in this Parliament saying that I would support the drug pill testing legislation. You know, personally I’ve never had one of those either. But that doesn’t mean that we should be putting in place legislation to ban those types of drugs. And I take Chlöe Swarbrick’s point before—and I’ll come back to it later in this speech—that it’s good public policy that should define the laws that we make in this House. So when we look at this law, the ACT Party cannot support it because it’s bad public policy, plain and simple. Whether it’s tobacco law or drug law, we need to be based on principle and we need to make sure they will make New Zealand better off, and this does not do that.
So let’s go into it a little bit further in detail. So the Government has a goal of reducing smoking in New Zealand. Well, what else do we already have to reduce smoking in New Zealand? Well, we already know that we have public information campaigns to promote the risks associated with smoking; we know that we already collect taxes from smokers to help pay for the added burden that smoking can have on the health system; we also know that we have cessation treatment supports and smoke-free environments. But after all of these measures—after all of these measures—some people still smoke or they choose to smoke. And the Government, here, is deciding that even though there are some people that can know the risks and willingly take them, and some people who are willing to pay the extra costs to pay for their own burden to the healthcare system, they have to be stopped at any cost by the Government.
So what is the Government doing on top of all of the other measures to stop smoking in New Zealand? Number one, they say that they’re going to “reduce retail availability by significantly limiting the number of retailers able to sell smoked tobacco products”; two, “reduce the appeal and addictiveness of smoked tobacco products by enabling limits or prohibitions to be set on the quantity of nicotine and other constituents”; and three, “prevent young people, and future generations, from ever taking up smoking by prohibiting the sale of smoked tobacco products to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.”
I’ll go through these bit by bit because I believe all three of these will make New Zealand worse off. Number one: reducing the retail availability. It’s a bad policy because it’s anti-competitive. Essentially, what we’re putting in place is allowing one person in New Zealand, the Director-General of Health, the ability to pick and choose retail businesses and decide which ones will survive and which ones will completely fail. And, you know, I’ve spoken to so many small retail businesses up and down New Zealand, people who have come out to ACT Party meetings, people that we’ve met in the community who are really, really struggling. They’ve been struggling with ram raids, they’ve been struggling with robberies, they’ve been struggling feeling safe even going into their facilities. And on top of all of the hard work that they do to be a cornerstone to our local communities, the Government is now, on top of that, saying that if you are not the retailer that the Director-General of Health will pick as the winner in your neighbourhood, you could potentially go under. Forget all of the hard work that you do, all of the work that you try to do to support the community, the Government will intentionally be anti-competitive and stop you being able to trade. You know, people don’t just go in to a dairy to get cigarettes. They go in to buy their bread, their milk, their butter, all of their small convenience goods alongside it. So a lot of retailers will take a huge hit. The committee is proposing that of the 6,000 retailers, only around 10 percent of them will be allowed to stock and supply tobacco products. So that’s around 600 retailers that would be allowed to continue.
I would question whether it’s acceptable that a Government would create policy that is so blatantly able to hurt and be anti-competitive to small businesses. I don’t believe that is acceptable, and we really feel for the small retailers who will be harmed, on top of the robberies and the ram raids and the cost of living that people are going through, but now with the Government being anti-competitive. But on top of all of that, this in some ways will make a bigger target for the dairy owners who will still supply tobacco. Because, you see, now we have robberies, we have ram raids, we have people in our community harming dairy owners, but there’ll be fewer of them and they’ll be easily picked off by criminals and those cigarettes will end up on the black market as a result of this law. And so I really feel for the target that will be on the back of those small retailers who will, in fact, be allowed to survive.
Number two: the limits on the quantity of nicotine. This bill will limit the amount of nicotine to 0.8 milligrams per gram to reduce the appeal and addictiveness of cigarettes. I believe this will have two consequences. Number one, people who are addicted will simply smoke more cigarettes to get the same hit that they would have originally. Number two, they will find they will find the quality of the cigarettes that they’re wanting on the black market. I sincerely hope that Customs is ready for the huge amount of illicit tobacco that will come through the border on containers, in imports, because people know that they want these products and they will get them. But they won’t get them in the retailers; they’ll get them in the criminal economy. This legislation will only help the gangs and fuel criminal activity and illegal activity in our communities.
Number three: prohibiting the sale to anyone born after January 2009. Now, if there’s one thing that we know from the drug prohibition laws, it’s that not allowing young people drugs doesn’t mean they won’t get them. Young people still will want the ability and the choice for these types of products. Just trying to ban them and saying anybody under a certain age can’t have one legally does not mean that people won’t get them illegally. So I believe that this will once again go to increasing the illegal trade of tobacco in our communities. It will see criminal activity increase; we’ll see more ram raids, we’ll see more robberies, we’ll see more people taking nicotine illegally from shops. But importantly, we will see a huge increase in the amount illegally coming through the border into the black market, into the criminal economy, into the hands of young people. So we oppose the bill.
Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini): Mālō ‘aupito, Madam Speaker. I rise as the MP for Takanini in support of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill at its second reading.
I totally disagree with the last member’s assertions that it won’t make a difference. It will make a huge difference, and I would invite that member Brooke van Velden to come to South Auckland and hear the submissions that we heard from the people on the ground that are exposed big time to the amount of outlets and retailers that sell tobacco in our neighbourhoods. I was also cringing when Dr Shane Reti was saying that he opposes this bill, because he’s my medical colleague. To have the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall here as well, it was very upsetting, I guess, to hear a clinical colleague say that they would oppose this bill.
This bill will make a huge difference for our people: 4,500 people are dying per year in New Zealand because of smoke-related harms or second-hand smoking. That is 12 deaths per day—12 deaths per day—that this bill will make a huge difference in reducing that, and who gets affected? It is our Māori, Pasifika, and vulnerable populations—our communities. So it is about helping our community members to stop smoking and helping to provide an environment where it is easier to do so. This is about their health, their wellbeing, and also their whānau.
I also want to acknowledge the submitters who have presented to us in the last few months. Again, reiterating that there were almost 2,000 interested groups and individuals, and we heard about 84 submitters at hearings in Auckland and Wellington, and also over videoconference. It was so important to hear our community members say their bit regarding this bill and how much it affects their whānau as well.
What this bill does—and I want to reiterate why it is so important. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths in Aotearoa. Yes, we can say that smoking rates are continuing to drop by 8 percent for the general population, but it is our Māori and Pasifika families that still have high smoking rates, and eliminating smoking would definitely make a huge difference for them in addressing the inequities in health as well.
I was so glad, with one of the venues being in South Auckland, to have our submissions and submitters heard there in the beautiful Fale o Samoa in Māngere—the land of the 6-Bs, as Minister Aupito William Sio would say. I would say that it’s the land of Toa Samoa, as they recently came second place in the Rugby World League Cup. It was a huge honour to see all our Samoan flags running around in Māngere. But it was so great because we had our community members. We had our Māori and Pasifika organisations come through and submit to the three Labour members who were there, and no other members that were there—but I won’t say too much, Madam Speaker—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order!
Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA: —I’ve already heard.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Yes, I’ve already—
Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA: But I want to acknowledge organisations such as Health Coalition Aotearoa, Tala Pasifika, Hāpai Te Houora, and also I want to especially acknowledge this member of the community who comes from Māngere, who sees the burden of disease there: Leitu Tufuga. She was so involved that she presented under different organisations, but also presented herself on what she saw in her community. She said that there is three to four times more exposure in South Auckland, in Māngere, because of the amount of retailers in that neighbourhood, compared to our leafy areas in Auckland as well. She spoke about the burden that she sees in her own whānau. She spoke about the youth getting involved—and, yes, we did speak about vaping as well. That was one of the issues that was brought up.
But to hear our Pasifika members of the community say their bit was huge for us. We were getting real-life stories, and to hear other members here say that it won’t make a difference, that is simply rubbish. This will make a huge difference, and I want to say that Māori are three times more likely to be daily smokers, but, not only that: lung cancer—lung cancer being the leading cause for our Māori women and the second leading cause for our Māori men.
I want to make a special mention of our Hashtags crew—our youth. Our youth, who came and spoke about what it means for them to be in a smoke-free generation. They also spoke about having a nicotine-free generation as well. Just to see them, their leadership, and their boldness to speak in front of us and to have that leadership at such a young age—I give it up to The Hashtags. Well done, and it’s awesome. They’re current leaders now, and they’re going to be our future leaders of Aotearoa as well.
This bill—I’m so happy that it’s going to be passed tonight in terms of the second reading. I hope that other members take note because all our submissions and all the modelling that has been done show that it will make a difference for our communities. I commend this bill to the House. Fa’afetai.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call Maureen Pugh—five minutes.
MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I stand to make a short contribution to the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill tonight, in its second reading.
I haven’t been a member of the select committee that has looked at this legislation, but I think most of us have had some form of experience in our lifetime with smokers. I grew up in a house where both of my parents smoked, and I clearly remember the family trips in the car. For those who don’t know, sometimes it rains a bit on the West Coast, and when you go on a drive you’ve got the windows up, and so driving around in the car with two smokers—it still makes my eyes water. I can also remember spending quite a lot of time with my grandparents when I was much younger, and they too were very heavy smokers. Sometimes it was almost difficult to see across the room because of the amount of tobacco smoke. So I think that cured me of ever wanting to be a cigarette smoker myself. I’ve never had one. I did try it once as a teenager, but I can’t understand how people push through that first inhale. I certainly couldn’t.
But this legislation impacts on two pieces of legislation. One is the Customs and Excise Act 2018, and the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990. As other speakers have pointed out, there are three main pillars to the legislation: that is around limiting the number of retailers in any particular area—so that is going from 6,000 retailers nationwide down to 600. As my friend and colleague Dr Shane Reti pointed out, there was no rationale put forward for where that number came from or what was the information or the science or the advice that informed that decision to reach 600.The next part of this bill looks to control the amount of nicotine within cigarettes and other components of cigarettes. I understand that that will be limiting it to 0.8 of a gram per cigarette. And the third pillar is around preventing young people from taking up smoking by prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 1 January 2009. So if you are 13 years old or younger now, you will be unable to purchase or use smoked tobacco products.
But I do go back to the contribution that was made by the Green member over there, and just the irony of it did amuse me, so enthusiastic about this piece of legislation because it reduced the drug harm from tobacco. And I thought the irony that this member, who is the same member driven in the legalise cannabis debate—what a double standard that turned out to be. It’s OK to be really enthusiastic about banning this drug over here, but then we turn over here and let’s legalise cannabis on the other side of the debate. That’s great—what a great double standard! Fantastic.
I want to come back to the point about the number of dairy owners, because even as a person that worked in a gas station, you know that there’s very little money made out of pumping gas and selling gas. But then we have—[Interruption]
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! Go ahead.
MAUREEN PUGH: So in those retail outlets, it’s not the fuel that the retailer makes his money from, it’s all the other incidentals: it’s the candy bar and the ice cream and it’s the packet of cigarettes. So those dairy owners and those gas stations that have all of those other products that they sell, that’s how they actually make a living. And then the dairy owners, it’s the same—people go in there to buy a packet of cigarettes, but that’s what brings them in. It’s the incidentals that they buy as well is where they make their profit. So what we are doing is a sinking-lid policy on the number of retail outlets, but also a sinking lid on the revenue that they can earn. So, the National Party does not support—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order, Order. The member’s time is up.
BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Fa’afetai tele lava, Madam Speaker. It’s a privilege to be able to take a call on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill.
I’m not on the Health Committee, but—
Chlöe Swarbrick: Great committee!
BARBARA EDMONDS: A great committee, I understand. But I do want to bring you into this debate very shortly, Madam Speaker, because actually you set a lot of the standard that is within the current Act around making sure that cars and children in cars are smoke-free. So I acknowledge your contribution for that work.
The reason why I’m standing to take a call is because I am a mother of eight children who are all under the ages of 18. I’ve just come back from the New Zealand Tag Football Incorporated Junior Tag Nationals—45,000 people walked through the grounds of Bruce Pulman Park in Papakura this weekend. I also managed to see the Condor 7s, which was held—the National Secondary School Rugby Sevens competition that was held at King’s College in Auckland as well.
Right throughout these two heavily attended events—which was littered with children under the age of 18—there were really strong messages around, “This is a smoke-free environment. Tobacco and vaping is not welcome within these grounds. If you want to participate in that, you have to leave the grounds.”
And to be fair, I didn’t really see many people outside of the grounds smoking or vaping, because they were missing out on their children’s activities and were not wanting to leave the fields or the grounds.
Now, I want to acknowledge, as part of this bill, The Hashtags. Some of The Hashtags are actually within Wainuiōmata. They are a group of wāhine toa who play for Ngā Hau e Whā, which is a rugby league team based in Wainuiōmata. In September, I was due to accept their petition on strengthening the vaping regulations—on the vaping amendments. I was due to receive their petition but I was unwell with the flu at the time, so I acknowledge Ginny Andersen, who did accept that petition. What they were asking Parliament for was to strengthen the vaping regulations.
So it is such great news for me to be able to pick up the bill off the table today, to flick through to get through the back of the bill, in Part 1B, clause 20M, that those regulation-making powers are now within this bill. That’s exactly what The Hashtags asked for; that’s exactly what a number of young people, even throughout Porirua, have asked for. So I commend the Minister for putting that future-proofing, regulation-making power within this bill. That is what will strengthen this for future generations.
The failure to support this bill from the other side of the House is disappointing, because what it fails to recognise is that the generation coming through wants these changes. They want to strengthen the vaping laws; they want to be a smoke-free generation. I’m so proud of the side of the House and the members from the Green Party who are also commending this bill to the House, and I commend this bill to the House.
LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): It’s a real pleasure to be able to rise and take a call on this bill. It’s the second reading of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. As a member of the Health Committee, I do want to acknowledge Minister Ayesha Verrall, but also the members of the Health Committee and those who had to sub in and out of our committee at the time of our meetings.
The bill, as we have heard from a number of other speakers, has three arms and in particular the reduction of retailers. I have heard a speaker on the other side of the House mention that she’s not aware of how it has arrived at just 10 percent of the retailers, in terms of the proposals. That is a bold move, but it is required because smoking has become a normalised behaviour.
We’ve heard our speakers on this side of the House who are really concerned with the goals that we are leaving our future rangatahi, our future tamariki, and certainly we want a smoke-free environment. In fact, when you go out to the service industry, many of the retailers, many of the businesses now have smoke-free environments, which are healthier. We’ve heard our colleague Barbara Edmonds talk about the sporting arenas where smoking behaviour is not acceptable. So when I hear other members of this House, I want to challenge them that as parliamentarians we want to give good bills and legislation that help preserve the health of Kiwis.
Now, I’ve heard other speakers talk about their concern for retailers. We have to decide as parliamentarians: is it the economic wellbeing or is it the health and wellbeing of our rangatahi and tamariki and our current generations? And I want to acknowledge all of the members from this side that are really promoting and providing the summary as to why we are supporting this bill.
We understand from the evidence that smoking rates for Māori are now at 19 percent, down from 22.3 percent just a year ago, 18 months ago, and that’s got to be a good thing. And one of the drivers of this success has been about the co-design of the Quit programmes and the amount of people, 56,000, that are no longer smoking and adhering to that because they’re getting the right supports.
I also was one of the members who attended the hearings in South Auckland and I do want to acknowledge whaea Catherine Manning, who’s up there and has been for a long time a strong advocate for our community with Māori and also strongly supporting Pasifika. I want to acknowledge all of the submitters that came along that day. We’ve heard that we had nearly 2,000 written submissions, over 80 oral submissions. They ranged from the elderly, the people who have families, and it was really gut-wrenching when you heard the tamariki talk about their previous māmā, their previous uncle, their previous pāpā, who no longer had the quality of life, and the effects of tobacco. We have the goal of becoming free of the devastating harm caused by tobacco and this bill is a step closer to smoke-free environments.
I do want to acknowledge, like my other colleagues have acknowledged, The Hashtags. You know, when we had the young people who came to Māngere, and you’ve heard my colleague, who’s a very proud member of Māngere, even though he’s the member of Parliament for Takanini—we heard really loud and clear from those young people, the 6-Bs, as we’ve heard from Minister Aupito. They were bold and they were brown and they were brainy and they had a very clear message that it’s got to be about smoke-free environments, because Māori and Pasifika communities, we suffer. We see that suffering week in, week out when we go back to our homes and we see those who are absolutely addicted to tobacco.
I also want to commend the Minister. Tobacco is no good for our communities. Smoke-free is actually a really good thing, because many of our people who do not have that voice are trapped by tobacco harms. And on that note, I commend this bill to the House.
PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. I am not on the Health Committee any longer but I am pleased that my previous colleagues, who are on there now still, spent considerable time listening to and reading a number of the submissions.
I also listened with some amusement to Maureen Pugh talking about her days driving along in a car full of smoke. My father also smoked, and, I can assure her, it was worse when the window could be opened and you were sitting in the backseat and the ash and the smoke just came directly to you. So, I think, either way, being in a car with smokers was not much fun to young kids.
National absolutely supports a smoke-free agenda, and I think it is really important that we are really clear on that, and we are proud to have established the 2025 smoke-free targets. However, we don’t support the bill because of the timing and the prioritisation of the initiatives within the bill.
Now, the significant parts of the bill are the limiting of the number of retailers able to sell smoked tobacco products, and that being the first initiative that is implemented. This poses considerable risks to retailers, both from a safety perspective and a viability perspective, and I’ll speak a little more about that later. It also aims to prevent young people from taking up smoking by prohibiting the sale of smoked tobacco products to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009. Of course, Dr Shane Reti showed that there were some limitations to that approach and wanted a little bit of caution to that approach because, in other jurisdictions where it had been implemented, it wasn’t showing high success rates. The bill also aims to make smoked tobacco products less appealing and less addictive. Again, Dr Reti has done a lot of the work around this, and we particularly agree with this initiative.
So the National Party certainly agrees with the intent, it agrees with the 2025 targets and the initiatives, just not the timing and the prioritisation of the initiatives.
So reducing the retail availability by limiting the number of retailers down from 6,000 to 600—it has been spoken about earlier that there is no science to this. It is a figure that has just been plucked out of the air. There are some real concerns around what will happen and the unintended consequences of making this the first initiative. In making this the first initiative, there are concerns that a number of dairy owners will go out of business, and that the safety of those that are within the 600 will be compromised.
Now, I’ve spent some time talking to dairy owners about this. Just last week, I asked one of the dairy owners that I visited to outline for me what she felt she would have to do in terms of security if she was one of the 600 that would be able to sell tobacco or sell cigarettes, and the cost and the safety aspects of this were considerable. We know that the dairy owners have said they are not opposed to this long term; they’ve just said if they could have a two-year window in which to turn their operating models around, they would find it acceptable. And given that these dairy owners are the people that have been suffering most under the current situation of ram raids and blatant thefts—and, in fact, that was one of the reasons I was visiting a dairy owner at the end of last week when she was talking about the blatant theft that goes on now with the soft-on-crime approach that Labour has had and the emboldenment of those that come in and just will take goods from her dairy. So there are issues around the viability of these dairies and the safety of the dairy owners.
I also spent some time talking with the Cancer Society when I was collecting for the Cancer Society earlier this year. Obviously, they are very, very positive about changes to the legislation, but I was trying to explain that, while we agreed with the intent, it was the order in which it was going to occur that we were concerned about. Talking to a number of smokers—and, yes, I do still have some friends and family members who are smokers—I think we have to be very, very careful that we don’t get too smug and self-righteous about this. For a variety of reasons, people are carrying on smoking, and so we have to be very, very careful that we are not demonising them, that we are showing a degree of compassion to them.
So I was concerned at the way in which the Minister spoke disrespectfully of Dr Shane Reti and his approach to this legislation. I think it was disingenuous of the Minister to have been so scathing of the National position when the National position has been very much that we agree with the intent, we agree with the targets, and, therefore, Dr Shane Reti had taken a bipartisan approach and wanted to progress a much more scientific driven model, a model which had picked up on what has been successful in other jurisdictions. So I felt it was incredibly disrespectful that the Government were not prepared to consider what he was putting forward.
I think it’s very regrettable that they were not prepared to consider just a change of the timing of the initiatives so that dairy owners would not bear the impact of the initiative which was considered to have the greatest weight of evidence, being the denicotinisation, being by far and away the most effective. And we were certainly very, very supportive of that being rolled out first, and we felt that might well have done 80 percent of the heavy lifting of the reduction that we wanted to see, particularly when the Minister herself had said there was much uncertainty to the initiative around reducing the number of retail outlets and, really, it was being picked as the easiest one to do. That does not seem to me like a very good reason to have put people’s whole dairies and livelihoods at risk, when the change in prioritisation could have made a great difference and could have brought in the support of the National Party.
So there has been, I believe, considerable virtue-signalling, as this Government is wont to do, around the timing of what they are wanting to bring in first out of the three main initiatives in this. Had they gone with the evidence, had they gone with what had been most successful in other jurisdictions, had they taken the time to consider, perhaps, the least harm to those dairy owners who are doing it incredibly hard at this time because of their soft-on-crime approach, this could have been a much more generally supported piece of legislation.
I just reiterate that National absolutely supports a smoke-free agenda. We support the 2025 targets. We just do not support this legislation because of the unwillingness to try and be flexible with the prioritisation and the timing. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you so much, Madam Speaker. It’s with enormous pleasure that I rise to speak in favour of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill at the second reading. I want to join some of my colleagues in sharing praise for our chair, Tangi Utikere, and, of course, to our enormously courageous Minister, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall, who has brought this legislation into the House, which is going to be an extraordinary move that will be a world-first in reducing smoke harm. I also need to thank the clerks and officials, who worked so incredibly hard, and, of course, my colleagues on the Health Committee, a very hard-working committee, as we’ve heard.
In part, I’d like to begin by acknowledging the 1,956 written submissions that we received. We heard 84 of those as oral submissions. They broadly fell into two categories, both of which I actually have a great deal of sympathy for. The first, primarily, were submitters that spoke extraordinarily bravely about loved ones they had lost to smoke-related harm, whether through direct cigarette smoking or second-hand smoke exposure. Extraordinarily moving—we heard submitters who brought members of the committee to tears—and they brought home to us the realities of what we are, in fact, talking about here today. To quote Professor Hoek, “Tobacco is the only product that kills people when it is used as intended.” It kills 12 people every single day in Aotearoa New Zealand. So you’ll forgive me if I agree with the position of the Minister, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall, that we need to do something and do it swiftly. Twelve people’s lives are hanging on this decision. The second category of submitters were people whose businesses would be significantly impacted by this legislation. We heard nine submissions from the tobacco industry, who, unsurprisingly, expressed a negative view of the bill, except for the manufacturer of low-nicotine products, who supported it.
Now, submissions of evidence presented to support arguments are, in fact, an exercise for us in assessing credible research. One of the most important factors, when we’re considering whether research presented to us is credible or not, is bias. You always have to ask yourself who stands to benefit—who stands to benefit? Minister Verrall stands not for corporate profits but for the 12 people every day who die from entirely preventable causes. The bottom line is that you can come back, you can reframe a business model that relies on a product that kills 50 percent of its users—it is no small thing; it is not a small ask; it is challenging and difficult and we acknowledge that, but it can be done—but there is no coming back from the dead. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Health Committee by majority be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.
Ayes 74
New Zealand Labour 64; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.
Noes 41
New Zealand National 31; ACT New Zealand 10.
Amendments agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 74
New Zealand Labour 64; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.
Noes 41
New Zealand National 31; ACT New Zealand 10.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill.
Bills
Natural Hazards Insurance Bill
In Committee
Parts 1 to 6, Schedules 1 to 3, and clauses 1 and 2
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, we come now to the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill. Members, we come now to Part 1.
GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one debate.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Is there any objection to the motion? No objections. We will take it as one debate. The question is that Part 1 to Part 6, Schedules 1 to 3, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission): I am very pleased to open proceedings on the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill. Before taking questions on the bill, I’d like to make a few remarks about why the bill is needed. In response to the experience of homeowners during the Canterbury earthquakes and the Kaikōura earthquake in 2016, a public inquiry into the Earthquake Commission (EQC) was established. It was led by Dame Silvia Cartwright, and the inquiry made 70 recommendations. They identified legislative, operational, and systemic areas requiring improvement in the design and administration of the EQC scheme and event response and recovery. Many of the inquiry’s recommendations are being progressed through to connect key initiatives. One is, through this legislation, the modernisation of the EQC Act through the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill and, secondly, through fundamental changes to the commission’s operating model through the development of the natural disaster response model.
The changes in the bill draw on lessons learnt, essentially, since the inception of the EQC Act. It replaces the Act and has three overarching objectives: the first is to enable better community recovery from natural hazards; the second is to clarify the role of the commission and the cover provided by the bill; and the third is to enhance the durability flexibility inherent in the legislation. It’s a modernisation—if I can characterise it that way—of the EQC Act 1993 rather than a first-principles review. And that means it retains the current EQC insurance scheme. It changes the name of the Earthquake Commission to Toka Tū Ake—Natural Hazards Commission to better reflect the role of the commission, the job that it is tasked with doing.
I want to introduce six policy measures contained in the bill, which are aimed at clarity, and some of which address shortcomings in the existing Act. And really that goes to the issue I’ve raised about being a clarification of the existing Act and lessons learnt, as well as adopting those changes from Dame Silvia Cartwright.
The first is the provision of role clarity for the commission itself. It’s got a new purpose statement for the commission and for natural-hazard cover. The commission has also been provided with revised functions and new operational objectives that define the commission’s operating boundaries. The second key policy covered off in this new bill is the requiring of a code of insured persons’ rights. That’s something that will need to be published on Toka Tū Ake’s website and that has a complaints procedure set up, relating to it. The third policy area is the requiring of Toka Tū Ake to participate in an approved dispute resolution scheme. The fourth is clearer and fairer accountability for mixed-use buildings. The existing rules have been the subject of disputes along the way. That clarity makes it clearer and easier and extends the scheme as well to provide more equitable cover for residential owners who are in mixed-use buildings. The fifth area that’s covered off is the “clear and fair” cover for retaining walls, bridges, and culverts. And that makes clear the limits, the caps, that are covered by the Natural Hazards Commission for retaining walls. That’s a cap of $50,000 per dwelling for retaining walls and $25,000 per dwelling for bridges and culverts. That means that private insurers can be really clear about what the top-up cover they are providing is, because those limits are set much more clearly. And that enables people to make better decisions, basically. The sixth area, before I make some closing comments, is the provision of a regular review of funding for the scheme, including the insurance caps and levy. It confirms the $300,000 plus GST EQC cap, which regulations brought into effect in October this year already, but it confirms it in legislation.
And a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) has also been lodged—which is the final thing I want to say before other members speak—which makes a number of minor and technical adjustments which were identified by officials during the select committee process but would not be able to be progressed in the time frame necessary. But it’s good to be transparent with the House about those changes, so members can read them for themselves. The SOP preserves the current practice, which is that claims for exacerbated damage which occur after an initial event—for example, a house cracking after it settles—are treated as part of the initial claim. That’s one of the things covered off in the SOP. It also allows exceptions to the shared-property provisions for related parties to be specified in regulations, and a number of other small changes I won’t speak to now.
I would invite comments from the committee. It’s good to see that there’s been general agreement around the bill, and I want to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for the constructive way that it engaged in this debate and refined the bill on the way through.
STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Chair, and thank you, Minister. It is a good bill, the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill, and the National Party certainly supports it. One of the areas in which I had a concern—which you’ll be aware of, Minister—is that the insurance companies would get 18 months clear to introduce their new pricing and systems to comply with the new bill. My first question would be: will this be able to be achieved? So would we need the third reading by the end of the sitting year?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission): I thank the member for the question, which is a very good one. It is going to be the will of the House as to whether we get that far through. But I do want to thank members for allowing this to be taken as one debate, which I think will enhance greatly our chances of getting that through. I think all of us in this House do want as much time for the implementation of this scheme as possible, so that the adjustments to IT systems and other things—which is a concern I know the National Party raised in committee—can be taken account of as this legislation is progressed and then implemented. So it’s my sincere hope that it will get through this year, but, again, it will be the will of the House. And I want to thank members for their cooperation in at least setting up that possibility.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, I must report progress on this bill.
House resumed.
CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Natural Hazards Insurance Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.
Motion agreed to.
Report adopted.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The Natural Hazards Insurance Bill is set down for further consideration in committee next sitting day. Members, the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.