Wednesday, 15 March 2023

WEDNESDAY, 15 MARCH 2023

WEDNESDAY, 15 MARCH 2023

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Assistant Speaker): E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha. Ka mihi mātou ki te Kīngi, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Āmene.

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

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

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

SPEAKER: No petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation. No papers have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation. A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK: Report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Arthur Yeo on behalf of the New Zealand Equestrian Advocacy Network.

SPEAKER: No bills have been introduced.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

1. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): Yes.

David Seymour: How can Stuart Nash remain a Minister in his Government when he’s clearly unfit to be the Minister of Police, or are economic development, forestry, and oceans and fisheries just not that important to his Government?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Stuart Nash has displayed an error of judgment in his communication with the Commissioner of Police and in criticising a decision of the judiciary, and he’s paid a price for that in that he’s no longer the Minister of Police.

David Seymour: Surely the challenge is not to ensure he’s paid a price, but to ensure that all Ministers serving in his Government are competent and have high integrity—if Stuart Nash has had to pay a price for not being competent and having high integrity, how can he continue in this Government under all of those other portfolios?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I’ve indicated, I believe that removing Stuart Nash from the role of Minister of Police is a proportionate response.

Nicola Willis: Why does the Prime Minister continue to have confidence in a Minister who has shown not one, but two very grave errors of judgment?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I indicated, I do believe that it was appropriate for there to be a consequence for Stuart Nash’s error of judgment. There has been one—he is no longer the Minister of Police.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister not see the irony that Stuart Nash’s defence was that he wasn’t the Minister of Police at the time of his offence, and the Prime Minister’s response is to make sure he’s not the Minister of Police again—does that mean he’ll reoffend again?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m confident that Stuart Nash won’t make that similar error of judgment again in the future.

Nicola Willis: Does the Prime Minister understand that this is not about meting out punishment; this is about who New Zealanders can trust to have the very significant responsibilities of a Minister of the Crown, and that Stuart Nash has not shown the judgment to be worthy of those responsibilities?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m certainly familiar with the expectations set out in the Cabinet Manual and my own expectations of Ministers.

David Seymour: How can the Prime Minister have confidence in a Minister who, number one, broke one of the most sacred traditions in the Cabinet Manual, the Policing Act, and our constitutional conventions; number two, went on the radio and boasted about it; and, number three, refused to apologise—surely that’s three strikes and he’s out, or is this Government only tough on crime when it suits them?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I’ve indicated, Stuart Nash demonstrated an error of judgment and he has paid a price for that.

Nicola Willis: Is it the case that the Prime Minister is not only soft on crime but soft on Ministers too?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, but I do want to acknowledge that in many cases when the members opposite refer to this Government as being soft on crime, they are, in fact, reflecting on decisions made by the Commissioner of Police about whether to investigate or prosecute individual cases. They’re criticising the very thing that there has been a consequence for in this House today.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “New Zealanders earning the average wage have seen their incomes increase significantly under this Government”, and what is the change in real after-tax average wages since 2017?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): Yes. The Treasury advise that after tax, real wages have increased by 2.6 percent between the third quarter of 2017 and the fourth quarter of 2022. I’d also caution the member that this calculation excludes transfers such as the family tax credit and Best Start, which this Government has also consistently increased during our time in office, which of course increases the incomes of families.

Nicola Willis: Is he aware that according to Statistics New Zealand’s household labour force survey, after-tax average wages for Kiwi workers have increased by 16.5 percent since 2017 while the Consumers Price Index—that is, the cost of living—has increased by 20 percent, meaning typical New Zealand workers have gone backwards under Labour?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I was referring to the quarterly employment survey statistics, which are the same statistics that her predecessor as National Party finance spokesperson and former Minister of Finance Bill English consistently used in this House as the benchmark of wage growth under the previous Government.

Nicola Willis: Does the Prime Minister understand that nominal pay increases received by Kiwi workers have been eaten up by record increases in inflation and higher levels of tax?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Despite the very slow and measured tone of the member’s explanation to me, the quarterly employment survey does not bear out the claim that she has just made.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister really believe that people’s wages after tax are going up faster than inflation, and, if so, are Kiwis up and down this country struggling to make ends meet wrong when they say there is a cost of living crisis?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government has never denied that there is a cost of living crisis; in fact, it is our number one issue, along with ensuring that we support New Zealanders through the recovery from the cyclone.

Nicola Willis: Does the Prime Minister deny that under his Government, real wages have fallen behind the cost of living?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I have indicated, the quarterly employment survey data does not bear out the member’s claim. I do want to acknowledge, though, that we are in a period where we are seeing a significant escalation in costs as a result of higher than acceptable inflation, and we do want to see inflation coming back down so that New Zealanders who are working hard are able to get ahead.

Nicola Willis: Why won’t the Government reduce income tax levels for hard-working New Zealanders?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government’s focus is on making sure that New Zealanders who work hard can get ahead. I know the member wants to have a debate about tax, but she doesn’t seem to be able to land on her own tax policy when it comes to this particular matter.

Nicola Willis: Isn’t it in fact the case that under his Government, New Zealanders have gone backwards in real terms and are paying a higher proportion of tax than in any time in 17 years, and why hasn’t his Government acted to correct it?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, I refer the member again, for about the fourth time, to my primary answer.

Question No. 3—Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques

3. SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam) to the Lead Coordination Minister for the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques: What progress has been made on the Government’s response to the report of the royal commission of inquiry into the 2019 Christchurch mosques attack?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) on behalf of the Lead Coordination Minister for the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques: Can I begin by acknowledging the 51 shuhada, their whānau, and everyone directly impacted by the horrific events of March 15th, 2019. The events left a lasting impact on our nation, and I know that our ethnic and faith communities want to see progress made to ensure that New Zealand becomes a safer, more cohesive country. That’s why our Government accepted in principle all 44 recommendations from the royal commission of inquiry’s report. We have made and continue to make steady progress across various areas, including improving social cohesion, on education and inclusion work towards reducing hate-motivated crime and racism; strengthening firearms laws; and countering terrorism and violent extremism. There is also current focus on improving our national security system to ensure that the events of four years ago are never repeated. The country has come a long way, but there is still more work to be done. Can I also acknowledge Kāpuia and everyone else across the public, private, and community sectors who are working hard to make New Zealand a better place.

Sarah Pallett: What progress has been made to strengthen social cohesion in New Zealand?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Last year, I launched Te Korowai Whetū Social Cohesion, which gives a shared understanding of what social cohesion in New Zealand looks like. This includes resources that ensure the Government’s work aligns with what we know strengthens cohesion, resources to guide collective action across various sectors to achieve cohesion, and a measurement framework that will help us to monitor progress. We’ve also launched a fund to support tangible, community-led initiatives that promote cohesion. This is work that responds directly to recommendations made by the royal commission and also wishes from the affected communities.

Sarah Pallett: What progress has been made to ensure ethnic and faith-based communities are better supported?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: This Government has taken a number of steps towards improving supports for our ethnic and faith-based communities. This includes the Safer Communities Fund, which provides $3.3 million in funding over three years for communities at risk from hate crimes and terrorism to be able to upgrade and implement security arrangements to help reduce the threats and impact of future crimes and acts of terrorism against their communities. We’ve also enhanced the Kaiwhakaoranga Specialist Case Management Service, which has brought in expertise from across Government agencies to be able to ensure that members of the affected communities are able to access the supports that they need. We’ve also established the Collective Impact Board to ensure that we continue to make improvements to that case management service.

Sarah Pallett: What progress has been made in regards to countering terrorism and violent extremism?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Progress in this area has been focused on work to improve the counter-terrorism effort through legislative change; better public engagement, strategy, and research; and specific initiatives as well. To date, work has included the launch of the He Whenua Taurikura, New Zealand’s National Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism—that was in June 2022—to ensure that we continue to build knowledge that is New Zealand - centric about extremist threats within Aotearoa New Zealand; also, the annual hui that brings together civil society, Government, academics, and communities to collectively ensure that we create a safer Aotearoa. One initiative that I will mention is He Aranga Ake. It is a multi-agency disengagement framework intended to support individuals who may pose a violent extremist or terrorist threat of harm to a community or to themselves due to identifying with specific ideologies. Finally, there’s also been the awarding of 11 scholarships for the start of the 2022 academic year for Master’s research on counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism. This is work that the Government prioritises and takes seriously, and work will continue to progress.

Golriz Ghahraman: Al salam alaikum. In light of the findings of the royal commission of inquiry that our current hate speech and hate crime laws did not allow religious minorities or most marginalised groups to even report rising threats or extremism, such that police and security institutions were not able to predict or respond to the terror threat, how does his Government justify leaving our communities still unprotected without implementing the law reform recommendations of the royal commission report?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Two answers to that. With regard to the legislative component of that, this is work that is complex, and that’s why work was—the Law Commission is undertaking a fulsome review into that to make sure that we get it right. Secondly, on reporting hate crime, there has been work led by the police on Te Raranga to ensure that we can report hate crime in a way that is better, and I understand that that is fully operational.

Question No. 4—Housing

4. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister of Housing: What is the current nationwide median rent according to the MBIE rental bond database, and what has been the increase since October 2017?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): The median rent is $575 as of January of this year—an increase of $175. For most of the last decade, rent increases have been above Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation. This trend is now changing. CPI in the year to December last year was 7.2 percent, whereas the rent part of CPI was 4.4 percent. Unsurprisingly, what the evidence is showing us is that the way you solve a housing crisis is you build houses. What we are seeing in the centres where we have the highest number of supply going in is correlating with the lowest rent increases.

Chris Bishop: Does she accept her war on landlords is causing collateral damage for tenants by forcing rents upwards?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: What I don’t accept is that member’s framing. What this Government has done is put in place a range of measures to even the playing field. I don’t think it is too much to say that renters have the right to live in a warm, dry home. I don’t think it is a war on landlords to say that we want landlords to be part of solving a housing crisis but we want them to add to supply—i.e., solve a housing crisis.

Chris Bishop: Can she confirm that she was explicitly advised that her Government’s policy to scrap interest deductibility would cause upward pressure on rents and that has helped lead to the $175-a-week increase in the last 5½ years?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think we’ve been over this in this House so many times. What we had was we had some advice initially in December that told Ministers who were considering the policies that if all we did was remove interest deductibility across the board, that could be the outcome. Of course that was not the policy that was implemented; what we did was put in place an explicit lever to privilege new supply by allowing interest deductibility on new builds. And what I will point to is that over the term of the previous Government, rents went up 39 percent; under our Government, they’ve gone up 35 percent. So I don’t think that that party can say that they can point to that as the only reason.

Chris Bishop: Now she’s brought back interest deductibility for corporate investors doing build-to-rent developments, why won’t she bring it back for mum and dad landlords and reduce their costs during this cost of living crisis?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: There is interest deductibility for mum and dad landlords if they add to the supply by building new houses. There is a 20-year carve-out.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: One of the measures she referred to earlier, reintroducing Kāinga Ora to areas where it wasn’t present since 1999 such as Woodville in the Tararua District—

SPEAKER: You need to make a—

Chris Bishop: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister did not refer to any of those things.

SPEAKER: Yeah, the question needs to have a question in it. So making a statement is not a question.

Chris Bishop: What further rent increases should tenants brace themselves for in the coming months as interest deductibility ratchets up even further at a time of rising interest rates, and why won’t she stop her war on landlords?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think what I would like to see from that member is an actual housing policy rather than the empty rhetoric that we see from him. But I point to 2011, where there was a 6.7 percent increase in rents, against this year where there’s been a 4.5 percent increase. That party needs to understand that the way you solve a housing crisis is you build more houses, and that is what this Government is doing.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The economy performed strongly in the September 2022 quarter, where Stats New Zealand reported that it rose 2 percent in the three months to September, following a 1.9 percent increase in the previous June quarter. On an annual basis, the economy was 6.4 percent larger than a year ago, and nearly 8 percent bigger than before the pandemic, ahead of most countries that we compare ourselves with. Most economists are forecasting, however, that the economy is unlikely to sustain this momentum in the December quarter when the GDP figures are released tomorrow. Those economists are forecasting a modest decline in GDP for the last three months of 2022 following those two quarters of extremely strong growth. Westpac’s economists say that they do not necessarily see this as marking the start of a recession, as data has been choppy since COVID.

Anna Lorck: What other reports has he seen on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The strength of the jobs market is continuing to support the New Zealand economy. Statistics New Zealand reported that the unemployment rate remained at a near-record low of 3.4 percent in the December quarter, while the number of people in jobs hit a record high of 2.86 million. The average hourly wage rose 7.2 percent, to $38.19, matching the current rate of inflation. We know that many Kiwi families are doing it tough in the face of cost of living pressures, but they do so while in record numbers in paid work and with wages matching inflation. This will help ease some of the pressure they are under, along with other actions the Government is taking.

Anna Lorck: What reports has he seen on the demand for labour and its impact on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The SEEK New Zealand employment report rose 0.9 percent in February, following a 2.2 percent gain in the month before, in January. On an annual basis, job ads rose at a slower pace of 7.3 percent. Looking at the regions, Auckland’s job ads were flat in February following the flooding event in late January, while also, obviously, in Hawke’s Bay, there was a 15 percent drop in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle. Overall, the employment market is strong, but there are areas in New Zealand who are doing it tough.

Anna Lorck: What reports has he seen on the manufacturing sector and its impact on the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in February. The BNZ - BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index, or PMI, rose to 52 last month, to be slightly below the long-term average of 53. New orders and employment rose while production eased slightly. In the wake of the floods in January, activity in the northern region, including Auckland, was flat, and also, obviously, in the Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne area it was weak following Cyclone Gabrielle. Overall, the manufacturing sector continues to support the New Zealand economy.

Anna Lorck: How does manufacturing activity in New Zealand compare internationally?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Globally, the PMI stood at the break-even mark of 50, with the US, eurozone, UK, and Japan all contracting while New Zealand was joined in expansion by Australia and China. New Zealand does find itself well placed to deal with a challenging global environment and the recent extreme weather events. We have a solid balance sheet, near record-low unemployment, growing exports, rising tourist numbers, and an increasing number of overseas workers arriving to fill vacancies. We will continue to take a balanced approach that gives us flexibility and choices to support New Zealanders in a challenging economic environment.

Question No. 6—Environment

6. Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Is it important to the Government to reduce plastic pollution rapidly in Aotearoa New Zealand; if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Yes, which is why we banned single-use plastic bags, which has meant 1 billion fewer plastic bags have ended up in landfills. It’s why we are phasing out hard to recycle plastics that contaminate other recycled plastic. It’s why, from 1 July, we’re banning more single-use items, which will reduce single-use plastics going into the dump by 2 billion items per annum. It’s why we’ve launched the Plastics Innovation Fund, why we’ve expanded the waste levy, why the COVID recovery fund provided $60 million to recycling, why the Waste Minimisation Fund has been expanded in breadth and amount and has funded over 100 waste reduction projects, and why we’ve developed product stewardship schemes for farm plastics, plastic packaging, e-waste, large batteries, and tyres, plus a number of other measures.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Does he agree with his ministry’s estimates that a beverage container return scheme would divert an estimated 1.7 million containers from landfill or becoming litter pollution each year; if so, why has his Government stopped work on achieving these important environmental gains?

Hon DAVID PARKER: If I heard the member saying 1.7 million, no, I don’t think that is correct—it’s a much larger number than that. But the reason that the Government has deferred decisions on container return schemes—they have been deferred until the next Parliament—is that we think that the number one priority at the moment is the cost of living. This would have had an impost on consumers and we think it’s better to defer that decision until the next Parliament.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Does he agree that a container return scheme would ensure that beverage producers and retailers shared the costs and responsibility for the waste they create, instead of those costs being loaded on to nature, communities, and councils?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, but that doesn’t mean to say that we should be doing this right now. I think everyone in this Parliament agrees that New Zealand has a poor record when it comes to the management of waste. I think it is good that we have maintained a consensus across Parliament about all of those listed steps that I’ve already outlined. I personally thought we would be putting at risk that consensus in a cost of living time, and I think it is appropriate to delay this decision until the next term as this Government focuses on cost of living pressures.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Is he comfortable that stopping work on a beverage container return scheme means we will continue to only recover and recycle 46 percent of these containers each year, leaving the rest to be landfilled or become litter pollution?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I agree a container deposit scheme would make a difference; I’m also aware that in addition to the steps that I’ve already outlined, we’re in the process in Cabinet of making final decisions on the standardisation of kerbside recycling. At the moment, too much rubbish ends up in the recycling, contaminating it, and too much good stuff is going in the bin and not being recycled. Those are other measures which will also improve the collection of beverage containers.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Is he proud that Aotearoa New Zealand continues to lag behind all the states in Australia, which either have or plan to launch a container return scheme this year?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I’ve actually been to one of the meetings between the Australian states that invites New Zealand along, and it is true that Australia, whilst behind Europe, is ahead of us when it comes to the better management of their waste streams. We are catching up through the initiatives that I listed earlier, but the member is correct that those states do have a container return scheme that New Zealand doesn’t yet have.

Hon Eugenie Sage: What does he say to New Zealanders who want seabirds, turtles, and marine mammals to be safe from swallowing and being killed by plastic pollution such as discarded plastic bottles?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, I would share their concern. I would also note that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is leading work to land an international agreement to reduce plastic pollution in the oceans and that the steps that I outlined earlier also help in that regard.

Question No. 7—Immigration

7. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister of Immigration: What recent announcements has he made regarding visa settings for partners of migrant workers?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): Recently, I made two important announcements for migrant workers and their families. Firstly, following on from signalled changes to work rights for partners last year, I announced how these changes will be implemented in practice. From 31 May this year, partners of most temporary migrant workers who wish to work in New Zealand will be required to apply for a partner of a worker visa. These changes will apply to most partners of essential skills and accredited employer work visa holders. I also announced an expansion to eligibility for the victims of family violence visa, which enables migrants who are victims of family violence to obtain a six-month open work visa independent of their partner. This will now include partners of temporary migrants, whereas it currently only applies to partners of New Zealand residents.

Marja Lubeck: What conditions will apply to the partner of a worker visa?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Partners of migrant workers will be able to work for any accredited employer, generally, as long as they are paid at or above the median wage. They will not need to have a job or a job offer to apply for the visa and they will not need to engage with Immigration New Zealand if they change jobs. Partners will also be able to apply for a work visa from offshore. This is a significant simplification from previous proposals which would have previously required a full accredited employer work visa while keeping protections in place to guard against the proliferation of exploitation and low pay, which were the hallmarks of a previous Government’s immigration policy.

Marja Lubeck: Why did the Government take time to ensure a more streamlined approach for partners to obtain a work visa?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: As I said in December, we wanted to consult widely on proposed changes to partner work rights and have responded to feedback from stakeholders. This was to ensure that we facilitate access to labour in a tight market while continuing to move away from the previous approach, which put many of these migrant workers into very low-wage positions in which they were vulnerable towards exploitation. It’s a part of our broader shift towards a high-wage, high-skill economy which views migrants as more than just labour units. The approach I outlined last week still requires partners to acquire work rights in their own right, while ensuring the process for doing so is simple, provides certainty for migrant families, and provides protections for vulnerable individuals.

Marja Lubeck: Why is expanding access to the victims of family violence visa important?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: While immigration settings do not cause family violence, it is incredibly important that they do not pose a barrier to those who need to escape abuse. The expansion of access to the victims of family violence visa works in tandem with the work the Government is undertaking to implement Te Aorerekura, the National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence. This is just the start, and further work is planned to ensure that we provide the right support for migrant victims of family violence.

Question No. 8—Health

8. Dr SHANE RETI (National) to the Minister of Health: How many people in the six months following the establishment of Health New Zealand waited in hospital EDs more than 24 hours under the shorter stays in emergency departments indicator, and what was the longest ED wait time?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): In answer to the first part of the question, from July 2022 to December 2022, 3,600 patients spent 24 hours or more in an emergency department (ED) from presentation to discharge. This does not mean those people are waiting for more than 24 hours to be seen and treated; this is 24 hours to complete all of treatment, transfer, or discharge. It will include patients under observation whose treatment or diagnostics will have been commenced or concluded. In answer to the second part of the question, I advise that a figure on the longest time spent in an emergency department requires an audit and is not possible in the time available for an oral question.

Dr Shane Reti: If 3,600 people waited more than 24 hours in an emergency department, why won’t she bring ED targets to the forefront of her health policy instead of what she has stated?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The member is aware from other written questions that a large number of those people who waited longer than 24 hours was at Palmerston North Hospital, and I think that instance there illustrates the difference between our health policies incredibly well, because whereas on that side of the House they like to set up targets and think that is the solution to every problem, our Government has built 11 new beds in order to make sure that patients can be discharged from the emergency department. We will back up areas where improvement is needed with, actually, resources.

Dr Shane Reti: Why are urgent emergency department and surgical wait-list targets not at the forefront of her policies but this year’s flu vaccine target is?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: In order to address the long and unacceptable wait times in emergency departments, we will need to take action on multiple fronts. That will include—as we have already done—announcing the roll-out of an influenza and COVID vaccination programme. It will include multiple actions in the community to keep people out of hospital. It will include better coordination of the flow of patients through emergency departments works in order to make sure that discharges from the hospital are freed up. All of these things need to happen, and Te Whatu Ora is presenting an integrated plan to do it.

Dr Shane Reti: Is the 3,600 people waiting more than 24 hours in an ED department in the second half of last year double what it was in the first half of the year, before Health New Zealand was created?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: There has been an increase and, therefore, we need to make sure that the multiple impacts of COVID on our health system are addressed in a systematic way, and that is the focus of the plan Te Whatu Ora is implementing.

Dr Shane Reti: Does it show how out of touch she is with emergency departments that Waikato Hospital, which has worse figures than nearly half of those on her hotspot list, is not even included on the list, and how does she explain that to the hard-working staff at Waikato ED?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: That’s a long bow. I’ve spent plenty of time in my career in emergency departments and have visited three emergency departments during my time as health Minister. We continue to work to make sure that all of these departments improve their performance.

Dr Shane Reti: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table an unpublished written parliamentary question showing the 24-hour wait time across the EDs.

SPEAKER: Can you say that again? I—

Dr Shane Reti: I seek leave to publish an unpublished written parliamentary question showing those waiting more than 24 hours in an emergency department.

SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none. It may be tabled.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Question No. 9—Health

9. GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcement has the Government made about HIV?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): On Sunday, the Prime Minister announced the release of the national HIV Action Plan, laying out our plan to eliminate local transmission of HIV by 2030 and ensure that people living with HIV have healthy lives free from stigma and discrimination. Our targets are ambitious, but we’re ready to make a big stride.

Glen Bennett: What are the prioritised actions?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: One of the key things to achieve elimination is to make sure that we have good access and use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Therefore, we’re funding an update of PrEP clinical guidance to make sure New Zealand is up to date in that area. We’ll be funding the scale and roll-out of innovative testing for HIV, developing a monitoring plan, and working with community organisations so they can be effective in HIV prevention.

Glen Bennett: What areas will we be focusing on to achieve HIV elimination by 2030?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The plan focuses on five key things: reducing new and locally acquired HIV infections, improving Māori health and wellbeing in relation to HIV, decreasing mortality, removing stigma, and increasing equity. I’m confident this plan places Aotearoa in a great position to eliminate transmission for future generations.

Glen Bennett: How else is the Government supporting rainbow communities?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The goals of the HIV Action Plan will be supported by the strides we’re taking across the health sector to improve responsiveness to rainbow communities. Across multiple determinants of health, rainbow and takatāpui - identifying people experience poorer health outcomes than the general population, and these inequalities are greater for trans and non-binary people. This Government is committed to a health system that gives all New Zealanders the opportunity to achieve good health and wellbeing outcomes, regardless of who they are.

Question No. 10—Education

10. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Education: What are the Government’s professional learning and development (PLD) priorities, as listed on the Ministry of Education website, and how many, if any, teachers engaged in maths PLD in 2022?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): To the first part of the question, there are seven PLD priorities that underpin regionally allocated PLD. For English medium: cultural capability, local curriculum design, and assessment for learning. For Māori medium: mātauranga Māori and te reo Māori, marau ā-kura, and aromatawai. Digital fluency remains a priority across Māori and English medium. To the second part of the question, I am interpreting this as centrally funded PLD. In 2022, at least 260 schools and kura engaged in maths PLD as their priority focus from the regionally allocated PLD fund. Some of these PLD contracts included clusters of schools—schools working with each other—so the actual number will be higher. The ministry informs me that schools reported that this included 9,398 teachers, and, in addition, 569 teachers and leaders from across 294 primary schools were engaged with Just-In-Time Maths workshops around the country. Over the 2022 school year, $14.1 million was supported for maths PLD from the centrally funded appropriations.

Erica Stanford: If maths is such a priority, as she stated in the House yesterday, can she explain why it is not on the Government’s professional development priority list for teachers?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Maths is a priority. Central PLD funding is allocated to the regions for them to allocate to meet the needs for their teachers. Schools must pick PLD programmes that fit within the seven priority themes. Now, I need to give an example of how this would work. Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities (DMIC), which 139 school communities completed in 2022, fits in the cultural capability priority theme. Research from the past two decades tells us that Māori and Pacific learners thrive when learning environments are responsive to their cultures and contexts. DMIC develops mathematical capability through collaboration and culturally responsive pedagogy because the evidence shows it works.

Erica Stanford: When her own Government’s commissioned report told her that only half of year 4 teachers felt “moderately confident in teaching any strand of mathematics”, why did she then not bother to find out exactly how many teachers across the 41,000 teachers teaching primary and intermediate maths are engaging in maths professional development?

Hon JAN TINETTI: I think the answer to my first question would show that from the centrally funded PLD funds, 9,398 teachers are getting centrally funded PLD. That is on top of their own PLD that schools will be paying for, as they also see it as a priority.

Erica Stanford: When she was told by the international mathematics and science study that over half of teachers felt that their professional support in maths was fair, poor, or very poor, why did she not immediately put maths on the professional development priority list to ensure that all teachers are getting the support that they need?

Hon JAN TINETTI: The member misunderstands that the priority areas are what underpins the philosophies for the different areas. Maths is a priority for this Government. We have put that out in our strategy documents. We have put that out in our action plans to meet the goals of that strategy. PLD is a central focus for those strategies.

Erica Stanford: Why hasn’t she made maths professional development an urgent priority on that list over the last six years when around half of year 4 teachers don’t feel confident teaching any strand of maths, half of teachers don’t feel supported, and less than half of year 8 kids are at curriculum in maths?

Hon JAN TINETTI: I have.

Erica Stanford: How can she look parents in the eye and guarantee that their child is getting the best possible education in maths when she cannot guarantee that the Government has adequately supported teachers to teach maths in the last six years?

Hon JAN TINETTI: I have confidence that our teachers know how to assess their students and communicate this to parents. I won’t be bringing in national standards again, which were a complete failure. What I am doing is ensuring our curriculum is crystal clear on what needs to be taught and when, so that learning is not left to chance.

Question No. 11—Economic Development

11. NAISI CHEN (Labour) to the Minister for Economic Development: What announcements has he made on transforming the advanced manufacturing sector?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister for Economic Development: This week, I launched the Industry Transformation Plan for Advanced Manufacturing. The Government is focused on the issues in front of New Zealanders right now—in particular, the cost of living and recovering from Cyclone Gabrielle. These plans set out how we can transform industries by increasing innovation and productivity, which will drive higher wages and living standards in a non-inflationary way. I would like to thank Brett O’Riley from the Employers and Manufacturers Association and Rachel Macintosh from the E tū union for their leadership in getting this advanced manufacturing plan over the line.

Naisi Chen: Why was advanced manufacturing identified for our industry transformation plan (ITP)?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The advanced manufacturing sector has significant untapped potential to increase productivity and higher-wage jobs, and to support the transition to a globally competitive, lower-emissions economy, the plan sets out how this can be achieved.

Naisi Chen: What funding has been allocated for this plan?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As a first step, the Government has committed $30 million to implement a number of immediate actions identified in the plan. This includes $3.65 million for company-specific advice on adopting advanced technologies and processes, $4 million to upskill manufacturing workers in digital skills, and $2.9 million for company-specific support to achieve circular, low-emissions manufacturing.

Naisi Chen: How will this transformation plan be affected by the recent extreme weather events?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Advanced manufacturing is vitally important throughout the country, including in the regions severely impacted by recent extreme weather. Right now, many business and workers will be responding to the devastating aftermath of these events. Even as we respond to these immediate challenges, we cannot lose sight of the long-term aspiration for a high-wage economy. Delivering the actions set out in the ITP will help us work together through current pressures and transform to the high-wage, low-emissions economy that will provide economic security for New Zealanders.

Andrew Bayly: Why, having been the Minister for more than three years and having spent a quarter of a million dollars on the advanced manufacturing transformation plan, does that plan not identify any time line when the initiatives must be implemented?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, this is a plan that has been developed with the sector. The sector has helped identify the priorities, and, unlike the member, we’re not going to dictate from Wellington exactly how this is done. We trust our advanced manufacturing sector.

Question No. 12—Police

12. NICOLE McKEE (ACT) to the Minister of Police: Is she satisfied with the Police response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawke’s Bay, and is she satisfied that Police deployed enough staff to the region throughout the response?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Acting Minister of Police): Yes.

Nicole McKee: What does she say to the 2,600 locals who signed a petition calling for the Eagle helicopter to stay in Hawke’s Bay beyond the disaster response, and does she know whether police are going to trial a full-time air patrol in Hawke’s Bay, like the 2020 Canterbury trial?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: While I have huge empathy for those members of the community that are affected, what I do say is that Eagle was, of course, there from the 17 February through to 5 March. That is a decision that police will have to make, but we will be having a debrief of what the policing response was and seeing what lessons can be learnt.

Nicole McKee: What does she say to a Hawke’s Bay resident who said, “When it was around there was that huge sense of security, that there was that extra set of eyes, that people who were up to no good were going to be much easier tracked from [the air].”, now that the Eagle helicopter is gone and 145 police officers will soon return to their home bases?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: What I say to those residents is that there will be a fifth contingent of outside officers from outside the district that will be coming in to replace the fourth contingent that was there. So we will continue to provide additional support.

Nicole McKee: Has the Government given police enough resources to set up mobile units in Hawke’s Bay in response to feedback that the 105 non-emergency line was too difficult to access, and, if so, is she aware of why locals were ignored for two weeks before police established these units?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: We will of course continue to review the ongoing requirements in Hawke’s Bay.

Points of Order

Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill—Compliance with Standing Orders

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I raise an issue with you under Standing Order 267 relating to the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill which, as you know, is an omnibus bill being passaged through the House tomorrow afternoon. I would ask for your considered ruling by 2 o’clock tomorrow—clause 14 of that bill seeks to amend part of the Local Government Act to reconcile issues relating to long-term planning with the new water services entities. Now, Standing Order 267 requires that omnibus bills deal with interrelated topics that amend separate bills, and my submission to you is that the amendment in clause 14 is not related to cyclone recovery. Indeed, a number of district councils, including Horowhenua and Gisborne pointed out to the select committee considering the two subsequent water services entities bills, the Finance and Expenditure Committee, that this was an anomaly and they recommended amending those clauses.

So we have something of a dilemma: firstly, you have the power to disallow a clause before a bill is introduced, but it would be unfair to consider that you would know everything about every bill; that’s just not realistic. What we have is a situation where the bill has had its first reading, has gone to the Governance and Administration Committee today, but it appears that the Standing Orders are silent on what to do about a clause in a bill that, in my view, is in clear opposition to the requirements of Standing Order 267. Now, the committee will meet this afternoon and may have a resolution, but I’m not that confident. So I’d like you to consider and rule, as can be the case in the committee of the whole House for new amendments, that clause 14 should be removed from this bill.

We have worked very, I think, constructively to get the emergency legislation through, and it would be a shame if this was sort of an irritant in that process. There are also other places, including those two bills, where the fix could be made. We have urgency on the week of 28 March. We have Budget urgency coming up. There are other places that this remedy could be achieved, but I don’t think this is within either the spirit or the letter of the Standing Orders.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): Speaking to the point of order—thank you, Mr Speaker—in response to that, the rationale behind the inclusion was included in the introductory speech yesterday. We outlined that, at the request of local government, they would like this provision included so that they can make investments in water service infrastructure to repair that damaged by the cyclone. Also, other councils have requested it so that they can make investments for resilience, which has arisen as a major focus as a result of the damage from the cyclone.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Speaking to that point, I thank the Minister and I certainly wouldn’t want to imply—because he did mention it in the first reading—that this was being done by stealth. The really key point here, though, is that the changes being made by the bill are for affected regions which are named in the bill. The amendment of clause 14 will affect all 80-odd councils across the country and are irrespective of and not related to cyclone recovery.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): So that also applies to other changes proposed in the bill related to the Local Government Act, including the allowance for those attending meetings via Zoom or other virtual means to be considered a quorum. That also applies to all councils, not just those affected by the cyclone.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Speaking to the point of order—if I can help, Mr Speaker. All laws apply equally to all people, that’s one of the main principles of lawmaking. So it’s hardly a surprise that in pursuing the purpose of this bill, some other councils might be affected as well. I frankly don’t see what the discussions about.

SPEAKER: Can I thank the Hon Michael Woodhouse for raising this issue and giving time for me to be advised by the Clerk of the House. I’ve thought carefully about it and am prepared to make a ruling right now. Normally I would not entertain a point of order relating to proceedings of a bill before select committee. However, given the very short time frame for the passage of the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill, I am prepared to consider it. The Speaker scrutinises bills at introduction for compliance with the rules for omnibus bills and may take steps at that stage to ensure a bill complies with the rule—Standing Order 265. I may not take these steps at a later stage except in relation to out of order amendments. If members do not think that provisions of a bill meet the test for permitted types of omnibus bills, that is something for them to test with officials advising the select committee, and then with the Minister in committee of the whole House. Ultimately, they may vote accordingly.

Urgent Debates Declined

Ministerial Conduct—Minister of Police

Ministerial Resignation—Minister of Police

SPEAKER: Members, I have received a letter from the Hon Mark Mitchell seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 an allegation of interference in a police prosecution. The making of allegations is not a particular case for which there is a ministerial responsibility—Speaker’s rulings 201/2 and 205/6. If Mr Mitchell wishes to pursue his allegations then the appropriate mechanism is through parliamentary questions. Therefore, the application is denied.

I have also received an application from David Seymour seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the resignation of the Hon Stuart Nash as police Minister. An application for urgent debate can be lodged up to the time the House sits. This application was received at 2.14 p.m. and is therefore declined. If something occurs after the time the House sits, the application can be lodged for consideration on the next sitting day, so that’s still available.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I also submitted a letter much earlier today. It would seem that you are not considering that letter because you have preferred my later one, even though my later one was invalid, which seems that if you rejected the acceptance of my later letter at 2.14 p.m., you should go back to considering my first one.

SPEAKER: The application, the cover letter of the second application, said it replaced the original.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to take points of order in silence. I’ll go to David Seymour.

DAVID SEYMOUR: That may be so, however that was on the basis that Standing Order 399 says the Speaker can use their judgment to accept a letter. Given that you haven’t accepted it on the basis it was too late, surely you have to disregard that and revert to the earlier letter.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Point of order.

SPEAKER: OK. I’ll hear it, but I’m prepared to rule.

CHRIS BISHOP: We are in a position of difficulty, because at the time that letters from the ACT Party and the National Party were submitted to you, Mr Nash was a Minister, and any—

Hon Member: He still is.

CHRIS BISHOP: Well, he still is a Minister, but he was still Minister of Police at the time. But public coverage of the incident that I think we’re all referring to referred to allegations. Now, you have ruled—fair enough—that allegations are not a matter of ministerial business and therefore can’t be subject to an urgent debate. Mr Nash has now resigned as a Minister, and I put it to you that it is in the public interest that notwithstanding that happened after 2.00 p.m., which is to comply with Standing Order 399, letters have to be in by that time. I put it to you that it is clearly in the public interest, and I ask you to use your discretion to order an urgent debate forthwith.

SPEAKER: I’ll go back to my original ruling. It was based on the information on the second application that the first one was removed. If it had not been removed, I would have made the same ruling that I made on the Hon Mark Mitchell’s application.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order.

SPEAKER: Is it a new point of order?

DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, there is a genuine problem here that you’ve refused to consider the first letter on the basis of the second one that you ruled wasn’t submitted in time, so you can’t count it.

SPEAKER: No, that’s not—

DAVID SEYMOUR: So you count my second letter for the basis of nullifying my first one, but not for the basis of actually considering it, which, if you had, you almost would have certainly granted, because it’s a resignation of a Minister. So there is a logical problem here where there is no logical way that a member in my position can actually have their debate considered.

SPEAKER: Well, basically what I’m ruling is that a member can withdraw the application at any time up until I’ve made the ruling. Now, in my mind, that has been done.

David Seymour: You said it was too late.

SPEAKER: This will be the end if you keep interrupting me while I’m on my feet. That means that that application had been removed. The second application, as I ruled, is declined because it was after the time, but is still available. The issue is for the next sitting day.

Debate By Leave

Ministerial Resignation—Minister of Police

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Point of order.

SPEAKER: New point of order?

CHRIS BISHOP: New point of order. I seek leave for a debate to be held lasting one hour into the resignation of the Hon Stuart Nash as Minister of Police, with the speaking order to be determined by you and the Clerk forthwith.

SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection to that? There is none.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I move, That the House take note of the resignation of the Minister of Police.

What we saw today was a disgraceful episode where the Minister of Police, Stuart Nash, was forced to resign over clearly unconstitutional behaviour, a breach of one section of the Cabinet Manual and also a breach of the Policing Act 2008—most notably section 16 of the Policing Act. What do those two provisions say? First of all, the Cabinet Manual says that Ministers must not involve themselves in prosecution decisions and must not involve themselves in judicial decision-making. That principle is fundamental to our constitution because it says that Ministers administer and govern, the judiciary administers and decides on the proof and decides on punishment, and Ministers should not involve themselves in that. Why is that? It’s because Ministers are drawn from the legislature, the democratic part of our constitution, and it would be inappropriate, wrong, and unjust for Ministers, who are elected, to involve themselves in the administration of justice. Why is that? That is because the administration of justice should be apolitical; it should be neutral as to the party that is in power; it should be neutral as to the people who run the courts and run our system of Government that should be above party politics.

So the issue we are dealing with today—and it’s good that the Government allowed this debate, and I’m looking forward to the contribution of Mark Mitchell, who sought for this debate and called out those remarks. The reason we are having this debate and the reason why it’s so important is that this goes to the heart of our constitution. Before I return to the point about the Policing Act, let’s not forget this is a Government that shows a flagrant disregard for our constitutional conventions, because it was only at the end of last year that the Government sought to entrench various parts of the three waters legislation, in December last year, and it was only under significant pressure from the constitutional lawyers of the land and the National Party that they backed down on that. So this goes to the very heart of our constitution and the apolitical nature of the administration of justice in this country.

How did Stuart Nash breach that? Well, Stuart Nash, bafflingly, got up on the radio this morning and said, “Yeah, I just called my mate Andrew Coster, the Police Commissioner, about a particular judicial decision. My mate Andrew Coster goes”—I mean, leaving aside the inappropriateness of calling the person who you used to be in charge of “your mate” as the police Minister—that in itself is inappropriate—but to hear reported publicly a judicial decision that you as a Minister don’t like and then to ring the Police Commissioner, your “mate”—his words—and say, “I think you should probably appeal this. Are you guys going to appeal? I think you should.” That just beggars belief. It is an unbelievable dereliction of duty, an unconstitutional behaviour, by the Minister.

So the first point is that it is a breach of various sections of the Cabinet Manual, and the second point, as Mark Mitchell knows so well as a former Minister, is that it is a potential breach of, or at least runs very close to, section 16 of the Policing Act. What does that say? The Policing Act says that Ministers can’t direct the Police Commissioner. Again, the reason it’s there—and I remember the debates back in 2007 about that—is to enshrine absolutely as an important point of law that decisions about prosecutions and decisions about investigations and decisions about the way in which the police do their job are not subject to ministerial direction. They have ministerial oversight, because, of course, Parliament and the Government fund the Police—we fund Vote Police through the Budget cycle and make sure the Police have the resources that they need—but the individual decisions are not directed by Ministers, because what sort of banana republic and kangaroo court would we be in if Ministers could say, “I don’t like that person. Hey, Mr Commissioner, hey, hey, mate! Mate the commissioner, you should go after that particular person.”, or—and this is actually worse—you stop prosecutions and say that particular matters shouldn’t be investigated. And we have seen—even in developed, First World countries and economies that people can think of in the Commonwealth—examples in various police forces where behaviour runs close to the line on that, and we don’t want to be like that in New Zealand.

So that’s why the Policing Act 2008 says that Ministers can’t direct the commissioner and can’t direct the Police executive. In fact, it is a breach of the law for Ministers to do that. It’s written in statute. So what do we have? Stuart Nash—who, in slight defence, was not the police Minister at the time but was a Minister of the Crown—hears something 2½ years ago or so and rings up his mate, the Police Commissioner, and all but directs the commissioner—all but directs the commissioner—and says, “Hey, you guys are going to appeal this, eh?”

Now, is that a direction? Possibly, possibly not, but I think we can agree it runs pretty close to the line. And he was not ringing as a backbencher, he was not ringing as a local MP, but he rang as a Minister. So he wasn’t the police Minister at the time, but as members opposite who are members of the ministry know and members on this side of the House who have been former members of the ministry know, when you’re a Minister and you ring an official, that carries weight; that is a big thing. Now, you might think you’re having a joking conversation, ringing your mate, the Police Commissioner, just to have a casual chinwag on a Friday night. But, no, actually, when you call a senior official as the Minister, you are calling as someone who carries the imprimatur of the New Zealand Government behind you and with you, and that matters. That’s why people pay attention to what Ministers do and say, because they have extraordinary power. And that’s why the Policing Act 2008 explicitly says Ministers cannot use that power, because of the extraordinary nature of it.

So it is not appropriate and not right for Ministers to intervene or try to intervene in decisions like that. Now, I hesitate to bring this up, but Maurice Williamson did this back in 2007 and 2008, and we all know what happened there. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. And I want to finish in this debate by making the point that Mr Nash should be removed from the Cabinet, because, ultimately, the Prime Minister has done the right thing in one sense: he has removed him as the police Minister. He’d only had the job again for five minutes, but he’s removed him as the police Minister. He did the right thing.

Simeon Brown: More police Ministers than police.

CHRIS BISHOP: That’s right. But the selection of Ministers is a very important process. The selection of Ministers is solely up to the Prime Minister and the portfolios that they hold. And it goes to judgment. As Nicola Willis said in her questions to the Prime Minister today, it goes to judgment and discretion, and how can the Prime Minister have confidence in someone who shows such a flagrant disregard for New Zealand’s constitution? How can the Prime Minister retain the confidence in any of the portfolios Mr Nash holds, given his appalling behaviour, not just violating the Cabinet Manual, not just running right up against section 16 of the Policing Act 2008 but doubling down when he was called on it, thinking the whole thing was actually a bit of a joke, and not actually realising the gravity of what he did?

The Cabinet Manual makes it very clear that Ministers are to have regard to the principles and the rules in the Cabinet Manual. Mr Nash flagrantly violated those rules. Mr Nash has been a Minister for five years now. He should have known better. The fact that he didn’t reflects badly on him. But what reflects worse on the Government is that Chris Hipkins will not relinquish his ministerial warrants and sack him from the Cabinet altogether. He should do so forthwith.

SPEAKER: In accordance with leave that was moved and granted, I’m proposing the following speaking order: the next speaker will be a Labour member, followed by the Green Party, the ACT Party, Te Paati Māori, and finally the Labour Party again.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I rise to speak on this motion, understanding the gravity of a decision of a Minister of the Crown to resign. When we are issued with our Ministerial warrants, it is very clear to Ministers that the responsibilities they take on are serious ones. We all understand the importance of our role, as Ministers, to exercise our judgment, and exercise that well. Ministers are acquainted, when they come into office, with the Cabinet Manual. The Cabinet Manual, as Mr Bishop has just indicated when he sat down, is clear about the principles on which Ministers must operate. That includes section 4.14 of the Cabinet Manual, which says, “Following a long-established principle, Ministers do not comment on or involve themselves in the investigation of offences or the decision as to whether a person should be prosecuted, or on what charge.”

It is for that reason, today, that it is appropriate that the Hon Stuart Nash has tended his resignation as Minister of Police, and that has been accepted by the Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister indicated, this represented a serious error of judgment from Mr Nash, and the idea that he could continue in the role of Minister of Police, given the circumstances, was not possible at all.

On this side of the House, I want to reiterate that the Government does regard it as vitally important that we safeguard the independence of our police and the independence of our judiciary. I agree with what Mr Bishop said about the kinds of countries where that does not exist and that New Zealand would never want to be one of those countries. We have seen numerous times, in the recent past in New Zealand, the extraordinary work done by the police force in supporting and protecting New Zealanders, most recently in the cyclones but also in numerous other examples, including recent examples where members of the police force have lost their lives. The decisions about what the police do and how they go about that and their operational work must remain that of the Commissioner of Police, and then, in turn, the police Minister needs to be in a position to respect that.

The Policing Act is extremely clear: the responsibilities and independence of the commissioner are laid out in section 16 of the Policing Act: “The Commissioner is responsible to the Minister”—under that Act—“for carrying out the functions and duties of the Police … the general conduct of the Police … the effective, efficient, and economical management of the Police … tendering advice to the Minister … giving effect to any lawful ministerial decisions.” Section 16(2) then goes on to say: “The Commissioner is not responsible to, and must act independently of, any Minister of the Crown (including any person acting on the instruction of a Minister of the Crown) regarding the maintenance of order in relation to any individual or group of individuals … the enforcement of the law in relation to any individual or group of individuals … the investigation and prosecution of offences; and decisions about individual Police employees.”

It is for that reason—both the Cabinet Manual and the Policing Act—that it is clear that Minister Nash had a serious error of judgment. The Prime Minister then has gone on to say that it is his view that removing Mr Nash as the Minister of Police is proportionate to that particular error of judgment.

It’s very clear that, across history, a Prime Minister’s job is to interpret and enforce the Cabinet Manual as they see fit. I have sat in this House over the last 15 years—and prior to that, working in this building—and I have heard Prime Ministers give their interpretation of the Cabinet Manual. Ultimately, it is in the hands of each Prime Minister to dictate how that Cabinet Manual will be applied. Mr Bishop’s already mentioned the example of Maurice Williamson. I also sat in this House on another occasion where the Prime Minister of the day made a decision not to ask a Minister to resign, and that was the Honourable Judith Collins, with respect to the Oravida scandal where a breach of the Cabinet Manual was also identified. Equally, in Helen Clark’s time, I recall other Ministers who were found to have breached the Cabinet Manual, and a variety of different consequences have occurred for that. In the case of Mr Nash, the consequence is one where he has had to lose this particular portfolio. But, I reiterate again, it is for the Prime Minister of the day to decide upon the gravity of any breach of the Cabinet Manual and what then should happen to that person.

Colleagues across the House will be aware of the fact that for Mr Nash this represents a very significant change. He is a person who was a very proud police Minister when he held that portfolio in the previous Government that we were part of. And now, as he has taken that portfolio back up, all of us know the pride he has in the New Zealand police force—the extent to which he regards this as an important job. And so I think everybody in the House would recognise that the loss of such a portfolio for Mr Nash is a very significant matter. And as I said, I think the Prime Minister has indicated that he believes that it is proportionate.

I do just want, in the remaining time in my call, to reflect back again a little bit on the importance of the independence of the Police Commissioner and to raise an issue in relationship to this, which is the way in which, in this House, over a succession of years—and I’m not going to pinpoint any individual—we have got ourselves to a place where a lot of the questioning within this Parliament goes to those parts of the Policing Act that I mentioned before. I believe we all do have a responsibility to uphold the independence of the police force and of the Police Commissioner.

During the occupation of Parliament, out the front here, it became necessary for me as the local member of Parliament, representing the people whose lives were being so severely disrupted, to have quite regular conversations, not with the commission necessarily, although that did happen once or twice, but with other members of the police. And I knew, when I was having those conversations, just how important it was that I was clear that, as the local MP, I was providing my reflections on what was occurring. Every one of those conversations was prefaced with the fact that I could not tell the Police Commissioner to do his job. I remember standing in this House and saying I may disagree or agree with some of the things that the commissioner and his police officers were doing, but that I did not feel it was my place to go beyond the comments I made privately in terms of what I was seeing on the ground. It’s a fine line for people. I’m not suggesting here, in any way, Mr Nash’s acts represent a fine line, but it is a fine line for this House.

Something I would encourage colleagues to reflect upon, as we go forward from here, is how we talk about what the police do and how we raise issues. Ministers in this House are responsible for the resourcing of the Police, for example, and whether or not they have the resources to do the job. Ministers in this House are responsible for the laws that we promote—and then Parliament passes or doesn’t pass—that reflect on what the police can do, what their roles are, and where they go with that. But when we move beyond that to a place where we are questioning operational questions, it’s challenging. The last thing I want is for the Minister of Police to have to get up in the House and just say on rote, “That’s an operational matter. That’s an operational matter.”, because it doesn’t take us anywhere. But we need to make sure that, in the boundaries that we work within, we do uphold that independence. And so I just put that on the table.

As I say, I’m not actually particularly pointing anyone out, and I’m sure people would be able to go back in history and find examples of both sides of the House, when they’re not in Government, taking that approach. We do need to uphold the independence of our police force. Our police force do a terrific job on our behalf. We have seen, over the years, the development within the Police of a range of diverse operations and people behind those operations. Most of us, in our working lives as members of Parliament, have significant interaction with the Police, and, in doing so, we have to understand the importance of their independence, but also the importance of the work that they do in the community.

So, to recap, the Prime Minister received a resignation letter—or an email, I think it was—from Minister Nash. He accepted that. He is being clear—the Prime Minister, that is—that this was a serious error of judgment, it did indeed breach the Cabinet Manual section 4.14, and it also, no doubt, cut across section 16 of the Policing Act as well. It is, therefore, the right decision that Mr Nash has resigned his position, and we hope to move forward from here, again reinforcing the independence of the Police and the responsibilities of the commissioner in that regard.

SPEAKER: I understand the Green Party has decided not to take a call. Just before I call David Seymour, I’ll let members know, if there’s any unused time of the one hour debate, I’ll allocate that at the end.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. That’s a superb decision by the Green Party. I want to just reflect on what we’ve just heard from Grant Robertson, the Minister of Finance, because I think it is, ultimately, important that all sides of this House uphold the traditions and conventions that underpin New Zealanders’ basic freedom—and amongst those, the independence of police from political interference in their decisions to surveil, investigate, prosecute, or appeal against adverse prosecution decisions by the courts. That independence of the police is one of the most important things that we have in New Zealand for the simple reason that you know, if the State is going to use its extraordinary power to take you away and lock you up in a cage—which it can do—then you at least should know that there is no bias, that you have a right to a trial before your peers, and whether you end up on trial is not influenced by political considerations. There’s no shortage of countries in this world where you do get locked up for your political opinions, and the first thing that happens on the slippery slope to that horrible world is when politicians start blurring the lines between their political objectives and the powers that the police are given to protect citizens’ rights.

I think it’s a good thing that, prior to the speech by Grant Robertson, many people have said similar things in this House, and I hope that for a very long time it will continue to be said. Jacinda Ardern in 2014—you know, Maurice Williamson made a very clear error of judgment, not just by having a conversation with the police about an open criminal case by just picking up the phone, he clearly breached the Cabinet Manual. John Key said in that same Maurice Williamson incident: “Mr Williamson assured me he did not in any way intend to influence the Police investigation. However [his] decision to discuss the investigation with Police was a significant error of judgment. The independence of Police investigations is a fundamental part of our country’s legal framework.” That was John Key.

David Cunliffe, Labour leader at the time of the Williamson affair: “Mr Williamson’s resignation and the issues that led to it are very serious matters that question the independence of the New Zealand Police and its ability to conduct investigations without political interference. New Zealanders must have an assurance that Ministers in any Government will not, cannot, and must not use their positions either to favour some members of the community or to apply pressure to independent organisations like the Police.” It’s not just politicians that have said these things; the Policing Act, and it’s very clear at section 16: “The Commissioner is not responsible to, and must act independently of, any Minister of the Crown (including any person acting on the instruction of a Minister of the Crown) regarding— … the investigation and prosecution of offences”.

Our country has also recorded, in the Cabinet Manual, that “Following a long-established principle, Ministers do not comment on or involve themselves in the investigation of offences or the decision as to whether a person should be prosecuted or on what charge.” And so it goes on. I think we’ve got a responsibility, in this House, to make it crystal clear that one of our most cherished traditions in New Zealand has always been, is, and will always be that we have a constabulary with extraordinary powers that they may use only under the rule of law and never to advance the political purposes of one side of politics, another, or those outside of politics altogether.

We still have to acknowledge the extraordinary acts of Stuart Nash. First of all, he picked up the phone after reading a court case—according to his telling—and spoke to the Police Commissioner while he was a Minister of the Crown and said, you know, well, what did he say? “Surely you’re going to appeal this.” He was trying to direct a specific police prosecution in a specific case, and he went on the radio and actually boasted about doing it. You know, now, most people have the intelligence to, when they break the rules, actually try and conceal it so they don’t face the penalty. But not Stuart Nash; he actually went and boasted that he’d been breaking the rules. Why? Because I don’t think he realised what he’d done. And the reason why I don’t think Stuart Nash realised what he’d done is that, when he was asked about it, he gave the most extraordinarily revealing answers to media this morning: “Oh, I was just chewing the fat with my mate, who happens to be the Police Commissioner, and we happened to be chewing the fat about a prosecutorial decision by the police.”

The casualness, or perhaps it’s the brazenness of Stuart Nash riding roughshod over critical conventions that, as I’ve listed, so many political leaders have spoken of before, that is recorded in legislation passed by this House, and the Cabinet Manual created by successive Governments—so many people get this but Stuart Nash didn’t. And, of course, the answer we heard from the Prime Minister today, as well, “He’s paid a penalty”. Well, that may be true, but, unfortunately, Chris Hipkins is asking the wrong question. The question he should be asking is not “Did I make sure that he paid a price?” That’s the student union politician coming out of them. That’s the union politics: “Oh, he’s been beaten down a peg, so it’s OK now.” The question should be “Is he capable to perform as the Minister of Forestry?” Pretty big issues in the Ministry of Forestry right now. Is he capable to be the Minister of Economic Development, a portfolio that is inherently about passing out economic resources to particular actors—something where you really have to have some integrity, if you think it’s a good idea to do it at all. Is he capable of being in charge of ocean and fisheries—a very contestable area of policy, to say the least. If he’s not capable of discharging his duties as the Minister of Police, then why does the Prime Minister believe he’s capable of doing those other portfolios? Are they less important?

It might be that he offended while he was the Minister of Police, but his offences were actually carried out while he was not the Minister of Police. So he’s now been put back in the exact same position he had when he did the wrong thing in the first place. He should go. He should go from all of his portfolios. Either he’s capable of being a Minister of Police or he’s not, and, if he’s not, why are those other portfolios less important than Police—fisheries and forestry and economic development—they don’t matter as much as Police? It’s not logical; he needs to go.

The next point is this: the Labour Party got into this trouble because Stuart Nash was trying to be tough on crime. He was trying to boast that he actually—haplessly boast—rings up the Police Commissioner and gets them to prosecute the bad guys. Now, we’ve discussed how stupid and wrong that is and everyone agrees with that. But the real issue is this: the Labour Party have had such a bad time being tough on crime that now their political response is to ignore the rule of law. If a Government wants to get tough on crime—and ACT strongly recommends that this Government should, otherwise the next one’s going to have to because things are out of control—the way to do it is to write a law, bring it to this House, debate it in public, get a majority, pass it into statute, and have the courts apply the law equally to all people, in order that we have open and transparent justice without fear nor favour.

Here’s an example. Recently, in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle, just as we said after the Kaikōura earthquakes, the ACT Party has said there should be a provision in the Sentencing Act—section 9, to be precise—that says if you loot in a state of national emergency, that’s an aggravating factor and you should get a longer sentence. You should go away for longer—scumbags and lowlifes that loot in a national disaster. But that would be making a law that is written down, the same for everyone—not making phone calls in the night to see who should be taken on by the cops and who shouldn’t, Stuart Nash - style.

The next thing we could do is that we bring back three strikes. We say, “Whoever you are, if you commit three serious violence or sexual offences, you get the max.” If this Government wants to be tough on crime like Stuart Nash was trying to be, ACT’s got lots of ideas for doing it in a way that’s consistent with the rule of law; written down and applied the same to everybody—not phone calls to your mate to chew the fat in the night, and maybe someone extra gets prosecuted along the way. There are many countries like that. We’re so lucky to be born and to live in one that is not like that, and we in this House have a duty to uphold those traditions in the past, today, and forever. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The demise of a Labour Cabinet Minister today started six years ago. One of the issues that he raised on the Mike Hosking show today, and I’ll come to that, in what was a desperate call to the show to ask if he could go on—to raise the point that my colleague David Seymour made—to try and show in a desperate attempt that he was tough on crime. And the reason why he did that, and I said to my own team when he took over as police Minister, is that they’re under so much pressure that he is going to overreach, that he is going to do something and step outside the bounds in trying so hard to show that they aren’t soft on crime; they’re tough on crime. That is exactly what we saw as a country play out today.

What happened was he got up and he talked about how he had tried to have some influence over the Police Commissioner in terms of going back and appealing a decision that was made by the courts. But instead of looking at the courts or the police, he should have been looking at himself and his own Cabinet, his own Labour Cabinet. Because if you go back six years to when they came into Government, their priorities were quite simply this: “Let’s repeal the three-strikes legislation”—the only tough piece of sentencing law that we actually had on our statute book. “Let’s go for a 30 percent reduction in the prison muster”—a 30 percent reduction in the prison muster. That was the signal that this Government was sending to our judiciary. “Let’s go for alternative actions.” What do alternative actions mean? By the way, they’ve blown out in their thousands now inside our criminal justice system. Quite simply, an alternative action is a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.

We can all see, in this country, that one of the great frustrations of our front-line police officers is that there are no consequences for the offenders that they’re putting themselves on the line to arrest, charge, and take to court. Offenders that they are catching on a Friday night are back out re-offending the next day. We know that there’s an issue. We know that there’s a problem around no consequences. Today, the Minister tried to talk tough, tried to show that he was trying to do something about that, was taking it seriously. He shouldn’t have been talking to the commissioner about it. He shouldn’t have been pointing the finger at the judiciary. He should have been back in his own Cabinet room discussing what they need to in terms of policy changes to actually send a signal that there were going to be consequences, that there was going to be proper sentencing. So that was the first thing.

The next thing that happened is that they held a justice summit. And in the justice summit, they forgot about victims. They forgot to ask victim advocacy groups to attend. And Minister after Minister—I was there—got up and said the real victims are the gang members; that’s where the focus is. That’s the mind-set. That’s the mind-set of this Government from six years ago and that’s why in the last six years we’ve seen an increase, a 50 percent increase in gang membership, we’ve seen a 35 percent increase in violent crime, while, at the same time, there’s been a 25 percent decrease in the prison muster. That’s people that aren’t being rehabilitated and are let out. That is transferring the risk back into the community. That is asking our already stretched thin blue line to step up and do even more. And this is the background in which Stuart Nash came in and took over the police portfolio; by the way, the third police Minister in the last 12 months and he was desperate to get out there.

We had questions in the House yesterday to him about the numbers—that retail crime has gone up 39 percent in one year; over 100,000 reports of retail crime. And then the Herald did a story around some of the numbers that they were presented with, the data they were given, and realised that, actually, maybe there’s something wrong here and they came back out and they corrected that. It wasn’t a good story for the Government at all. It was completely consistent with what they’ve been doing in the last six years. So what did the Minister do? In desperation, he rings Mike Hosking and says, “Can I come on the show and can I lay all my data out there and show you how tough we are”—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: “And beat my chest.”

Hon MARK MITCHELL: —“and how good we are on crime?” Beat his chest—that’s right. And now, literally eight hours later, he’s had to resign as a Minister.

Chris Hipkins, as the incoming Prime Minister, appointed Stuart Nash into that role because he understood how critically important law and order is going to be in the campaign this year for the general election. That was Chris Hipkins’ appointment. It’s not a great way for a new Prime Minister to start losing one of his most senior Ministers. And, by the way, has he been strong? Has he been decisive in dealing with the situation with Stuart Nash? No, he hasn’t. He’s tried to look like it. He’s removed him as police Minister. But the problem is that Minister Nash’s complete and utter lack of awareness of actually just how wrong it was, the things that he did, the breaches that he made of the Cabinet Manual—and, by the way, the terrible situation he’s now put our Police Commissioner in.

By the way, I don’t agree with everything our Police Commissioner does. I’ve been very public about that. I don’t like the approach he’s taken. I think it was the wrong time for us as a country in terms of what we’re trying to deal with. But the Minister has put him in an awkward position that I’ll come back and address in a minute. But the reality is this: you’ve got a Prime Minister that’s made an appointment like that and he’s now got one of his senior Cabinet Ministers that’s come out and breached the Cabinet Manual. He’s probably breached the Policing Act. It’s obvious that he’s not fit to stay inside a Cabinet and an executive. But what has the Prime Minister done? He’s removed the police portfolio.

Now, I do have to acknowledge and admit—and the Hon Grant Robertson referred to this. The one thing that I do want to say about Stuart Nash is that I actually liked having him in that portfolio. I’ll tell you why: because he actually likes and supports our police. And there were some Ministers that were appointed on that side of the House that barely disguised the fact that they didn’t particularly like or support our front-line police officers. At least Stuart Nash did that, but he lost his way.

Just very quickly, in terms of the Police Commissioner, I just want to say that the last time the National Party was in Government for a short time I was the Associate Minister of Justice and I got to work closely with Commissioner Coster, because at that time he was the deputy chief executive at Justice. I want to put on record, and I’ve always done this, that although I don’t agree with what he’s done or his leadership or where he’s taken our police service—I think the front line have been badly let down—I’ve always said that he is a man of integrity and you would never question his integrity. And when I dealt with him, he was professional and we had a professional relationship. He’s very, very strong on policy and he did an outstanding job in Justice. He’s just, in my view, the wrong guy right now to be leading our police service.

So I just want to put on record that I would never question Andrew Coster’s integrity, but I think that he has been put in a very difficult situation because he’s had a Cabinet Minister, a member of the executive, who has reached out to him, has now put on record that they’re great mates and they chew the fat and they’re discussing court cases and judicial decisions. So this Prime Minister and a member of his Cabinet have now put a very senior executive, the Police Commissioner, in a very awkward position. And I just want to say that I, personally—and I’m sure my colleagues as well—would never challenge his integrity and don’t believe for one minute that he has come under undue political pressure. However, there’s no doubt going to be questions asked now whether or not there has been pressure that’s been tried to be applied by this Government.

What else have they done? They had a director that was appointed who was an ex-Labour MP who was asked if she had read her ethics and compliance manual—

Hon Member: No!

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yeah—and code of ethics, and with great pride, she turned up and she said no, she hadn’t. So in my view, the response from Stuart Nash today, which, by the way, he doubled down on—I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I said, “If he comes out and he acknowledges that what he’s done has been a breach and he apologises for that and he agrees to maybe take on some remedial actions around it, then it might be OK; he might get through.” But he didn’t. He doubled down on it, and he doubled down on it because there’s a hubris and there’s an arrogance that has formed on that side of the House. One of the greatest enemies of a Government that is coming almost to the end of their second term is they’re becoming arrogant. And there is not a clearer sign of that, in terms of the response that we got from Stuart Nash.

Should he be stood down from Cabinet? Is that the real test for the incoming Prime Minister? Absolutely it is. Is he going to try and get away with standing him down as police Minister? Absolutely he will. And he’s sending a very clear signal that “I’m willing to have a Cabinet Minister sit in my executive that will try to influence, or try to bring to bear their influence on, senior members of agencies, leaders of agencies.” He’s willing to have someone in his Cabinet that will break the rules of the Cabinet Manual, and still say “It’s OK. You’ll lose the police portfolio. Turn up to work on Monday.” Not acceptable.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): I find it somewhat reassuring that around this House this afternoon, from Chris Bishop to Grant Robertson to David Seymour, we’ve had an absolute underscoring of the importance of the independence of our police and the independence of our Police Commissioner. I think it’s been absolutely right and proper that people have returned, time and time again, in their contributions in this debate to section 16 of the Policing Act. That lays out very clearly what the responsibilities are: both of the Minister and the Commissioner. I think it speaks to the heart of who we want to be as a country. It’s been said previously in this urgent debate that one of the things that none of us want here for New Zealand is to live in a country where our politicians have the ability to unduly influence members of our police force when it comes to matters of investigations—or the judiciary when it comes to matters of sentencing. I think it is a fundamental of who we believe we are in New Zealand.

So we’ve had laid out, very clearly, what the Commissioner is responsible to the Minister for: “carrying out the functions and duties of the police … the general conduct of the police … the effective, efficient, and economical management of the police … [to tender] advice to the Minister and Ministers of the Crown and [to give effect] to any lawful ministerial decisions [that are being made]”. But it is also really important what the Commissioner is not responsible for. And the Commissioner must act independently of any Minister of the Crown, including the person acting on the instruction of a Minister of the Crown. And it lays out very clearly—and this strikes to the heart of who we want to be as a country: “the maintenance of order into relation to any individual or group of individuals … the enforcement of the law in relation to any individual or group of individuals … the investigation and prosecution of offences; and decisions about individual Police employees.” It is a timely reminder to us all as politicians that there are very clear demarcations when it comes to our police and to our judiciary, in terms of what we should and shouldn’t be thinking that we have the ability to comment on. We have this separation of powers for a very good reason.

What we’ve seen here today is a Minister who has breached the Cabinet Manual in relation to what we hold the line on as so important in terms of the independence of our police and the independence of our judiciary. We have a Minister who is suffering the consequences of breaching the Cabinet Manual on that. We have a Prime Minister who has shown leadership; he has acted quickly and he has acted decisively because, as a Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins knows how fundamentally important it is to us as a country that we do uphold those very important principles. We have heard people say that therefore he should resign all his portfolios but I think the Prime Minister has made a decision that speaks to the transgression being in relation to such an important part of being the Minister of Police. There is an onus on the Minister of Police that is quite different to the interactions the Ministers have with chief executives in other areas in terms of that independence of what can—and can’t—and who does what being laid out so explicitly in statute in the Policing Act: that is for a very good reason, and it has been talked about in this House throughout this debate. It is the transgression of those that has meant the Prime Minister has made the quick and decisive call that we cannot have a Minister of Police that has transgressed those very clear boundaries and has accepted his resignation.

My colleague Grant Robertson talked about this being a consequence for the Minister in question who did tender his resignation to the Prime Minister because he did see that there had been a breach of the Cabinet Manual—that this is something that he will be feeling. We know as colleagues of Minister Nash just how dearly he holds the police portfolio, so this isn’t something that he will see as just a small consequence for an action. He will be feeling, very clearly, the gravity of the consequence of this action. The other question that’s come up in this is: is it appropriate for Ministers to be mates with the police? That’s been something that has been raised. I think that one of the things that we have to make sure that we are doing as Ministers—and this has been acknowledged in what has happened today—is that we demonstrate a professional approach and good judgment in our interactions with officials. That is a central thing that you take on when you become a Minister. And as Grant Robertson spoke about, as Ministers, we have to traverse that line, being local MPs often as well. I know—and it’s a timely day to remark on it—that as the Member of Parliament for Wigram while being a Minister, March 15 occurred with Al Noor Mosque being in my electorate. I spent a lot of time interacting our District Commander, John Price, around the welfare of the community, around what was happening with the community, but never did I see it as something that was appropriate for me to suggest what, operationally, the police should be doing. It is something that we all do have to bear in mind and often be quite explicit in our interactions with police, especially when we are Ministers, because we cannot be seen to be putting that undue influence on them. But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have interactions with the police. We are a country of only several million people that often, especially back in our home patches, there are going to be those interactions, so we need to be making sure that we tread that line in a careful way, but in a sensible and pragmatic way that does allow us to do our jobs as local MPs.

I think it is also a reminder of just how important to us as a country—to the separation of powers that we hold dear in this country—that at times, yes, the political debate around crime and justice can get heated. But it is also a careful reminder that as members of this House, we have a responsibility to not treat this as a game. We have a responsibility to hold those divisions that stand there in good stead, to make sure that we are respecting those divisions. It’s all well and good to sometimes imagine you’re in the locker room talking tough about some of these issues, but there are clear divisions that need to be adhered to. It is each and every member of this House’s responsibility to make sure that they are adhering to those divisions, because as we know, this place can be a tough place when you make an error of judgment, and that is what we have seen today: someone is having the consequence of losing a job that they held dear in terms of being Minister of Police. And that is correct; that is the right thing to have happened: for Minister Nash to have tendered his resignation to the Prime Minister, and a Prime Minister—who has shown leadership—has acted quickly and decisively. Because he is clear with us as a Cabinet, with us as a group of Ministers, that we have to make sure that we are upholding the highest of standards; that we are ensuring that when there are breaches of the Cabinet Manual, they are dealt with; that they are made sure that the consequences are there. And I think that that’s what most people will see: someone here exercised an error of judgment; they did something that wasn’t correct, and there has been a consequence. They haven’t just come out and said “I’m sorry, I won’t do that again”. There has been a real and lasting consequence of someone not serving in the portfolio that they held so dear.

So it has been heartening to me, listening to this debate, that across this House we can see the gravity that this issue is being taken with, because it is serious and it should be serious to all of us as elected representatives in this House. It should be something that all New Zealanders hold dear. We have no desire to live in a country where our politicians meddle with our police force. We have no desire to live in a country where political decisions are made about operational police matters. It is right and proper that the divisions and the Policing Act exist, and it is something that our Prime Minister has shown today that we take incredibly seriously as a Government.

SPEAKER: I indicated earlier that any unallocated time I would allocate now. There’s 10 minutes left; I propose two five-minute calls. Any member can seek it now.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We started this morning with Minister Stuart Nash beating his chest on radio, saying he was tough on crime and he remembered calling the Commissioner of Police, his mate, to surely challenge or appeal a decision. At 11 o’clock, he was still beating his chest in front of the media, saying, “I’m not doubling down. I’m not turning around. I did the right thing.”, and then by 1.30 he was beating a retreat and handing in his resignation one minute before he was about to be fired by the Prime Minister. But the point of this debate is not about the resignation over an act by a Minister of Police—interfering with the Commissioner of Police. It was the Minister of Tourism—Mr Stuart Nash was the Minister of Tourism when he interfered, and then he subsequently became the Minister of Police. And then this story came out, and yet he was a Minister of the Crown interfering with a police investigation and criticising the judiciary. And that was the breach of the Cabinet Manual.

And what has been the punishment? Well, the punishment has not been his removal as a Minister of the Crown, as a Cabinet Minister. In fact, the punishment has been to lighten his workload a little bit and to lose the police portfolio. And that is not a strong and decisive decision by the Prime Minister. It’s a weak decision by the Prime Minister. It is a decision that defies any logic, because the breach that the Minister made as the Minister of Tourism meant that he is not fit and appropriate to be in the Cabinet and he should be removed from the Cabinet. And every hour and every day that he remains in the Cabinet shows that the Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, has made a weak decision and has low standards for his Government—he needs to be removed.

The wider context that my colleague Mark Mitchell referred to is the critical one: why did he do this? Why did he go on the radio in the morning and beat his chest and try to pretend to be tough on crime? We all know the answer to that. We all know, the Government knows, the population of New Zealand knows, everybody knows that this has been a Government that has been both soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime, and that is why this country is facing real issues on our streets. They are soft on the causes of crime because they haven’t dealt at all with the long-term drivers, such as truancy, where 50 percent of kids are not attending school regularly, such as emergency housing, where 4,000 children are being raised in emergency housing, such as all the other long-term drivers of crime that haven’t been dealt with effectively by the Government. There are lots of intentions, lots of announcements, lots of statements but no real action. And then when it comes to crime itself, the two things that they’ve done is repeal the three-strikes legislation because they’ve come to the conclusion, given the 30 percent increase in violent crime, given the massive increase in ram raids, given the explosion in youth crime, and given all the delays to justice, that the one thing we need to do is reduce sentences for our worst repeat offenders by removing three strikes.

And then the second signal they sent to the judiciary was that they want to reduce the prison population by 30 percent—that’s the goal. That’s the signal they send to the judicial system. And then they have specialised in the culture of excuses. If there’s a crime—if there’s a ram raid, if there are kids not being at school, if there’s any problem, it’s not the individual’s fault; it’s something else. It’s their background, it’s history, it’s the community, it’s everything other than people taking responsibility for their actions. And that has led to this culture of impunity and violence that we’ve seen on our streets. That’s why people are worried about crime. Poto Williams, the previous Minister of Police, exemplified that approach. Then we had Mr Hipkins come in himself as police Minister, so-called “Mr Fix-it.” I’ve never understood that notion—five years as the Minister of Education with only half the kids going to school cannot be regarded as a “Mr Fix-it” in any way, shape, or form. And then we had Stuart Nash trying to get tough. And so he went out trying to be tough and overreached and made the mistake, and now he’s paying half the price that he should be paying.

And the point that New Zealanders are worried about—yeah, they’re slightly worried about a ministry, and about a Government that’s losing Ministers, and they’re slightly worried that a new Prime Minister’s come and he’s promoted a new bloke back as the Minister of Police and he’s had to sack him, effectively, within six weeks. So that looks messy. People will be worried about that. But they are more fundamentally worried about the fact that we’ve lost a sense of law and order on our streets, and they’re worried about that. If they live in Auckland, like I do, they’re worried about the helicopter flying overhead every night and ram raids every night, and they want to see a Government that’s going to make a difference—and let this be a lesson to this Government: don’t actually talk about being tough; actually get things done.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise as Attorney-General to make a five-minute contribution in support of the separation of powers. The separation of powers is a constitutional model which democracies such as New Zealand hold dear. It separates government into separate branches, each of which has separate and independent powers which they exercise independently.

The doctrine of the separation of powers is sometimes attributed to the French political philosopher Montesquieu, who, in the mid - 18th century, said—and I quote—“there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive.” Essentially, he is saying that if you merge prosecutorial decisions with legislative or executive decisions, there will be no liberty. It is an absolutely fundamental principle of democracy and the rule of law in countries such as New Zealand that those separations of power be respected, and I agree with comments made by all those who have spoken today that it is an absolutely central principle of our system.

It is, of course, given voice in the Cabinet Manual, which says, at paragraph 4.12, “Ministers must exercise judgement before commenting on judicial decisions, whether generally, or in relation to the specifics of an individual case (for example, the sentence).” Paragraph 4.13 goes on to say that “Ministers should not express any views that are likely to be publicised if they could be regarded as reflecting adversely on the impartiality, personal views, or ability of any judge. If a Minister has grounds for concern over a sentencing decision, the Attorney-General should be informed.”, and then paragraph 4.14 follows that by saying, “Following a long-established principle, Ministers do not comment on or involve themselves in the investigation of offences or the decision as to whether a person should be prosecuted, or on what charge. Similarly, they should not comment on the results of particular cases, on matters that are subject to suppression orders, or on any sentence handed down by a court. Ministers must avoid commenting on any sentences within the appeal period, and should avoid at all times any comment that could be construed as being intended to influence the courts in subsequent cases.”

So the Minister of Police has erred both in terms of criticising the judiciary and making a call to the Commissioner of Police that could be said to have attempted to influence the police in the decision as to whether they appealed. The system, of course, has worked, because there was no appeal. So if that was his intention to influence that decision, it didn’t have that effect, because those systems, those principles, are well entrenched in the New Zealand system and they’re respected by the branches of government, and this is a rare error, for which the Minister has had to resign as Minister of Police.

The Labour Government takes these issues very seriously, as we do more generally the issue of the protection of civil liberties, and I think there’s no better illustration of that than in the response to COVID. With the COVID response legislation, we expressly preserved New Zealand Bill of Rights Act provisions and the ability of the court to listen to complaints by citizens as to whether the orders that were promulgated under that legislation went too far in breach of civil liberties, in breach of the Bill of Rights. So the separation of powers lies at the cornerstone of our constitutional arrangements, and although it gives me no pleasure to speak in this debate in respect of the Hon Stuart Nash’s resignation, I am pleased that on all sides of this House we have reinforced the importance of the separation of powers.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Debate on Budget Policy Statement

Debate on Budget Policy Statement

RACHEL BROOKING (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee): I move, That the House take note of the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Budget Policy Statement 2023 and Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2022.

I just want to start by reflecting on, of course, that today is 15 March, and we’ve just heard some comments from the MP for Wigram about that day four years ago, and my thoughts are with the shuhada and the people of Christchurch generally.

Moving now to the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) and the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU), I will start by talking mostly about this Budget Policy Statement that was released on 14 December 2022. It’s important to acknowledge—and I’m sure many of the speeches following me will address this in some detail—that, of course, 14 December 2022 was well before a number of significant weather events that hit the North Island in both January and February of this year.

Going back to this year, the Finance and Expenditure Committee held hearings on 13 February, so that was the day before the emergency was declared, on 14 February. We received 27 written submissions on the Budget Policy Statement and heard 14 oral submissions on 13 February. We then had the Minister of Finance and Dr Caralee McLiesh, the Secretary to the Treasury, attend the Finance and Expenditure Committee on 22 February and we heard from both parties for 45 minutes each. At that hearing, the Budget day was announced, and it will be on 18 May—I seem to be talking a lot about dates here. Then the Finance and Expenditure Committee reported back this month on both the BPS and the HYEFU.

So I want to talk a little bit about what a Budget Policy Statement is and what it says, obviously. So the Budget Policy Statement commences the Budget cycle, it sets the scene, and it’s a requirement under the Public Finance Act 1989, section 26M. That section sets out things that it must include, and that includes—so it says—“the broad strategic priorities by which the Government will be guided in preparing the Budget for that financial year, including—(a) the overarching policy goals that will guide the Government’s Budget decisions; and (aa) the wellbeing objectives … and (b) the policy areas that the Government will focus … and (c) how the Budget for that year accords with the short-term intentions referred to in the most recent fiscal strategy report”.

So those are things that must be included and also those wellbeing objectives “must relate to social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing and to any other matters that the Government considers support long-term wellbeing in New Zealand.” And the other thing that must be included is an explanation of “how the wellbeing objectives are intended to support long-term wellbeing in New Zealand.” And that is exactly what the Budget Policy Statement does.

So if we go right to the start, if we’re talking about the wellbeing at page 2 of the Budget Policy Statement, there’s discussion of the Living Standards Framework and now the complementary He Ara Waiora, looking at Te Ao Māori values as well. So the Budget Policy Statement talks about those four capitals being human, natural, social, financial, and physical. And then what happens in the document is the BPS comments on these capitals. So if we go to page 7 under the natural capital, the natural environment, there’s a section on climate change and there is some discussion about how the Government is very concerned about the impacts of recent extreme weather events—noting, of course, that this was written last year, and we thought last year was bad—and it goes on to say that “Scientists are clear that the severity and frequency of these events are being exacerbated by climate change. New Zealand’s first ever National Adaptation Plan … outlines the Government’s strategy to manage the risks to lives, livelihoods, homes, businesses, and infrastructure caused by the changing climate.” It goes on to talk about the Climate Emergency Response Fund—the CERF—and notes that that has been extended for Budget 2023 to include climate change adaptation. And that was a point that the committee focused on in the hearing with the Minister.

If we go then to the relevant work that has been done on that capital, that’s outlined at page 8 and talks about things like “reforming the resource management system to make it faster, cheaper, and better”—

Hon Grant Robertson: A good piece of work.

RACHEL BROOKING: —isn’t it?—the Plastics Innovation Fund, so that’s a $50 million fund; Jobs for Nature, a $1.2 billion programme that has funded more than 421 projects and created more than 9,000 environment-orientated jobs; and it’s talking also about rural land use and advisory services and the Clean Car Discount.

If we went on, we could look at infrastructure, which is part of the financial and physical capital. And so there are comments here about how “the Infrastructure Commission assesses that New Zealand has a public infrastructure deficit of approximately $104 billion.” and how “The Government is committed to addressing this shortfall and will invest a further $62.7 billion in infrastructure, (in health, transport, housing, and education in particular) over the next five years.” And then there’s a discussion about the need for those Resource Management Act reforms, three waters, and increasing the workforce.

The wellbeing objectives outlined on page 15—and that is the just transition, physical and mental wellbeing, future of work, Māori and Pacific peoples, and child wellbeing. And there’s a note there that there has been a slight revision to those objectives for Budget 2023 to reflect the “increased emphasis on improving our young peoples’ foundational literacy and numeracy skills, educational experience, and”—very importantly, in my opinion—“mental health outcomes.”

Then, how the BPS works, is that these are expanded on in the following pages. So on the child wellbeing, which is “reducing child poverty and improving child wellbeing, including through access to affordable, safe, and stable housing”, there is a comment about how the “Good material standards of living (including access to warm and dry housing) provide children with a good start in life, and this been shown to contribute to lasting wellbeing outcomes in areas like health, housing, and education.”

The focus areas of Budget 2023 are provided around page 18, so we have the overarching goals, which are “1. continuing to keep New Zealand safe from COVID-19; 2. accelerating the recovery and rebuild from the impacts of COVID-19; and 3. laying the foundations for the future, including addressing key issues such as our climate change response, housing affordability, and child poverty.” That is also addressed at page 4 of the committee’s report.

The BPS also has policy areas of focus, and this covers—again, this is outlined on page 4 of the committee’s report—supporting families with cost of living; careful fiscal policy; returning to surplus in the 2024/25 year; getting the basics right, particularly with the Public Service; delivering on the economic plan, and that is investing in infrastructure that drives growth, productivity, and reduces emissions.

In our hearing, there was some focus on trying to do projects that achieve multiple goals. So the Minister mentioned one, something that does two things, is a cycleway in Wellington that is also a stock bank. So it’s infrastructure that’s doing those two things—how can we get those projects, our investments, to do at least a couple of good things.

I just want to touch very briefly on the submissions. We had very engaged people, we were talking about student associations before, we had the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association and others speaking about how they wanted free public transport. We also had support for the wellbeing approach by the Salvation Army and some specific requests from the likes of the disabled persons assembling. Going back to that infrastructure, they were requesting the infrastructure mandate, the highest possible accessibility standards. My time is up. Thank you very much.

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

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you for this opportunity to speak about the Government’s Budget Policy Statement. This year’s Budget comes at a critical time for the New Zealand economy, where we have, on a number of fronts, significant challenges deepening for New Zealanders, deepening for everyday households, for businesses, and for the position of New Zealand as a whole.

In our debate at the select committee, we were acutely aware of that context. What was less obvious was that there are in fact plans in this Budget that will address those challenges in any deep or substantive way. I want to outline some of them. The first is that we are in a cost of living crisis. Not for more than 30 years has New Zealand experienced price increases as rapid as we are currently experiencing, with inflation at 7.2 percent. The consequence of that for New Zealanders is acute. They have experienced food prices going up the fastest they have since 1989, with fresh fruit and vegetables—those things New Zealand prides itself on growing so well—up 23 percent in just one year.

At the same time, families continue to face extremely high housing costs, with rents up $175 a week since this Government came to office. And while prices are rising fast, real wages are lagging behind, so that over the course of this Government, in fact, people have gone backwards in their paycheques.

What that means is that, up and down the country, we are seeing hardship in ways that we haven’t seen in many, many years. Whether it’s families who are struggling to make ends meet, whether it’s the people lining up for food banks, whether it’s superannuitants whose fixed income is no longer sufficient to cover their bills, the cost of living crisis is not only serious; it has become prolonged.

We discussed at committee, when we looked at the Budget Policy Statement, the reasons for that. And while Ministers are right to acknowledge that, yes, other countries have experienced inflation, and, yes, severe weather events contribute to inflation, it is completely wrong for Ministers to reject responsibility for their role that they should rightly take up in helping address the cost of living crisis—not only through band-aids of additional spending initiatives but, actually, getting at the root drivers of inflation.

We have not seen from the other side of the House the economic understanding that Governments that continue to add new taxes and costs to businesses are passing costs on to New Zealanders, that Governments that absolutely restrict immigration and contribute to worker shortages are constraining the ability of the economy to respond to demand pressures, that Ministers who refuse to bring discipline to their own spending are putting fuel on the inflation fire, and that, in the midst of all of this, sitting back and watching real incomes decline without offering any tax relief is just wrong.

The second area that is a clear piece of context for the Budget Policy Statement is the fact that New Zealand, in an international basis, is becoming less competitive. Last year, we dropped to 63rd in the international competitiveness rankings, the biggest drop of any of the countries. What New Zealand should be thinking about at this time is how we grow our economy, become more productive, and come out of this cost of living crisis. But the Government opposite have lost sight of that goal and are instead intent on band-aid measures.

One of the gravest concerns that we have is the degree of wasteful spending that has gone on in recent in years and is set to be perpetuated in the upcoming Budget. Government spending is up $1 billion a week since Labour came to office—$1 billion a week—which is a higher level of spending in proportion to our economy, at 35 percent of our economic output, than New Zealand has seen in 17 years.

New Zealanders often say to me: “Well, if with that spending we were seeing great enhancement to wellbeing, maybe they’d have an argument.” But, actually, when we look at the wellbeing objectives that are outlined in this very Budget Policy Statement, it’s clear that, despite spending up a storm, this Government has managed to take us backwards on the wellbeing outcomes New Zealanders expect.

So much for a just transition; we are importing record levels of coal. So much for physical and mental wellbeing; there has been a fourfold increase in the State house waiting list, with literally thousands of families putting their children to bed in motel rooms. So much for good health services; instead, emergency waiting times have increased, waiting times for elective surgery have increased, and MPs are increasingly contacted by constituents who are struggling not only to get a mental health appointment but to even see their GP. We have seen that Māori and Pacific people have also experienced a significant step backwards in their after-inflation wages. So: all of the spending but none of the outcomes.

The corollary of that, of course, is that the way that the Government continues to fuel its inflation inferno, its money burning routine, is through extra tax on New Zealanders. The tax take is up $43 billion in five years; that amounts to $17,500 in tax per New Zealand household. It is an extraordinary increase at a time when households need every dollar they can get their hands on. At a time when New Zealanders are taking jobs on the side, are cutting back on their consumption of meat, of dairy, and are turning off their heaters, we have a Government that is quite prepared to sit back and let inflation push more cash into the coffers and extract more tax from the pockets of working New Zealanders.

And it’s National’s contention that this Budget will fail New Zealanders if it does not deliver meaningful income tax relief for working people. It is well past time for that to occur. And, at the same time, it is time for the Government to step back from the clutch of new taxes it has imposed on New Zealanders: the ute tax, the Auckland regional fuel tax, the tenant taxes, removing interest deductibility for mum and dad landlords, the app tax, and the ongoing spectre of a jobs tax to fund the Minister of Finance’s pet project of a social insurance scheme—these are not responsible costs to impose on New Zealanders in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

And what is clear is that for this Budget to deliver what New Zealanders expect, it will have to show a lot more discipline about Government spending than has been evident in the past years of this Labour Government. When we on the National side look at the host of projects which have been committed to with very dubious assessment as to whether or not they will deliver results, we worry gravely about how low the bar is for this finance Minister when he signs off how he’s going to spend other people’s money—whether it’s the millions spent on the TVNZ-RNZ merger; whether it’s the millions spent on the Te Pūkenga merger, which seems to have the grand outcome that you can’t call people students anymore; whether it’s the spending on the social insurance scheme; whether it’s the spending on go-nowhere emissions projects; across the board, the huge increase in spending on consultants, the thousands of additional backroom public servants. There has been a cavalier approach to spending the public purse and it’s time the Minister of Finance reined it in.

You know, I just want to say one last thing. He’s leaving it very late because he has already raided the purse for this Budget. He has already spent $2.7 billion of the allowance he set himself for last year—so rapacious is the need to spend, spend, spend. So we can’t take it seriously. New Zealand is in a troubled spot, but National has what it takes to strengthen our economy once more, bring discipline to spending, and let New Zealanders keep more of what they earn while bringing down inflation and taking pressure off interest rates. Another year of Labour is another year we can’t afford.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Madam Speaker, thank you very much. First, I would also, on 15 March, like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the victims of the terrorist attack on the mosques in Christchurch, and their families and the wider community of Christchurch as well. This is a challenging and difficult day for people, and I want all of those in the Canterbury area and all of those in the wider community—especially our Muslim community—who have been affected by this to know that our aroha comes from this House to them.

When I think about the Budget Policy Statement for this year, I think about how quickly the world moves, because we put this statement out on 14 December 2022 and here we are, nearly two or three months later, having to deal with the impacts of a severe cyclone and the flooding that afflicted the northern part of the country around Auckland Anniversary Weekend. We have become used, as we put together Budgets, to events occurring as we are doing that, and once again we find ourselves in the position of needing to not only use this Budget Policy Statement to put the Budget together but to adapt to what has occurred in our country. This set of weather events is significant. They will have a significant impact on the lives of many New Zealanders over the next few years. Having visited a number of the regions where the cyclone has hit and the flooding has occurred, people’s lives have been devastated, their businesses have been destroyed, and communities have been cut off and still remain today, in some cases, cut off.

The human toll of these weather events is enormous, and as a Government, we have responded rapidly to support people in that regard. And I would note, in that regard, that today we’ve extended our support for small businesses in the affected regions by a further $25 million to enable grants of up to $40,000 per business to be given out to those who have been impacted and affected. That is the kind of short-term emergency support that we’ve been able to deliver, which I think tots up to a little over $400 million now. But the significance of this disaster is in its impact on our infrastructure as a country. And we will, over the course of the next few years, face a multi-billion dollar bill to make our infrastructure not only back to where it was but more resilient. And as the Prime Minister said in the days after the cyclone, not only do we have to build back better, we have to build back smarter. We have to make sure that resilience is at the core of what we do when it comes to our infrastructure.

And the Budget Policy Statement indicates that the Government already had in train a massive investment in infrastructure. One of the things I’m particularly proud of is that when we did come into office, we started to turn around the infrastructure deficit that we had inherited, and we are now spending, over the course of the next five years, around about $60 billion on New Zealand’s infrastructure—a massive increase from what we inherited.

The reality of the cyclone is we now have to do more. But that is the right thing to do. But it’s also associated with some challenging conversations for New Zealanders about how we ensure that we are resilient to future extreme weather events, how we work with communities to be more resilient, and, in some cases, to consider the future of those communities or households within them in terms of whether they can withstand the extreme weather events we’re now seeing more of. So that set of events and our response to it now colours what happens with the Budget when we deliver it in May.

But the core of what we are doing remains the same, and that is to produce another Wellbeing Budget. And it’s interesting—even hearing the Opposition spokesperson just now—the change that we’ve made to Budget Policy Statements over the years that we have been in office, because when I came into office, I found them to be very dry documents that didn’t really tell us a lot about what the Government intended to do with its Budget and, in particular, what that meant, because it’s all very well to say the numbers and the amounts of money that we’re putting in, but a Wellbeing Budget requires the Government of the day to be able to express that and what it will mean for people’s lives. And the chair of the committee ran through what are called the capitals. It’s a framework created by economists. I like to talk about it as the people, the environment, the money, and our communities—they are the four elements of what make up wellbeing. And so the Budget Policy Statement now reflects that in a way that we haven’t seen before, and I’m very proud of those changes.

What this Budget Policy Statement and the half-yearly update tell us is that New Zealand is one of the countries in the world that is the best positioned to deal with what is going to be a challenging and difficult 2023. We knew when we produced the document it would be challenging and difficult—and all the more so now. But globally, we are seeing a significant slowing of the global economy. The IMF, in their monthly economic outlooks throughout 2022, reduced their global growth forecasts for 2023. They, effectively, halved them, actually. So around the world, those challenges are being faced. We’ve seen the geopolitical conflicts with the US and China, but obviously the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We’ve seen the COVID hangover of supply chain constraints. We are in a very volatile world, but our Government is proud of the fact that we’ve made sure that we are as resilient to that as possible.

We have had strong GDP growth over the course of the last few years. Our economy is bigger than it was before COVID, and that sets us up well to deal with the potential of slowdown there. Unemployment is at historically low levels: 3.4 percent. We’ve got 2.8 million New Zealanders in work—that’s 2.8 million New Zealanders going out and earning money and feeding their families, and that is a record number. Our levels of debt are among the lowest in the developed world, and that’s important because it gives us the resilience to be able to deal with the shocks that come and to be able to deal with the challenges of 2023.

Inflation is a problem around the world, and there would be some validity to some of the concerns that the Opposition finance spokesperson was raising if it weren’t for the fact that every other country in the world is facing those as well. We are in fact the 11th lowest in the OECD at the end of the December quarter for inflation. Now, that doesn’t stop things being tough for families—they are tough—but it is a global phenomenon. And as a country and as a Government, we have worked hard to be able to support people as that occurs.

I’m also proud of the fact that we are a Government that values making sure that New Zealanders are rewarded well for their hard work. And wages have risen in this country, and we heard in the House today, earlier, the Prime Minister, in an answer to a question, talking about the fact that since 2017, after-tax wages are in fact up by 2.6 percent. We actually know that wages have by and large kept up with inflation across the time of the Government and are forecast to continue to do so in the documents that we are discussing today.

And if people really believe in making sure that wages rise and that we look after New Zealanders, a litmus test for that is how people feel about increases to the minimum wage. What we’ve seen from this Government is a consistent commitment to lifting that minimum wage to make sure that the families who are being raised on the minimum wage can look after their people and look after their communities. Consistently we’ve heard opposition to it, and even yesterday, we heard some bizarre stuff about whether or not those people actually are working people, actually are working hard, which the Prime Minister responded to. So I’m proud of the fact that wages have lifted. This is a challenging time for many New Zealanders, but we are well set to be able to deal with that.

The remainder of the Budget Policy Statement focuses on what will be in Budget 2023, and the critical priority there is the cost of living, because everybody knows that we have to make sure that we look after New Zealanders as we go through this cost of living crisis. Some parties have actions for that; others simply have words for it. In our case, even since this policy statement was finalised, we have redoubled our efforts, extended out the fuel excise duty and half-price public transport, and we will continue to find ways to support New Zealanders through this. It’s also important that during that time, we make sure that the fiscal picture stabilises. We did invest a lot of money during the COVID period to support New Zealanders.

I would say to those interjecting on the other side of the House—in fact, to one of them in particular—that time and again during the COVID period, I heard calls from the Opposition to spend more money than we were spending in our COVID response. We spent that money, and we spent that money wisely, Mr Woodhouse, on making sure we saved tens of thousands of lives and making sure that we kept people and their businesses going.

We will continue to be careful about our spending, and the Budget Policy Statement indicates a reduction in the overall Government consumption that we are doing in the coming years. The other two focuses within the Budget for 2023 will be on making sure we get the basics right: health, education, and infrastructure. And I do note the comments of the Opposition finance spokesperson, who said that we had already spent a chunk of the Budget. That’s the health funding. She doesn’t want us to do the health funding. That’s what she just told us.

The other part of the Budget plan is the execution of our economic plan to have a high-wage, low-emission economy that gives economic security, and that looks forward to a future where New Zealanders have those high-wage jobs based on our productivity and based on making sure that we give people a fair share.

I am extremely proud of our record. This has been a tough time for New Zealanders. They have worked hard to make sure we get to the place we are now. This Budget will continue to support them in that.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Hey, well, we’ve heard it all now, haven’t we? I love that quote from Mr Robertson: “We will continue to be careful with our spending.” Now, let’s just do a little bit of fact-checking on the Minister. Do you know that the spending has gone from $133 billion to $150 billion in the last year? That is someone who has been very careful with our spending! And that’s probably the issue, because the context for the Budget Policy Statement is that in the year to June 2022, we recorded a deficit of $16.9 billion. I’ll just say that again—17 billion bucks of operating loss that this Government suffered. That is despite a $17 billion increase in the revenue to the Government—a $17 billion increase in the tax revenue, and yet it reported a deficit of $16 billion. So, you know, that’s roughly a $30 billion turn-around. You’ve got $17 billion, and you go backwards $16 billion.

That is the issue, that the level of spending that this Government has set about doing over the last few years has just been the issue. Of course, it’s been fuelling the inflation that my good colleague Nicola Willis talked about—it is the issue. To continue to run a series of operating losses at Government account level over the past few years is something that the Government should not be proud of, and we continue to hear the Minister talking about how he will continue to be careful with his spending.

Obviously, the Budget Policy Statement talked about how it was prepared before Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods, and that has had a significant impact on what’s going to come forward into the next Budget. Before I go a little bit further, I just want to acknowledge all the people in Tai Rāwhiti and the Hawke’s Bay and also in Auckland, and particularly in my own electorate of Port Waikato, where I’ve probably now got 100 people without a house, without accommodation, who are now trying to deal with the issue of where they can secure their living. Of course, we’ve got an issue where many of those properties have been affected and will require earthquake funding. When we had a meeting with the Port Waikato residents, as an example recently, the Earthquake Commission representative said it would take between three and nine months before there would be any resolution to their claims. Of course, that’s going to stop them moving forward in their lives.

So that is having an impact on the Budget Policy Statement, and the Minister certainly covered that when he came before the Finance and Expenditure Committee. But I think one of the big things is how the Government has used or misused the COVID fund. It has been a significant source of funding that the Government has set about using for a whole raft of poorly designed, poorly targeted spending. That has been a major issue for a lack of transparency and accountability. We have sought on many occasions, even from Treasury, to get a better view on the nature of that spending, and, of course, it has just been used on a whole raft of ill-defined programs. It’s even been used for the three waters consultation. It’s been used for cameras on fishing boats. A big chunk of it was used for looking at the poorly targeted hydro storage scheme down in the South Island—a whole raft of these issues, when, in fact, that money should have been used to help New Zealanders move forward, to invest in our infrastructure, and, actually, create a more productive New Zealand society. And, of course, we haven’t got that.

That is one of the big issues facing New Zealand, and now because we’ve spent so much—over $60 billion during COVID to support a number of these programs. Some of it has been very well targeted, supporting businesses during the COVID period, but there is a vast quantity of it that has simply just disappeared into the till, and, of course, what that has done is eked into our debt. We’ve got much higher levels of debt. I know the Minister likes to talk about percentages, but the net debt in New Zealand has climbed quite significantly over the past four years. Of course, it means that it makes it more difficult as we move forward into these difficult periods of rebuilding back in those areas like Hawke’s Bay and Auckland, how we cater for that and how we set about doing the major infrastructure spend.

The Budget Policy Statement talked about $12 billion of capital allowances, but it is just outrageous that shovel-ready projects—225 of them; 49 of them haven’t even started. We’ve got some that just will not take place and will not be done, even though when those shovel-ready projects were announced, they were meant to be completed within 12 months. So we look at that and we say, “Has this Government got credibility to build back better, using their slogan in places like Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay?” Right now, I don’t think I would be putting much hope in it. I hope for New Zealanders’ sake that they have a better record of achieving it. I see the Minister of Transport sitting opposite, and, of course, the Government is still committed to the $30 billion Auckland Light Rail project. You’ve got to say, in the context of what’s going on, why is that such a priority? Maybe that’s politics—

Joseph Mooney: Minister for Mt Roskill.

ANDREW BAYLY: Minister for Mt Roskill, of course, as my colleague notes. But that is a project that should be put on hold because we have a construction sector that is already at capacity, and I know that Madam Chair knows a lot about this issue. Yet this Budget Policy Statement talks about not only those $12 billion of capital allowances but, of course, now with Cyclone Gabrielle, the need to increase the level of spending over time. Just got to ask—the credibility and the capability to be able to do that, and that is a very worrying thing, particularly if you are living in the Esk Valley, how that’s going to be done quickly. I’m very, very worried about it.

One of the things I do want to pick up is in the Budget statement—and the Minister talked about this in the presentation to the select committee. It says the third priority is to deliver a strong Public Service in New Zealand. So that, of course, is in the context where this Government has overseen, during the last 5½ years, a 14,000 increase in the number of people working in the Public Service. I think the number now is 67,000 public servants—some of whom do a very good job, I hasten to add. But a 14,000 increase is just a phenomenal increase, and I think the cost of that is about $1.3 billion extra.

You imagine $1.3 billion over the next 10 years—that’s $13 billion. Gee, what you could do there. That money should be applied to doing things like infrastructure spend, where it’s really required. Even if you don’t do that, what about fixing up some of our hospitals? You know, there are 80,000 people who are waiting for an operation—80,000 people are waiting for an operation. You think about it: all those women who are waiting for mammograms—we need their screening to be done, because I reckon there’s a lot of women, my wife included, who should be and haven’t been able to go and get their screening done. I think that’s a travesty for many of the women in New Zealand. When you think about the latency of what may have been occurring over the past three years, I think it is an outrage that we’ve got a health service that is so obviously failing.

Then we’ve got—of course, the Minister talked about education. Yet we’ve got nearly half of our children who are not attending schools, and we have got a teachers’ strike tomorrow morning that is going to take place across this country. It is a shameful state of affairs, particularly when you think about the impact on our children. Crime is rocketing, and, from a business perspective, all they have seen over the last 5½ years is this avalanche of regulation, costing, we estimate, about $3.5 billion of extra costs that have been imposed on small businesses.

Look, the focus should be, for the next Budget, and the Budget Policy Statement, on hard-working New Zealanders, hard-working New Zealand families, who have not seen any improvement from this Government, either in tax breaks or, actually, in making their lives easier, or actually helping them to move forward financially—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! Your time has expired. Before I call the honourable member Ingrid Leary, I’d just like to remind members of resisting, as much as you can, bringing the Speaker into the debate.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Grant Robertson, the Minister of Finance, said on 14 December 2022, “New Zealand’s strength and resilience to global forces are about to be tested again”. Well, by golly, that was a very accurate prediction, and he had no idea that on top of the things he was referring to—the global economic downturn, high inflation here and around the world, a geopolitical situation dominated by war, trade disputes, and ongoing supply chain issues—there would also be the weather events that we have experienced this year. But thank goodness he did do that in this Budget Policy Statement, because it means that we are really well positioned with a Budget Policy Statement that is centred on economic security.

As the Minister said at the time in his foreword, “This requires a fine balance of policy responses.” Those responses are around using fiscal policy to ease the pressure on inflation, around looking after families, providing core services, and continuing the economic plan to ensure that New Zealand is futureproofed, is innovating, and has a productive economy. The submitters to the Budget Policy Statement have agreed with the statement and have been highly supportive of it. The alternative would be austerity, and this is what I hear when I listen to the previous speaker, Andrew Bayly, saying that he wants to provide core services, wants to provide targeted support, and yet we cannot do that unless there is a budget for that.

What it has meant is a reprioritisation and going back to bread and butter, and the Minister has alluded to that today in terms of really honing down on the cost of living for New Zealanders and the cyclone recovery. There is little bandwidth for anything else, and this Budget Policy Statement positions us well for that. We were already facing economic headwinds. There is a global inflation pandemic, and because we have braced into that and leaned into it, we are now well positioned for the recovery that needs to happen—as the Minister said, in the order of billions of dollars. So thank goodness he had the foresight to see what was coming, and we are well positioned to brace it.

In terms of how we are going back to basics, it’s really about getting the 1.4 million New Zealanders who are needing assistance, who need a boost to income, targeting support to them. Those are pensioners, students, parents, those on main benefits. We see that reflected in changes coming in next month, and we’ve also seen today the announcement from the finance Minister of more business support for the affected areas with the weather events reaching $50 million. Already in Tai Rāwhiti, $4.1 million of that money has gone out the door. That builds on work we’ve already done to target support around cutting the fuel taxes—so that’s now been extended. We’ve got the extension to half-price transport, which has made a huge difference to many people in my electorate of Taieri. We have an average annual family income of $26,000 a year in parts of my electorate, and for those people, being able to access half-price transport is critical to them getting out and about, to be able to do their shopping and also to have the wellbeing of being part of a wider community. We have also seen successive increases to the minimum wage.

The recovery will cost billions of dollars, and we’re in a strong position to recover. Wages are up, we do have one of the lowest debt ratios in the OECD, we have an unemployment rate which is still really low—3.4 percent. It will be tough, but we are well positioned to do that. The submitters to the Budget Policy Statement come from all over the political spectrum, and, by and large, they agree very strongly with us, including the Federated Farmers. I’ll just read what they said to us: they said the wording in this Budget Policy Statement around strengthening the economy is “a significant improvement.”—and they’re referring to 2022. They cite various parts of the report: “Budget 2023 will continue our work to support households and businesses in a targeted manner; “We will continue to work to fight the drivers of high prices by ensuring that markets function competitively and deliver good outcomes for consumers.”—we’ve already seen that with the work going on in the supermarket sector. “Public agencies examining what needs can be met by reprioritising existing funding.”—exactly what we’ve seen with the statements from the Prime Minister, one tranche of reprioritisation and then another one this week, some of which is about delaying things that we know are essential to building the economy; they just need to be done at the right time. The last one: “Ensure ongoing value for money for government spending.”

We’ve also had a strong submission from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, who talked about their support for the work the Government’s done on mental health but also on prioritising children. They say, “Targeting children’s wellbeing as a Budget priority would facilitate one area of need where early intervention strategies are required. … Supporting children’s wellbeing is a wise social and economic investment.” My colleague, the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, Rachel Brooking, referred to the multiple references in the Budget Policy Statement where the needs of children are giving the direction of travel to what we will see in this Budget coming up.

Another submission, which Rachel Brooking also referred to, was from the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association, on transport. Yes, they were asking for free transport, but they did say, in noting the fare cuts that we have made, making it half-price transport, “We know that increasing public transport use and re-incentivising mode shifts are key ways in which we can reduce emissions. Reducing fare prices is a sensible step towards a cleaner, more carbon-friendly transport system and a better Aotearoa.” I’m delighted that just this week we’ve seen a Supplementary Order Paper on a tax remedial omnibus bill which is now looking to ensure that there is no fringe benefit tax for e-bikes and scooters provided by employers, so that we are incentivising responsible and sustainable ways of providing transport.

The change, I guess, since the Budget Policy Statement was produced has been the weather events, and it has been the continuation of the global inflation pandemic. What this Government has proven through COVID is that we have got economic security at the heart of what we do, but we will not go to austerity. To do that, we need a plan, and I haven’t seen a plan from the Opposition in terms of the things that they’re arguing for. I’ve seen a couple of policies. One, which has now been dropped, was about tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts that would give the lowest paid New Zealand workers around $2 a week and give other earners thousands of dollars a year. The second plan I have seen just today from Simeon Brown, who is the transport spokesperson, was a plan to produce a plan, which seemed to be quite centred on roads. It talked about building more roads. It had very little to do with the futureproofing of our transport and what we need to do in order to lean into a climate-orientated future. I just wonder if that member has been influenced by others on the other side of the House who perhaps don’t take climate change as seriously as their leader or the rest of their caucus.

A plan to have a plan is not a plan, and when it comes to the childcare policy that we saw earlier this week, the problem with that plan is a plan needs to be well worked out, it needs to be well costed, it needs to look at what the risks are, and that plan is in grave danger of blowing out because it hasn’t been worked through in terms of a cap, in terms of whether the savings would be passed on to parents, whether they would stay with early childhood education centres, that might feel that they need that income. So they haven’t really thought through with their plans the targeted support that is going to reach the back pockets of New Zealanders.

In summary, this Budget Policy Statement that was produced in December 2022 foreshadowed some of the big events that we have seen this year, without the Minister actually being able to crystal ball gaze. It’s very fortunate that he had put economic security at the heart of his Budget Policy Statement, that has been endorsed by the submitters that we heard. It means that we’re well positioned to be able to build back better and smarter going forward.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, tēnā koutou e te Whare. I would highly recommend that people check out this Budget Policy Statement. It’s actually quite a short document, it has some really useful and interesting information and graphs showing New Zealand’s labour market and annual consumer price inflation relative to the rest of the world. It actually shows that—at the time this was published, anyway—we were doing quite well relative to other countries. So it does help to situate New Zealand in the context of the global factors that are driving some of the challenges around higher prices.

When it comes to the wellbeing approach, it’s very wonderful to see these sorts of objectives laid out in the Budget Policy Statement. There’s five wellbeing objectives. Just transitions—supporting New Zealanders to transition to a climate-resilient, sustainable, low-emissions economy. I wouldn’t use the word “economy”; I would say “Way of living”. The second one is physical and mental wellbeing—supporting improved health outcomes for all New Zealanders, particularly the mental wellbeing of our young people. Three is the future of work—equipping New Zealanders and enabling businesses to benefit from new technologies and lift productivity and wages through innovation. Four is Māori and Pasifika people—really focusing on lifting incomes, skills, opportunities, and access to housing. And fifth is child wellbeing, which is reducing child poverty and improving child wellbeing.

So all these objectives are really great and the Green Party absolutely supports those. But, ultimately, the Labour Government has sort of tied their hands behind their backs in terms of achieving any of these, because the fiscal strategy and keeping to fiscal rules ultimately means not addressing some of the bigger-picture issues that are driving inequality in this country. Ultimately, the kind of short-term approach to politics doesn’t set us up for the long term, it doesn’t ensure that we’ve stayed the course, even in the midst of political dramas.

So, for example, this week we’ve seen the Government walk back on commitments to making progress in reducing emissions and funding in that. If I look at the work under way in the Budget Policy Statement across water, climate, biodiversity, and other domains, we see some of the major initiatives that are effective, that have delivered results, were initiatives that the Green Party and the Green Ministers implemented last term, like the Clean Car Discount and Jobs for Nature and the Plastics Innovation Fund. Then, we flip over and we see one of the main ones in the safety of New Zealanders is preventing and responding to family and sexual violence—again, initiated by a Green under-secretary, and now it’s being delivered by a Green Minister.

So the Green Party is very clear on the transformation that we need and how to get there. You set out your priorities in your Budget, and you make sure that you’re staying to the strategic vision and carrying on for the long term. That means not getting distracted with short-term responses and reactions to political attacks from the people on the right who, you know, have absolutely no solutions. As long as the Labour Government’s caught up trying to respond to the likes of the National Party, they’re never going to make progress on these issues. And that’s why we need so many more Greens in Parliament and in Government to be able to implement the sensible solutions that actually will deliver the benefits for New Zealand.

One of the key observations that the Green Party has brought to this Parliament for many decades, which the National Party has yet to discover, is that we live on a planet. We’re part of nature. We have to live within the ecological limits. If we don’t design our economy and our society to live within ecological limits, we will have no future. And, yes, those men on the right—all men at the moment—really do not grasp that. They’re very much stuck in the 20th century extractive model of society and the economy and really want to persist with the colonisation which led them to the privileged positions that they have right now, which was ultimately about stealing people’s land, alienating people from the land, taking all of the natural resources in a very short-term way, and not building up for the long term.

So what are our objectives; what would be in a Green Budget Policy Statement? Living within our ecological limits and making sure everyone has enough. And within that space, which is quite eloquently explained by Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics—although I do think we’d need to put an indigenous Aotearoan perspective on that—there is an incredibly sensible approach to Government finances and the economy that would actually enable New Zealanders to thrive and would actually achieve the objectives set out in this Budget Policy Statement.

So what is that? What are the Green solutions? Well, let’s start with a rent freeze, a warrant of fitness on rental properties, and a huge public housing bill, because every single person in Aotearoa can and should have a secure, warm, dry, healthy home, so let’s make that happen. Rents are driving inflation, and the National Party solution to this is to allow landlords to keep creaming it. That doesn’t make any sense to me. We can have reasonable rents, and we need to regulate for that while we increase the housing supply from the public sector.

Secondly, let’s invest in sustainable transport because not only is that going to reduce emissions, it actually just connects people and communities and would be the single most effective thing we could do to improve productivity in this country, because our current transport situation is incredibly costly and it uses a huge amount of our GDP. I mean, just last year, vehicle and fuel imports exceeded our dairy exports. So think about that. All of our dairy exports are only paying for the vehicles and fuel to drive around the country. Now, we could have a far more efficient transport system if the public invest in public transport and efficient transport. We wouldn’t have to buy as many vehicles. We wouldn’t have to fill up the tank with so much fuel. The Government wouldn’t have to cut petrol tax to try and reduce cost of living, because people would have affordable, sustainable options that weren’t so reliant on petrol. So it would be wonderful if the National Party could embrace an economic analysis of their transport budget, because they certainly don’t.

So the Greens would invest in regional rail. Put bus lanes everywhere right now; get enough bus drivers—addressing housing affordability will help us with the bus driver shortage—and pay them properly. But we should have publicly owned public transport as well.

Community energy—very simple things that we could do to improve people’s ability to have more resilient, sustainable electricity production rather than the current crazy corporate model we have where private investors are sucking value out of our publicly funded electricity assets that we built up over generations. So if we actually managed energy and electricity for the public good, it would be better for everyone in New Zealand, including the businesses.

Support people to have livable incomes. Every single person in Aotearoa should have enough to make ends meet. There’s some simple things we could do to value the unpaid mahi that so many people do, that is very important to our values and also to our productivity and sustainability as a society. Here’s a simple one: extend paid parental leave. Iceland has nine months paid parental leave at 80 percent of your previous salary—three months for the birth parent, three months for the other parent, and three months that can be divided up between them. Then, they have free, high quality early childhood education from whenever parents decide to go back to work. Now, why can’t we do that here in New Zealand? If Iceland can do it—a country with fewer than 400,000 people—we absolutely could do that here in Aotearoa.

And we could have a four-day work week, and a guaranteed minimum income. All of this can be funded if we change our tax system to make it fairer. Tax excess profit, tax wealth, because, right now, our economy is allowing people to benefit and enrich themselves through things that don’t offer genuine value to everyone else. And that is the truth, as our current economic system cannot differentiate between money earned as the result of a genuine contribution, and that earned through exploitation of people and the environment. Once we’re able to differentiate between those two, it’s very clear that the oil companies made record profits in 2022 through selling a product that is literally causing devastation around the world right now. Like Cyclone Gabrielle, the horrific flooding in Auckland—direct consequences of climate change induced by fossil fuel use. And yet the oil companies made record profits. The banks made record profits last year, mainly through things that have nothing to do with the efficiency of providing their service. But, you know, the Government’s COVID response combined with rising interest rates now are leading to excess bank profits.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of ACT to contribute to this Budget Policy Statement, and I have to tell you, Madam Speaker, as a short musical interlude, while I was listening to the previous speaker, I was thinking of the great Kiwi band The Feelers and their contribution, “Space Cadet”:

Space cadet or space boy

One and the same

Sand castle or sand toy

They’re all just games.

Now, I can’t think why I might’ve thought of the song “Space Cadet” while listening to Julie Anne Genter speak. I guess it’s just one of those mysteries. But it is worth having a discussion about this bold Budget Policy Statement. This is how the Government sets out its intentions around what its Budget will look like. And it’s one of the things in the Public Finance Act that I think is worthwhile—that the Government actually has to say what its intentions are. But what’s interesting is that this Government made its own changes. It said it would bring in Wellbeing Budgets. So before we get to the money or the economy or to the fact that people are finding it pretty hard to make ends meet, with too much week left at the end of the money, we get to talk about this wellbeing stuff that the Labour Party so importantly put into the Budget. And one of the things that they said was that they would not just consider GDP; they’d consider all measures, until they got obsessed with just one measure, which was COVID-19 and everyone else’s wellbeing be damned. And there’s some interesting things in the document I’m holding here. The survey showed a growing polarisation regarding trust in the Government between 2020 and 2022, with an increasing number of people having either very low or very high levels of trust and a roughly corresponding decrease in those with moderate levels of distrust.

Well, this Government talks about wellbeing and talks about social cohesion, but it’s now measuring its own policies, and its one-size-fits-all imposition, running roughshod over people’s lives, has actually led to a lot of people distrusting the Government. And their daily podium announcements have created a cult of personality that is not good for our democracy. And the Labour Party know that’s true because they have dumped their leader, and their new leader is doing everything he can to distance himself from the Ardern era of the Labour Party on a daily basis, dumping policies. We even saw a Minister go overboard today.

But there is a very important point here—the way the Government acted through COVID-19: one-size-fits-all, close the border, leak information on pregnant women sheltering with the Taliban, refusing to apologise, stop paying home carers if they’re not vaccinated even though there’s no public health effect as they’re staying in the home anyway. All that this Government did was so divisive, and it’s showing up in their Wellbeing Budget. It also gives a series of wellbeing objectives. It says that there should be a just transition supporting New Zealand’s transition to a climate-resilient, sustainable, and low-emissions economy. How has that gone? Well, first of all, climate emissions have flat-lined under this Government. So that’s a fail.

But what about adaptation? What about preparing for the extremes of weather that come with climate change? Well, that is clearly a fail. We need to invest more in constructive policies to adapt to climate change, and that’s why ACT’s been saying for years that half the GST on construction should be shared with the local councils to pay for the infrastructure. Brooke van Velden’s got a bill before the House to be debated on that, and just today from the Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll we see that 70 percent of New Zealanders think it’s a good idea to share half the GST on construction with the local council to get that resilience going. So the Government has failed in its stated objective. ACT has the ideas that could help get us there.

Number two is physical and mental wellbeing, supporting improved health outcomes for all New Zealanders. I mean, this would be quite funny if it wasn’t so serious. This is a Government where 52 percent of people in MidCentral wait more than six hours to get into A & E. Now, this is a Government that actually stopped publishing the figures on mental health. This is a Government where mental health has never been worse, in part because of their COVID response and their incompetence at organising anything. This is a Government that tried to blow up the healthcare system and restructure it in the middle of a supposedly one-in-100-year health crisis. I mean, they are failing in physical and mental wellbeing—that’s their second go.

The future of work—now, this is quite amusing. It talks about equipping New Zealanders and enabling New Zealander businesses to benefit from new technologies and lift productivity and wages through innovation. First of all, productivity has been flat-lined, but, second, you’ve got fair pay agreements, you’ve got the war on immigration, and you’ve got extra regulations and employment law other than fair pay agreements. You’ve got endless bureaucracy and compliance costs and uncertainty along with record inflation and rising interest rates, and none of these things are helping productivity or equipping New Zealand firms. What would help would be to adopt ACT’s immigration policy and accept we’re a nation of immigrants, and Kiwi firms won’t compete with their competitors around the world successfully when a business in, say, Denver, Colorado, can access 340 million American workers and a New Zealand firm in Christchurch can access 5 million workers, unless we are open to immigration.

It then goes on to talk about lifting Māori and Pacific people’s incomes, skills, and opportunities, including though access to affordable, safe, and stable housing. Well, the way this Government approached COVID, with its monetary policy, with its shutting the border, with its shutting down construction, shutting down manufacturing, housing has never been further out of reach of the poorest New Zealanders. We saw record rents today. It’s gone up 175 bucks from 400 to 575. That’s the median rent under Labour according to TradeMe.

They’ve also said they’re going to make housing more affordable. We’ve never had housing more unaffordable, first through high values and now we’ve got high mortgage rates as well. And so who is at the bottom of that pile and who is most disadvantaged? Well, I’m sorry to say that it’s a statistical truth—it’s Māori and Pacific New Zealanders. So they’ve failed at that. Then here’s Jacinda Ardern’s signature—child wellbeing; reducing child poverty. Well, there’s some good news there. Five years of Jacinda Ardern and child poverty went from about 13 percent to about 12 percent, roughly. We’re talking about material hardship—kids that don’t have the shoes and the food to get up and go to school with a good school bag and a packed lunch and a warm jacket to put on. That’s what material hardship’s about measuring. It’s moved slightly so in the farewell to Jacinda Ardern there was a slight improvement, but nothing like the transformation that this Labour Government promised.

So this Budget, by its own measures, has already failed. The wellbeing objectives this Government set have all failed, and yet it is ACT that has the ideas to fund the building of infrastructure, to get the homes built, to get education that is local and run by communities, for communities, like charter schools that get kids to actually want to attend and go along and hold the schools accountable for doing it. It’s the ACT Party that has the initiative. It’s Karen Chhour who has the initiative—a bill in this House to remove section 7AA so we say a kid’s physical and mental safety is more important than the Treaty of Waitangi. To that kid at that stage of life? Absolutely, and it’s the ACT Party that is taking the initiative, ironically to achieve Labour’s Budget goals better than them.

And then we get to the money. This is a Budget that is not just about wellbeing. One of the things that helps with wellbeing is actually being able to afford to pay your bills. And hasn’t it been a revelation in the last week, when we have seen from Grant Robertson that he has been at the very least a little bit economical with the truth. I wish he was economical with Government spending, but he’s been economical with the truth because he’s been saying for a long time that wages are keeping up with inflation. In fact, he’s been saying wages are ahead of inflation. And I thought that’ll be really good for the pensioners and the superannuitants, for the beneficiaries, and for the people on student allowances, because the amount of money they get is indexed to the average wage. So they are going to be looked after just fine, and then—uh, oh!—the Government is going to index pensions and benefits to inflation. Why? Because average wages haven’t kept up with inflation.

So in that one move, the Government has admitted that wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. So they’ve been telling porkies, and the next thing they’ve done is they’ve said, “Well, superannuitants, beneficiaries, people on student allowances, they’ll be looked after. Their income will keep up with inflation.” But those people who work hard every day, wake up, make the kids’ lunches and get them off to school, go into work, slam an instant coffee, stare at the screen and get through the day before picking up their kids to go home and do it all again every day, day after day after day—those are the people whose wages after tax are falling behind inflation. And unlike people that get their money from the Government, those people who work for their money are paying more tax and they’ve got less left at the end of the week because this is a Government that has a massive spending problem and thinks it can buy its way to another election. It’s created massive inflation along the way and it has failed its own wellbeing targets before you start to talk about money.

This is a Government that has discovered the great problem with socialism—they’re running out of other people’s money, they’ve run out of ideas, and this October it’s important that they run out of power so that ACT and our friends in National can fix this country and realise that Kiwi Dream again.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It was 22 February when the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, came along to the Finance and Expenditure Committee to talk about the Budget Policy Statement, and it was obvious that the carefully prepared talking points had to be put to one side because only six days prior, Cyclone Gabrielle had ripped through the North Island. It was the most extreme weather event anybody can remember, doing massive damage to the country’s productive capacity. It had serious impacts on half the country’s population and half the country’s GDP, and it’s obvious that this Budget Policy Statement, which contains a lot of value about the Government’s strategy and about where we’re going with the economy, basically has to be reread in light of this natural disaster.

I’m glad to say that while New Zealanders pull together in times of crisis and expect their Government to lead and support the people of this country in times of crisis, we have a Government and a finance Minister in Grant Robertson who’s committed to using all of the levers available to him as finance Minister to give struggling Kiwi households and businesses the support they need to navigate their way through the aftermath of this disaster. He’d been newly appointed as the cyclone recovery Minister, and the finance Minister foreshadowed at the select committee that morning a rolling maul of initiatives that the Government would be bringing forward in response to Cyclone Gabrielle.

The Government has announced $17.5 million to support communities and social service providers with the immediate welfare response. We’ve seen $26 million in grants funds for farmers and growers, we’ve seen $3.25 million in funding to support the immediate mental health and wellbeing needs, and today we see the second tranche of the $50 million programme to support businesses affected by the extreme weather events, whether it’s the cyclone or the Anniversary Weekend floods. It’s a locally administered scheme to support businesses that were knocked around by those weather events.

The finance Minister also signalled—and I think this is very important—three key things about the Government’s response. One is that substantial work is under way on a programme of support that will assist those New Zealanders who are in flood-prone, at-risk areas, where homes or businesses are located in harm’s way. They are now going through getting their insurance claims processed and paid out, and they’ve got some very tough decisions to make about whether they repair and rebuild, and what do they do to address the often acute risk that many of them are facing.

The Minister has also said that he understands that there’s urgency about this. I know that in my electorate, I’ve got people who have had a metre of contaminated water flow through their homes. Their homes are, effectively, wrecked and they’re staring at the wall, wondering do they rebuild, do they repair—what do they do? They’re often in untenable situations, and it’s not just the people of West Auckland. It’s Esk Valley, it’s Wairoa and all over the Hawke’s Bay, it’s the North, it’s the Coromandel, and it’s different parts of Auckland.

The Minister has also signalled that the Government’s response will be localised. It will be tailored to different situations in different regions, and it will engage the communities—the affected residents in those places—in the design and roll-out of those programmes. I’m very comforted by that, and the people in West Auckland that I represent, hundreds of whom have been devastated by these floods—I know that they will take some comfort from those words.

All of that is going to cost money, and it will affect the Budget that this Budget Policy Statement sets the platform for. But the good news—the good news—is that this country, after five years of financial stewardship by Grant Robertson, is in an exceptional state and is prepared and ready to deal with a disaster of the proportions of Cyclone Gabrielle and the Anniversary Weekend floods. We’ve had years of sustained, high levels of GDP growth. The economy is much, much bigger than it was five years ago, when we took office. We have some of the lowest levels of debt in the developed economies, 2.8 million New Zealanders in work, and very low levels of unemployment, and all of that is recognised by the ratings agencies and their AA+ rating of New Zealand’s economy.

So that’s all good news, but there’s no question that the extreme weather events have challenged many of the assumptions that the Budget Policy Statement is built on. The Minister said that, particularly, the cyclone in Hawke’s Bay will have an immediate contractionary effect on a part of the country that produces some 40 percent of the fresh produce that ends up in our stores and our markets. There will be pressure, and there is pressure on food prices. We’re already seeing pressure on a tight labour market, and the construction sector, which has been going gangbusters in building the houses and the infrastructure this country needs, will be stretched even more. On top of that, the stimulus created by the rebuild financed by Government and insurance payouts will have an effect on the overall economic indicators.

So many of those assumptions have changed. The environment’s changed, but I think that it’s true to say that Cyclone Gabrielle and the floods changed everything and didn’t change everything. Absolutely, the cyclone is going to require that the Government wholeheartedly gets behind families and businesses and backs them and uses everything at our disposal, from legislation changes and policy changes to the mobilisation of the Public Service and investment in the rebuild and the recovery, including a huge infrastructure rebuild. That is going to happen, and there’s going to be a full-throated approach by this Government in doing that.

But, in a sense, it also doesn’t change some of the key fundamentals. Our Government is going to continue to provide and prioritise the economic security for New Zealanders through a very difficult year in the global economy. We’re going to continue to run a prudent fiscal policy and return spending to the normal levels, following the COVID-19 recovery, and, as the Budget Policy Statement says, Budget 2023 will again focus on New Zealanders’ wellbeing and the long-term goals of improving child wellbeing and mental health, and the transition to a high-wage, low-carbon economy.

I wanted to touch on one aspect of the economic plan that was released earlier this week by my colleague the Minister for Economic Development, Stu Nash, who has released what is an excellent piece of work. It’s the industry transformation plan developed by the Government in conjunction with industry and the labour movement. It’s a plan for the transformation of our advanced manufacturing sector, a sector that is rich in skilled, highly paid jobs and that plays a predominant role in our non-agricultural exports. It’s one of the sectors that we must invest in for the long-term prosperity of our country. It has the potential and there’s the opportunity there, if “NZ Inc.” mobilise behind that industry, to grow New Zealand firms that are capable of taking on the world and competing successfully in our international markets: developing intellectual property in New Zealand, selling it to the world, making stuff—technology—and delivering services that the rest of the world wants. It is one of the best examples of a high-value, high-skill, low-carbon industry. It’s exactly the kind of future this country wants, and the industry transformation plan document that Minister Nash released this week is a fantastic blueprint for us to get there.

Finally, just let me pay tribute to the finance Minister for this Budget Policy Statement and for all of the work that he has under way. He’s a classic, reforming Labour finance Minister, preparing the country for the rainy day with prudent, cautious financial and economic management, but he’s ready to invest when this country needs it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): This is a split call—five minutes.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was quite happy, actually, to hear the member over the other side of the House talk about using technology and growing the economy and exporting out to the world, because that’s exactly the right attitude. So thank you for having that and I wish the rest of your colleagues also shared that. It’s a shame you’re leaving.

But let’s look at the current state of this economy. We have got inflation at 7.2 percent and it is not transitory. We have got real wages which are down, no matter what fudging we hear around that. A lot of that is domestically driven with immigration constraints, constant regulations being piled on to businesses, and all of these costs add up, driving up the costs of workers, and that’s having a real issue in everyday households. Government spending is up a staggering $1 billion a week. That is unbelievable. That is reckless. We’ve got the large-scale asset purchase programme and when yields moved on that—we’re now in the hole for $9 billion on that. It doesn’t get talked about a lot but that is a big problem. And $60 billion spent on COVID—some of it very good; some of it not so good. Net debt is up.

It’s very hard to meet the big response that we need to Cyclone Gabrielle and the big infrastructure requirements that we have, because we just don’t have that money around any more. We had the opportunity and I believe that this Government has squandered it. We have constant taxes coming on with the regional fuel tax, the IPS tax, the jobs tax, which is off the table for the moment; interest deducibility, and this has been passed on. We saw rents up $575 now, up 43.5 percent since this Government came in, not the 35 percent the Minister said at question time.

And you know what? New Zealanders are probably happy to pay taxes if we are getting First World services but, as my colleague Nicola Willis said, we just aren’t. You know, health is looking abominable. We have got thousands waiting over 24 hours in the emergency departments. We’ve got 80,000 people waiting for an operation. Education—you know, over half of our kids aren’t turning up to school. Two-thirds of them are failing basic literary and numeracy tests. And we’ve also got emissions up. I mean, that is a pretty sad indictment on a Government that declared a climate emergency to have emissions going up. So we are paying a lot more, the Government is spending a lot more, and yet we’re getting worse outcomes. And I would be able to spend more of my taxes if I got First World public services, and I’m afraid that we are not.

So if we look at the Government’s wellbeing objectives, and we see them here in the Budget Policy Statement, they talk about a just transition. Well, we’re now importing three times as much coal as when Labour came into power. Physical and mental wellbeing: we know the health statistics—I’ve mentioned them before—are very bad. Mental health statistics are out the gate and that is a really sad indictment. We are a divided country at the moment and we have got a lot of people feeling the impacts of this Government’s policies over the past few years.

The future of work—I mean, we’ve looked at swamping businesses with a lot of regulations. Māori and Pacific peoples—and it’s really sad to say it, but they are feeling the brunt, as are our most vulnerable throughout society, as a result of this Government’s mismanagement. And talk about child wellbeing—you know, this is what our former Prime Minister wanted to get into politics for and we’ve now got more kids growing up in motels than we’ve ever had, and that is a damning indictment on New Zealand.

So if we want a Wellbeing Budget, let’s focus on growth. Let’s be positive. Let’s look out there at the world, because we are not going to get rich and lift incomes for all by expecting the Government to drive all of that, because the Government doesn’t drive it. The Government doesn’t create growth. What the Government needs to do is set the expectations and then get out of the way and let the private sector and the NGOs develop that. Let’s develop our technology. Let’s export those services. Let’s develop high-paying high-skilled jobs in New Zealand and take that to the world.

When we do that we will have a Wellbeing Budget. We will be able to have first-class education, first-class healthcare—all of those things that our parents’ generation and beyond used to have and yet New Zealanders growing up in the 21st century don’t. And New Zealand parents now are looking at this country and saying, “I’m not sure if I want to continue here. I might go and look over at Australia” or “I might go and look somewhere else.” So if we want a Wellbeing Budget, let’s make sure that we’ve got the mind-set right. Let’s not make the mistakes that this Government continues to make and let’s grow our economy and lift incomes for all, and the people to do that are the National Party.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): Helen White—this is also a five-minute call.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): Thank you. Salam alaikum. I start that way absolutely deliberately on this day when there was such a terrible outcome for people, and I just wish to express my condolences and my thoughts to the people who are most impacted by that.

In the past few years we’ve had some very, very big crises. We’ve had a pandemic, we’ve had floods in Auckland, we’ve had cyclones, and we’ve even had a war that has really impacted on us in terms of inflation—and obviously the people of Ukraine, much more. Those kinds of crises have been coped with by this Government. This Government has had to stand by its people, and I’m incredibly proud of the way that we have done that. We’ve learnt some lessons out of that. We’ve learnt that we need an absolutely sound health system; we’ve learnt we need warm, dry homes; we need mental health support for people, and we need a response that is meaningful and dramatic to climate change.

Now, those kinds of things are absolutely—and I’m going to use a term that’s been used rather a lot now—“bread and butter” for this side of the House. This is what Labour does. It understands that, actually, Governments have a role in making sure things go well for a population. What is a great difference is that the response is targeted and actually supports those most in need.

Now, I have to contrast here; I cannot let what has been said on the other side of the House go entirely unchallenged. We can’t just have platitudes. We need a difference in policy in this area, and this Budget Policy Statement does that. We have a difference in policy in areas which affect our most vulnerable. We are changing things right now so that people like my parents, who rely on their superannuation, will get $100 a fortnight more. That’s real change for them; that’s real support.

We have to build up our health system because, actually, in a “let’s just cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes” kind of mentality, guess what suffers? Actually, our health system, our hospitals—those things suffer—and we’re not ready for floods, we’re not ready for pandemics, if that attitude prevails. What actually has to be the heart of a governing group is the welfare of people, but it can’t just be just platitudinal. It can’t be saying, “We’re for wellbeing.”—it’s got to be doing the mahi on wellbeing. That means that we need to deal with things in a local way.

We’ve just had floods and cyclones, and the response that you’re seeing from this Government is targeted and in partnership with the communities affected because, actually, in these particular crises, the effect is not all the same for everyone, and people on the ground will tell you that. So we need to make sure that hard-earned taxpayers’ money goes to the people who need it the most—and that’s happening.

I want to make another contrast here, because I was on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee when we had the Clean Car Standard came through. We were told it was a terrible thing. You know, it’s been absolutely wonderful for transforming this economy. We have 57,000 low-emissions vehicles in place, as a consequence. Contrast that with this focus on utes, which has gone on. Let’s remind New Zealanders: which utes get the tax; which utes? The utes that are firsthand utes. They’re not the farmers that are actually needing them—those are the second-hand utes. The firsthand utes are the most wealthy New Zealanders. Those are the people who can afford to pay tax—those people. Actually this myth that we are undermining the value of those people needs busting because, actually, we need to remember who needs these low-emissions vehicles. We all do. We all do because we’ll pay the price by cyclones and floods in our communities, and it’s not good enough. Thank you. I commend this.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just to open my kōrero this afternoon, can I acknowledge those that lost their lives in the mosque attack in Christchurch on March 15. Secondly, it’s the first opportunity I’ve had to speak in the House this week, and I’d like to acknowledge the Tasi family, who lost their son Joshua in the terrible incident in Beach Haven last Friday. Can I just offer our sympathy, our love, and our heartfelt acknowledgment to all of them and the Beach Haven community at this particularly sad time.

I think Minister Robertson summed it up this afternoon quite well: when, in fact, we put this particular Budget Policy Statement together and it was released prior to Christmas, of course we didn’t really know what 2023 had in front of us. The challenges of Cyclone Gabrielle—and I acknowledge my family down in the Hawke’s Bay, the challenges that they have faced, but also those in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland who have faced their own challenges in the floods at the start of the year. Quickly, life changed for us this year; and albeit we expected 2023 to be somewhat easier, it’s certainly put our challenges in front of us.

This Budget, 2023, will be delivered on Thursday, 18 May. This year’s Budget will be delivered in the shadow of Cyclone Gabrielle and will be focused on the cost of living—something that’s very important to all of our communities—and also the cyclone and flood recovery across our country. We’re committed to working with local communities to get affected families and whānau and businesses back on their feet, and their regions moving forward. And when talking to people in Hawke’s Bay this week, they reminded me—my family reminded me—to say: “We’re still operating. We’ve been hit by this flood, of course, but remind New Zealand that we are still operating, and we’re still open for business”, largely in the areas that they are able to at this time.

But Budget 2023 will continue this Government’s commitment to providing New Zealanders with economic security through what will be a difficult year in the global economy, facing both the challenge of inflation and a forecast economic slowdown, and the combination of a global economic downturn and high inflation here at home and around the world. As many of us saw—in Canada, the stories that they shared: a geopolitical situation dominated by war, trade disputes, and ongoing supply chain issues are about to test our strength in our country and our resilience economically. However, we’re well positioned as a country economically to manage some of the challenges in front of us and to respond, recover, and rebuild in the challenges that have faced us. And this Budget Policy Statement that was presented by the finance Minister—and that our Finance and Expenditure Committee heard—is of course a setting of the scene for Government’s expenditure, what priorities matter, and how effectively Government will invest in New Zealanders moving forward.

Our wellbeing objectives—our values—are one of the most important things when we experience challenging times because they are the things that we come back to: our kaupapa; what we value the most when we’re making decisions between spending on this or spending on that, when there’s not enough money in the kete overall to do everything that we want. But now we know we have to invest in the challenges that Cyclone Gabrielle and our flood response require of us. But these objectives are about wellbeing, they are about people and communities, and that’s particularly where a Labour Government does well for Aotearoa New Zealand.

The first objective is around just transition, supporting New Zealanders to transition to a climate resilient, sustainable and low-emissions economy. Secondly, physical and mental wellbeing: this was something that was important to me when I stood for Northcote in 2020—that we continue to support improved health outcomes for all New Zealanders, particularly the mental wellbeing of our rangatahi; our young people. The future of work: equipping New Zealanders and enabling New Zealand businesses to benefit from new technologies, to lift productivity and wages through innovation. And the last one is around Māori and Pacific peoples, something particularly from this Government—and under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern—with investment in Māori communities enabling Māori to see the lowest unemployment rate that we have ever seen in this country. So this Wellbeing Budget will continue that theme. It will continue to lift Māori and Pacific peoples: their incomes, their skills, and opportunities—including through access to affordable, safe, and stable housing. And still, when we talk to those communities, that is the number one priority for them to do well and to look after their families. And lastly is around child wellbeing: continuing to reduce child poverty and improving child wellbeing, including through access to affordable, safe, and stable housing once again. These are the things that are important.

But, again, I come back to wellbeing. That’s where the value proposition is, and where some of the decision-making propositions are when we have to choose between spending on this or spending on that, and how we make some very difficult decisions moving forward. So we already know that this Budget’s focus will be prioritising the cost of living challenges that our communities and people face, with a short-term cost of living payment for up to 2.1 million people to help with the impact of rising prices. We’ve increased support for families, we’ve boosted superannuation, and increased student allowances through our 1 April changes ahead of us. We’ve extended our fuel tax cuts, reduced road-user charges, and continued half-price public transport. We’ve permanently kept it at half price for community services card holders, and that’s something that’s particularly important to Aucklanders.

As we continue the work on transport—and I always say that our transport portfolio is one of the most political yet one of the most challenging and the most expensive portfolios that any Government will ever experience. But I’m really proud of the work that we are doing, that the future Budget will invest in: helping Aucklanders to address congestion and to reduce the emissions that go into our atmosphere. Transport is vital for us, and we are on track for Auckland’s first electric ferries—and I know the member across the House, Simon Watts, on the North Shore values the ferries—and they will serve over 200 passengers at any one time across the Waitematā Harbour. Auckland Transport will receive $27 million in grant funding from this Government to pay three-quarters of the costs of constructing my and member Watts’ new electric ferries to serve the Waitematā. It’s a first step in decarbonising our transport fleet in Auckland, and I’m very proud of it. But it’s not just on water; we will continue to invest in public transport.

At a local level, we have safer school streets. The Safe school streets programme has seen innovative solutions and I see that locally in my electorate in Willow Park primary in Hillcrest—again, that I’m very proud of. But we must continue the work of the additional Waitematā Harbour crossing. It’s one that all residents across the North Shore are asking for urgently, yet no Government has invested in ensuring that it’s a part of our short- to medium- term future. We’ll be seeing these options soon in April, and Aucklanders will have the opportunity to be consulted and to provide their feedback around which system meets their needs best. And actually, I do think it’s a good idea that we have aligned—even more so—Auckland’s integrated public transport system with Auckland Light Rail, City Rail Link, and of course the additional harbour crossing moving up to Ōrewa over time.

But again today, I come back to our investment in people. I talk about our housing story in Northcote: the hundreds of houses that were built for social houses and for first-home buyers, the daylighting of the local stream, the new infrastructure that we saw in Northcote during the Auckland floods compared to the devastation in the suburb next door, in Wairau Valley. These are the things that matter for our Wellbeing Budget moving forward, and I’m really grateful to speak on this tonight.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I want to join with the last member, just in terms of acknowledging the Beach Haven community on the North Shore. I know within his community that has hit hard home, and I know across the broader North Shore that has been an issue and something that is recognised. I also want to acknowledge today in terms of the anniversary around the Christchurch mosques tragedy as well, and join with other speakers in this House to acknowledge the impacts of that.

So we’re here today to discuss the Budget Policy Statement (BPS). Lovely front cover there as well—looks quite similar to the Auckland Council annual report, but I’m sure it hasn’t been copied. But the Budget Policy Statement is one of those salient cogs, I think, in the machine. But the challenge is, if you go into any room around the country and you mention “BPS”—unless you’re in Belmont where it’s Belmont Primary School, “BPS”—most people would just look at you and sort of, you know, there’d be a lot of confused faces around the board. However, it is a very essential part of the process that we play and that Government plays, and the document that we’re going to discuss today and debate obviously contains the vision for the Government in terms of how it sees us moving forward. The problem with this document is that the vision that’s included in this epitomises everything that’s going wrong with the direction of this country, and that is a big challenge.

We acknowledge that the Budget process is a complicated process. As a chartered accountant, I thoroughly enjoyed going through this document as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—but what Kiwis, I believe, want isn’t that complicated. Actually, I think you can probably sum it up in one word, and that is “hope”. There is a real fear within our communities and in my community of the North Shore, and I also feel it as a dad as well: I worry that my children are going to inherit a future, one of less opportunities and one in which there is little hope. The vision set out in this document by this Government shows that they don’t have the ambition or the skill to turn this around.

So I want to talk about three elements of this document. One around cost of living, one around mortgage rates, and one around health and infrastructure. The first thing I want to talk about today is around the cost of living crisis. The cost of living crisis is by far the single biggest issue facing Kiwis, no matter where you live in this country. But the Labour Government’s track record on this issue is like a Shakespearean tragedy. First came denial: there were months and months when there was just no cost of living crisis. I mean, you would struggle for the Government to even be able to utter the words and hoping like magic that if they didn’t mention the word then it was going to disappear, which didn’t happen. But then it came to the minimisation point, and sure there was some acknowledgment by Government that there is a cost of living crisis, but there was a real clear articulation that “I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do about it.” All right? No accountability, hand waving in the air, it’s all Ukraine war, the global factors—any figure, any excuse that they could give without the basic premise that they could take accountability or responsibility for what it is.

But I think where we’ve got to now is the last and probably final phase of that process, and that’s an acceptance phase. We’ve seen very quickly that the Labour Party, particularly in the last few weeks, has become the party of, you know, not doing too much—or maybe doing not much but “Maybe we’ll do it later.” A lot of kicking for touch. But they basically tossed their entire election manifesto. They’ve tossed it out to try and buy back that narrative. But Kiwis can see through that. This new Prime Minister that’s come in—bread and butter Prime Minister—he’s accepted that there’s a cost of living crisis. He just hasn’t quite accepted that he needs to do anything about it, right? He hasn’t accepted that he can do anything about it.

What I predict when we come to Budget day, which is obviously coming up in May, is that we’re going to see more band-aid solutions in regards to dealing with the cost of living. Like that cost of living payment that went to people living overseas, and those ones that were backpacking and stuff like that. And so this basically left hard-working Kiwis shaking their head going, “What is really going on?” It will be more spending by the Minister of Finance and no doubt the Minister of Transport, Michael Wood, on whatever projects catch their eye. Consultants from the top end of town will be lining up in a conga line trying to get their slice of the pie, and families on the bread line will continue to do it tough. So that’s what I predict is going to happen. And of course the last aspect is we’ll get a few more taxes, no doubt—if there is anything left to tax by then, and that is a big “if”.

But the reality is that Kiwis across this country are staying awake at night wondering how they’re going to put food on the table or how they’re going to pay the rent. And this document that is being cleverly put together basically doesn’t deal with it. So let’s talk about those mortgage rate elements, because I think that’s really important, and it’s important to talk about the impact around inflation on interest rates. While this Government has been very busy spending up like there’s no tomorrow, whatever bright ideas come to the Cabinet meeting every Monday, the interest rates are skyrocketing. We’ve seen the first rate increase this year is the 10th consecutive rate increase. And the Reserve Bank no doubt aren’t going to be finished yet. You’ve got economists out there saying that mortgage rates are going to go over 10 percent, and that is a reality that’s going to be hitting Kiwi households. What we’ve seen with the interest rate increases is basically inevitable because the Government isn’t doing anything about dealing with the underlying root cause. We need to keep that in sight because you can talk about basis point increases in regards to mortgages, but for every one of those increases, it’s hitting the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis, and real Kiwis are going backwards under this Government.

So young families are the other ones that are impacted, those ones that have saved up hard for that dream to buy a home. The sad reality is that it is, for many of them, simply what I said before: a dream. It is not going to be their reality because they’re not going to have to afford it. And half of mortgage holders when they re-fix their mortgage in the next six to 12 months, those families are going to have to get around those kitchen tables in the evenings and go, “Well how are we going to find the additional money?”—hundreds of dollars that is going to be needed to meet their weekly payments. What are they going to be able to do? What, in reality, in terms of decisions, are they going to be able to do? Because all of the cash and all their wages have been eaten up by inflation or increasing food prices, and these increases are growing at the fastest rate in the last 30 years. So they can only do one thing—

Shanan Halbert: Increasing water rates.

SIMON WATTS: I hear the member from Northcote providing a little bit of commentary. The only thing that they can do is tighten their belts and make those impossible choices, because for many of these families they will be impossible choices.

As you turn on the TV each night and you see that the Government continues to, you know, spend like there’s no tomorrow, there’s going to be a continual wastage. We’ve seen the high-priced consultants and the spending on that, we’ve seen that in the building of light rail to nowhere, and the new “Uber tax” that’s come out. So it’s no wonder that the majority of Kiwis think that we’re going backwards.

The last aspect and the last few minutes is around health and infrastructure. We’ve heard today just the complete shambolic nature of where the health system is. The sad reality is that this is hitting our families and our communities really, really hard. We’ve seen $50 million of consultant spend, at least, on that light rail project, going to nowhere. We’ve seen health systems that have had a huge amount of expensive restructuring. We’re reminded, and this reminds us, why Kiwis believe that this Government are so wasteful in terms of their overall expenditure. I mean, we even heard it today at question time in terms of the waiting times—I mean, absolutely horrific waiting times. These are waiting times that will lead to adverse clinical outcomes for individuals, and individuals may die as a result of that. That is the reality of what they’re facing. Meanwhile, this Government is throwing around money wherever they can get to.

So the document, the Budget policy document that we’ve got here, should really be able to give Kiwis hope that, you know, they’ve got a Government who’s got ambition and is tackling all these challenges that face us as a country, the confidence that they are going to make the hard calls that they need to do to secure the future that they deserve. Well, that’s reasonable. Instead, within this document we see a Labour Government—that we’ve come to know very well in the last five years—big on talk, but with no real plan. Inflation remains high and the Government is steering the ship head on into recession, with unemployment increasing. The only hope is a National-led Government in October which will get this ship back on track.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Al salam alaikum. I do want to start my contribution by acknowledging the events of March 15 and the significant anniversary today and let those families of those who died know that we are still thinking of them in this Parliament. We are also thinking of those survivors, the impact on the community, and we send you our love and aroha. I want to acknowledge also the health professionals that I met that same day—well, the next day—in Christchurch, when I was the Minister of Health, who worked with those families through the trauma and the atrocity of it all. The families, of course, will bear the challenges that come with those terrible events for their whole lives, and I think it’s appropriate that we acknowledge them here today in this debate.

The debate that we find ourselves in is the Budget Policy Statement debate. It’s an important one for this Parliament, because the Budget itself shapes so much of what we do as lawmakers. It sets the structure of the Government’s programme. It funds those activities that are new, that need to be funded, but it also provides the licence to continue funding existing activities of Government. It’s an incredibly important process and an incredibly important part of what we do here in this Parliament. And it’s against the backdrop of a global inflationary environment, a predicted global downturn around the world, fragility, headwinds, and so forth. And so when we had the Minister of Finance appear before the Finance and Expenditure Committee, he acknowledged those things. And indeed, in the foreword to the Budget Policy Statement, they’re quite explicitly recognised.

But then, on top of that, of course, the events locally, in here, in New Zealand, the impact of the cyclone and the flooding have changed the game again and made it an even tougher Budget to deliver.

The Government is determined to continue a prudent programme that reduces debt over time; is determined, we heard from the Minister of Finance, to make sure that we focus on the cost of living issues that are facing New Zealanders; and is determined to continue funding those things which every New Zealander needs to be sure to access when they need them, like education, healthcare, and infrastructure. This is a Budget, we heard, that is about striking the right balance, a fine balance in a tight environment where there are those global economic headwinds. Tough choices will have to be made and already some money has been put aside for new health initiatives, for health cost pressures, and $62 billion for infrastructure investment over the next five years. A priority for Budget 2023 is to keep the investment in education, in health, and in housing continuing.

The Budget will continue to invest in Labour’s economic plan to create the high-wage, low-emissions economy that we know will provide economic security for New Zealand and New Zealanders in good times and bad.

So it’s built on strong foundations. We know the foundations of our economy here. Successive Governments have been careful to ensure we don’t spend too much, that our debt levels are lower than most in the in the world. It’s extraordinary, in fact, how low our public debt is when you compare us to any of the countries we like to compare ourselves to.

And I do want to acknowledge the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, for his dedication to ensuring that we are prudent with the money that we have as Government and that we focus on the issues that affect New Zealanders in challenging financial times. He has been a fabulous finance Minister and I want to acknowledge also that I’ve had the privilege of working alongside him as an associate finance Minister in our first term in Government and had the experience of working with him as he developed the wellbeing framework that now shapes our Budgets to make sure that we have a longer-term vision of where the country is heading, that we explain to New Zealanders where we want to take the country and what the objectives of our Budget spending are.

These are things that have not been done historically in quite this way, and indeed the world is very interested in how New Zealand is doing this. I remember going to the World Health Organization in Geneva and having conversations with the OECD about the wellbeing framework as it was being developed. They were very interested in New Zealand’s pioneering efforts and, indeed, very encouraged and excited about these particular initiatives because they can see that this is where the world needs to head. We need to be sure that we understand the value of what we’re doing, that we are addressing those capitals that underpin it: the human capital, the skills, the education for our workforce; the social capital, the social connections across our society that make for a decent society, and connectedness as human beings; the natural capital, the environment that underpins our wellbeing, our health and our wealth—we need to understand those things better and understand how the decisions we make affect those things; and, of course, the financial and physical capital that traditionally is examined in Budget processes.

And so I do want to really acknowledge the way in which the Minister of Finance has shaped the way we think about Budgets in this country through that wellbeing framework, which has been adapted over time, which has been informed by the science advisers across Government. The priorities we see in this Budget, indeed, are a development on the work of those science advisers, the just transition, the physical and mental wellbeing, the future of work, and the focus on Māori and Pacific peoples and child wellbeing were all priorities that have been informed by the advice of science and of people who advocate for the difference that Government can make.

So I think the Minister of Finance has a big job ahead of him in these tight times, but I also think he has the track record and the vision for carrying it through in a way that will support the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins as Prime Minister in delivering a Budget that will hit the mark, that will prioritise on the things that are most important for New Zealanders right now in this time of a challenging cost of living crisis—but that will also prepare us for the future that we have ahead.

I do have a couple of minutes, so I do want to focus on the Budget Policy Statement per se, which I do commend to anybody following this debate at home. I believe the cover photo is one that the Minister of Finance himself took. I hope that’s true and I’m not misleading the Parliament on that—he has many skills. This arguably is but one of his skills, and if that’s not true, he has many others. But this document itself is much more like a contemporary annual report. It lays out the vision for where the country should go. It used to be that Budget Policy Statements were just full of numbers. This has the numbers in it, but it explains what they mean for New Zealanders, where the country will head, why we’re prioritising the things we’re prioritising, and what we expect the outcomes to be, and then a Government can be held to account to that and our population can know that it is represented in a way that represents and mirrors the priorities of that society.

So I really want to take my hat off to the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, for the work he’s done in developing these Budget Policy Statements into something that I think we can all be proud of as a Government, but also as New Zealanders, to see ourselves reflected in the reporting documents of the Parliament.

Before I close, I do want to acknowledge the sound footing we are on when we come to this Budget. The operating allowance remains unchanged from that projected in the previous Budget. The credit agencies during this Government’s time have upgraded New Zealand’s credit rating and we’ve got amongst the lowest levels of debt in the developed world. We’ve got these record-low levels of unemployment that have endured during this time of Government. We have the 11th-lowest inflation in the OECD. I’m not saying that it’s not affecting people at home, because it is—it’s a global inflationary pressure—but it is something that we are thinking of here in making sure we have the right basis to move from. And we see after-tax wages increasing over time. This will be a great Budget. I do want to acknowledge the Minister of Finance’s leadership. I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That this House take note of the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Budget Policy Statement 2023 and Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2022.

Ayes 74

New Zealand Labour 64; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 44

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Report noted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): Members, it’s time for me to leave the House for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6.02 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Bills

Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill

Second Reading

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki) on behalf of the Hon Meka Whaitiri (Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): I move, That the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill be now read a second time.

Right now in the heart of Hawke’s Bay is 40 hectares of land known as the Tomoana Showgrounds. It is prime production land and home to one of our region’s favourite events, the Hawke’s Bay A & P Society’s Hawke’s Bay A & P Show, and host to some of our region’s most prestigious events—including the Napier Port awards for primary excellence, the Hawke’s Bay Wine Awards, and the Hawke’s Bay Horse of the Year—and to New Zealand’s best farmers market, which I am sure many in this House will have attended, and, if not, I can strongly encourage you to go along and support us.

Over the past months, the showgrounds have been transformed into a distribution centre to support our Hawke’s Bay through its cyclone recovery, where hundreds of volunteers have been helping, along with individuals and families and businesses and organisations across the country, in giving support to our cyclone recovery; and where there has been a distribution centre, using the army and the civil defence force to get out food and generators and clothing and support to those in need throughout our region. It is also part of the Waipatu community, where, along with myself who lives in the area, my fellow colleague the Hon Meka Whaitiri—whose name is on this bill—also neighbours, and we are connected into her local marae.

I would like to acknowledge Meka Whaitiri as the member whose name is on this bill, the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill, and who is currently out supporting cyclone efforts on the ground. Can I start by thanking the Governance and Administration Committee for its efforts in examining this bill—in particular the chairperson, Ian McKelvie, alongside the Hon Michael Woodhouse and David Bennett and my colleagues Rachel Boyack, Naisi Chen, and Jamie Strange. This bill was originally scheduled to be reported back to the House on 11 April, so I would like to thank members for the way they have expedited this process while still allowing for the appropriate scrutiny of the legislation. The committee has recommended the bill be passed without amendment, which would mean that the settlement on the sale of the Tomoana Showgrounds can go ahead as planned on 31 March this month. I’d like to thank the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society and the Royal Agricultural Society of New Zealand for its submissions in support of this bill, and also to the submitter who did not support this bill. The scrutiny of the legislation at the select committee is an important part of our democratic process, and it’s crucial that everyone has the opportunity to have their say.

The reasons for the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill were well traversed during the first reading, but I will just go through them again for the benefits of members and anyone tuning into Parliament at the moment. This is a simple and practical piece of legislation which will enable the Hawke’s Bay A & P Society to sell its interests in the Tomoana Showgrounds without being required to invest the money from the sale and purchase into other land. The society has agreed to sell the showgrounds to the Hastings District Council for $1.75 million under an arrangement that will give the grounds reserve status, ensuring it is protected for the community and ensuring that the land is forever used for agricultural purposes, because it is prime production land. The council also has plans to prepare a reserve management plan and, with the community, to determine how the showgrounds are looked after and to create events in the years to come. So, just as for the purpose our forebears did, we will have this for future generations belonging to the people of Hastings for the benefit of everyone in Hawke’s Bay and beyond.

Now, the reason this bill is needed is because currently the provisions of the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act 1908 require that the Hawke’s Bay A & P Society invests the money that it receives from the sale of this land into purchasing other land suitable for the purposes of the society. The Act controls how the sales must be handled and what can be done with the proceeds. But this may not be in the best financial use for the society. In their submission to the select committee, the society said this bill would allow it to invest in more productive opportunities, and it does not consider the purchase of further land to be beneficial for the objects of the society. Importantly, this will still allow the society 10 days of an annual fee used for the Tomoana Showgrounds in perpetuity, which means it can continue to host all those great events that Hawke’s Bay is so well known for and to promote the primary sector.

Our farmers and growers are some of the best in the world, and they have had a really hard time of late with the cyclone in our region, and it is important that we do all we can—all we can—to ensure that we can support our farmers and growers and, yes, our kiwifruit growers into the future too. It is an industry that employs so many people across Hawke’s Bay, and, as we all know, it is such the backbone of our regional economy and it deserves everything we can do to support it.

It was great to see that the Tomoana Showgrounds has been so useful in this last month as a hive of activity and somewhere where we can all come together to support the cyclone recovery. I thank all parties in Parliament who supported this bill during its first reading, and I can assure members, once again, that this bill has also had strong community support. Now, it’s been important, through this robust process, that as the Hastings District Council is looking to purchase this land, it was also put out to consultation to our own community. Of that, over 90 percent of those who submitted supported the sale to the Hastings District Council. I think, once again, this firmly cements why we see such a pocket of prime productive land being able to be used for community good and also for the future of our region. I’d also like to acknowledge the submissions both from the Hastings District Council and also from the Waipatu Marae community.

Society members voted in favour of the sale. It has been through, as I said, this consultation process. This bill enables a sensible and practical outcome for the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society and means that our region will be able to continue celebrating and promoting the successes of our local food and fibre sector. I think, once again, this is a show of true regional support, and, in doing so, I would also like to acknowledge all members who have supported this for the society and who have met with the society. I know early on in the consultation process, the local MP for Napier, Stuart Nash, and I met with the society to hear all of their ideas and how they wanted to see a great outcome for our Hawke’s Bay showgrounds. And, again, I hope that for everybody who hasn’t yet been to the farmers market, please put it on your list, because it’s markets like that and it’s supporting local businesses that will help our region so much.

I also know, when I look across to the other side of the House and I see members from the National Party, like Nicola Grigg—I know that she will be there, supporting Horse of the Year, a great, wonderful local event that we all enjoy. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Speaker. For those who have tuned in expecting members’ bills, it’s worth just explaining that on members’ day we do private bills first, and this one, of course, is sponsored by the Hon Meka Whaitiri, the MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. So this is the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill. Although we have agreed and expedited this bill in a shortened process to ensure that we have this bill passed before 31 March, which is the settlement date, I think it is just really important to acknowledge that often the media—well, actually, they probably never report on the pieces of legislation that there is cooperation across the House on, and this is one of them. It’s a sensible, practical bill. It’s not something that’s being done for the first time, Eric Roy, when he was the MP for Invercargill, shepherded a similar bill through for the Southland Agricultural and Pastoral Association.

So, as the member Anna Lorck who spoke before me said, this has been to the Governance and Administration Committee. There were only four submitters, and the majority, of course, were in favour. There weren’t any changes that came out of that select committee, which I think is a really good example of a well written bill and a bill that has had the significant support of the agricultural and pastoral (A & P) society in Hawke’s Bay. So for those who didn’t listen to the speech before or have just joined us, it is basically a sale from the Hastings District Council, who will take up this land, and the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society will still have access to use it for the events for 10 days a year, and, of course, the very significant and successful farmers market—of course, it is National Farmers Market Week this week across New Zealand, and the Hawke’s Bay one has to be one of the better ones across the country. I agree with the member that now is definitely a time to support our growers in the Hawke’s Bay.

So the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society have been clearly behind this piece of legislation. It’s been out for consultation in the Hastings District Council area—93 percent of the submitters were in favour, so this then just becomes a bit of a technical or procedural legislation. It’s not legislation that governs other A & P societies, just this, because of the original Incorporated Societies Act 1908 that said that if they sold land they had to purchase for a similar purpose, but, of course, the purpose of these societies is very different—actually, no, it’s not different; they just undertake their work in a different way. So events like the Horse of the Year, which, of course, was cancelled again this year—very gutting. Very gutting. But it will absolutely be back, bigger and bolder than it has been before. And it is important to recognise that the showgrounds at the moment are the significant distribution hub for welfare support for the cyclone-hit area, so it just goes to show that facilities and assets like this in a region can turn on a dime to support the community as necessary, and they do. So National’s pleased to support this piece of legislation. We have done the work in the select committee, or, at least, my colleagues have—Mr McKelvie: Mr A & P of the National Party caucus. Ha, ha! So we are proud to support this in the second reading and it’ll be great to see this passed later tonight.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin): Look, obviously we are coming together as a Parliament to support the second reading of this bill, and, as acknowledged by the previous speaker, Louise Upston, it is great to have that agreement across the House. I do want to acknowledge at the start of my contribution the devastating impact of Cyclone Gabrielle on the Hawke’s Bay region. It’s nice to be able to do something constructive here today that we know will be of benefit to the Agricultural and Pastoral (A & P) Society locally and also of benefit to the wider region and the primary sector.

I do want to acknowledge the Hon Meka Whaitiri, whose name is on this bill, for her work in shepherding it through, and also my colleagues from the Hawke’s Bay: Anna Lorck, who spoke earlier in this debate, very eloquently, about the purposes of this bill; and the Hon Stuart Nash. I notice that Anna Lorck referenced the work those two MPs had done as options were worked through before this bill came to this House, and I want to congratulate and thank those two hard-working MPs. I’m not surprised that they were involved and engaged in this process early on, but I do want to acknowledge that, because local MPs are incredibly important for a region and the Hawke’s Bay region has two very strong local MPs in Stuart Nash and Anna Lorck.

This bill grants authority to the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society to sell its interests in the Tomoana Showgrounds, as well as any other land in future that it might acquire, and allocate the proceeds of that land sale towards objectives that align with the society’s purposes—that is, rather than simply having to reinvest in land, as is the status quo. That gives them a degree of freedom to promote economic interests associated with agricultural and pastoral causes, to do education, to bring town and country closer together—and the other various objectives of the society, which are wider social good things that will continue to support, grow, and prosper the region. Award scholarships, education programmes—those kinds of things will all be things that will come under the purposes of that A & P Show.

It will also enable the society itself to diversify its investments, to look at managed funds, to look at what is the thing that will give the best return to support those purposes and activities in the future. I mean, it may well be land purchases, but it gives them that flexibility to work out what is best for the society and for their contribution to the Hawke’s Bay region. It is a forward-thinking way of going about things, and so it is a real pleasure to be in the House supporting this.

Of course, all members in this House will have their own A & P Show stories, and, Madam Speaker, if you’ll forgive me—I don’t like to bring the Speaker into the debate, but I’m sure that you’ve been to the Palmerston and Waihemo A & P Show and enjoyed it as much as I have over the years. We’ve got good ones in our region that bring people in, that give those living in the towns the chance to interact with animals and to see how our agriculture and pastoral sector operate, to see the vintage machinery that’s on display, to eat the candyfloss, the hot dogs, to see the horses in action in the shows, and so forth. And those experiences are incredibly valuable, I think, in terms of bringing us together as a country. As a kid, I worked with my cousins on farms, but that’s becoming less and less accessible as there are fewer farm owners in this country and as there are more people. It means that those experiences that I had growing up are not guaranteed for every kid in New Zealand, and I think having A & P Shows and having access to the agricultural sector is something that we all want, in this House, to preserve.

I think, too, when I think of A & P societies—I also think of the volunteers that run them. These organisations are run off the back of work of volunteers, and, in the case of the local one up our way, Madam Speaker, that you will have been to many times, you know the people on the microphones: the Jim Hopkins of this world, the Taranaki gremlin, is it, who gets on that microphone as well. The presidents—Cody Jenkins is our local president at the moment. The past presidents—Paul Mutch and Gary Dodd. Those people that get out there, that do the work, that convene the committees, that gee up the community to get there, to make it a show that everybody can enjoy, including those visitors who come from out of the district to be a part of it. You know, I just do want to pay tribute to those volunteers.

Now, the Hawke’s Bay show. I did take the liberty of having a look at what’s coming up this year and do commend the website to any of you at home, should you not be captured completely by the debate that’s happening right now. You know, it points to those events that I think of as quintessentially New Zealand: shearing competitions; equestrian events of a very high class; you know, seeing the working dogs, the goats, the cattle on display, the sheep; home industries. And, of course, I’m told, this year, carnival rides are promised to return to the Hawke’s Bay A & P Show, and hot dogs on sticks of course will be there too. So I do encourage New Zealanders to get along to these shows and to have the experience, the quality experience, that comes with them.

Mark Cameron: The candyfloss is no more.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The candyfloss, sadly, is hard to find, as our colleague across the House comments, but many of those things which we think of as quintessentially Kiwi will be there, and I do commend the show to the House.

Now, other colleagues have commented on the fact that this sale, which will see the land transferred to the Hastings District Council, will still allow the A & P society to have 10 days’ access to it a year. It will be kept in good condition. It will be used, no doubt, for wider community purposes. It is a piece of land that will be maintained as a reserve, managed by a trust with representatives of the A & P society council and the nearby Waipatu Marae. And it’s great to see all of those members of the community coming together to preserve the purposes and to support the purposes of the A & P Society. And, of course, the investment will be worth $7.5 million to the society as well, as a starting point, and they have said that they anticipate they may well put that in a portfolio to ensure that they are generating funds to support the purposes of the society.

So it’s my very real pleasure to speak on this bill. I’ve been told by the Hon Stuart Nash previously that it’s a very popular bill locally, well supported. And, as I did at the outset, I do congratulate those local members for their work in the background on helping people to work through the options and for their support and hard work in the community—the Hon Stuart Nash and Anna Lorck and, of course, the Hon Meka Whaitiri—and also for their work through the challenging period that the Hawke’s Bay has just gone through and continues to go through in response to the terrible weather events that have passed through.

So I won’t continue my contribution. I’ve covered off the things that I wanted to say about the A & P society and its purposes, and the sensible steps that this bill is taking to help the society continue its proud legacy—through wise, prudent investment—in promoting and celebrating the agricultural, food, and fibre sectors of the Hawke’s Bay region. And so I am proud to commend this bill to the House.

NICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Well, Madam Speaker, I think one of the delightful things about this particular bill is it’s giving this House an opportunity to trot down memory lane and embrace and enjoy the richness which agricultural and pastoral societies have brought to New Zealand, and I would like to take this opportune moment to inform the House that it’s currently hearing a submission from the Mayfield agricultural and pastoral (A & P) society’s 1989 district rider champion followed closely by the 1989 Methven A & P society’s district rider champion.

So it is with great pleasure that I rise and take this opportunity to also support along with my National Party colleagues the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill. Obviously, we in the National Party take enormous pride in our rural roots and each and every one of us within this House, I would wager, has spent childhood days and months and years at A & P Shows around the country. As much as I am a one-eyed Cantabrian and very proudly the MP for Selwyn, I’m also half - Hawke’s Bay and my mum grew up in rural Hawke’s Bay. She’s a good Pōrangahau girl and my granny is currently residing in the Mary Doyle retirement village in Havelock North. So my acknowledgment and love to my granny at the moment.

But National does take the opportunity wherever possible to support any opportunity to modernise legislation, and this is the epitome of that really. It’s taken a piece of legislation that is well over 100 years old and is seeking to make it fit for purpose. It certainly doesn’t seem right in this day and age where there are multiple investment opportunities available to what are, as the previous speaker acknowledged, by and large volunteer organisations who, as we all know—you know, everybody is rattling the can for the donor dollar at the moment and things are tough. It is very difficult for A & P societies to remain solvent in many cases and to put on these shows that we’re all waxing lyrical about because we do love them dearly. So we do think it’s important to allow A & P societies flexibility with their financial decision-making and to move from one legislative framework of investing—if you sell a piece of land, you can only invest in another piece of land—to allowing societies, as has previously been seen with other societies around New Zealand, the opportunity to invest in shares and investment portfolios, in other land should they want to, in long-term deposits and all those kinds of things. That seems the right and proper thing to do if it is to contribute to the sustainability and longevity of these organisations and the wonderful facilities they provide and events that they do put on for our community.

As is the normal practice, in a second reading we do look back to the work carried out by the select committee; in this case, the committee very ably chaired by our good friend Ian McKelvie, the Governance and Administration Committee. I have had a quick look at a couple of the submissions. The Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society’s own submission I think really eloquently gets to the crux of the issue when it says it doesn’t make sense for us to be restricted, to have to use the sale proceeds from one piece of land to purchase more land, and that they very much want to secure the sustainability of their organisation. I’ve got a number of A & P Shows run by A & P societies around my electorate in Selwyn and numbers do dwindle. You know, people are busy and we don’t always get the gate takings that you would have seen in yesteryear. So it is, I think, very important that they are able to invest in their long-term viability by whichever means they see as right and proper.

I did also take a look at the Royal Agricultural Society New Zealand’s submission to this empowering bill and I did take great heart in their ethos and their rationale, and that is to support our members to promote rural excellence, sustainability, and innovation as being key to their organisation. A number of speakers have referred to the fact that these societies, and indeed a number of the shows and the events they put on, are a wonderful showcasing opportunity for local communities, particularly rural communities, to, as we often say, bring country to town and to engage with our urban cousins and friends and show what we rural folk have to offer.

So on that point, we on this side of the House are very pleased to support this bill. We look forward to the future resumption of the horse—what am I trying to say, Anna Lorck?

Anna Lorck: Horse of the Year.

NICOLA GRIGG: The Horse of the Year show! I’ve finally come to the end and crashed and burned. But, look, thank you very much for the opportunity, Madam Speaker. We commend this bill to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora, Madam Speaker—te Māngai o te Whare. I rise to speak on the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill this evening, but before I do—noting that this is a very significant day for New Zealand—I do want to say al salam alaikum. I know that all of us during today have taken a pause and remembered the horror of what happened in Christchurch four years ago. I know that all of us are thinking today of the victims of that massacre and of their families and of the communities, and are striving to continue to do what we can to bring together communities and prevent that sort of division and hatred.

In a very real and very simple way, an A & P society in a country town like mine plays a pretty important part in bringing our society together, so it is not irrelevant to be talking about a society like the A & P society, which we all have in our various provincial towns, and we all know in our various provincial towns, if you’re lucky enough to be a provincial MP—as I am—the significance of it. But before I go any further, there is also one other group to talk about, and that’s the owners of this particular agricultural society, because the A & P society of Hawke’s Bay at this moment is struggling under the appalling impact of Cyclone Gabrielle. I understand from its two devoted local MPs Anna Lorck and Stuart Nash from the region, as well as from the Hon Kiritapu Allan, that, in fact, the Hawke’s Bay showgrounds that we’re talking about tonight have remained untouched.

So this land has not been damaged by the cyclone; in fact, far from it. This land has acted as the community hub that an A & P society should be, although one would hope that it would not have to step in in an emergency, as it has had to here. I understand from Ms Lorck that the showgrounds have become an emergency gathering place, a place for the community to seek safety and succour and shelter, and that is a testament to what an agricultural society—an A & P society—should be. So I am delighted to know that that land is, in fact, safe and it has been having that impact.

When I was preparing to speak on this bill, I had a look at the history. I understand it goes back to the 1850s, when the society was formed, and it’s one of the oldest in New Zealand. I believe it was in 1858 that the first show was held. It wasn’t held on these grounds; it was held on the old racecourse grounds, which at the time were owned by the A & P society.

This society is not unused to big upheavals in its property management. It bought the current grounds—51 acres, as I understand it—when the racecourse grounds just became too small for what it was doing, and there was controversy. There was controversy in making the move out of the immediate surroundings. It was felt that it was too distant, but, in fact, taking the big jump has proven to be the best thing for the society, because it is still going strong.

So we come to what is happening now. Now, we have a society and a community who are shattered and dealing with incredible hardship and the appalling uncertainty of having your entire life ripped out from under you. It is, therefore, fitting that we enable part of that group for the A & P society to go on to do its job better and better, and we enable it to do what it wants to do, which is to sell this bit of land so that it can go on providing that hub and that meeting place for the community and that base for the development of the community spirit that it has been for over a hundred years.

So for those watching—as I’m sure there are many at this time on a Wednesday evening, glued to parliamentary television and worrying about what the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill means—what they want to do is sell the land that they have. They want to sell it to the council. The council have agreed to hold it in perpetuity. The council have agreed that the A & P society will be able to hold all its events, as it normally does, on that land, as it has done ever since 1912, I believe, when it first purchased this particular block in 1858, when it purchased the racecourse block. It will still be able to go on holding its events every year—and I think there are four of them, over 12 days a year—but it will be freed up by being able to sell the land for cash to the council, and that money can be invested in the many things that an A & P society does around town and for the community.

I have some knowledge of what an A & P society does in the community. Our previous speaker Nicola Grigg spoke proudly, I believe—as I was coming back in, I heard her speaking proudly of her own time on the equestrian course. I myself am an indifferent horsewoman, but my sisters Georgie and Jessie are superb, and did, in fact, participate in many a Whangārei A & P event on their horses.

But rather than the show, which has always been a highlight for Whangārei—let’s start with that. In Whangārei, every summer, early December—my goodness, it’s the summer show. It was the highlight of your childhood. When you live in a place like Whangārei, you don’t get the Ferris wheel very often and you don’t get candyfloss very often, and this was our one, yearly opportunity. I visited and loved it again with my kids.

We had the hiatus of COVID, which was very difficult for our local society and our local producers. It has been hard and tough, and I have sat with Evan and Chris and the team in Whangārei and mourned the loss of one more A & P society opportunity, because it is such an important social event if you are in a provincial and a rural community.

But it’s more than that. An A & P society like ours in Whangārei reaches out and supports the development of the primary production sector in so many ways. For example, in Whangārei, they actually hold an apprenticeship programme, effectively—I’m looking across at my colleague Mark Cameron, who is nodding with great love and affection. They have started a training programme for young farmers, which I think started with six and has been building regularly, where they have enabled young people living in Tai Tokerau, who often don’t want to leave their local homes and travel off to the big smoke of Whangārei—they have enabled them to move into farming families and do their apprenticeships on the ground, on the farm. They support them and they mentor them through their various standards and the academic work, and in this way, the Whangārei A & P Society is growing our base of farmers and rural producers.

Therefore, it is important for the development of farming standards that we allow the healthy and friendly, although often intergenerationally passionate, rivalry that is the A & P society’s many competitions. Whether it be over preserves or livestock, it is important that we enable the community to come together at our shows and enjoy each other’s company and have the rush of candyfloss and the thrill of the Ferris wheel. But it is important that we enable them also to continue the work they do outside the showgrounds to support our primary production sector to get better and better and to continue to be the basis of New Zealand life that it really is.

So I commend the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society for having the vision, once again, to take a bold leap into the unknown and to sell off its asset to safe hands that will preserve it for all the good that it’s been doing in the community as a community recreation space, to enable it to continue to fulfil its place and its purpose within our provincial societies, supporting those in the agricultural and pastoral sector. I commend this bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Al salam alaikum. I join with colleagues from around the House in remembering our Muslim whānau down at Christchurch at this time and the heaviness that they must still feel in terms of the loved ones that they have lost as well. Rātou ki a rātou, tātou ki a tātou, moe mai rā. [They congregate, as we do here, rest in peace.]

The Greens rise to support the second reading of this bill, the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill. A lot of the reasons why we are supporting this bill have been canvassed around the House. I also want to acknowledge the community resilience—the resilience of community, the resilience of the people across the Te Matau-a-Māui, the Hawke’s Bay, in terms of the way that they’ve been moving through Cyclone Gabrielle, and just to let the folks at home know that we continue to support them and we continue to think of them.

I had a bit of a nosey on the old Google machine because I suspected that the A & P grounds would have been used in the cyclone effort, so I want to acknowledge the remarks by Anna Lorck, the local MP there, who confirmed that this was indeed the case, that this was a place where people gathered and got together and looked after each other and had that connection. I reflect also on the objectives of the society, which is there to promote agricultural, pastoral, horticulture, viticulture, and forestry resources, but also community as well, and to see a very, very recent example of that.

Everyone’s taken a bit of a trip down memory lane in terms of the A & P Show and it actually sparked up a memory for myself actually. I was thinking back to the first A & P Shows for myself. I had, as a child, come back from the islands and landed in the raging metropolis of Levin, where they had an A & P Show, and this was the raging 1980s. One of those shows, they rounded up a whole lot of the local kids and we helped kind of shepherd the sheep down the pens. I’m hoping we were useful. I felt useful—12-year-old me felt useful—as we shepherded these sheep down and they had the sheep shearing competition. Probably my enduring memory of those times was going home high on candyfloss and stinking to high heaven.

The Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill is about helping the society to fulfil its own objectives. It wants to be able to sell this property, and any other land it acquires, without the current restriction that requires it to invest the money received from the sale to purchase other land suitable for the purposes of the society as required by the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act 1908—1908, so long ago. Even longer ago than when I was in Levin, back in the eighties.

This move of theirs still fits within the objectives of their society by moving it still into public hands under the ownership and the stewardship of the Hastings District Council that still will be able to fulfil their objectives—still holding those amazing events over that 10 days, all the different shows which bring people together. It is about promoting horticulture. It is about promoting agriculture. It is about promoting all those things, and also community, but it’s also about building memories as well.

And so this bill, it’s a small bill, but it’s a big thing for this community and for this organisation. I also want to acknowledge the consultation work that has been done here by, I guess, the local MPs and people involved as well, reaching out to the marae and making sure that those connections are there as well and solid. So the Greens commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. I’d like to start, also, by al salam alaikum and joining my colleagues from around the House, as we’ve heard today, as we all think today of our Muslim communities, remembering the atrocities of four years ago.

I rise in support of the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill in its second reading. I’d like to commend my colleagues on the Governance and Administration Committee for their work on this private bill; the sponsor of this bill, Minister Meka Whaitiri, who brought this bill to the House; and, of course, my colleague Anna Lorck. The bill empowers the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society to sell its interest in the Tomoana Showgrounds and any other land it may acquire and then apply the money received from the sale of the land towards purposes that are consistent with the objects of the society.

As we have already heard several times, this bill is a simple and practical piece of legislation. Currently, the provisions of the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act 1908 require the society to invest the money they receive from the sale of land in purchasing other land suitable for the purposes of the society. What this bill does, it treats provisions of the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act 1908, the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Amendment Act 1912, as well as the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Amendment Act 1920 as never having applied to the society. This is done to achieve the purpose of allowing the society to apply the money received from the sale of the land towards purposes that are consistent with the objects of the society.

Now, as we have already heard, this bill, of course, comes to us in the shadow of the devastating impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle in the Hawke’s Bay region, which remains under a state of emergency. Many people for whom this bill applies will continue to live with a degree of uncertainty in their lives and are still disrupted. The cyclone was such a devastating and traumatic event for so many people and so many businesses. We will get through this. We will rebound strongly from Gabrielle, but it will take a lot of effort.

At this point, I would like to acknowledge Anna Lorck, the MP for Tukituki, who kicked off this debate. What I’ve also learnt is that she was in a previous life the Waipukurau show queen, wearing a beautiful red sash after being anointed as such. But I would like to commend her for the relentless work on the ground in her affected communities, as well, of course, as our colleague Stuart Nash, and Anna has already described those events in her speech, of how that region has suffered so terribly.

The Agricultural and Pastoral Society recently entered into an agreement to sell most of its showground to the Hastings District Council under arrangements which will give the grounds reserve status, and so that means that it will be protected for the community. The council also has plans to prepare a reserve management plan, with the community to determine how the showgrounds are looked after and then create opportunities for many events in years to come—and Anna Lorck has already run us through some of those events that are being held there.

I do remember—it’s a while ago, but a bill that is as similar as it can get to this bill was passed in 1991. It was the Kaipara ki Mahurangi Kumeu District Agricultural and Horticultural Society Act 1991. What that Act did: it provided specifically for the activities undertaken by the Agricultural and Horticultural Society at the showgrounds, and it was referred to as a landmark for all New Zealand A & P societies at the time, because until that time they had been restricted to renting their properties or their buildings for short terms.

Agricultural and pastoral associations, as we have already heard from many speakers around the House, thinking about their personal memories, are, of course, part of the fabric of rural New Zealand, and shows and expos have been part of the rural communities for over a hundred years in many communities. Last weekend, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Kumeu A & P Show, and it was really great to have Prime Minister Chris Hipkins attend and enjoy the festivities. He received a really warm welcome and was asked for what must have been hundreds of selfies and photographs as he was trying to get over the very large grounds. He led a tractor parade—and you may have seen that on the news—and was riding up front in a very shiny red tractor. He also signed one of those giant pumpkins—

Andrew Bayly: Massey Ferguson.

Mark Cameron: Go, Massey Ferguson!

MARJA LUBECK: You got it, you got it—it was a Massey Ferguson indeed. He also signed one of those massive pumpkins, as we do see at those A & P Shows, and that pumpkin was later on in the day auctioned off for $400. I’ve got it on good authority that that is the highest price that one of those pumpkins has ever raised at the Kumeu A & P Show.

Ian McKelvie: Our pumpkin soup.

MARJA LUBECK: So, it was—no, it’s not good for pumpkin soup because, apparently, they’re very watery when they reach that stage. So, really, it just goes to the animals. It was really good to see tens of thousands of people over that weekend enjoying the show being back, because, of course, COVID over the last couple of years meant the show being cancelled or scaled down for the last couple of years. I do want to echo the sentiments of my colleague David Clark, who previously commended the efforts of the many volunteers in our communities that make sure that these A & shows can be run in our communities. The next one, in Kaipara ki Mahurangi, is on 18 March, and so I hope people are taking the opportunity to visit Warkworth on that day.

A little bit of history on the Hawke’s Bay A & P Show—my colleague Emily Henderson gave you a short version; well, I’ve got the long one: “The first … show was held in 1863 in a paddock in Havelock North. An agricultural and pastoral society and its annual show was recognised as being important to Hawke’s Bay by the early pioneers [because] they knew that the future wealth of the province would be generated by agriculture and horticulture. By the 1920s, the Hawke’s Bay A & P Society’s annual show had been based at the Hastings Racecourse for more than 40 years. [Now,] The society had owned the property from 1878, but in 1884, sold and then leased the property back from the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club for the show. It was suggested at the 1906 AGM that the society once again look at owning a property [and that actually eventuated] in 1911 when 51 acres of Nelson Bros land at Tomoana was judged to be an excellent location after [it was advertised] for possible [other] sites. The purchase by the A & P Society was assisted by William Nelson’s generosity in making … financial arrangements. However, it [took] many [many more] years before this site [could actually] be used.

“At the Hastings Race Course, the buildings belonging to the A & P Society had been erected in the middle of [a] race track. [And] they weren’t allowed to be high as to block the view of spectators, and [so they] were only temporary. The oval was not that suitable for parades of stock, and inadequate for future growth.” So the A & P Society judged that that was not good enough and they wanted better. “The land at Tomoana was debt-free from 1918, and the A & P Society in 1920 had about £10,000 in the bank.”—judging by today’s value, that would be roughly about a million dollars—“Building an infrastructure of cattle and horse pavilions, produce hall, latrines, grandstand and offices at Tomoana was going to be very expensive and [judged to be roughly about] £30,000”—so about $3 million in today’s value.

“… shifting … the “northern boundary” of Hastings was upsetting [to] some [because they] didn’t see [moving] from the racecourse as necessary and [they thought it was] too remote.” So there was a fund-raiser, and the funding was “used to extend the show ground property from 51 to 62 acres, and in developing the property in 1923. In 1925”—as is mentioned before—“the first show was held at … Tomoana and a record 20,000 of the [then] 65,000 Hawke’s Bay population attended.” And that was that history.

So the society is now paving the way for initiative and forward thinking in the rural sector, contributing to more positive economic development across the region. As several people have mentioned, the bill has very strong community support. Hastings District Council wrote a letter of support, as has the Waipatu Marae. Society members have voted in favour, and, also, I learnt that over 90 percent of submitters have voted in favour of the sale.

Now, the reasons for this bill have been very well traversed by previous speakers. Anna Lorck referred to this in her previous speech as “a show of true regional support”, which I acknowledge it is. I commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was going to regale the House of all things A & P up and down rural New Zealand and Mr McKelvie—

Anna Lorck: Go for it!

MARK CAMERON: I certainly will, Anna Lorck! Talking of wood chopping, combs and cutters, Heiniger gear, running handpieces through wool. Show hunter, for all things, Anna Lorck, and round the ring to do with ponies. My daughter rides, evidently, at A & P Shows up and down the country. I have had the luxury of going to dozens of these things—

Andrew Bayly: Have you won any prizes?

MARK CAMERON: No, sir, I have not. To Mr Bayly: I’ve entered the wood chopping event and failed woefully in my exploits. Interestingly in all of this, at now nearly 51 years old, I’ll have probably been to over 100 of these and I absolutely love them; they are all things rural New Zealand. And without pontificating, I will certainly celebrate A & Ps up and down New Zealand. And here’s to Hawke’s Bay trying to ameliorate all the issues that they are currently going through and then having this bill being brought to the House. Interestingly, for me, having read back some feedback from submitters—and of course I don’t sit on the Governance and Administration Committee, as you’re all aware—the overall consensus to the bill was one of support. It’s been well traversed and canvassed in the House.

The bill was noted to empower the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society to have the ability to sell its interest—and forgiving my pronunciation—Tomoana Showgrounds to use those funds received from the sale of the land to be consistent with the society’s interest, which was outside the legal scope of the original Act. Obviously, by virtue, we want to see this land and its use continue. As was noted, the original Act, in 1908, put prescriptions on the society to invest the money received from the sale into the purchase of other or subsequent land in keeping with a 160-year history and I quote, “was offered … [a] role as champions of regions crucial to agricultural and pastoral sectors.” We see this up and down rural New Zealand; the members on the other side of the House have well traversed that in their speeches.

One submitter noted “We believe this is simple change to the legislation, that currently governs our Agricultural and Pastoral Society.” Having attended a lot of these, a lot of what goes on—a lot of the organisation—is done at a very localised level, and goodness gracious me, good on the Hawke’s Bay region seeking to amend this piece of legislation moving forward so they have asset surety.

Another submitter said they go on to “make it more amenable to this day and age”, and by virtue when it comes to land use and how we use what happens in our rural backyard, you can see why they would say such things. It doesn’t make sense to be restricted, and this bill will allow for greater flexibility. I’d like to decree that makes perfect sense in allowing us to empower for more diverse investment into our portfolio and provision for long-term planning according to conditions the Ministry for Primary Industries noted in its submission: “[The bill creates] an exemption for the requirements outlined in Section 7 of the [original] Act.” MPI also noted when speaking of the Hastings District Council, “The Council will vest the land as a reserve”. A wonderful, wonderful idea, putting it back into the hands of community. Notwithstanding, the society will have the rights to the land 10 days free per year for each year in perpetuity.

Now, without overplaying my hand, what a wonderful thing that we have A & P Shows in society, and those that can attend them, knowing that is surely going to be the year following. It has become clearly evident to me that this is not a problematic piece of legislation. I am not going to overplay my hand. The ACT Party fully supports this piece of legislation to give those in Hawke’s Bay region—and more broadly, all things rural—the very support it needs. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is good to be rising and taking a call and sharing in solidarity some of the good things about New Zealand society. But before I start, I, like my colleagues around the House, acknowledge the tragedy four years ago in Christchurch. We remember and we mourn those who lost their lives and those who lost their loved ones and acknowledge all of those who have supported the victims and their families in the moment and in the years since, and in the years to come.

But back to this bill, the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill. It’s a lovely opportunity for all of us to think about Hawke’s Bay and have a smile on our faces and be reminded of what a wonderful part of the country and of the world it is, and to think about this institution, this fine tradition, these events that we see all around the country that have been encapsulated in the conversations we’ve had about this bill. We know that there are dozens of agricultural and pastoral (A & P) shows, and we’ve heard about them in the House, that connect us to our history, that connect us to each other, and connect us to our future. I think some of us in the Primary Production Committee were a little bit jealous that it didn’t come to us. I mean, there were obvious reasons why not, but many of us in the select committee have shared stories, not just in the House but in select committee that are generated by talking about this bill. We’ve heard about the history of it in New Zealand, and I’m not sure how far back people have gone, but, of course, this started in Scotland—the visionary and ambitious people of Scotland, in the Highlands, that wanted to showcase agricultural improvements. Then this was infectious, and ended up in England with the Royal Agricultural Society, which wanted to foster the use of science in farming.

I read about the first Hawke’s Bay show that was on Alfred Dawes’ paddock in Havelock North in October 1863, and apparently there were 22 horses and 23 cattle, 18 sheep, six pigs, a pen of poultry, and three dogs. We had 400 people in attendance, rocked up in their gigs and buggies—a very different experience from, you know, the biggest traffic jam we have in Stratford these days is when we’re all trying to navigate and negotiate with the local Rotary Club in their white jackets as they’re trying to park us in the worst bit of the paddock that we know we won’t be able to get out of at the end of the day.

We know that this wonderful institution and its different iterations around the country give us the finest in innovation—animals, produce, technology, as well, of course, as the competitions and attractions. We’ve heard about some of those, and I’ll get on to those in a minute. But the best of these A & P Shows were located on really special pieces of land, if they were smart, and the best were close to town. The Hawke’s Bay grounds, innovative from the outset, had a rail connection that meant that you did not have to drive your stock through town. How progressive are they?

Some of these events, though, unfortunately, are only to be remembered. The Inglewood gala, the closest gala to my little patch, was apparently the greatest show on earth, because it included human cannonballs, and in its heyday attracted almost 35,000 visitors. I don’t quite know how we all jammed in there, but it certainly attracted more than Americarna. But apparently, killed off in 1972 by this amazing thing called television.

We know we’ve heard about the dozens of shows around the country that remain, and this bill is about enabling the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society to continue to be nimble and innovative and remain one of the best shows in the country. So these shows connect us to each other. We’ve heard so much; we’ve shared our collective memory—town and country, north and south, young and old. We’ve heard a lot of quite competitive horse stories around the place—never rode a horse. Funnily enough—some of you may not be surprised—I only ever rocked up to the talent show. I don’t know if I ever walked away with a ribbon, but anyway, I was happy to participate.

We’ve heard so much about what a big deal this is in rural communities, and, originally, like I said, rocking up in a buggy or on a horse and now, of course, where they’re kicking tyres on some amazing tractors and other incredible innovations. Of course, we will continue to have debates about whether it’s a Massey Ferguson or something else.

But this isn’t just about bringing the rural communities together; it is about bringing our townies, to build those connections. It’s wonderful to see that one of the ambitions of the society is to use the funds that will be freed up by this legislation to promote the primary sector to a wider audience. I think that’s wonderfully ambitious for us as a country. I do want to reflect—you know, we’ve heard about all the attractions and the competitions that we’ve participated in, but I think it’s really interesting how over the generations we move from being a small child on the—

Dr Emily Henderson: Merry-go-round.

ANGELA ROBERTS: Merry-go-round—thank you. And then you get to go on the Ferris wheel, and then you get to go on the Hurricane, and then you have children and you’re back to the merry-go-round. Although apparently my colleague Anna Lorck skipped a little bit and made it to the Hurricane at age five with her mate Stuart Train, much to her parents’ horror, so proving to be adventurous from the start. So it is about creating memories and building relationships and having a great deal of fun.

The intergenerational aspect of it isn’t just about the rides, though. We’ve heard about the knowledge and everything that is shared intergenerationally, and we’ve heard about the volunteers. I just want to do a shout-out. I think last time I shouted out to our world champion wood choppers that come from Stratford, the Jordan boys, but actually this time I want to refer to another former student, Kylee Perrett, who is one of the best Ayrshire breeders and judges in the country—amazing young woman, but not just involved in breeding and judging, but has now stepped up and taken over, as her father is retired, and is involved in running and organising the Egmont and the Stratford A & P Shows. It is wonderful to see this institution and this way of life and this wonderful knowledge and really rich culture coming through in our next generation. It leads not just into us being some of the finest food and fibre producers on the planet, but is also about making sure our rural communities continue to be places that our young people want to live in and to work in and create wonderful futures for their own children.

So, like I said, the A & P Shows in the Hawke’s Bay, in particular, are about connecting us also to our future. They’ve been visionary from the outset, since they started in Scotland, and currently the frustration that they had that that very narrow requirement for them to invest in land if they divested in their land, it’s brought something to us, in addition, as a challenge. They have challenged us to do something wonderful that will enable us to connect to and build a fabulous future for this country, because they’re making us stretch our understanding of what investment means, because it isn’t just about simply investing in land, but it is about investing in people. It’s great to see their ambitions, that what they want to do is develop educational programs, award scholarships, and it allows them flexibility for longer term planning. When I look at how we’re going to go and rebuild and support the wonderful Hawke’s Bay to rebuild, the fact that they will have opportunities to be really innovative and invest in people, I think, is another great opportunity that we can see that they will have simply by us supporting them in the desire to pass this bill.

So despite the tragedy that has beset them in the last few weeks, it’s a reminder that they are going to get through this. Not everybody has been affected in the same way, but we are going to be able to help them, and this little bill is going to hopefully help them to do something mighty. And for that, I’m incredibly humble and proud to be able to recommend this bill to the House.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am pleased to rise and speak on this Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill in the second reading, and I acknowledge the Hon Meka Whaitiri, who has brought this bill forward. I also want to acknowledge my colleague Mr Ian McKelvie, who so ably led it through the select committee process with the Governance and Administration Committee.

There’s been quite a lot of reminiscing about people’s memories of A & P Shows, and I think, possibly, Mr McKelvie and perhaps yourself, Madam Speaker, and I are the only ones that can remember that, actually, it was a day off school back in the day. This is when we all went to school every day because that’s what we had to do, our parents made us. And a day off school was something very, very major for us. My other memory of A & P Shows is not nearly as glamorous as the member on the opposite side, Anna Lorck, as show queen. My abiding memories are about eating far too much candyfloss, then going for tea at my grandmother’s. For some inexplicable reason, she always gave us lettuce salad and pressed tongue, and I can assure you that candyfloss, pressed tongue, and chair plane rides are not a good combination.

So I’m certainly very pleased to be working in collaboration in the House this evening to support this bill, which will enable the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society to sell, transfer the ownership of their 40 hectares to Hastings District Council. And why I’m particularly pleased to be speaking about this is that it’s identical to the bill that was brought forward when the Southland Showgrounds were sold. So the Southland Agricultural and Pastoral Association Empowering Act 2006, which was brought forward by my very good friend and neighbour, the former National MP, Mr Eric Roy. Of course, Mr Eric Roy was in this House for 15 years and he brought the Act forward in 2006, which enabled the Southland A & P Association to sell land and get a number of opportunities from that. So it’s perhaps good to recount those opportunities and what it’s done for the Southland A & P Association—the land was sold and a wonderful industrial development took place there which has absolutely reinvigorated that area. The A & P Show has shifted to a city council park: Donovan Park. In fact, two weekends ago, on 4 March, both my colleague Dr Liz Craig and I had stands at the Southland A & P Show at Donovan Park—it was the 103rd Southland A & P Show.

Like others, I want to acknowledge the wonderful volunteers that make our A & P Shows happen. So, in Southland, the president Paula Bell and vice president David Sinclair, along with their committee and all their volunteers, made an absolutely wonderful job of putting on their 103rd show. And I really want to acknowledge that many of those executive members have been working for years and years. Paula Bell started stewarding at the Southland A & P Show more than 30 years ago. So I want to acknowledge the volunteers that make this wonderful celebration of all things agricultural and pastoral, our A & P Shows, such a success. And I want to assure those that will reap the benefits of this bill that Southland has gone before them and in fact reaped many benefits. We do wish those same opportunities on the Hawke’s Bay A & P Society, and so we support the bill.

ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. It’s always an honour and a privilege to stand in the House to make a contribution, and in my five minutes’ contribution to this, the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill, I just want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the lives lost in Cyclone Gabrielle and the floods and I want to acknowledge everyone that has been heavily affected. Also, today is 15 March and our hearts and our thoughts and our prayers are with the community in Christchurch.

I just want to acknowledge that the bill has come in the shadow of Cyclone Gabrielle. Earlier, in the last couple of weeks, I have visited Hawke’s Bay and I want to acknowledge our local MPs Anna Lorck and Stuart Nash for their tireless efforts in Hawke’s Bay. I have never been to an A & P Show, so I am part of the community that actually if the land is sold—

Andrew Bayly: Come to Pukekohe next time.

ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI: Yeah, I will—I will. You can take me there, the member Andrey Bayly. But one of the goals of the promoter of this bill, the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill, is about enabling the funds raised from this, from the selling of the land, to be able to include wider communities into its role.

I also want to acknowledge when I was there the Pacific community in Hawke’s Bay that stood up centres to support the community throughout this, like Pastors Lau and Nancy at the River Road Kings House Church in Napier; Tevita Niu Lata for supporting all the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers that are there packing our fruit; Tofilau Talalelei Taufale, who organised the community to come together at the time for providing support for local Pacific communities; the Samoan EFKS Congregational Church who opened their doors to the community as well. I want to acknowledge Malia and Fa’aki from the Sacred Heart Catholic Church that I went along to, just to be with the community and see what it’s like in Hastings, and I want to also acknowledge Greig Taylor of Freshco. When I visited he was really emotional in terms of sharing the experience of the water levels, of him having to look after his workers or what he calls his family. I also want to acknowledge Pastor Tivaini from the Ascend Church and the Trinity Methodist Church. I also want to acknowledge Fatongia and Olivia ’Ofa for looking after the community. I made note when I spoke that I’ve never been to an A & P Show and when I met the Pacific community in Hawke’s Bay I’m not sure whether many of them have been to an A & P Show.

I want to acknowledge the work of Meka Whaitiri in bringing this member’s bill to the House and the work of the promoter, the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society. And just a reminder that the Pacific community are there and that they are the silent voice who tirelessly toil in the background. Whether it is to prune our fruit trees, whether it is to clean out places where the horses are run, or whether they are picking our fruit, they are very important members of the community and I just want to acknowledge them in the community.

Most members have acknowledged that this is a simple and practical piece of legislation and it has been highly supported in this House. Just as I look at the time and I’m concluding my time, I want to go back to acknowledge that when I was in Hawke’s Bay—I usually am someone that takes a lot of photos, but I didn’t take many when I was there. Because I felt that outside of Hawke’s Bay, especially me from Auckland, based in Papakura—I will take the offer to attend with the member across the road, across the bench there—we have no idea of the devastation that’s happened. What it looks like to be two feet under water, we have no idea. But I want to acknowledge the community who came together as a community to look after each other. And on that note, I commend this bill to the House. Mālō.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s with a great deal of interest that I take a call on this, the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill. In doing so, I want to thank all members of the House for accommodating the Hawke’s Bay A & P and the Hastings City Council, in respect of this bill, because it has a date of 31 March, which is critical to the payment of the money which enables the Hawke’s Bay A & P to keep going. Without that, they’d have had a great deal of difficulty raising money—they’d have had no land, no equity, and still had to run an organisation. So I just want to thank the House for its consideration of that and allowing this bill to get through all stages tonight—well, I hope it does—it’s very important for them and very important for the Hawke’s Bay.

The Governance and Administration Committee considered this bill. It was a pretty simple bill to consider because it was, basically, well put together. As Penny Simmonds and a number of others noted, it had a bit of history in that it came through in almost the exact form for the Southland A & P. And there’d been a number of other A & P societies who have had legislation come through this House in this manner, including my own local A & P, the Manawatu & West Coast A & P Association, who sold their showgrounds to the Palmerston City Council in much the same manner as Hawke’s Bay are selling theirs to the Hastings City Council, and Invercargill’s was similar.

So these assets have been built up over hundreds of years, interestingly. The interesting thing about this is that almost all the A & P societies in New Zealand, all 108 of them, were controlled by the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act 1908, which is a pretty prehistoric piece of legislation and a frustration for many of those A & P societies still in existence, because they really have to put an Act through Parliament to change the way they operate. And that’s necessary these days because we’ve seen a very big change in the way our small communities and our larger communities operate.

In respect of the comments made by the last speaker, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, about having never been to an A & P Show, one of the prime roles of A & P Shows is to take, basically, the rural aspect to the city. One of the absolute critical shows in that respect is the Auckland Easter A & P Show, which for years has had a very strong agricultural presence right in the middle of Auckland. The whole aim of that show, which became the Royal Easter Show, was to enable agriculture to promote itself and the good things it did to the people of Auckland City, and it is an opportunity.

It was quite interesting tonight because all the speakers have talked quite a bit about A & P Shows, and I think it’s pretty cool that people understand them and know what they’re about. And, of course, just last week, a number of us—including the current Speaker in the Chair, the Hon Jacqui Dean—were at the Wānaka show, which is an amazing event in the middle of the South Island—

Mark Cameron: Crazy.

IAN McKELVIE: —a long way from anywhere. But it took us a while to get there, didn’t it, Matt Cameron? But once we got there, we were fixed there. And that’s the secret of A & Ps: some of them are great and run hugely positive A & P Shows still; some of them are struggling. And the reason some of them are struggling—and that was epitomised in Palmerston North last weekend when, on the same weekend as the Wānaka show, we had the New Zealand Rural Games in Palmerston North. And, I suppose, to emphasise the diversity of what shows did—aside from livestock and machinery and those sort of things, and the machinery part of those shows, of course, has, to some extent, been overtaken by the Field Days that are now run throughout New Zealand. And, of course, we’ve got the South Island Agricultural Field Days in a couple of weeks’ time in Canterbury. This week—and tomorrow, in fact—we’ve got the Central Districts Field Days starting in Feilding at Manfeild Park, and those Field Days will attract some 35,000 people through the gate. So they’re pretty popular events, the Field Days. But, of course, we have the National Fieldays and the Northland Field Days. The three provincial Field Days are a little bit similar, but they have taken a lot of what the A & P Shows used to do away from them.

But, just very briefly, to emphasise the kind of diversity that we have in these things, at the rural games they showcase things such as egg throwing. You wouldn’t believe it, but people can throw an egg almost 100 metres and catch it without breaking it. I don’t know whether it was hard-boiled or not, but they do—in fact, they’re not allowed to be hard-boiled. But not only do they have egg throwing, they have, obviously, shearing, tree climbing, wood chopping, and coal shovelling. There’s a very nice bloke from the West Coast called Richie Banks who turns up there—and I wouldn’t know what age he was, Maureen Pugh might know him. But he’d be at least—I’m not going to put an age on him, because you’ll accuse me of it, but he’s not young. He’s the fastest coal shoveller in New Zealand.

Andrew Bayly: What do you mean “not young”?

IAN McKELVIE: Amazing. Well, he’s as old as I am, Bayly. And, of course, Curly Troon, the gumboot throwing champion of New Zealand, all the way from Taihape.

But the last event I just want to very quickly talk about—oh! Loader driving. They had a significant loader driving competition there, which was really interesting. And they also had what they call the big highlanders, I think, or the big highland plugs. They had to lift six stones. The lightest was 75 kilograms, the heaviest was 150 kilograms. And you can imagine a stone shaped like that, 150 kilograms—they had to lift it on to a barrel. The fastest bloke lifted those six stones on to a barrel, and they were 10 metres apart, in 29 seconds. Pretty extraordinary. But those are the sort of events that we used to see at A & P Shows, and that’s why I think that they’re such an important part of the fabric of New Zealand society.

Back to the Hawke’s Bay Showgrounds. The Hawke’s Bay Showgrounds are probably the most attractive piece of—almost the most attractive piece of Hastings, I was going to say, but they’re are beautiful showgrounds almost right in the middle of Hastings, now. I think they’re a very special part of the Hawke’s Bay fabric. Some of us will remember going there, over many years, to the showgrounds. And, of course, shows have changed, as I’ve said earlier, but it’s got a large part of the history of Hawke’s Bay contained within that showgrounds. Some of the best-known families in Hawke’s Bay have been associated with it, families such as the Nelson family, who were early meat exporters in the Hawke’s Bay—still farming in the Hawke’s Bay, many of that family. It also adjoins a very large marae, the Waipatu marae right next door—in fact, it almost surrounds it. And, of course, I can’t help but mention just right across the road is the Hawke’s Bay Polo Club, where all the very important decisions are made in the Hawke’s Bay. But it is a pretty special part of the fabric of New Zealand history.

I think the real concern, or the proper concern—but I think the interesting issue will be for Hawke’s Bay to ensure that they invest this money wisely, because we have seen, I guess, cases in the past in New Zealand where all sorts of organisations, from churches, which are the subject of the next bill, to any number of other voluntary community organisations who have sold assets like this and not retained the asset as well as they might have. We even see the odd bill coming through here which enables—and we had one with respect to the New Plymouth District, just last week, where those funds need to be protected. So you would have to hope that the Hawke’s Bay A & P Society will, as a result of this sale, put in place a very strong management of their $7.1-odd million.

The other interesting thing about the Hawke’s Bay Showgrounds is it’s protected from building on, effectively. I’m not sure what the conditions of that thing are, but Anna Lorck will know. But they can’t build on that land. It’s, I suppose, Class I agricultural land or something like that. They’ve opted to retain, I think, two hectares of that land as well. So they will still have not only the cash and the right to use that showgrounds in perpetuity but they will also have a couple of hectares of land which they’ve retained.

The challenge for our A & Ps is that they have these assets and they have a few activities. Almost all of those activities are run by volunteers, so it’s quite testing for those voluntary organisations to get full value from those assets, hence the need to sell them and have them used by the community and managed by the community. As everyone in this House will know, running a couple of soccer pitches doesn’t make much money. And so whatever you do on that are community-based activities, and they need to be supported by our local councils, whether we like it or not, because there’s neither the cash nor the ability for most of our community-based organisations to play an equitable rent that would enable these things to become commercial. One would hope this doesn’t go down the path that so many have and try to commercialise itself to that extent in the future, because that will be very challenging for it.

So I think the bill is exciting for Hawke’s Bay. In fact, I’ve met most of the presidents of Hawke’s Bay for the last few years—quite a quite a number of them—but Paul Beamish, the current president of the Hawke’s Bay A & P Society, met with me over the Christmas period to explain the urgency of this. And we had one submitter who turned up in person, and that was the Hawke’s Bay A & P Society themselves. So that pretty much sums it up. I think it’s one of those things we do in this Parliament—quite important, very important for the local community. And so I want to congratulate the—well, I was going to say all the Hawke’s Bay MPs for encouraging this to get through Parliament, particularly the Hon Meka Whaitiri. So thank you, Madam Speaker, that’s my lot.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a delight it is to actually stand in the House and hear everybody’s stories about how much fun they’ve enjoyed at A & P Shows over the years. They are actually a fixture of our community life. This is the kind of place where, as a kid growing up in the towns, you went to go and pat some sheep and to pat some llamas and to look at somebody’s giant pumpkin that they’ve gone and grown and to taste somebody’s cake that they thought was the best banana cake in the world. But it’s the kind of place where, actually, there’s such a good community feel and it’s a nice outdoor thing and for the kids, actually, it’s an incredible delight. The previous speaker, Ian McKelvie, got up and talked about the Royal Easter Show, which, essentially, had its routes in agriculture and pastoralism, but actually profiling our animals, our pastoral community, and what a delight it was.

I’m really grateful to Meka Whaitiri, my colleague, for bringing this to the House. This is obviously really important to the people of Hawke’s Bay—the people of the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society (A & P Society) who have entered into an agreement with the Hastings District Council to be able to have this conversation about how they can make things better going forward. It’s been a tough couple of years, and putting on any kind of event around the country has been incredibly tough, and they have through this process realised that they want to change things, they want to make things better for the A & P Show there going forward.

So they’ve come forward with this proposal. It has been through the committee, and there have been submissions to the committee. The Hawke’s Bay A & P Society submitted as the promoter of the bill and they told the committee that having this bill pass would allow them to invest in more productive opportunities. It doesn’t consider the purchase of further land to be beneficial to the objectives of the society. The thing that I love about this is that it was actually supported by Waipatu Marae. It’s really important that that letter came through as part of the process, and it’s really good to understand that it actually has the support of local iwi and that the local iwi believe that this is the right thing to do.

It is technical in nature, but the previous speakers have talked quite extensively about the problem that this bill seeks to address, but just to note that I was fortunate enough in one of my previous roles to be able to head down to the grounds itself. They have a great market which is there in the weekends, selling all range of produce.

I was also fortunate enough to be there for the Horse of the Year show—hey! You’ve never seen horsey people before until you’ve been to a Horse of the Year show. They are a special kind of people. [Interruption] Oh no, hey, I say that with love in my heart as I get daggers looking around the room. But, hey, honestly, until you’ve been to Horse of the Year, you’ve not realised how much horsey people put into their hobby with their big trucks and their setups and their tents and all of this—[Interruption] What’s that? Yes, the plaited—yep, yep; all of that stuff. It’s a sight to behold. But I remember going there a few years back, checking it out at the showgrounds, and actually it was a wonderful experience to be able to go there and see a different side of life. It’s not my world, but I think this world is wide and diverse and varied, and it was great for me to be able to go there and see. Anna Lorck was probably there with her family—I probably didn’t see her at the time.

This is a small piece of legislation which is going to make a big difference for the people that it affects, and for that reason I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): In accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, this bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill.

In Committee

Parts 1 and 2, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the House is in committee on the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill. Members, we first come to Part 1.

CAMILLA BELICH (Junior Whip—Labour): I seek leave for all questions to be taken as one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none. The question is that Parts 1 and 2, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is—

Camilla Belich: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yes.

Camilla Belich: I just have some questions for the member.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, yep. Nice timing.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to acknowledge the member Anna Lorck, who’s in the chair on behalf of Meka Whaitiri, who’s the sponsor of this bill, and for this committee stage I have just three very simple questions. The purpose of this bill, as I understand, is that the current provisions of the Agricultural and Pastoral Societies Act mean that they have to reinvest in land. Obviously, with the passage of the bill, they won’t be reinvesting in land, so I’m wondering what they will be investing in and, so, what the objectives of the society are. I’m also wondering if the member is aware of the purpose of what the land will be used for by the council once the passage of this bill has passed. And thirdly, we know that this has been a shortened process with the agreement of the House, which I think we’re all very much in agreement on, but I was wondering what the significance of that date of 31 March is. So if the member could just answer those questions, I’d appreciate it.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): The first question was in regard to what the proceeds of the sale will go towards. It’s a $7.5 million sale to the Hastings District Council, and for the A & P society to be able to invest in these things, they need to set them forward in their objectives. One of the great things that the A & P society does is advance the primary sector and promote growth in the primary sector and encourage jobs in the primary sector. And we know, for a region like Hawke’s Bay, attracting people into the industry and putting them on a pathway to success where they can have a career that can not only create rewards for them but also contribute back to the region is important. It’s also important that we celebrate excellence in the primary sector, and for the many, many years—in fact, it’s 52 years; I know, because the Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year was established the same year that I was born, that it’s been going for 52 years. The reason for the Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year is that we’ve then traversed it on to becoming the primary sector excellence of the year awards, and that means that we champion all things in the primary sector, and that is what they do. The second reason for the purpose of the land is that the land is plain zoned, and it’s very important to the people of Hawke’s Bay that we protect our plain-zone land by selling it to the Hastings District Council, and the reason why we have the sale date—it’s all down for 31 March this month, so we need to get this bill through the House so that the sale can go through and we can protect the plain-zone land, and not only that, we’re going to put some of that land into a reserve, and also we’re going to consult with the management plan for that land. So, in all, it’s one of the best things we could do for our region right now to protect 40 hectares for the future to show off Hawke’s Bay and do what’s good for the region.

Parts 1 and 2, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, in accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, this bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki) on behalf of the Hon Meka Whaitiri (Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): I move, That the Hawke’s Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Society Empowering Bill be now read a third time.

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill

First Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I move, That the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

The purpose of this bill is to modernise the governing arrangements of the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund, which was last updated by the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Act 1927. I don’t think any member of the House was here, and possibly no member of the House was born at that time. So needless to say, the legislation—

Nicola Grigg: Ian was!

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I was looking at Mr McKelvie when I said that—choosing my words wisely, Nicola Grigg, who made that comment. But needless to say, the legislation is a little out of date.

To provide members with a little bit of background, St Peter’s church is on Willis Street in Wellington. It’s about 50 metres from my electorate office, and it’s one of the oldest institutions here in our city. Throughout many years, the church has provided important community services for the people of Wellington. It has been the home of a number of very influential members of the Anglican Church. I think of Godfrey Nicholson, who delivered an extremely important sermon around the rights of homosexual people at St Peter’s in the late 1960s, which was a groundbreaking sermon; the Rev.—I think he’s the Very Rev.—Richard Randerson, who is a person who has led the Anglican Church over many years, a campaigner for social justice, been appointed to many different Government bodies; and even produced a city councillor in Brian Dawson, who was also the vicar there too.

It is a parish that is well-known in Wellington for its emphasis on social justice, which has been a fundamental part of their mission from their formation until the present day. Throughout my 15 years as the MP for Wellington Central, I visited the church countless times—as have other colleagues such as Nicola Willis—for candidate meetings, public forums, book launches. I’ve even been there for the Fringe Festival prize-giving on a few occasions—which is about the least religious event I can think of, but the church has always been extraordinarily welcoming of these sorts of events.

The advocacy, as I say, their support of communities like the rainbow community, their connection to the Anglican Chinese Mission, the Wellington City Mission, the Downtown Community Ministry—which actually, when that was called the “ICM” many years ago, was really driven by people from St Peter’s—The Free Store, which is there now, and Wellington’s ethnic food bank.

Members of the St Peter’s congregation contribute to national issues; make submissions on issues like climate change, Working for Families, fair pay agreements, and the living wage, which has been a very big part of their work. The church has hosted in recent years the Ngā Kōrero debate series, which, as I say, I’ve had the privilege of being a part of, along with a vast array of community groups—including, I might note, interfaith groups where St Peter’s has always been very open. So this is a church which prides itself on being a place where the community can gather, a place where people can come for support—and I’m proud to introduce this bill on their behalf, which will help them to keep serving Wellingtonians now and long into the future.

In terms of the trust that sits at the heart of this bill, we need to go back to 1922, when the trust was created to manage the endowment of £1,347 for the benefit of the parish. The intention was that that fund and any legacies, donations, and surplus revenue added over the years would be invested in securities to “accumulate at compound interest.” Clause 4 of the trust deed says that no part of the fund could be distributed until the accumulated investments totalled £1,500.

The St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Act 1927 changed the minimum amount the fund needed before distribution from £1,500 to £10,000—96 years later, there’s significantly more than £10,000 in the pot and St Peter’s would like to be able to put a chunk of it to good use. I think the simple fact that the trust deed and the subsequent Act are talking about pounds probably indicates why the Act needs to be updated.

What the bill does is it essentially fixes the trust deed and brings it into the 21st century. Since the 1927 Act, Parliament has passed the Charitable Trusts Act 1957, the Anglican Church Trusts Act 1981, and the Trusts Act 2019—and St Peter’s church, quite rightly, wants their trust deed to align with current legislation. This includes changes to the legal liability of trustees and enabling updates to the trust’s board governing arrangements.

Just briefly, working through the bill, the preamble explains the context and history just as I have outlined it now, and has standard introductory clauses. Clause 4 restates the purpose of the trust bill in the same manner as described in the original trust deed: “such purposes of the parish that are of religious, charitable, or educational nature as the vestry, from time to time, directs.”

Clause 5 makes the most important change to the trust board’s investment and distribution powers. Under clause 5 of the original deed, they cannot distribute any more money than the amount of income accrued in the previous financial year. As members would no doubt realise, this significantly restricts the ability of St Peter’s church to invest back into their community. Clause 5 changes this to allow the trust board to distribute up to 4 percent of the endowment fund in any financial year, or any additional distribution up to 20 percent in certain circumstances. It also allows the board to lend to the parish.

Clauses 6 and 7 deal with the administrative powers and legal liability of the trustees. As I say, this brings the trust board into line with current legislation.

Clause 8 revokes clauses 4 and 5 of the original trust deed. These two clauses were the ones which restricted the ability of the trust to invest more into their community. Revoking these clauses also empowers the trust to purchase property—previously, they were only allowed to receive land or buildings via gift or bequest.

Clause 9 futureproofs the trust deed by allowing any future changes that may be needed to be made under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 or the Anglican Church Trusts Act 1981, so we don’t need to go through a lengthy private bill process again. Finally, clause 10 repeals the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Act 1927.

This bill has been widely consulted upon within the church community. I understand that members of the parish have also spoken with members of Parliament here. I want to thank St Peter’s for their work in getting the bill into the shape that it is. I am merely the vessel by which it arrives in Parliament, as is the nature with private bills. But as the member of Parliament for this area for the last 15 years and a close neighbour of the church, I am delighted to be able to help them go forward into the future and achieve their goals of supporting their community as they have done so often over the years. I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): I too am delighted to be able to speak on this bill and take a few moments to reflect on a Wellington institution, which is St Peter’s on Willis. And I do so, in echoing the remarks of the previous speaker, with, I must say, a little bit of nostalgia, because the Hon Grant Robertson and I—he is correct—have had many a debate in the St Peter’s building, on all numbers of issues. It is unlikely we will have that opportunity again at the election, as neither of us are standing in Wellington Central, although perhaps, Grant, there will be other occasions that will bring us together there. I also share the fondness for St Peter’s attitude of openness, of inclusion, of diversity. When I think of the range of events I’ve attended there, with the range of communities of faiths, of issues, of causes for celebration, it truly reflects the nature of our modern city and the people in it. I remember that Fringe Awards event too, Mr Robertson, and that was the first time I met Hugo Grrrl, and there’s no going back from that.

I would also acknowledge that St Peter’s on Willis has an important role as a community institution and as a church. And it seems to me that we often have opportunities to lament on how the church has become a weakened institution in modern society. It seems to me that there are really great models in New Zealand of churches that have evolved with the times, that have taken Christian values and thought about how we apply them to society today, and I see in St Peter’s a Christian institution that has decided to embrace Christianity in the biggest sense of its terms and its values and has extended compassion to Wellingtonians from many walks of life. You see that with The Free Store that it hosts, where it takes food from Wellington businesses and distributes it to those in need. You see that in its attitude of inclusion to all comers, its efforts to be a safe space physically, emotionally, spiritually. And you see that in the way that it has got both a long history but a modern future. I think that is really something to celebrate.

In these remarks, I do want to acknowledge the people who keep institutions current, and, in particular right now, St Peter’s on Willis has some co-vicars—Rev. Stephen King, Rev. Jean Malcolm, and Rev. Charles Waldegrave—who are real leaders in our community. I also want to acknowledge Ross Tanner, the chairman of the trust board, who I know has been instrumental in this piece of modernisation that we discuss in Parliament tonight. Because, as both me and the Hon Grant Robertson have acknowledged, this is a great institution that has evolved with the times and contributes a lot. The trust rules on which it is based are, obviously, very outdated, and I think it’s appropriate that we update those rules so that the trust can in future make the decisions that it wants to make.

It seems a little bit strange that Parliament needs to get involved in a matter of this sort. Surely, we can all agree that in future it should be for the trust board itself to be making decisions of this nature, and not a matter that Parliament needs to be legislating or involving itself in. So it is for that reason that we in National are supportive of these propositions, and we acknowledge the impetus behind them, which is to allow the endowment fund, which was established many, many years ago, to keep evolving with the times and to have more impact into the future. That seems to us a good thing indeed, and it does, of course, require that those involved take seriously their responsibilities in order that they exercise those functions well and so that the trust can continue for another hundred years beyond that.

So, in closing, it is my delight to support this bill, to have the opportunity to reflect warmly on a Wellington institution that I have very much enjoyed being able to share in, to reflect on what it is to be a church in modern New Zealand, to reflect on the really important role of community institutions and the way in which they can do good for wider groups, even beyond those who hold the Christian values which they were originally designed to propagate. So thank you, Madam Speaker, and can I say to the Hon Grant Robertson: maybe next time we’ll see you back there and we’ll be talking finance instead.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise and I want to tautoko what’s already been said on both sides of the House this evening. And I want to come back to the Hon Grant Robertson’s opening comments, and it’s around Rev. Godfrey Wilson. Now, he alluded to the sermon that he preached back in the 1960s, and I had the privilege of attending the 50th anniversary of this significant sermon. Now, of course you’ve all heard of it, you all know it verbatim I’m guessing, but it actually was quite controversial back in the day because back then, church services were broadcast live on National Radio at the time. In fact, when I was growing up I also remember it. What used to happen is that the producers of these National Radio church broadcasts would actually, you know, not take over the pulpit, but they would have some editorial discretion on what the priests and the ministers would say.

So Godfrey Wilson played this game rather well. In the 1960s, as you can imagine, homosexuality within the church and within society in general was frowned upon. So the reverend, he had written two sermons, and, of course, he gave one sermon to the producer of the Radio New Zealand broadcast and, of course, he retained his own version of the sermon—and this is, as it is now, live. So Rev. Godfrey Wilson got up on 26 June 1967 to preach what the producers thought was just your usual bland and ordinary sermon. Apologies to our ministers and reverends out there. But he delivered this piece, which was around the inclusion of the gay community—in fact, the inclusion of one particular man that he had met, that he had engaged with. Of course, there was panic and there was fluster, and there was nerves going around the building, but they were unable to do anything because obviously it was live, and Godfrey was on his pulpit, preaching his sermon.

Now, that had ripple effects that went beyond St Peter’s, that had ripple effects that went beyond Wellington; it went all around New Zealand. In fact, I do believe there was a complaint made to the Broadcasting Standards Authority, or whatever it was at the time, there was a protest made. But that was the first sermon that was publicly preached in New Zealand around the affirmation of our LGBTIQ+ community. As Nicola Willis mentioned, the reason I was keen to speak on this piece of legislation this evening was because I believe that this is a church that actually lives and models what is the Christian faith, what is the Jesus story that many of us hear about. But often we don’t see it warped. So when we look at St Peter’s parish and what the money goes to, yeah, there is a flash building. Yeah, there is an old building that needs a lot of work and needs a lot of money. But as has already been talked about, there are those services to the poor, there are those services to feed the hungry. They are a social justice church and that’s why it’s a church that I’ve had the privilege of attending on many occasions, I’ve been to midnight Mass there and other services.

I was looking them up, and they talk about being a social justice community especially for the last, the lost, and the least. And I think that is a really important rhetoric for a church to be making in this day and age, that they are not just there to fill their coffers, not just to build their palaces and their mansions but a church like St Peter’s is one that is there to look beyond themselves and to reach into their community. Whether you have faith, or none at all, that doesn’t matter. They are a church that lives a story that they believe in and they show and wear it on their sleeves, with their sleeves rolled up as they serve their community.

The St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill is around, obviously, unlocking the potential. It’s a very simplistic piece of legislation. It’s something that’s there which will help for the church to continue its work of social justice, its work of actually holding this House to account, which isn’t easy. Sometimes it’s frustrating and it’s uncomfortable, but they make a number of submissions to this House on many different bills as they come through, whether it be about the climate, whether it be about three waters, whether it be around working for families, around our wellbeing budgets, around conversion practice prohibitions. They are a church that lives and breathes their sleeves rolled up to serve their community, therefore I support this piece of legislation to the House.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Kia ora. Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Ngā mihi aroha ki ngā whānau o Ōtautahi i tēnei rā.

[My condolences also to the families of Christchurch today.]

It is indeed wonderful to rise on behalf of the Green Party in support of this private bill that makes amendments to the trust deed governing the St Peter’s (Wellington) Endowment Trust Board. I acknowledge the member for Wellington Central for bringing this to the House.

The Green Party envisions a strong and independent tangata whenua community and voluntary sector within Aotearoa that contributes to ecologically and socially sustainable ways to enhance our social, environmental, cultural, physical, spiritual, mental, and economic wellbeing. St Peter’s has definitely contributed to this.

The Anglican Church is one of the oldest and most historical institutions in Wellington, and it is known for its diverse and welcoming congregation, embracing all, regardless of sex, gender, sexuality, race, or faith. They do have a long history, as my colleagues have alluded to, of advocating for LGBTIQ communities, including that landmark sermon on homosexuality in 1967, which is just incredible. They have even hosted me to speak in there, and we filmed the documentary Beyond Conversion in that church. We note that social justice has always been fundamental to St Peter’s mission, and the church also hosts The Free Store and the DYA weekly ethnic food bank. They have also actively contributed to democracy. They regularly submit on bills to this House—and I note particularly climate change, the zero carbon bill, and conversion practices.

Now, we note that this trust was set up such a long time ago, in 1922, for the benefit of their parish. That capital amount in the fund has, of course, grown significantly through donations and bequest, and used for church maintenance and upkeep, as well as community-based projects, because that’s what the current trust deed allows.

However, those trust deeds do have a limited ability to disperse those funds and that surplus income as they would like to. So we note that this bill makes it easier for them, it provides more flexibility, and enables the trustees to distribute those funds as they see fit, and not be restricted to the income which is earned in the previous year. As others have stated, it modernises the governing arrangements and limits the liability of its members.

So, in a better world, an organisation could hold a hui of its members, update their ancient trust deed and make sure it complies with best-practice and relevant legislation, such as the one St Peter’s held in April 1921. But in this world, this organisation has to repeal a law from 1927 and make a new one to achieve its own goals and spend its own money. So this bill will ensure that they don’t need to change the law again in order to change their trust deed. We support St Peter’s vision and I quote that “These changes to the endowment trust deed will ensure that the church’s long engagement with the people of Wellington will continue for another 100 years.” So we commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to rise and speak in support of this bill, and just noting the advocacy and the sponsorship of my colleague, the Hon Grant Robertson. It’s been a real pleasure to just listen to the debate across the House tonight, and to various colleagues reflecting on their engagement with St Peters’ on Willis. For me, I haven’t had the opportunity to attend a service there, and I haven’t had the opportunity to attend an event, but it gave me a really good opportunity just to sit down and have a read about the church’s history and some of the contributions that they’ve made.

And I think, basically—I mean, we’re talking about the St Peter’s Endowment Fund Trust Board, which was established on 8 August 1922. But going back through the history, the actual parish has had a much longer engagement with the Wellington community. The parish had a church on site and was engaged from basically 1848, and then the current building that many of us walk past every day was consecrated in 1879. And it was just interesting reading some of the history around—in the context where there was a significant earthquake in Wellington and how the church became a base for reaching out to the community and providing support. And even going on to the current church’s website and just having a read of some of the activities they’re currently involved in. As colleagues have said, they’ve done a lot of advocacy across a whole range of issues in the Wellington community, but also engaging here in Parliament. But particularly the one that was interesting to look at was the partnership they’ve got with The Free Store, which operates out of their car park as a converted shipping container, and basically that ministry takes food from all around the city. So businesses donate food and then that’s passed on a daily basis to people can just turn up and access food without any questions being asked. I think the whole model, indicated by the church also, is that people can turn up as a safe space and they can engage and be part of things without any questions being asked. So really, really great to be seeing some of the work that’s been done.

But what they’re operating out of is a very old trust deed. And so basically as we’ve heard, in 1927, the trust deed was modified by the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Act 1927. And one of the things that did was increase their requirements for the funds accumulated. You know, prior to that amendment, the requirement was that the funds had to accumulate to £1,500 before anything could be distributed, and that amendment increased it up to £10,000. And as you can see, we’re really, really out of date in terms of the provisions of that Act. And so basically what this bill will do is allow the current trust board to, basically, be able to provide funds for charitable purposes in a much more flexible manner. So now what they can do—if this bill is passed—is to distribute up to 4 percent of the fund each financial year rather than being tied to a requirement that they can only distribute the equivalent to the income that they had in the previous year. And so basically now they can distribute up to 4 percent without having to take into account the fund’s income or capital. It also allows the trust board to lend to the parish.

The other thing that it does though, is in exceptional circumstances it will allow the vestry to request the trust board to make some additional distributions, and there’s a number of criteria that they need to consider when they’re thinking about whether that could be possible: looking at what the investment strategy of the trust is, what the need of the parish is and the desirability to maintain capital in the fund, and anything else that they consider necessary. But once they have considered that, that allows them to basically distribute up to 20 percent of the fund in any one year if they think, in those exceptional circumstances, that that is necessary. And what that means is more flexibility in terms of the trust board being able to consider what the needs are within the boundaries of the trust. So really, really important.

One of the other things it does too, is it updates some of the governance and administration arrangements—and particularly talking about the legal liability of the trust board in members, because I think it’s important that that is kept up to date with other equivalent legislation. So this is a really wonderful bill that will basically just update and mean that the Trust Board has got much more flexibility in terms of managing the funds that it’s responsible for distributing. And I’m very happy to commend it to the House.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill and stand in support of this bill. It makes sense and it just allows such a wonderful organisation to take control of their own destiny, instead of having to constantly come to Parliament to make these decisions for them. It brings an ancient piece of legislation into the current century, and I think that this is a really positive thing. I myself haven’t had the opportunity to visit St Peter’s or have any events there myself as well, but I have heard some pretty amazing things about what they are doing to contribute to the community and people afar.

I believe there always has to be a place for people to go where they can feel welcome, no matter who they are, where they come from, or what their gender, sexuality, race, or faith is, so that they know they won’t be turned away and they know there’s a place that they will be welcomed, especially in the times we’ve faced in the last few years. With isolation, with COVID, with the floods, with the cyclone, and with all of these things that are going on, we rely on community organisations and churches to provide for these communities, and that’s what St Peter’s has been doing. They’ve been providing for their community, feeding their communities spiritually and physically with food when people need it, and I believe that this is really important that we back them to be able to take control of what they do with their funds and allow the trust board to have that discretion and to be able to do what they need to do to open up some of those funds and release the full potential of what they will be able to do in the future.

So I wish them all the best, and I look forward to seeing what they can do when they have control, because they’ve done amazing things with the restrictions that have been in place so far. So I really look forward to seeing what they’re going to do, and I commend this bill to the House.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): Aassalamo alaikum and I would just like to acknowledge the 51 members of our community that we lost four years ago.

I rise to make a short contribution to this bill, the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill. As we’ve heard from the previous speakers, the purpose of this bill is to modernise the original trust deed governing the St Peter’s Endowment Fund Trust Board. In particular, it allows for the governance of the parish to be able to manoeuvre in today’s times. The amount of the income earned that this particular bill focuses on is to bring this bill to the House in terms of enabling—because at the moment there is quite a restriction for governance in terms of dispersing the funds.

The points that I wanted to raise were that currently it provides a limitation on the liability of the members of the trust board. It enables, in terms of modernising, updating the governance arrangements. And the bill provides for any future amendments to the trust deed to be made under the Charitable Trusts Act 1957, or the Anglican Church Trust Act 1981, in terms of repealing the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Act.

Just a little bit of history for those watching from home. I have not had the privilege—I’ve gone past the parish a number of times, of St Peter’s, but not actually visited. But what I wanted to highlight was the parish is part of the Anglican diocese. Although it’s located in Wellington, it has quite a large relationship with local communities and in the broader province throughout the motu and in the Pacific region. And just this week, I met a number of the leadership of the Anglican Church who have just returned from Fiji. The Archbishop, the Most Rev. Sione Uluilakepa has just had his ordination and a number of members, senior members, of the Anglican Church from Wellington visited and were part of the ordination. He is the new Bishop of Polynesia.

The Anglican Church, the St Peter’s parish, provides doctrine in terms of scripture, ancient creeds, and the ways of worship. And one of the helpful things of this bill—the modernisation—is it encapsulates the old and the new. It is such a welcoming parish to the community. As you’ve heard other speakers say, many in our community have been through a really rough time and the church is a sacred building and open to the public and welcomes and is a place of safety, given just all the things that we have been through in our community.

The bill restates the purposes of the trust board in the same manner as the original trust deed, and the board or the governing group will be able to distribute 4 percent of the trust fund in any financial year and make additional distributions in certain circumstances, up to 20 percent in any financial year.

So the bill seeks to update and modernise for the board of trustees so that the St Peter’s parish governance can continue its vital mahi in the local community. Because as we’ve heard today, St Peter’s parish has a long and rich history advocating for social justice, feeding our community or the community specifically in Wellington, spiritually, culturally, and in particular, the social justice arm or the committee of social justice has been a vital group, who have advocated strongly for the members or the citizens, vulnerable citizens, in the community.

The private bill will help change the law as it sits outside the mechanism of general law. And on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand and take a call and make a contribution to the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill at this first reading, and I acknowledge local member of Parliament Hon Grant Robertson for ushering this private bill through this House.

As many of my colleagues have done throughout this debate and throughout debates that have come before this debate tonight, I also would also like to acknowledge the events of 15 March that happened in Christchurch, and particularly the 51 shuhada who have been in my thoughts all this week. Having heard tonight about St Peter’s parish, and all of the wonderful work that they do and the welcoming nature of their community, I can only assume that they would indulge me for a few more moments while I extend my thoughts to the people of Christchurch.

I specifically want to acknowledge a community that, following the events of 15 March, I have had the privilege to get to know and to learn more about, and many of whom have become personal friends. I want to acknowledge the community for their courage, for the way that they have courageously conducted themselves, for their generosity, for always being so welcoming, and always being so loving in our communities. I especially want to acknowledge my constituent and my neighbour and my friend Adan Dirie and his wife Imbada. Adan and Imbada lost their three-year-old son Mucad on 15 March, four years ago.

Despite all of the grief and the sadness that caused and continues to cause, the family and the wider community continue to be so loving and so generous with all their time. This week, on Monday, they called into my office and presented me with some Somalian handcrafts that they thought would look nice on my wall. It reminded me, given that it was only two days before the anniversary that, even in times of grief, that it’s a true measure of strength to continue to think of others. So salam alaikum.

The segue for me, really, is the concept of social justice, and as we’ve heard by virtue of that theme, St Peter’s has a long and rich history of advocating for social justice and, as my colleague Glen Bennett mentioned, especially for the last, for the lost, and for the least. As my colleague Elizabeth Kerekere mentioned, this has been evidenced on several occasions by the submissions made to this House on bills before Parliament, and those submissions have traversed various select committees and various topics and various causes, but the one thing that they’ve always had in common is that they have been put forward to advocate for the people that need to be advocated for, and they have very strongly and very courageously and very succinctly and often quite concisely put forward those concepts of social justice.

So, what this bill does, as the Hon Grant Robertson introduced it as, is it essentially just removes the restrictions on the trust board’s ability to distribute its income, and from investing its funds effectively for its intended charitable purposes. It reinstates the purpose of the trust board in the same manner as the original trustee did, which was executed many, many years ago now, and affords them, I suppose, the discretion to be able to do what they see fit within the realm of that trust document.

There are many legalistic and quite sort of straightforward changes that are made, but I think it behoves us tonight to remember, more specifically, the organisation that stands before us and has brought this bill to the House and has asked us to make these changes. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me, and I commend this bill to the House.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It’s a pleasure to take a short call on the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill. I think the contents of this bill have been very well explained to the House, so it really remains for me to talk about the select committee that the bill will come to. We’ve had all sorts of bills in our midst in the last few weeks, and this is now a church bill. We’ve had all sorts of other bills, so we do get a diverse range of things to do.

So I suppose a couple of comments I’d make on this is that, if you think about the last bill, we had a significant amount of money being made available to an organisation which then had to put it into a trust fund to protect it for future generations. The interesting thing for me about this bill, and I’m not for a minute saying it will fail in the future, but the reason they’ve got so much money now is because it’s been so well protected in the past. I just hope that in the future these much more liberal allowances in fact enable it to be protected in the future. Because this is one of the few bills that come before this House that’s actually liberalising an organisation to spend money or to use money for useful purposes, not the opposite. So I think that will be an interesting little discussion for the select committee to have.

But clearly it’s been brought to the House by the Minister of Finance and his local list MP, Nicola Willis, and we can only hope that—well, I’m absolutely certain that it has been brought with the best intentions. I guess the interesting thing will be where the select committee gets to with its consideration of the bill. That’s really all I need to say, because everything else has been said. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you so much, Madam Speaker. This evening I rise, as my colleagues on both sides of the House, to support the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill. As we’re aware, this is a private bill brought to the House by the Hon Grant Robertson.

But before I begin, like my colleagues before me, as one of the Christchurch MPs, I just want to take a little time to acknowledge that today is, as we’ve heard, it’s the day that we remember when Christchurch changed forever, when New Zealand changed forever. We remember those who lost loved ones, who lost family, who lost friends. Also I want to take a moment to remember the helpers, because we had so many of them in the community, those from first responders but also the heroes within the community, and also to commit to continue to fight for the inclusive, diverse community that we all love so much, and just to reiterate that hate has no home here in Aotearoa. Thank you for your indulgence.

I’m rising to support this private bill, as I said before, which intends to repeal the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Act from way back in 1927. This will fundamentally allow the trust board, as we’ve heard, to distribute up to 4 percent of the trust fund in any financial year, lend to the parish, and make additional distributions in certain circumstances, up to 20 percent in any financial year.

Of course, before speaking this evening, I spent some time looking at St Peter’s church. As a Christchurch MP, I’m sadly not familiar with it, but I am really glad that I did do that before I rose in support of this bill, because it was a complete delight to me. I was raised as an Anglican by a very committed set of parents. My mother ran the Sunday school, and I went to a Catholic convent school for my entire education, and I was very lucky to have incredible, truly Christian role models throughout my early life. The church I knew as a child was one where real Christian values were practised every day, and I would describe those as love for your fellow humans, that we are all equal in the eyes of God; and a real sense of inclusion, the importance of inclusion of all, but of our rainbow communities, in particular; open doors—open doors to the lost; and a deep commitment to social justice.

But to be honest, I became very disillusioned, as I grew older, by the behaviour of many who called themselves Christians, of those who preach, for example, the prosperity gospel, which to me is the literal antithesis of true Christian values—the idea that you are loved more by God the more you have in terms of material wealth. As I said, I believe that to be the antithesis of Christian values.

I’ve had to see people claim to be Christian, but blame the earthquakes that Christchurch experienced on the sin of homosexuality, when those of us who have studied to any degree know that Jesus said precisely nothing about homosexuality in his teachings, and those who exploit their positions of power and authority by abusing people—adults and children—in the worst of ways.

So of course, I paused before I rose in support, and I looked at this church and I thought, “Wow, this is a church that’s committed to social justice.” And it actively does so, submitting on bills before the House: the Fair Pay Agreements Bill and Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill. A church that seeks to be open seven days a week, that is open to all. A church with rainbow flags inside the building, to remind our rainbow whānau that it is a place where they are welcomed and their identity honoured. So I’m absolutely delighted to play a very small part in helping St Peter’s in its work to help others. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): The question is, That the St Peter’s Parish Endowment Fund Trust Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Bills

Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): I move, That the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It’s my privilege to rise and speak in the third reading of this bill. This bill is now in my name. However, I want to thank the previous sponsor, my friend the Hon Ginny Andersen, for her work over nearly two years to get this bill to this point. I want to put on record my thanks for her earnest work in improving the safety of our children and young people in an ever-present aspect of our lives, the online world. I’d also like to thank the members of the Justice Committee, the officials from the Ministry of Justice, the Office of the Clerk, and the parliamentary counsel, who worked to support the select committee to get the bill into this stronger position. Finally, a thankyou to the submitters, who contributed to the changes found here.

Originally, the bill created two offences: digital communication with a young person under 16 with the intent to mislead, and digital communication with a young person under 16 with the intent to cause harm. However, at the select committee changes were made, and what this bill now does is to bring together those two acts into one space. It modernises our law to reflect the reality that our children live in, and, hopefully, it makes it easier to prosecute those perpetrators that prey upon our children by grooming them. This bill is designed to help ensure that our justice system can respond appropriately to protect our young people from those who engage in acts to harm young people while also maintaining in-person grooming as a crime.

As introduced, the bill focused on digital harm. The committee heard from a number of submitters who defined grooming behaviour as broad strategies to facilitate sexual contact which happens both online and in person. The committee believed that any new offences should cover digital harm as well as any other type of communication or conduct with a young person that leads to harmful, prohibited behaviour, so this bill was widened to capture both in-person and online grooming.

The committee recommended replacing clause 4 of the bill with the committee’s proposed clause 4 to insert a new section into the Act. This section would make it an offence for someone over the age of 18 to communicate by words or conduct with a person under the age of 16. Essentially, there would need to be an intention to facilitate the young person engaging or being involved in conduct that would be an offence under either Part 7 of the Crimes Act, relating to crimes against morality and decency, sexual crimes, and crimes against public welfare; or section 98AA of the Act, relating to sexual exploitation of a person.

The bill has now inserted a new offence under new section 131AB, “Grooming for sexual conduct with young person”. The ingredients of that crime include that “(a) they communicate by words or conduct with a person under 16 years (the young person); and (b) they do so intending to facilitate the young person engaging or being involved in conduct that would be an offence against this Part,” or against any of the specified paragraphs in section 98AA(1) of the Act—essentially, communicating intentionally with a person under 16 to facilitate their engagement in sexual exploitation.

New section 131AB(2) notes that “It is immaterial whether or not a response is made to the communication by the young person.” This is important because the intention to do the harm, or the attempt at the grooming online or in person, is still there, regardless of whether the young person participated further with that groomer. It’s also important that an actual, physical meeting of the victim and perpetrator does not need to happen either, and this is the modernising. The crime is complete when the ingredients in new section 131AB(1)(a) and (b) occur.

Finally, new section 131AB(3) gives us the statement that a reference to a young person also includes a constable pretending to be a young person—and this is a fictitious young person—if the offender believes that the fictitious young person is under the age of 16 years. So this is important because it’s used for when a constable is pretending to be a young person in, for example, a sting operation to catch a sexual predator. It is immaterial that that constable is not under 16; it is only that the offender believes that they are under 16.

The premeditation and planning that goes into child grooming is complex, so it’s important to have an offence that may enable an earlier intervention. Reducing or stopping harm in this way is a worthy goal, as earlier prosecutions reduce harm.

Fundamentally, this bill was drafted to support the safety of our children in the online world. I raised my children in a more benign digital world. There were very few digital platforms back then, and it was easier to monitor activity. My children weren’t gamers and smartphones didn’t exist. Now, there is a huge array of social media and methods to capture our under-16s.

Along with the substantial opportunities that the digital age brings, there also comes a diverse range of risks and harms. Digital technologies have increased the scale of sexual abuse and exploitation. Child sexual offenders have increased access to children and young persons through unprotected social media profiles and online gaming forums. The online space is an ever-changing world, both positive and negative, and this bill seeks to provide another tool for catching the child sex offender in the online context before further harm occurs.

NetSafe and the Ministry for Women conducted a survey in 2021. The survey found that seven in 10 New Zealand teenagers had experienced at least one type of unwanted digital communication within the past year, and 19 percent of those surveyed had been asked for a nude or a nearly nude image of themselves to be shared. It’s clear that we need further tools to act and protect to support our young people, and it is clear we need more modern tools to support our police force to catch those predators. This bill supports this work.

Recently, I watched a video of a non-profit group in the US. They created a social experiment where they wanted to see how long it would take a predator to approach an underage person. They created a 15-year-old persona, and, once live, that persona—it was found that it was just an hour to the first approach, and by day nine, there had been 92 separate approaches. Shockingly, almost 10 adult men per day were bombarding the fictitious 15-year-old with sexually explicit content, and they also attempted to contact the person in-person as well. Honestly, it was one of the most chilling things that I’ve ever seen.

The woman who posed as the young person said at the end of the video that she’d reflected on what she would have done if she was a child dealing with this level of online predatory messaging. She said she would have kept the abuse to herself for fear of being shamed and blamed. She would have suffered with it secretly and quietly.

Today, we take another step towards protecting those young people so that they don’t take the blame for being groomed by a predator that seeks to abuse them. This bill allows for us, as lawmakers, as parents, and as adults, to protect all of our children in this online world and to close down additional avenues to groom children.

New Zealand’s NetSafe—in my last 55 seconds—has a really useful online tool kit, and I thought that I would mention it in the context of this bill for parents to have a look at. It’s the online safety parent tool kit, a really useful tool which I recommend people look at. There are seven steps to get your family started on keeping them safe from online predators, and these steps are to understand, learn, explore, agree, teach, model, and plan.

I’m honoured to have my name on this bill, and I’m thankful for the hard world that has gone in before my contribution. I’d like to finally acknowledge those who work in the field of sexual violence and thank them very much for the hard work that they do. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a member’s bill that was introduced by Ginny Andersen MP: the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill. She introduced the bill to create a new offence in relation to grooming young people, and when we looked at it closely in the Justice Committee, it became very obvious that most of what the bill intended to capture was already covered by existing Acts: the Crimes Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act. So the bill that we were debating in the first and second readings is much changed by the select committee process, and we now have a much more tightly focused and smaller bill which focuses on making it an offence for someone over the age of 18 to communicate by words or conduct with a person under the age of 16, but, in doing so, there needs to be an intention to facilitate the young person’s engaging or being involved in conduct that would be an offence under a couple of existing Acts around indecency, sexual crimes, and exploitation of a person. So it’s quite a narrow bill.

I’m a father of three teenage girls, and, like everybody, we’re concerned about the rise of digital crimes against young people. It is definitely a concerning trend and something that all sensible people worry about. The question before us is whether the laws of the land give sufficient coverage to dealing with the issues that young people are facing. The National Party has supported this legislation. It doesn’t do a hang of a lot, but it does bring in one little area of extra coverage, and in so far as it does that, to keep our younger people safe from predation, we support it.

The only point I would make in passing, and not wanting to prolong this debate lengthily, is that there was a change. Originally, the bill as introduced was extending jail time penalties from five years to seven years for a section in relation to these crimes, and I did make the point in a previous speech—and I’ll make the point again—about how kind of odd that seemed. This is a Government that has focused on reducing the prison population and at every turn we see people having short periods of home detention after violent assaults and crimes, and yet we have legislation introducing seven-year prison sentences. I suppose it’s not the legislation and the sentences listed that matter; it’s what actually happens to keep the community safe. It just seemed a slightly odd and dissonant approach from the Government to on the one hand be very focused on reducing prison sentences and the amount of time people spend in prison, but to also be passing a bill that was extending so-called prison sentences for this particular group.

I think what we do need to see is a little bit more consistency on that issue, and our focus when it comes to law and order on this side of the House is community safety being the primary object. If the incidence of crime continues to grow as it has in the last few months, particularly in serious crime and ram raids and things like that—if that’s the case, then we need to deal with it firmly and with always a focus on keeping the community safe.

But, overall, this legislation creates a new offence and deals with a particular area of digital crime. It seeks to close one area to keep our younger people just that little bit safer, and in so far as it does that, we support it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just rise in support of my colleague Angie Warren-Clark, who has put her name to this really important bill which seeks to create more protections for our young people in the digital space.

We have a history, on this side of the House, where there are a few champions of women’s causes who have put through members’ bills that pertain particularly to the digital space. I’m reminded of a bill by our former colleague Louisa Wall which looked at protecting young women. We’ve also had other bills in this area, and I believe that this bill, now under the name of Angie Warren-Clark, really extends those protections.

So I just want to commend my colleague for taking on this work. I want to thank her also for the work that she is doing, wearing another hat, which also has a kaupapa for protecting women’s reproductive health, actually, with the New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development, or the NZPPD. We had a really good meeting this evening, and we know that working across the House on these types of issues is what makes progress. So it’s good to see the discussions happening.

It’s good to see that the legislation is attempting to keep up with the digital environment. It’s very difficult because technologies change all the time, but this is one way of doing it. So it’s great to see support from, I presume, around the House, and I really want to commend my colleague Angie for taking on this important kaupapa. I commend the bill.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll take a brief call this evening because, importantly, my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith, who does sit on the Justice Committee, has addressed the House. The National Party does support this bill, and in my spokesperson role for children, it’s actually complementary that I do make some comments—brief comments albeit—on the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill, which is being supported, it would appear, unanimously by the House this evening at this third reading.

I remember that former colleague Louisa Wall had introduced to this House on 2 July 2020 the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill, and when we had the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill, which is before the House this evening, I do recall speaking in the House and signalling and indicating that, in fact, Louisa Wall’s bill addressed a significant proportion of what was in the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill. In reading the Justice Committee’s report, it’s interesting to note that a good part of the amendment bill that I am speaking to this evening has actually been deleted, and that is in reference to the fact that the concerns associated with digital communications with a young person under 16 with intent to mislead and also with intent to cause harm has been addressed within the Crimes Act and also within the bill passed into law, the harmful digital communications amendment bill.

So, in short, the bill now before the House is in a considerably amended form compared with that which was introduced, heeding and cognisant the Crimes Act does in fact address the concerns. But the amendment now before the House under this bill aligns with the Crimes Act and also Louisa’s bill—now law—to make it consistent.

Also, just for the sake of clarity before concluding, there was mention that was made by the previous speaker that the harmful digital communications amendment bill, or the reference to that, was specifically addressing crimes against women. It’s actually not specifically addressing crimes against women, although it’s indicated that victims may be women or others, because under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, it states that the person commits an offence knowing that the individual who was the subject of the recording has not expressly consented. So I thought it was really quite pertinent to clarify that, yes, women are victims, but victims are not only singularly women per se.

In concluding, it’s really very appropriate in my role as spokesperson for children that this bill, the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill, is passed into law.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s wonderful to get an opportunity to speak on this bill tonight, unexpectedly, so here I am.

I rise in support of the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill at its third reading. First of all, I would like to start off by thanking my colleagues from the Justice Committee for all their hard mahi in considering this bill, as well as everyone who has provided a submission. I was not part of the select committee when this bill went through the committee, but I have followed the debate on this very important bill.

I would also like to acknowledge the member Ginny Andersen for her work on this bill, and Angie Warren-Clark for taking on the bill and shepherding it through the House. Ginny Andersen was, of course, also the chair of the Justice Committee, and I know there were quite a lot of technical parts to the bill that the select committee had to work their way through.

It is a really important bill because it will make the world safer for our kids. As a parent—and I’m sure everybody else is in the same situation—with the extent of social media and electronic communications, it is a little bit of a worry about what our kids are exposed to. So what this bill does is it builds on the work of the Government to protect kids online, including ongoing work to design a modern, flexible, and coherent content regulatory framework as announced by the Minister of Internal Affairs in June 2021.

The Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill received its Royal assent in March 2022, and what that bill did was it made it an offence to post intimate visual recordings without the consent of the person in the recording. The change aims to improve access to justice for victims and survivors of image-based sexual abuse.

The Government has also funded the Keeping It Real Online campaign, and that was created and launched in response to the increased online risk of harm to children and young people who were spending more time online, of course, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Now, what we’re doing as a Government is we’re working harder and smarter to keep our communities safe, break the cycle of offending, and tackle the root causes of crime. What the bill does is it strengthens existing legislation, which is really important because it will better protect children from harm.

So, to keep things concise, we support this bill because it will protect New Zealand children from harm, and that’s especially important as the popularity of online platforms increases amongst our young people, and with that, of course, the opportunity for people to cause young people harm. As the popularity of online platforms increases, so too does the incidence of harm, in particular harm experienced by young people. I do remember that during the second reading, the member Mark Mitchell was recalling some stories of his daughter experiencing some online harm and abuse, and saying how he saw this legislation as an opportunity for younger people to be safer in that particular forum.

There have been some other research and surveys conducted. For example, a survey in partnership between Netsafe and the Ministry for Women found that the experiences of teenagers with online harm was that about seven in 10 teens have actually experienced at least one type of unwanted digital communication in the past year. It also found that almost 19 percent of teens surveyed experienced an unwanted digital communication that had had a negative effect on their daily activities, the most common of which involve being contacted by a stranger.

Following the select committee process, the Justice Committee decided that any new offences should cover digital harm as well as any other type of communication or conduct with a person that leads to harmful prohibited behaviour. We’ve heard from previous speakers what the bill does. It is inserting new section 131AB into the Act, making it an offence for someone over the age of 18 to communicate by words or conduct with a person under the age of 16, so I won’t go into those amendments any further.

I’d just say that this was a complex piece that the select committee had to work its way through and they it did very well, making the world a little bit safer, as online harm has become a growing issue over the last years with the rise of social media. This bill will do an excellent job of addressing it and putting a stop to it, and it will keep our children safe, so I commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do rise, as I think others have done throughout today and tonight, by first acknowledging that it is the anniversary of March 15, the terror attacks in Christchurch, and our thoughts are with the victims of that attack and also with our Muslim community around Aotearoa.

I rise to support this bill. I congratulate both the Hon Ginny Andersen and my friend Angie Warren-Clark for bringing it to the House and shepherding it through, and also the members of the Justice Committee. It sounds like it was a complex and engaged committee process that has resulted, as we can all see, in improvements.

This is a piece of legislation that will make the world a little safer, and I think it is a bit overdue in terms of the recognition that we all—including young people—live a great deal of our lives in online spaces now. The harm that happens in the so-called real world can often be either started in online spaces, exasperated by online lives, or actually can happen in online spaces itself, as can sexual offences against children. So to have a freestanding offence will help the courts and it will help young people and it will help the service providers and others who support our communities to both prevent and also restore and—in terms of the offenders—rehabilitate.

Currently, before this legislation passes, our courts for years and years have been dealing with what’s called grooming-type offences as an aggravating factor of child sexual offending once it has happened and has escalated to a point that the Crimes Act actually then kicks in. This piece of legislation will mean that we can start that work before more serious harm happens—before children are interfered with or violated in far more serious ways. So to mislead a young person with the intent to subsequently have arranged meetings or to, essentially, hide or lie about the age or identity of the offender—it feels like we’ve known about this for so, so long, and that’s why I say that this is a piece of legislation that is almost overdue.

But it’s great that it is, in fact, coming to the House, and it also is great to see us recognise the types of harms that young people do suffer as a result of this type of offending. So to gain a young person’s trust, to coerce them, and to silence them—these are all things that we’ve known happen in terms of child sexual offending, which, more often than not thus far, has happened at the hands of people that children have known in their lives. But it is being replicated in a way where a child gets to know the person in online spaces, and the coercion, the silencing, and the trust-building can happen in online spaces in just the same way as we’ve always known it happens in the home.

I hope that this is the beginning of our House of Representatives and us, as lawmakers, recognising all the different types of harm that can happen in online spaces from things like revenge porn and identity theft to hate speech and extremism. But to say also that this piece of legislation is only the legislative part of what we need to support young people to be safe from harm in online spaces—we need a lot more education, a lot more community-based support, consent education, standardised sex education in our schools, which we currently don’t have, to recognise that young people need to be empowered to protect themselves and to be safe as part of our communities, with the kind of respect and trust that we all deserve. So I commend this bill to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I was a member of Justice Committee, which has worked through this bill, and so it is with great pleasure I stand. I remember our colleague the Hon Ginny Andersen, who came to us originally with this bill, and I honour the lovely woman Angie Warren-Clark, who has taken it on most appropriately, given her history of advocacy in this space. It couldn’t have been a better switch from one wahine toa in the sexual violence and defence of the vulnerable to another.

I think it’s probably best for me if I just do a very, very quick recap of what this bill is about. Essentially, as I understand it, Ms Andersen came to the realisation that there was a hole in the legislation, so we’ve got this gap where you’ve got an offence in the Crimes Act, in section 131A or section 131B—I can’t remember, but it’s one of them—which says that if you groom a young person under 16 and then you travel to meet them, or you get them to travel to meet you, with the intention of doing something nefarious in the sexual offence arena, then that is an offence punishable by imprisonment for up to seven years. The problem is: what about the person who is grooming someone in the online space and never makes that step to arrange travel—what if there is just this ongoing pattern of grooming?

I think Ms Andersen was particularly struck by a case in which a teacher—and it was publicised at the time—had sent hundreds of text messages to a child with fairly disastrous consequences, but nothing had happened between them other than these texts. So she wanted to cover that space. However, what we realised when we dug into that and when we heard from the submitters was that grooming isn’t just an online behaviour, but grooming is a behaviour that takes place—and, in fact, the studies show it takes place—in most sexual offending. An offender will groom not just the child but also their family and their teachers to allow them access to the child, then they groom them to trust them, and then they groom them to accept inappropriate sexual behaviours incrementally until they get there. This behaviour happens around our community.

So Ms Andersen wanted to expand the bill, and that’s where we came to the current space. So the current bill still doesn’t require the actual travel, but if you show intention through communications of any sort—online or in the real world—to facilitate sexual inappropriate conduct with someone under 16, then you’re a goner.

We also adjusted a few things around the penalty, because the section 131 that we have—the one with the travel component to the grooming—has a seven-year penalty. This is a lesser offence. It doesn’t go as far as starting to activate the offence. So we have brought that back to be commensurate with the harmful digital communications and that sort of an offence there, which also doesn’t involve the actualisation of it beyond the sending of the inappropriate messages. We’ve brought it back to the current, three-year penalty.

Grooming is insidious. It is pervasive. It not only enables the offending but also helps the person to cover it up, because they generally persuade the child that they’re in some sort of affectionate relationship, so the child feels too guilty, they feel too complicit, and they feel too responsible for the ongoing happiness of the offender.

Then when you get them to court, of course, the grooming helps again, because in society, we believe that sex offending is something that is done at force and that someone is pinned to the ground and they fight and they hate the offender, and they run to the first person and they scream, “Help, help—I’ve been raped!” It’s actually called the hue and cry. If you are groomed, you don’t do any of that, so it feeds into the myth that this can’t be real rape.

So grooming is three times insidiously horrible: one, it facilitates abuse; two, it enables the hiding of it, because you persuade the victim not to tell; and, three, if the victim does tell, it destroys their credibility in front of the court and in front of the jury.

This is a well worthwhile little piece of legislation. It fills a gap in the legislation. I’m not saying it’s going to be used in every sex offence. As a prosecutor, I think it will become not a stand-alone offence, but an adjunct to other offending where you can also prove grooming, and I think it is one of the very few offences—very quickly, before the House closes, Madam Speaker—where it may actually have a deterrent effect, because sex offenders, like white-collar criminals but unlike most other offenders, plan their offending. They think very carefully and they are incredibly strategic in who they target.

This sort of offence may just—may just—deter behaviour that causes tremendous harm in our community. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Thank you.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.