Tuesday, 28 March 2023

TUESDAY, 28 MARCH 2023

TUESDAY, 28 MARCH 2023

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

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

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

Visitors

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association—Secretary-General

SPEAKER: I’m sure that members would wish to welcome Stephen Twigg, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, who is present in the gallery.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I take this opportunity just to remind the Parliament that we are holding a reception for Mr Twigg in your lounge at 6 o’clock, and I’d appreciate it if as many members as possible could come to meet the gentleman. Thank you.

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

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

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

CLERK:

Petition of Akhtar Zaman requesting that the House require banks to reduce their mortgage interest rates

petition of Jared Rigg requesting that the House urgently revise the Citizenship Act 1977 to grant automatically at birth citizenship by birth to any child born overseas to a New Zealand citizen who was born in New Zealand.

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

CLERK:

2021-22 annual reports for the New Zealand Productivity Commission, Government Superannuation Fund, Public Trust, Education New Zealand, Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, Civil Aviation Authority, Government Communications Security Bureau, New Zealand Security Intelligence Service

2022-23 statement of performance expectations for Auckland Light Rail Ltd and the Pharmaceutical Management Agency

2022-24 statement of intent for Auckland Light Rail Ltd.

SPEAKER: I present the report of the Controller and Auditor-General, entitled Tertiary Education Institutions 2021: Audit results and What We Saw in 2022. Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Reports of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the:

2021-22 annual reviews of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Broadcasting Standards Authority, Commerce Commission, Electricity Authority, External Reporting Board, Financial Markets Authority, New Zealand Tourism Board, AgResearch Limited, NIWA, and New Zealand Forest Research Institute Ltd

annual reviews of ESR, GNS, and Landcare Research New Zealand Limited

2021-22 annual reviews of the Accreditation Council, the Real Estate Agents Authority, and the Retirement Commissioner

Grocery Industry Competition Bill and Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Long-term Insights Briefing 2022

report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Worker Protection (Migrant and Other Employees) Bill

reports of the Environment Committee on the 2021-22 annual reviews of Predator Free 2050 Ltd and the Ministry for the Environment

reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the:

2021-22 annual reviews of Kiwi Group Holdings Ltd, Ōtākaro Ltd, Southern Response Earthquake Services Ltd, Government Superannuation Fund, Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, Inland Revenue Department, New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Office of the Controller and Auditor-General, Pike River Recovery Agency, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and Treasury, and

financial statements of the Government of New Zealand for the year ended 30 June 2022

report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the 2021-22 annual reviews of the New Zealand Customs Service and the Border Executive Board

reports of the Governance and Administration Committee on the 2021-22 annual review of Statistics New Zealand and of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

reports of the Intelligence and Security Committee on the 2021-22 annual reviews of the Government Communications Security Bureau and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service

reports of the Petitions Committee on the petitions of Sina Shad and two petitions of Wendy Baker

reports of the Primary Production Committee on the briefing on the Forests (Legal Harvest Assurance) Amendment Bill and the Increased Penalties for Breach of Biosecurity Bill.

SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. The briefings and the report on the financial statement of the Government are set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of bills.

CLERK:

Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill, introduction

Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill, introduction

Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3), introduction

Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill, introduction

Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill, introduction

Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill, introduction

Integrity Sport and Recreation Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): Yes, in particular this Government’s actions that mean, from the end of this week, around 1.4 million New Zealanders will have a bit more money in their pockets to help deal with the cost of living. While the measures that we’ve taken alone won’t fix everything—and we’ve still got more work to do to bring down inflation and the cost of living—they will make a difference, and, right now, I know that every little bit helps when it comes to making ends meet.

Christopher Luxon: Does he agree with his new education Minister that no progress has been made lifting achievement for kids about to enter high school in the last five years, and is this acceptable when half are below expectation in reading, writing, and maths?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject that that’s what the Minister of Education said. What we have done as a Government is remove national standards and replaced it with a system where progression and student progress can be better measured and reported to parents. That is a stark contrast with national standards, which set our education system back.

Christopher Luxon: Will he join National in committing to a target of 80 percent of year 8s being at or above curriculum by 2030?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The member can set all sorts of targets. The reality is—what we want to make sure—that students are making progress, that that progress is visible to their parents, and that our performance in these areas does improve. I would note that the primary measure that the member has been using—and many others have been using—are our results in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which measure the results of our 15-year-olds, when it comes to literacy and numeracy. Those 15-year-olds were at primary school during their formative years for literacy and numeracy while national standards were in place.

Christopher Luxon: Why did he reject the Royal Society’s recommendation to require primary and intermediate students to do at least an hour of maths each day?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Schools make decisions around how they structure the school learning day, and, actually, I trust the judgment of teachers to create an environment that’s stimulating for young people so that they are learning the curriculum that they need to.

Christopher Luxon: If the status quo is so good, why, after five years of this Government, did two-thirds of our year 10 students fail a basic writing, reading, and maths test?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That was a pilot test that was being put in place to test the new literacy and numeracy standards that this Government is putting in place, because we’re not satisfied that the literacy and numeracy requirements for the NCEA—that were put in place under the last Government—are actually resulting in our school leavers leaving school with the literacy and numeracy skills that they need.

Christopher Luxon: Does he stand by his 2019 statement that the curriculum needs a stronger focus on wellbeing, identity, language, and culture, or does he now agree that the number one priority must be teaching the basics of maths, reading, and writing?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Unlike that member, I don’t think those two things are incompatible. I think if you create an environment where students want to be, where their wellbeing is well catered for, then they’ll do better in those core areas of the curriculum. There is an abundance of evidence that will suggest that.

Christopher Luxon: How do you spend $5 billion more and hire 1,400 more staff and not improve the outcomes for reading, writing, or maths?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I note that a significant proportion of that money has gone on salaries of teachers. I note that the Opposition seems to be saying we should be paying teachers more.

Christopher Luxon: Does he agree it takes a very, very special skill to spend more, to hire more, and yet deliver worse education outcomes?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I completely reject the premise of the member’s question. This Government is spending more; we are paying our teachers better—unlike the salary freeze that they experienced under the time of the last National Government. We are increasing the support that we’ve got in specialist learning areas, where we know that young people have been left behind. I make no apology for putting more increases into learning support in the five years we’ve been in Government than the last Government did in the nine years that they were in Government. Some of our most vulnerable kids—that they chose to ignore—deserve the support that they’ve been getting under our Government. I also make no apology for the significant investment that we have made in cleaning up the infrastructure deficit in our education system that we inherited from his Government.

SPEAKER: Question No. 2. Oh, sorry, supplementary—David Seymour.

David Seymour: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does the Prime Minister stand by his earlier statement that his Government’s policy is to raise pensions, main benefits, student allowances, and the minimum wage by the rate of inflation this April Fool’s Day, and if so, why?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, I do. I’m not sure whether April Fool’s Day comes into it.

Hon Kelvin Davis: He’s exhibit A.

David Seymour: Later. Is there an equivalent policy that will raise the incomes of roughly 2.8 million New Zealanders whose after-tax income is falling behind inflation because they get their money from an old-fashioned thing called working, or are they the real April fools?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The member might want to look at the statistics around wage growth which shows that New Zealanders’ wages continue to grow and, in fact, they’ve grown more quickly in the last couple of years than they have prior to that. We’ve got work to do to ensure that we’re making work pay. I note that the measures that this Government has put in place to increase workers’ wages have all been opposed by that member and his party.

David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister aware, then, in light of what he just said, that taxes paid by working people have risen faster than inflation and their after-tax income has fallen behind inflation in the last year; and if he doesn’t know, why not?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I indicated, workers’ incomes have been growing under this Government. That is something that we are very proud of. And I note that the measures that we put in place that have helped that, such as increasing the minimum wage, such as improving the ability of workers to bargain to get better pay, and the measures that we’ve taken to increase the pay of some of our most essential workers—like our teachers, our nurses, our doctors, our police, our firefighters—have all been opposed by that member and his party.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister not understand that if people’s after-tax incomes are growing slower than inflation, then none of those policies have worked?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I do accept that the inflationary environment that we are in at the moment is putting households under pressure. That’s one of the reasons that I’ve made cost of living one of the central focuses of the work of this Government. We want to get inflation back down again. And one of the things—the only solution the Opposition parties, National and ACT, seem to be able to come up with has the potential to stoke inflation higher.

David Seymour: What does it say that this Government’s tax and benefit policies have made sure that working for a living is less rewarding, while getting money transferred from other taxpayers via his Government has become more rewarding—in other words, does he know why his party’s called Labour?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I completely reject the premise of the member’s question. On this side of the House, we are focused on making sure that people who work hard can get ahead.

Christopher Luxon: If national standards are to blame, why did the former Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, say in this House—and does he stand by his statement still today—“I don’t think national standards are to blame for it. I don’t think they fixed it, but I don’t think they are to blame for it.”

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I say the member should read the whole quote.

Question No. 2—Social Development and Employment

2. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What progress has been made to pass on child support to sole parent beneficiaries?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): In Budget 2022, we announced we would pass on child support to parents receiving a sole parent rate of benefit. It has been an incredibly complicated process to progress this policy, but I’m pleased to inform the House that we are ready to bring forward the legislation, and it will be in place in time for 1 July. Currently, the Government retains child support payments for sole parents who get a benefit from the Ministry of Social Development, up to the rate of their benefit, rather than being passed on to support their children. However, this is not the case for other beneficiaries. The bill, which will be read in the House this week, will end this injustice, and child support payments will be passed on to the sole parents, who need it the most.

Angie Warren-Clark: Why are we making this change?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The current way we deal with child support for beneficiaries is discriminatory. Money that should be treated as income and used by parents to help provide for their children is being taken by the State. This differs from parents who have found a new partner and are receiving a couple’s rate of benefit. These beneficiaries get to keep their child support, and this is what causes the discrimination. This anomaly in the system dates back to 1936, and change is long overdue. Through this legislation, this Government is delivering on its commitment to put dignity back in the welfare system and make it fairer. Equitable treatment of sole parent whānau will also mean a fairer deal for women, who make up 88 percent of all sole parent benefit clients.

Angie Warren-Clark: What impact will the changes make?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Amending the rules will provide better support to parents and lift up to 14,000 children out of poverty. The changes build on the progress we have been making to improve people’s lives through our Families Package and welfare reforms. It is estimated that 41,550 sole parent families will be better off, with a median gain of $20 per week. This means more cash in hand to support whānau coping with the increasing costs of living. This proposal also has the potential to strengthen the child support scheme. If parents know that the child support they pay will get to their own children, it will encourage more parents to pay. There is also evidence that, if child support is passed on, it increases engagement by the parent paying child support with their child. This is much better for families in general.

Angie Warren-Clark: How will the bill be implemented?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Under this bill, when a sole parent receives child support, the normal monthly payment they receive will be spread equally and charged across four or five weeks against their benefits. The Ministry of Social Development will then treat this child support as income for their assistance, using automated systems. This approach will reduce the likelihood of debt accumulation and demands on the time of these families. Due to the complexity of the changes required to the welfare system to facilitate this, our Government is taking a phased approach to implementation. Phase one of the bill will deliver most of the changes, resulting in extra cash in hand for the vast majority of whānau on a sole parent benefit, from July. Phase two will tackle the policy features that apply to more complex payment cases. We’ll provide more detail on this as we work through the changes. By phasing the roll-out, we can achieve the full benefit of the changes straight away for the vast majority of eligible parents.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement from May 2022 that “Even if the inflation spike is expected to be temporary, this doesn’t take away from the significant impact it is having”, and, given inflation has now persisted outside the Reserve Bank target range for 21 months, does he now regret his decision to increase new Government operating spending by $38.7 billion in the 2022 Budget?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I stand by my statement in its full context. In answer to the second part of the question, the member is well aware that rising inflation has been a global issue. The Government needs to maintain that balanced approach to be fiscally sustainable whilst also supporting New Zealanders. I can say to the member that I most certainly do not regret putting in $11.1 billion of funding for a new, multi-year funding framework for a nationwide health system after years of neglect of funding; I do not regret putting in place $2.85 billion of operating and capital funding for education to make sure that our students, our teachers, and their wider whānau have resources and schools that they can be proud of; I do not regret putting in place $2.9 billion for mitigating and adapting to climate change and reducing emissions after years of cheap talk rather than action in that area; and I do not regret putting in place $1 billion of cost of living initiatives so that low and middle income New Zealanders can be helped through a difficult period of time.

Nicola Willis: Does he stand by his decision to embark on a Government “spendathon” in Budget 2022, and can he seriously claim that New Zealand taxpayers have got value from every dollar he added to the inflation fire?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s interesting to note, and I’ll take the member back to April and May of 2022, where her leader—and, indeed, her—committed to spending the same amount of money that the Government was spending. But—but—in the middle of doing that, they committed to $11 billion worth of tax cuts that would target the wealthiest New Zealanders, the most inflationary thing they could possibly think of.

Nicola Willis: Why has inflation in the United States, Canada, and Singapore fallen heavily from their peaks last year, but inflation in New Zealand has barely budged?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Currently, on the latest numbers, which are consistent at the end of the December quarter, New Zealand has the 10th-lowest inflation rate out of the 38-odd OECD countries. This is a global issue. As the member noted in the quote that she helpfully put in the question, whatever debate we might have about comparisons, I accept that for New Zealanders right now, the cost of living is tough. That’s why this Government has prioritised it, that’s why we’ve got increases in place right across the board for low and middle income New Zealanders, and, as the Prime Minister has pointed out, those increases and that support to actually help people with the cost of living has been opposed by the National Party.

Nicola Willis: Does he think the Prime Minister agrees with his characterisation of Budget 2022 in answer to his first question that every dollar was well spent, and if that is the case, why has he wound back on so many of the extravagant spending promises that that Minister committed to?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: If the member listened carefully to the answer I gave, the examples I used, for example, in health spending are ones where I know the Prime Minister is extremely proud of the investments we’ve made. He’s already indicated in his answers today how proud he is of the fact that when we came in, we inherited a massive deficit in our education infrastructure, but we actually invested in repairing that. So I know that this Government had to come in and had to spend to make up for what National did for nine years, to deal with the COVID pandemic. But I come back: if the member wants to go back to May 2022, she was committing to spending the same amount of money with a worse inflationary impact.

Nicola Willis: Is he aware that the official measure of mortgage arrears has hit its highest level since the 2020 lockdown, and how many more New Zealanders does he expect to go under as they switch to vastly higher interest rates this year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I have indicated, the pressure of the cost of living on New Zealand households is something that we are acutely aware of. That’s why we are prioritised to act to support New Zealand households through this period of time. The member knows that inflation is a global problem, and in this country, we are managing it to support New Zealanders through this difficult time.

Nicola Willis: Why does he continue to defend his big-spending economic management approach when it has led to prices growing faster than wages and growing faster than exports, employment, and GDP, and why should New Zealanders trust a Government that has only taken them backwards?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The reason that I believe in what we’re doing is because it’s contributed to making sure that New Zealand is in one of the strongest positions of any economy in the world to deal with the challenges of 2023. We have unemployment at historic lows, we have one of the lowest levels of public debt, we have an economy that’s 6 percent larger than it was before COVID, that many other countries can’t do. I thank the member for her belief in my great powers to control all matters to do with inflation, but I would point her to her mentor in 2016—Bill English—who, when asked similar types of questions to this, made the point that it’s actually the Reserve Bank’s job to keep inflation between 1 and 3 percent. Perhaps the member might like to listen to her former boss.

Question No. 4—Child Poverty Reduction

4. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction: Why did she say that this year’s child poverty figures are “encouraging”, and has she seen reports that one in 10 children and one in five tamariki Māori experience material hardship, meaning that their whānau can’t afford essentials like regular healthy food, doctors’ visits, or to pay their power bills?’

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister for Child Poverty Reduction): To the first part of the question, my comment was in relation to the fact that despite the most challenging economic conditions in a generation or more, actions taken by this Government have ensured New Zealand children have not fallen backwards, as was originally predicted. The fact that eight out nine child poverty measures have seen a statistically significant decrease since 2018 shows the effectiveness of the measures we have put in place to support families over several years. However, as in previous years, disparities continue to be evident for Māori and Pacific children and children impacted by disability compared to New Zealand children overall. To the second part of the question: yes, I have seen those figures, and while there are children living in poverty, we know there is more work to do, and this Government is absolutely committed to doing so.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is her response to the fact to the fact that the reality is likely even worse than the figures reflect, given that the whānau struggling the most—such as those who are homeless, living in cars, garages, and motels—were not even surveyed in this data?

Hon JAN TINETTI: The household economic survey collects data from resident individuals of private dwellings. This means that there are some families and individuals who live in long-term and non-private dwellings like emergency housing—but also camping grounds, hostels, and aged care facilities—who are not within the survey population. However, Stats New Zealand advises me that including these children with the reported rates would not change the outcomes reported in the data. Stats New Zealand also tells me it is continually reviewing the approach taken to reduce child poverty statistics to ensure that they are reflective of the experiences of New Zealand households.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Isn’t it also true that material hardship will be much worse right now, as the survey included data ended June 2022, and food prices have gone up 12 percent in the last year; the biggest annual increase since 1989?

Hon JAN TINETTI: What I can say is that material hardship would be a lot worse if we had sat and done nothing. This is why this Government has acted, because we know that reducing child poverty is paramount.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does she agree that the answers lie in agencies working more closely for whānau, hapū, iwi, and community leaders, as argued by many experts, including the Children’s Commissioner, who said: “These groups are trusted by Māori and Pasifika communities that simply do not trust Government agencies, and as a result either don’t reach out for help or aren’t comfortable sharing full details of their true situation”; if not, why not?

Hon JAN TINETTI: I have been in consultation and communication with many of those particular agencies and groups. I know that they are most trusted groups and they are important partners in this drive to ensure that we reduce child poverty.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: To the Minister: is it true to say that the most recent child poverty statistics don’t include the full impact of the more recent increase to benefits, child support pass-on, and the bigger roll-out of the food in schools programme?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Yes, that is absolutely correct. What this Government is doing is continually looking at measures of how we can reduce child poverty. This is a continuing main part of our work programme, and we will continue to look at any way we can to make sure that child poverty is reducing.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What specific tangata whenua and community policies or initiatives can she guarantee Government will support and resource in response to the latest child poverty statistics?

Hon JAN TINETTI: What I can say is that everything is still on the table in terms of what we are looking at to reduce child poverty. We absolutely will make sure that we are keeping our tamariki Māori at the centre of what we are doing and making certain that we are reducing child poverty for all.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Point of order. I don’t think the Minister actually answered or replied to the actual question, which was: “What specific tangata whenua and community policies or initiatives”?

SPEAKER: I’ll get you to ask it again; I’m not sure.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What specific tangata whenua and community policies or initiatives can she guarantee Government will support and resource in response to the latest child poverty statistics?

Hon JAN TINETTI: While I won’t go into specifics, what I can say is that we are working on that right at this point in time, and what I did say was that everything is still on the table.

Question No. 5—Housing

5. RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson) to the Minister of Housing: What impact has the recent severe weather had on Kāinga Ora’s work programme?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Kāinga Ora estimates that at this stage, approximately 850 new public homes that were expected to be delivered by June 2023 are now subject to an up-to-eight-week delay in their construction programme. Prior to the recent weather events, Kāinga Ora was on track in January to meet the Government’s ambitious public housing plan of delivering 3,400 homes by June 2023. The delays have been caused by direct damage to our sites, lost construction time in preparation and clean-up after the events, as well as indirect consequential impacts on the supply chain, and issues such as delays in inspections, consentings, and approvals. I’ll continue to work with Kāinga Ora to actively manage delays and mitigate the impacts of Auckland’s floods and Cyclone Gabrielle.

Rachel Boyack: What construction sites were affected by the cyclone and flooding?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The weather events had a number of impacts on all construction sites, including Kāinga Ora’s. This included direct impacts on earthworks, foundations, materials, water ingress, and flooding. Work was paused across multiple sites during the cyclone, with further time required afterwards to clean up the sites, dry them out, make them safe, and remobilise before any work could be restarted. For example, at the Greys Avenue sites—which will deliver approximately 200 units in Auckland—there was flooding in the basement and lift pits, and damage to joinery stored in the basement. Given the joiners’ factory was also flooded by the same weather event, this has presented challenges with producing the replacement joinery. In Napier, for example, a construction site was directly impacted by limited road access and supply of materials to site, causing disruptions.

Rachel Boyack: What indirect impacts were felt by the cyclone and flooding?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: There have been indirect impacts on build partners and supply chains. For example, labour and machinery were diverted to assist with emergency responses. Councils reprioritised staff and other regulatory building services to undertake emergency building assessments, which had knock-on effects of delaying consenting, inspections, and approvals. Examples include Gisborne, where eight projects were impacted by delays as contractors were unavailable to work on Kāinga Ora sites due to assisting with the emergency response. There were also shortages of water, fuel, and materials such as plasterboard and concrete.

Rachel Boyack: Have the weather events impacted other parts of the country?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Other areas of New Zealand also experienced the diversion of materials and labour. For example, some territorial authorities have diverted building inspection staff to affected areas, including Wellington council staff sent to assist with Auckland. Major infrastructure providers also focused staff and machinery in priority areas. Civil contractors, engineers, machinery, and materials have been mobilised from outside affected areas, restricting resources in the rest of the country.

Question No. 6—Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence and asks: when did she say that “I am a prevention violence Minister, and I know who causes violence in this world and it’s white cis men”? Why—sorry.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence): Mr Speaker, is that different from the primary question that was listed?

Hon Louise Upston: Why.

SPEAKER: Yeah, it’s meant to be “Why” at the beginning, not “When”.

Hon Louise Upston: Sorry, do you want me to ask it again?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence): Please—thanks.

6. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence: Why did she say that “I am a prevention violence Minister, and I know who causes violence in this world and it’s white cis men”?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence): I know that to transform generations of hurt and trauma and to stop violence from happening in the first place, as a country we must have the hard and uncomfortable conversations. We need to talk about the power imbalances and gender narratives that underpin much of the violence that occurs in our country. As the Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence and Sexual Violence, I will continue to have those conversations. I acknowledge that I could have been clearer in my remarks on Saturday. What I was doing was pushing back on the harmful and false narrative that trans people are one of the biggest risks to women. This is simply not true. Violence happens in every community; any person can be a victim of violence, but we cannot get away from the fact that the perpetrators of sexual violence or family violence are mostly men. So now that I have clarified what I intended to say, let’s have a conversation about what to do next to build an Aotearoa New Zealand—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! You well and truly answered; you’re now going into a speech on the matter.

Hon Louise Upston: Was she asked by the Prime Minister to apologise to the public, and, if so, when will she do that?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: It was really important to me that I clarify what I intended to say, and so in a public statement I have appealed directly to the community, to the field experts, and to victim/survivors and clarified what I intended to say and affirmed and acknowledged victims and survivors who may not have seen themselves in my comments.

SPEAKER: That’s definitely not an answer to the question that was made. The member can have two additional supplementaries.

Hon Louise Upston: Was she asked by the Prime Minister to apologise to the public, and, if so, when will she do that?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: No.

Hon Louise Upston: Does she agree that the statement was factually incorrect?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: What I have done is clarified what I intended to say. What I need to be really clear about is that violence is enabled by socially accepted hierarchies of power that include sexism, racism towards minority communities, colonisation, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, and classism. I am really clear about those drivers of violence and that we must change those structures of inequality and power.

Karen Chhour: Does she accept that her words “I know who causes violence in the world, and it’s cis men.” were offensive and highly inappropriate to victims of family and sexual violence, and will she apologise today to them for making a mockery of such a serious issue?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: What I have done is clarified what I intended to say directly in a public statement and made it really clear that I was wanting to push back hard on the untruth and harm about trans people being the biggest threat to women—and this is simply not true—and that my intention was to highlight the structures of power that are behind the drivers of violence. I will continue to make that point.

Hon Louise Upston: Does she stand by her statement in Te Aorerekura, which is the action plan for the National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence, which quotes her words “to enable safe communities where all people are respected”, and why does she not accept that her words did not respect cis white men?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: I absolutely stand by every single word in Te Aorerekura, that was created by and with the community, with victims, with survivors, with sector experts, with tangata whenua and diverse communities, and again state that this is why it was important to me to clarify what I intended to say.

Karen Chhour: If she can apologise to the Prime Minister for saying, “I know who causes violence in the world, and it’s white cis men.”, why can’t she apologise to the victims of family and sexual violence for belittling their trauma for political gain?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: What I have said to the Prime Minister is that I clarified that those are not the words that I normally use.

Hon Louise Upston: Why will she then not apologise to New Zealanders for the offensive words that she has used?

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: It is important to me to clarify, especially directly to victims and survivors who may not have seen themselves in the words that I used, and this is why I have made it clear what I intended to say.

Question No. 7—Transport

7. SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote) to the Minister of Transport: What recent announcements has the Government made about electric vehicle charging?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Last week, I launched public consultation on Charging Our Future, Aotearoa New Zealand’s first electric vehicle (EV) charging strategy. The strategy, which the Minister of Energy and Resources, Megan Woods, and I have developed over recent months with the sector, sets out a vision and plan to develop a First World EV charging infrastructure that is accessible, affordable, and reliable. Emissions from our light vehicle fleet are the single-largest source of transport emissions in New Zealand, partially due to having some of the most fuelinefficient and emissions-intensive vehicles in the OECD. We know that increasing zero-emission vehicles to 30 percent of the light vehicle fleet by 2035 requires tens of thousands of public and private chargers to be rolled out around the country. The strategy proposes that we work alongside the private sector and local government to facilitate infrastructure that supports the different trips and journeys that EV drivers make and ensures that rural and provincial New Zealand locations are accessible for residents and visitors with EVs.

Shanan Halbert: What targets does the EV charging strategy set out?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The Government recently completed its work to deliver EV chargers every 75 kilometres along 97 percent of the State highway network. The strategy proposes a new set of targets that will support the national roll-out of chargers in the coming years. These include large-journey charging hubs every 150 to 200 kilometres at key locations on our State highways to help manage range anxiety and support tourism, chargers for every 20 to 40 EVs in highly developed urban areas to support EV uptake in those places, and public charging at community facilities for all towns and cities with 2,000 or more people to ensure that the distribution of chargers is equitable in all parts of New Zealand.

Shanan Halbert: What responses has he seen to the launch of the EV charging strategy?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I’ve seen a range of responses to the launch, and I’ve been encouraged to see ChargeNet, the AA, and JOLT all come out in support of the strategy. Those organisations are all positive about the role of the Government in setting out the strategy and to work alongside private sector charging providers to support investment in infrastructure ahead of the roll-out of EV chargers across the network. We’re working alongside the sector through the clean car leadership group as we’ve developed the draft strategy, and we’ll continue to work closely with industry and local government as we finalise the strategy. Right across New Zealand, Kiwis are getting in behind cleaner vehicles; that’s something that we understand on this side of the House, even if the other side still knocks it.

Shanan Halbert: What other work is the Government doing to support the uptake of low- and zero-emission vehicles?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The EV charging strategy will complement the Government’s work to support the uptake of low- and zero-emission vehicles through the highly successful Clean Car Discount and Clean Car Standard. We’re seeing massive progress, with more than 70,000 EVs now on our roads—70 percent more than at the end of 2021. In December 2022, 30 percent of all new passenger car sales were electric, making us one of the world’s leading markets for EVs, and, as recent Drive Electric analysis showed, that has the potential to remove 2 million tonnes of carbon from our carbon emissions by the 2030s. Our Government is serious about tackling climate change, and these policies are making a real difference.

Question No. 8—Transport

8. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by his comment that when it comes to decarbonising transport, “the longer that action is delayed, the more difficult it gets”?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Yes, that’s why, as Minister, I prioritised a range of policies that are helping to drive down the transport sector’s emissions, including the Clean Car Discount and Clean Car Standard, rolling out EV chargers, a massive investment to rebuild a resilient and reliable rail network, and supporting the uptake of public transport, walking, and cycling through projects and programmes like Transport Choices, the Eastern Busway, Greater Christchurch Public Transport Futures, and Te Ara Tupua, the visionary shared path around the Wellington Harbour.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Can he confirm that recent Government decisions make it much harder to meet its 2025 transport emissions targets, and what new actions, if any, will the Government take to reach that target?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The member, in her question, is probably referring primarily to the Government’s recent reprioritisation decision around the sustainable biofuels mandate, a decision which I do note that the member supported. As she pointed out at that time, we do now need to do the work to make sure that we have the suite of other transport policies to make up for that emissions shortfall. But I can confirm that the Government remains resolutely committed to the carbon budgets that we committed to through the emissions reduction plan, and we are continuing to work on policies across improvements to the vehicle fleet—and I’ve just answered a question around our EV charging strategy—and we’ll do further work in terms of how we can support more Kiwis to have real transport choices so they’re better able to use low-carbon options like public transport and safe walking and cycling.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: So is the Government on track to meet its 2025 transport emissions target, and if not, what will his Government do to reach the target?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Well, as I covered in my previous question, the major change that we’ve had in recent months has been the decision around the sustainable biofuels mandate. That does leave an additional emissions abatement that we have to reach, and that’s why we are developing policies at the moment to make sure that we do reach that budget.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is the ongoing fuel and excise duty (FED) and road-user charges (RUC) discount during a climate emergency short-sighted considering it increases carbon emissions by 35,000 to 83,000 tonnes at a cost of at least $1.3 billion to date; if not, why not?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The Government’s policy of FED and RUC reductions have been an important part of our response to the cost of living pressures that New Zealanders have been experiencing. It means that the average New Zealander filling up their car saves $17 per tank, but it’s also coupled with the half-price public transport policy, which will save an average public transport user, who’s using a bus two times a day, around about $25 per week. Set in the context of our broader transport emission reductions policies, the additional emissions as a result of that policy are very small indeed, and I’m confident that with further work we will reach those targets that we’ve set.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does he think it’s fair that the hugely expensive discounts for FED and RUC give three times the support to the highest income earners as to the lowest income earners?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: What I know is that for all Kiwis, including low-income earners, the reductions that we have brought in place through the reductions to FED and RUC and half-price public transport are making a real difference in terms of those household budgets. We know that it is challenging for many New Zealanders as they deal with the cost of living, and this is one of the more practical and quick stand-up things that we have been able to do to support those people.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is he aware that the commuter trains from Palmerston North and the Wairarapa are unlikely to pass safety tests when they are renewed for service in 2027, and if so, will he commit to meeting the regional councils and Waka Kotahi halfway with funding for hybrid electric trains to replace them?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The Government remains in very positive dialogue with Greater Wellington Regional Council about the proposals that they have presented to the Government in terms of the replacement of rolling stock and increase in services along those lines. I do note that the proposals that they have put to the Government ask the Government to go much more than halfway in terms of the funding requirement, but it is a positive discussion that we are having with them.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Has the Minister had any advice on the impacts the proposed Auckland Council budget cuts that would permanently slash 1,000-plus buses a day in our largest city in which transport is the largest emissions profile?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I continue to engage with my officials about the decisions that Auckland Council and other local authorities are making about the future of public transport services. And what I can confirm is that our Government will continue to provide the support that we need to give Kiwis those real transport choices. That’s why that half-price public transport until the middle of this year is important. That’s why the $50 million in the Budget last year to bring up bus driver pay and conditions is important, so that we can continue to roll out those services. That’s why the $800 million that we’re investing in the Eastern Busway in Auckland is important. That’s why the $70 million that we’ve committed to Christchurch PT Futures is important, and that’s why the Transport Choices programme that’s going to roll out 100 kilometres of bus lanes all around the country is important. Our Government’s backing public transport, and we’ll work with local authorities to deliver better services.

Question No. 9—Police

9. NICOLE McKEE (ACT) to the Minister of Police: Does she stand by her statement, “My single focus will be improving community safety”; if so, why did she not attend the Esk Valley meeting for residents to address their concerns about levels of crime in the region following Cyclone Gabrielle?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Police): Yes; by backing our police, by reducing retail and organised crime, and responding to youth offending and the underlying drivers of crime, I am absolutely committed to improving community safety. To the second part of that member’s question, I was, and still am, scheduled to travel to the region to hear from locals and to meet with local police later in the week. I also note that the local MP attended the meeting. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Supplementaries are heard in silence.

Nicole McKee: What message does it send to the residents of Esk Valley that neither the police Minister nor any police attended the community meeting over the weekend to hear the residents’ concerns about ongoing crime?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: First of all, I wish to acknowledge the devastating impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle on the community of the Esk Valley and the surrounding region. It is in that context why there was increased police presence and response to that community, and that is why I am taking the action to go up to that community to check in with community members and front-line police on Friday this week.

Nicole McKee: Does she agree with Stuart Nash’s concession at that meeting regarding the Cyclone response that police “didn’t quite get it right”, and, if so, what does she think that he was referring to?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: It is my expectation as Minister of Police that police not only respond to criminal activity but also provide reassurance to the community as well. That is why police are maintaining very high visibility through the community. That is why there are still extra staff in the district who have carried out thousands of reassurance patrols, and that is why there are three police bases that are encouraging people who may feel unsafe to call the priority 105 line that has been set up specifically for people in the cyclone-affected communities. In addition to that, eastern district police are working with the council that will be attending a range of community meetings next week to support those severely impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle.

Nicole McKee: Point of order. When I refer to my second supplementary question, I don’t believe that the Minister actually addressed it.

SPEAKER: Yeah, and I actually thought about ruling it out of order, based on the Minister doesn’t actually have that responsibility, but I allowed the question to be asked. Have you got further questions?

David Seymour: Point of order. To be clear, the question was about the Minister’s opinion on a statement, not taking responsibility for the statement.

Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to the point of order, many times in this House we’ve had rulings that that particular point of order that the member’s just raised is, in fact, not a point of order, because the first matter is the matter of responsibility, and that is what you’ve ruled.

Nicole McKee: What does she say to the mother from Esk Valley who told us that there are still strangers shining torches into her children’s bedrooms at night, and does she agree with her colleague Stuart Nash, who characterised this as just a “perceived risk”?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: I understand that the community in the Esk Valley are going through an incredibly tough time right now, and that is exactly why I am visiting Esk Valley this Friday, and that is why police continue to monitor the situation. Should the community require additional support from police, they are there to help.

Question No. 10—Regional Development

10. ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki) to the Minister for Regional Development: How is the Government supporting coastal shipping between Gisborne and Napier?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister for Regional Development): Earlier this month, the Prime Minister and I were in Gisborne to announce that the Government is delivering a coastal shipping lifeline for businesses, residents, and the primary sector in the cyclone-stricken regions of the Hawke’s Bay and Te Tairāwhiti. The Government is providing grant funding and an underwrite to Eastland Port for the charter of the Rangitata cargo vessel for an emergency coastal shipping route between Gisborne and Napier, including infrastructural upgrades at the Gisborne port. Our regions are the backbone of this country, and this investment will ensure our hardest-hit regions can get back on their feet quicker.

Anna Lorck: Why was this investment necessary?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Cyclone Gabrielle has significantly damaged key roads and rail routes, with the transportation of products between Gisborne and Napier currently taking more than nine hours by truck. Agriculture and horticulture is vital to the East Coast economy, and this lifeline can get products, vegetables, meat, wool, timber, and wine out of Gisborne and into the global market. This investment in the “blue highway” will also speed up recovery efforts, allowing for the swifter delivery of construction and rebuild materials into the East Coast.

Anna Lorck: What other Government investment made this lifeline possible?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: In 2022, Coastal Bulk, the owner of the Rangitata, was one recipient of the Government’s $30 million coastal shipping fund, which co-invested with four coastal shipping companies to improve domestic shipping services and efficiency, transport reliance, reduce emissions, and upgrade maritime infrastructure. Without Government support, this coastal shipping capability between regional ports would not have been available to New Zealand, and this decision would not have been possible.

Anna Lorck: What activity has there been on the shipping route to date?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Plenty. Already the Rangitata has moved 66 40-foot containers of cargo, which has included export of squash and meat products. The ship has made five journeys between the two ports, with two voyages a week into Gisborne and two to Napier planned over the coming months, with around 15 containers on each voyage. I’d like to put on record my thanks to the Eastland Group, both the Gisborne and Napier ports and all their workers, as well as the many businesses that are involved, for their brilliant and rapid work to date.

Question No. 11—Education

11. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statement that “year 8 progress has remained constant” since 2017, and why hasn’t there been any improvement since 2017?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): Yes, there is no evidence of significant change in year 8 e-asTTle results since 2012. So therefore, it has remained constant since 2017. There are a variety of reasons why this hasn’t increased or improved since 2017. Some of those reasons include the fact that, yes, we had different cohorts each year; that we went through a global pandemic for two years where there was a lot of disruption to learning to due lockdowns, students and teachers being sick, and wider pressures on family life. The Government has invested into additional tutoring programmes to help students most affected by that lost learning—with great results. Other reasons include the widely acknowledged view that the curriculum has been too vague, which is why the Government has invested in an evidence-based refresh of the curriculum so it is very clear what learning progressions must take place each year-level, with literacy and numeracy as the priority subjects for implementation this year.

Erica Stanford: Which is correct: her press release, which states that, “Forcing children to do an hour of reading, writing, and maths every day isn’t going to make them enjoy or learn better,”; or her comments on Newstalk ZB that, “Those things are already happening in schools and I know they are, and I can hand-on-heart tell you that was what was happening in my school.”?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Both are correct. The reason I say that is that is if you start with teaching an hour a day without doing the pedagogical work that sits underneath it, then that is an absolute waste of time. What we want to focus on, as a Government, is actually making certain that teachers know what to teach and when to teach it—which is why we have the “Understand, Know, Do” model in the curriculum, and it is already making a difference. When we get to that point, then we can look at such things as time spent during the day. But no, we’re going to get the pedagogical side of it right first.

Erica Stanford: Who should we believe: the Minister of Education on ZB last week, when she stated that an hour a day of maths is already happening; or her literacy and numeracy action plan that states a rather different position: “Current evidence shows wide variation in maths learning time”?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Actually, that’s what teachers will tell us is happening already in most schools. But let’s be clear here: not all schools. That is why we are focusing on making certain that the pedagogical approaches are right first.

Erica Stanford: Why did she issue a press release in response to the National Party’s education policy, stating that, “Forcing children to do an hour of maths every day isn’t going to make them learn better,” when expert advice provided in the Royal Society maths report commissioned by her Government recommended exactly that?

Hon JAN TINETTI: They also recommended that in conjunction with everything else as their recommendations. As I said, it is with the pedagogical approach. Cherrypicking off bits and pieces of that will not make a difference to young people’s learning.

Erica Stanford: Can she explain how it is fair for one child in one school to get an hour of maths a day, as recommended by the Royal Society experts, while a child in another school the same age gets far less?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Oh yes, absolutely I can. Some people and some teachers will have a pedagogical approach that will mean that they don’t need to do that. It would be inappropriate, as I also said on ZB, that a five-year-old would spend straight core subjects. In fact, research—and research that I’ve read over the weekend—states that for fiveyearolds, that would be too much to have for their cognitive learning ability.

Question No. 12—Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations

12. TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour) to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: What recent events has he attended for Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui-a-Rua?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): On Saturday, I delivered the Crown apology to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nuia-Rua—which I’ll further refer to as Ngāti Kahungunu, from here on in—for the Crown’s historic breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in Masterton. The Crown apology acknowledges the acts and emissions which breached the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its treatment of Ngāti Kahungunu. This includes the forced cession of tens of thousands of acres of land at Maungaroa in 1845, as well as the failure to act in good faith during rapid and extensive land purchases throughout the 1850s and in later public works takings. It was a momentous day for Ngāti Kahungunu on Saturday and their settlement journey, which has not been without its challenges. It marked the first of many steps in a renewed partnership between Ngāti Kahungunu and the Crown.

Tāmati Coffey: What else did the Crown apology include?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The deed of settlement contains acknowledgments that historical Crown actions or omissions caused prejudice to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui-a-Rua or breached the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles. The apology to Ngāti Kahungunu acknowledged that the Crown did not honour its obligations to respect te tino rangatiratanga o Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui-a-Rua through repeated breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its principles, and for the damage caused to Ngāti Kahungunu. The apology recognises the loss of land at the hands of the Crown; Crown threats to end Pākehā settlement in Wairarapa and Tāmaki Nui-a-Rua, thus depriving Māori land owners of income from leases; the failure to protect Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui-a-Rua from becoming virtually landless; not upholding the spirit of the Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui-a-Rua tuku rangatira of Wairarapa Moana in 1896; and the failure to actively protect te reo Māori.

Tāmati Coffey: What cultural redress was included in the settlement?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Cultural redress is intended to recognise the cultural, historical, and traditional associations of Ngāti Kahungunu within their area of interest. Twenty-seven sites were vested back to Ngāti Kahungunu, including the Castle Point Scenic Reserve, which Ngāti Kahungunu has gifted back to the Crown. It also included 30 geographic place name changes and an agreed summary of the historical account of the relationship between the Crown and Ngāti Kahungunu.

Tāmati Coffey: What financial and commercial redress was included in the settlement?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: This redress recognises the losses suffered by Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui-a-Rua arising from breaches by the Crown of its Treaty obligations. The financial and commercial redress is aimed at providing Ngāti Kahungunu with resources to assist them to redevelop their economic and social wellbeing. Ngāti Kahungunu receive the right to purchase two properties, including 70 percent of the Ngāumu Forest Crown Forest licensed land, two Landcorp Farming Ltd farms—Wairio and Rangedale—and 28 specific commercial sites from the Treaty Settlements Landbank and the Ministry of Education for up to two years after settlement date. The total value of financial and commercial redress is $115 million.

Question No. 13—Education

13. PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statement on Newshub Nation that Te Pūkenga is developing an operating model “as we’re going along”, and can she describe what “developing that as we’re going along” actually means?

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): Yes. The operating model comprises of a number of components rather than a single document, that I expect to evolve over time as the organisation matures. The components of the operating model include the national qualifications and standards developed by workforce development councils; the organisational structure, which combines 24 entities; programme unification to ensure we have consistent high-quality programmes for learners, regardless of where in the country they are based; the combination of on campus, online, and on-the-job training; as well as the financial sustainability plan and governance measures.

Penny Simmonds: Does this year’s 10 percent decline in student enrolments at Te Pūkenga change the Minister’s position that she is “very, very confident” regarding Te Pūkenga, when officials said in June 2022 that Te Pūkenga’s financial stability was strongly reliant on enrolment growth?

Hon JAN TINETTI: No.

Penny Simmonds: Does the Minister consider that Te Pūkenga is meeting its commitment to provide exceptional learning experiences and equitable outcomes for Māori and Pasifika, when Māori and Pasifika completion and pass rates were so far below target in 2022 that Te Pūkenga’s response was to reduce targets for 2023?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Te Pūkenga are moving towards making a model that will be responsive and will be good for Māori and Pacific learners. They set their performance measures through a statement of performance expectations. Many of these are the kinds of things that we would expect from a tertiary provider: course completion, learner satisfaction, number of learners, and employers. I will be monitoring these closely.

Penny Simmonds: What does it say about Labour’s ability to deliver in vocational education that Te Pūkenga is three years old now, has cost over $200 million, now needs another $330 million, and is still developing an operating model “as we are going along”?

Hon JAN TINETTI: We inherited a big mess in this area, and as I’ve heard that member say herself, there is no doubt that what we started with when we came to Government was, quite frankly, a mess both in terms of financial stability but also educational outcomes for students. My focus is on ensuring we have sound governance structure, a plan towards financial sustainability, and quality education and training for all students.

Bills

Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2)

Third Reading

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): I present a legislative statement on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2).

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

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

This bill has two legs to it. The first is to confirm the annual rates of taxation for the 2022-23 year, which are unchanged from the prior year, and the second is a number of improvements to the tax code which improve outcomes for business and taxpayers.

I will briefly recap the main measures contained in this bill. Firstly, in respect of the platform economy measures, the measures in this bill make the competitive field between participants who are running a more traditional business model—it evens the playing field in their competition with those who list their services via the platform economy. The bill proposes that digital platforms be required to collect and return GST on short-term stay and visitor accommodation, as well as on ride-sharing and food and beverage delivery services.

The reasons for this are simple: it is about equity of treatment and fairness. Often, people who sell such services through the platform economy can do so currently without charging GST, giving them an advantage over traditional suppliers, and this is the same rationale that was used by the prior National Government when they introduced GST on remote services rules that came into effect in 2016. It’s probably why when the bill was introduced, Nicola Willis, the finance spokesperson for the National Party, supported this aspect of the bill, but then changed that position in a way that I find incomprehensible since, because it’s just wrong.

David Seymour: What does the Minister comprehend?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, I do comprehend that. In respect of these issues, the OECD has made the point that as more and more services are sold via the web, we must make sure that artifices that are enabled through the web cannot be used to create unfairnesses in the tax system.

When consumers contract for services in using these platform apps, they’re actually buying services from New Zealand service providers. The services are delivered in New Zealand, they’re using accommodation or taxi-like services in New Zealand, and yet because they can construct their contract in a way which notionally at law is a contract in an overseas jurisdiction, they can, effectively, avoid the effect of GST. That’s unfair to the businesses that can’t do that, and the Hospitality Association made strong submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee on behalf of their many hundreds, if not thousands, of members that it’s wrong that their members return GST, and yet people selling through the likes of Airbnb can evade GST. Similarly, I know that the Taxi Federation thinks it’s unfair that their members selling services through taxi firms return GST, whereas those doing so through the likes of Uber don’t.

Now, there has been some suggestion by the Opposition exaggerating the effect of this on prices. They have at one stage said that prices would go up by 15 percent because that’s the rate of GST. That’s incorrect, because it is only, effectively, the net amount of GST that would be collected from an industry like that after allowing for GST input costs. That is recovered from the platform economy, and that’s less than half of the total—around 6 percent, we think.

In respect of the local businesses competing against these large, often overseas-based digital platforms, they welcome this change, and it will improve both the tax system and the small businesses, mainly, in New Zealand who face unfair competition currently. This will also ensure that New Zealand has access to information from overseas counterparts, which is one of the requirements of the bill.

The Government also wants to reform the GST apportionment rules to improve fairness and make them less onerous and less complex for businesses—particularly smaller ones—to comply with them. There are various remedial measures in the bill to that effect. It’s part of the Government’s general commitment to reducing the complexity of the tax system, where appropriate.

There’s also modernisation and greater flexibility in relation to the rules applying to the tax treatment of cross-border workers. It’s a very technical area that the select committee considered well, and I won’t go into it. It, essentially, does this by clarifying how the PAYE withholding tax, fringe benefit tax (FBT), employer’s superannuation contribution tax, and non-resident contractors’ tax rules apply.

There’s also a proposal aimed at producing a more neutral fringe benefit tax outcome between the options of travelling to and from work by car. At the moment, employers can provide car parks to their employees at significant cost, but there’s no FBT on that. The last National - United Future - ACT Government did actually try to fix that, but there was a bit of pushback and they didn’t pursue that any further. We agree that that leaves an anomaly where employers who would be subsidising more climate-friendly alternative forms of transport were liable for FBT. That’s not right, and we’ve fixed that by enabling employer-provided public transport fares that are subsidising travel by commuting to and from work to be free of fringe benefit tax. This was a recommendation of the Tax Working Group, and it is something I know that the Greens and the Labour Party have championed for a while.

We’ve also adopted, late in the piece, a recommendation from Julie Anne Genter and the Green Party that that FBT exemption be extended to include subsidies for bicycles, electric bikes, scooters, and electric scooters. There’s a regulation-making power to make sure that that can’t be abused by purchasing gold-plated scooters or bikes.

The bill also proposes to exclude build-to-rent assets from the interest limitation rules in perpetuity.

Nicola Willis: Just exempt all housing, as has been the convention for 30 years.

Hon DAVID PARKER: So we’ve just had an intervention from the National Party which explains what they will do if they’re elected. They will restore the ability of landlords to deduct interest in full to enable landlords who have vast or large property portfolios to borrow 100 percent of the costs of their next home purchase, driving up the cost of existing homes, and excluding the people who live in those homes, rather than rent them out as landlords. We don’t think that’s good policy in New Zealand. We think it’s distortionary, and we think that we should instead be encouraging investment into new housing, where you get full deductibility now in perpetuity.

The Government is also aware that businesses are responding to recent North Island floods by providing benefits to their employees in affected areas. We don’t think it would be appropriate for those benefits to incur income tax liabilities for the employee or fringe benefit tax obligations for the employer, and therefore the bill proposes exemptions for cash and non-cash benefits provided by employers to employees who have been adversely affected by the North Island flood event, up to a maximum of $5,000. It provides that accommodation benefits provided by employees to employers for up to eight weeks after the start of the relevant flood event are similarly treated so that people can go and help out without creating some tax complications, and that the accommodation benefits of those employees who relocate to the affected areas for a limited duration for rebuilding and recovery projects aren’t adversely affected by tax consequences.

Those are some of the main features of this bill. These matters are important for New Zealand, and I thank the House for its consideration of these matters as I commend the bill to the House.

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

NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National): Today marks yet another assault on New Zealanders’ wallets by a Labour Government that remains addicted to spending and has never seen a tax it could say no to—that has, after six years, delivered nothing but a cost of living crisis which has led more and more New Zealanders into the food bank queues, into emergency housing, into mortgage arrears, and into situations where they are telling their kids they can’t afford swimming lessons anymore. And what does David Parker, the Minister of Revenue, the “Minister for More Tax”, do? He gets up and says, “Look, I am thoroughly justified in taxing you more.” Well, here on this side of the House, we think it is exactly the wrong time to be taking more of New Zealanders’ hardearned incomes from them. Here on this side of the House, we understand that, in a cost of living crisis, people deserve to hold on to a bit more of the cash that should be in their wallets.

The contrast between the two parties couldn’t be clearer, because, on the other side of the House, we have a Government that is taxing at higher levels than we have seen in years. Because they are so addicted to wasteful-spending projects like merging TVNZ and RNZ, like dreaming up a new jobs tax, like little rinky-dink schemes that the Prime Minister, then, has to intervene and dump—because of that, they’ve had to rake in a heck of a lot more tax. The tax take is up $43 billion since this Government came to power—$43 billion—and the New Zealanders I speak to don’t see much to show for it. They see longer waiting lists for hospitals, they see more kids on the State house waiting list, they see no changes in the achievement in our schools, and they say, “Why am I paying more tax for all of this wasteful spending?”

Let me break it down: the tax take is up—when you break it down per household—$17,500 per New Zealand household. That’s how much more money this addicted-to-spending Government is raking in. So, even while real wages are declining, which is to say prices are rising faster than wages; even while many New Zealanders are falling backwards from one pay cycle to the next, are less able to pay the rent, less able to pay the mortgage—even while all of that is happening—inflation is being a sneaky little helper for this rapacious Labour Government. What it is doing is robbing New Zealanders twice: first when they pay for things at the supermarket—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Willis, we’ve had two minutes now of fairly general debate—start referring to the bill in front of you.

NICOLA WILLIS: Mr Speaker, this bill fails to reduce the tax thresholds that New Zealand working taxpayers are subject to. That is a significant failure. It is the very reason why National opposes this bill. What a good Government would do in the middle of a cost of living crisis, when introducing the tax bill, is adjust those tax thresholds for inflation. The bill we are debating—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And now we’ll talk about what’s in the bill.

NICOLA WILLIS: In the bill are rates for taxation for 2023. My argument is a very specific one. My argument is that those rates have been set at thresholds which should have been adjusted and which the bill fails to adjust.

Now, here on this side of the House, we have observed what is common practice in many jurisdictions around the world when a tax bill like this is introduced. Rather than just confirming that the tax thresholds should hit at the same level as they always have, many countries around the world say, “Well, actually, inflation means that more and more people are being pushed into the higher brackets at which those thresholds hit.” So our contention throughout the debate on this bill—in fact, for over a year now—has been that it is time for the Government to adjust those thresholds to allow for that inflation. And this bill represents the final nail in the coffin where the Government has failed to adjust those tax thresholds. The reason it has failed to do that is that it is spending so much money. So this bill is a missed opportunity; National opposes the tax thresholds that are specifically set out in this bill, and I am setting out for you why that is.

This bill also contains new taxes. It contains an app tax. Now, this tax is a huge departure from the conventions around GST in New Zealand. We have had a longstanding convention that has been observed by all parties in Parliament: that if a business takes less than $60,000 in income for services or sales in a financial year, that business is exempt from having to pay GST. Now, that longstanding convention is one that we on this side of the House think should be adhered to. But, on the other side of the House, what they’ve now said is, “Well, that only applies if you’re in an old-fashioned business. But, if you’re actually running a 2023 business that uses technology, that uses a digital platform for your sales, we think we have found a new excuse to tax you more.” And, in fact, what this bill says is that, if you are using a digital platform to reach your customers—whether you’re the New Zealand business Zoomy, whether you are Airbnb, whether you are Delivereasy—if you are using technology, God forbid, then we will tax you. This is a longstanding convention that is being thrown out the window. And mark my words: this new tax will stop innovation, because it sends a signal to entrepreneurs in our technology sector that if you come up with a new digital platform, the Government will find a way to tax it. That is the wrong signal to be sending into our economy.

It also creates direct costs to everyday New Zealanders, because the IRD has warned that the full cost-impost of this tax will be passed on to consumers. That’s the IRD’s advice. And I have had Grant Robertson, the Minister of Finance, tell me many times that inflation is nothing to do with him; it’s just a mysterious visitor from overseas, and there’s nothing he can do with it. And I have consistently taken issue with that, because it’s just wrong. This is an exact example of the sorts of policies that lead prices to increase. When the Government has a policy choice, it can either introduce the tax—and people will pay more for their ride share, they will pay more for their food delivery, they will pay more for their Airbnb—or it can choose not to, and we will not see the price increases across those services. National is principled; we say stick with the convention around GST and save New Zealanders yet another cost impost in the middle of the cost of living crisis.

I want to turn now to an element of this bill that I find particularly cute, and that is the build-to-rent provision. I am a huge supporter of build-to-rent. It is something that New Zealand is missing—around the world, you see developers building long-term, secure rental properties of a high standard—and, for various reasons, we’ve not had that sector grow here. I’ve put forward a bill, which now Chris Bishop has in his name, to amend it—to fix the barriers that have been in the way. But what this bill claims to do is it says, “Oh, we’ll give build-to-rent a leg up by letting build-to-rent developments exempt their interest.”—as if that were a novel idea! For decades upon decades, everyone who provides a housing service in New Zealand, just like any other business, has been able to deduct their interest from their tax bill. And it is a huge overturning of that convention that this Government has engaged in as part of their war on landlords. When KiwiBuild failed, when their tough talk failed, they turned to their common trick of dividing New Zealanders one against the other, and they said, “Landlords are to blame, and we will put new taxes upon them. We will stop them being able to deduct their interest, and we will extend the brightline test.”

Well, you know who the collateral damage in that war is? It is tenants. Rents are up $175 a week since Labour came to power. As we see landlords lose their interest deductibility, more and more have explicitly warned that they will have to pass on that cost in the form of higher rents for New Zealanders already struggling in a cost of living crisis. I want to share with this House the human face of that. I knocked on the door of a family in Newlands two weeks ago, and I said to them, “How are you going?” They said, “Look, we’re OK, Nicola, but we thought we did everything right—we scrimped and saved to buy a rental property—and now we’re completely stuck. Without the interest deductibility, we can’t make the thing work. But the problem is: we could put the rent up, but the family who rent that property have four kids, like us, and we worry about what it will do to them. But we have no choice.” That’s Labour’s idea of kindness. It’s not National’s idea of kindness. This bill should have reduced tax. New Zealanders should be able to keep more of what they earn.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to talk on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022–23, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2). I want to touch on all three of those headings, and I’ll start with the annual rates. We’ve just heard from the previous speaker, Nicola Willis, that the bill does indeed address the annual rates, and that is at clause 3. So it’s a very simple provision, saying that the income tax imposed by section BB of the Income Tax Act 2007 is to be paid at the basic rate specified in Schedule 1 of that Act. So that Act is not changing; there is no change to the rates.

Then we’ve heard also, from the previous speakers, some talk about this platform economy. So what the bill does is it does require digital-platform operators to provide information about the providers in New Zealand to Inland Revenue, and it does now mean that GST applies to accommodation and some transportation services.

There are some important definitions in the bill, and I’ll go to one, at clause 103, and that is the definition of “electronic marketplace”. That is, “a marketplace that is operated by electronic means by which a person (the underlying supplier) makes one or more of the following supplies by electronic means for another person (the operator of the marketplace) to a third person (the recipient): (i) a supply of goods: (ii) a supply of remote services: (iii) a supply of listed services;”.

So, as the previous speakers have said, this is new to New Zealand tax Acts, and what it will do is that the Goods and Services Tax Act—the amendments in this bill—will apply from 1 April 2024, so that there is an equitable application of GST on this electronic marketplace—that is, that it is equitable to those taxi drivers, to the hotels and motels that currently also pay GST.

Now I’ll touch on some other matters that are also covered in the bill. We heard from the Minister of Revenue about fringe benefit tax and exemptions to that. He referred to the car-parking exemption. In my previous life, I was a beneficiary of this law that exempts car parks. I had a very good centrally located car park in the fine city of Dunedin, and, of course, now, when I’m in Wellington, there’s no need for a car park. But as the Minister said, this is going to be extended. This exemption to fringe benefit tax has been extended to public transport, and that we can find at clause 27—I’m going to need some tags—so that certain public transport, if it’s travel between home and work, so that can be for a bus service, a rail vehicle, a ferry, a cable car, or if it’s partly funded by a Total Mobility scheme administered by Waka Kotahi—this is what we’re talking about that will be exempted.

And what was, I think, a very exciting development in the committee of the whole House stage of this bill, was a SOP—Supplementary Order Paper—from the Government, but very much taking the lead from Julie Anne Genter’s work, and that is to include certain self-powered and low-powered vehicles and vehicle-share services to be also exempt from this fringe benefit tax.

We heard from the Minister just then that there are going to be regulations, so if we go back to clause 27—which inserts new section CX19(d)—it names the vehicles that have been talked about that will have this exemption applied, and that is a bicycle, an electric bicycle, a scooter, an electric scooter, or any other vehicle declared under section 168(a) of the Land Transport Act to be a mobility device or not a motor vehicle.

As the Minister said, he noted that it might be that there is a gold-plated scooter somewhere in the world, and perhaps we don’t want the fringe benefit tax exemption to apply to that. Well, if that does appear to be a real issue, then regulations can be made and these can specify the maximum allowable cost of the vehicle and requirements for any vehicles.

I note, of course, that a number of members of this House cycle around the great cities of Dunedin and Wellington on cargo bikes and that they can cost a reasonable amount of money, but so too can centrally located car parks. So those regulations are there, that ability to meet the regulations is there, should they be needed.

Then, of course, the Minister also mentioned the other significant change that came through in the committee of the whole House stage, which was exempting income because of the North Island flooding events. There’s quite a lot in the bill about definitions of those flooding events. Really, the purpose here is that where an employee has made a payment for relief, that’s not to be subject to fringe benefit tax. This, I believe, has been derived from other emergency legislation in the past where things have happened—earthquakes, for instance, in Canterbury—where people need to buy some new things very quickly, and often that will be funded by good employers.

Then also another thing that I think is interesting and I am very pleased to see is this build-to-rent exemption from interest limitation rules. So for that to apply, there has to be a 10-year tenancy and it does apply to bigger developments as well, and there is a definition of “build-to-rent” in clause 98(3). So I think this is a good bill. I’m pleased that the changes were made to it at the committee stage and I commend it to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): It’s a pleasure to be talking on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2) third reading. As my colleague has already noted and we’ve said repeatedly, we will be opposing and we have opposed this bill for a number of reasons. The first of which is, obviously, that it enshrines the current tax rates and tax thresholds, which means that New Zealanders are paying far more than they ought to in tax, because—as a result of large amounts of wasteful spending from the Government—we’ve seen people getting pushed up into higher tax thresholds, which means they pay higher tax rates on their income as a result of wasteful spending which has caused inflation; and don’t we know what impact inflation is.

Of course, the Government has had to set about doing a whole lot of stuff, changing benefits, etc., to try and assist hard-working New Zealanders—well, in fact they haven’t had a benefit—but people on benefits, to try and help them through this period where we have a cost of living crisis, and it will go on because inflation will continue at similar rates for some period of time. That is the worrying thing for New Zealanders, and that is why we oppose this bill: because the tax rates continue to ensure that New Zealand households pay more tax than they ought to.

It’s interesting when you look at the context—and I know that Nicola Willis spoke about this—that the $42 billion of extra spending and tax revenue that the Government gets every year, in addition to what it was earning back in 2016-17 when they came into office, is just a phenomenal amount of increase in spending. Of course, that’s been going into Government pet projects rather than going back into households, and now business owners—so that they can fund their businesses; employ more people; grow the economy; increase our exports, which, of course, have decreased by 10 percent over the last year or so—and this is why the economy is in such a bad shape because of these policies, and tax is the core of it. So that’s why we do not agree with this bill; that’s why we proposed that, for low to medium income New Zealand families, that they should benefit from tax decreases, which is roughly between about $800 and $1,000 per family. On top of that, the early education announcement we made just very recently—they’ve got $3,500—that would deliver to mums and dads who have children about $5,000 in a reduced tax cost, or looking after their children while they’re at work. That is the meaningful difference that the National Government will bring if we are lucky enough to win the election later this year, in October.

So that’s the main point about this bill; why we’re opposing it. But, of course, this bill has a whole stack of other things in it, some of which are quite good; some of which are not. Of course, it already enshrines more taxes for New Zealanders so that if you are using certain Government services, the bill provides for GST to be levied on those. So if you are accessing certain Government services, the charges that you might have paid prior to these changes coming into place will now incur a GST liability. This, of course, is against a backdrop where those levies and those charges have previously been through the House, have previously been through select committee, and it has been agreed that they would not incur GST. But we’ve got a Labour Government that wants more money and that is why they’re imposing a new raft of GST on a whole stack of Government services which, in many cases, are not warranted and are inappropriate, and, of course, they come into play on 1 July, in a few months’ time.

The other side, of course, is the issue—the vexed issue—around the app tax, and Nicola Willis covered that very well. That is something that, you know, as we go into Easter, many people would have booked or will be thinking about booking accommodation to be able to take their family away for a few days over the Easter period. Of course, if you were to pay for $400 of accommodation—that’s probably two nights; you may need three nights to be going away all of Easter, but let’s say it’s two nights—you’ve got to pay GST on top of that. That’s another $60. If you get a cleaning service to clean the bach after you’ve hired it for the couple of nights—of course you would now be paying GST on that amount—so, all up, you know, that’s just adding on about another $85 of costs to New Zealanders who want to go away and have a few days away.

This is the impact of this app tax that the Government has been at the forefront of trying to push through. It was interesting, some of the submissions we had on this stuff. Obviously the world is moving towards trying to do these types of taxes, but of course New Zealand’s at the forefront of it—we’re at the bleeding edge of it—and there is no necessity to bring this in. We do not need to meet the OECD requirements at this stage. We need to be mindful of them, we need to be prepared, but we do not need to be bringing in these types of changes already. Of course, what it’s going to do is, to some extent, stop certain global players wanting to come into New Zealand because they know their products will be in a different tax regime which will affect, probably, our hard-pressed New Zealand tourist industry, and, of course, it distorts the GST proposals that New Zealand already has in place.

The main thing, of course, is, yet again, this Government has broken a fundamental tax tenet, which is anyone under $60,000 does not have to account for GST on their activities—that has been encased in law and been the practice for decades, and yet this Government again believes that it’s got the divine right to change those rules, and this is what’s happening under these new changes to this app tax that the Government is bringing in.

Of course, related to that, the first tenet that the Government broke—that Mr David Parker broke—was the issue around interest deductibility. Of course, there has been a fundamental tenet in tax for decades, again, which says that if you have assessable income—assessable income means that it’s subject to tax—you should be able to deduct expenditure to offset that income. Of course, what did this Government do when they first came in? They broke that cardinal rule and removed the interest deductibility on people who have properties that they rent out to people—pay tax, pay rates on it, pay all the good stuff, and provide a home for people who want to rent.

Of course, now we see reinserted back into this bill the tax deductibility for renttobuy, long-term rent accommodation, which means that you have to have a minimum of 20 buildings or houses in one area—we changed the rules around whether it’s contiguous or not. But, of course, those now allow interest deductibility only for those particular build-to-rent type of assets. Again, this may help the renting market, and we do need people to come into the renting market and have long-term rental arrangements, but what we have seen is a decrease in the rental market. As Nicola Willis quoted, $175 increase per week in the costs of renting for hard-working New Zealanders—perhaps some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders—and yet this has been the perverse outcome of this stupid rule of removing interest deductibility, and applying a whole lot of other increases on the requirements on landlords. Of course, there’s been a natural sort of market reaction to that. So that is a bad thing in terms of what it’s done to the rental market, but we do like to see more build-to-rent, but all those many thousands of houses that would have otherwise been rented have now been sold and have gone out of the rental market and made it harder for people.

Now, the cross-border workers reform—there’s an area here. We have a number of people coming into New Zealand—if they can get through the immigration rules, of course—hopefully, they’re starting to come through and coming to help hard-working businesses, but one of the proposals here is to allow cross-border workers to actually account for their own tax. That is a good thing because some of them will come here—they might have come from Switzerland to help on special types of printing machine, Heidelberg or whatever, is an example. They come out for a specific period of time. They are the ones best able to understand New Zealand’s increasingly complicated tax rules. They can pay their own taxes here rather than necessarily having the employer to do it but, by agreement, they can do it; that’s a good thing to help support small businesses and businesses in general in New Zealand.

But, look, there are some improvements but the fundamental issue about this bill—it continues to layer a heavy burden of tax on ordinary New Zealanders, and they should be paying less tax, not more tax.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Associate Minister of Revenue): I rise to offer a moment of calm and quiet and rational analysis on this excellent bill, the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2). The annual rates bill happens every year as a matter of law. Every year, the Parliament is required to confirm the rates of tax that are paid. It has to be done by the end of the tax year, and that happens to be 31 March. Today is 28 March; we’re getting in with three days to spare on getting that one done. So we simply do have to confirm the annual rates, and it’s a fairly routine and regular process each year.

I want to talk a little bit about the problems that the Opposition has alleged exist in this bill, which I think really demonstrates misunderstanding on their part; just a bit of misunderstanding. Let me talk first about the platform - based tax. Now, the idea behind this tax—it is not a new tax. All it is is applying GST to people who provide goods and services via a platform. And there’s an important point here: ordinarily, a small business can opt out of the GST rules. So, as a matter of law, there is a threshold set in the Goods and Services Tax Act. It’s in section 51 of the Goods and Services Tax Act and it sets a threshold of $60,000, and any business or any activity that has a turnover that is more than $60,000 is required by law to be registered for GST; to charge GST on the goods and services they supply. They can always claim back the cost that they themselves pay in GST as well.

So thinking about it for a moment, Mr Speaker, you, of course, will realise that any motel will likely have a turnover of more than $60,000 each year—will collect more than $60,000 in sales. Taxi drivers will collect more than $60,000 in sales every year. So motels and taxi drivers are required by law to be registered for GST. So that means any ordinary old business is paying GST in that space.

Now, I just want to go to another section of the Goods and Services Tax Act for a moment. It’s section 6 of the Goods and Services Tax Act. Now, any entity that is engaged in continuous or regular activity, supplying goods and services, or services in return for a consideration, is actually caught by the GST rules—so that would be any activity is caught by the GST rules. Even someone who has a very small business that turns over only $10,000 a year is actually caught by the GST rules, except that later on in section 51, under that $60,000 threshold, those very tiny micro businesses can opt out. And that was really put in place as a matter of convenience. So what’s the point of imposing those kinds of costs, accounting for GST on a very, very small business? And what is the point, from the revenue’s point of view, of trying to collect those very, very small amounts of GST? So as a matter of compliance cost, as a matter of the efficiency of the tax system, that threshold sits in there so that tiny businesses are not required to register.

Now, when Airbnb-type businesses started out—so accommodation-sharing businesses started out—and when ride-sharing businesses started out, they were actually promoted as part of the sharing economy, which was a way that a person could share a ride in their car; they could share a room in their house—perhaps if they were going away for a weekend, they could rent it out; perhaps they could allow their spare room to be used from time to time. It was very much based around the concept of sharing. But these days, accommodation providers providing via an app, and ride-sharing providers doing so via an app, are not part of the sharing economy; they’re part of the economy, full stop.

The businesses over the years, since they first started, have changed in their nature, so that, now, people will buy a house and rent it out over Airbnb as a matter of course. People now will earn a full-time income from driving an Uber. So those sharing services are now just services, full stop. But, of course, the services that were operating via an app weren’t collecting and paying GST, and that put the more traditional providers—the moteliers, the taxi drivers—at a real disadvantage. So what this platform tax does is it evens up the playing field. Now, technology has changed the way we do business, and because technology has changed the way we do business, our tax system needs to change to meet it as well in order that it remains fair for everyone. And that is what the platform tax is doing. It’s very, very straightforward. It is simply a matter of fairness.

I want to address the issues around the deductibility of interest or not, which were raised by the Opposition. And, again, that’s an interesting point for tax technical reasons. Now, traditionally, a business or a person can deduct expenses to the extent that they were incurred in earning assessable income. Now, of course, someone who buys a property—uses a mortgage to finance it; pays some interest—is, of course, earning two types of income. They are earning rental income and they are earning capital gains on that property. And we know that, in recent years in New Zealand, the capital gains on property have far, far, far outpaced the rents that people earn. In fact, the reason, really, that people have invested in investment properties is not because of the rental income; it is because of the capital gain, the untaxed capital gain, and yet they claimed an interest deduction—they claimed an interest deduction. So you could try to apportion that interest deduction, but it’s rather hard to do. So what has been done is we’ve gone and said—but for two very good reasons—we have a housing crisis that has been exacerbated by the demand for investment houses driving prices up so that young people cannot afford homes. So we have tried to address that by looking at some of the issues around interest deductibility, and it is, in fact, a pretty sensible thing to do. And what we have done is we started to remove the capacity to leverage up your investment by getting that interest deductibility. So it’s actually quite a sensible thing to do.

And I want to remind the Opposition of this: if an investor sells their property within the 10-year brightline and makes a profit on it, well, that’s fantastic. You know, that’s a good thing. Making a profit is always a good thing. Now, they will pay tax on that profit that they make, but they can, at that stage, claim the interest deductions as well. All right? So quite clearly, because they’re paying the tax on the capital gain, they can claim the interest deductions that’s sitting in the law as it is. So that’s a fair aspect of the law. And the reason that we have the carve-out in this Act for build-to-rents is because, actually, we straightforwardly need more housing. We need more housing that is provided at a level that people can afford to rent it. And that is what the build-to-rent market does; it provides another mode of finding accommodation in New Zealand, not our highly, highly distributed private rental market—not necessarily buying a house, but sitting in that space of a build-to-rent. So that is what that carve-out does; it supports that way of addressing the housing crisis.

The Opposition have raised concerns of the bill, but I hope that they might realise that their concerns are, in fact, not justified. This bill takes some very, very sensible measures to address a real need in our tax system, and I’m delighted to see it does. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The Green Party supports the bill. It takes some very small steps in a good direction. I guess the bigger picture of all of this is, as we face an increasingly dangerous climate crisis and a risk of ecological collapse—which I know is not nice to hear about, but we actually have to confront that truth so that we can take the steps to stop it—we need to have a paradigm shift in how we approach Government policy. Since the 1980s and 90s, there’s been this dominant ideology of neutral tax system, blah, blah, blah, which isn’t neutral at all and has led to increasing inequality in our country and, at the same time, in some small ways, has actually subsidised fossil fuel, high-emitting cars, and single-occupant car trips at peak commute time.

So one of the great measures in this bill is, thanks to the input of the Green Party, who’s been campaigning on this for more than a decade, we finally even up the playing field when it comes to fringe benefit tax, so that employers can provide support for those to use public transport or micro-mobility for their commuting and get some tax advantage from that, which makes sense because there’s huge public benefits to it—huge public benefits. We’re talking less congestion; fewer cars on the road, or lower-emitting cars; healthier people; cleaner air—win-win. But up until now, we haven’t been able to have that, because of that dominant ideology I spoke about earlier that, supposedly, New Zealand’s neutral tax system is the envy of the world, when, in truth, we’re lagging far behind using the sensible, evidence-based public policy tools that we need to support the outcomes the community desperately wants, because the community does want a transport system that works, they do want to protect the climate and the environment, and they do actually want to live in a more equal society.

Previously, the Green Party had argued for public transport passes, electric vehicles, and micro-mobility vehicles to be exempt from fringe benefit tax. The draft of this bill, the first draft, included the exemption for public transport passes but nothing else. But through the select committee process, we saw huge people power: over 400 people and organisations came and submitted in favour of extending that exemption to active transport like bikes, scooters, e-bikes, e-scooters, and then, at the very eleventh hour, the Government did pick that up. So we were glad to see that, and this is why the next Government has to have far more Greens in it, so that we can get some of these sensible policy changes that will actually support the outcomes that people want.

Finally, on the debate from the National Party and the others on this side of the House: classic, you know, just lowest common denominator, campaigning against any sensible changes to make our tax system fairer, which is really irresponsible and unnecessary at this point in the debate. As the Labour Ministers and members have said, it is actually fair that online platforms face the same GST that our local businesses here in New Zealand face. That’s just fair. I mean, if something is providing or facilitating a good and service, let it be treated as such, and that’s what’s happening in this.

I heard some people speaking about interest deductibility. I think most New Zealanders would agree that is a very fair policy. It isn’t fair that New Zealanders trying to buy their own house don’t have interest deductibility, but those who are buying a rental property where they’re going to make huge, mostly untaxed capital gains were getting this extra benefit of being able to deduct interest as an expense. That’s an example of, like, where the system was screwed up, you know, and, obviously, rather than make it fairer, making it something that works for people and even the economy, the National and ACT parties just want to defend the status quo. You know, they wouldn’t want to change the system—as long as it allows the rich to get richer, they’re going to defend it. And, you know, that’s a large part of the reason we’re in this terrible situation.

And I hear them—oh, the crocodile tears for the high rents! I welcome the National and ACT parties’ support for an immediate rent freeze and rent controls. Put your money where your mouth is. Why don’t you support a rent freeze if you care about the renters? Oh, I know—every policy you’ve ever put in place is about protecting the rich landed gentry to get richer off their rentier activities, because you’re, basically, a bunch of feudalists. Sorry, Madam Speaker, not you, but the National Party and the ACT Party.

But, yes, let’s have a fairer tax system. Let’s protect the renters. I look forward to every party in this House coming in behind an immediate rent freeze while we catch up with a public house building that languished under the National Government. There should’ve been more public housing built following the global financial crisis, there should’ve been support for more housing supply added then; they failed to do it. That’s why there’s a lack of housing right now, and until we have that increase in supply, let’s have a rent freeze. Otherwise, you know who they’re here to represent and why they receive the donations from the very richest New Zealanders—you know, the billionaires who want to keep getting richer. When is it enough? Honestly, when is it enough for you?

The Green Party supports the bill, after our excellent contribution which will mean that employers can support those who would like e-bikes or to provide public transport passes for commutes to work. We will continue to bring constructive policy solutions to this House. Thank you.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The bill sets the annual rates of income tax for the 2022-23 tax year. It deals with the platform economy, and GST exemptions for the North Island and dual dividend companies. It also deals with the great dream of the Green Party to get David Clark fringe benefits when he moves from Parliament into his consulting and corporate advisory work, and I congratulate him on that. But, you know, while Rome burns, or while New Zealand burns, Minister Parker and Minister Robertson play the duet fiddle with the people of New Zealand around taxes. And today in Parliament, the Prime Minister showed that he’s joined the party and he doesn’t care about hard-working New Zealanders who are falling behind in wages after inflation, and he’s prepared to run a high-tax economy on a per capita basis and give no benefits to the 3 million people who are working hard out there. So the ACT Party has made it its goal to actually look after those people and lobby for them, and if it means that we will incite financial rectitude, marches everywhere in New Zealand to make this an issue of the election.

Since Grant Robertson became finance Minister, the average tax take has gone up to $3,299 annually. And if you add GST, from 2017, it’s gone up to whopping $8,000 per earner. It increased dramatically in 2002, and, as a cost of living crisis is upon us, the people are losing out more of their income to the Government, and we used to have a deal where that was not the case. Somewhere, somehow, the one thing that doesn’t get you ahead is taxing people. The cost of living crisis is firmly on the agenda, and New Zealand was built around Government policy that rewarded and focused on hard-working New Zealanders. Just as an example, taxes to June, inside this bill will continue to increase $52 billion from when Labour was first elected, and it’s going to rise as inflation is still rampant.

Instead of taking the extra money from workers and finding new ways to hand it out, the Government should get its spending under control. It should pull the right levers to cut taxes and give everyone a break from working, with more of their own money in their own back pockets. ACT is the only party who will represent these workers and give them an alternative budget that shows and explains to them that they can have tax decreases and maintain services with the health, police, and educational system remaining intact. All we call for is more efficiencies and focus on what has been delivered for the people of New Zealand.

We will address the brightline test and dump it as a tax completely. We will give $2,000 minimum tax to someone on an average wage. We will scrap the 39 percent envy tax rate, which is contained in this, and restore interest deductibility, which is not contemplated in this bill. ACT’s the only party for workers now. It’s the only party that will actually challenge this bill and challenge Government spending and the provision of services to that. Just to put it in context—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I’m going to direct the member back to what is intended in a third reading. To quote: the member should summarise and discuss the bill in front of the House and not what another party might do in the place of that bill. So can I ask Damien Smith to come back to the bill.

DAMIEN SMITH: Thank you, Madam Speaker. We live in a country where this tax bill has resulted in a current account deficit being the worst in recent history. We are in a recession. There are no benefits to the income tax brackets to allow people to meet the cost of living and rising interest payments that will hit this year. Our net liability position is in a negative situation. We actually owe more than we actually have as assets in the country. And so this bill should have been one of taxes that were paid out to people who were incentivised to contribute to society, and there’s nothing in this bill that provides any benefit to that. We will attack any legislation, including the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, which has now reduced liquidity. All these levers have come to the point where this tax bill has, if we all admit it, not got the required focus to get us through the next two years. The tax bill itself, whilst punishing, overall, citizens of the country, doesn’t actually address the one fundamental thing: how do we make New Zealand more prosperous, and how do we create equality in this country and allow people to manage the cost of living? ACT opposes this bill and will be repealing it after the election.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I tend to agree with the Hon Julie Anne Genter that members opposite are using this rather technical bill to make some cheap political shots. Given that they have called into question the motivations of our Government around this tax bill and why we would be introducing a technical bill rather than tax changes, can I remind the House that there are other ways to deal with the cost of living? In fact, at the end of this week on Saturday, a fifth of New Zealand—1.4 million New Zealanders—will benefit from those changes through family tax credit changes; superannuation changes which mean that couples will get more than $100 per fortnight, and single people $66.86; main benefits will increase, as will student allowances; and there will be an increase to child support. I am saying that because this bill is an omnibus bill which deals with technical matters related to GST; it is not about changing the tax system. Our Government prefers to use other methods to have targeted support. That is because this omnibus bill is really about just setting the annual tax rates—and, as the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, Rachel Brooking, said, there is no change to those tax rates. It also does make a number of technical changes which are really to increase the fairness in the system.

We’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, the instability that can be caused in financial systems when there’s a run on money. It’s really important that we have a financially stable system, and having a fair and equitable tax system is very much central to that. So it is unusual to be carving out exemptions—the whole buy-in from society is around paying tax, knowing that it is fair, and knowing that it is equitable. That is what some of the changes in this bill do, in terms of just closing little loopholes but also in terms of that one that has been so contentious and misunderstood, which has been around the platform or the gig economy.

It is simply wrong to say that small players will be paying GST—it is actually the platforms themselves that will pay the GST. The small players that may be caught by the impact of that will actually get a rebate of 8.5 percent. Yes, there may be a nominal increase that is passed on to consumers of around 6 percent, but we heard plenty of people in the hospitality industry and the taxi industry say, “That is a good thing because it makes the system fairer.” and they are sick and tired of being the ones who are having to pay GST when some of the other very big providers in the platform economy do not.

Now, we’re going to be seeing more and more of that style of business, and I’m proud that New Zealand is at the frontier of that. We are not the only ones doing it. There is a whole information framework and reporting framework around that with the OECD, which is about taking a global approach to taxation so that big players who are really good at hiding their income in different parts of the world will now have to be much more transparent, will have to disclose, and that is a good thing for everyone, everywhere. So it’s a good thing for New Zealand to be at the forefront of that, so I make no apology for that.

One of the other points I’d like to make is just a procedural one, really: to let viewers at home know that the committee is advised by really good, sound advisers. They’re not only the Inland Revenue Department advisers but we have the advantage of having independent advisers who work out in the so-called real world, who we can bounce ideas off and get views from. This has been particularly important around matters of taxation, and has led to some of the changes in this omnibus bill. So I won’t mention the IRD advisers—I know they don’t like to be mentioned in the House—but I will mention Therese Turner, who has been a really fantastic sounding board for the committee.

In terms of what the omnibus bill does, actually—and the IRD advisers have been able to give advice on—is not only the annual income tax rates and that framework for reporting and disclosing that I’ve mentioned but it’s also about the fringe benefit tax on public transport. We’ve heard in the House today that that has now been broadened so that there will be exemptions for e-bikes and e-scooters. Also, we’ve heard about the build-to-rent exemption.

Across the platforms, we’ve seen the gig economy that has now been tweaked so that it is much fairer and that we have a much more universal set of GST rules for those who are providing accommodation. When you now buy your Uber Eats, it’s not only the restauranteur that has a GST component to it but also the driver that brings it to you. That is not by virtue of them paying the GST, but the platform that they work from—and they do get the 8.5 percent rebate, as I said before.

There are some smaller technical little things which are good examples of where the independent adviser was able to give us some assistance. One of them is around the fringe benefit tax on cross-border workers, and that was, really, about closing a loophole where there were some cross-border workers who had foreign employers. The law was a bit vague about what they should be paying in tax.

To cut a very long conversation that went backwards and forwards short, we landed on a change to one of the sections—new section RD 62B, inserted by clause 93—where, yes, now the employee can opt out and pay their own obligations, but, actually, in the changes here, the employer must provide the employee with the relevant information that the employee does not have. That also, therefore, entails a burden on the IRD to make sure that those employers also have the information that they need, because it would be very unfair for somebody to come across the border, not know what they don’t know, and then have a strict liability offence around a tax payment.

So that was one example of where we were able to get some good advice and have a really fulsome discussion. Another one was just around going back to the accommodation providers. Originally, it was suggested that accommodation providers who are of large scale and who advertise across different platforms for 2,000 nights per year—actually, if they were just on one platform, they would be able to handle their own GST.

The select committee questioned that, and that has now been extended so that they can go across varied platforms because it would be too intrusive, really, on those providers—on those large providers—who might otherwise be having to make commercial decisions based on their tax liability rather than where they are going to get the best exposure and visibility and where they’re going to get the best custom from.

The other area that’s been touched on by the member Damien Smith from the ACT Party was around the dual-resident changes, which is really a consequence of a legal decision that came out of Australia which made it more onerous for New Zealand companies that have dual-resident status in Australia and New Zealand. The Australian Government did say it was going to close that loophole. That hasn’t happened, and so the IRD’s actually taken the bull by the horns and done that for them to make it fairer for them and just to make sure that they are not overly burdened by that status.

So, to summarise, really, the tax bill before us is an omnibus bill; it’s a technical bill that simply affirms the current tax rates. It’s not really a reason to be grandstanding about tax changes, in my view. The platform economy changes are timely; they ensure that we are futureproofed for the way that business will be done in the future and that we are addressing the hiding of income from some very large players that are working only in the digital space.

The GST changes are about levelling the playing field. There are distortions in the market currently; so it’s disingenuous, I think, to say that this will cause a distortion, and the dual-residency changes are, really, that the IRD in New Zealand, I think, may be losing its patience about the situation and looking after small and medium sized businesses—and large businesses—to make sure they don’t have an overly onerous burden there. The cross-border workers measures are really integrity measures; they are also about accounting for a more globalised world. We have also heard speakers talk about the changes that have come in after the select committee process, which is to take into account those businesses that have been really impacted by what’s happened with the weather events and to make sure that when they are genuinely looking after staff with accommodation and other means, they are not unfairly caught by rules which are really about profit making, rather than about trying to get through an environmental and weather-related crisis.

So I just thought I’d go through that to remind everybody that this is a technical omnibus bill. It confirms the tax rates for 2022 and 2023, and we have fantastic targeted support to deal with the cost of living coming in this Saturday, on 1 April. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m sure the constituents of the member for Taieri, including, I don’t know, a resident in Middlemarch who occasionally rents out their house when there’s a big event on in the region—

Chris Penk: It’s the middle of March now!

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —that’s right, middle of—oh, pah tish!—or the part-time Uber driver in Mosgiel might be surprised to learn that the member for Taieri thinks that they are somehow part of the so-called platform economy. They are simply people trying to make a small income, and work within the tax rules that apply.

Now, I accept the point the member has made that it is necessary to modify the tax system to accommodate the fact that commerce has changed. And I was the Minister of Revenue in 2016 when the first GST that applied to, effectively, weightless goods came into effect: if one buys music or apps or something on iTunes, that’s an imported product that previously hadn’t been subject to GST, and now there is a framework for enabling that. That is consistent with our broad based - low rate tax system. What’s not consistent is that if anybody else makes a living—a small augmentation to their income, where their turnover is less than $60,000 from whatever source—they are not subject to the GST registration regime. But this bill does exactly that. It’s hardly administratively efficient, it’s not equitable—and I will come to equity in the context of Airbnb that Ingrid Leary mentioned—and there’s this weird kind of credit-back of 8.5 percent, which completely throws out the previously, I think, quite pure GST system that we had.

Now, there are issues that some hoteliers and moteliers around New Zealand have with people who are widespread Airbnb users, but often those issues are actually about compliance with hotel rules and local council by-laws. It wasn’t pointed out to me that the biggest inequity was GST. This is a solution looking for a problem, and I would be very surprised if it did anything other than drive people off those platforms and enable them to advertise their accommodation or do their part-time driving duties on other means—the notice up on the local dairy for a bed and breakfast or a bach or a crib. That’s going to drive us away from the technology.

But I’ll at least give the Minister of Revenue credit for finally mentioning what this bill does most, and that is confirm the rates for 2022-23, because he’s been a bit evasive about that in previous readings and in the committee of the whole House. And what Ingrid Leary says is, “Well, this is just confirming what we always do.” That’s true, but an omission is as important as an act if it serves to take money out of the pockets of hardworking New Zealanders through the thief of inflation. And the only beneficiary of that inflation is the Minister of Finance, because he has benefited to the tune of billions and billions of dollars as income goes up but tax thresholds don’t. And so doing nothing is an action, and it’s an action that is harming New Zealanders. And that is the number one reason why National will continue to oppose this bill.

And we heard it again from both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance in question time today that they think they can spend money better than taxpayers can and that somehow, when they spend it, it’s not inflationary. But when we commit to giving it back to New Zealanders so they can choose to save or spend or retire debt, that is somehow inflationary. And that, I think, treats the New Zealand taxpayer like an idiot, and that’s consistent with a track record of a “we know best” Government that is imposing stupid rules through this bill, and punitive tax thresholds that are a thief in the pockets of New Zealand taxpayers. We can’t support this, but we can say to New Zealanders: help is on the way; a centre-right Government elected after 4 October would treat New Zealanders’ money much better than this lot will. And we will change those thresholds. We will have a different bill this time next year.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2). There’s always a teachable moment for an economics lesson and this is a fine example of it.

It is great to be confirming the rates because when we’re—it’s really interesting hearing the difference in language used; when we talk about tax, we are talking about wisely investing in our communities and our society. It’s all very well to say put two bucks in someone’s back pocket, but that two bucks doesn’t build a hospital, it doesn’t employ a teacher, it doesn’t employ a specialist expert to assess a student who needs additional support. So affirming the tax income for this Government is something that is really important to do. We know that taxation should be fair, and the technical changes in this bill help. We’ve already heard about it reflecting our current economy, helping us to make sure that our local hoteliers and taxi drivers are able to compete and hold their heads up high and earn an income in a fair way.

The third thing about taxation is it can be used to incentivise behaviour. We’ve already heard a lot of different people around the House getting quite excited about new sections CX 19C and CX 19D, inserted by clause 27, and I want to reflect about the way that that is going to incentivise behaviour by extending the coverage from just public transport to self- and low-powered vehicles. It’s something really exciting for people who live in smaller parts of New Zealand, smaller cities and towns. Not everyone in this country has access to public transport—a bus, a train, a ferry, or a cable car. And, actually, by acknowledging that some ways that those smaller communities, who can be really frustrated, they really want to get out of their cars—and by incentivising some of this behaviour and saying it’s a really good thing, and helping to support those alternatives to public transport that not everybody in New Zealand has access to is a really great thing for somebody who doesn’t live very close to a cable car at home. So the great thing is it helps to normalise these behaviours and a modal shift—incentivises a modal shift. I think of the young people that I have taught over the years, and for them as they come out and they join the workforce, for their employer to say, “It’s a really great thing, we can help you out with your electric scooter rather than a slab of concrete for a car park”, I think, is a really great way of futureproofing things for our workers.

I’d also like to reflect about one other behaviour that is incentivised. We’ve heard a lot about the housing market and how the behaviour for landlords is affected by taxation treatments. And it’s really great to see, you know, this Government has done a lot to push back against the supply issues in the housing market, and one of the tax treatments here about the carve-out for build-to-rent helps also with the supply side. It is in addition to the impact that will happen on the demand side. We’ve heard that there’s issues, still—misunderstanding, possibly—around the tax deductibility, and by changing that it has helped to reduce the demand by speculators for housing and frees it up a little bit more for those who actually want to buy a home.

So it is really great to see some of these technical changes in this bill that not only make our tax system fairer but also help to incentivise really great behaviour, and they also help to make sure that this Government can continue to invest in the most important parts of our society: our health system, our housing, and our education system. And that is why I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on this bill as we set the annual rates for the 2022-23 year, and it is entirely appropriate, of course, that the Parliament debates these rates every year. It is part of the process of affirming that Governments have responsibility for those challenging but important decisions around how to have a tax system to afford the necessities that we all rely on: the hospitals, the schools, and the roads that we all use and all need and must be paid for somehow. But appropriate scrutiny of the Parliament is an important part of that process and that’s what we’re engaged in right now.

Now, of course, in New Zealand, we have what is described as a low rate - broad based tax system, and the rates that are proposed in this bill are a continuation of the rates that have existed previously. So we are arguing for the status quo, by and large. But I’ll come to the fact that within this bill there are also some improvements to our tax system that improve equity, that improve fairness, that improve the integrity of our tax system, and that remove some of the distortions that have emerged over time, because, of course, technologies change, the use of different technologies changes, the way our businesses respond to new technologies changes, and of course the way the tax system applies to them subsequently changes as well. And it’s appropriate that we should update the rules, as parliamentarians, to ensure we retain the integrity of that low rate - broad based tax system that we have here, that serves us so well, that makes it easy to collect taxes, that makes it—the important step of making sure that everyone pays their fair share. And we know that in systems where everyone feels that they are paying their fair share of tax, that compliance goes up. It becomes easier to collect tax, requires less resource to collect the tax necessary to pay for our schools, for our hospitals, and for our roads. And with that, of course, comes a lower overhead on the actual collection of those taxes.

So I’m very much in support of the bill before us. It does address, I think, some important distortions in our system that have emerged between the platform economy, on the one hand, and the traditional providers of services, on the other. It’s interesting; I was looking back in researching this speech at some of the previous positions taken in this House on the platform economy, and one that stood out to me was a member of this House being really clear that “A strength of the New Zealand tax system is the fact that taxes are applied fairly and evenly, and there are few exceptions. There’s a whole lot of positivity around our GST rules being applied equally, with few exceptions, to help us ensure that tax is fair, efficient, and simple.” These are all words of the sometimes very wise the Hon Michael Woodhouse, who we heard speak in the debate not so long ago, speaking in favour of the National Party app tax in 2016—not so long ago.

And to be fair, those were about a tax that would ensure that our system remains broadbased, that it actually applies fairly to businesses large and small, and it doesn’t create distortions in our tax system that enable large, often overseas-based digital platforms to compete on an uneven playing field with an unfair advantage over our locally owned businesses, who are paying their tax and operating perhaps in a more traditional manner, or perhaps just simply complying with the rules as they stand here. We want a fair system where every business can compete in the market, including those who are providing services traditionally, but also in the future as more businesses shift to a digital platform, we want a fair application of the rules across the board.

So one important thing this bill is doing is removing a potential distortion in our tax system that is emerging as more and more people shift to work in the digital economy. So that broad based - low rate approach that helps to ensure that our GST is fair, generally free of all sorts of complexities seen in the other taxes around, and other taxes around the world, and I’m quoting Michael Woodhouse again, “is the system indeed that we want here”.

It seems a shame that the National Party may now suddenly take umbrage at a proposal that they have sung the merits of before, in a different context, when they were in Government, because I think everybody in this House really appreciates the fact that we should have a fair system. We might debate around the edges about what that looks like, but we want a fair system where people pay their fair share, where it can continue to be low rate and broad base.

So this bill does a number of other things, though, which I want to touch upon in the remaining time. One of those is the implementation of the information-reporting and exchange framework, developed by the OECD, on digital platforms. Some members of the House will be familiar with BEPS work that the OECD has done in the past—base erosion and profit shifting—acknowledging that with these digital service models, it’s possible to have tax residence in a way that’s advantageous to a company—a large company that’s able to structure its tax affairs in a way that benefits it sometimes is unfair to those who derive the services under that system that they’ve set up. Again—I mean, we know that the likes of McKinsey have estimated that tax evasion globally is worth trillions, and that tax evasion around the world undermines the integrity of the tax systems, undermines confidence in Governments in providing those services, those hospitals, those schools, those roads that we all need. It’s very important that tax systems around the world have integrity, and that information can be shared across a common framework. So I commend this part of the bill that we’ve got before us in adding in the ability to have those information-reporting and exchange frameworks and that New Zealand is a part of them.

Further reducing complexity of a tax system where appropriate—we’ve got a reform in this bill of the GST apportionment rules and that will make it less onerous and less complex for businesses to work out how GST apportionment rules apply. Again, that’s about improving fairness overall so that there isn’t an increased burden for our small businesses.

The bill reduces complexity also in that it’s modernising and enabling greater flexibility for tax treatment for cross-border workers—it’s quite a mouthful. But we’ve heard Ingrid Leary speak a little about that, and other members about the technical aspects of the bill and the debates that were had in select committee to make sure that those rules were fair and more modern. And, again, it is good that we’re updating our tax system—again, to reduce complexity, to make sure it’s fair and that people can comply with their obligations easily.

Further to removing distortions, in the bill we’ve got the proposal it contains to remove from fringe benefit tax from commuting via public transport for work purposes. I think this is a really great step forward. We don’t want distortions in our economy that encourage people to use cars where they don’t need to, where they, obviously, can be more harmful to the environment than public transport, where there becomes a competition for car parks and we end up building more car parks that are not necessarily the most attractive things in our urban centres unnecessarily. We just want to remove the distortions to make it equally advantageous for people to take public transport if that’s their choice and we want to make it easier also—and this is also in the bill—for people to make other environmentally friendly choices, like taking bikes or electric scooters or electric bikes to work if a business is wanting to support their employees in those modes of transport. So the fringe benefit tax changes there I commend to the House, as well as a removal of unwanted distortions in our tax system.

So if we go back and look from start to finish in this bill, we see that it does those things that a good tax bill should do. It confirms the rates and enables us to have a debate about what the rates should be in this Parliament to make sure that everyone’s paying their fair share of tax, that we’ve got the tax necessary to afford the hospitals, the schools, the roads we need, that our tax system has integrity, that we remove the distortions, that we set the incentives up right for a system that everyone can then know is fair. And it ensures, overall, that it’s brought up to date so that as business practice changes, as consumer preferences change, we’ve got a tax system that holds water, that is able to collect the tax that’s required for the projects that we have as a Government on behalf of the people of New Zealand, an up-to-date, modern tax system that serves all of our needs and, above all, is fair. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I commend the bill to the House.

SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): It’s an absolute pleasure to rise on behalf of the National Party, as a member of Parliament for North Shore, on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2022-23, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2). Gee, wasn’t it interesting listening to the Minister of Revenue on some of the comments around how good this tax bill is? They were definitely through rose-tinted glasses, I think, in terms of the overall benefits of this bill, because what this bill doesn’t do is actually deal with the key issue that Kiwis across this country are facing. This bill shows exactly what is wrong with this Government. At a time when Kiwis across this country are suffering from the impacts of a cost of living crisis which is really hurting families and businesses, and the costs that are forcing those families to be making those impossible choices around what they can afford and what they can’t—mortgage payments vs food on the table—when the Government’s only priority should be to be putting money back into the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis, the Government, through this bill, has decided, “Well, what a great time it is to come up with a whole lot more new taxes.” Yeah, that’s their solution. The tax take is up $43 billion since Labour came into power, and that’s over $17,500 per New Zealand household—$17,500 per every single Kiwi household—since National were in power. Every dollar of that increase comes out of the back pockets of hard-working Kiwis—out of their pay packets, out of businesses.

And what is that money being spent on? Well, I’ll give you a bit of a taster, but Kiwis know: light rail, three waters, and high-priced consultants—just to name three. If I had an hour to do this call, which I’ll take the liberty but I don’t think I’ll get, I could go on for a long time on that, and I will continue back to the bill.

The reality is: this can’t continue, and I’m going to work my way through some of the key components and just have a little bit more of a dialogue, because I think it’s important for those at home watching, before they sit down to have dinner this evening, in terms of the implications of this bill. It includes no changes in regards to annual income tax rates, in regards to the impacts of high inflation. There is no inflation adjustment on the tax thresholds. That is, basically, meaning, as I’ve said, Kiwis at a total level are being taxed $43 billion more, and this is compounding as the inflation rate continues to increase.

We’ve also got within this bill the introduction around what is referred to as the “app tax”, and you hear comments from the other side in regards to reducing distortion and other factors. Well, that’s absolutely rubbish—absolutely rubbish. This bill absolutely establishes an app tax, and the changes in regards to the platform economy mean that for those people who have got an Airbnb—OK, these aren’t villains, these aren’t big bad businesses. Someone who does Airbnb and rents out the spare room a couple of times a year—you know, if they’re going away for the long weekend and they do the Airbnb, they rent it out. These people aren’t bad people, but this Government’s decided, “You know what, let’s get in there and let’s tax them.”, even though the income which they’re deriving from that is below the GST threshold, which is at 60 grand. Do you know what? The average Airbnb revenue across the country is in the region of just under $5,000 per annum—significant, you know, 10, 11, 12 multiplier on what the actual threshold is for GST, but this bill introduces that, and that means, as a result, it is going to place a higher burden of cost on hard-working Kiwis, mums and dads across the country, and that is not good.

I heard a speaker before quote “in the so-called real world”—did anyone else hear that? It was an interesting quote. The so-called real world—well, I can tell you what, the so-called real world, which is right outside those doors, are the ones that actually have to foot the bill for this Government’s unlimited appetite for taxing more off hard-working Kiwi families, and spending it like there is no tomorrow.

The other aspect in regards to comments that we heard is that everyone loves this bill, everyone thinks this bill is, you know, “bread and butter”, to use the quote which seems to be in vogue at the moment on the other side. Well, I’ll tell you what: the New Zealand Law Society described these changes as representing—and I quote—“significant deviation to the orthodox GST treatment of services supplied in New Zealand.” Right, let’s be clear: this is not something where everyone thinks, “Hooray! It’s about time that these changes have been implemented.” The New Zealand Law Society, amongst others across this country, thinks that a number of these changes in this bill are absolutely a significant deviation. They aren’t, sort of, soft words; they’re pretty hard-hitting and go to the heart of a Government that is just hungry to feed its addiction to spending through taxing Kiwis more.

The other aspect that we haven’t talked about, but no surprise for those sitting at home going, “Mmm, OK, what else does this bill do?”, because it’s a tax bill, right? It’s not the most exciting piece of legislation on the table, but it should be, because it has significant implications. But this bill also introduces significant information requirements on a number of businesses to have to provide more information around what they are doing through to the IRD. The IRD’s getting a little bit of a reputation for information gathering. They say they’re not using it to come up with any new crafty ideas for taxes. Well, I wasn’t born yesterday, right? I mean, of course they’re gathering this information to make recommendations around future tax policy; it’s just they haven’t quite told us yet what those new flashy-dashy ideas will be. But I can tell you right here, right now, that they will be having and will be coming out with a whole lot more ideas on new taxes, because that’s the only way that they’re going be able to afford this significant amount of spending.

Shanan Halbert: You haven’t even costed up your plan, mate.

SIMON WATTS: And I’m hearing the member from Northcote, and it’s always good to get a bit of commentary from the member of Northcote on this, but I’ll get back and we’ll keep going and welcome any more input as we go through.

So let’s talk about the fringe benefit tax (FBT) exemptions to allow people to use environmentally friendly modes of travel. We heard around the points before that this is, again, an element of distortion. The challenge is, and we heard this in the committee of the whole House stage, that these rules are not, as they stand, practical to implement. They’re not practical to implement, because there’s two scenarios which play through: one is in regards to, if I work for an organisation and I go and buy my bus ticket on the way to work and then I get my employer to refund that bus ticket, well, that’ll be subject to PAYE tax, right? Whereas if my organisation or business or company does a deal with Auckland Transport and provides me with a pass to go on the bus for free, and they do that deal directly with Auckland Transport in this example, then that will be exempt from FBT. So you’ve got two different scenarios playing through, and I appreciate we might be getting into the detail, but this piece of legislation has not dealt with the practical nature of the bill. The Minister said at the committee of the whole House stage that these rules do need to be practical. Well, that seems reasonable. The challenge is he just hasn’t followed through with making sure that that is the case.

So I’m really disappointed in this bill. Instead of a pragmatic policy like indexing taxation and making sure that that is dealt with, the Government is, basically, dead set on implementing this app tax. For families that are already being squeezed across the country, for businesses that are struggling to open up their doors, they get no hope from this Government, because it doesn’t seem to be that anything in this bill is going to hit the mark. Basically, National oppose this bill, and we’re going to keep fighting for Kiwis to get a fair go.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I’m surprised—but I shouldn’t be surprised—that a National Opposition who are so opposed to taxation generally, they clearly haven’t heard the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr that “taxes are the price we pay for civilisation”, and so addicted are they to the cheap, easy shots of Opposition, that they’re prepared to ignore the fundamentals of good policy. How can we have a tax system that doesn’t tax people equally, consistently, fairly, and transparently?

The National Party are very happy for Uber to have a tax advantage over the taxis it’s competing against. They’re happy for digital platforms like Airbnb to have a tax advantage over hotels and motels. Well, how can that be right? How can that be fair? Why should it matter how you are selling your services, how you’re connecting with your customers—why should that be the basis of a tax advantage? But that’s what the National Opposition are arguing for, and it’s a very sad commentary that the state of the Opposition is such that they’re willing to get up in the House and try to defend the indefensible. Apparently, for them, the level playing field doesn’t matter anymore.

The intent of this very good omnibus tax bill is to level the playing field, to treat everyone equally, regardless of the technology or the platform they use to conduct their business. It does two main things in this respect. It puts in place an information-reporting and exchange framework, based on the very good work done by the OECD in this area, designed to make the digital economy visible to tax authorities. And secondly, of course, what it does is it collects GST from people doing their business through digital platforms.

Why is that important? Of course, because, as other speakers have said—and David Clark most recently—fairness and consistency are critical to the legitimacy that any tax system relies on to be effective. But there’s another important reason for doing this, and that is that, in recent years, nation States around the world have found their tax base so badly undermined by both transnational capital and the global digital economy, their tax base has been gutted in many cases, and this is not a fantasy, it’s not scaremongering. If anybody needs evidence, they only need to look as far as what the likes of Google and Facebook have done to the New Zealand media market. They have gutted it and put the existence and the future viability of our news media in New Zealand in peril because they have sucked hundreds of millions of dollars a year in advertising revenue out of the New Zealand market. It’s not the same thing as digital platforms like Uber, like Airbnb, but it is an example of how radically and quickly the digital economy can transform the operations of our tax system and of our economy. That alone should be enough to convince the other side of the House that it is important, as a matter of principle, to bring the digital economy fairly and squarely into the formal economy and into our tax system.

I want to say a couple of things about two of my other favourite parts of this bill. One of them is the provisions in the bill which exempt climate-friendly transport from the provisions and the workings of the fringe benefit tax. The fringe benefit tax exemption is already enshrined in legislation—it provides an exemption for parking that is provided for employees at work. That makes no sense in the context of one of the most important changes we have to drive in our economy, and that is that we have to decarbonise the transport system. So while the tax system is providing a subsidy for people who drive to work, we are undermining everything else that we’re trying to do to decarbonise the light vehicle fleet, to encourage mode shift in the transport system so that there’s more walking, cycling, more micro-mobility in our cities, more use of investment in public transport, including rapid transit in our major centres. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot if we continue to subsidise the private motor car in that regard.

I want to acknowledge the advocacy over many years on this issue by Julie Anne Genter, my former colleague as Associate Minister of Transport. She’s been on about this for a very long time, and Labour was very happy in the committee stages to bring a Supplementary Order Paper that extended the fringe benefit tax exemption beyond just public transport and the operations of the Total Mobility service—for people with disability access—to a range of other forms of mobility including bicycles; e-bikes, of course; scooters; e-scooters; and micro-mobility sharing services that, in a short period of time, have become a staple for urban commuters in many New Zealand cities. So what this will do is it will act as an incentive, it will nudge the behaviour change that we need by workers and their employers to use climate-friendly travel to get to and from work. It’s good, from my point of view, to see Labour and the Greens working very nicely together on promoting the agenda of climate-friendly transport.

Finally, just let me say, very quickly, that I think that the extension of the exemption in perpetuity for build-to-rent is another highlight of this bill for me. We need more tenure-secure, high-quality rental housing in this country. The build-to-rent sector has enormous promise, as many other speakers have said, and what this bill does, by extending the same exemption from the interest limitation rules that applies to new builds in order to stimulate housing supply to give that in perpetuity to the build-to-rent sector is a fantastic move. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 202223, Platform Economy, and Remedial Matters) Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

Ayes 76

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

Noes 44

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This bill amends the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act. The Act creates a civil forfeiture regime for property derived from significant criminal activity. While our existing regime is highly effective, these changes will further improve our success and efficiency at confiscating property derived from organised and transnational criminal activity.

There are five key points I want to make in this third reading speech. The first is the purpose of this legislation. In effect, and putting it into plain and simple English language, we’re going after gang leaders and the facilitators of organised crime, and hitting them where it hurts—in their pockets. Gangs and organised criminals will always attempt to avoid the reach of the law by hiding their illegal profits, and the Government will continue to respond to ensure that crime does not pay.

The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill was introduced into this Parliament 10 years ago. It has become a very effective piece of legislation to ensure that those that seek to gain benefit and profit from crime are—rightly—penalised. But over the previous decade, the police have identified an area in particular which, with the evolution of knowledge of these organised criminal entities, has been that organised gangs have sought to put their profits into the names and into the places where it simply cannot be found. Therefore, this bill seeks to close that gap.

Now, our police have a strong reputation internationally for their work with seizing criminal assets, and these changes, essentially, allow them to reach a little bit further. There are two parts to why we’re doing this: one, to ensure that we’re closing off the gaps where those in those organised gangs have worked out where they can hide assets procured from illegal activities but, secondly, to protect the families of those—the ones that are loved by those that are in those criminal organisations. We know, the police know, and those of us that have lived our lives within the communities that understand the nature of gangs and criminal organisations know that there are those that are in their intimate circle, their loved ones, where they are being forced, by dint of their relationships to members in these criminal organised groups—they have been put under pressure to hide these assets. Well, we say no more—we say it’s time to cut off that route.

What we are doing here is that this is part and parcel of our Government’s continued multifaceted approach to tackling the harm caused by criminal organisations. This is the next step in the Government’s work to curb crime and make our communities safer. It will mean that not only do we have more front-line police than ever before but they have the powers to shut down these activities that are causing harm in all of our backyards, and this goes hand in hand with the Government’s support for work within our communities to stop our young people becoming involved in crime and criminal activity in the first place.

Across multiple initiatives across the justice sector, the Government has put over 1,500 more police officers on the front line, we have rolled out the front-line response model, the Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities programme, and we have rolled out the transnational organised crime strategy. We have delivered nearly 1,000 fog cannons so retailers have an immediate deterrent to theft, and ramped up further support for retailers. We’ve established the National Retail Investigation Support Unit. We’ve launched and expanded a Better Pathways package, which aims to place more young people in education, training, or work, to drive down youth crime and the participation of youth in criminal organisations and activities. We’ve put in place a new circuit-breaker response for agencies dealing with high-risk youth offenders. We’ve enacted the Firearm Prohibition Orders Legislation Act and increased the capacity of Te Pae Oranga providers and police to provide additional referrals for rangatahi who have experienced family harm.

This bill complements the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, which will be going through its second reading this afternoon, and that provides new targeted warrant and additional search powers to find and seize weapons from gang members during a gang conflict. It expands the range of offences where police can go after their cars, their motorbikes, and their bling. It increases to up to five years’ prison for a new offence for discharging a gun with intent to intimidate. It befuddled me, as the new Minister of Justice, to find out that we had simply inadequate deterrent measures by way of our penalties to deter people away from shooting armed weapons into public spaces.

We are also providing police and other enforcement agencies the ability to seize cash over $10,000 when found in suspicious circumstances. Like I said earlier, watches, bling, jewellery, precious metals and stones, motor vehicles, and boats are all being added to the list of high-value goods prohibited for sale for over a specified value.

In my introductory remarks, I talked about how there has been pressure on loved ones who are associated with those that choose to participate in criminal organisations, but particularly where our real focus is is on the leadership of those criminal organisations and enterprises. We know that they exploit personal relationships to hide and stash goods. That’s the nature of how, one, it speaks to the efficiency and the effectiveness of the criminal proceeds recovery scheme, but it also shows us that over the past decade, people have wised up to what they can do. So what we’ve sought to do here is ensure that there are appropriate safeguards in place for those that are associates. We’ve sought to define what constitutes an “associate”. It has to be somebody that is more than just a mere acquaintance who’s passed somebody on the street; there needs to be a real and tangible association.

The value of the property that cannot be explained needs to be worth more than $30,000. Now, in my opening remarks on this legislation when we introduced it, I said that we were really open to hearing whether or not that threshold was appropriate—was it set at the right level? Through the course of the select committee, by and large, we heard both views—that it was too high; that it was not enough—and I want to thank the select committee and, in particular, the former chair of the Justice Committee and now Minister of Police, the Hon Ginny Andersen, for enabling some amendments there to ensure that it’s the cumulative amount of the property to result in that $30,000 threshold, and that is indeed the one that we are passing.

We also know that—and I guess it’s been something that’s become clear over the past decade, since this regime has been in place—we do have those that have procured goods and property through illegal activity who seek to flee overseas, and it’s been difficult for the reach of the law to be able to get into those assets. Through the legislative fixes, and through this bill that will become law today and tonight, those issues will be addressed. We will be able to reach into those properties where the police know it’s been procured illegally. We’ll also be able to reach into other regimes such as the KiwiSaver scheme, which in certain circumstances over the life of this bill has been shown to be a place where illegally procured moneys have been stashed.

By and large, what our Government has sought to do in this area of law reform—we want to honour the late Chester Borrows and replicate his words. He introduced poor policy, and he made up for that in his later life. Banning gang patches simply wasn’t evidence-based and what we are doing on this side of the House is evidence-based, and I’m pleased to see this legislation go through this afternoon.

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

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The National Party does support the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, although we have to look across the other side of the House and see a Government that is completely muddled in its approach to crime. So today, we’ve had the Minister of Justice come in wearing her “I’m tough on crime” hat—that is the hat that she’s wearing today—but it’s the same day that another Government Minister has blamed all the violent crime on white cis males, whatever that is, and has had a very strange approach to law and order, to blame one particular ethnic group for all the crime and refuse to apologise for it. So we’re having a muddled approach to law and order. Then, another time, we have the Prime Minister—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Can you muddle your way back to the bill—

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): —please, the Hon Paul Goldsmith. Thank you.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you, Madam Speaker. At the same time, on another day, we’ll have the Prime Minister going to Hawke’s Bay and downplaying fears that the community has about crime. So on that particular day, they had a different approach; today, they’ve got the “tough on crime” approach. But then it’s very confusing, because the only other legislation of substance that the Government has done on law and order has been to repeal the three-strikes legislation.

So, on one day, they say that “Our sentences are too tough for our worst repeat offenders, and we’re going to shorten the sentences for those people.”, but then on another day, like today, they say that “We’re tough on crime, and we’re going to make the gangsters pay.”, and I think that is part of the problem. So if you are a gangster in New Zealand, you’re looking and you’re trying to figure out what the Government is doing, and you can’t figure it out because one day they say “We’re going to make sure that you don’t go to prison for longer if you’re a repeat serious offender.”, on another day they say “We’ll give you some extra money to run some meth programmes in the Hawke’s Bay.”, and then on another day, the—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member will actually talk about this bill. The way that he’s actually giving his speech right now is a general debate, but bring it back to this particular bill.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I did note that the Minister of Justice gave a very wide-ranging speech on a whole range of justice issues and she listed about 15 things that they’d done not related to this bill whatsoever, and so I assume that this was a reasonably broad debate on how this bill fitted within the wider justice policy. Is that not the case?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): This is the third reading of this particular bill.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Point of order, Madam Speaker, just to support my colleague’s point. I listened very carefully to the Minister’s address, because in the debate we should be able to get up and respond to that as the Opposition, and she made a very broad-ranging speech. She talked about youth crime, she talked about youth offenders, she talked about gang leaders, and she talked about the banning of gang patches, and so I would have thought that, as the Opposition, we were entitled to also be able to respond to those comments.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Speaking to the point of order, this is actually a particular bill; it is about gangs. What I’m actually saying to the member is bring it back to the bill. You haven’t even spoken about this particular bill.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I have.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Talk about the bill. Before you actually talk about the world and all the other issues about crime, talk about this bill.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I can talk about this bill, and the purpose of this bill is to make it tougher on gang members, in particular, but people who have made money out of crime. The purpose of this bill is to make it a little bit easier for Government agencies—enforcement agencies—to get some of that money back through the proceeds of crime.

The previous National Government set up a regime where we were able to go after the proceeds of crime and say, “You’ve made a lot of money. We’ll get it off you and take it off you if it is money that’s been made out of the proceeds of crime.”, and then what we’ve got here is the next iteration of what is, effectively, a game of cat and mouse, because the criminals are crafty. They find some way of putting the money somewhere else—to associated parents, to family members—and this legislation is the next step in that game to say, “Well, hang on a moment. If you hand it over to an associate and they can’t come up with any justification of how they’ve got that money and we can show that it’s coming through and it can’t be explained, then we’ll go after that money as well, particularly if it’s over a threshold of $30,000.”

That’s the point of this legislation, and, in so far as it goes, we welcome it for sending a message that crime shouldn’t pay and that the people of New Zealand don’t tolerate it, and they will make an effort to come after you and get some of that money back. So the message that this bill is sending is that this Government will come after the worst criminals. The point I’m making is that it’s confusing because if you are a criminal who has done well out of the proceeds of crime and is sitting on a lot of money, you will see this legislation and think, “OK, all right. The Government is going to come after me and my associates.”, but then it is confusing because while the Government is doing that, at the same time, they are reducing sentences for our worst repeat offenders by repealing three strikes, and they are also giving money to the very same gang organisations to run meth programmes—which nobody can quite understand. You’ve also got a Prime Minister standing up in the Hawke’s Bay when everybody is concerned about law and order, and saying there’s nothing to worry about, downplaying it, and pretending that there isn’t an issue.

So people are confused—rightly—about where this Government is coming from when it comes to law and order and when it comes to crime. They’re even more confused if they listen to the coalition partner, the Greens, who stand up and say that the one thing we need to do is that it’s outrageous that if you’re on the run and you’ve got a warrant out for your arrest, we take your benefit off you, and we should change the rules so you can still get your benefit when you’re on the run and you’ve got a warrant out for your arrest.

So people are quite confused about where this Government is coming from, because they are sending a message that they’re tough on crime, but, really, they’re soft on crime. More importantly, they are soft on the causes of crime, because they don’t do anything around the long-term issues such as truancy, housing, and all those sorts of things—and, Madam Speaker, you would be quite right, if I was to go further down that route, to try and draw me back to this particular piece of legislation. So the National Party supports this effort, in so far as it goes, to give the enforcement agencies a greater ability to come after the people who have made money out of crime and to claw back some of those funds.

Now, there was an argument about the threshold. The threshold set was $30,000, and we rightly made the point that, well, that’s great. So your Harley-Davidson, which is worth $25,000—you can keep that, because it’s not a significant proceed of crime. It’s a small one, so what you do is you give your Harley-Davidson to your mother-in-law and it’s hers, and everything’s sweet. Well, that’s not very effective and is pretty easily dealt with. One of the changes that we insisted on, and it was made during the select committee process, was to make the point that the $30,000 is a cumulative figure. So if you have two Harley-Davidsons, for example, and, collectively, they got over the $30,000 limit, then they would both be caught. But we would have argued for a lower limit—we would have argued for $10,000 and really put the pressure on—and so the Government was a bit mixed in its signals there.

I’d also agree with the changes around KiwiSaver. It would be a bad state of affairs if one way to keep your money if you have ill-gotten funds is to stick it into a KiwiSaver account, and that was regarded as sacrosanct and we’d never get into that. I’m all for people saving for their retirement, I’m all for strengthening the KiwiSaver regime, and I think that’s appropriate and fine, but it shouldn’t be used as a “get out of jail free” card when it comes to ill-gotten gains so that they could never be taken off you. So we agree with that thing.

But I come back, Madam Speaker, to my overall message, which is that this is a Government that is muddled on crime. It’s sending mixed signals, and that is why we have a situation in this country where many New Zealanders perceive that the law and order situation has got worse, and it’s not just a perception, because there has been a clear increase in violent crime over the past few years. There’s been a massive increase in gunshot crime, there’s been a massive increase in ram raids, and all these things—some of which bring extra resources in; some of them don’t—people are rightly concerned about, and they look to the Government and they ask themselves, “Well, what is this Government’s approach to crime?” They see that the only target in the broad justice sector that has been articulated by a Minister as the thing that they’re trying to deal with is a 30 percent reduction in prison numbers.

So they see crime is going up like that—they see violent crime going up about 40 percent—and they see prison numbers going down like that. They try and reconcile those two and they can’t work it out, and they can’t work it out because it makes no sense. It makes no sense at all, other than an ideologically driven reduction in prison numbers, regardless or irrespective of what’s happening on the ground and in the community.

So I come back to my basic point, which is that this is a bill that we support. It will make some difference. It sends a message that society will not tolerate criminals making a whole lot of money and keeping it and that we will come after you. We’ve given new tools for that to happen today, and it may help a little bit in that game of cat and mouse that we continue to play, sadly, with people who seek to make money out of the misery of others and their fellow New Zealanders. We support it, but we just do wish that the Government was more consistent in its approach to law and order, and more consistent in the message that it sends to the criminal fraternity in this country who seek to make money from the misery of others—and that’s our message. But, overall, this is a bill that will help in some small way. Thank you.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Police): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This is a bill that will make New Zealand safer, and it does it by backing our police to do their job. It gives police additional powers—stronger powers—to seize assets from criminals. In a nutshell, it hits criminals where it hurts the most—in their pockets. It flips the onus, quite simply, that instead of police having to engage forensic accountants to comb through accounts and prove that an asset was obtained illegally or through illicit means, it is then put upon that person associated with a criminal network to prove that their high-value asset was, in fact, obtained legitimately. So it makes the task of police much easier to restrain illegal assets.

Now, I think that it’s important to note in this space and acknowledge Mr Goldsmith and the fact that he is voting for this legislation, and a potential reason why he is supporting the legislation was that this piece of legislation was, in fact, in National’s gang action plan back in 2008, but, unfortunately, it was not delivered upon in the nine years that they were in Government, so it’s good to see this bill passing into law now. This bill will form part of a suite of legislation that will give police the rules and the tools to fight organised crime. Legislation that has already been passed to give police additional powers in this space is the firearm prohibition orders bill—another bill that was listed in the 2008 National Gang Action Plan and not delivered upon.

The other piece of legislation I would like to refer to will receive its second reading, hopefully, in the next few days while the House is sitting, and that’s the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, which includes new powers to seize firearms, to seize highvalue goods, and also to target vehicles that are being used by organised criminal groups in motorcades. This change in the law will make it easier for police not only to restrain and forfeit property of gangs but also to help cripple organised criminal networks, and this will work quite closely alongside the fact that police will have 700 dedicated front-line officers specifically to organised crime.

Having this legislative change alongside more police will give ongoing operations such as Operation Cobalt more ability to continue the good work they do to seize weapons, seize drugs, and arrest organised criminal members. We’ve already seen record numbers in that space, and with this legislation alongside additional investment in the front line, we will continue to see results in that space.

This Government has backed the police, and that was part of a Budget bid in last year’s Budget that invested $94 million to cripple organised criminal networks—the single biggest injection that we have seen in New Zealand. That investment will continue to see results as we see the front line being appropriately resourced to tackle organised criminal groups.

The one other power I would like to mention is that power specific to respond to transnational offending. Just today, I spoke at the transnational organised crime conference, where groups from across the world have come to New Zealand to meet and share ideas on how we tackle transnational organised crime. This additional power will be welcomed. It will enable that when we have someone who is offshore and is using money-laundering and other tactics and using New Zealand as a platform, it will enable police to restrain an item, even if that person is offshore, and require them to justify and verify where they got that asset from, whether it be a house or a high-value good in some other form. If they are unable to do that, then police will have additional powers to also restrain and forfeit that particular item. So it enables us to cooperate and work more comprehensively with our transnational organised criminal partners to tackle crime in this space.

To conclude, this bill delivers a law that will hit criminals where it hurts—in their pockets—by crippling them financially. That is a far smarter way of working and to dismantle organised criminal networks. It is just one bill in a suite of legislation that works to make our communities safer by tackling organised crime. This, alongside additional police, more tactical resourcing, and investment in that space should give New Zealand strong confidence that this is a Government that puts New Zealand’s safety first by backing our police to have the rules and the tools to do the job. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Firstly, I just want to say that it’s a pleasure to stand and take a call on this, the third reading of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill. I agree with the Minister of Justice and I agree with the previous speakers that these bills are important, and we do support them because we want to continue to apply pressure to gangs and organised criminal groups inside our country.

I’ve been very clear that in relation to this bill, although we’ve worked together—and I acknowledge the chair of the Justice Committee now, Vanushi Walters, who is in the House. We have tried to work together across the committee to strengthen this bill. Ultimately, for me personally, I was completely aligned with Chris Cahill and the Police Association in being very clear that if we really wanted to have an effective bill and if we really wanted to provide the police with a tool, then we would have reduced the threshold from $30,000 down to at least $10,000.

There have been some changes made around the ability to have a cumulative test applied, but, ultimately, we could have made this bill much stronger and a lot more effective for the front-line officers who are stretched to breaking point at the moment in trying to deal with a massive increase in crime over the last four to five years, and we could have done better. We could have done better as a select committee and we could have done better as a House to give them better tools to go out there and fight and deal with what they are currently, which we all agree in this House is gang leaders that are out of control.

The Minister sort of referred to gang leaders, and I’d just like to make a comment on that. Gang leaders in this country have never been as strong as they currently are. There’s been a 50 percent increase in gang members over the last five years. They’ve got more members, they’ve got more avenues of being able to launder money, they’ve got a greater ability to be able to hide assets, they’ve managed to extend and grow their international networks, they’ve become more violent, and they’re more likely to carry firearms. So, unfortunately, today in New Zealand, gang leaders are much stronger and have a lot more influence than what they did five years ago.

They’re more sophisticated. You’ll see them often out now on social media running PR exercises trying to respond and help with the state of emergency. Let me be very clear: they are, quite simply, PR exercises to try and pull the wool over people’s eyes. These are nothing more than organised crime entities that are out there, fully focused on peddling methamphetamine and drugs, using standover tactics and intimidation, having a presence in licensed premises, theft, conversion, and money-laundering. That’s what their core business is, and that’s what it will continue to be.

I want to just touch very quickly on this. The Minister also raised youth crime. Youth and juvenile offending, as we’ve seen, especially in the last 12 months, is on a sharp increase. A big part of that—and I’ve always said, and there’s been many people in the academics and everyone else, and the hand-wringers say, “Oh, these youth and juvenile offenders—it’s just random. They’re not organised. The gangs have got nothing to do with it.” Make no mistake: the adult gangs are actively involved in working with these youth and juvenile offenders, because having a youth or juvenile offender go out and do their dirty work insulates them from the adult criminal justice system, and they’ll continue to recruit and use these young people.

It’s very sad that in our country—in New Zealand, which should be the safest country in the world—we have lost some of our innocence, because now when we talk about juvenile and youth offenders, we’re not talking about them going out and meddling in a bit of shoplifting, getting in with the wrong crowd a bit, and sort of pushing the boundaries; we’re talking about youth and juvenile offenders that are exposed to a constant diet of violence on social media and that are posting on social media and goading other youth offenders and youth gangs to go out and commit worse crimes.

We had the awful situation in Beach Haven about two weeks ago, where a young guy in his mid-20s, who was trying to get home in the evening like most people do, had had a minor fender-bender, and the two offenders in that vehicle, a 14-year-old and a 17yearold, allegedly went back—because I’m conscious of the fact that this is still in front of the courts—to that vehicle and stabbed that young guy while he was still sitting in the vehicle’s seat.

Shanan Halbert: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I appreciate that the member Mark Mitchell is raising the issue of Beach Haven. I do understand that it is before the courts, which the member acknowledged. The details that he is putting out in this House this evening, in my view, are not accurate, and so I’d just ask him to consider that and maybe just come back to the bill and avoid that particular example.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Speaking to the point of order, Madam—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I haven’t made a ruling on that point of order, but I would ask the member to just keep to the bill, and matters that are still before the courts—I would prefer that you don’t even cover allegations. Please just go back to the bill.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Just speaking to the point, though, Madam Speaker, the issues that I’ve raised today are nothing that haven’t already been in the public arena and have already been reported.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): They are, however, still within the court system right now, with—

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes, and that’s why I referred to alleged offenders.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Yes. Please just don’t refer to allegations; just come back to the bill. Thank you.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: So the point that I was making, Madam Speaker—because I am speaking to the point that was raised by the Minister around high-risk youth offenders. The fact of the matter is we have come out with some very strong policies on this side of the House, so instead of mocking them, which is what the Government did, I’d actually ask them to look at them seriously and recognise the fact that—certainly, the one around a youth military academy is directed specifically at youth offenders aged from 15 to 17.

I’m seeing looks of horror on the other side of the House that this fascinates me. I’ve been involved in what’s called the Limited Service Volunteer Programme for 12 years. It targets young people from 17 to 24 that are off the rails, they’re making bad decisions in their lives, and some of them have been in prison. They go into the Limited Service Volunteer Programme, which is Defence Force - led with support from the Ministry of Social Development and police, and 70 percent of them get their lives turned around and come into employment and are successful. They have the best role models and mentors that we offer as a country around them and they get proper investment in them.

Quite simply, what we’ve said with regard to those 15- to 17-year-olds, who often have the adult gangs’ hooks in them, who are making very bad decisions and poor decisions in their lives, and who are a risk not only to themselves but the communities that they live in, is that we would take them and we’d put them into a programme and we’d extrapolate that over 12 months, and we would invest heavily in their education. We’d get them making good decisions in their lives so that they’d have some aspiration and that they’d be set up and equipped to take advantage of all the opportunities that this country offers. That is how you would start to deal with some of those really tough, crunchy issues around youth offending.

I just wanted to raise the issue that the previous speaker, Ginny Andersen, raised around firearms prohibition bills. She spoke about the firearms prohibition bill and said that National had failed to bring a bill to the House. Well, we’ve brought three members’ bills to the House over the last six years. Every single one of them was voted down by the Labour Government, and then what did the Labour Government do? They bring a—[Interruption] Well, that’s exactly what happened. So what did the Labour Government do? They brought in a firearms prohibition order that’s got no additional warrant for search powers—it’s basically useless. So I’ll be very interested to see just how much the firearms prohibition order that was passed in this House is actually practically applied and used by our front-line police officers, because it certainly doesn’t give the ability to—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): In the last two minutes—

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): —can the member come back to this particular bill.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, I’m referring to the issues that the Minister raised.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): And you have actually addressed that, so I’m now asking you to come back to this particular bill.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes. Well, there was another issue that the Minister raised, and the last issue that she raised when she was talking to her bill was banning gang patches. She raised the Hon Chester Borrows, and I want to acknowledge Chester—rest in peace. But she raised gang patches, and let me tell the House something: I myself took a bill through this House about six years ago that banned that banned gang patches—

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to bring your attention to Speaker’s ruling 129/2, in relation to a third reading of a bill, that “the member should summarise and discuss the bill in front of the House, not what another party might do in place of that [bill].” I’m just wondering if you’d give some consideration to that, please.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Thank you for that assistance. However, I have been trying to get the member to come back to this particular bill at a third reading. Please do in the last minute.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Just seeking your advice, Madam Speaker, I would like some genuine advice on this. The Minister herself raised in speaking to her own bill—this is her bill, and the Minister raised and spoke about the banning of gang patches.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): She did—

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Why do I not have the opportunity to respond to that?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): —and there are other issues that she raised, and you have also spoken about those. I am now asking you, as the Speaker in this House, because it is a third reading, to please come back to this particular bill—in your very brief one minute.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: OK, I’m just wondering why the Minister wasn’t brought back to the bill and why the Opposition members are being asked to be bought back to the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Most of the speeches, they were really relevant—they were speaking to the bill most of the time. I let you actually cover other things in the bill. I’m just asking you in your last minute to please come back to this particular bill.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, all I’m going to say in my last minute is quite simply this. It is that for Labour members to stand up and say, “We’re being tough on crime” with a bill like this—to me, it’s sending a message to our front-line police officers that, actually, in this House, we’re not willing to give them the tools that they really need for this bill to be effective.

We’ve put a bill through, and we all agree that recovery of assets is really important—and our police are very good at doing that, and they’re very successful with their prosecutions in court. But we’ve left a threshold of $30,000 in this bill, and so that’s going to make their job much harder. They’re going to have to try and work out and calculate and get an estimate of actually what the value of the goods are that these gangs have, and we shouldn’t have done that. In this House, we had the opportunity to give them a bill that genuinely allowed them to go out there and be quick and efficient in actually taking down these gang leaders that the Minister was talking about.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to make some brief remarks in relation to this bill. I do want to comment on the select committee process that I was part of, and, in particular, to thank Ginny Andersen for ushering this bill through that process. I’ve said this before of the Justice Committee, but I do think we take our role very seriously, and the role of select committee is a very sacred one in the democratic process. We’re tasked with the difficult challenge, often, of walking into the room with open minds and really wrestling with some of the tensions—the difficult tensions—that we need to make a call on.

So for those who haven’t read through the select committee report and who are interested in this area, I suggest they do. But also a number of colleagues have referred to the Police Association submission, which I did think made some excellent points, and, again, it didn’t attempt to engage with some of the tensions.

One of the big tensions for many of us in the room was the inclusion of the term “associate” and exactly what was meant by that. The Police Association made the excellent point that section 5 puts some boundaries around that term but also—and perhaps more important to me and others in the room—they made the point that section 51 of the principal Act allows the judiciary to exclude a respondent’s property from asset forfeiture in the case of hardship. A number of us were very concerned about that, but it was clear that there’s already legislative protection in that area.

The second tension was one that’s been mentioned by my colleague Mark Mitchell, and that was the threshold for seizure. But I do think we met that balance in terms of applying the cumulative standard to that $30k, but still keeping it at $30k.

The final tension which really stood out for me was the requirement for formal evaluation at the point of restraint, and I think, as a committee, we had a really good discussion about how, practically, that would be quite difficult for the police to do, but it may also trigger an alert to the respondent, where they would dispose of the said property. So where we landed was inserting a clause which confirmed that the Commissioner of Police would only need an estimate at that stage, and then once you have restraint, a more formal evaluation could occur.

So it was an extremely robust process. We did discuss in detail across the National Party colleagues and the ACT Party colleagues where we would sit. I do think we’ve come to a fair result, and I commend this bill to the House.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Oh, Madam Speaker.

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

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Sorry, it felt like the Hon Mark Mitchell was taking a second call—God forbid! Sorry, Madam Speaker.

It isn’t a pleasure to rise to speak to this bill, actually; it’s a bit of a disappointment, as the Greens speaker and former member of the criminal bar. This is a bill that everybody who has spoken so far has commended as if it’s going to do something meaningful in the criminal justice system by way of somehow disincentivising crime. It is, in fact, a bill that does a lot of what the previous National Government did around lowering due process standards, lacking focus on actual criminal activity, and certainly ignoring all the evidence of what, in fact, causes crime. In lots of ways, it becomes more harmful, the more you think about how we focus our energy and congratulate ourselves as a House of Representatives every time we bestow more and more and more powers upon the police force without focusing on what in fact it means to be tough on crime itself, which is to say that we prevent it.

This bill goes so far as to allow us, as a Government, as a society, to remove property from people based on it’s being tainted. It’s so alarming to me, as someone who’s come through a justice system context where things normally have to be proved with evidence, to say that we are talking about a standard as vague and amorphous as tainted property being removed, and that property tainted by crime—not obtained as a direct result of a proven crime; just tainted—can be owned by someone who is an associate of one or more members of an organised criminal group.

So what does “associate” mean? We’ve heard that, apparently, there are boundaries around that in section 5. What does “tainted” mean? Don’t know—we’ll have to litigate that out somehow. Who is going to be litigating that? People on legal aid, apparently, are just going to rely on a broken legal aid system to fight back against who the police happen to see as being an associate of a criminal group and whose property is tainted by crime.

So we’re very, very far, here in this bill, from talking about actual crime or criminals, if that’s a term that we want to use in terms of who we are disincentivising and what kind of activities we’re sanctioning—very far. We’re also very far from the usual standards of criminal justice proceedings, which say that the standard of proof is beyond reasonable doubt and that the onus of proof remains on the Crown from the beginning of the proceedings until the end.

The standard of proof here is balance of probabilities. So it’s not asking was there actual criminal activity, was there an actual association, and was there property that was obtained as a result of that criminal activity, but is it probably the case, and, of course, then we come to the onus, which is reversed. So there is a presumption that your property was tainted and that you are an associate of a criminal group—probably—and if you want to reverse that probable assumption, you have to prove it.

So this bill isn’t actually talking about criminals or crime or keeping communities safe. It’s not about disincentivising violent crime, at all. It seems to be a lot about either revenue gathering by way of taking people’s property, or what seems to be more the way that we’re going in this House, unfortunately—on both sides of this House—about making politicians look tough on crime. It’s making us look like we’re doing something about crime.

What’s kind of heartbreaking about the fact that we’ve chosen to lower the standards, reverse the onus, and use amorphous and unclear words is that we actually have a lot of hard evidence and data about what, in fact, causes crime. If we say that criminal offending has gone up this year, or in whatever period we’re using, and if we’re saying violence is an actual issue that we need to address—well, great! We’ve got the evidence of what causes our communities to become unsafe and what causes violence—we know that.

Unfortunately, instead of it becoming a revenue-gathering exercise or something that lends itself well to knee-jerk simplified responses like this bill, it requires us to invest resource, and it’s weird because—actually, I did hear Paul Goldsmith very briefly refer to this—we can look at what’s happened over the past year. We have a cost of living crisis. We have poverty and inequality on the rise at record levels. We have a mental health crisis. We might have a truancy crisis, if anyone could agree on the stats. But what we know in the criminal justice sector, based on all the research, is that when young people come into the custody of police and then are sentenced to detention, 89 percent of those young people—that’s under-19-year-olds—are then diagnosed with a serious learning disability. So investing in inclusive education is a criminal justice response.

We have mental health, and addiction treatment, we have inclusive education, we have housing and incomes—all as categories of criminal justice responses that we know that the data shows would help keep our communities safe. Instead of talking about tainted associate property that maybe comes from some crime that we haven’t proved or can’t even name, we could actually look at the evidence and listen to the experts, and listen to the people on the ground.

So, unfortunately, this isn’t a good bill. Unfortunately, it’s just in line with an old pattern of politicians doing what makes us look slightly tough or good, and I am disappointed that this Government has gone that way.

We have the solutions, and next term, with a bigger Green heart in Government, we’ll get to those. I don’t commend the bill to the House.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand in support of the third reading of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, and before I start on my address, I’d just like to talk to some of the issues that the Green Party member Golriz Ghahraman brought up. I actually understand exactly what she says when she talks about, you know, “This is all about the criminal proceeds and it’s about the punishment, and we’re not looking at the causes of crime.”—and I understand what you’re saying there. But on reflection, I too have to think, well, the Government, and the Green Party with them, have had five years of being able to look at what it is that causes crime, and then try to implement some of their ideas on how to address it.

What this particular bill is about is how we deal with those assets of the ill-gotten gains and how we look after victims of crime, because from the Green Party, what I hear about is the criminals and we very rarely hear about the victims. I would hope that rather than it being purely a revenue-driven bill that we put through, maybe some of these proceeds of crimes could actually go back to the victims as well, but that would be another bill for another day.

The purpose of this bill is to prevent individuals from profiteering from significant criminal activity—not just any criminal activity; it’s got to be significant criminal activity—and we’ll do this by improving our civil forfeiture regime. ACT agrees that we do need to target the illicit profits of leaders and facilitators of organised crime and transnational offending, just as it is outlined in the introduction to this bill.

Throughout the select committee process and the committee of the whole House stage, we fleshed out—as my colleague across the floor there Vanushi Walters talked about—all the different areas within the bill that we went through. We did have some little disagreements, but we pretty much came up with the agreement across the House—well, across the select committee—as to how we were going to proceed with this. We have also recorded in the Hansard, through the committee of the whole House stage, our expectations on how certain clauses within this bill are meant to be worked by both police in their application, and by the courts when they deliver their seizure orders.

It’s really important, I think, across the entire House that when we talk of taking people’s assets, of forfeiture, and of seizure—and we are also including associates—that we did have significant debate around what an associate was and who could be caught up in this regime, because quite often it would be family members. You know the old saying “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family”, and to have your assets taken because of something that a family member has done, of course, is not anyone’s ideal way of making law.

So we’re changing the way that we address criminal profiteering by creating a two-tier restraining and forfeiture order system so that we can make restraining orders against organised criminal groups, who have been structuring their affairs to avoid the existing restraining and forfeiture legislation, and I would note that it is important that we have this now. There has been over a 50 percent increase in gang members in New Zealand. We’ve had a rise of gang members higher than we’ve had police recruitments.

We’ve had a promised 1,800 police that would be delivered by 2020, 2021, 2022, and we’re now hoping it’s by election 2023, but the reality is that the criminals and the proceeds of crime are becoming more attractive to other potential gang members—or prospectors, as they’re called—than what we can get by recruiting police. So we need to make sure that we take that significant criminal activity of theirs and we make it harder for them to utilise their funds and their criminal activities for recruitment, and we focus on making sure we have a robust and strong police force able to tackle them, as well.

I’m left to think of how our organised crime has changed over the last few years. You know, we used to just have thuggery in our gangs around New Zealand; now it’s become organised thuggery, and we don’t even see a lot of our criminals even walking around in patches any more. I’ve seen some that are driving the latest Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs and they’re wearing suits—

Shanan Halbert: Back to the bill, my friend—back to the bill.

NICOLE McKEE: —so we need to make sure that when we do go after them—and I am talking about the bill, because when we are talking about people that are driving around in a Mercedes-Benz, these are significant criminal activities obviously purchased by criminal funds. So this is relevant to the bill.

The forfeiture orders will now fall under two types: either type 1 or type 2, and type 1 relates to the organised criminal groups. If the court is satisfied that a person who has had a type 1 restraining order applied against them has been either a member or an associate of an organised criminal group and has property that they cannot explain financing for where the value of the questionably obtained property exceeds the current $30,000 restraining threshold and that the property isn’t tainted, then that order is likely to be successful. But the onus is on the applicant—which is the police—to show the court that the criteria has been fully met.

So it’s not like we can just apply for this type 1 order on anyone. It has to be significant criminal activity and it has to meet these other thresholds, including the $30,000 accumulated asset amount that they are wanting to forfeit. The respondent, in turn, may be required to actually prove that their purchases were legitimate and not from the illgotten gains of significant criminal activity, should they indeed wish to keep them.

I note, again, that in my member’s bill—which did not proceed past the first reading—we could have approached two key areas of concern to society within this legislation, with the two areas being gun crime by unlicensed criminals, and an asset or financial deterrent to possession of illegally held firearms. Perhaps that’s something we can look at in the future to make this legislation even stronger for our victims and to ensure that illegally held firearms stop being used in the way that they are in our communities. The $30,000 threshold would not have been required, in this instance, to be met if a firearm or arms were found during a raid on an organised criminal group and that firearm was held illegally. So I do think it is something that we should address because we’re hearing daily reports, again, of firearms being used in criminal activity.

The type 2 forfeiture orders must meet the same criteria as type 1, in that they’ve got to be a member of an organised criminal group, they can’t explain their assets based on their income, and the value is over the $30k threshold. But type 2 orders must be made on specific property, and it will exclude the value that can be explained by the respondent’s legitimate property. If the respondent can prove that ownership is legit, then an order must not be made.

Under the type 2 regime, orders will not be made where it’s not in the interests of justice to do so. For example, taking the 1980s car away from a mum of four because she cannot show how she legitimately had the funds to purchase it and it is likely that over time she actually could have legitimately paid for it, think of a disclosure source order—sorry, I’m getting mixed up in my own notes. When we have a mother who has the vehicle, the 1980s car—I’m just—bugger the notes, sorry.

When you’ve got a mum that has four kids, she’s got a 1980s car, and she can’t show how she legitimately paid for it, but it can be shown that she did work—and probably could—she’s likely to keep it. But if she’s the one driving around in the latest MercedesBenz and she’s on a benefit with her four kids and can’t prove how she could afford to do it, then that becomes part of the type 2 asset forfeiture.

A further change to this bill was agreed when we discussed self-incriminating statements that could be made by respondents when responding to production orders, examination orders, or disclosure of source orders. The change we made is in allowing those self-incriminating statements to be used in any civil proceeding under the Act. But we also directed a change to the bill so that respondents are made aware of this when they are provided a disclosure source order. This change to the criminal proceeds Act will take a tougher stance on asset forfeiture for significant criminal activity, and we’re proud to support that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Thank you. The time has come for us to break for dinner. I will resume the Chair at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7 p.m.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be the first one to kick this one off after our dinner break. I’d like to begin, as this is a third reading, by thanking all of our submitters who took time to present or write in to the Justice Committee, as well as the officials and advisers and my colleagues on the select committee for their mahi on the bill. It has been evident from the previous contributions that there were some complex issues to consider in this bill, and the select committee worked its way through those challenges very competently and brought the bill to the House in the improved shape that it is in now.

This bill contributes to the Government’s election manifesto commitment to respond to organised crime by ensuring the enforcement agency has the appropriate powers to seize the proceeds of crime, disrupt organised criminal offending, and hold its ringleaders to account. As Minister Allan said so eloquently in her speech, “We say no more.”

Currently, organised criminals can structure their affairs to avoid their assets being restrained or forfeited. They do this by creating distance between themselves and their assets by putting property in the name of associates. The Minister has already explained in her speech that the definition of “associate” was one of those complex issues that the select committee had to consider, and there were several submitters, in fact, that gave their views on this particular point, with one of those being the New Zealand Law Society.

The bill is about ensuring that crime doesn’t pay and that there are, in fact, major consequences for criminal and gang activity. The bill is the next step in the Government’s work to curb crime and make our communities safer, and, as the Minister of Police, Ginny Andersen, said before, it will mean that not only will we have more front-line police than ever before but also those police will have greater powers to hit the gangs where it hurts. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Simon O’Connor for a five-minute call.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Oh, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s always good to let the House know that I’ll only speak for five minutes, or close to it—it won’t be a 10-minute oration.

Look, National—as per the earlier speakers—is supporting this bill. I’ve used the quote before, and members will know it. Dr Emily Henderson will know this quote from Voltaire: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”, and, ultimately, we think this is a good bill. It’s not a perfect bill. It’s not the absolute—I don’t know—sinecure or solution which the Government is putting forward. There are positives to this bill, but it does not go far enough, and I suppose that at this third reading, the other message I’d like to put out to the public is that in some ways this is just a very light touch on what should be some more substantial—again, to repeat that: more substantial—legal changes required.

So the idea that we can better recover ill-gotten funds from those New Zealanders involved in crimes—particularly gangs—is a good thing. I don’t think anyone in this House disagrees with that. I’m no lawyer, but it’s a bit of a legal switch from normally the onus of proof being usually on the Crown to prove that you have gotten these gains inappropriately, shall we say, but this bill says that, ultimately, we go to the person who’s got thousands of dollars of cash or motorcycles, houses, or whatever gains, and say, “How on earth do you have these? You need to prove to us that you have not got these through illegitimate or”—of course—“criminal means.” So, conceptually, we’re all for that.

As other speakers have touched on, part of the rub around this bill was that it expands it to not just the likes of gangs and well-known criminals but their associates. So we’re talking family members, in particular, but also friends, and let’s be really, really clear that it’s incredibly well-known that—and I’ll just use gangs as an example. I want to stress that it’s an example; it’s not the example.

Crime is committed by many people outside of gangs, but gangs are prolific. They put those ill-gotten gains into the hands of their family members to, in effect, hide what they’re doing. This bill does go some way to address that, and the Justice Committee spent a lot of time trying to tease this through to make sure we were targeting the right associates and that there was the right threshold—for want of a better term—in order to initiate this, and the right abilities for those people to be able to speak and to challenge what is happening. I think we’re in an OK place, and I use that term quite specifically. I don’t think we’re in a great place, and I want to be really, really clear in this third reading that I don’t think that’s a failure of the select committee or MPs or whatever. This is just a very difficult area, and so it would be my expectation that we will end up revisiting this law at some point to try and tighten it up.

The other element which was of concern was the threshold, which I think is at $30,000. There’s been a lot of debate across the House over whether that should have been lower. I certainly sit on that side. I think it’s better to trigger the law and trigger this particular piece of legislation earlier rather than not, and then to allow the process to follow through. As I said at the start, the perfect is the enemy of the good, and I think National, ultimately, is happy to see this go through, but we would of course like to see a lot more.

If I could return to where I started: overall, I think, for the general public to understand, the Government is making some moves, but these are very, very small moves in an area which is crime, and we are seeing much, much more crime—much more violent crime, in particular—in our communities. To the public: do not be fooled that these are actually substantial steps towards a solution. They are steps indeed, but not sufficient for what is required.

My last plea, particularly when we are talking about crime, is a call—particularly with the events in recent days—for the laws to be rightly and justly applied to all people in all circumstances. I don’t want to go down the rabbit-hole of the protests of the weekend, but it’s the plea to those in justice and the police that when it comes to criminal activity, prosecute the law without fear or favour towards all people, regardless of circumstance, politics, or ideologies. It’s incredibly important that the rule of law be maintained and that the police undertake the activities and the protections of all New Zealanders, of all their basic freedoms and rights, at all times, regardless of the politics. Sadly, I think that in recent days we’ve seen the failure there, and, doubly so, the failure to protect women in our community. But, on that, I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Tangi Utikere—a five-minute call.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana, Madam Speaker. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to take a call at the third reading of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill. This goes hand in hand with another piece of legislation that’s on the Order Paper, the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, but that’s for another day.

In this House, we often look at legislation, and titles can serve as a main descriptor, and for this bill, it certainly does that. This bill at third reading will allow for new powers that would specifically target associates of crime but, in particular, associates of organised criminal activity and criminal groupings as well, and that’s quite defined and quite specific.

I want to commend the Justice Committee, which worked through this process. I want to commend the Minister of Justice, who has brought this to the House.

When I have a look at the bill, there are a number of tools there. One that does jump out is, for example, the introduction of a new court order that would be based, for those that are located internationally but who have some assets here, in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the onus is being placed on them to ensure that they can provide some evidence to, effectively, indicate that they have obtained those items or assets legally in New Zealand.

So that is one example of a tool that will give more power to authorities to crack down on criminal offending that is targeted for associates of organised crime, and that is a good thing. I commend this bill to the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. It’s a pleasure to make what will be my third speech on this bill. You would have heard me last time very passionately speaking about the process which the select committee has been through. The Justice Committee is a hard-working committee and we have gone through this bill with a fine-tooth comb to really tease out what “associate” means in the legislation, but also whether that threshold was appropriate. Ultimately, the committee arrived on the threshold of $30,000 being the appropriate level, and that’s what I will just touch on tonight in a brief call.

It’s my view that there are appropriate safeguards around the powers that police are being given in this piece of legislation. This actually goes part of the way towards Labour’s manifesto commitments at the last election to ensure that police had the powers that they were asking for to tackle organised crime, and it’s an important tool in a suite of changes, including the increase in front-line police officers that this Government has overseen. It’s 1,600 now, and it’s on track for 1,800 by June.

But this tool is around seizing assets from associates of gangs. These are people who are known to be close associates of people who are organised in committing crimes, and it’s important that we are able to give police the power to investigate and then seize assets that have had some kind of ill-gotten gain element to them. But the thresholds here ensure that the value of the property that cannot be explained away must be worth $30,000.

The committee had a lot of discussion about what sorts of assets they would be—and I note the previous speech from Nicole McKee. The committee spent a lot of time understanding whether, say, a mum and her kids driving a car that couldn’t be explained necessarily by her income—were she a beneficiary or a minimum wage worker—would be included in this.

I think it was on all of the members of the committee that we really understood that we didn’t want the police pursuing those types of cases and that this was really about targeting organised crime rings hiding assets in the families’ assets, and that is something the Government wants to protect these people from. It’s important that we design a system where gang members aren’t putting pressure on little old mum, on their sisters, on their children, or on their teenage daughters to hide their assets in their names and own things like houses, Mercedes-Benzes, boats, and things like that. It’s important that the police have the power to seize them. That’s why this is a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s been a really interesting bill, actually. I think we’ve had a lot of good discussion, if I may say, at the various stages, including at the Justice Committee and about the select committee proceedings—and, of course, the focus of that was the second reading, but I think some of the points that were made by submitters have, rightly, been raised by those contributing in this, the third and final reading.

The rights issues, I think—as always—should be taken seriously, and, for what it’s worth, I commend the Greens for bringing to the attention of the House some of the ruleof-law issues that we have. But I think it’s actually worth analysing what’s being done in the bill quite precisely before we get too far down the track of determining whether the onus of proof—the presumption of innocence right—is engaged. I just do want to speak to that, partly because I think it’s the most important aspect of the bill for those who are concerned with civil liberties. There’s also freedom of association, but that I’ll get on to, if I may, should time permit.

But the most important thing in terms of understanding people’s rights and responsibilities, too, in relation to the criminal proceeds forfeiture and seizure is the idea that things might be taken from them and might be presumed to be gained as a result of illicit activity, and, of course, the general rule in the criminal law—and I emphasise the criminal law—is that there’s an onus on proof whereby if a thing is said against a person that they’ve done a thing that’s wrong, that needs to be proved against them positively. In the absence of that, then it’s presumed that they didn’t do that thing and that they are innocent, and, of course, that’s a very longstanding tradition, and more than a convention—in fact, it’s an ultimate requirement of our criminal justice system.

But I think it’s worth drawing the distinction between what we have here, which is presuming that people are in certain circumstances that might indicate the likelihood of property having been obtained in an illegal manner, on the one hand, versus being presumed to have conducted an illegal act to have gained it. So, actually, what we’re doing is establishing a two-stage process, where the goods can be seized on the basis of that presumption—it’s the other way round—and then, of course, there’s an opportunity for proof to be made that, indeed, notwithstanding the starting point of illegality, nevertheless the person had a right to own that significant asset of property by fair means and not foul.

The other aspect that the Green Party member Golriz Ghahraman touched on in discussing this burden of proof is the standard of proof, so that’s how sure we have to be to make a determination. Whereas in the criminal law, to decide that a person’s done a thing wrong that could result in them having their liberty deprived from them, you need to be certain beyond reasonable doubt—I don’t mean you, Madam Speaker. Although you’re as close to a judge as one can get without being a judge, I suppose, in a way, so I should be careful what I say, shouldn’t I? Even as a speaker, I should be careful what I say, so it kind of works the other way. But you have great judgment, Madam Speaker, but not necessarily in that sense, without an “e”, the first “e”—anyway. So, anyway, I’ll keep moving—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): If the member could stop digging and just come right back.

CHRIS PENK: Thank you—I was getting close to digging my way out of the hole. Anyway, the Green member rightly pointed out that we’re operating on the balance of probabilities. So she said, “Well, whether it’s likely or not”, and that’s shorthand, I suppose, for 50 percent likelihood, or slightly more than 50 percent, that the property was ill-gotten gains—just to use the vernacular. But, of course, we’re not talking about a standard of proof by which they might be convicted of having conducted the crime; it’s actually about making it unattractive to have operated in a way that’s generally illegal, ending up with the assets, and not being able to prove that they were gained lawfully.

So I think that’s all able to be squared with our consciences as good lawmakers. In any case, the policy considerations are very strong, so I suppose that even if one decided that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act minimum standard of criminal procedure were engaged such that a person could be determined to be guilty despite their right to be presumed innocent, nevertheless there’d be a strong argument for it being a justified limitation.

There’s sort of a related point, actually, that I don’t know that I had a chance to mention at previous readings and others might have, and, if so, that’s commendable. But, just to be sure, I do want to place on record the work that the select committee did in relation to the status of self-incriminating statements.

So it’s well-known, even by people who don’t particularly claim to be au fait with the law, that you have the right to remain silent, and in the context of making a statement that would indicate that you’ve done a thing that’s wrong or criminal, we’ve got the right, all of us—and have had for centuries, if we go back far enough—to remain silent and not offer a defence. Of course, what’s done with that in different quasi-criminal contexts might be interesting in itself, but suffice to say, the select committee I think did a helpful thing here. I didn’t have any part in it, but in reading the report, it’s clear that they’ve turned their minds to the question about: if a person is required to say where they got some property from, then, in doing so, they have to speak up and they have to explain themselves in a way that could indicate that they had actually done a crime. As I say, a starting point in our law is that you don’t have to offer a defence in those circumstances, and so the select committee, in their wisdom—no doubt backed by some excellent advice to encourage those members to come to that conclusion—say that self-incriminating statements can only be used for civil proceedings about an application for type 1 assets forfeiture, and so on.

In any case, the point is that this seizure of assets regime can’t lead via the statement someone is required to make about how they got the assets to them being charged with a crime in a way that wouldn’t have been possible without that kind of mechanism. I may have gone about that the long way round, but I think it’s an important thing to put on the record that we don’t want people to be forfeiting their rights in that way. We’re not requiring that, and if it should ever come up in a court situation that it could be said that this legislation is ambiguous in that regard, then I would ask the court or the decision maker to bear that in mind.

The freedom of association piece was really, of course, in relation to people who might be an associate of a gang, and there might be family members that might otherwise be connected. We heard from Arena Williams, I think it was, who was talking about this, and of course she’s right in saying that for policy reasons, we don’t want people to be able to hide assets by putting them in the name of a family member, because that would defeat the purpose of the law, which is, of course, for the person themselves who has conducted the illegal activity, or the allegedly illegal activity. But, actually, in a funny way too that protects the person, because if a family member or an associate can’t put property in your name and thereby escape the long arm of the law, then they’re less likely to do that in the first place.

So it’s a bit counterintuitive, perhaps, but I think, actually, it’s quite helpful to have a regime where it’s known that someone can look past the ownership on paper of an item and go, “Actually, where did it come from?”, and if it really came from illegal activity conducted by person A, where maybe it’s a member of an organisation, be it a gang or other criminal organised group—let’s say B—and it ends up in the property of person C, then actually it’s to the protection of the last-named person that, ultimately, that asset could be brought back. It’s sort of an equivalent of piercing the corporate veil, as they say in more of a commercial law context, but it’s the same kind of principle, at least in my mind, which is that we’re really interested in the true ownership and the true control of an asset. Of course, the control of human beings, as in a situation where there might be manipulation or there might be a person taken advantage of by a family member or an associate—that’s obviously something we want to avoid as well.

So, for all those reasons, I think that’s quite an important aspect of the law that associates are protected, I would argue, in that way. Of course, the fact that that’s not 100 percent clear in any given case who an associate is and that might be contestable, and to the extent there’s a lack of certainty in the law, that’s something that we would ask the courts to determine as carefully as possible. But, of course, to maximise the flexibility and to meet those policy aims, it’s important to have at least some lack of definition, and that’s quite deliberate. It’s a feature of the system, not a bug, albeit, of course, that that’s the trade-off that we make by providing less certainty and more flexibility in the statutes that we pass.

So with those reflections adding to those of others who have spoken in support of the bill, I reiterate at this, the third and final reading, that the National Party supports this bill. There are many other things that the Government could do in this space, but this is good as far as it goes, and we commend it to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise to give the final contribution to the debate on the third reading of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill. Quickly, I’m going to go over what this bill does. For those watching at home with great excitement as we go through this bill—and I know that you will have been waiting with bated breath because the learned discursions of the previous speaker, while learned and detailed, maybe didn’t quite pick up what we’re doing here. As a member of the Justice Committee, I do need to say Mr Penk is one of our favourite members who occasionally attends the Justice Committee, and it was lovely to hear him “discurse” at such length. But, basically, this bill is after the proceeds.

So when my children were small and did something bad, they did not get to keep the proceeds of their crime. They did not get to keep their ill-gotten gains. This bill is about giving the police the tools and the rules, as Ginny Andersen said, to prevent people from profiting from their crimes.

We’re going to do it in two different bills at the moment. The later one will be heard later this evening, and that one really targets the physical assets. This one goes after the money. So it enables us to look at property where there’s a piece of property there that the person who is holding it didn’t have the money to acquire it, and the suspicion is, on the basis of their close association with a member of an organised criminal gang, that that member of the organised criminal gang has given them the money to acquire this asset, and that’s how they’re hiding their ill-gotten gains. So, up to the value of $30,000 or more, after you get to $30,000, we will be able to restrain that and seek from them what is the basis of their having it. If they can’t prove to us on the balance of reasonable probabilities that they got it from a reasonable source, then the State will have it.

The same will apply to people who have KiwiSaver contributions that they can’t explain; the same will apply to people going overseas. Normally, if you whip off overseas, you can avoid these things—not any more.

It’s a good bill. It’s a sensible bill. It does a small and necessary piece of work that is going to give our police the tools to continue to crack down on organised crime, along with Operation Tauwhiro, along with Operation Cobalt, and along with the bill that will be passing, I hope, later this evening. I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 108

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 12

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill

First Reading

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): Thank you, Madam Speaker. After discussions at the Business Committee, I present a legislative statement on the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill.

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

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: I move, That the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 5 April 2023 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The purpose of this omnibus bill is to assist local authorities and communities in areas affected by the recent severe weather events in the North Island. These events have caused widespread damage to the natural and built environment, including land, waterways, infrastructure, roading, businesses, and homes. Most of the affected areas are now moving away from the initial and immediate emergency response and into the recovery phase. As the recovery progresses, we expect that the needs of our communities will be more varied and complex. The Government is committed to facilitating the recovery of those affected by the recent severe weather events. This bill will provide real assistance to anyone who has suffered as a result of those recent events. We know it will take considerable time before the extent of the damage is understood, and in time, it will become clear what communities need to support their recovery. We need to make sure those recovery efforts are not held back by the existing legislative framework and that the actions needed to support the recovery can happen as quickly and efficiently as possible.

That is why we recently passed the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act. That Act made urgently needed changes to statutes and ensured emergency powers are available and can be carried out efficiently when needed. This bill sits alongside that Act. It represents a further step in our efforts to support a timely and effective recovery. It acknowledges our experience with previous emergencies, such as the earthquakes in Canterbury and Kaikōura, which required urgent legislation to change existing legislative constraints to support recovery. In particular, the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Act 2016 permitted Orders in Council to be used to amend legislation so that coastal road and rail networks could be repaired as quickly as possible. The bill proposes allowing Orders in Council to be used to amend legislation where this would support more timely recovery efforts in affected areas.

Under this proposal, the Governor-General will have the power to make Orders in Council, on the recommendation of the relevant Minister, to exempt, modify, or extend provisions of legislation that are specified in the bill. This flexibility will help communities react quickly to the range of issues that could arise during the course of recovery efforts, without needing to anticipate every power or statutory provision that may need to be amended. This flexibility was an important component of the response to, and recovery from, the Kaikōura earthquake, and we want to provide the same flexibility to all areas affected by the recent weather events.

Although not done lightly, I acknowledge it is constitutionally unusual for primary legislation to be amended by secondary legislation. This provides the executive branch of Government with significant powers ordinarily exercised only by this House. The bill puts in place a range of safeguards to ensure the Orders in Council mechanism is used appropriately. These safeguards are an important feature of the bill and are similar to those put in place for the use of Orders in Council after the Kaikōura earthquake. The relevant Minister can only recommend an Order in Council if satisfied that it is necessary or desirable for one or more of the purposes of the bill, and not broader than necessary. Orders cannot amend key legislation forming part of our fundamental democratic and constitutional arrangements, such as the Constitution Act, the Electoral Act, and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Order in Council also cannot unjustifiably limit rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The draft Order in Council must be reviewed by an independent panel established under the bill. The Minister must consider appointing members with experience and knowledge of local Māori communities, as well as legal, environmental, emergency response, and local government expertise.

I note in particular how the bill clearly lays out the process for engaging with local Māori and local community groups about proposed Orders in Council. Unless circumstances are sufficiently urgent or make engagement impracticable, the relevant Minister must engage with people the Minister considers appropriate, including local Māori and local community groups, about a proposed Order in Council in accordance with the engagement processes set out in the bill. A draft of the order must also be provided to the Regulations Review Committee or, if this is not practicable, to the leaders of parliamentary political parties. The bill also requires the reasons for the making of Orders in Council to be published alongside the orders, with Ministers keeping any orders made under review. A report must be made to the House at least every six months about any orders made under this bill.

As I have already mentioned, this bill is based on the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Act 2016. We are building on the example of the Act in a number of areas. The bill does not contain an ouster clause, which means courts retain the power to test the Minister’s recommendations and decisions. Increased Māori engagement during the development of Orders in Council is another area where we are building on the example of the Hurunui/Kaikōura legislation. For example, the purpose clause signals the Act’s intent of providing opportunities for local Māori and local community group participation while balancing this against the need for timely recovery. In addition, the engagement clauses signpost to relevant Ministers to consider whether engagement with local Māori and community groups is appropriate when considering relevant persons for engagement, given the effect of the order, unless it is not appropriate and the circumstances for this situation is urgent.

The bill is an omnibus bill. It makes amendments to the Local Government Act and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act. These amendments provide affected local authorities with appropriate, further urgent relief from normal obligations to support the recovery efforts, because they cannot wait for the ability to use the Order in Council mechanism created by this bill. The bill also amends the Resource Management Act (RMA) in two respects: the first amendment will ensure that ngā hapū o Ngāti Porou are notified and their written permission is sought if any activity is on, or will impact on, ngā rohe moana o ngā hapū o Ngāti Porou, as indicatively shown in Schedule 3 of the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act 2019. The ngā rohe moana statutory overlay is not Treaty redress, and although it has similar practical effect to a statutory acknowledgment, it is not covered by the definition in the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act. The second amendment adds Manawatū and Rangitīkei districts to the list of regions and districts defined as affected areas. I anticipate this will get broad support across the House, which can use the modified RMA processes set out in the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act. These areas receive similar rainfall events to the areas specified in the Act, and emergency work is needed. The extent to which this work is required only became clear following the passage of the Act, which is why this amendment is being included in the bill.

The bill is temporary and will be in force only as long as required to support the efforts necessary for an efficient recovery. Any Orders in Council made under this bill must be made no later than the end of March 2026. Those orders will be automatically revoked by the end of March 2028, unless revoked earlier. The provisions of this bill will be repealed in stages, with any provisions not earlier repealed to be automatically repealed at the end of March 2028.

I want to acknowledge that the bill is being progressed through the House at great speed. The Government recognises that passing legislation at speed reduces the ability for the public to submit on the bill and for scrutiny by a select committee to occur. However, speed is critical as recovery efforts will likely encounter substantive repair and rebuild issues, and individuals and businesses may face regulatory requirements that they struggle to meet. I consider that a shortened parliamentary process is justified for these changes. Finally, I want to acknowledge the cooperative spirit of this House in passing the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act, and I look forward to the House continuing to work collaboratively and constructively to progress this bill. Cyclone Gabrielle, Cyclone Hale, and the Auckland floods have been devastating for our communities, and it is vital that we have the tools we need to support people to recover as quickly as possible. This bill is another step we can take to support those impacted by those devastating severe weather events, and I am pleased to commend the bill to the House.

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

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I pick up where the Minister left off by acknowledging those who have suffered terribly through very severe weather events in the past couple of months—not only at the time of the events themselves, be it flooding, Cyclone Gabrielle or other storm-like conditions—but those who continue to suffer as a result of the effects of those weather events and the associate damage and havoc, indeed, that they have wrecked upon various New Zealand communities and regions within our country.

I also want to echo a comment that was made at the end of the Minister’s remarks, around the importance of a non-partisan approach to these matters. I do want to assure the House and New Zealanders, more generally, that National will play a constructive part in Opposition in relation to the recovery and the response, and in relation to this particular piece of legislation, as we did with the first piece of legislation just a couple of weeks ago. We will support it. We say, in relation to this bill, that we will support it at least at first reading. The select committee process, short as it is, will provide a good opportunity to understand further the detail within it, and understand if there are any concerns from those who would make submissions. So that’s our commitment at this time—that we will support it at its first reading. We intend to, and would like to be able to support it, going forward as well. So let us cross that bridge when we come to it, but for now, of course, we support Government efforts to make the lives of people easier in the affected regions.

The bill will look to achieve that in a number of different ways and, of course, there is a large list of pieces of legislation that it will allow to be amended by way of orders, so perhaps if I can just reflect on the overall nature of the bill that we have in front of us. It’s framework legislation; it allows orders to be made after the bill itself becomes an Act, so it’s very empowering of the executive branch of Government. It’s a high-trust model but, as the Minister rightly points out, it’s not without precedent. Even in relatively recent times, this House has passed similar legislation in relation to the Kaikōura and, prior to that, Canterbury earthquakes, that enabled Ministers of a previous administration to make decisions and orders, and I acknowledge the presence of my friend and colleague the Hon Gerry Brownlee in connection with the first of those series of earthquakes.

So we say to the Government we agree to accord you these great powers. We expect that they will be exercised reasonably and responsibly, and we’re very much of the hope that will be the case, because I don’t think the New Zealand public would tolerate—from either side of Parliament or any side of politics—an opportunity for what would appear a political response to a great tragedy and heartache that they have suffered.

So with that general comment, I think I should also make the point, again, as the Minister did, that it’s unusual for the Government to pass laws not only that allow great breadth of decision making by way of executive orders but even to the point where those orders—or that the Government can actually change other Acts of Parliament, sometimes known as “Henry VIII” powers, with a nod to an infamous previous monarch who, of course, was perfectly happy to use such executive orders but, of course, we generally avoid that. But in these times, they’re not normal times so we allow ourselves to depart from normal lawmaking processes—precedent even, as recently as the COVID-19 response—and I think if we’re looking at ways in which we can mitigate the risk that we give too much power to the executive as a Parliament, then I think it’s fair to acknowledge that there are a number of checks and balances within the bill. There are a number of constraints on the power.

One of them is in relation to the consultation that will take place—I will return to that if time allows—but I think it’s helpful that the Regulations Review Committee will be given an opportunity to scrutinise orders, albeit after they’ve passed, and to provide a report to the House; that’s a good body to conduct such work. I know its members of various different political parties will be very diligently engaged in that task, and I know that they’re very well advised. I’m not a member of that committee myself but reflecting on our experience in the COVID-19 response—equivalent regime—I know that was, or at least it seems to me—and I’m conflicted in the matter, I suppose but—a useful addition to the legislating process.

Of course, having the Regulations Review Committee—an extra select committee in Parliament—have a look at the bill once the Governance and Administration Committee, through the fine leadership of Ian McKelvie, has had the first go at the legislation itself, that’s a nod to the fact that it should be Parliament that’s the supreme lawmaking institution. So even though we’re giving to the executive significant powers to make laws in the way of regulations and also even to change primary legislation, we’re saying, still, that Parliament, nominally, is sovereign because a committee of that Parliament—a creature of that Parliament—will report back to Parliament. Of course the other major safeguard is that there is a sunset clause, as we might refer to it, which is to say that the bill will survive as an Act only as long as the end of March 2026, and there’s a two-year window after that in which orders made under the Act may survive, and that’s the maximum extent of their ability to be effective, if not already repealed beforehand.

I think it’s also worth noting, with approval from this side of the House, that there’s an opportunity for the reduction in bureaucracy when it comes to some of the ways that the recovery might otherwise be slowed down. We’re interested to note that some of this has been framed very much in economic terms, and that’s appropriate. It’s also appropriate, of course, to enable recovery to take place in other ways. But, actually, perhaps the larger point is that all the ways in which the recovery needs to be effected are interconnected, in any case. So the restoration of a bridge, nominally, is an exercise in restoring infrastructure, but of course that allows people to have a degree of normality reintroduced to their life so far as their family or personal situation is concerned. Of course it enables the transport of goods, the conducting of services, and so on. So that, again, would provide some assistance for the economic recovery which, in turn, will aid the social wellbeing of the people of each area.

I think it’s worth noting, actually—and this is a plea that’s perhaps adjacent to the bill, but I’ll try your patience on that regard because I was in Hawke’s Bay and Napier yesterday, and it’s important for communities that have felt the effects of this damage quite severely for the outside world to know that visitors are welcome—to the extent that that wouldn’t interfere with the recovery. I hope I’m not going to overstate the case here by saying that, for other New Zealanders to go to those places and to patronise the tourism and other industries on which they are so reliant at any time, will actually be helpful to the recovery. So any positive messaging and proactive messaging that can come out of the area, and supported by the Government operating out of Wellington, but through the local lens, I think would be helpful. I think I’m picking up some agreement across the House for that.

So all the ways that their local community should be supported, they must be but, in doing so, of course, at the risk of adding an additional layer of complication, it’s important to do that in conjunction with the local communities. That’s another message that I’ve heard loud and clear, not only in that first visit that I made to that part of the world the other day but also knowing from my own area, which was severely affected in some areas of that, particularly. So to work with other partners such as local government, civil society, community groups will be important.

I do want to make mention of the importance of the membership of the panel that will be appointed to advise the Minister, to provide feedback on draft orders, and so on. We think that a smaller panel rather than one as large as has been set up under this legislation would be helpful. We think smaller rather than larger would provide greater flexibility. Of course, there needs to be a necessary skill set across that, and it’s important that’s broad enough to provide technical advice in relation to aspects of recovery that touch very directly on infrastructure and other technical areas. We think that the skills and experience will be more important than demographic factors among those who are chosen to play that very important role.

Finally, we have to say that Local Government New Zealand doesn’t seem to us an appropriate body to be providing members to that panel directly in its own name, given that it doesn’t represent all of New Zealand. Notwithstanding that, for the reasons that I’ve said, we do support this bill at its first reading, and we’d like to assist the Government to assist the communities of New Zealand, going forward.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Can I thank Chris Penk for his comments and the way he expressed them, and also Minister McAnulty for bringing this to the House. I was on select committees that were considering the equivalent legislation post the Canterbury earthquakes and the Kaikōura legislation. I recall the very reasonable way in which the Hon Gerry Brownlee, who is in the House tonight, liaised with those committees in order to try and put checks and balances around these very broad powers that are being conferred on the executive to override ordinary processes under legislation in order to expedite things that have to be done quickly post a disaster. I am very happy to put on record what I thought was the very responsible way that the Hon Gerry Brownlee handled that and, in response, both the committee and Parliament. We all rallied around and did the right thing.

We’ve now, sadly, had to do this on three occasions: Canterbury, Kaikōura, and now. On each occasion, we actually learnt from the prior events and slightly improved the legislation. I am not going to take my full 10 minutes, but I will just reiterate the importance of there being some checks and balances around these extraordinary powers that are, essentially, being given to the executive to override the laws that normally apply to New Zealand. Those laws are listed in Schedule 2 of the bill, and there are some very important laws in there, like the Land Transfer Act, the Land Transport Act, the Local Government Act, the Resource Management Act, the Waste Minimisation Act—various other Acts. There are 30 of them listed there—so it’s quite wide ranging. Then clause 8 of the bill includes limitations on when the Minister may recommend an order that overrides those pieces of legislation.

It says the Minister must be satisfied the order is necessary for the purposes of the Act, which are described elsewhere; the extent of the order is not broader than is reasonably necessary to address the matters that gave rise to the order—that’s another limitation; the order doesn’t breach section 11 of the Act—section 11 of the Act lists some things that you can’t do, which relate to personal liberties or people being in custody, so orders couldn’t override those sorts of things; the order doesn’t limit, or is a justified limit on, the rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990; the order has been reviewed by the panel—the panel has been addressed by other members, so I won’t cover that again; the draft order has been provided to the committee of the House of Representatives responsible for the review of secondary legislation—the Regulations Review Committee gets to have a look and makes recommendations. And, if that’s not practicable, perhaps because something is urgent and the House could be in recess or something—I don’t know; it normally would be practicable, but, if it’s not practicable—each leader of the political party has to have been presented with a copy of it.

Then the Minister has to have regard to the panel’s comments, and the other people that have come back and have made comments, and then, in the resource management sphere, the Minister has to consider effects on the environment and whether adverse effects can be avoided, remedied, or mitigated. And that, I think, arose also in the Kaikōura legislation, particularly in respect of the State highway and railway repairs that were necessary up and adjacent to the coastal marine area. So there are a number of protections. I look forward to the report from the select committee that is giving consideration to this, and I’m sure that the Government will be amenable to changes if they prove to be necessary.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Can I thank the Hon David Parker for his kind words earlier in his speech. I just wish that same sentiment had been around at the time that they were actually doing things; it might have made a little bit of a difference. But, in general, I think the New Zealand Parliament comes together in a way that it should to respond to the circumstances that create a degree of misery in people’s lives, and in a way that also, hopefully, gives them a bit of, you’d say, an opportunity to be optimistic about their future.

So we do support this legislation, and I’ll just make the point that while it is a piece of legislation that builds on initially the Christchurch recovery Act and then the Kaikōura/Hurunui Act, which dealt with the dreadful damage along State Highway 1 primarily, some people say we should have standing legislation that avoids us having to do these special Acts of Parliament. My own view is that every disaster is different, and it’s not easy to simply overlay a single template that will be a go-to for every time that you have a large-scale disaster like this.

But there are some aspects in here, despite our support, that we will want to tease out a little bit in the relatively short select committee process that’s going to happen. One of them is, believe it or not, the extent of containment upon ministerial powers, because while I accept that if you are going to create so-called “Henry VIII” provisions, then there have to be some checks and balances, but those checks and balances can’t become so onerous that a Minister decides not to take a particular course of action that might make a significant difference for either a community or a group of communities, and remember that this disaster really has affected New Zealand from the Far North right down to just north of the Wairarapa and through all of that East Coast.

So what am I talking about? Well, in this legislation, a Minister may propose an Order in Council to set aside some particular provision from the law. So let’s be practical about it: just in the Hawke’s Bay alone, there are 28 bridges that need to be replaced—28—and we’ve already seen in the last few days alternate roads are being put in so that people can spend a lot more time on the road but still get from one place to another. Some of those bridges no longer exist, 16 of them are completely gone, and 12 are partially damaged to a point where they need to be replaced. Imagine what the Resource Management Act process would be for getting a consent for those bridges? It’s simply not possible, and so there will need to be Orders in Council that facilitate that infrastructure work.

The problem here is that not only does the Minister have to satisfy himself or herself that this is necessary—and I don’t think that would be hard, and I don’t think a Minister would step outside the bounds that are prescribed in the law—but then they take that proposal to the community. Well, they get to choose who the community is, but because it’s in here, then there will be bounds for people to feel aggrieved that they weren’t consulted, and I think that’s a mistake.

There is also then the panel that this goes to, of up to 12 people. I’ve got to say that in those two previous pieces of legislation, we had four people, and the reason for that was that they’re not there to make decisions about the validity of the work that might be proposed; they’re simply there to protect the law. I think that you then look at—I’ve got to be critical here and say that the idea that the convenor of that panel must be a retired High Court judge misses the point that it’s politicians who are on the hook for the decisions that are made using this process, and, with all the best will in the world, it won’t be a retired High Court judge who understands the imperatives around that politics. Their job is simply to determine that the Order in Council is necessary and within the prescriptions of the law. That’s not going to require 12 people to sit around a table, having an argument. It’s not going to require 12 people who might have interests in various parts of the recovery to be making judgments that just in the back of their head—I’m not pointing a finger at anyone—might be a little bit jaundiced by the needs that they see in their own part of the disaster-stricken area.

So I’m firmly of a view that 12 is far too many and that four is a good number. When we had that four, we had a former Prime Minister, we had a High Court judge, we had a former very, very senior civil servant, and we had an iwi representative, and I appreciate that in this case there are a number of iwi that are affected, so the number might need to be more than four. But it certainly doesn’t need to be anywhere near 12. Six, I think, would stop it in its tracks, and even that would present its own problems, in my view.

The one thing that sticks in my head out of all of this is that the orders can only be recommended pretty much for one purpose. There are one or more purposes, but when you read through it, there is actually quite a number of limits on what might be able to be done in each of those orders, and I just question whether or not that is a reasonable thing.

Can I just conclude by saying that the need to do this is well understood by this Parliament and that’s why there will be such widespread support for it, and the one thing that people don’t want is anything that is a protracted exercise in trying to do everything right in the decision-making process. There will be mistakes, inevitably, just because of the nature of the work that has to be done, but those mistakes are at least decisions, and they will see some progress.

So we’re very keen to work constructively in the very short select committee process that’s going to be taking place and to make some of those recommendations. Whether this committee accepts them or not is a different matter, but what is most important is that there is no further delay in getting to a point where more things can be done. Things are being done at the moment, but we need more things to be done so we get to a point where there is greater clarity about can people stay comfortably, safely, living in the location that they are in at the moment—big, big decisions that will require changes to the law and, in some cases, beyond the list of 30 or so laws that are already altered in this bill.

My final point is that one of the things that we used in the recovery of Christchurch was a thing called a cross-party forum. It was stated in the legislation, and while it might have frustrated some people, it meant that no one was in the dark—certainly, in this House—about what was going to be happening and why it was needing to happen. There was reasonable feedback into that. It was a body that was taken seriously, and I would suggest that because this recovery is not going to be short—sadly—and while the bill itself has a sunset of 2026, it is not a reasonable prospect to expect so many bridges, so much infrastructure, to be completed in just three years from now. So there will undoubtedly be some kind of extension required, and I think it’s important that the support of Parliament for the recovery of those affected areas continues well beyond this parliamentary term and well into the next parliamentary term. We’ll be participating fully in the select committee process and constructively in the select committee process.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Minister for Economic Development): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill. I’d just like to acknowledge the speaker who has just sat down, the Hon Gerry Brownlee. It made me see a little bit of déjà vu, and I actually remember that time, as I worked as an official underneath the previous Government at the time on the Hurunui/Kaikōura Earthquakes Recovery Bill and some of the tax reforms at the time. I probably just want to reflect on that.

The Hurunui/Kaikōura bill was a template for this bill. Five orders were issued under that previous bill. And just as a minor correction: the previous bill—the Hurunui bill—actually allowed up to six places for a panel. But the Government obviously made the decision to take four. I think the point about whether 12 is too much—there’s obviously a reason why we’ve chosen to say “up to 12”; it’s because of the widespread damage. But I think that is a very good point for the select committee to consider: whether “up to 12” is too much or not. But I just want to reflect that it was up to six, but the Minister chose four rather than six.

The other thing is that the sunset clauses in this particular bill actually go to 2028. The Orders in Council, though, have to be released by 2026. So the bill actually goes for a further two years than what was previously stated.

But I think probably what was touched on by a number of speakers in the House on this bill is that the purpose of this bill is to provide the flexibility to facilitate, enable, and expedite the recovery. I think, as long as we go back to those first principles in relation to the analysis of this bill over the time period that it’s going to the select committee, we need to always come back to those first principles, because there are communities and people throughout the affected regions who need the Government to move quickly—and as the previous member has said, this will be a long recovery. So we want to make sure that we remove those particular barriers.

There may be some criticism outside this House as to why it is going through under urgency and perhaps why such a short select committee period. It probably would be remiss of me not to remind members of this House that the Hurunui/Kaikōura bill was introduced on 1 December 2016 and then it actually completed all its House phases by 8 December.

Again, I go back to the point that that bill was the template for this particular bill. So, on that matter, again, go back to the first principles of why we are in the House today: to be able to provide this enabling legislation, which will provide a framework.

The previous Ministers have gone through some of those checks and balances. I really encourage the select committee, in the time that they have, to really consider some of those points that were raised; whether the balance has been struck right, because, again, we want to expedite things, but we don’t want Ministers to be too frustrated that they won’t take through Orders in Council. So, on that note, I commend the bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This won’t be a long call on this Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill, which the Green Party is very pleased to support and will endeavour to participate constructively in the Governance and Administration Committee during this short process.

As others have noted, this bill is about flexibility, and that’s because there are so many unknowns in terms of the recovery phase, and what is needed. The Green Party has always been concerned about “Henry VIII” powers, which allow a Minister to make recommendations to the Executive Council, Governor-General, and to change legislation through that process rather than bringing it to the House, and, of course, through the Order in Council process there is no scrutiny by the select committee. There’s no ability to make changes through the public submission and the select committee processes. So it is a significant increase in executive power having these Orders in Council.

This bill allows Orders in Council for some 30 pieces of primary legislation, and so that is a major power. But as the Minister has noted, there are a number of safeguards, and this Severe Weather Events Recovery Review Panel with up to 12 members, with a range of knowledge from local government, law, environmental protection, climate change, local Māori, or local community interests, is an important one of those safeguards.

I was interested in Mr Brownlee’s comments, but noted in reading the bill that clause 15 provides for this 12-member panel to act by division, with at least three members plus the convenor. Given that this bill is very different from Canterbury and Hurunui/Kaikōura in the huge area that’s been affected by Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary Weekend storm, there is a potential advantage in having divisions of the panel focus on the Orders in Council that may be needed for particular geographic areas.

The damage inflicted by forestry slash in Tairāwhiti is different from the damage in Auckland, so there may well be an advantage in having a smaller panel look at specific Orders in Council that relate to one particular region, because with the Hurunui/Kaikōura, one of the Orders in Council there was around the recovery and rebuild after huge rock fall and damage to the State Highway 1 roading corridor and the rail corridor. So there was a specific Order in Council around that which provided for truncated Resource Management Act processes. Similarly, in Canterbury, there was an Order in Council in relation to the big reclamation that now has a whole lot of cars on it, second-hand cars, in the port of Lyttelton, and that went through a very truncated process where there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for public comment. So that’s one advantage that I think there may be of the 12-member panel being able to operate by division.

The bill covers 37 council areas, so the issues that are coming up because of the scale of the severe weather events, the damage that was inflicted, the sheer quantity of infrastructure that’s been damaged, from roads to waste water, to drinking water, forestry slash—the issues are huge. So we recognise the need for a number of principal Acts to be amended by Order in Council.

One of the other safeguards that I think is important that Mr Brownlee did have concerns with, which the Greens think is important, is this provision for not only the review panel to provide comment back to the Minister on the draft order but also for there to be consultation by the Minister with any organisations or others in the community that the Minister deems appropriate and that are relevant to the proposed effect of the order. That didn’t happen so much in Canterbury, and I think this commitment to community consultation, limited though it is—and three days will make it very challenging for iwi and small community groups to respond—does highlight that basic principle of recovery, “Nothing about us without us.”, that the community has got to be engaged so that they feel that they are shaping their destiny and not having it imposed from above.

Another safeguard is the requirement for the Minister to give draft reasons when they are putting out the draft Order in Council to the review panel, and also to provide final reasons and to have these published on a website and noted in Parliament when the Order in Council is finalised. That helps with the transparency around why the order has been done.

I note, too, that the bill also amends the Local Government Act and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act, and that’s to relax the special consultative procedures. That only applies, I think, till September this year, so it just relates to the long-term plan preparation this year, but allows a bit more flexibility. The AuditorGeneral doesn’t necessarily have to provide a report, and I think there are also some changes around statement of intent there—a bit of a relaxation of the deadlines there.

The Green Party does have some concerns about the bill. The ability for Orders in Council to be retrospective back to Cyclone Hale on 8 January—because it’s very unusual for legislation to be retrospective, I will be very interested in submissions on this point because there may well have been remedial and other action taken immediately after the weather event, but that retrospectivity is very unusual.

I guess others have mentioned the sunset clauses, but there is also an ability in the bill for an Order in Council to add to the principal Acts, which subsequent Orders in Council may amend without it coming back to the Parliament. I would also be interested in submissions, particularly from the Law Society, constitutional lawyers and others about that provision. But there are some safeguards there that the Minister has got to be satisfied it’s necessary or desirable, and there has to be the unanimous or near unanimous support of party leaders in Parliament.

I would like to agree with Mr Brownlee on the cross-party forum. That I think was very useful in the Hurunui/Kaikōura legislation. And we really appreciated then the Minister providing draft Orders in Council to the Green Party and allowing for comment back on those. I think many eyes in a short time can always improve legislation. So I would hope that Minister McAnulty does consider the opportunity for a cross-party forum, and I hope that that is something that the select committee can also look at. The Green Party is happy to support the bill.

SIMON COURT (ACT): ACT cannot support this piece of legislation as currently drafted. This is nothing but a naked power grab by the Labour supermajority. It gives the Labour Government huge powers unrelated to cyclone recovery, the power to override any one of a number of Acts while masquerading as cyclone recovery. It requires only a three-day review by a committee—a committee that doesn’t include anyone with infrastructure experience, anyone from local government, anyone with planning or property development experience, anyone involved in development of ports. This bill is a joke and an embarrassment for a Labour Government.

It is more than two months since the floods hit Auckland—two months it’s taken Labour to come up with a piece of legislation called the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill, when every engineer I know, every civil contractor I know, has been telling me exactly what they need to do to clear streams, to re-form channels, to build stopbanks, and to start rebuilding infrastructure. What they’ve asked for is quite simple: that the provisions of the Resource Management Act, which make it so difficult to build anything, are simply suspended for the benefit of restoring and reconvening the infrastructure that was lost or damaged. But, no, that’s far too simple for Labour—it’s far too simple.

When we think about the damage in Auckland, the slips that have destroyed homes and communities in West Auckland and Muriwai, Pīhā, and Kerikeri, the flooding in communities, in subdivisions that were only built in the last 10 or 15 years in West Auckland, when we think about the damage done in Hawke’s Bay, where stopbanks have failed, where orchards have been inundated with debris and silt because of a failed infrastructure, and when we think about Gisborne and Wairoa cut off because their roads were not resilient—and then Northland. Northland, where Waka Kotahi produced a programme business case for resilience in 2020 that said, there are 40 extreme risks to the State highway network—40 large extreme risks, including to the Brynderwyn, State Highway 1 over the Brynderwyn, and that that required a whole lot of additional strengthening work to be done to the alternative routes while a permanent solution was devised for State Highway 1 to the North, to Whangārei, to Kerikeri, the Bay of Islands, and Kaitāia, to connect those tens of thousands of people and all of those businesses who depend on transport links.

The Minister of Transport, Michael Wood, did nothing about that. Labour did nothing about that. The Brynderwyns have closed again and again; the alternative routes have never been upgraded. Then we think about Mangamuka Gorge, State Highway 1 to Kaitāia, where tens of thousands of people lived in some of the most deprived communities in New Zealand, and where this Labour Government could have come up with a permanent solution to reinstate State Highway 1 through the Mangamukas, to connect the people of Kaitāia, to connect the timber mills, to connect the dairy factories and all their customers in Whangārei and further south.

But instead, what they’ve done is nothing. They’ve missed a whole construction season in Northland while Waka Kotahi, Michael Wood, bang on about mode shift, getting people out of cars and on to buses. And here we have the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill. The emergency was months ago; Labour is months late and absent, AWOL. That’s what the people of Hawke’s Bay told Nicole McKee when she visited on the weekend. They said, “You were absent when we were terrified, when people were shining torches in our homes.” AWOL, absent.

So what is this piece of legislation? Well, two weeks ago, I sat through a similar piece of emergency under-urgency legislation, and what was missing then was actually allowing people to get on with recovery by suspending the requirements of the Resource Management Act. You know, when it comes to cleaning up all the slash and all the debris that’s lying all over private property and in rivers and creeks, piling it up and being able to burn it to get rid of it. No, the legislation didn’t include any provision for that. Now we’ve got the emergency recovery legislation bill, which still doesn’t give anybody a clear steer. What does economic recovery look like?

This will be another COVID-19 mess. What happened with the COVID-19 recovery fund? Well, it got spent on ballet—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! This is a bill being debated, we understand, under urgency, and I am listening very carefully to the member’s speech, but I now find that he is straying too far from matters that are not considered in the bill. So I’m going to invite the member to come back to the first reading. Thank you.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So it’s true, we have examples. We have the Kaikōura earthquake recovery. We have Christchurch and the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team. And then we have the COVID-19 emergency response fund, which is where ACT believes this bill will end up, funding ballets, school lunches, and museum exhibitions.

Anna Lorck: What’s wrong with ballet?

SIMON COURT: Well, it’s nothing to do with COVID-19 recovery, Anna Lorck. If the people of Northland expect their road to be reinstated and Labour’s offering them ballet, Anna Lorck, I’m sure they will express their opinions at the ballot box in October.

So what would ACT do—what would ACT do? Well, firstly, we know where the severe risks are, the extreme risks, because Waka Kotahi has already identified 40 extreme risks. They’re not in here. There’s nothing in here that says, “Here’s the 40 extreme risks we’re going to fix.” This is what ACT would do: we’d remove the RMA barriers—that’s what we said on 6 March in Hawke’s Bay at Taylor’s pack-house when we met with Cam and we met with his staff. There’s 300 of them who were flooded out of the pack-house, whose apple trees won’t be producing fruit that can be packed and exported for two, three, maybe four years. What Cam said, what the staff said, is “We need an urgent economic response that sustains the 300 jobs in the community that we live in.” This has got nothing about an economic response.

ACT says establish a special economic zone. Let’s focus on what the principles of any cyclone or severe weather recovery should set out. Firstly, the Government should get out of the way—get out of the way. What did the last piece of legislation, the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill, do? It required 20 days’ notification for anybody who might have found a culturally significant site, and they weren’t going to be able to start any work until they had permission.

We would ask Labour to reprioritise the wasteful spending away from Auckland light rail, away from forcing people out of private cars on to busways. And what we would do is actually allow councils to rebuild their water infrastructure, that Labour said, under three waters, you’re not allowed to rebuild.

Now, ACT hopes that this bill can be panel-beaten at select committee, and to that extent, I have personally invited 120 submitters—business, immigration consultants, hospitality, energy, infrastructure—in the 24 hours we’ve got between now and when submissions close tomorrow at 6 p.m. to come to select committee and tell us what they think this bill should do, because Labour hasn’t asked them. We won’t know unless the ACT Party asks—unless the ACT Party asks.

The Government needs to help people affected by cyclones, severe flooding, not give itself “Henry VIII” powers to do whatever it wants and spend money on ballet and school lunches. ACT opposes this bill.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): I am going to call it tonight, that in the 2½ years that I’ve been privileged to stand in this House, that was the most disrespectful speech about a community I have ever heard standing here in this Parliament. It was disrespectful to the people of Hawke’s Bay, of Northland, of Coromandel who have lost everything—everything. And there is the disappointment that, across this House, apart from the ACT Party, every single political party has come together tonight to say, “We need to pass legislation that will do exactly what Mr Court is asking for.” It will enable those communities to rebuild back as fast they can and as they should.

I want to acknowledge my fellow members on the select committee who considered the last piece of legislation that came through this House. I acknowledge that, actually, both Simon Court and Eugenie Sage, from the Green Party, who are not permanent members of that committee, joined us, and, for the most part—certainly for all of her part, Eugenie Sage—were constructive through that process. All of us have been looking forward to another constructive process to ensure that we as a Parliament can come together and support people who have lost lives, people who have lost livelihoods, people who have lost their businesses—everything—and who are going to take years to recover.

So my challenge to Mr Court tonight is to go away and have great sleep, come back tomorrow, come to select committee in the morning, and join us and listen to his community, and work constructively with the rest of us and the officials so that in a week we have the legislation needed to ensure that the community can recovery. That’s my challenge to Mr Court and the ACT Party, because this is far too important. We have hundreds of people, thousands of people, who are desperate for this Parliament to act. That is what this Labour Government is doing, and I want to acknowledge National, Te Paati Māori, and the Greens for supporting us in that work, and I encourage ACT to join the party. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Sam Uffindell—five-minute call.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I might not be as lively as the last couple, but I’ll just walk through what’s happened. Now, we all know that this bill’s stated aim is to help aid the economic recovery—you know, build back up the lives of those impacted. I see one of the members from Hawke’s Bay nodding at me over the way, and I just want to acknowledge all the families and communities that have been impacted over there. It’s an extremely tragic event and it’s a really good thing that almost everyone in this House has been able to come together and agree that there does need to be, you know, some exceptional powers put in place to enable those communities to be rebuilt as quickly as possible.

So this bill does allow for the temporary relaxing of powers. There are some legislative changes that are going to be brought through. I do note that it also is an omnibus bill, which will amend several other acts through this process. It is also a truncated process and it will be going through a select committee in a short period of time. But, you know, we don’t have a lot of time and these communities out there don’t have a lot of time. So they need a whole-of-Government approach that really gets in there and enables them to rebuild as fast as possible.

Now, the main provisions in this will apply to the North Island local government entities directly or indirectly impacted by the severe weather events, with the main point of it being able to open up transport corridors or new land areas for rehousing those people impacted. I note that the draft orders will have to be made available to the Regulations Review Committee, and what a fine committee that is, and I look forward to reviewing that. We may not have our fantastic chair any more, but we are aptly aided nevertheless.

This bill establishes a review panel and one of my colleagues—the Hon Gerry Brownlee—noted that he believed that the number of members was a little too high at 12, and I would probably tend to agree with him there. I think previously, when the National Government put a similar bill through following the Kaikōura earthquakes, there were four members—I heard people across the House saying six. So I will just sit on that and say four to six, but it’s probably a figure that is more likely to generate speedy process and expedited decisions, which, in this situation, is probably what we would want to aim towards.

The functions of the panel? Well, they’ll review the draft orders and then supply them to the Minister, in this case the Hon Kieran McAnulty. And we do note, and it has been noted already, that this bill is similar in nature to the Hurinui/Kaikōura Earthquake Recovery Act of 2016, which was introduced by the National Government in response to the earthquakes in 2016. The main difference is that this bill specifies that local Māori and community groups be included. The Hon Gerry Brownlee did note that there were iwi sitting on that, which is absolutely imperative, and also did note that there are a large number of iwi that have been impacted in Hawke’s Bay. So having some involvement there is a positive step because there are going to be decisions that are made that will be long-lasting and it is good and crucial that we do have that breadth of input into that.

There are controls in place to ensure some scrutiny across what is happening. And, you know, of course, that’s important. When you do put in powers like this, making sure that those checks and balances are in place is vital. I have noted and we have noted already that National does support this bill. We continue to express our sympathy and encourage the Government to act with speed to build those communities back up. We support the reduction of bureaucracy in general and favour any efforts to accelerate the recovery for these communities.

I’m saying no more on this. You know, I think we’re all in agreement. We need to move quickly on this. We need to rebuild. I’ve offered to the Minister of Agriculture—if he ever needs any advice around how to help those impacted people in the horticulture space, and there are a number of them significantly impacted in Hawke’s Bay, then please do reach out to me. I’m happy to provide my wisdom and guidance there too. I support this bill. Thank you.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand to speak to the first reading of the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill, and note that this is the second emergency response bill coming through by the Government in the wake of the recent cyclone, and attempts to improve processes to ensure that our communities get the support to recover and ensure we’re better prepared for future disasters.

I think we mentioned that while we had some concerns with the first bill, Te Paati Māori supported it, as the measures that were in it were practical and made sense, and while it had some shortcomings—particularly when it came to the rights and obligations of tangata whenua under Te Tiriti o Waitangi—we acknowledge the wider overhaul of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act that is currently being worked on. And I really appreciated the accolades from the previous speaker, Sam Uffindell. However, unless some important changes are made, we will not be able to support the bill that is before the House for the first reading, and I’d just like to elaborate on the whys.

The decision to allow for the Orders in Council to be developed to enable fast changes in response to disasters makes sense, but when this process is being used, we need to make sure that the checks and balances are sufficient to meet a bar of appropriate lawmaking. It’s our belief that that bar isn’t being met in this legislation as it currently is written. On every piece of legislation that comes before the House, Te Paati Māori considers if it will have impact on the rights and interests of us as tangata whenua, mana motuhake, mana orite, and the protection and extension of w’akapapa. And when we looked at this bill, it is our belief that this has been sidelined, and that’s extremely concerning. Every time there is a disaster in this country, marae, hapū, and iwi are our first responders; they are our Māori organisations that stand up and act as hubs for all our peoples across our communities. We saw that in Kahungunu. We saw that in Manurewa Marae. We’ve seen it across the motu: they play a central role in the emergency response management in Aotearoa, and yet they are never formally recognised in the system or supported in the legislative and regulatory framework that governs and resources official responses. I mean, this needs to change, and we want to put our foot down and state it at the stage here. It’s completely unacceptable that the State will not recognise the central role of tangata whenua, despite our people time and time again demonstrating our manaaki role to those who have been unfortunately affected.

In this bill, formal tangata whenua engagement is seen as a “nice-to-have”. It’s seen as consideration and an optional afterthought, and that’s not good enough from our perspective. Te Tiriti is not optional. We as tangata whenua are not to be ignored, especially when we prove, time and time again, how well we look after everyone—not just Māori, you know; everyone, all public. And we want to look at the clauses around the review panels for Orders in Council: in appointing the review panellists, “the Minister … must consider appointing members with local perspectives in the severe weather events affected areas of mana whenua, mātauranga Māori, tikanga … and Te Ao Māori.” The key word in this is “consider”. Surely we have proven that we don’t need to be considered; that it should be mandatory. Surely we don’t have to keep proving this, and I would expect that most of those who saw the support and manaaki in Kahungunu would be supporting us. The Minister doesn’t have to appoint anyone with these perspectives, it just has to consider it. We could simply consider it and decide “no”—as we’ve seen happen time and time again in the past. Even if it was a requirement to appoint people with these perspectives, that would still not be Tiriti-based decision-making. Optional engagement with tangata whenua does not reflect our mana motuhake in Aotearoa, or safeguard against the risk of rushed lawmaking in the parliamentary process—some that we saw in the COVID response. So Ministers appointing their own watchdogs is not appropriate lawmaking, let alone Tiriti-based decision-making.

So Te Paati Māori can’t support this legislation unless we see amendments made to guarantee to tangata whenua representation on review panels and strengthen the checks and balances with this legislation. Therefore, we intend to put forward a Supplementary Order Paper during the committee stage to amend the bill and guarantee Māori rights to representation are upheld, and we will be calling on the Government and all parties to support those amendments so that we can assure tangata whenua—those very marae who proved themselves and looked after all of their communities—can have the confidence in this bill and the emergency management system. Kia ora rā.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Like my colleague Rachel Boyack has said, this is the second bill that will come to our select committee, the Governance and Administration Committee, ably chaired by Ian McKelvie. When I got the notes for this bill, I reflected on the previous bill that we had passed and the process in which we had done it. One of the things that I still remember very vividly is listening to each of the councils that were in the flood-affected and cyclone-affected areas who came and submitted in our very short select committee process. As noted by the Minister, the Hon Kieran McAnulty, this time we have extended the select committee process compared to the previous one—to a week—although it is still a truncated process.

I remember those councils, who were obviously extremely busy and tasked with recovery, had to not only do the mahi but also come in and feed back to this process as well. One thing that really stuck with me after that whole process was just their commitment to their communities to do their utmost best and to make sure that what they’re doing through the recovery phase is actually good for their communities in the long term. I think no one comes into this House, and no one came to our select committee, with any malice or any attitude or trying to take advantage of the situation for their own benefit. Everyone was just trying to do the best for those who had been affected by the cyclone.

I think it’s with that attitude that we come to this piece of legislation. We know that those who have been appointed, whether it’s officials working on the Order in Council or whether it’s the supervising committee, or we’ve got the different people that are being sought for their opinions, whether it’s the local Māori, the local community groups that are actually participating in making those Orders in Council—everyone comes to the table with the best of intentions. So can I just put out another call to all of those who I know our chair has already invited to come to our select committee during the next week: please come in and work with us together collaboratively on this bill so that we can find the perfect balance between getting speedy legislation through so that this legislation is ready to support the community versus the right scrutiny in place. That’s a call out to everyone. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just wanted to address a couple of the earlier speeches before I got on to the facts of the bill, and I would remind the ACT speaker Simon Court that the great thing about democracy is that if you want to get your own way and have all the brightest ideas, you’ve got to have support for them. And it’s not much good standing up here with all these great ideas, if you’ve got no support. So I think it would be really good for them to bring those ideas to the select committee and see if they can’t get support for those ideas.

I also want to just address the issue that was raised by our friends from the Māori Party, because there will be very strongly founded submissions from many Māori-based organisations and entities in the course of the next two or three days. And I think the issues that were raised by the speaker Debbie Ngarewa-Packer will be raised in the course of those submissions. It’s a matter of whether that fits with, I guess, the long-term aspiration of the bill and how it fits in the decision-making process. And I’ll get on to that in a minute.

So I think both those issues—well, certainly the last issue—will be considered. I just want to address one other thing that the ACT Party speaker said. And I don’t often defend myself in Parliament, but I have driven a digger myself once or twice. I’m not very good at it, but I do understand a little bit about digging holes, but I also was the Mayor of Manawatū during the 2004 flood, which was a very similar event to this, and I’ll get on to the differences in a minute. And so I have quite a significant amount of experience, actually, of leading a community through this kind of event, and I’m sure there are other people in this House that have that same experience. So I don’t think we should take for granted that we know nothing in this place, because some people have had experience of these things.

Anyway, back to the Hawke’s Bay—or to the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill. I keep on talking about the Hawke’s Bay area, because it’s an area that I suppose I know best, and I’ve got a lot of family members who live there. And I did take the opportunity to go and have a look for myself, because you can’t imagine the state or the devastation there unless you do go and have a look. You can see all the TV pictures, because, TV pictures, you don’t know where they’ve come from. But the big difference between this event and any other event I’ve seen in my time—and we are a country that suffers from a lot of these events, simply because we’re a couple of three islands, a long way from anywhere, with massive ocean around us. And we’re very prone to weather events. We are equally as prone to earthquakes as well, of course, and that’s where some of the base of this legislation comes from.

But it’s not until you go and have a look at what’s happened over there that you realise the difference between this event and previous events that I’ve seen in my lifetime in New Zealand. And you know, for many, many events, we see houses flooded, we see land slip away, we see fences disappear, and we see silt dropped everywhere. I’ve never seen in my time the mess that’s been created by the built infrastructure—primarily horticultural related—around vineyards and apple orchards and things like that, where you’ve got this mass of wire and all sorts of stuff tangled up in a heap, and it’s going to be a nightmare to extract it. And so, I think, when the Hon Gerry Brownlee talked earlier about the length of time it’s going to take for this to recover, that’s going to be one of the really complicating issues, because if you don’t have that complicating issue, you can basically put a tractor through, build a fence, resow the grass, and it’s fixed. And so I think there’s a lot of issues, in this particular event, which are—certainly on the East Coast of the North Island—different than what I’ve ever seen anywhere else in my lifetime in New Zealand. And so it’s going to require some very different solutions.

And in the course of putting the first bill through the select committee, we dealt with some of those issues. This bill will deal with a whole lot more of them. And I want to, again, reflect on the 2004 event in the Manawatū—in fact, it was the Manawatū, Tararua, and some parts of Wanganui and King Country. It was quite a large area, and the damage that was done was pretty significant. We didn’t have an Act like this, of course, in those days to resolve the problem. Fortunately, the Government stepped in and put in place a fund which enabled those businesses to prove their losses, basically, and then draw on that funding. Now, the way that funding was allocated was decided by committees in different areas. So they had little committees of, I think, three or four people who took the applications and then understood and worked their way through what was required to fix those applications. And I think, from memory, it might have been only 80 percent of the total damage that was paid for by the Government. And when you look at those areas now, they’ve made a remarkable recovery. And you’ve got to hope that this legislation enables the Government to make those kinds of decisions and make them quickly and effectively. It’s not going to be cheap, unfortunately, but that’s the nature of the challenges we face as a country. So it’s going to be extremely expensive to fix.

Anyway, I’ve veered slightly from the actual intent of the bill, because the intent of this bill, as most of the speakers have alluded to, is to get this thing fixed as quickly as we can with as little obstruction from our current, I guess, laws and the protection that they give to our communities. But we’re really just trying to put back infrastructure as quickly as we can to get the thing moving. Now, one of the challenges that I alluded to in the last bill that came through the House is the fact that it’s all very well to talk about putting back better, but it’s very difficult to put back better when you’re in a hurry to put it back. And when you’ve got—I think Gerry Brownlee said—28 bridges, and I know—and I’ll get on to the Manawatū in a minute—there’s four bridges in the top of the Pohangina gone as well. When you’ve got to put those back, you’ve got to put them back as quickly as you can, simply because those people and those businesses affected by them can’t operate without them. The same thing applies to houses, although there’ll be many, many houses that I’ve seen on the East Coast that won’t ever be put back anywhere near where they came from. And that, of course, has happened before in the Christchurch earthquakes—the best example of that. And you’ve just got to hope that we can very quickly get to a position where we can make good decisions—quick decisions—about opportunities to rebuild and let those people get on with their lives in the slightly different venue or location than they were before—hopefully not too different.

So that’s really the reason we need to put this bill through the House so quickly, because we’ve got to enable those businesses, communities, contractors, everyone else involved to get on with this thing as quickly as possible and with as little impediment as possible. And I think, contrary to one of our early speakers, the safeguards in this bill are more than adequate. In fact, I think the Hon Gerry Brownlee thought they were probably too onerous, and I think to some extent he might be right, because it’s not really a threat to put something back where it was, because it was already there. And so I think that a lot of the decisions that are going to be made here are going to be made on the basis that it’s got to be done quickly and got to be done as best we can, but might not in every case be permanent either, because there will be opportunities in the future to change the way these things are set up. But, initially, you’ve got to do it as quickly as you can.

I just want to very quickly talk about one or two other changes. I was very pleased to see one of those changes come through with respect to the Resource Management Act, where it’s including—and it should have been in the last bill, but wasn’t; I think the Minister actually alluded to why it wasn’t, but it simply wasn’t, because we didn’t understand the magnitude of the damage in the Ōroua, the Pohangina, and the Rangitīkei Rivers, which, of course, get all their water from Hawke’s Bay. So it wasn’t our fault; it was Hawke’s Bay’s fault. We’ll blame them! All the water came over the hill and ran down our rivers. We didn’t get much rain, actually, but it’s done an immense amount of damage, and, as I said earlier, I think, at the top of one of those rivers, four bridges have gone—one quite big one. And so it was really good to see that brought to the fore and this. It enables that area to be part of the recovery as well. In fact, this bill does cover the whole of the North Island, but this was specific to the previous bill that was brought to the House.

So I think that the last thing I really want to talk about is the skills and experience that the severe weather events review committee will have, and I think that their role—again, the Hon Gerry Brownlee said—really is to make recommendations as to what’s sensible and what’s not. The recovery part of the package after that will require a whole lot of different expertise. And I think, again, when you look at the East Coast particularly—and I’m not so familiar with the events in Northland—it’s going to require a massive input from horticulture and agricultural sectors because that’s where the real damage has been done, and clearly from the country’s perspective, at a time when we’ve got our export economy struggling a little bit, simply because we’ve got a lack of people to put output from the dairy industry and probably the horticulture sector as well. So we’ve got some issues that we’re facing, the challenges in the economy, and to have a large piece of our economy knocked out, it’s not going to come back quickly, but it’s important that it comes back as quickly as it possibly can. So I look forward to this bill coming to the select committee. We’ve got pretty good at it now. We’ve had a bit of practice a couple of weeks ago, and I’m sure we’ll get through this in good order and report back to the House in a couple of weeks’ time. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the member for Tukituki, and here representing Hawke’s Bay tonight, I would first like to acknowledge the incredible hard work that has been going on in our region. I’m incredibly proud and would like to say thank you to everyone who is out there helping get on with the recovery.

This bill is what Hawke’s Bay has been waiting for, because it gives us the ability in our region to have the flexibility to enable and expedite and respond quickly to what is needed to get on with the job that we’ve got.

One of the most important things that is in this bill is making sure that our community is consulted with. And when you’re out on the ground, like I am, that is the message that I continually hear and continually bring back to Wellington. This needs to be a locally led, regionally supported, and Government-enabled recovery. Fundamentally, this legislation will enable us to move quickly and move forward together.

I’d also like to acknowledge those that are providing widespread support across the House—from those members of the National Party and of the Green Party and here in the Government—to support this bill to make sure we can build back better. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend the bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 108

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 12

ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

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

Ayes 108

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Instruction to Governance and Administration Committee

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Emergency Management): I move, That the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill be reported to the House by 5 April 2023 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The rationale for this is very clear. This bill needs to be passed as quick as possible in order to be able to assist in the recovery in those areas that have been affected by the severe weather in the North Island. We’ve seen from the debate on the first reading that the majority of parties in this House support this bill, and we are encouraged by that and thank them for that. We saw from the first bill that there was, on the whole, collaboration across the House in recognition of the need to do this as quickly as possible.

However, the Government also recognises that there does need to be, as much as possible, time at select committee for experts to submit on this and try and improve the bill where possible. Providing that scrutiny is vitally important. Sending it to the Governance and Administration Committee, with the experience that they have in scrutinising the first bill, is also a welcome move, in my view. Chaired by a member of the Opposition—Ian McKelvie—it demonstrates, I think, that the Government is wanting to do this as well as it possibly can to ensure that we get as much support as possible.

This bill will make a significant difference in those areas that have been affected by the severe weather. We’ve heard of many examples of things that people want to be able to do to assist with the recovery, but the current rules and regulations prevent them from doing it. If we were to pursue things through the normal parliamentary procedure, it would take too long for that to be effective. This—what is proposed here—echoes the approach that was taken during the Christchurch earthquakes and the Hurunui-Kaikōura earthquakes, but it learns the lessons from those approaches and includes further safeguards as well. I am confident that this is the appropriate thing to do, and, also, ensuring that we have a slightly more extended period at select committee will also give that committee and those that are submitting as much time as is practical to be able to look to provide recommendations and potentially improve what’s being proposed.

I thank those parties for acting collaboratively and supporting this approach, and I look forward to seeing what recommendations come from the select committee process.

Motion agreed to.

Urgency

Urgency

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Leader of the House): I move, That urgency be accorded the first and second readings of the Appropriation (2021/22 Confirmation and Validation) Bill; the passing through the remaining stages of the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill; the first reading and referral to a select committee of the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3), the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill, the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill, the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill, the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill, and the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill; and the passing through the remaining stages of the Coroners Amendment Bill, the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill, the Civil Aviation Bill, the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill, the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill, the Organic Products and Production Bill, and the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill.

The first week of 2023 was adjourned because of Cyclone Gabrielle, and this resulted in the loss of 15 hours of Government business. This urgency motion will enable some of that time to be made up. It would only be if the House sat until 10 p.m. on Thursday that we would have the whole 15 hours restored. There are six first readings in the motion, plus the appropriation bill—all bills that the Government intends to enact before the election. Only one of them would be available today if we were not in urgency. Including them in the motion maximises the time available for select committee consideration and will allow submissions to be called for this week. Many of the remaining bills in motion have been on the Order Paper for some time and have been further delayed by the loss of the first sitting week of the year. The need for these bills to complete their passage through the House has become pressing in some cases—for example, the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill has already had its commencement pushed out by six months. The bill must be passed in this sitting block, or a further delay would be required in order to allow a robust appointment process to take place. I thank the House for considering this motion.

A party vote was called for on the question, That urgency be accorded.

Ayes 64

New Zealand Labour 64.

Noes 56

New Zealand National 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Appropriation (2021/22 Confirmation and Validation) Bill

First Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Appropriation (2021/22 Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a first time.

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

Ayes 76

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

Noes 44

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Second Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Appropriation (2021/22 Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a second time.

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

Ayes 76

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

Noes 44

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill.

Bills

Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 14 March.

Parts 1 to 5 and clauses 1 and 2 (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the House is in committee on the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill. When we were last considering the bill, we were debating Parts 1 to 5 and clauses 1 and 2. The question is that Parts 1 to 5 and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 108

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 12

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

Motion agreed to.

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

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I’m pleased to stand here this evening on the—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you have a legislative statement?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I do, Mr Speaker, of course I do. I present a legislative statement on the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill.

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

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

This is a big day for our Government when it comes to the measures that we are seeking to put in place to make targeted interventions to ensure that New Zealand is safe. This Government is providing police additional tools to seize the illicit assets of organised criminals through this legislation. The raft of legislative changes are targeted at gangs and are intended to strip gang members of the benefits of those criminal activities. This is about ensuring that crime does not pay and that there are major consequences for criminals and gang activity where those individuals who seek to participate within those criminal organisations and seek to gain from those activities—we say, on this side of the House, that we will not tolerate the participation in those activities. We are being very clear that this side of the House will make meaningful, evidence-based interventions where it is appropriate to do so, and the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill does just that. Together with the criminal activity intervention legislation, these measures will hit the gangs where it hurts the most: that is, indeed, their profits. In 2020, we campaigned hard on working harder and smarter to keep our communities safer, break the cycle of offending, and tackle the root causes of crime—and across a range of areas, this is exactly what we are doing across the criminal justice portfolio.

So this bill contributes to the Government’s election manifesto commitments to respond to organised crime by ensuring enforcement agencies—primarily the police—have the appropriate powers to seize the proceeds of crime, to disrupt organised criminal offending, and primarily to hold its ringleaders—its leaders of those criminal organisations—to account. The new amendments to the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act will ensure that if someone is associated with organised criminal groups, and if it is suspected they can fund those activities appropriately, that interventions will be made.

There are four parts to this particular piece of legislation that we are introducing tonight. The first—and any New Zealander like myself would have been quite “befuddled”, is the word that I used earlier today, to find out that where you have somebody shooting at a home, that there are simply insufficient penalties that the police have to call on—we are introducing a crime: discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate. This clause will amend the Crimes Act 1961 and it will introduce a threatening act. The key issue here is that in times more recent—and this was particularly evident last year—we saw, in a heightened time of gang conflict, that you had individuals that were going out there, shooting at homes, and the penalties available to the police at that time were simply inadequate. There is a summary offence of discharging a weapon in a public place—the maximum penalties that were attached to that were simply untenable for a modern country that is committed to ensuring that we keep communities safe.

Secondly, what we are seeking to do here is expand the power of enforcement officers to seize and impound vehicles where it can be shown that vehicles are proven to intimidate or cause concern to the general public. This amendment is included to provide that the owner of a motor vehicle seized and impounded under the expanded provision relating to seizure of motor vehicles, set out in clause 16, with the right of appeal to the police—this appeal can be exercised on the basis that the owner could not have been reasonably expected to know that the operator of the vehicle would commit any of the new specified offences, or took all reasonable steps to prevent the operator of the vehicle from committing such an offence.

The third part of this bill is that we are introducing a warrant to search and seize weapons where there is a gang conflict. This has been the primary focus, and I would just like to acknowledge the work that has been done by the select committee, and all of those that submitted on this particular provision, stewarded through in an exceptional manner by the former chair of the Justice Committee, the now Minister of Police, the Hon Ginny Andersen. The warrant to search and seize weapons where there is a gang conflict—again, this is in direct response to the issues that arose last year. We had well-documented intergang warfare. The police knew what was happening in terms of that inter-gang warfare. They could anticipate who was about to undertake particular types of activities, but they didn’t have any powers to be able to act upon the intelligence that they were receiving.

What this warrant does is it enables the police to go before a judge to seek a warrant, it will be tagged to a particular geographical location, it will be tagged to the particular participating gangs, and it will enable the police to undertake search and seizures for weapons in a specified gang conflict period of time. We’ve sought to ensure that this power, which is a bold power to provide our police, is offset and balanced by ensuring that the police are required to put up a sound evidential basis to the courts. The courts are required to run over quite a coherent test, and the court must be satisfied that there is a sound evidential basis by which that warrant should be provided.

I want to address the fact that every single aspect that we have sought to do as a Government isn’t to respond in an emotive manner. What we’ve sought to do on this side of the House when it comes to tackling the criminal justice issues that have found themselves before us is to make sure that we act and that we operate on a sound, evidential basis. There is a sound, evidential basis for the introduction of these measures that we are seeking to introduce tonight. What some may say is a knee-jerk reaction—to the contrary. What would be a knee-jerk reaction is introducing evidence-less measures like banning gang patches, where the late Hon Chester Borrows, who introduced that measure in a little place called Whanganui, later came to be of the view that it was absolutely ineffectual, as testaments were made from this side of the House at the time, that that measure simply would not work to intervene and interrupt and disrupt gang activity. We know that what will intervene and interrupt and disrupt is making sure that we target those gangs where it hurts the most, and that is always going to be in one’s wallet.

So I’m proud of this bill that we’re bringing forward tonight. I’m also proud of the additional measures that this Government has introduced to tackle the root causes of crime; that we have provided a plethora of other avenues to ensure that those young New Zealanders who feel helpless and feel like there is no other place for them, who might be lured into the seductive life of those gang environments—that we are providing alternative measures, whether that’s through work, whether that’s through training, whether that’s through wraparound services to support those young people to make different choices. I’m confident in our Government’s approach to the broader crime and criminal justice portfolio. These measures here will provide our law enforcement officers with the much-required tools that they require. So I’m pleased to commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very happy to stand and take a call on the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill in its third reading. I’d just like to acknowledge our advisers to the committee, who waited around in Parliament tonight to come in for the committee stage, which was truncated, and they weren’t here for long. But I want to acknowledge and thank them because not only did they support us and help us with advice on this bill but they helped us with the recovery bill also.

We support the bills that have been brought to the House, because I think everyone in this country recognises the fact that over the last five years, we have seen an enormous growth in gang numbers, we have seen gang members now that are prepared to carry firearms, and the worst thing about it is they’re showing that they’re willing to use them, and, unfortunately, in this country we are seeing evidence of that on a weekly basis. I guess what may have expedited and sort of prompted the Government to act a bit more quickly around this bill was the fact that last year, we saw 22 or 23 drive-by shootings.

There’s been a report come out recently from the police that clearly indicates that these drive-by shootings that we all assume are inter-gang rivalry and they’re targeting other gang homes—the only problem with that is that I’m sure there are, often, innocent children that are in those homes. I don’t know how—it’s just through the luck of the Irish that we have not had a member of the public or, worse still, a child seriously injured or killed in one of these drive-by shootings.

But the recent information that came to light is the fact that they are indiscriminate. These drive-by shootings aren’t always targeted at gang homes. Innocent members of the public have been caught up in it and have had their homes targeted, and I don’t think anyone in this House would accept that. It’s bad enough that gang homes are being targeted, but it becomes a whole new level when innocent members of the public have their homes targeted in drive-by shootings.

This bill is important in the sense that it does give the police a wider-ranging power to be able to have a warrant issued so that they can start to target the two gangs that are involved in the conflict. So we fully support that. We think that that is important.

The other thing that I’d say in relation to gang conflict is that the Minister referred to this bill targeting the leaders. This bill doesn’t talk to or comment—it has nothing to do with targeting the leaders of the gangs. I’m hoping—I’m hoping—that some of the leaders of the gangs are captured by this legislation. It’s probably highly unlikely, because—as you know through your own wide and varied experience, Mr Deputy Speaker—often, the leaders will try to insulate themselves from this type of activity. It’s not them that go out and actually do the drive-by shootings; it’s their foot soldiers that they send out there to do it.

The other issue that I did want to raise—and the Minister raised this in her closing comments—is that she keeps coming back and keeps talking about the Hon Chester Borrows in speaking about gang patches. In my view—and that’s why I want to clarify it—she seems to think that the banning of gang patches is not going to prevent drive-by shootings. I understand what she’s saying, but the only thing that I would comment to that is that the 23 drive-by shootings that we saw in South Auckland and West Auckland and on the North Shore last year were sparked through a dispute over a gang patch—that’s what actually started it.

Just for the Minister’s information, I took a bill through this House about six or seven years ago. It was actually Todd McClay’s bill, and it was a member’s bill because he was having serious gang conflict in Rotorua at the time between Black Power and the Mongrel Mob. It bans gang patches and gang insignia in hospitals and schools and Government buildings, and the police use it. What it means is that parents with their children don’t have to see gang patches walking around the school grounds. Gang patches, quite simply, as you and I both know, are there to intimidate. They’re there to try and strike fear into the community that these gang members live in, and it’s been effective.

I attended a public meeting down in Taradale a few years ago after a drive-by shooting in the middle of town during the middle of the day, in which a toddler’s car seat ended up with shotgun pellets in it. It was open warfare by the gangs in the middle of Taradale. I was talking to the police officers down there, and they said, “We use the gang patch bill. We enforce that. It’s a good tool for us to use.” So I just wanted to alert the Minister to the fact that that piece of legislation actually has been quite useful for police to reinforce and put pressure on the gangs and put a line in the sand and say, “You will not wear those patches in our schools. You will not wear them in the hospitals.”

And, by the way, hospitals are a big problem in terms of gang presence. We saw recently an example of that in Christchurch, where the gangs have taken over the car park, they had a big presence in the emergency department. I actually had an experience of this myself just recently in North Shore Hospital, where my son was being treated, and the gangs had a heavy presence in the ward that he was in. It’s intimidating for people. I want to shout out and acknowledge the medical staff, the nurses, and the doctors who try to work around that and try to make it work and try to avoid conflict and confrontation because they don’t want to place more stress on the patients and the people that are actually using the ward or the hospital at the time.

So, although I support this bill, I just wanted to address those comments that the Minister made, for whatever reason—I don’t know why—and thank you for allowing me to do it, Mr Speaker, because it’s not actually relevant to the bill at all, but I did want to at least speak to it.

In relation to the seizure of vehicles, this is a good one, but, again, because we have got a problem in this country now, where gang members, in particular, feel that they can get out on roads, they can take over public spaces, they can drive into oncoming members of the public and force them off the road, they can intimidate them, threaten them, and take over intersections—and we shouldn’t tolerate that. When you’ve got law-abiding citizens out there trying to stick to our road rules, and they see gangs taking over the roads like that, they shouldn’t tolerate that. We shouldn’t tolerate that. So I support legislation that allows the police to take action.

The only problem that I have with it is that the bar has been set very high, with “careless, dangerous, and reckless use”—that is a very high bar that has to be met, in terms of triggering the ability for the police to be able to seize those vehicles. I hope that it can be operationalised. My fear is that they’re going to have real problems and real issues with it.

So I’m very happy to stand and support this bill. Like most of the legislation that we’re standing and supporting, we would have gone further. We are very sensitive to the fact that, at the moment, we should be fully focused on what our front-line police officers need in a practical sense to be able to apply the legislation and start putting genuine pressure back on the gangs. I have to say that a lot of the legislation that comes through the House has got some intent there, but it goes halfway and it doesn’t go the whole way. On saying that, I’m happy to stand and I’m happy to support the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Police): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill aims to make our communities safer in New Zealand by addressing the harm caused by criminal offending. The bill does this in a number of ways; it creates new powers and offences to assist front-line police to better prevent and respond to the harm caused by criminal offending. The offending targeted by this bill is most commonly associated with gangs, and includes offences such as money-laundering, dangerous behaviour on our roads, and the use of firearms. The bill provides additional powers to address a gap in the legislation to discharge firearms with intent to intimidate; gang conflict that poses a risk to the public when firearms and other weapons are used; and high-risk and illegal behaviour on our roads, such as dangerous or reckless driving; gangs laundering the proceeds of drug sales; and also other illegal activities, where higher amounts of cash are being used.

I’m going to touch on just two of these areas, to keep this to the point. First of all, I want to talk about the new warranted powers to address gang conflicts. So when intergang conflicts are occurring, as we have seen in New Zealand over the past recent months and years, violence may be committed by any number of gang members, and weapons are frequently moved between locations. This provides police with some particular challenges. This bill provides a new warrant-to-search power, authorised by a judge, that will enable front-line police to rapidly search properties associated with gangs for weapons. The quicker that police are able to locate and seize weapons, the less harm is likely to arise from conflicts, and the ability to prevent harm to our communities is done. The warrant would be authorised by a judge for a maximum of 14 days, and it would cover the homes and vehicles of gang members and non-gang members who are encouraging or assisting in the conflict. This will assist police to work and de-escalate situations before our community is put in harm.

The second area I’d like to touch on is: shooting in a public place to intimidate. Again, this focuses on targeting where weapons have been used. There are a number of existing offences related to discharging a firearm; however, discharging a firearm with the intention of intimidating a person who is in a public place, rather than in a house, presents a gap in our existing firearms legislation. This bill creates a new offence of discharging a firearm with the intent to intimidate, with a maximum imprisonment term of five years.

The other areas where this bill creates new offences to assist front-line police are: dangerous and intimidating driving, and also gangs moving money. I know there’ll be some people within police who are very happy to have this bill providing police with a power to seize cash in suspicious circumstances above $10,000.

I’d like to close by saying that this bill provides police with new offences and powers to better respond to criminal offending. It sends a very strong message to those who create a disproportionate degree of harm in our communities that their offending will not be tolerated. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I speak on this bill, the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, which the National Party will support, but it’s a bill from a Government that is tired and rotten, as we’ve seen tonight, with a replacement of a Minister that has reached new lows in terms of ministerial activity. We’ve just heard from the current police Minister, and I hope and pray that her career doesn’t end in the same way as her predecessor, because we in this country have come to expect certain kinds of behaviour from Ministers, and we haven’t seen that tonight. And what we’ve seen from this Government instead has been the tolerance of low standards of conduct and—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Goldsmith, the bill please.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you, Mr Speaker. And so what we’ve also seen from this Government is a very muddled approach towards crime. And so this bill, the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, is a useful piece of legislation that does some things that will make it easier for the police to do their job and to hold, particularly, gang members to account. It does bring in particular offences about discharging a firearm in a public place. Yes, OK, that’s useful, and it gives some warranted search powers for weapons in responding to gang conflict. Notably, the Government hasn’t done what it should have done in terms of making it easier for police to have warrantless powers to search for weapons and cars as a general course of event for gang members, as the National Party has suggested. But it’s useful. They’ve expanded the range of factors that can be dealt with in terms of vehicle empowerment, and we’ve heard a long diatribe from the previous speaker on that, and it’s given the police powers to seize cash if it’s gathered in certain circumstances.

So all those things, yes, will make a modest improvement. But the problem is that the gang members are sitting out here and they’re looking at this Government, the Labour Government—this tired and rotten Government—they’re looking at them and saying, “Well, what is their attitude towards us?” And they can’t work it out because every now and again they pass a law like this which makes their life a bit more difficult, but, the other half of the time, they’re making their life easier; they’re giving them money to do drug rehabilitation programmes, or they’re passing—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Goldsmith, let’s help the gang members out by talking about the bill, so they know what it’s about.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, thank you, Mr Speaker, but I’m giving the context for this bill, and I’m perfectly entitled to give the context to this bill, and what I want the people of New Zealand to understand is that this bill is in a context, and it is in a context of a muddled Government when it comes to law and order. They’re not sending clear messages to the gangs, which they are saying, and the Minister of Justice said in her speech only three or four speeches ago, are the target of this legislation—to make their lives more difficult in terms of the criminal activity. The point I’m making is that while they are doing that, on one hand, on the other hand, they’re passing legislation such as repealing the three-strikes legislation, which reduces sentences for our worst repeat offenders. And so people are confused as to what the purpose of this Government is. And, at the same time as they’re passing this legislation, which says that gangs can’t move and convert large sums of cash, they’re also giving money to gang associates to run meth rehabilitation programmes. So it’s confusing and people can’t understand what the purpose of this Government is.

And it’s not surprising that over the last five years, we’ve seen an increase in crime; we’ve seen an increase in violent crime. We’ve seen these very strange, conflicting trends in our justice figures over the last five years where we’ve seen the increase in violent crime going up like this and we’ve seen the number of people going to prison going down like that. People can’t work that out. They look at it and they say, “Well, what’s going on? Why is the only clear target in the justice sector from this Government a 30 percent reduction in the number of people in prison, irrespective of what’s going on on the street and irrespective of the level of crime on our streets, they want to reduce the prison population?”

So it’s all very well to pass legislation like this, which does a few things. It creates new offences for discharging a firearm in a public place, and the Minister will stand up and she’ll say, “I’m tough on crime. Aren’t I tough on crime? I’ve introduced this legislation that has a new warranted search power for weapons when there is a gang conflict. Aren’t I tough on crime?”, but then, on the other hand, the Government is doing half a dozen things which make it easier for our worst repeat offenders to carry on their work and to create new victims.

That’s why we’re willing to support this legislation, but we’re not at all convinced that this Government has a clear and coherent set of policies on law and order. And that’s why the National Government promises to restore law and order in this country in October when we get a chance and, hopefully, there’ll be a by-election before that and we will be able to run those issues out before the people of Napier, because that’s what this country needs and deserves. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My electorate office in north-west Auckland is in Massey. Last week, I sat around the table with a member of our West Auckland police force and we discussed this area of law, both the powers they currently have but also some of the gaps, as they address issues in West Auckland. I also spoke to a family who live in West Auckland, who were visibly distressed about some of the community safety issues they face. It’s undeniable that this is real for people, and it does mean that we do need to respond.

But to my Green Party colleagues, it’s also undeniable that whenever we create a new search power, we need to ensure that we’re being very cautious about that. Once again, I’d like to commend the Justice Committee, who I do think held the role that we took on in this space very seriously, and one example of that is the change that the committee recommended in clause 22, amending section 131, which concerns the information that is required to be provided to occupiers before a search is carried out. What the committee traversed is what information is provided to others under similar warrants, and we found that this search power required less information to be provided. So the committee was very clear that we felt that the bill should be amended to lift that information provided to individuals.

It is an incredibly difficult space to traverse in terms of getting the balance right, but I do think what we need to be mindful of is that while this is a Government who put forward a set of legislative measures—as well as policy initiatives that cover prevention and punitive measures, as well as rehabilitative—there are parts of our legislative framework that do just need to address the very real community safety issues that people are facing. I commend this bill to the House.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. And I do want to begin by acknowledging, as my colleague and friend Vanushi Walters has just done, that, actually, the issues that are purportedly being addressed by this bill are real for our communities. For those who experience violent crime or property crimes or any kind of disturbance in our lives, it’s real, and people who are victims of those crimes do need support, and they do need to see us, as their House of Representatives, taking meaningful action to keep those communities safe.

I say those issues are issues that this bill purports to address, because I don’t believe—and the Green Party certainly doesn’t believe—that this is, in fact, a good bill that does much to keep communities safe. It does, to begin, purport to create a new offence of discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate. And as much as we call it a new offence, we have to remember that, actually, threatening acts committed with a firearm are already offences that this bill repeals to replace, in part, section 308 of the Crimes Act with this apparently new Act. Now, is that going to do much more to keep our community safe? It’s only an extension of the maximum sentence to five years from three years. If so far we’ve had so much trouble and we keep raising imprisonment maximum penalties and we keep asking ourselves why it’s not working, is this really anything new, is it really effective, and is it fair for us to tell those victim communities that it is new, that it is a solution, and that it will work?

We move on to, in Part 2, a part that, again, tries to respond to conduct which occurs during gang convoys. However, this expanded power can actually be used by police to apply to protesting convoys, to anyone that seemed to be driving recklessly or dangerously, and to say that a vehicle can then be immediately impounded. Putting that together with what we know of policing in our nation and the kinds of communities that are seen as being a threat of criminal activity and without having laws in place that require police to have a reasonable belief, based on evidence, of actual criminal activity, expanding that power that can be applied to anyone—including just reckless behaviour that the police might suspect is to do with gang violence—without an objective criteria that normal police powers have, and to take a family’s vehicle away, then, in those circumstances, for 28 days, that’s a pretty big power, and it’s not connected to criminal activity, and it’s not being applied to an objective standard. So are we really keeping communities safe with that extended power? Again, are we just making ourselves look a bit tough on crime?

So Parts 1 and 2 actually don’t necessarily apply to gangs. It has that word in it somewhere, but it can be used by police to apply to anyone, and it does extend powers that already exist beyond what is reasonable. In our estimation, it does weaken policing, actually, because it doesn’t require police to meet the evidential standards that they normally would have to meet, and so are we really even applying them to criminal activity, let alone gang activity?

But one of the later parts that actually concerns me more than anything is Part 5, where there is no requirement for a belief that cash is an instrument of crime but only that a suspicion is there. So we’re then talking about pretty broad powers of police to take away, again, people’s property in circumstances where we’ve taken away any requirement that they have and that they have to meet an objective evidential standard that we normally have in our laws that an actual crime might have happened. So are we really ensuring that our police, as a front-line institution entrusted to keep our communities safe, are actually doing that? Or is this a revenue-gathering exercise? Or is it, again, another power that we’re giving our police force in order to stand in this House and say that we’re doing something about what concerns our communities?

Again, we have to read this bill and look at these expanded powers that aren’t about evidence-based policing, and put them together with all of the research that our Government last term actually commissioned—all that independent research that’s just sitting there—that says that police, when their powers are expanded, are exercising them against certain communities, and those communities don’t necessarily fall into the category of people actually committing crimes, actually making our communities less safe?

It’s policing without legal standards that we recognise normally in our system, which then, by definition, is tyranny. It’s not keeping communities safe; it’s just police powers that can be exercised with prejudice. Again, and I hate to say this in this House too many times in one night, but the most heartbreaking thing about introducing a bill like this that does so little but lowers standards is that, again, we know what actually stops violent crime. We know what stops our young people from joining gangs; we know that 89 percent of under-19-year-olds that we lock up that commit what we call “serious crimes”—serious enough that they get locked up—actually then get diagnosed with a serious learning disability. So inclusive education is a means of keeping people—young people—out of gangs. Are we investing in that? No.

Mental health care; addiction treatment that’s accessible and inclusive; housing; incomes that are livable. If we want to ask ourselves why—if the stats are to be believed—violent crime has gone up by so much among young people, in particular, over the past year, then let’s look at what we know prevents crime that might have also gone up over the past year. That’s inequality, and it’s a mental health crisis. Instead, we’re providing more police powers—more police powers that can be used in amorphous circumstances like this without even the objective standard of belief that the crime has happened.

So this is a bad law and it’s a bad direction that I feel sad about with the Labour-led Government. But, hopefully, as this right side of the House has said, it looks forward to October, I think that I can say confidently that with a bigger Green heart in Government, we’ll do a lot more with justice that’s effective and actually keeps communities safe and inclusive next term.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party in this third reading to support the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill. We support this bill, although we do believe that at least one of the changes that is being made is unnecessary, but let’s get to the four Acts that are being changed, making this an omnibus bill.

First of all, we have the Land Transport Act 1998. That’s going to be changed so that the seizure and impounding of vehicles can be made easier by police in circumstances where we see things like a procession of gang members in a funeral procession overtaking the streets, overtaking intersections, running amok, hanging out of their vehicles, hanging out of their utes, and just generally being bullies. This is allowing us to be able to impound their cars for 28 days.

The Search and Surveillance Act 2012 is also being amended. It will give two new powers. The first one allows the issue of a warrant to search and seize weapons during a gang conflict, and the second is the power to seize cash found in suspicious circumstances that amounts to over $10,000. Now, allowing the issue of a warrant to search and seize weapons during a gang conflict is becoming something that is absolutely necessary, and, unfortunately, we are seeing, again, another increase in drive-by shootings. We’re seeing innocent family homes being targeted. We’re seeing a whole lot of gang influence in our communities by those that just want to be absolute thugs. Now, I’ve got absolutely no sympathy for them at all. If you want to behave in a way where you go against the law, then you should feel the full force of the law, but, unfortunately, with some of the pieces of legislation we have, we’re finding situations where the police are unable to or do not use the law that they have. So we are giving them those extra powers so that they can keep our community safe.

There is an Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 change as well, and this will prohibit cash transactions over a specified value for certain high-value goods. That’s, basically, meaning that the person who turns up with 40 grand in their back pocket in cash can’t go about buying that Harley-Davidson that easily. It means that we will have some sort of countenance to where the cash has come from, and also responsibility for the sellers and the buyers to ensure that the transactions are legitimate and legal.

Another change we make is to the Crimes Act 1961, and it’s discharging a firearm with intent to intimidate. This is specific for drive-by shootings. I said it in the second reading, but I’ll say it again: ACT believe that this is unnecessary legislation, because there is already law in place to address the discharge of a firearm unlawfully, and that’s in section 48 of the Arms Act. The difference here is that the word “intimidation” is being put into the clause, and there is a difference in the penalties. This, I think, is an attempt by the Government of the day to show that they are going to try and be hard on those that misuse firearms in drive-by shootings, but the reality is it’s already there; it’s just not being used. What we could have done is increased the penalties in the Arms Act for those unlawful people, and added intimidation. Instead, we have just introduced another clause doing the same thing, and I think it was an unnecessary waste of taxpayer time and money.

The bill is wanting to address the harm that is caused by criminal activity, including that that’s caused by gangs, in order to make our communities safer. That’s what we say in the introduction to this bill. But ACT doesn’t support creating laws when there are laws already in place in the hope that a new law will be used when the old one with the same wording but harsher penalties is already in the tool box to be used. So let’s get back to actually keeping our communities safe with the laws that we’ve got and the laws that we are making and actually use them so that we don’t have to go about creating new laws the next time we go under urgency.

Nevertheless, if it means that there becomes a consequence for targeting homes, for targeting families, for targeting our innocent kids while they’re sleeping with illegally possessed firearms, then we will absolutely support it. We just consider that we could’ve been supporting the use of existing legislation many years ago instead of trying to do the same washing in a different machine.

We have new clauses in this bill, where a judge can issue a search and seizure warrant if he’s satisfied that a gang conflict exists, that there is one or more gangs involved, that by issuing the warrant the community will be better for it because the potential harm will be gone, and that the warrant can be issued in respect of either a place or a vehicle. This is there to help protect our communities when gang conflicts are occurring or are expected to occur, because usually it’s all about retaliation. When one event happens, there is utu or retaliation by the other, and you can see it coming. In some of the communities, you can feel it coming. So this new power will allow the police to go to a judge and ask for warrants to be able to go in there and actually look at seizing weapons to try and prevent this gang conflict. As I said, we can all see it, and we can get involved in it, not because we want to but because we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that’s why it’s so important to have this legislation. We know that gangs have often shown no respect for our communities, no respect for our families, nor for our tamariki when they are out there looking for revenge. So we need to stop that way of thinking in their minds.

These changes will allow police to search and seize weapons in an attempt to deescalate this conflict between the gangs, and it also allows for what we hope will be the successful execution of those warrants at multiple addresses and on multiple vehicles all at the same time. This bill isn’t just about finding and seizing firearms; it’s about finding and seizing weapons—any weapons that could be used in a gang conflict—and this includes cars. Where vehicles are used inappropriately, they can be seized and impounded for up to 28 days. Where the seizure relates to weapons like bats, knives, and guns, they can be destroyed.

It’s important, again, that I point out that where firearms have been stolen from legitimate and licensed owners, police have verified to us that it is their policy to ensure that if they know where to direct the stolen firearm back to, they will return it instead of destroying it. Nothing in this legislation to protect property that has been stolen has actually been written into this piece of legislation, so I thought it was quite important to bring it up so it is recorded in Hansard that there is that protective right of property for certain owners who had it legally and then had it stolen.

There is a new ability for police to seize cash that they find, where it’s $10,000 or more, and of note is that the police are not allowed to hold on to that cash for too long. In fact, it’s a very short period of time in which the person who’s had that cash seized from them must actually show how they legitimately got it. If they can do that, they get it back quick smart; if they can’t, then the police will either apply to hold on to it for an extension of time or will actually seize it fully.

Finally, we have a reporting clause in this bill as well. The cash seizures have to be reported to an issuing officer, and that’s really quite important. Full reports will need to include whether the search warrant was actually executed; the type of weapons that were seized; whether other powers were also exercised, like the seizure of that cash; and any criminal proceedings that eventuated because of the items found from that executing warrant. That’s how we’re going to know whether or not this bill, which will become law, will actually work—whether we’re on the right pathway, whether we need to make changes—by having reporting and having data to tell us how it’s working.

The need to disrupt gangs and their violence is well overdue. No more families should be hurt. There should be no more loss of innocence to our kids, and we shouldn’t allow any of that to occur. In that respect, ACT will support this bill through its final reading. Thank you.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. “Man hands on misery to man, it rises like a coastal shelf.”—those are the words of Philip Larkin, the English poet who knew something about dysfunctional families and the impact that they have on dysfunctional lives. I quote that as I rise to take a short call on this bill because I do want to acknowledge the point made by the Green Party: that the roots of criminality are deep, they are intergenerational, and, yes, this bill is not going to bring an end to those intergenerational patterns of trauma. The fact that we need to deal with gang violence on multiple levels, from the intergenerational; from the need to build houses, as we are doing; from the need to raise incomes for our most vulnerable, as we are doing; from the need to improve services to children, as we are doing. These things do not mean that we do not still have the responsibility to do what we can to deal with the problem that is immediately before us.

The problem that is immediately before us is that our gangs are becoming difficult and dangerous—they’ve been difficult and dangerous, as Mr Speaker knows, for many, many years—and we need to give our police more tools. These tools need to be carefully designed, because it is a very tricky and sensitive matter to begin to introduce new search and seizure powers. There is no two ways about it; we risk freedoms if we do not take care. Therefore, I am glad that all of the members of the Justice Committee who have risen—including myself now—have spoken to the care and concern that we put into our deliberations on this matter. It is not an easy matter to contemplate the extension of search and seizure powers, but we do believe that this is proportionate in circumstances.

So I want to run quickly over what it is that this bill does. First is that it is the pair to the one we passed earlier: the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill—the devil’s in the detail, and the obvious is in the name. The proceeds bill targeted cash and money and accounts and the passing on of the proceeds of crime into other hands for associates to hold on to it.

This one is a little more targeted. This one is about either seizing large amounts of cash found because—I don’t know about you, Mr Speaker, but in my experience, no one wanders around with $10,000 in cash in their back pockets unless there is something odd going on. It also targets the capture of what the Minister earlier called “bling” and the possession of gold and jewels and watches where there is no explanation other than money-laundering.

It then goes on to put a new targeted warrant and search power for gangs, where there is a gang conflict, where there may be guns. And finally, it gives a new offence which fits in between the very mild initial ones that we have for discharging a firearm with the “intent to annoy”, in the Arms Act, right through to the 14 years’ worth of “discharge with intent to do grievous bodily harm”. This one fits in the middle, the “discharge of firearm with intent to intimidate” is now something that police can deal with, and, on top of that, it enables them to deal with dangerous and disturbing behaviour with driving in convoys.

It isn’t the answer to gangs, but it is the answer to helping the police deal with gang violence in the immediate future, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Bummer! You’ve still got 20 or 30 seconds to go, and so I’d better take a speech. I want to start by acknowledging the Christian community, actually, in Nashville—I know it’s another country, but to acknowledge a wider community, if you will, that I am part of. Three children and three adults are dead, and the shooter—and just to assure that community, long persecuted, that they are in our prayers. I’d also point out to Marama Davidson that the shooter and murderer is not a white cis male.

This bill is a good bill, but it’s a little bit like the earlier bill that we touched on: it’s only putting a veneer over what should really be done. We are going to support the bill—I know the ACT Party and others are supporting it too—but we don’t feel it goes far enough. The one illustration I want to mention is that we need warrantless searches for the likes of gangs. This bill adds bureaucracy to right intention. What I mean by that is, yes, being able to seize firearms, seize cash, seize vehicles, and so forth is a positive, but it’s still wrapped around a number of bureaucratic, unwarranted processes. We feel that we can, and should, go further.

As we’ve heard from others, this bill should be about banning gang patches, it should be about non-associative powers, it should be about dispersal notices from gangs; instead, we have this bill. But, as I say, with the earlier one, when we were talking around criminal recovery, it’s not bad—it’s not a bad bill. We’re happy to support it, because it’s a little step in the right direction, but it’s certainly my encouragement, in closing this speech, that the Labour Government will take crime seriously and demonstrate that by bringing actually serious, substantial legislation to this House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House is suspended and will resume at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 9.57 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)

TUESDAY, 28 MARCH 2023

(continued on Wednesday, 29 March 2023)

Bills

Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good morning. The House is resumed. When we finished we were on the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill. The next speaker is a five-minute call, to the—

Hon Member: No—let’s go to the vote.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 108

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 12

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3)

First Reading

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3).

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

Hon JAN TINETTI: I move, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill and, at an appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

In August 2020, the Government passed the Education and Training Act. The Act was a landmark moment for education in Aotearoa New Zealand, bringing together different education legislation into a single Act. The bill before the House today continues the Government’s programme of improving and strengthening the education system and ensuring that our system delivers equitable and excellent outcomes for all learners.

There are important and necessary policy changes within the bill. Most significantly, this bill establishes a new legislative framework for wānanga to better recognise their mana and rangatiratanga within legislation. My colleague the Hon Kelvin Davis will speak to these changes in detail, but I also want to note the importance of what is in front of us today. This new framework reflects the relationship between the wānanga and the Crown, a relationship that is centred on the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. By introducing bespoke accountability arrangements, we are enabling wānanga to consider how to best fulfil their aspirations and the aspirations of their ākonga, communities, kaimahi, and iwi.

I will now turn to other significant policy changes included in this bill. The bill strengthens the school board member eligibility criteria. As many of you in here will know, concerns have been raised during the recent board election processes about the suitability of some members of the public who have stood for election. In response, the Ministry of Education undertook a review of the current eligibility requirements for school board members, to consider whether they are fit for purpose. The review found that the current requirements do not adequately reflect the role that a school board member has in providing for a school to be physically and emotionally a safe place for students and staff. A majority of stakeholders and members of the public that were consulted also agreed that the eligibility requirements needed to be strengthened.

This bill will amend the Education and Training Act to ensure that people who are convicted of an offence listed in Schedule 2 of the Children’s Act 2014 are not eligible to serve on a State school board. An exemption to this can be approved by the Secretary for Education. The secretary will also be able to conduct random audits on school board members to check whether they meet eligibility criteria. Board members will be required to permit the secretary to obtain any relevant information needed to complete an audit. These changes to school board member eligibility criteria align the standards for board members more closely with those for teachers and other school staff. With these changes, boards can better fulfil their role of keeping our schools safe.

In a continued move to strengthen school governance, the bill makes changes to school board election provisions. These include a one-off amendment to shift the timing of the next mid-term school board elections to November this year, putting elections back on track to the usual timetable after a timing change in 2022. This amendment will give our boards more time to prepare for elections this year.

The bill also expands and modernises the school board member co-option criteria. School boards must have regard for these criteria when deciding to co-opt a board member. The bill updates the criteria to ensure that boards take into account the genders, sexualities, and sexes of students and school community, as well as the disabled students and the school’s disability community when deciding on members to co-opt. This change reflects this Government’s commitment to upholding equity and diversity within our schools. The bill will also enable school boards to fill the student representative position if a student is not elected at the annual September elections, rather than having to wait until the next election. This supports our commitment to strengthen the student voice on school boards.

These three changes to school board election provisions will work to ensure that the governance of our schools is representative and efficient. As part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring the safety of students, we have progressively strengthened police-vetting requirements for non-teaching employees and contractors in early learning services and schools. Last year, through the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2), we removed a two-week grace period for police vetting to ensure that non-teaching employees were vetted before they began work, or, in the case of contractors, before they had unsupervised contact with children. This bill adds to last year’s change by making it explicit that employers at schools and early learning services must consider those police-vets once they have been received and assess any risks to the safety of children before employees begin work, or contractors have unsupervised access to children. While most early learning services and schools are already doing this, this amendment ensures there is no uncertainty in our expectations.

The bill also supports the further development of the early childhood equity index. The new equity index will provide more accurate and up-to-date data on the distribution of Aotearoa’s socio-economic disadvantage so that the equity funding will be better allocated to support children in early learning services. To develop and then apply this index to fund services, the Ministry of Education needs to use data held by Statistics New Zealand. This bill amends the Act to permit the ministry to use this data, enabling us to progress development of the early childhood equity index.

The bill also strengthens accountability and transparency within our education sector. It will require universities and wānanga to publish information about employee remuneration of $100,000 or more and will restrict the appointment of the chief executive of Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu to a term of five years, with the ability to reappoint for further times. The bill separates establishment provisions for kura kaupapa Māori and designated character schools within the Act. As with the changes for wānanga, my colleague the Hon Kelvin Davis will speak about these provisions in more detail.

The bill also makes a number of minor and technical amendments to the Education and Training Act. These amendments include amending the definition of “domestic student” in the Act so that holders of a residence class visa studying overseas are required to satisfy criteria set out in regulations, removing the requirement to present a separate annual report on the export education levy, removing the requirement for tertiary education institutes when not bound by any collective agreement to consult with the Public Service Commissioner when appointing senior staff, ensuring that members of Te Pūkenga, the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology council, can remain in their roles until a successor is appointed, and broadening the regulation-making powers in the Act to allow regulations to be made that empower the Minister of Education to specify school opening hours. I look forward to seeing this bill progressing, and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The National Party doesn’t support this bill. It supports elements of it, but, overall, it doesn’t address the major issues facing the education system in New Zealand that is failing to provide the world-class education that New Zealanders need. It’s a wasted-opportunity bill. The Government should be passing legislation to address the fact that only 46 percent of students were attending school regularly in term 3, 2022, or that 98 percent of decile 1 students failed a foundational NCEA literacy test. Those are the big issues.

Instead of tackling the real issues that we face in the education system in New Zealand, we have this tinkering bill that focuses on things such as changing the criteria for school board members to include genders, sexualities, sexes, and the school’s disability community. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s not where the attention needs to be. Our catastrophic results in reading, in writing, in science, and in maths should be keeping the Minister of Education up at night, but, instead, we have half a decade of declining standards, and no plans to turn this around. So we have this legislation here, a missed-opportunity bill, which tinkers on a series of issues, some of which make sense—yes, it might be useful—some of which are just fiddling while Rome burns. And we would be focusing, in the National Party, on teaching the basics brilliantly to ensure that every Kiwi kid can master the basics so that they can have the life they want to lead.

The Minister of Education, Jan Tinetti, stood up last week and said she’d like to work with National on education. Well, we’d like to work with her and we welcome that and suggest that a good place to start would be teaching the basics brilliantly and getting our education system focused on that rather than passing the No. 3 education bill and tinkering around with small changes in school board election processes. Lord knows how we’re going to actually do that, in a privacy sense, to work out how we’ve got the right genders and sexes and sexualities represented on the school board. It’s a mystery to me, and I don’t know how we’re going to expect people to send out little notices around the place explaining that and for the schools to hold that information.

So what does this legislation do? We have the child protection provisions so that anyone convicted of an offence is automatically ineligible, except exempted by the Secretary of Education—requires all compliance of licensed early childhood education centres, consider police-vets for non-teaching employees and contractors. How that works in practice in relation to plumbers and electricians turning up will be interesting for the select committee to have a look at, in a practical sense. Then we’ve got the school board election processes, which I said expands the criteria for co-opting and appointing school members to include, where reasonably practical, genders, sexualities, and the school’s disability community.

Then we look at the tertiary sector: establishing a new framework for the wānanga, requiring annual reports to include remuneration of over $100,000 per annum at universities. Well, yes, again, maybe of interest. Meantime, we have this burning conflagration of the Te Pūkenga catastrophe in the polytechs area, where hundreds of millions of dollars are being consumed in a hare-brained scheme that is not advancing the area at all after three years and hundreds of millions of dollars being spent. They still don’t have a clear plan of what they’re trying to achieve, what they’re trying to do, and they’ve got fewer students turning up and an economic catastrophe in that area. Instead of coming up with some sensible solutions and changing their mind on some of those areas, what are they doing? Well, they’ve got their mind really focused on the big issues and making sure that we have a complete list of their remunerations in the tertiary sector outlined.

I suppose that the theme that we’re seeing here is a country where there are some big fundamental issues that need to be addressed, and, in education, it’s about the fact that our Kiwi kids are coming out of the education system not equipped to succeed. If we looked at the NCEA literacy and numeracy pilot, we’d see that only 64 percent of students achieved the standard in reading, 34 percent in writing, and 56 percent in numeracy. I tuned in to The Wireless this morning and amidst all the stories about the rot within this Government, in terms of Ministers having to be fired—in between all those stories, there was a story from the business associations pointing out that their latest survey showed that employees were struggling with the fact that too many of the people that were hired to work didn’t have the sufficient literacy and numeracy to do the job. So there are some pretty fundamental issues in the education system that we need to be addressing and this Government is not effectively addressing. Instead, we get legislation like this, which is tinkering around the edges and not solving the problems. And, on that basis, we will not be supporting this bill.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Hei whakapuare i taku kōrero, ka huri ōku whakaaro ki tōku tupuna Te Whatanui. Tā Te Whatanui ka puta Te Rangingangana, nāna i moe i a Whetoi Pōmare, ka puta ko Tiaho, ka puta ko Henare, ka puta ko Uru, ka puta ko Te Wātene, ka puta ko Panapa, ka puta ko ahau.

[To open my speech, my thoughts return to my ancestor Te Whatanui. Te Whatanui’s child was Te Rangingangana, who married Whetoi Pōmare, and had Tiaho, who had Henare, who had Uru, who had Te Wātene, who had Panapa, who had me.]

I’d just like to start my contribution by acknowledging my Ngāti Raukawa connections, my tūpuna Te Whatanui. And the reason I acknowledge my Ngāti Raukawa connections is because, up in the gallery there, we have a number of my whanaunga from Ngāti Raukawa who have been involved in Te Wānanga o Raukawa for a long time. And for them, this bill is not about tinkering; it’s not about fiddling. It is something that might be useful. These aren’t small changes. These are things that are of interest—not maybe of interest—to them. These are big, fundamental issues that need to be addressed for the wānanga sector. Quite frankly, that was an appalling and belittling speech of the changes that are going to be made for the wānanga sector.

The aim of this bill is to provide a resilient education system that delivers for everybody, and that includes Māori. And when I heard Paul Goldsmith speak then, not once did he mention Māori; he just rattled through the list of things that are in this bill, and part of it was he mentioned “wānanga”—I heard the word “wānanga” once; no acknowledgment whatsoever of the importance of these changes to the wānanga sector. And it’s not surprising because, on that side of the House, they’re totally ignorant of what is important to Māori in terms of education.

We know that the system for Māori has not delivered. We know that mātauranga Māori hasn’t been appreciated by the system; we know that it has been suppressed by the system.

Penny Simmonds: Te Pūkenga’s failing Māori.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: And “who cares?”, she says. Who cares? Well, there is a whole group of people in Aotearoa who care about mātauranga Māori, who care about the education of our people. Listen to the rhetoric coming from that side, who do not care about mātauranga Maori, do not care about the wānanga system, do not care about all the gains that Māori have made for Māori education in terms of a by Māori, for Māori approach to education. If ever there was a reason for that mob to stay sitting on that side of the House in the next three years, this is it: a complete disregard and disdain for kaupapa Māori.

Māori have a desire to run education that impacts on them under their own way. They don’t like to have things determined by the Crown—and fair enough. Myself and the then Minister of Education in 2018 turned up to visit the people of Te Wānanga o Raukawa, and they had a number of issues that were important to them. One of them was the differentiation between Kāwanatanga and rangatiratanga. And I totally got it because I don’t see why Kāwanatanga should be involving itself intimately in the affairs of Māori organisations and institutions.

But naively, I thought that this issue could be settled just in a matter of months. And I apologise to my whanaunga up there, because naively I thought that we could sort this out, and it’s taken us a number of years. There was a bit of talking past each other at the start, but once we got the relationship set and once we got—and this is an important point for the members opposite: when we deal as political parties with Māori, we have to establish the relationship in the first instance, because if we get the relationship right, then the transactional side of things will come to fruition.

In the short amount of time I have, I’m proud to say that the wānanga framework that this bill will implement has been co-designed with the Crown—with the Ministry of Education—and the three wānanga. So, for people who don’t know, there are three wānanga in Aotearoa: Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Te Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, and Te Wānanga o Raukawa. And this is an opportunity to reflect on the contributions that those wānanga have made over the past couple of years, as we have developed and designed the new wānanga framework.

This would not have worked without the support and partnership of those wānanga. The framework is built on Te Tiriti principles, and, in particular, the principle of rangatiratanga. There is a role for Kāwanatanga, but it’s a small role. Rangatiratanga, where Māori make decisions based on what they need to meet their needs, is most important so that they can achieve the article 3 guarantee of equity.

So the proposed framework provides the existing wānanga the opportunity to reconstitute themselves either as Crown entities or as non-Crown entities. So a bespoke Crown entity wānanga would maintain accountability primarily to the Crown, and a non-Crown entity wānanga would have primary accountability to iwi, to hapū—a Māori organisation—but still retain some accountability to the Crown.

But what we’re doing here is we’re giving the wānanga the opportunity to make a choice for themselves: whether they want to be a Crown entity wānanga or a non-Crown entity wānanga. Both types of entity would have their unique purpose, their functions, and their governance arrangements set out in an Order in Council. But this enables wānanga to convert to non-Crown entities. It rebalances their governance, the administration, and accountability to empower wānanga and their communities in their governance.

The bill also sets out provisions for the establishment and disestablishment of wānanga. But quite notably, for the first time in legislation, the bill defines the unique characteristics that define wānanga as a collective, recognising that what they offer is distinctive from other tertiary education institutions. These characteristics create requirements that must be met by any future organisations wanting to become wānanga.

Wānanga play a vital role in the tertiary education sector, and it’s a pity that that side of the House was so demeaning and belittling and derogatory in their previous speech. They play a vital role in the tertiary education sector. Their strong focus is on supporting ahunga, especially ahunga Māori. And they are vital in the transmission, the revitalisation, the accessibility, and the normalisation of te reo Māori and also mātauranga Māori.

When I talk about mātauranga Māori, I remember going to school and learning—I think I was at primary school—about the Israeli kibbutz system. Now, can you believe that by the time I got to high school, I knew more about Israeli kibbutzim than I knew about Ruapekapeka Pā, which is just up the road from where I lived, where my tūpuna fought—where Peeni’s tūpuna fought—where my ancestors died. I knew more about a kibbutz system in Israel on the other side of the world than I knew about the pā up the road from me.

Part of the history and the knowledge around the Battle of Ruapekapeka, I’ve since found out through my kaumātua up north. This particular kaumātua recites this mōteatea, which is a lament; he recites a lament and it goes on for quite a while. The lament is describing the whole heap of things: the passion, the loves, and all that sort of stuff of a particular wāhine who fought at Ruapekapeka. And right in the middle of a line, it stops dead; just ends, like mid-sentence. The reason was because that tūpuna whaea was shot dead in the middle of that lament. This is the sort of knowledge and mātauranga that we don’t teach in schools. I grew up down the road from that very pā, and not once did I learn anything about Ruapekapeka Pā, and the history and the knowledge and everything surrounding it. And that is an indictment on our education system. The wānanga, the kura kaupapa—those institutions set up by Māori, for Māori—are turning that around and making a real difference.

Raukawa, in the mid-1970s, established Mātauranga Rua Mano, where they were concerned about the knowledge; the ability of reo in Ngāti Raukawa. In 25 years—well, it’s now close to 50 years—they have turned that around because they’ve been allowed to do it mainly on their own. This is going to help them to do things even better, even stronger, and even faster. Kia ora.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m going to take this opportunity to correct the previous speaker, the Hon Kelvin Davis, in his characterisation of what I was saying during his speech. I certainly would not be disrespecting any of the three wānanga, and I want to acknowledge Te Wānanga o Raukawa, who are here today. I haven’t had the pleasure of working with them, but I certainly had the pleasure for two decades of working with Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and also Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. Both organisations I had extensive years of working with, and I have nothing but admiration and respect for the work they are doing. I think back to my time working with Rongo Wetere and his start-up, and working also with his family of Sue Cullen and Kingi and the amazing work that they did in establishing their wānanga. So I acknowledge and respect the incredible work that they have done over many years—

Hon Kelvin Davis: So support this bill.

PENNY SIMMONDS: I support the component of this bill regarding the wānanga, and absolutely—

Hon Kelvin Davis: But not the whole thing—you won’t support the whole thing.

PENNY SIMMONDS: —but I don’t support the whole bill because it does not have the same depth of need that this component about the wānanga does. So, absolutely, the wānanga have been working with the ministry for some time to get this in place, and I acknowledge that it is work that the three wānanga want to have in the legislation, and I absolutely respect the work that they have done.

Can I just also clarify that what I was trying to point out to the previous speaker was the damage that Te Pūkenga is doing to the three wānanga. The damage that is occurring is that they are moving into the space of the three wānanga, and if he was speaking to the wānanga, he would be aware of the concerns that they have. So it is certainly not the three wānanga; it is Te Pūkenga that I have enormous concerns about. So thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to clarify that.

The rest of this bill is bits and pieces. It is, as my colleague Paul Goldsmith said, fiddling while Rome burns. It is not addressing the real issues right across the education sector, whether it is in the early childhood education (ECE) sector, the compulsory sector, or the tertiary sector. It is mind-boggling that this piece of legislation is what this House is consuming its time on, when we have got real issues across all three sectors of education that should be being considered.

So let’s have a look at the ECE sector and at whether police-vets for non-teaching employees and contractors are necessary. Can I tell you from experience in an ECE sector that if your toilet is blocked, you need a plumber; you don’t need to wait for days to get a plumber police vetted to see if they can come in to unblock the toilet.

Can I tell you, there are a number of issues that the ECE sector is worried about: pay parity, ratios, and things like compliance with food costs and compliance that they have to spend money on every three years. They are not worried about whether their police vetting is done for their plumber or their electrician that they have to get in at speed; they are worried about the practicalities of being able to run an ECE centre at a cost with fees that parents can pay. So that’s what they are worried about.

Let’s have a think about what school boards might be being kept awake about overnight. Are they worried about the sexuality of their board members? Well, Marama Davidson might be—she might be worried about whether it’s all cis white males. But I can tell you the things that are keeping board members awake at night are not that; they are whether they can get enough teachers and whether they have got a curriculum that supports their teachers. They are worried about what they are able to teach in their classrooms, and thank goodness—thank goodness—the National Party has come up with a policy to be able to help them with that.

So when you have a look at the other concerns in this piece of legislation about the tertiary sector, do you really think the tertiary sector are tossing and turning all night worried about the terms of office for the board of Te Pūkenga?

Shanan Halbert: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m just concerned that the relevancy of the member’s contribution today isn’t actually relevant to the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is a question for the Chair, and the Chair is following it very closely, but thank you for your advice. Carry on.

PENNY SIMMONDS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. So the terms of office for the Te Pūkenga Board, there are so many issues: $200 million already spent; $63 million deficit projected for last year; heaven knows how much for this year, another $330 million is going to be needed over the next four years, and a leaked document that showed it was closer to $1 billion that would be needed over the next 10 years. So what is this piece of legislation concerned about? The terms of the office for the board members of Te Pūkenga.

This entity Te Pūkenga has got a whole lot more to be worried about, and this House has got a whole lot more it should be addressing around Te Pūkenga than the terms of office for its board members. How about starting to have a look at the number of redundancies that are being made, the number of courses that are being cancelled, or the number of campuses that are being considered for being closed? How about having a look at the real issues that are there concerning people in the tertiary sector?

Let’s go back to the police vetting of the ECE sector and let’s go back to the appointments of the boards for the compulsory sector. Just how do you think boards are going to find out about the sexuality of the board and their school community? Are they going to go out and ask all parents what their sexuality is to make sure that they’re represented on the board, and then, how are they going to store that documentation? Have you had a look at the concerns about privacy breaches of storing that information?

So how about a bit of common sense and practicality around what the real issues are for these sectors, and not some kind of made-up concerns that are sitting here in front of us today? How about some real concerns—some really meaty issues like the one that is being addressed for the wānanga?

I acknowledge that is a very real and very useful part of this legislation. But, for goodness’ sake, why, in all the other areas that we are looking at—ECE, compulsory sector, and tertiary sector—are we fiddling round with silly little bits of changes to legislation and none of the very big issues of student achievement, of students turning up to school, or of a tertiary sector that is serving their students, their staff, and their industries?

How about this House starts debating what are the real big issues in the education sector, instead of wasting time and diverting attention into silly little bits like this that keep you nice and busy—keep you nice and busy—and detract from the issues of real concern? Let’s talk about, instead, how we can have dropped out of the top 10 on all the areas that we should be concerned about: maths, science, English. How about showing some concern about that? That is where we will be facing social issues in the future and that’s where our tertiary sector will be having to pick up the pieces with second-chance learning. Let’s talk about some real education issues in this House.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): It is a pleasure to be rising and taking a call on this important as well as technical bill, the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3). You know, it’s great to hear that people are concerned about what’s happening in education, and I just suggest—I know it’s out of scope—in response to some of the concerns, that they go and do some homework, have a look at the curriculum refresh. I know they’ll be waiting with bated breath to see the common practice model. There is a whole pile of work going on already, so that is why we were able to turn our minds to some of these significant issues.

I just need to shout out—it was great hearing about the wānanga, and I just need to acknowledge the kindness and the good grace and patience that Nepia Winiata at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa has shown me. You know, we heard about the absolute fundamental need to build relationships, to support the different parts of the education system, to support each other so that we can realise the aspirations for our ākonga, and I need to acknowledge him and his patience in helping me to get to know his wānanga and his team and the people that they aspire to support. It’s because of that, I understand the absolute need to make these changes.

One other piece I want to push back on is the idea that improving our board of trustees selection process isn’t important; it is critical. We realised the potential in the last elections. Somebody realised that you can politicise schools and our students and hijack our system and politicise it, and that is dangerous. It is dangerous because boards are critical to not just make sure that our schools function but that they thrive. They are critical for making sure that they are a physically and emotionally safe place.

So I’m really looking forward to this bill coming to our select committee so we can deal with those—you know, it is technical, it is a complex space, and we want to make sure that we have no unintended consequences that we don’t want. So I recommend this bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to support this bill, the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3). It’s got “(No 3)” next to it, because these bills come to the House every now and then. Usually they just snooze through the House, but it must be an election year.

I want to begin my contribution by acknowledging those people that are at the chalkface of making sure that our tamariki, our students, get everything that they need in terms of guiding them through the education system—in particular, those teachers that showed up on the parliamentary forecourt last week. There was around 60,000 teachers from across kindergarten to primary school to principals, and, of course, the two unions: Te Riu Roa NZEI and Te Wehengarua the Post Primary Teachers’ Association.

There’s been a lot of conversation about the big educational issues that we should be focusing on, and, if we want to know what those educational issues are, we only need to think back to last week because teachers in large numbers told us what those issues were. It’s around making sure that they can put food on the table, roofs over their heads, and that their pay is in line with inflation. We all know that fruit and veg has gone up 21 percent, so things are getting more and more expensive. But more than that, and, in addition to that, it’s around workload, it’s around ratios in classrooms, making sure that kindergarten teachers can get appropriate sick leave, making sure that there are strategies to make sure that we retain staff and get staff back in; there’s a teaching shortage out there. So if we’re going to talk about the educational issues, they’ve told us about them.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, Mr Tuiono, we’re here to talk about the bill too, now.

TEANAU TUIONO: Yep, I’m about to get on to the bill. Everyone else was talking about the wider education issues and I wanted to offer illumination, if you like, about that.

Along with everybody else around the House, I also want to mihi to the wānanga—nō reira—our kōhanga reo, and our kura kaupapa. There are specific provisions within this Act which, on the face of it, will help them to be who they are and what they want to be. So, for example, we talked earlier about an ability to convert to a non-Crown entity wānanga that is primarily accountable to iwi, hapū, or another Māori organisation, while retaining some accountability to the Crown and with bespoke purpose functions and governance arrangements.

Nō reira me mihi atu au ki te Whakatupuranga Rua Mano, Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Te Wānanga o Awanuiārangi me Te Wānanga o Aotearoa me ō rātou nei kaupapa kia hāngai atu ki te hāpai atu i tēnei mea te mana me te tino rangatiratanga. Me mihi anō hoki au ki a rātou mā ki roto i ngā kura kaupapa. Kei roto i te ture ngā kōrero mō te kura kaupapa, rātou anō i tiaki i ā tātou tamariki mokopuna kia mau anō rātou ki ō rātou nei tuakiritanga. Hoi e piri ana tērā āhuatanga katoa ki ō tātou nei kōhanga reo. Nō reira ko te ia o ngā kōrero ki tēnei o ngā ture, me mihi ka tika. Hoki ake au ki tērā o ngā whakataukī o ō tātou nei mātau tūpuna “Ko te manu e kai ana i te miro, nōna te ngahere; engari ko te manu e kai ana i te mātauranga, nōna anō te ao”. Nō reira koutou anō Te Wānanga, koutou anō ngā kura kaupapa, kura ā-iwi, te katoa o ō tātou nei āhuatanga rumaki, me mihi ka tika.

[So it is appropriate for me to acknowledge Whakatupuranga Rua Mano, Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Te Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and their initiatives aimed at uplifting this thing we call power and self-determination. I should also acknowledge those who are in our Māori-medium schools. In this legislation are references to kura kaupapa, those who care for our children and grandchildren so that they retain their identity. However, all of those things are also relevant to kōhanga reo. So the trend of statements about this legislation, it is only correct to pay tribute. I go back to that particular proverb of our ancestors “The bird that consumes the berries is lord of the forest; but the bird that consumes knowledge is master of the world”. So to you in Te Wānanga, and you in Māori-medium schools, iwi-affiliated schools, and all of our immersion contexts, it is appropriate to pay tribute to you.]

I am looking forward to this bill coming to the select committee process. I did want to acknowledge the comments of the Hon Kelvin Davis in terms of the often robust discussions that we have to have with wānanga, with our Māori whānau, as well. And those are good discussions. We need to be absolutely sure that what we are doing in this House actually helps them to do the things that they need to do in terms of making sure that those educational outcomes are good for our people and good for our iwi. So I’m looking forward to the select committee process, and I’m hoping—and I’m pretty sure—that the wānanga will come along and they will give us some illumination; in particular, about those particular parts within this Act, about whether there are issues for them around whether this helps them or other. There are other things that the select committee might be able to unpack to make those particular provisions even stronger. And also with the ones that focus on kura kaupapa as well, I’m hoping some of our kura will come along, Te Rūnanga Nui as well, just to make sure—at least for this member—that what we are doing here is as specific and as useful for them as they carry out their purposes.

So, on that, the Greens will be supporting this amendment. These things come before the House, that’s why it’s called (No 3). It’s an election year, which is why members across the House are quite excited, I think. But I’ll end my contribution there.

E mihi ana ki ō tātou nei pouako puta noa i Aotearoa. Tēnā koe, tēnā koutou.

[I acknowledge our teachers all across Aotearoa. Thank you, thank all of you.]

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3). I would like to, first of all, acknowledge what others have said: that there is something about this bill that seems unreal when you consider the challenges faced in New Zealand—secondary and area school teachers on strike today; 100,000 kids regularly not attending, attending less than 70 percent of the time; plummeting achievement; the debacle of Te Pūkenga, which is almost like the new KiwiBuild. Labour produce a policy like this almost annually now. Then you get to the question of: well, what is this legislation doing? What is it addressing? What is it hoping to achieve? The truth is: very little.

You might think that the Labour Party or the Labour Government is not capable of doing much, but they have actually managed to put together a detailed bill that does almost nothing. Let me just take you through what it actually does. It’s mainly focused on defining the governance arrangements of three wānanga, and, specifically, it says that those wānanga can be a Crown entity—a Crown entity wānanga that has all of the accountabilities that go with being a Crown entity—or it can convert to a non-Crown entity wānanga that is primarily accountable to iwi, hapū, and other Māori organisations while retaining some accountability to the Crown.

Just for people following this along at home: what exactly is Labour and the Government trying to do here? What difference will it make? Well, first of all, we can be fairly sure that it’s not going to solve the fundamental problems that New Zealanders have—too many kids who are not engaged, not learning enough to be productive citizens and keep New Zealand’s dream of being a First World country in an island paradise alive. It’s fairly certain it won’t do that, but it might take us in the opposite direction, because what they’re saying is that a wānanga can either be a Crown entity wānanga or a nonCrown entity wānanga that is accountable to iwi or hapū. But, in any case, the money still comes from the taxpayer. So what they’re really saying is that some wānanga will be accountable to the Crown, who collects the taxes from all of the people up and down New Zealand, and other wānanga that will get the same funding—well, they will be accountable to some local hapū or iwi or other Māori organisation.

That’s a really interesting question, you know: why would it be that there would be a different type of accountability mechanism but only for some iwi-led wānanga? Why is it that, somehow, every organisation shouldn’t be able to have the same sort of governance? Why not a Pasifika; why not an Asian university? But, actually, why would we decide that somebody’s race is the most important characteristic of the person? Why would people decide that race is the thing that differentiates people? Well, it seems to be that this Government genuinely believes that the race of some people matters more than others’, and there should be a different set of governance arrangements if you are a wānanga that can be accountable to iwi or hapū. But every other tertiary institution in New Zealand will be accountable to the Crown that collects the taxes as a Crown entity.

Why does Labour think this is a good idea? Well, because they believe that the Treaty of Waitangi was the first treaty in the world that actually brought people apart. For millennia, people have been signing agreements and treaties to bring people together, until this recent revisionist interpretation of the Treaty—that, actually, you should have a different set of political rights in New Zealand if you happen to be Māori but you have a different set of rights if you are non-Māori. This is the problem with New Zealand today. We have a Government that is obsessed with dividing people into tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti, and that, sadly—

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point of order, Rawiti—

Rawiri Waititi: Rawiri Waititi—thank you. I don’t see anything in that bill that talks about tangata whenua or tangata Tiriti—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Waititi, the Chair will decide that. I’m watching this debate very carefully.

Rawiri Waititi: Well, make a decision, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s close to disorderly—breaking up a member’s speech. So please—to be clear—the Chair is well capable of making those decisions.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. And isn’t that interesting about Rawiri Waititi and his ability to learn and respect the tikanga, because just five minutes ago—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Seymour, don’t comment on the Speaker. Carry on with your speech and ensure that it does remain relevant to the—

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Point of order, e te Pīka. I’d just like to remind the House that there is a decorum of expectation on the members in this House on how they talk about their colleagues. It is not appropriate for the leader of ACT to be talking about the esteemed leader of Te Paati Māori like that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, the Chair will make that decision and will be watching very carefully. I’ll carry on, and Mr Seymour can have one more minute back for those interjections.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for that, and I intend to use it and use it well. I just think that people watching need to reflect on the behaviour of these two Māori Party MPs in the last—

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Oh, point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Right, the Chair will deal with this, Mr Waititi. Mr Seymour, you were doing well. Please stick with the bill and make sure that your comments are contextual within the bill in front of you.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. This legislation is about dividing New Zealanders—different rules, different governance structures. If it is the case that somehow having a non-Crown entity tertiary institution is a good idea, then it should be applied to anybody who wants one. Why would there be an operating model that is only available to people based on one race? It is because of this wrongful interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi that it’s something that divides people in half.

It might be interesting to go further through the bill. The bill, interestingly, also, while it reduces the accountability for some, it actually increases the accountability to the Crown for those who are elected to their local school board by their community. If you follow the bill through, it then goes on to say that if you are the Secretary of Education, you will have greater powers to review and audit the membership of a board of trustees.

So, on the one hand, we are changing the level of accountability to reduce it and say, “Well, you don’t have to be responsible to the Crown like everyone else. You could just be responsible to some local organisation. You still get taxpayer money, but whatever.”, and, on the other hand, they’re saying if you’re a community that’s actually elected your school board, then you are subject to even more incursion and bureaucracy from the Ministry of Education, because it gives the Secretary of Education additional power to do so.

I’d like to mention something else about this bill: that it does not deal with any of the substantial issues. All of it is administrative. None of it will result in the outcome that people seek. Will it be possible, as the old left—the left that I could actually believe in—used to try and make possible? Will it be possible that if you believe in social justice, that there will be a kid in any town or country, part of this nation, who can go to a place in their community where a knowledgable adult will transfer valuable academic knowledge that will equip them to participate in modern society as part of a First World nation? Will it give them the skills to understand the world, to be good citizens, to earn a good income? Will anything in this legislation do anything like that at all? No, it will not.

And that is the great tragedy, and it’s something that people are noticing not just in New Zealand but around the world. They see that we used to have a deal that if you follow the rules, go to school, do your homework, listen to your teacher, get good grades, turn those into skills that turn into qualifications that turn into jobs, and, ultimately, a career—if you follow the deal, you follow the law, you be a good citizen, and pay your taxes, then things can work out OK. You end up owning a place of your own. You end up with the knowledge that allows you to participate in the world.

People say that we used to have a deal. Where has that deal gone? Instead, they find that they are confronted with a Government that brings up legislation like this that solves no obvious problem related to anything in anyone’s life today, but they are nevertheless being forced to pay for it. Then they look into the main substance of this bill, and they find that not only is that administration largely trivial, largely back office, largely unhelpful to people’s everyday lives but it actually is based in a divisive and incorrect interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi that tells us that, actually, there are two types of New Zealander, the tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti, and they should have different political rights. That is why so many people are so disillusioned with this Government and with Governments around the world. That is why this sort of legislation needs to be sent packing. It is—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time is completed.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Mr Speaker, a point of order. You said that I could speak for an additional minute.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, I understood that the minute had been added on. OK, I understood that the minute had actually been added on, but I’m not correct. So you do have a further one minute now.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I was just winding up by saying that this bill should be sent packing. But in its place, with a new Government not so far away, will be legislation that is responsive, that is practical, that hears people’s concerns and aspirations, that treats every New Zealander as a human being born with the hope of one 5-millionth of the opportunity this great country has to offer—no more, no less. Can I just finish off by saying that one thing that really matters is tikanga, and when certain people can’t learn or respect the tikanga of this House, they lose the claim to criticise everybody else. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That speaker did benefit from some confusion. He did actually get an extra 30 seconds, which may actually be taken into account later on.

SORAYA PEKE-MASON (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Mana W’akawā. Tēnā koutou ngā hapū, ngā iwi o te motu, e mihi ana ki a koutou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Greetings to the subtribes and peoples of the nation. I acknowledge you all.]

I stand to speak to the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3). I welcome the Government’s programme of improving and strengthening the education system to ensure our system delivers equitable and excellent outcomes for learners. Further, I welcome the wānanga legislative framework, and, in particular, it lifts my heart. It lifts my heart to see that it gives wānanga better recognition of their mana and tiro rangatiratanga. It recognises their unique role in tertiary education and it gives options to operate in a way that supports them to better meet the needs and aspirations of my people.

Wānanga are established by iwi with and for Māori, by Māori. This is a critical role in the protection and the revitalisation of te reo Māori, Te Ao Māori, and mātauranga Māori.

The member on the other side calls it a wasted bill. Well, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Who knows better how to deliver the basics to Māori than Te Ao Māori themselves? For too long, wānanga have had to fit—had to fit—into the system that does not take account of how they differ from other tertiary education providers.

Ensuring the basics are delivered by Māori, for Māori is imperative. It’s imperative because we have a holistic approach to learning. This includes knowing who you are, where your tūrangawaewae is—your identity. No one knows more than I, who came from a system of education that taught us—what a joke—about the whalers. There was no kōhanga reo, there was no kura kaupapa, there was no wānanga—that is an indictment on the history of Aotearoa.

You wonder how I got here. I got here because I rose above—I rose above the racism, the bias, the micro-aggressions that I had to endure in my life as I grew up. It took the last 10 years to actually really understand who I am as a wahine Māori, and I celebrate that—I celebrate that. It’s because of the last 10 years, knowing who I am as a Māori wahine, and my people who put me here to be here today. This just shows the importance of this bill. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call—five minutes.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): I’d like to open this by pointing out that I did study New Zealand history. I was very fortunate in my seventh form at school; I had a fantastic history teacher and he made us do New Zealand history, and it was fantastic. We went to Ruapekapeka, the “bats’ nest” that the Hon Kelvin Davis pointed out, and did a tour around many of the pā through Waikato and the North Island, and I greatly appreciated it.

But back to the bill. The Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) seeks to change the criteria for school boards. It also requires licensed early childhood education centres (ECEs) to consider police vetting, when having people coming on site. Having police vetting can be a good thing, because you want to make sure that children—I mean, I have three young children, two of them in ECEs, and I want to know that when they go there, anyone that comes on site will be of credible character. But I also do note some of the concerns raised by Penny Simmonds, that we need to make sure that it does not put undue burden on businesses, and the example used was around a plumber coming on site, that they would be able to do that in an efficient manner and not be held up for five or six days while that police-vetting check went through.

Other provisions in this bill are around establishing a new framework for wānanga, and that’s received a fair bit of commentary today. It allows wānanga to reconstitute themselves as either Crown or non-Crown entities. We also have some changes to the board terms that Te Kura can have, up to five years, with the ability to go longer on that.

But I’d like to reiterate some of the key messages that we’ve heard from this side of the House today. You know, while we do agree with some aspects of this bill, I mean, we don’t necessarily agree that mandating the composition of the boards along lines of sexuality and other defining characteristics like that is an imperative. What I would think, and I’m sure most reasonable people would think, is that it’s a lot more relevant to have people with expertise in education and children’s education and children’s welfare being representative on those boards.

Also, this bill doesn’t address the major issues that are facing the New Zealand education system at the moment—and I note the Minister has just walked in and will be listening attentively. But everyone does know that we do have significant truancy issues, we do have significant performance issues, and this bill does not address any of those things. National has put forward a fantastic package recently—Teaching the Basics Brilliantly—and that’s really where we need to be looking when we are doing legislation in the education space. It’s making sure that people are coming to school. It’s making sure that they are learning—reading, writing, maths, science; those key things that are going to determine whether the current and the next generation of children are able to succeed in New Zealand and beyond, if so they choose. That is really what we should be looking at.

I mean, this Government, and I think Mr Seymour put it—well, I mean, he got a fair bit of commentary around it. But this Government has a fantastic ability to tinker on things that don’t necessarily move the dial, and I see some scorn looking at me at the moment. I’m talking about the boards here, Mr Davis. If that’s what the focus is, instead of the achievement of people, the achievement of people and skills—and you’d know a lot about how the system’s failing Māori, and that’s an indictment on our education system. But I would say that students in New Zealand, especially Māori students—and you can look at the statistics and they will reinforce this—perform a lot better under National Governments than under Labour Governments, because we focus on getting the basics right, mate. You can look at their achievements at NCEA level 2 from 2008, when you last had office, to 2017, when we left office, and they went from about 45 percent in 2008 to almost 70 percent when we left office in 2017. And I hear the giggles—you shouldn’t be giggling, because your Government is failing a generation of young children, and, unfortunately, Māori children are suffering from that. I oppose this bill.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Because my name was brought into the debate by one of the speakers, I would expect to be afforded the same respect and given another minute in my speech.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. The member has sat down. Does that mean he doesn’t want to take his five-minute speech?

RAWIRI WAITITI: That was a point of order, Mr Speaker, so I’m waiting for your ruling.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m ruling it’s not a point of order. Does the member wish to take his five-minute call?

RAWIRI WAITITI: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you point out that my point of order is not a point of order, or are you rewriting the book?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just hold on. We’re always in the order of compromise. The member can seek the leave of the House to have a minute added to his speaking time. So does the member wish to do that?

RAWIRI WAITITI: Yes please, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: So is there any objection? There is no objection, so a minute will be added. So we’ll add the minute. You’ll note that the clock has gone to six minutes now, just to save any confusion at the end of your speech.

RAWIRI WAITITI: Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your generosity. E te Whare, tēnā tātou. E te Wānanga o Raukawa, tēnā koutou. Anei tā koutou tangata.

[To the House, greetings to all of us. To the Wānanga o Raukawa, greetings. Here is your man.]

I’m alumni of Raukawa, so I’m really proud to have them here today and I’m really excited about what this bill does for our people. First of all, one thing I’ve learnt is you never take tikanga advice from arrogant and ignorant people. So that’s something I will never do. Kei te mihi atu rā ki a tātou i tēnei ata. [I acknowledge all of us this morning.] What a fun morning and start for us here today.

What I do want to say is that the changes to this bill recognises the mana of kaupapa Māori education providers, which should have been recognised years ago. However, we do have a few concerns around the commitment of the Crown and this Government to truly honour and support a rangatiratanga-based education sector, which means that we are in total control of what we do, how we do it, and the way we do it.

So mātauranga Māori experts and our people across the board have long called for the unique and distinct status of kura kaupapa—I’m not a kura kaupapa child; I was through the transition of kura kaupapa, but I am a kōhanga reo tamaiti and I’m also a wānanga Māori tamaiti that has gone through that particular system—to be recognised and enshrined in law, which is not tinkering. It’s not achieving very little or nothing, but it is the right thing to do. It is totally unacceptable for kura kaupapa to be relegated to the status of designated character schools as they are in current legislation. We therefore support the provisions that uphold recommendations of Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori.

I also note that this bill seeks to recognise the mana of whare wānanga and their unique status in the tertiary education system by enabling them to convert to non-Crown entities, and being responsible and accountable to tangata whenua, to iwi, to hapū, who pay their taxes in this country, whose assets have been stolen to build this country, and who have had their backs stood on for the betterment of this country. So I will not accept that we are anything less than that, but we are contributing more to the kaupapa that we’re trying to drive today.

For example, we have te whare Wānanga o Raukawa—that their order in council is well advanced and that their accountability to their founding iwi, Te Atiawa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, and all the other iwi that are supportive of our wānanga will be strengthened, that it will be a great outcome, and we welcome it. And I reckon those Crown entity wānanga—universities, if you want to call them that—should jump on board because they should have more accountability to iwi and hapū that they are established in, which they are not. We know how important this is for Māori education institutions to be able to determine their own governance and accountability frameworks rather than being forced into one-size-fits-all Crown models. It is like Rangi trying to put her foot into Cinderella’s slipper. Rather than being forced into one-size-fits-all—it is not designed with the interest of Māori students in mind. This has been our reality for far too long, and any move away from that is to be acknowledged.

However, do we have some concerns about the bill and require some assurance going forward? Yes, we do. We put before this House that the kura kaupapa Māori claim is currently before the Waitangi Tribunal, and to the Government, we need you to have a look at the outcomes of that particular tribunal hearing and adopt the tribunal recommendations. It is the utmost importance that Government stop cutting across tribunal claims and stop cherry-picking what to implement in these types of changes. I think it’s really important, Minister, that we do that—that we consider and that we ensure that those tribunal hearings are part of the changes that we’re trying to achieve here for a better Māori-medium education model.

I wero to the Crown and the Government, where the resources to power and sector to achieve rangatiratanga is stated in the goal of this bill—we need to see that. We need to start seeing more of that in the legislation passed by Government.

What are the funding implications of these changes? Will this isolate kura kaupapa Māori? Will it isolate whare wānanga? These are the things. And when I heard one of the speakers this morning—that is exactly what he was talking about. It was about isolation, was about separation, and was about making something less and making something more. So these are the things that we want to ensure: that there is equity, that there is equality and the resourcing of Māori medium kaupapa, whether it’s kura kaupapa or whether it’s whare wānanga. These are the things that we are concerned about.

The Government needs to recognise the similarly the nature of State schooling. Kura kaupapa Māori are self-developed development initiatives that mediate the assimilation tendencies implicit in the conventional schooling system. You know, Labour has, I’m sure, had a look at the Māori Party education policies. You know, we want to establish a $200 million fund to drive whānau, hapū, and iwi education and training initiatives. I hope that this bill reflects that and that we’re able to establish those things at that particular level, and we will implement the tribunal claims and make this a legal requirement of the Crown. We look forward to this in the select committee process. We look forward to participating. We want to ensure that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is not just principles but the articles are upheld in this bill as we head forward to ensure protection of Māori-medium education. Kia ora tātou.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this bill, because, for the first time in law, what will be in place is a focus on the special characteristics, the special dimensions, that identify wānanga as a collective unit in this country, but also identifying what they offer as something distinctly different to other tertiary institutes around Aotearoa New Zealand as well.

I want to just spend my brief contribution focusing on the changes that this bill will provide for school boards around the country, because it is important that those who are in governance roles and responsibilities in kura around the motu are appropriate individuals to effectively provide that governance lens in leadership around our communities.

I’m sure that I join with many others in this House who have spent a number of years as a member of a board of trustees—myself as a staff trustee and as a parent trustee and the chair of a board for close to 15 years. And so ensuring that those who are occupying those seats around the board table are members of our community who are appropriate is something that is particularly pleasing to see.

I’m delighted that this bill will also, at first reading, provide an opportunity for the Secretary for Education to undertake an audit to ensure that new eligibility criteria applies to all board members who are in those governance roles making decisions for our tamariki. This is in response to concerns that have been raised by community members over quite some time, and it’s a bill that delivers on that. I commend this bill to the House.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to rise to take a call on the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3). I say pleased—I really mean disappointed.

What a wasted opportunity. If you read the New Zealand Herald today, you will see we have a crisis in mathematics in this country. A great piece by, I think, Audrey Tan, who lays out in detail, the situation that we’re in with failing rates of achievement.

I just want the people who are watching this debate out there today to know that while there are some noble recommendations in this bill, we are facing a crisis of achievement in this country. A third of our 15-year-olds were able to pass a basic literacy and numeracy achievement. What’s worse is only 2 percent of decile 1 kids could pass that same rate. The bill we have before us today does nothing to address any of those concerns; the things that Kiwi parents up and down the country are worried about—is my child at curriculum? Are they progressing through the curriculum? Are they going to be able to pass an NCEA basic literary and numeracy test when they turn 15, in order to gain their NCEA accreditation? What we get in this bill is a lot of little tweaks, and some of them, as I say, are quite noble. But I guess the question is: should we be discussing whether or not we include members on boards of trustees according to their gender, sexuality, and sex when we have such a crisis in achievement levels?

Let me just, again, for the public out there—how bad things are: less than half of our kids who go to high school are at curriculum for math, for writing, and for science. Only 20 percent of our kids are at curriculum for science. The bill we have in front of us today talks about including genders, sexualities, and sexes on the school board. I want to get to that in a minute, because I think there are some big problems with that. But I think the main point that I want to get across is: what a wasted opportunity.

For everybody out there watching, the Minister of Education is more concerned with what’s in this bill, which I’ll go through in a minute, than she is around our declining achievement rates. It was stated in this House just last week that no improvement in achievement has been made in six years of this Government. So we are no better off after six years of a Labour Government in our achievement of our children. I’ve laid out how bad that is, especially if you are underprivileged in this country. In this country, it matters how much you earn, depending on what academic outcome you get. It shouldn’t be like that; it should be that education is the great equaliser, and no matter your background, your circumstances, you turn up to school and you get the same opportunity as everybody else. But it is not true in this country, and you can see that through the fact that only 2 percent of our decile 1 kids could pass that basic test.

Yet here we are, with a bill, basically—you know, like I say, some noble things. Look, it’s very important that we make sure that people who apply to be on a board haven’t been convicted of some serious crimes. Speakers before me have gone through the bill, and I’m not going to go through it in detail. But I would just like to pick up the point around the appointments to the school board after the initial process has gone through where people vote.

We are potentially going to change the law to make boards take into account the character, gender, ethnic, and social diversity of the school—again, a noble cause. But I guess the point that is even made in the departmental disclosure statement (DDS) is: how do you practically do that? If you want to ensure that you have people of differing sexualities or differing genders on the board, especially when it comes to their sexual preference, I guess the question is: how do you know that? What process would you go through to find that out? When your child enrols at school, will you be required to let the school know which sexual preference you identify with so that then when they need to appoint someone to the board, they could go and ask you because they require someone to better reflect the character of the school in terms of character, gender, ethnic, and social diversity of the school? That is problematic. The DDS says it’s problematic, because, firstly, how do you ask for that information, because that’s kind of weird and awkward, and then, how do you hold that information? And there are privacy concerns that the DDS brings up around, potentially, the holding of that information.

But I guess the broader point is that the most important thing about a board is that the people on that board have governance experience, that they have property experience, that they have legal or HR experience, that they potentially have some mental health experience—

Hon Kelvin Davis: They-know-their-Māori-communities experience.

ERICA STANFORD: Yup, exactly. Great point from Mr Kelvin Davis. But actually going into detail about people’s sexual preferences in order to then put them on the board seems to be problematic for the reasons that I’ve mentioned.

Again, look, potentially a noble reason behind it, and the Minister can speak to that, but I want to come back to the point: what a missed opportunity we have, debating this bill, when we’ve got kids who cannot read and write at 15; where half of our kids are not at curriculum by the time they reach the end of intermediate. We know that even by year 4, the rates of achievement are dropping off—when we should be talking about making sure that we’ve got a curriculum that lays out, year by year, the core curriculum knowledge; that it doesn’t matter which school you go to in the country, you will get access to that same knowledge. It doesn’t matter where you go to in the country that you should be assessed for your progression along the curriculum.

We know that the Education Review Office have been saying for a decade that half of skills are not having effective use of assessment or collecting assessment data. Why should it be the case that if you go to one school that you get assessed as to your progress, parents know how their kids are doing; you go to another school, that’s not being done? It’s all about consistency, and this bill doesn’t address any of that.

This bill, as I’ve mentioned, we’re talking about boards of trustees, and one of the other issues that I want to mention, a particular issue, about this bill is this, again, noble—and I understand why they’re doing it—the Government want to create an equity index for early childhood services, and part of this bill is being able to access the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) data in order to do that. Again, no problem with that, but questions for the Minister that we will be asking at select committee and through this process is: exactly how will this equity index work for early childhood education (ECE), especially?

If we take a look at the process we went through with the Equity Index with schools, it was fraught. I asked for a briefing from the Minister—remember, at the time, that Minister was Christopher Hipkins—and in the media recently he said that “education shouldn’t be a political football” and “we’re all open to all of these briefings and working together.” Well, I asked for a briefing on the Equity Index last year from Chris Hipkins, and guess what!

Maureen Pugh: What?

ERICA STANFORD: I didn’t get one. The answer: “No. Sorry, we’re not going to work cross-party”, even though he comes out last week and says, “Oh, it’s all about cross-party; let’s not have a political football.” Well, I asked for a briefing on the Equity Index—didn’t get one. I’m concerned that there will be similar problems when we introduce an equity index for ECE, and that there will be ECEs that currently get a level of funding for the level of depravation of the area that they’re in, and that funding may drop away, because that’s what happened with schools.

There were a lot of schools that lost out on their funding, they did no better off, when they expected that they would, and they didn’t understand the process. Many schools I went to talk to said, “We thought we would get more money. We either ended up getting no more or we lost out.” I’m really worried in this bill around the Equity Index for early childhood that we’ll be in a similar position where there are early childhood centres in deprived areas that will miss out.

I guess the other question is: how will that equity index be decided? You may have more children in your centre who are identified as not going on to achieve NCEA later in life, which is what the IDI data predicts. You might have 10 children, but they only come to the centre a couple of hours a week each, so overall the total amount of hours they do is not high. Whereas, you might have three children that are at your centre 40 hours a week each. So I guess then the question to ask is—this is very different than the school system where children are required to be there six hours a day, whereas in ECE, the hours that are attended are very different.

And so the question will be: how will they use the IDI data? Will they use it in the same way that they’ve used it to predict outcomes for school children? And then how will they apply that to centres? Will it be based on hours of children attending, or numbers of children attending? I am worried that we’ll be in a similar situation, where centres will believe that they’re entitled to a lot of funding because they have children who are desperately in need and who are there a lot of hours per week but may end up losing funding. So those are some questions that we’ll have.

Hon Kelvin Davis: Can you clarify if you’re criticising the Equity Index that you guys set up?

Hon Jan Tinetti: Yeah, that National set up.

ERICA STANFORD: The Minister should have listened more carefully. The Equity Index has been great, but there have been some teething problems: (a) that I haven’t been able to ask the Minister about because he refused a briefing, and, (b) many schools have brought up that they thought that they were going to get funding and then they didn’t. There are some issues around that that I think we need to avoid for ECE, to make sure that all of those centres in deprived areas either get to retain their level of funding or get more funding. So, with that, we will be opposing the bill.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): Thank you. It’s my job, as the last speaker in this debate, to bring this debate back to the bill before us rather than the distractions and, perhaps, some of the dog-whistling that’s been going on in this debate.

First of all, I want to focus on something small in the bill which I do not think is trivial at all, and that is the actual dealing with people who are coming into a school as contractors, as workers—they’re working with children directly or they’re working during school hours—and checking them to make sure that they have not committed some of the offences that are in Schedule 2. Those are not trivial offences; they’re very serious offences. They’re things like sexual abuse. They’re things like kidnapping. We don’t want people in those schools, even for two minutes, before they’re checked.

This is a very important part of the job, and I did hear speakers from the other side suggest that this was something that was impractical to do. While it is tempting to trust the person coming into the school—and, actually, it is human nature to do so—this is a situation where we cannot afford that kind of error. This bill is not trivial, because it will remedy that and it will make it mandatory for people to check and make sure that that doesn’t happen. It will keep our children safe. That’s an incredibly important part of this.

I want to talk about a big-picture issue here, and I’m only going to take a minute more. One of the bigger-picture issues here is equity. There’s a difference between equity and equality, and they’re both really important: one treats people the same; the other looks at the person and gives them what they need. One of the things that’s in this bill is an attempt to do that with our Māori community, who have been utterly under-achieving in our system for years and years. We can’t do the same thing over and over again, because it is failing our children, and we need to change things up.

And this changes things up consistently with our obligations under the Treaty, and our own concept—and I don’t actually care myself whether it’s historical or now. Right now, my concept, my commitment, is to a partnership, and this piece of legislation uses that model of partnership and uses the model of self-determination to make sure that education changes for the better.

Those are two important things that are in this bill; they are not trivial. They don’t solve all our education problems, but they are important, and they’re before this House in urgency for that reason. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a first time.

Ayes 76

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

Noes 44

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Instruction to Education and Workforce Committee

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): I move, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 3) be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Education): I present a legislative statement on the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon JAN TINETTI: I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move the bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

In accordance with Standing Order 267(1)(c), the Business Committee has approved the introduction of this bill as an omnibus bill. This bill makes technical amendments to maintain the effectiveness of our regulatory systems. The bill, firstly, makes changes to the Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Act 1945 to ensure that it is fit for purpose and that the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion continues. The bill amends the Act to recognise the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board as the successor to the 28th Māori Battalion Association. These changes will enable the board to authorise the use of words and emblems related to the 28th Māori Battalion and the 28th Māori Battalion Association under the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981. The bill creates a new position on the board to be held by a person of Māori descent who has served or is currently serving in the New Zealand Defence Force. This will preserve the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion.

The bill makes several important changes to the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972. The Pacific Education Foundation Act supports the functions of the Pacific Education Foundation, which was established in 1972 to promote and encourage strong education outcomes for Pacific peoples within New Zealand, and to provide financial support for that purpose. The board of the foundation administers different kinds of supports and grants for Aotearoa Pacific peoples, including the Tulī Takes Flight scholarships as part of the Government’s goodwill package to acknowledge the impact of the Dawn Raids.

Of the important amendments to the Pacific Education Foundation Act made in this bill, the first is an update to the definition of “Pacific person” who can receive support from the foundation. This change is needed because the current definition is too narrow and does not capture the diversity of Aotearoa-based Pacific people. To reflect the changing demographics of Aotearoa-based Pacific peoples, we are replacing the definition of a “Pacific person” in the Act with a new definition for an “Aotearoa Pacific person”. The new reference to Aotearoa reflects the purpose of the foundation—to provide support to Pacific peoples who are living in Aotearoa New Zealand. In addition, the new definition of “Aotearoa Pacific person” refers to a person with indigenous Pacific cultural heritage from a broader list of Pacific places than in the previous definition. This will ensure that the definition reflects the diverse Pacific population in Aotearoa New Zealand and will mean that more Aotearoa Pacific learners and their families will be eligible for support from the foundation.

The bill will also update the Pacific Education Foundation board’s purpose and amend the board’s constitution and membership to enable it to function more effectively. The new purpose section will continue to set out the board’s role in providing financial assistance to promote and encourage the better education of Aotearoa Pacific people. It will now also clarify the important role the foundation has in providing information and advice to the Minister of Education, the Ministry of Education, and other education agencies on matters related to the educational success of Aotearoa Pacific people.

The bill makes three changes to the board’s membership to strengthen its independence and community representation, and to ensure continuity between membership terms. This includes replacing one of the public servant members with an additional Ministerappointed community member, and increasing the length of time that a board member may be appointed from a term of three years to a term of up to four years.

The bill will also amend the Pacific Education Foundation Act to recognise the unique and important relationship the Crown has with the New Zealand Realm countries of Tokelau, Niue, and the Cook Islands, and with Samoa through the Treaty of Friendship.

Finally, the bill will update the foundation’s authorised expenditure from $500 to $10,000 per year, as it has not been updated since 1972. This change reflects the current value of the authorised expenditure. Together, all of these changes will enable the Pacific Education Foundation to better support our Pacific learners and their families and communities.

The bill also makes technical amendments to the regulations that impact the education centre. This includes the amendment to the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016 so that the police-vetting requirement for employees at childcare centres, such as mall or gym crèches, are consistent with requirements from the Children’s Act 2014 and the Education and Training Act 2020. The bill also updates the Children’s (Requirements for Safety Checks of Children’s Workers) Regulations 2015 to include a reference to the Kiwi Access Card as an acceptable form of identity, reflecting the name change of the 18+ card.

I am pleased to be introducing this bill to the House. It will update and modernise our education regulatory system and make meaningful changes that uphold the mana and legacy of the Ngārimu VC and 28th Māori Battalion, and support the work of the Pacific Education Foundation. I commend this bill to the House.

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

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, we’ve all got the déjà vu situation because here we are again, under urgency, passing a bill. Again, some noble intentions, but misses the main point of the fact that our kids can’t do reading, writing, and math.

Hon Kelvin Davis: Oh, don’t belittle the Māori Battalion.

ERICA STANFORD: And Kelvin Davis, you should be—you at home won’t be able to hear that, but I’ve been heckled by Kelvin Davis, I think still Associate Minister of Education with an interest in Māori education, I believe, if that’s still the case. So I’ll get to that in a minute.

But, look, we’re not going to be supporting the bill today. We’ve got a few questions. It may well be that after select committee and the committee of the whole House, we will review our position, but there are some questions we have that I want to outline.

Firstly, the Pacific Education Foundation. It’s not clear to us, from the Minister’s speech or from any of the bill notes or the departmental disclosure statement or the explanatory note, why it is that the discretionary amount that is able to be spent by the foundation is going from $500 to $10,000. We’ve got some questions around why that isn’t just better set out in the legislation, because as it currently stands in the legislation, there is a list of authorised expenditure by the foundation. There may well be some things outside of that that they wish to spend money on, and that may well be fine. But the question I think we have is: why is it not the case that we just add those extra things into the listed authorised expenditure in the bill?

So it would be good during the committee process to hear from submitters, and of course the foundation itself, to get more details on exactly what they have spent in the past and where those shortfalls are in the bill that don’t allow them to spend money on those things, because at the moment, they are only allowed to spend $500 on those additional items. So $10,000 is a significant jump, and it would be really good to get more feedback on exactly what that expenditure is, and then from the Minister and officials as to why those things could potentially be better added into the authorised expenditure listed in the bill. So those are just some broad points that we’d be very keen to hear some more on.

Of course, as the Minister mentioned, the bill makes some changes to the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund. Again, we don’t have any problem with this. I guess the question we’d have is around the additional position on the board, just to hear from submitters and also the scholarship fund itself to find out more around why that’s necessary.

I think one of the key issues that—I’m not going to go on for longer than I need to, because it’s not a very big bill. I guess the key question, for me, when I look at this, especially as it is around Māori achievement, is if you take a look at the last five years and the track record of this Government when it comes to Māori achievement, we really should be concerned. After five years, the educational outcomes for Māori students have gotten worse. Again, only about 33 percent of Māori students attended school regularly in term 3 last year; only 63 percent of Māori students attained NCEA level 2 in 2021, which is a decline from 69 percent in 2017.

These are very concerning. And here we have, again, a bill—some noble intentions but isn’t addressing the root cause of Māori and Pasifika achievement. We are very concerned about that. We can see the inequities; we can see the fact that it depends on your socio-economic background as to how you do at school, and that should not be the case. There should be more consistency in our schools when it comes to the curriculum and when it comes to assessment.

One of the things that I am particularly concerned about that is not addressed in this bill is the fact that there were some experts who wrote to the ministry just recently who said that when we don’t have a curriculum that’s set out year by year, the tendency is to underestimate students’ ability—and especially Māori and Pasifika students’ ability. That is one of the problems with a system where you don’t have year-by-year curriculum and core content knowledge outcomes: that when teachers assess children, they assess them below what’s possible, especially Māori and Pasifika students. And that’s why they’re calling for a year-by-year curriculum.

Nothing in this bill around achievement for Māori and Pasifika—again, a missed opportunity. When you look at the statistics, they’re not good. As I said, it matters in this country which socio-economic area you come from as to your educational achievement. That should not be the case. We need far better equality in the education system so that it becomes a great equaliser; we need a much bigger focus on outcomes and on achievement.

Again, another bill under urgency showing quite clearly this Government’s priorities, which are not achievement; which are not addressing the serious concerns that we’ve got around your achievement if you are Māori, you’re Pasifika, or you are from a low socioeconomic area—or we call it high Equity Index area now.

Those things are core business of—you would have thought—the Labour Party, because those are the people they purport to support. And yet, in the last six years, all of the evidence suggests that educational attainment for those vulnerable communities—and our Māori and Pasifika students—has gone backwards. And there is nothing in this bill that I can see that is going to address that.

And those are the concerns of parents out there. They want to know how their kids are doing, how they’re tracking, how they’re progressing, Are they at curriculum by the time they enter high school so that they can have all of the opportunities of high school and then go on to live the life they want? This bill doesn’t address any of that.

Angela Roberts: That’s not the intent.

ERICA STANFORD: That’s not the intent of the bill, but maybe it should be. And that was the point that I’m trying to make. But here we are, under urgency, another bill that doesn’t make any of the points that I think the public expect, which is how are we going to raise educational achievement in this country? Especially for our vulnerable communities and our Māori and Pasifika learners who have been let down in the last six months. And, for that reason, we will be opposing the bill.

SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill at its first reading, which has been handed to the rather excellent Education and Workforce Committee. It’s an interesting criticism, isn’t it, to hear Opposition widely criticising a bill for not doing what it’s not intended to do. It’s not intended to do a whole load of things. It’s not looking at carbon emissions, it’s not looking at the amount of hot air generated from the Opposition benches. But what it does do is something really important. I’m going to just talk for a very short amount of time about police vetting, because this bill will ensure that police vets for non-teaching and unregistered employees at childcare centres like malls and gym crèches—that they’re obtained before the employee begins work.

Now, it’s taking roughly 20 working days at the moment for police-vets to be completed. I understand from the website that they’re achieving that goal about 99 percent of the time, so it’s pretty good going. But I think we all agree—I hope we all agree—how important it is that police-vets are completed before our most vulnerable citizens, such as children, are exposed to potential harm. So we do need to make sure that those police-vets are actually completed before day one of employment, and that’s one of the things that this bill is intending to achieve. It also is intended to enable that the information contained in the police-vet itself is considered to assess whether the person is a risk to the safety of children, if they’re going to be carrying out work during normal opening hours.

This is a small part of the bill. The bill itself, as the Opposition have said, is not large. It does something very important indeed, and, for that reason, I commend it to the House.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, here we are again debating things with little to do with education without hitting the real issues in the education sectors, but, however, we’ll have another go at it.

So we’ve touched on the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Scholarship Fund and the Pacific Education Foundation Act. The amendments to the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations seems to be a catch-up on what was in the previous bill. But can I just say there are concerns here that regulatory creep occurs, and so when the previous speaker, Sarah Pallett, talked about 20 days, the previous legislation that we were looking at considered that perhaps contractors should also be considered for police vetting. Can I assure the previous speaker that if you’ve got a blocked toilet or if you have got a power issue or if you have got something incredibly serious that you need to get a tradesperson in for, you can’t wait 20 days. So there needs to be a sense of what is practical also, and it worries me that with regulatory creep and some of the monitoring that goes on, some of that practical sense of what it takes to run an organisation is lost.

I can give an example of that, perhaps, with the unintended consequences of the regulations around nutrition audits which have to be carried out if you provide food in an early childhood education (ECE) centre. Every one to three years, depending on your audit cycle, you have to have a nutrition audit, which costs about $3,000 per centre, and that means that food provision is being cut from a whole lot of low-demographic ECE providers. So I hope the Government is very, very aware of regulatory creep and what the unintended consequences can be and how, in their pursuit of perfect, they may well be stopping “very good” happening.

So the other issue that I think we have to be very mindful of here is that there is nothing addressing the issues for Māori students in the education sector. After five years of Labour, the education outcomes for Māori students in the compulsory sector have got worse: 33 percent of Māori students are attending school regularly. At the end of last year, 63 percent of Māori students attained NCEA level 2 in 2021—a declining rate from 2017.

We see it in the tertiary sector also. Te Pūkenga is failing Māori and Pasifika students. Access for Māori and Pasifika students was less than targeted in 2022. Course completion rates were less then targeted for Māori—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! I’d like member to come back to this particular bill. Yes, Māori are mentioned, because we are looking at amending the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund, but that doesn’t actually mean that the member can just talk in general about everything Māori, so please bring your comments back to this bill.

PENNY SIMMONDS: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So I’m sure that the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund is to assist with more Māori students gaining access and also achieving at a higher rate once they are attending, and so—

Hon Kelvin Davis: You don’t know anything about it. You need to do some homework before you talk about something such as the Ngārimu VC.

PENNY SIMMONDS: —it is of real concern—and the member on the other side of the House, Kelvin Davis, who interrupted me last time, wanted to speak about how little respect I had for the wānanga, and I had to point out to him that there is probably no tertiary leader that has worked more closely with wānanga in their career than I have, and have the utmost respect for wānanga.

So I’ll come back now to the bill. We are very concerned that this bill makes very, very little difference to the key issues that are being faced by our compulsory sector, our ECE sector, our tertiary sector, and, specifically, nothing in this is going to improve outcomes for Māori or Pasifika students. Thank you. We oppose the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Angela Roberts, but before the member takes her call, may I remind everyone that we should be respectful when other members give their speeches. Thank you.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m even more pleased now to rise and take a call on the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill, and it’s really interesting to hear the people grappling with the concept of something being technical and that that necessarily means it’s minor or insignificant. I think this is a really good example of something that is technical, but it isn’t minor—it is significant—and so it is right that we spend some time on it.

I think something that is demonstrated by these technical amendments is that it’s a really, really good example of how complex our education system is and that the way that we lift achievement for our students is by attending, by looking at the evidence, and by really working with the profession, with teachers, with whānau, and with students to come up with solutions. The only way we lift achievement is by building capability and confidence, not by imposing compliance.

So the purpose of this bill is to make sure that there are fewer distractions because we are attending to those technical changes that are required. It’ll be really great to see this bill come to the Education and Workforce Committee because we know that there is a really important place for the profession—for boards, for teachers, for principals, and for students—to come and make sure that we work through the practicalities of how these will play out in the schools. So it is because of that that I’m really pleased to be recommending this bill to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this bill at its first reading. It is minor and makes minor and technical changes, and I think the tone of the debate probably reflects that. It’s not the most exciting piece of legislation, but these small changes can make a difference and so are worthy.

So, in effect, it makes changes to four particular areas. One, when there is the requirement for safety checks for children’s workers, it’s ensuring that it’s an additional reference for the Kiwi Access Card as an acceptable form of ID to reflect the change of the name of that card—hardly earth-shattering, but probably important our legislation is up to date. And it makes an amendment to the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations to ensure that police-vets for non-teaching and unregistered employees in childcare centres such as malls and gyms and gym crèches are obtained before the employee starts work. That feels actually a little more significant than the previous point, and important, and something we support.

It also makes two small changes around the Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Act to modify the function of the board to “recognise it as the successor of the 28th Māori Battalion Association … for the purposes of authorising the use of words and emblems relating to the … Māori Battalion and the Association under the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981”, and creates a new national Māori representative position on the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board, and that that position would be for a person of Māori descent who has served or is currently serving in the Defence Force seems incredibly sensible to me.

And then, finally, amendments to the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972 to enable that foundation to better support Māori learners by updating the definition of “Pacific person” and the purpose and makeup and the constitution of the foundation’s board to enable it to function more effectively and “recognise the unique relationship the Crown has with the New Zealand Realm countries … through the Treaty of Friendship, with Samoa”.

So it’s hard to see how anybody could have any issue with these things, but I suspect, in the detail, there’s always value in the select committee hearing from people who are embedded in these foundations and scholarships and vetting processes, that they may have some wording change or some issues that we haven’t thought of. So I encourage people with those perspectives and knowledges to participate in that process. Very happy to support.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill. This is a relatively minor and technical bill. It, effectively, changes the rules around two organisations that have a statutory basis—that is, that law passed by this Parliament is important to their operation. Sometimes when organisations want to change how they operate, they actually need Parliament to sign them off. Now, I think reasonable people could ask, “Does Parliament need to pass so many laws for specific organisations? Maybe people should be left to their own devices and do their business under the normal laws that apply equally to all across New Zealand.”, but the facts are that these two organisations—first, the 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund and also the Pacific Education Foundation—have both been established by Acts of Parliament, and if they want to change how they operate, they must make changes.

And ACT is not here to be particularly difficult. We think if that’s what they’d like to do, then Parliament should assist them and allow them to operate the way that they would like to operate. However, I would make a couple of comments about the particular content which is not the way that we would have done it. Again, the bill seeks to modify the functions of the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board to recognise the successor of the 28th (Māori) Battalion (NZ) Association Inc. Well, that’s all fine, but it also says, “create a new national Māori representative position on the board. This position will be held by a person of Māori descent who has served or is currently serving in the New Zealand Defence Force.”

Now, again, I just ask: where does this Labour Government—where does the majority of this Parliament—get off stipulating in law that a person should have a particular ethnic background to qualify for a position?

Hon Kelvin Davis: This is what the board wants. This is what the board wants, David—for God’s sake.

DAVID SEYMOUR: And I hear Kelvin Davis saying, “But this is what the board wants.” I know this is what the board wants. That’s why we’re supporting it, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not able to comment as a Parliament, given that the board is asking Parliament to pass a law. As parliamentarians, we get to comment on the law that we’re passing. Now, I know that this is complicated for Kelvin Davis, but if you think it’s a worry that he’s here in Parliament, just remember that he was once running a school where he was responsible for children’s education, so, you know, someone of his cognitive ability can probably do less damage in here than he was to New Zealand then.

Hon Kelvin Davis: No, that doesn’t become you, David. All those little put-downs, they’re just disgraceful.

DAVID SEYMOUR: So we actually think it’s OK for Parliament to comment on the laws being made. We disagree with specifying people’s ethnicity for a position—

Hon Kelvin Davis: Because you want Pākehās to run the Ngārimu board—how disgraceful. You can’t let Māoris have anything, eh?

DAVID SEYMOUR: —but as I’ve explained, at some length to everyone, except for Kelvin Davis, who’s still rabitting on over there, we respect that it’s what the board would like, but we don’t think that it’s the right way to do business. We think that the right way to do business is to treat people based on their merits and what skills they can offer to a position, rather than their ethnic background.

The Pacific Education Foundation Act is also being amended, and these are quite welcome changes. What it’s, effectively, doing is saying that the Pacific Education Foundation Act can actually apply its, I guess, benefits or scholarships to people outside of New Zealand, and what it’s really doing is allowing this New Zealand institution to help build more bridges with Pasifika people inside and outside of these Islands. And I think, on balance, that’s a very positive thing, because—

Hon Kelvin Davis: Why don’t you want to build bridges with Māoridom, David?

DAVID SEYMOUR: Again, you know we wouldn’t—and I know Kelvin Davis is still rabbiting on over there, but, you know, we wouldn’t have chosen to have ethnicallybased scholarships. But if you’ve got them and if we’re viewing what this particular piece of legislation is changing, then I actually think there is a very important policy objective for New Zealand to strengthen our connections with our Pacific neighbours.

I was in Apia with the former Prime Minister, where I was able to meet the wonderful Fiamē Mata‘afa, the recently elected Prime Minister, the first female Prime Minister, of Samoa—a formidable woman committed wholeheartedly to democracy; it was a real pleasure. That trip reminded me that the Pacific is part of New Zealand’s neighbourhood, and to the extent that New Zealand can use its cultural connections, its sporting connections, its people connections, its business connections to help strengthen our ties with our Pacific neighbours, that is not only good for people living in those Island nations; it’s good for New Zealanders as well, because without putting too fine a point on it, if we are not strengthening our connections with the Pacific, someone else will be, and unlike this country, they’re not a democracy. And so I think that this initiative of amending the Pacific Education Foundation Act in order that that particular institution, as it would like to, can better connect with people in the Pacific, not just in New Zealand but Pasifika people right across the region and that an Order in Council can be issued to amend who exactly qualifies for these scholarships, giving more flexibility in the way it operates—those are positive things, and for those reasons, ACT is very happy to support this bill.

But I just make the point that, you know, while we understand this is driven by the organisation, while we think Parliament should be facilitative, while we question whether or not, you know, Parliament should actually be involved in the rules of these organisations at all—and maybe they should just be operating under the general laws that apply to all—given that they are subject to this legislation, we’re very happy to support and facilitate them getting the changes they need to operate their way. However, far be it for me to tell the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Scholarship Fund board how to operate, but we just make the point that at some point, this country is going to have to move back to the simple idea of universal humanity: start focusing on the 99.9 percent that humans all have in common and stop trying to constantly divide ourselves with superficial differences, because the way I grew up, the right way to look at people was actually to treat them equally, was actually to look through people’s skin to what lies beneath, and to recognise that the differences that some people make so much of are only skin-deep. True beauty is on the inside—that it’s absolutely correct that we should be treating our fellow humans based on what is similar and in common, not constantly trying to bring differences.

And this legislation does that. So much of what we hear in this House does that, and there’s never been a successful society that has succeeded by focusing on differences. All successful societies have been those that seek to work and find common ground in order that people can better cooperate.

Rawiri Waititi: Society was built on difference; it’s called colonisation.

DAVID SEYMOUR: And I hear the Māori Party guy blabbering on here trying to interrupt and get on the microphone. What I’d say to him is: I’m sorry, but you’re just a person—you know, you’re not tangata whenua, you’re not special; you’re just a person born in this country with the rights to one 5-millionth of the opportunity it has to offer. Just another person—just part of universal humanity; welcome to humanity and it’s a wonderful place to be. If you could just stop trying to focus on the differences, then we’d all be getting on so much better.

So I finish by commending the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill to this House, and we look forward to further debate on this in later stages. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Always an honour and a privilege to contribute in this House, particularly in this case, the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill. I can’t go without responding to that last speaker. There’s actually three lines I got from there: he said the word “simple” and he said the word “the right way”. Actually, his whole speech, the member David Seymour—it is only the right way according to him.

So the points I want to take from this bill: it is a bill updating and modernising our education regulatory system to make meaningful changes, and to that, it upholds the mana and the legacy of Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion, and supports the work of the Pacific Education Foundation. The Budget 2022 priorities have five objectives. One of those objectives talks about Māori and Pacific peoples—lifting Māori and Pacific people’s opportunities for incomes and skills. In terms of where it talks about Pacific people in this bill, it actually defines who Pacific peoples are. And I can take that, from the education Minister’s speech, it tells everybody and makes it really clear that the definition of Pacific people as “Aotearoa Pacific person” refers to an indigenous Pacific cultural heritage. What that clarifies is that it brings them the mātauranga, the importance of indigenous knowledge that contributes; adding value to this nation. Pacific people are here, and we are here to stay—and before we can do any of that, we need to recognise the mana of tangata whenua in this country. This omnibus bill recognises that, and I commend this bill to the House. Mālō.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s good to be able to rise and speak on the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill. The purpose of this bill is to modify the functions of the Ngārimu VC and the 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund to use words and emblems associated with that, and I generally think that is a fairly good thing. We support scholarships. We support people recognising their lineage and drawing upon that, and being able to provide words and symbols that exemplify that.

I will note the following: I’m an absolutely big fan of our Pacific peoples here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Where I grew up—and I don’t often tell people—was in Auckland, and it is the largest Polynesian city in the world. It is a fantastic place, and, as a country, we are so much richer for having our Polynesian brothers and sisters here in New Zealand.

I do note, about the main provisions of this bill, that it does increase the annual expenditure that the board can make in a year, from $500 up to $10,000. It clarifies the purpose of the foundation, which is to promote and encourage better education of Aotearoa Pacific peoples, and it includes an apology there and notes the Dawn Raids and the impact that that had on people.

It does update the definitions to ensure that more countries from the Pacific are included in this, and I think it’s important that we do pay particular attention to our Pacific brothers and sisters, because I think we’ve probably, under this Government, been a little bit asleep at the wheel. New Zealand does have an important role to play in nurturing these countries and helping them develop, and we have seen that what’s happened is we’ve walked away from that ownership role a fair bit. During COVID, that did happen, and we’ve seen these countries—

Anna Lorck: Oh, Pasifika people were the highest-vaccinated in Hawke’s Bay. Highest-vaccinated—Hawke’s Bay Pasifika people.

SAM UFFINDELL: —cosy up to China a lot under this Government’s watch. But I will come back to the bill, Madam Speaker.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: All right, please, Anna—it’s too early in the morning.

SAM UFFINDELL: We do support elements of it—

Anna Lorck: I’m wide awake.

SAM UFFINDELL: —but, unfortunately, just like the bill I spoke on about an hour ago—

Erica Stanford: All right, she’s worried about Tukituki.

SAM UFFINDELL: —this is another missed opportunity—and I’m enjoying the banter that’s going in the House and I’d have to support my members’ comments on that one.

This is another wasted opportunity, because we’ve got an education system here that is in crisis. We’ve got 46 percent of New Zealand students who are not regularly going to school. We have got chronic underachievement. One-third of kids could not pass basic reading, writing, and arithmetic tests, and this Government is focused on things that are not going to uplift the education system. This is what we need to be focusing on.

My colleague Erica Stanford and our leader, Christopher Luxon, put forward a fantastic policy last week, and I was glad to see when I spoke an hour ago that the Minister of Education, Jan Tinetti, was here. I hope she took on some sound advice from the member for Tauranga, where she is a list member. She needs to be listening, because we’ve got the answers to education on this side of the House, and this bill, like the previous one, is tinkering around the edges and it ain’t focused on outcomes and it ain’t focused on outcomes for Pacific students. Unfortunately, in New Zealand, Pacific students do not perform well relative to the rest of the students in New Zealand. So if we want to be caring for Pacific students, then we need to be stepping up and making sure that they are learning the basics brilliantly, that they’re learning maths, writing, and arithmetic, and that they’re learning how to read, because they are currently underperforming.

This bill isn’t going to change that, and I did point out to the current Minister, when she was here, that Māori and Pacific kids do worse under Labour than they do under National. Under National—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Now, the member will bring it back to this bill.

SAM UFFINDELL: I will bring it back—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Thank you.

SAM UFFINDELL: —to the bill. We need to make sure that we are focused on uplifting Māori and Pacific students, and this bill isn’t going to help. While we do support certain aspects of it around the scholarship fund and advancing that, and bringing more Pacific countries into what is the definition of Aotearoa Pacific peoples, we fundamentally believe that this bill is another missed opportunity by this Government. There are so many more things that the Government on that side of the House and the officials and everyone else at the Ministry of Education could be pouring their resources, time, and energy into. I oppose this bill.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā tātou. Well, it’s been an eventful morning. Geez, I didn’t really start the morning that excited, but the two bills that have just gone—and especially this one here—I’m really excited about.

I’m really excited about the ability to be able to protect the whakapapa of the very name of the person that this scholarship is named after and the award is named after. And that’s why I’m always a little bit—I have concerns when we use our tīpuna’s names in this House because people don’t know how to look after or cherish the names like Ngārimu, who has strong whakapapa not just to Ngāti Porou but also to Te Whānau-ā-Apanui through his mother’s side. And so, being Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and Ngāti Porou myself, I get a little bit tetchy when people are dragging names of tīpuna through this House like it’s just a piece of legislation and it’s just an amendment.

I just want to acknowledge that I’m also privileged enough to sit on that particular board, and this has been driven by those who are not members of this House but have asked the members of this House to ensure that we protect the whakapapa and the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion.

I just want to focus on that first of all. Those who gave their lives for this country and for their uri, those who’ve paid the ultimate price for citizenship—those are the things that we’ve got to remember when we’re looking at these particular amendments: is that we’re dealing with actual people. We’re dealing with actual whakapapa. And we’re dealing with actual relationships that iwi have amongst themselves and with themselves in terms of the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship.

I wear this hat in recognition of those people that went there, and my grandfather, who went and fought in those wars in the very places that surround the walls of this House. They have represented us there, and this is about ensuring that their legacy has been protected under law.

You know, the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion—we want to create that new national Māori representative position on the board. If you don’t know it in context, these are the things you need to know. We’ve got one 28th Māori Battalion member left—one—Sir Bom Gillies. So I want to acknowledge him, who is the living face of the thousands of Māori and the thousands of people—and our Pacific whānau—that went over to fight in those wars; wars that actually didn’t belong to tangata whenua or tangata moana or tangata Tiriti. Those were not our wars, but we were sent there.

We’re going to support this bill. I don’t see anything controversial in it. Like others in this House, I don’t see anything controversial in it. It doesn’t make sense to find something controversial in it.

The Pacific Education Foundation Act—I just want to acknowledge our tangata moana whānau and their contribution also, not only to the wars but to Aotearoa. And so I acknowledge the whakapapa there. Te Moananui-a-Kiwa Ngārimu—just in the name, Te Moananui-a-Kiwa, is the connection that tangata whenua have with tangata moana. So this is about ensuring that tangata moana and tangata whenua are protected in this bill, in terms of the ambitions that they have for themselves.

Also, tangata Tiriti—I want to acknowledge Gerry Brownlee, who is the head of that group, the tangata Tiriti o Aotearoa, who advocate for tangata Tiriti, who ensure that there will be a more harmonious, equitable, equal society when it comes to the unification of tangata whenua, tangata moana, and tangata Tiriti to build an Aotearoa hōu [the people of the land, the people of the ocean, and the people of the Treaty to build a new Aotearoa].

So, just in closing, e hika mā, kei te mihi atu rā ki te hunga kua riro atu ki te pō. Nā ko rātou Te Hokowhitu a Tū, he nui ngā waiata kua waiatahia, he nui ngā haka kua hakangia e rātou. Nō reira kei te mihi atu ki a rātou, kei te mihi atu anō hoki ki ngā whanaunga a te moana, ō tātou tāngata moana. Kei te mihi atu rā anō hoki ki ngā tāngata Tiriti kei roto i tō tātou Whare, kei waho hoki i tō tātou Whare, e ngākaunui ana, e koroingo ana, e tūmanako ana kia waihanga he Aotearoa hou, kia ngāwari ake tā tātou noho ki runga i tō tātou whenua. Nō reira e te Pīka, e te Whare, kei te mihi atu rā ki a tātou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[So, just in closing, friends, I acknowledge those who have passed on into the night. They are the Māori Battalion, a lot of songs have been sung, and lot of haka have been performed by them. So I acknowledge them, and I also acknowledge our relatives from the ocean, our people of the ocean. I also acknowledge the people who are here under the auspices of the Treaty, both those inside our House and those outside our House, who are committed, desire, and hope to build a new Aotearoa so that our lives in our country are simpler. So, Madam Speaker and the House, I acknowledge all of us, greetings and thanks to everyone.]

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the previous speaker, Rawiri Waititi, on a call on this bill, the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill. Now, these sorts of bills are used commonly to improve regulatory systems, making sure that we have effective, efficient, and aligned with best regulatory practice legislation. That is what the bill does. But we also heard from the previous speaker that it’s about much more than words; it’s also about protecting whakapapa and the mana of the 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial. So that is what this bill does.

It will also make amendments to the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972 to ensure that Pacific learners and their families are better protected. It will do so by changing and making amendments to the current definition of “Pacific peoples”, which is too narrow and doesn’t really capture the diversity of Aotearoa-based Pacific peoples. My colleague Anahila Kanongata‘a-Suisuiki spoke very passionately about that already, previously. So updating the purpose, the make-up, and the constitution of the Pacific Education Foundation Board will enable it to function more effectively and to provide advice to the Minister and Ministry of Education and other educational agencies.

There are also amendments in this particular bill with regards to the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, and that is about the police-vets for non-teaching and unregistered employees in childcare centres such as mall and gym creches, and that needs to be done before the employees actually start work. It will also require employees to consider the police-vet once it is received, to assess any potential risk to the safety of children.

So this bill does a multitude of things, predominantly updating and improving our education regulatory system, making these changes to ensure we uphold Ngārimu VC and the 28th Maori Battalion—its legacy, its mana—and that it supports the work of the Pacific Education Foundation. I commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I stand today, too, to speak to the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill in its first reading. As we’ve heard this morning, the National Party is opposing this bill, but we are not as opposed to the content—some of the content in the bill—but the process that we are going through in this, using the opportunity of urgency to push through these bills, and with shortened report-backs. I think that speaks to the contempt for democracy that this Government often exercises.

We’ve heard much about the three clauses in this bill that talk to the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund, the Pacific Education Foundation Act 1972, and the health and safety at work regulations, and we had quite a bit of pushback from Kelvin Davis when he was in the House about the lack of knowledge of the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund. So, unfortunately, he’s not here to hear, but I did actually do a little bit of research—

Marja Lubeck: Point of order. I believe that members should not refer to people being absent from the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): If the member could continue on with her speech and not refer to those who are not here. Thank you.

MAUREEN PUGH: The 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship—a very, very noble entity, and definitely of huge benefit to those who do take advantage of it. It’s about supporting students who are undertaking study or vocational education and training, so some of the issues and the scholarships that they do support are very wide ranging. But I thought one of the things that impressed me the most was that the applicants must demonstrate the characteristics—their characteristics—which also align with the characteristics, and the values of those, who were in the 28th Māori Battalion. So, in order to qualify, the applicants must apply those characteristics and demonstrate how they actually will deliver. But the scholarships are available for three vocational education and training scholars—very generous, $10,000 each; three undergraduate scholarships—$30,000 each; one master scholarship, which is valued up to $20,000; one master education research scholarship—again, up to $20,000; and one doctoral scholarship, valued up to $40,000. There’s no question of the value of the Māori Battalion memorial scholarship fund, and, so, as I said, the National Party supports those minor changes that need to be made to that bill.

The Pacific Education Foundation Act, again, is going through some minor changes, and we look at some of those authorised expenditures that they already have, and there were some questions around the need to increase that expenditure from $500 to $10,000. They’ll be things that the select committee will turn its mind to. We know that they support the education and training of Pacific peoples and that’s, again, a very noble thing. They grant financial assistance for a whole range of various things to support education of Pacific peoples, including for the purchase of equipment or material for the provision of bursaries; the provision of postgraduate scholarships; the provision of books, clothing, and other equipment for special bursaries or scholarships; and, among other things, the payment of costs to administer the affairs of the foundation. They are, again, providing a very good support network for Pacific students.

I guess the crux of this and the opposition that the National Party feels to this bill is: how is this bill going to lift the achievement levels of Māori and Pasifika students, and how is this bill going to get students back into the classroom? So, in terms of the wider population of Māori-Pacific students, this bill is going to have very little impact on the poor attendance rates and the poor achievement rates of Māori and Pacific students which is, of course, why we are opposing this bill because our attention has been focused on that rather than some of the tweaks that this bill is going to change.

The health and safety and work relations section of this bill has been talked about earlier, and I refer to my colleague Penny Simmonds, who raised the question of tradesmen being called into the likes of creches—the ones that are called the “limitedattendance” childcare centres: the gyms and the mall creches. Those things are very foreign to me—mall creches. We don’t even have malls, so we certainly don’t have a creche that is available to many of our shopping parents.

Matt Doocey: One day.

MAUREEN PUGH: Yes, one day we will get there, Matt Doocey. But the question was raised about the employment of tradies on site, and I think that’s a question the select committee will clearly turn its mind to, because if it’s taking 20 working days to process a police-vet, then certainly tradies can’t wait that long, so there has to be some practical solution to that. The example was given of a plumber—you know, if you’ve got a blocked toilet, you don’t want to wait 20 days to get a tradie on site; and certainly if the lights go out, you don’t want to be vetting for 20 days to get an electrician on site. So there are some practical implications for the health and safety and work relations part of this bill.

I also wonder whether the risk assessment has been thought about in this, and, no doubt, the select committee will turn its mind to that: when you’ve got someone—maybe one person—turning up amongst a raft of other staff and perhaps parents, whether the risk of that is warranted. But, no doubt, the select committee will turn its mind to that. One of the things that we have also heard about today in some of the speeches is this regulatory creep where they may seem insignificant changes—and especially the health and safety work relations part of this bill—on their own, but the cumulative effect of more and more regulation is stymying the ability of businesses, especially our early childhood centres and our limited-attendance centres, to do their work and focus on the job that they have at hand, which is, of course, to care for those children who are in their care. So we’ve got to be careful, when more regulation is imposed on those organisations, that we don’t overburden them, and sometimes this regulatory creep—you’ve got to look back to see how much of it has been imposed on hard-working people.

It’s been well traversed by my colleagues on this side of the House about the impact that this bill will have on education—which is zero. But I’d like to raise the issue of the amount of investment that has gone into education in the past few years. We have spent, as a country, $5 billion every year in education—extra by the Labour Government—but, actually, outcomes have become worse. It takes a very special talent to be able to reach that kind of a milestone.

The National Party is in support of some of the detail in this bill, but we are not supporting it today, because we see it as a huge waste of parliamentary time, using urgency to push through something of this nature, and also to have a shortened reportback, which, of course, is the democratic process that we enjoy, usually, in having the ability for the public to have oversight of the process. National is opposing this bill.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I come from the region of Hawke’s Bay, where we have a thriving Pasifika community. Out in Havelock North, and Flaxmere, and Hastings, and Mahora, and all those places, we have Pasifika children thriving and striving. And when you want to talk—like the National Party—about not being able to achieve things, this bill gives greater opportunity to our Pasifika people and our Pasifika students so that they can, as part of Aotearoa Pasifika people, have access to grants and support to enable them to have a lifetime of education opportunities. That’s what puts people on the road to success and why Hawke’s Bay has such huge opportunities for Pasifika people in our region. I commend everything we can do to enable thriving education opportunities for Aotearoa Pasifika people. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 85

New Zealand Labour 64; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 9; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 34

New Zealand National 34.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 86, Noes 34.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is, That the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Instruction to Education and Workforce Committee

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Minister of Internal Affairs): I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill be reported back to the House by 31 July 2023.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I would have to get to the end of this before I come to you for the point of order.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: It’s relevant to the process. My understanding is that under the Standing Orders, the Minister moving this motion, which is a debatable motion, has to explain to the House why it’s necessary for the shortened report-back. We didn’t get that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The advice I have is that it’s not a debatable motion because it’s four months. So, if it was a shortened time period, it would be debatable.

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

Ayes 85

New Zealand Labour 64; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 9; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 34

New Zealand National 34.

Motion agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 86, Noes 34.

Bills

Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): I present a legislative statement on the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I move, That the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 July, 2023.

This in an important piece of legislation that the House will commence consideration of today. It deals with the issue of the potential for a mass arrival in New Zealand, and the need for there to be an orderly and rights-compliant framework to deal with such a situation. Some of the issues that we will consider through the course of this bill are complex. They cut across our domestic and international obligations and New Zealand’s commitment to human rights.

I want to underscore, at the start of this debate, that New Zealand and the Government continue to consistently support the legal right for people to claim asylum in New Zealand, and we support the development and maintenance of systems and processes that enable us to handle these events in a way that is orderly and rights-compliant. There are complex issues around rights that are engaged in this area, and I do believe that it is important that the House and select committee processes consider the bill in a robust fashion.

Because of some of those issues, I have reached out to other parties around the House—as early as late last year—to commence a discussion around this legislation and the key issues within it, and I acknowledge other parties for their participation in that. It is apparent that parties in the House may take different views on the merits of the bill, but I do believe that it is an important one for there to be an open and constructive and balanced dialogue around.

People smuggling is a transnational crime that exposes vulnerable migrants to significant risks and generates large profits for the facilitators, who are some of the most unscrupulous people on the planet taking advantage of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. People smuggling undermines the integrity of international borders and immigration systems, and mass arrivals events around the globe are commonly facilitated by people smugglers. A mass arrival event would not be in the best interests of New Zealand, but, most importantly, would not be in the best interests of the people who are being smuggled either.

This is an activity which exposes people to extreme risk and results in hundreds of people being killed on the seas every year. For New Zealand, this is a low-risk event. It has been rightly noted that we have not had a mass arrival maritime event in New Zealand previously, and it remains a low-risk event due to our geographical isolation. But it is not a no-risk event, and it is an extremely high-impact event. So it is the duty of the Government—and, I believe, the House—to ensure that we have a framework in place that enables us to handle such an event in a way that is orderly and that is rights-compliant.

Parliament first considered these matters about 10 years ago in the Immigration Amendment Act 2013, which some members in this House will be well familiar with. As well as defining a “mass arrival”, that legislation set out how Immigration New Zealand would respond to a potential mass arrival event. In a 2019 review of that legislation, officials identified that some of the key provisions in that legislation would not work as intended, and it was important to make sure that those issues were clarified through an amendment bill—which is what the House will be considering today. We do have international obligations to prevent and combat people smuggling, and to protect the rights of smuggled migrants.

It’s important to note a couple of things at the start of this debate. When we talk about a mass arrival event under the piece of primary legislation, we’re talking about a group of 30 people or more who arrive outside of the regular channels of migration. This bill does not concern people who might arrive in other channels—for example, someone who arrives on a plane and seeks asylum in New Zealand. It is purely about mass arrival events of 30 people or more. It is important to note that under the primary legislation, a key part of Immigration New Zealand’s response to such an event is the use of group warrants of commitment to effectively manage a group while processing, to be able to engage in security screening and health assessments.

It is important to note that detention is not envisaged to be an ongoing and long-term part of the way that we manage people who arrive in New Zealand through one of these events. It is a particular part of the process that enables things to proceed in an orderly fashion.

In terms of the three key areas that this bill addresses, the first—coming out of the 2019 review—identified the possibility that members of a mass arrival group are deemed to hold entry permission and a temporary entry class visa as a passenger on arrival to New Zealand. The first change in the bill removes that possibility. The review also identified that because a potential group arrives outside of regular channels of migration, there is ambiguity as to whether those people will have the ability to apply for an entry permission and a visa.

The second change in the bill clarifies that those people are indeed responsible for applying for an entry permission and visa, and it enables them to do so—and, in fact, deems that they have done so if they do not.

Finally, the third change in the bill. Immigration New Zealand and the courts currently have only 96 hours from the point at which an immigration officer makes a decision on an application for entry permission and a visa both to apply for a group warrant of commitment and for the application to be decided. In the Government’s view, this is not enough time for migrants to receive legal advice or to be meaningfully represented in court, particularly if we deal with a large event. A large event, for example, could be similar to the one that Canada experienced in 2010, in which close on 500 people arrived in a single event. It is very difficult to imagine our legal process being able to mobilise in a 96-hour period to ensure that those people had appropriate legal representation through a very significant legal process.

So the changes in the bill address all of those issues. They demonstrate our commitment to ensure that people do have appropriate legal representation and uphold their human rights, clarifies the legal status of members of a mass arrival group, and it will also improve New Zealand’s ability to manage the complexities of a mass arrival event.

In some of the debate which has preceded this reading in the House, much attention has focused on the third change in the bill and the set of rights issues that it does engage, because it does deal with matters relating to the detention of people who arrive in New Zealand. I do acknowledge that the bill does engage those rights issues around detention, and it’s important that they get good consideration in this debate in the House and through the select committee process.

But I do want to be very clear about a number of things. The first is that the ability to detain to manage these situations is there in the existing bill. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (NZ BORA) vet for the previous bill and for this bill both confirm that that detention—managed appropriately—is compliant with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This has been very carefully worked through and considered, and I want to speak specifically to some of those points.

It is noted by officials from the Ministry of Justice, in the NZ BORA vet, that the fact that this is a judicially controlled process ensures that there are significant controls for the rights of the people concerned.

Immigration officers take a warrant to the court. Immigration officers are not the people who will make the decisions about detention of the individuals concerned; that will be overseen by a judge in the District Court. Ministry of Justice officials, in the NZ BORA vet, put a high degree of focus on the importance of that and in terms of ensuring rights compliance. They also note that under the legislation—this is a very important point—and this is section 313(2)(a), requires that a person detained under the section may only be detained “as long as necessary to achieve the purpose of the detention”.

So while the maximum possible period of detention is extended from the current four days, initially to seven days and up to a maximum of 28 days if the District Court judge deems that that is necessary for the purposes of having an orderly process, those are only maximums. And the legislation is very clear that detention should be for the minimum necessary period in order to achieve the purpose of that detention, which I have already identified.

The NZ BORA vet also notes that nothing in this legislation removes the ability of detainees themselves to use existing statutory options to challenge their ongoing detention. So their existing legal rights will remain to be able to test whether their detention has been made lawfully and nothing takes that away. Overall, the NZ BORA vet therefore concludes that the safeguards that are in place in the legislation—and I’m quoting directly here—“ensure that there are adequate barriers to detention being prolonged [beyond] what is necessary to deal with the circumstances of a mass arrival event.”

This is not the kind of piece of legislation that, as a Labour Minister, I have dreamed of bringing to this House. But the Government of the day has a responsibility to make sure that we have robust legislation to deal with these sorts of events. This is a lowprobability but high-impact event, and the best time to deal with these issues is before an event occurs.

Were we to have a mass arrival event, the issues that I have identified here would need to be dealt with at that time. That would occur in a less orderly way, it would be subject to scrutiny, and it would be in the white-hot spotlight of an intense political and public event. The responsible thing for this House to do is to have an orderly debate about this issue and establish a safe, robust, rights-compliant framework for dealing with a mass arrival event. That is what this bill does, and I commend it to the House.

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

Debate interrupted.

Voting

Correction—Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I seek leave to change a vote that the ACT Party just did on the last bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Leave is sought for that purpose. Are there any objections? There are no objections.

NICOLE McKEE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. In the Regulatory Systems (Education) Amendment Bill, the last two votes that were taken—the one to support the bill and the one for the referral to the select committee—I had incorrectly supported with 10 votes from ACT, and need to change that with 9 votes from ACT for both of those.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The Clerk will amend the votes for those two. Thank you, Nicole McKee.

Bills

Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Can I just say that this is a bill that the National Party will support today to a select committee, but it is a bill that does raise a number of concerns as well, and we want to test those out during the select committee process. We’ve got to remember that should there be a mass arrival in New Zealand, those who are part of that mass arrival are stepping ahead of some 20 million United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees refugees who are located at refugee camps all around the world. They are stepping ahead and jumping the queue on the around 1,500 refugees who we accept into this country every year. And it’s therefore important that we don’t have legislation that makes it attractive for these people smugglers to give it a go, getting across the Tasman into New Zealand or, for that matter, finding themselves somehow stranded inside some of the vast territorial waters that New Zealand has responsibility for.

So our position is simply that while we think that there is a whole lot of things about the immigration department at the moment—or the department inside the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment that handles immigration—that could be described as a bit of a shambles, it is important that the integrity of the immigration system is maintained. And so some look at this sort of provision is important.

What I think is most relevant in all of this is the time that the immigration officers and then the court have to determine the status of those who arrive on our borders. It makes it very clear, as the Minister has just said, that they are not normal passengers and that they cannot expect to be treated like that, and that they will be detained, under arrest, according to a warrant that will be issued once they do arrive on these shores. Where it gets a bit loose from that point is what happens to them. And so while the Minister says that the detention period should be for a minimum of time, the question is where that detention would be. Would it be, in fact, a situation where it becomes a little bit pro forma: arrive in New Zealand as part of a mass emigration—remembering that everybody who would be part of that would have paid some nefarious operator large sums of money in order to be able to get here—and then simply go through a process that means refugee status might be exercised or provided?

I think we’ve got to be very careful that we don’t have an administrative law that makes us an easy target when in fact, so far, unlike so many other countries, we have avoided this sort of mass arrival, not that it hasn’t been a prospect at various times in the last decade or so. There have been wide reports of there being boats that might be on their way to New Zealand, and, of course, that triggered the original 2013 legislation that was brought down by a previous Minister. When we come to the select committee, I think it will be very interesting to hear from immigration officials why they think they need so much extra time. It may seem like a lot, but if you can get the picture that none of these people arriving have a right to arrive. Anybody who arrives on an international aircraft today, on a passenger cruise ship, or even on a commercial vessel have a permission to be here. They are granted the right to come into New Zealand. None of these people are in that position. They’ve just decided they’re going to disregard our provisions, shortcut the whole arrangements for coming into any country, and just take their chances.

If the bill were to mean that their chances were pretty good at getting citizenship here and getting residence here, then I think we would have a little bit of a problem because we’d be signalling to a lot of these people that we’re an easy target. And remember, too, that the people who come on these boats, even though they’re a bit shonky and a bit rumpty, can afford to be there. They pay a lot of money. So the prospect of a better-quality ship coming to a country where there was almost no question about what the outcome was going to be would be very alarming indeed.

So we will, as I say, support this bill to the select committee today. However, we do want to go through—with the officials and those who might submit on it—our concerns to ensure that the bill is actually doing what it should do, which is deterring these operators from targeting New Zealand and making it clear that should they be successful in negotiating our waters, there is no automatic path that would lead them to a good outcome.

There will be subsequent speakers today who have considerable experience in the role. My colleague Michael Woodhouse, a former Minister, the Minister who brought the 2013 legislation to the House, will be able to elucidate a lot better on the concerns that we have with significantly more detail. So with that, can I say, once again, that we will participate responsibly in the select committee process. While the Minister describes this as a bill that is not overly consequential or not exactly the one that he would get most excited about—it’s very hard to work out what part of immigration he does get excited about—we will, of course, engage properly because it’s important and has, potentially, long-term consequences for New Zealand.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise to take a short call on the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. For those just keying in to Parliament TV this morning, what this bill is about is preparation for the possibility that, at some point, we might face a situation where we’re going to get a mass arrival of refugees—a bit like the way that the Tampa picked up a sinking ship of refugees off the coast of Australia and delivered them to Australia. We know that there are people who do see New Zealand as a desirable destination, and why would they not? But we need to prepare for that, because, at present, the likelihood is if we had 300, 400, 500 refugees turn up in a tanker off the coast of Auckland or Whangārei, then we would not have the resources or the legislation in place to deal with them.

So what we’re going to do is: first, we’re going to cover a loophole that might suggest that such people turning up in their tanker, having been rescued, are going to have an automatic visa, because, at the moment, if you turn up as a passenger on a ship, you do have an automatic several-week visa. It is assumed that you’re legit. If you are not legit, then we need to make it very clear in the definition of “passenger”, that that doesn’t apply to you. So that’s change number one—it’s fairly straightforward.

Change number two is that we’re going to clarify—and it’s strange that this was not clarified before, perhaps—that it is on the person turning up to make their visa application, not on anyone else. If we don’t have a legal obligation on them to do it, then it is very hard for immigration officials to follow them up and hold them to account, and start to put them through the process. There is a grey area there; we’re going to clear that one up.

The third one is—and this comes down to the situation where there are huge numbers of people turning up—96 hours is all that an immigration official currently has to get a warrant of committal, should they need it, which is to detain a refugee that they consider is, perhaps, a flight risk or a danger to themselves or others. They only have 96 hours at present to get that through. If you’ve got 500 people on the dock in Whangārei, then that is going to be far too short a time to process them all in time for them to get the legal advice they need. We’re putting that out to seven days.

As Mr Wood said, this is a situation we need to prepare for, so in the virtual emergency of 500 people on the dock at Whangārei, we would have processes in place. I commend it to the House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call in support of this bill at first reading, and I have to say, since I heard about it in the last two or three days, I was having something of a sense of—

Erica Stanford: Déjà vu?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —flashback and déjà vu, exactly. As the immigration Minister said, there are a number of people in this House who have memories of this bill first passing 10 years ago, and I was the Minister at the passage—not at first reading, which was introduced by Nathan Guy in about May 2012, but from subsequent readings from March 2013 to the middle of 2013.

I have very clear memories of a Labour Party that went to war with the Government over this bill—and my, how the worm has turned. Let me just remind the House of the sorts of things that Labour members were saying: Charles Chauvel, basically, said that he was embarrassed by the bill. Darien Fenton—if one remembers there was an advertisement on the TV; I think it was about road safety, and it had the term “ghost chips”—well, she referred to these as “ghost ships” repeatedly; saying, “This would not happen,” and “Why are we wasting the House’s time?” David Cunliffe, who very shortly after this bill was passed became Leader of the Opposition, basically said there was more chance of little green men coming from Mars than a boat landing on the shores of New Zealand.

Never mind that, for 1,000 years, wooden-hulled vessels have travelled the Pacific to be here. Never mind that ships were crossing the Indian Ocean with the intention of going around the Australian Bight and into the Tasman Sea, that a steel-hulled vessel had gone from Sri Lanka to Canada with 500 people on board. These things were real, and so I must commend the Labour Party for having a change of heart, and being alive to the risks—the very real risks—that this could occur. I’m not sure if they are as alive to the serious consequences that could emerge if even a small vessel—with a relatively small number of people—did arrive on our shores, and I want to go into why I think that’s a bit of a problem with some of the changes that we’re making, because it does have this impression that things would happen in an orderly fashion.

If one talks to those countries that are routinely experiencing irregular maritime arrivals, they will tell you that it is absolute chaos. And on those vessels, we are going to have those snakeheads—the pirates. In fact, if there is a hell, the hottest spot in that place should be reserved for these people smugglers. It’s also going to have victims—what I described 10 years ago as “willing victims”, but victims nevertheless—and, very often, children.

Now, the detention requirements for all of those groups, whether they are male or female, whether they are elderly or very young, whether they are criminals or not—is going to be different. And I think what the Government is doing, in this bill, is confusing the process of refugee determination and the period of that with the process of detention. Now, regardless of what one thinks about the ability for a mass warrant of detention, it’s my view—and that’s why I supported and passaged the bill 10 years ago—that it is necessary to work quickly to determine where the risk is and manage it. And I was at pains to point out that the detention facility should be commensurate with two things: the person’s individual rights and the rights of New Zealanders to be kept safe from some very dangerous people, or to establish the identity of people.

Now, if we take up to 32 days simply to make a decision about whether somebody should be detained for up to six months, it seems to me that there’s a somewhat circular argument here. What’s going to happen to them in the meantime? Well, it’s a bit hard to tell, and I think the answer—and the select committee should flesh this out—is that they’re going to be detained somewhere. So why are we changing the law to detain someone while a judge decides whether we should detain them? There are certain laws—and I think the lawyers in the room will know much better than I—under the Crimes Act regarding what a suspected criminal has in terms of rights and obligations for detention pending charges and then their appearance before a court. What we’re, essentially, doing here is giving the courts and Immigration New Zealand up to 32 days to determine that.

Now, I fully support the ability of a person who isn’t a regular maritime arriver to have the right to access legal representation, and for them to understand what their rights and obligations are. But I’m not sure that the extension of time in this situation is going to ease or add to the chaos if a ship arrives on a Northland beach—or, more likely, gets into distress in the Tasman Sea. Of course, our international maritime obligations to protect go all the way out to, I think, New Caledonia, nearly. And then international maritime law requires a rescuer—if that’s the New Zealand Navy or other vessels—to deposit those people at the nearest jurisdiction, which would be New Caledonia or Vanuatu. I mean, that’s very unlikely that that would be practical, and so the likelihood is that these people are going to come back, let’s say on a frigate or an offshore patrol vessel, land at Devonport and then be processed. But let’s be under no illusions, this will be chaos. Their medical needs, their legal needs, their identity requirements, the need to speedily decide what the right level of risk is and the right place for detention is are not necessarily going to be aided by this. I’m open to being convinced, and I know the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee will do a good job on it, but there are some serious questions here.

What I like is that at least the Labour Party are now taking this seriously, because they didn’t 10 years ago, and they went very quiet while they were in Government up until now. They did a review, and, in fact, Immigration New Zealand and other agencies’ desktops review these scenarios from time to time—maybe they’ve identified a new risk that they’re tightening up, that’s fine. But I think we should all agree on one thing, and I would leave the House with some consideration of another: prevention is the best approach, because not only is this illegal; it’s hideously dangerous. I recall, in my second reading 10 years ago, I think the count that year alone—because the jump spot from Cisarua to the East Timor Sea was becoming a very, very popular trade route; trading in people, sadly—600 people drowned in the period leading up to that second reading. Perhaps it was in the previous year, I can’t remember. And that was only the ones they knew about. There could have been hundreds more. So it’s a threat to life, and we need to—even in our deterrence—make sure that that’s prevented.

The second thing is, I think the refugee convention is actually out of date. It was written in a time after the Second World War where there was the mass movement of people displaced by that terrible conflict. And it had provisions in it that imagined a scenario of people, basically, walking from one country to another, and the principle of nonrefoulement was, well, you can’t send them back. But of course, there are some countries around the world where asylum seekers have moved across several countries to get to a particular destination. So we have an obligation not to return them to the country that they started in, but we’re under no obligation to keep them here. It didn’t anticipate long-distance maritime arrivals, and I think it’s time, perhaps, for the United Nations to have a good look at that convention, if they have the courage. But with that, I’ll support the bill.

DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s my privilege to speak on the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill for its first reading in the House.

This bill makes some technical changes to the Immigration Act to better prepare Immigration New Zealand for a possible mass arrival event. A mass arrival event is when 30 people without authorisation enter New Zealand and arrive on board one or more craft at the same time. This bill enables Immigration New Zealand to prepare for a mass arrival event with an established framework that can guarantee and respect the human rights of those who arrive.

This bill will make three key changes to the Immigration Act to make sure the legislation works as intended. It will provide the District Court with more time to consider an application for a mass arrival warrant of commitment; where the decision was supposed to take around 96 hours before, the judge will now have at least seven days to make a decision, giving more consideration to each case and allow time to organise legal representation for the affected migrants.

The bill will also ensure that the members of a mass arrival group will have to apply for entry permission and a visa. Because they arrived illegally, they will not be processed through the normal visa applications. This requirement will make sure that immigration officers can conduct processing, interviews, and other appropriate checks for any arrivals to New Zealand.

The last change made by the bill is that it changes the definition of “passenger” in the Act to make sure that they cannot avoid immigration checks and remove any possibility that members of a mass arrival group could be deemed to hold entry permission and a visa upon arrival in New Zealand. There have been examples of where a lack of clarity in this definition has led to some difficult situations for immigration authorities. This small change will solve this issue and guarantee that Immigration New Zealand has an appropriate framework in place to deal with mass arrival events. I commend the bill to the House.

SPEAKER: I understand this is a split call.

Golriz Ghahraman: Uh—I don’t think so.

SPEAKER: No, sorry. I had the incorrect information. Sorry about that. I call Golriz Ghahraman.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand with great sadness to speak today on this bill. It is a sad day for our nation. It is the first time that a political party—certainly a Government—has made the humanity and the rights of asylum seekers an election-year issue. It certainly doesn’t seem like detaining asylum seekers without charge or trial would be a bread and butter issue for a Labour Government, but here we are. I stand and speak today as a former child asylum seeker.

When I first entered politics, I didn’t think I’d be doing it as the first refugee MP, but I’ve realised that that representation is actually pretty essential in this House and in politics. So I stand to ground us in who this bill is actually about—people like my parents who had to escape Iran under one of the most oppressive regimes in the modern world. The absolute violence against women by the regime and against its political opponents meant that we had to flee, and my little hipster, activist parents landed here in New Zealand with their nine-year-old daughter that they didn’t want to raise under oppression, claimed asylum at the border. We are talking about Afghan women judges who have to cross the border, now, into Pakistan; we’re talking about Hong Kong democracy activists; the Uighur community in China; we’re talking about the people of Ukraine. Anyone who’s willing to get on a boat and somehow make it to a country like New Zealand in the South Pacific probably deserves a medal, rather than to have their rights suspended.

So what are we talking about? A John Key Government passed this law first, talked about irregular migration first, talked about mass arrivals, and how we need detention powers—10 years ago—and, yes, this side of the House railed against it. Today, we have a Minister who is also the MP for our country’s most diverse electorate of Mt Roskill, saying, actually, what John Key did didn’t go far enough: 96 hours of detention to determine whether or not a person is a risk to our country isn’t long enough—we want a month; we want 28 days. To put that into context, you can be caught with a smoking gun, standing over a dead body, charged with murder—or to use a real example, you can be the Christchurch terrorist—and you still, rightly, have a fundamental right to appear before a judge or a magistrate within a day to determine whether you are, in fact, a risk to the community, and whether your detention is lawful.

Twenty-eight days without the right to appear in front of a court because they’ve approached our border and asked for help—without charge or trial; without the right to have their risk as individuals determined independently. This isn’t their whole asylum case; it’s just their detention rights we’re suspending. And this is a Government and a Minister who knows that, thus far, asylum seekers, when they land here by air and are detained, are detained at Mt Eden Prison, and won’t guarantee that criminal prisons won’t be used to exercise the power to detain asylum seekers, now for 28 days, without the ability to challenge.

We, just a year and a half ago, had a full independent inquiry into asylum seeker detention in this nation—so far, only handfuls of people arriving, because it’s only air travel that’s really available to asylum seekers. They are being held, and have been held by successive Governments—Labour- and National-led Governments—in Mt Eden Prison—maximum security, criminal prison—and Victoria Casey QC, who conducted that inquiry, courageously outlined the abuse that they were suffering; the sexual and physical violence that they’d been suffering; the absolute isolation and trauma of having escaped a war or really serious persecution; gay men from Iran who would be executed; Afghan women, is what we’re talking about. The absolute trauma of having to be displaced and escape your nation—they were being held in Mt Eden Prison, and this bill is extending that power, today.

So let’s not call it a “technical change” and degrade those communities even further. Let’s not talk about how much how many extra rights we’re giving them. Let’s think about who else in this country we would face—look them in the eye and say, “Guess what! We’re doing you a great favour. We’re taking away your rights to challenge detention. We’re going to put you in detention, probably in a maximum security, criminal prison, without charge or trial, for a month while we let you access a lawyer, maybe.”

Now, the Government says this is because we lack the resource, we lack the legal expertise, to give these people a chance—like we do to the most serious criminals—to appear before a court and challenge their detention. If they were honest about that, if this was what this bill is about, where’s the resource? Where’s the training programme that they’re also introducing for lawyers at the District Courts to be able to deal with asylum cases? Where’s the resource we’re putting into our courts because, actually, most New Zealanders are having to wait quite a long time to access justice here; where’s that? Where’s the rest of the Victoria Casey review recommendations, where she said that detaining asylum seekers is actually a breach of international and domestic law in this country because it’s perfectly legal to approach a border and claim asylum?

Let’s look at what New Zealand actually stands for. This is a compassionate nation who wants to do our fair share in the global space where displacement has happened, where war has happened, where oppression has happened. We are much more like Hungary and Poland and Germany, who are just coming together to try and feed and clothe the refugees; creating new public transport tickets for them; trying to ensure that Ukrainian children crossing the border by the hundreds of thousands—not just hundreds, not just two, three hundreds, which is what this bill is apparently about. Look at the people of Pakistan when the Afghan community came across. None of those nations made law to detain the refugees. The only countries who have had a punitive response to this fear—and it is just fear—of so-called mass arrivals have been the Liberal Government of Australia, and the Conservative Party of Britain, who is passing a similar law today.

That is who this Government is aligning us with, and those are not New Zealand values. What makes me sadder still is that it’s election year. This is a Government that killed hate speech law reform because it proudly said it wouldn’t make those vulnerable communities a political football in election year, even if that law was going to result in protection, long term. But it is happy to make our refugee and asylum seeker communities political football today—this year, in election year—in order to take away our rights.

So it makes me sad for our communities that believed a Labour Party Prime Minister when she said, “This is not us.” It makes me sad for Amnesty International New Zealand, who fought for the Victoria Casey review into asylum seeker detention and celebrated its recommendations. It makes me sad for Victoria Casey QC; the people of Mt Roskill; the Tamil community who’ve seen the Australian billboards in northern Sri Lanka that said, “Don’t come here by boat, we will detain you”, because that’s now New Zealand—under a Labour Government.

It makes me so sad for all of Aotearoa who turned out, thousands upon thousands, after the Christchurch shooting happened, to say “This is not us.”, to say “We are a welcoming and inclusive society.” It’s incumbent upon us to say that you can and have an absolute right to escape torture and oppression, to raise your babies in peace, and reach a border any way you can. And you know what, if we had a Te Ao Māori approach to migration and refugee rights, I guarantee you we wouldn’t have a punitive approach like this when people arrive.

So, at best, this bill is an unnecessary waste of this House’s time; at worst, it’s breathtakingly reckless. But we will continue to stand with our communities as this bill and their humanity gets debated. We will continue to stand for human rights, and, I say, at least in October, we know if this is not in fact us, that we’re going to need a much bigger Green heart in the Labour Government.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to talk about the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. I note that it’s not often that we get to debate amendments to the Immigration Act since literally everything in the system is guided by immigration instructions that don’t get to have any scrutiny in this House, so we’ll take whatever we can get.

Nevertheless, it is unclear that there is a need to include this piece of legislation in urgency this week. The chances of a mass arrival—that is, people being smuggled here on a boat—are close to zero, and the Minister has even stated and pointed out the fact that it’s never happened. That’s not to say it won’t happen, but is this really something that needs to go through urgency amongst everything else? Probably not.

There are countless more things in the immigration system that could do with improving, and on the face of it, this looks like a bit of a framework for little reason other than to perhaps contrast New Zealand’s approach to this issue with that of the UK, which—as the previous speaker, Golriz Ghahraman, has highlighted—is occurring at present. Nevertheless, we will support the bill to select committee with some reservations, noting the issues that I’ve talked about in urgency—the issues with the bill—and the Cabinet paper containing many redactions under national security, which is really helpful. We’ll trust that the Government knows something that we don’t, and take a good-faith approach. I would note that if the ACT Party was given a chance to have a briefing from officials to discuss this in advance like the other parties were, we could have asked our questions then, but it certainly wasn’t extended to us.

So the concept of detaining asylum seekers for a month without charge or evidence is somewhat cagey from a human rights perspective, and when the Government is trying to convince us that they’re doing this for the right reasons, I’m getting a little bit more sceptical. The Cabinet paper indicates that one of the purposes of this bill is to give migrants human rights and “freedom from arbitrary detention”. That’s a bit ironic. It’s like the old “imprison you for your own safety” kind of concept.

In reality, this bill enables longer detention, and in some sort of a quasi-detention facility that is not particularly outlined. Whether they’re talking about Mt Eden or the Māngere detention centre, officially known as the refugee resettlement centre—it could be; we don’t know—that hasn’t been explained, other than things like a “low or no security facility”. So, like what, a managed isolation and quarantine hotel or something?

Humorously, the departmental disclosure statement states a concern: “There may be risk to New Zealand’s international reputation, on the basis that this proposal enables detention without warrant of an undetermined duration”. I think that is a concern that the select committee should actually look at to go “Have we gone about this the right way?”, particularly in comparison to other countries and the risk of this actually occurring.

There’s also a fair amount of talk about natural justice, but I’d ask where is that in the bill? Natural justice is about being innocent until proven guilty and freedom from arbitrary detention, and this bill seems to do the opposite.

So a few ancillary points. As the Hon Gerry Brownlee has pointed out, those other refugees in the UN system might feel a bit undercut by this, and, of course, those on legitimate pathways—those who are waiting with the speed of the parent category, for instance, and how slow that is, and languishing in residency queues and waiting for their 2021 resident visa will be wondering about the very different treatment going on here.

The choices for the courts are interesting: granting entry, detention, or releasing with or without conditions. Given the Cabinet paper has a large number of redactions on national security grounds, it’s kind of surprising that there is no sort of more obvious escalation, whether that’s extended detention if the situation warrants it, or even deportation. So it may sound a bit crass, but if a boatload of al-Qaeda showed up, the options in this bill are actually the only options—and I highly doubt it.

So, overall, we’ll support this at first reading, like I said, so that it can have some scrutiny in a select committee, because, so far, it hasn’t had any with external stakeholders other than internal Government agencies. So I commend it to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. As I begin this morning, I do want to acknowledge the Green Party member Golriz Ghahraman for her contribution to the House. This is legislation, obviously, that we are considering this morning, but in listening to her address, definitely it’s something that’s real, something that is actually reality for people, and so I acknowledge Golriz Ghahraman’s contribution and life story—and her family being able to be here.

Now, in reflecting on this piece of legislation, the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill, I’ve been looking a little bit at the numbers and the statistics, and I’m really saddened to see, in the past 30 years, how quickly it’s changed in terms of those who are seeking asylum in parts of the world. And I look at the statistics back in 1991 when there were very, very few people, if any, in this position who were refugees in other spaces—but in terms of those seeking asylum, which rose from near zero in 1991 to, in 2021, it being around 4.6 million asylum seekers around the world.

I would hope that we would live in an age, in a time, when these measures are not necessary, but they are at this time. I would dream of living in a world—I guess sometimes I am trying to be the optimist—where regimes would be in a place where people would feel safe, included, and secure in their own homes, but that is just not what it is in the world we live in.

So this is a piece of legislation I’d like to take us to select committee to consider and to open up to the wider public to have their contribution on it. So I won’t delay it any longer and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. National will also be supporting this bill to the select committee. And just following on from that last speaker’s point, the Green Party did raise some very valid points around the issue of people seeking asylum in New Zealand, and it’s probably a very rare event that anyone will get to New Zealand in these circumstances. The major issue is really the Australian border that, effectively, has become the New Zealand border in this situation. And what happens is that Australia has taken a very tough stance over a number of years and different colours of Government as well have continued that tough stance purely because of their geographical location. And we’re not far off when you consider our wider sea location as well. In some ways, you probably would want to welcome anybody that comes to the country at the moment, because we can’t get anybody into New Zealand through the immigration system. And I guess, in some ways, if they do make it all the way to New Zealand, they do deserve that gold star.

But the reality is that this is a bill that’s there for a valid reason, and that valid reason is that we want to have integrity of the immigration system. It’s not just about those people that may be able to get on a boat and get here. It’s actually about all those people that come here through working holidays, come here through other mechanisms, that set up home in New Zealand, have a family here, maybe don’t meet the income thresholds, maybe don’t meet the education thresholds, and find that they have to leave. That’s part of our immigration system that actually needs to be looked at as well. If we’re going to have an open book, as the Green Party says, for asylum seekers, then how do we treat people that actually work hard in the country that have come here, got a job, got a family, got a situation going, and then we send them home after a number of years? That’s the dilemma that we actually face as a country, and that’s the reality on a large scale.

So if we’re looking at welcoming people, that’s actually the biggest deficiency in the New Zealand system at the moment. The reality is that people just can’t get into the country under the current Government settings—the settings that have destroyed a lot of New Zealand’s economy. They’ve put back a lot of New Zealand vital industry and service providers and, you know, really are a reflection of very poor policy settings from this Government over a number of years. The opportunity is now to change that. The Government addresses it every so often in a very cursory manner without any real change. We’ve closed our borders to letting people into this country, effectively, and that shows that New Zealand’s closed to the rest of the world.

There’s a certain point where people won’t want to come here anyway, you know. At the moment, we still provide a standard of living that’s worthwhile to come to. But you can see the situation, if the current economic malaise continues, that people will just not want to come to New Zealand. And you’re already seeing that in migration now. The top-tier migrants don’t come to New Zealand. They don’t. We don’t get the top-tier migrants in the world. They go to Australia, Canada, America, or they go to the UK. They don’t come here and that’s because our economy isn’t strong enough. If we want the best people here, which we do, and if we want as many of the best people here, as we do, and if we want as many of the people that just want to make a chance for their future life here, as we do—asylum seeker or hard-working people that have come on other visas—then we should welcome them.

This legislation has a distinct purpose, but the real issue in New Zealand about immigration is that we don’t welcome people. We’re not open to people coming in. We’re not open to people coming in with no qualifications, no income, but that have aspiration and hard work in their genes. We should be more open to those kind of people as well. They’re the future of this country and we missed that opportunity and it may not last forever, because they’ve got plenty other choices in the world to go to.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will just take a short call today on this Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill, and note that it is obviously at its first reading and will be sent to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, who will do a really good job at scrutinising this and eliciting feedback and some input from the public. But, at its essence, the bill was, essentially, making three key changes, and those three key changes are about achieving the best balance between what’s within the best interest of New Zealand and, more importantly—and it’s worth emphasising—what’s also in the best interest of those people who are coming here, and sometimes being smuggled here, in perilous situations.

Those three key changes revolve around changing the definition of “passenger”, which we’ve heard other people speak to today. The bill seeks to clarify and make it explicit that it’s the responsibility of the person coming in through that mass arrival, or through that group, to actually apply for that entry and that permission. It also provides the District Court, as we’ve heard members talk about previously, with a little bit more time to consider the application and the mass arrival warrant of commitment.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that, separate from this legislation, the Government is progressing work to develop that community management approach to assist what will be limiting the detainment of asylum seekers whilst their claims are being processed, including those who actually arrive in that mass arrival, and that was part of the Victoria Casey review. So we’re very pleased to be able to progress that work and commend this bill to the House.

TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. This bill is about Aotearoa New Zealand’s preparedness. While we haven’t yet experienced a mass arrival, this Government is forward-thinking with this bill and is preparing for any potential mass arrival.

This includes supporting Immigration New Zealand with the tools it needs to prepare to respond appropriately to any potential mass arrivals. It’s also about doing that in a way that upholds the human rights of the migrants—the vulnerable migrants—that are involved in this.

I worked with refugees and migrants in the UK. The stories that they told me were very, very extremely devastating and heartbreaking, but one thing was very clear, and this is the desperation that they had for their safety and the safety of the people they love: their children, their parents, their brothers and sisters, their husbands and wives.

And so while there is a process of entry into Aotearoa New Zealand, those who do not use this process should not be denied their human rights. While not part of this bill, there is another piece of work that this Government is working on that is related to this bill, and that is the development of a community management approach that will assist in limiting the detainment of asylum seekers and those who are on mass arrival while their claims are being processed, which is a good thing. This is a good bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to rise in support of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. I just want to start by saying that it’s worthy of note that the Minister, Michael Wood, invited both the Hon Gerry Brownlee and myself to two extensive briefings on this bill and full access to his officials. I just wanted to note that and thank him very much for the bipartisan approach that he’s taken to this bill, because this is the kind of bill that absolutely deserves that kind of approach, a bipartisan approach.

With that, it’s important just to go into some of the detail of the bill, because while we support this bill at first reading, it is worthy of noting that there are a number of things that need to be thought about by the select committee and we have to ask the officials some questions around, especially around the detention part. I have a good friend of mine who was involved back in 2012, I believe, in an exercise of mass arrivals in New Zealand, which was held at Devonport Naval Base in the North Shore electorate, where they practised an exercise just like this. I think many of the things that are being discussed in this bill today were things that they considered back then, because as the Hon Michael Woodhouse explained today in his contribution, it is not, as described, an orderly process but, actually, it is organised chaos: people arriving without any documents, with different health statuses, trying to work out who are the people smugglers, who are the criminals, who are the genuine refugees. It is a process that can take a really long time and it needs to be worked through.

So one of the things that this bill attempts to do is to give warranted officers and then the courts more time to process these applications. It was the case, or currently is the case, that you can hold someone for 96 hours while a determination is being made. What this bill attempts to do is to allow, again, someone, a warranted officer, to take that 96 hours to make the application and then the judge has up to seven days to make a determination and then 28 days if that’s not practicable to consider it in that time. What the court is determining is the risk and who these people are and where they should be held. So if you have—obviously, you’ve got potential criminals on the boat who are the smugglers, you want to know who they are, you want to know who the low-risk people are, who the medium-risk and high-risk potential people are, so that you can then place them in facilities determined by their level of risk.

The question, though, is that if you’re taking 28 days to do this, as Michael Woodhouse alluded to, what do you do with them in that time? I don’t think that’s been answered in this bill, and that’s something that we want to ask officials, because it would be my understanding that you would detain them either at a high-risk facility like Mt Eden Prison, potentially at a naval base like the one at Devonport, or up in Whangaparāoa or somewhere else, but the bill doesn’t make clear what you do in the meantime. Do you assume that everybody is high risk and we go with a high-risk facility while that 28 days is being borne out? But I can certainly understand, because during that process back in 2012, you know, one of the things that came out was that it does take a long time to process people, and I can understand where the Government is going with this.

It is worthy of note again, though, that although this is a low risk, there is a risk. It’s not no risk, like the Labour Party in Opposition said 10 years ago when they vehemently opposed the bill that the Hon Michael Woodhouse put forward, and he made some of those comments back then about, you know, some of the comments that the Labour members had made at the time about how this was akin to little green men landing, you know, on our shores. It is a real risk, albeit a small risk, and I do remember a case when I was working for Murray McCully many years ago—and it would’ve been around this time, actually—of a threat.

So I understand that the reason that the Minister is bringing this bill—and if you read between the lines—is that there is some risk, and it is an important time, 10 years on, to take a look at this piece of legislation and figure out if it can be more fit for purpose. But I think we can take from the fact that the Minister is bringing this bill that, reading between the lines, there is some risk and we need to be prepared for a mass arrival, and also balancing the rights of those who are seeking asylum with the rights of New Zealanders to be safe and protected.

I guess the next question, of course—I mean, this bill is just dealing with how to detain people according to their risk and giving them the rights that they deserve. What’s not talked about in here, I guess, and what Gerry Brownlee alluded to, was what happens then, and it’ll be interesting to talk to officials around the length of detention time. As I understand it from the bill, I think it’s new section 317AB from memory, you can detain someone for up to six months, and then application can be made to hold those people for longer, up to 28 days at a time, I believe—317AB(2)(b), if I’m right.

So it is important to ensure that we are detaining people in a facility that is the right facility for their level of risk, and that is what this bill wants to do. It gives the courts more time, like that seven days or up to 28 days, to determine that, because, of course, they will need to go to Interpol, they will need to go to the local authorities of the country of origin of that person and ask questions about their identity and previous convictions to determine who they are and what sort of risk they are. But also, more importantly, it is to sort out who are the real criminals on that boat, which are the people smugglers, the ones—and as I was talking to Michael Woodhouse just before, you know, they’re not going to identify themselves, and potentially people in the boat, the asylum seekers, are going to be fearful of pointing them out as well. So determining who those criminals are and who those very high-risk people are for the point of detention is very important.

So I just want to reiterate to the Minister my gratitude for the way that he’s invited myself and Gerry Brownlee into briefings and given us access to his officials so that we can get a really good understanding of the bill. It is important that we do this in a bipartisan way. We will support the bill. We think that it is time that we take a look at this legislation after 10 years. We do have some questions to ask around what happens to those people in the 28 days, what sort of facility they’ll be held at, because I am concerned about pregnant women, women with children, and if we’re still determining their level of risk after 28 days, are they going to be held somewhere like Mt Eden? That’s something that I think we need to figure out, because it’s not clear in the bill—unless, of course, I’m missing something, but Michael Woodhouse and I have the same concern there.

I don’t think there’s anything more that needs to be said. I look forward to scrutinising the bill at select committee and getting some more information, especially around that 28day period and where people will be held. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

SARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. I rise this afternoon to speak on the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill with pleasure.

I am, myself, an immigrant. I came here in 2004 with my family. Like so many people, I chose New Zealand for its beauty, for work-life balance, but fundamentally as a great place to bring up my two children—then aged four and eight.

I had a lot of hoops to pass through, but in no way was my experience comparable to that of my Green Party colleague Golriz Ghahraman and the experiences that her family had coming to New Zealand as refugees. For that reason, this process is going to be extremely important; the select committee process is going to be important to ensure that we are upholding the rights of some of our most vulnerable people. I’ve heard Opposition members today speak of pregnant people and ensuring that we make sure that they are catered for adequately.

There are just three simple changes in this bill: providing the District Court with more time to consider an application for mass arrival; warrant a commitment clarifying that it’s a responsibility of members of a mass arrival group to apply for entry permission and a visa; and changing the definition of “passenger” in the Act to remove any possibility that members of a mass arrival group could be deemed to hold entry permission and a visa upon arrival to New Zealand. With that, I commend this bill to select committee and to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9.

Noes 12

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

SPEAKER: The question is, That the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill be considered by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

Motion agreed to.

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

Instruction to Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): I move, That the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I present a legislative statement on the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I move, That the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

New Zealand’s public transport services are critical to the way that our cities and our regions function. We need high-quality and reliable public transport systems to make sure that workers can get to work, that kids can get to school, that communities can be connected to make sure that we cater for growth and also, critically in an era of climate change, to make sure that we enable people to move around our communities in as low carbon a way as possible. Supporting more people to use high-quality, reliable public transport is one of the most important things that we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in response to the climate emergency.

This bill—

Simon Court: Just get a bus on time.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: —is an important part of that story, and I’ll speak about why we’ll do that through this bill, Mr Court. This bill amends the Land Transport Management Act 2003 to establish the sustainable public transport framework, which is replacing the public transport operating model—commonly known as PTOM—in Part 5 of that Act. And the primary driver for this piece of legislation and this reform is the wellestablished fact that PTOM, put in place by the previous Government, has been an unmitigated disaster in terms of the delivery of public transport services and in terms of the ability for us to sustain a sustainable workforce to deliver those public transport services that are needed by our communities.

The members opposite who have worked themselves up into a froth in defence of Steven Joyce and his failed PTOM model—ask the question: what will you do to deliver reliable public transport services? It is relatively clear to anyone who knows anything about how public transport services operate, or even just a person with a modicum of common sense, that it is difficult to deliver reliable public transport services without drivers to deliver those services. The overwhelming legacy of the failed PTOM model that we will replace through this piece of legislation has been a systemic undermining of the pay and conditions of our bus drivers. Not only does that undervalue the work of people who are critical in our communities and deliver an important public service, the end result of that process after 15 years of PTOM has been that bus companies have been unable to retain the workers that we need to deliver those critical public services.

Matt Doocey: That’s ‘cos there’s a workforce shortage.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: That’s right. The member says there is a workforce shortage, and that is because bus operators have been unable to retain workers because of the race to the bottom in the labour market created by the public transport operating model. The public transport operating model was based simply on a model of commerciality to deliver public transport services. And that is where the problem starts, because the way that the marketplace was set up under PTOM involved public transport operators effectively bidding for services with territorial local authorities on the basis purely of commerciality.

So the way in which operators—and operators say this, as much as workers and union tell us this: the way that operators have been able to get contracts to deliver services has been to pitch in at the very lowest price. And the primary way that operators have had to do that, because of the relative inability to vary the significant capital costs that are required within this particular industry, has been to keep pressure down on the pay and conditions of bus drivers. And so we have had 15 years of systemic pressure put on the pay and conditions of bus drivers: low pay, insecure conditions, and split shifts.

Now, who in this House would work under those conditions? And it is a mark of members on that other side of the House that they diminish and dismiss the importance of good working conditions. They complain about the outcome of that, which is that we can’t keep people working in the sector, but they’re fundamentally unwilling to make sure that those men and women who drive our buses in our communities actually get a fair go in a way that will ensure that we can keep them there and build up a skilled workforce, not just to maintain but to grow the services in public transport that we so desperately need.

So the public transport operating model is a reform of the PTOM model. It’s also not about throwing a baby out with the bathwater. We’ve gone through a full process of reviewing PTOM. We’ve worked out what works and we’ve worked out what doesn’t work. What does work is that our local authorities plan and deliver those services. That is a model that fundamentally works. It is important that we do inject value for money into the system so that we make sure that the investment that does go in—whether that is through the fare box or through subsidy from local authorities and central government through Waka Kotahi—is getting a good outcome. That is beyond doubt, that is important, and that is embedded in the legislation.

But how narrow is it to have legislation and a framework to deliver public transport services where the only thing on the table is the commerciality of those services? That doesn’t go anywhere near what we need to achieve from the roll-out and growth of public transport services. And so PTOM injects a wider range of objectives into the system, including ensuring that we have a sustainable labour market so that we never again get into the fix that we’ve gotten through National’s failed PTOM model, as we are experiencing today.

It inserts in there an objective to ensure that we have ongoing work to decarbonise our public transport system. And it inserts objectives to ensure that we have significantly greater transparency over these services. These are public services which in all cases currently, and likely in many cases as we go forward, will continue to be delivered by private operators, and that’s fine. But we need to have good assurance that the significant public subsidy that is going into them is going into the right places to deliver good services to the people of our towns and our cities who need them.

It’s also worth noting that the current PTOM framework is extremely inflexible and local government has consistently said to central government that inflexible regime is something that they want changed. It is in fact unique and bizarre that—in the delivery of this core public service that is public transport in our towns and cities—local authorities are required to deliver those services through private contracting. They are banned from owning or operating any of the assets or services. We don’t do that in any other area of public service delivery. Can we imagine if in the delivery of health services or education services or welfare services we said to our Government agencies and local authorities, “You are banned from delivering any of those yourselves. You have to privately contract them out for delivery.”? We would think that that was strange and inflexible, yet that was the model that PTOM put in place under the previous National Government. And again, it’s one of the reasons why it’s failed.

But this is a balanced piece of legislation. We don’t require local authorities to go in the other direction and entirely own the assets or entirely deliver the services through public provision. We say to local authorities that we have trust and confidence in you to know what you need to deliver in your communities to make that choice. And so the PTOM model that has been put up through this piece of legislation will give local authorities that choice. It will give them the ability to own assets, potentially. They could potentially own assets like depots and chargers and then contract out services if they thought that that was best. Some local authorities have said to me that there may be benefits to that, in terms of reducing barriers to entry for more innovative private operators. It could be that local authorities through trading companies or direct private provision do look to deliver those services through public provision. Or it could be that local authorities do a mix of all of the above to get the best outcomes for their communities. That is the model that we’re putting forward through the sustainable public transport framework, and it is a polar opposite to the market fundamentalism of PTOM, which says that these services, effectively, have to be privatised and delivered only by the private sector. I, in fact, expect that local authorities and the private sector will continue to work together constructively.

The legislation also requires that territorial local authorities and regional councils coordinate much more closely together to deliver services. We currently have a situation in which regional councils tender for services, but, very often, public transport assets are owned by territorial local authorities. That sometimes does create difficulties and frictions, so there’ll be requirements for them to work together.

We’re also looking ahead and looking to innovations within public transport that we need to cater for—for example, the creation of on-demand services, which are being trialled at a number of locations around New Zealand very successfully in places like Timaru. And we need to make sure that our public transport system, through the Sustainable Public Transport Framework, caters for those situations as well.

PTOM was a failure. It has left us with a situation of collapsing services because we have not been able to retain drivers because of the poor terms and conditions and race to the bottom that it created. The Labour Party and this Government are proud to rectify that wrong and to bring forward to the House the sustainable public transport framework to deliver fairness for workers and sustainable public transport.

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

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): If you were listening to that speech from the Minister, you would expect that the problems were all from the prior Government. But this is a Minister who’s created the problems in our public transport sector. The reason why the bus won’t turn up is because there aren’t enough drivers, because he, as the Minister of Immigration, didn’t change the settings in time to allow drivers to come into the country. The reason why the ferries aren’t operating is because there aren’t enough people to be able to drive the ferries. He, as the Minister of Immigration, hasn’t changed the immigration settings to be able to let people into the country to be able to drive the ferries. The reason why the trains aren’t operating in Auckland is because he’s the Minister of Transport and he didn’t tell Aucklanders that he was going to shut the entire train network down for two years for the trains to operate. So that is a bit rich coming from the Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Transport to try to blame all the problems on a prior Government when the reliability and the issues have been happening under his watch as Minister of Transport.

Let’s put some facts on to the table. In 2019, 1.26 percent of bus trips in Auckland were cancelled. In 2020, 0.67 percent. In 2021, 0.57 percent. Last year—2022—10 percent; 270,000 bus trips in the first nine months of last year were cancelled, and those cancellation numbers have continued under this Government’s watch, all because they have not looked at what’s required.

I was at a public meeting on Monday night in the North Shore of Auckland, where bus after bus after bus is being cancelled. Auckland Transport were there and they said the number one reason we are having to cancel is because we wrote to the Minister of Immigration at the beginning of last year saying if we don’t update these immigration settings, all of the bus drivers who used to drive for us who left the country, who weren’t allowed in during COVID, we can’t access them—and, by the way, it’s going to take six months from when you change that setting to when we’ll be able to get them actually driving buses again. It took the Minister till the end of last year to actually sign that form. He still hasn’t done it for the ferry operators or train drivers. It’s unacceptable. The Minister of Transport should be talking to the Minister of Immigration. And the good news is that under this Government, he could be doing it in the mirror every morning, but the problem is he isn’t—the problem is that he isn’t.

So we get to what this bill is actually doing, and what this bill is doing is creating a whole lot more bureaucracy when it comes to creating public transport plans and doesn’t deal with the actual fundamentals that are required to make it work. At the core of it, it changes the principles based upon which public transport provision should be. It changes it from the principles of market delivering public transport, contracting with councils, getting good value for money, and making sure that the services are reliable to a Government now wanting to make sure that the public transport system achieves a whole range of other outcomes, such as reducing environmental and health impacts by reducing reliance on single-occupant vehicles and using zero-emission technology, public transport services support mode shifts, fair and equitable employment or engagement—all of these are issues which can be dealt with, and, by the way, are being dealt with through other mechanisms.

If the Minister was actually going to read the regulatory impact statement, it states very clearly that issues such as making sure that our bus fleet is electrified is already being dealt with by the New Zealand Transport Agency putting in place requirements for these contracts, issues in relation to making sure that bus drivers are paid a fairer wage. That is being dealt with. The Government allocated $61 million in last year’s Budget to make sure that bus drivers were getting standardised bus wages across New Zealand. These are issues that are being dealt with already and now we have a Government which comes along and says, “No, now we’re going to change the legislation. And, by the way, the issue, the fifth primary principle for delivery of public transport services will now be providing public transport services”—and this is the last principle—“assist public transport investment to be efficient and public transport investment to give value for money.” And then (f) but, by the way, you can ignore that.

So after all of this legislation change and all of these new principles that have been put in, the key component when it comes to public transport services, which should be efficiency, reliability, making sure the bus turns up, by the way, and value for money for the taxpayers and ratepayers who end up subsidising public transport as well, by the way—all of that can be ignored; all of that can be ignored as long as those other principles are being addressed.

So the National Party will be opposing this piece of legislation because it is not going to deal with the actual issue. The real issue is making sure that we have enough bus drivers, train drivers, ferry operators to be able to actually do the job rather than simply creating a whole new bureaucratic process. And, by the way, the evidence is clear that the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) has worked. It has meant that the service reliability has increased, except for when the Minister of Immigration got involved and made it impossible for bus, ferry, and train operators to be able to operate. It has meant better value for money for ratepayers and taxpayers, which is a good thing, and it has meant that more people are actually using public transport. Prior to COVID, the number of bus trips and ferry trips and train trips was exploding. People were using public transport because it was reliable, it was efficient, it worked; now it doesn’t. That’s the story up and down the country—now it doesn’t. So what people are doing is the opposite of what this legislation says. They’re getting back into their cars.

That was the message again at this public meeting on the North Shore in Auckland: the system is not working because Michael Wood, the Minister of Immigration, is not letting it work. He’s creating the problem that he says he’s trying to solve. People are getting back into their cars rather than using public transport, which means our roading network is becoming more congested and is not working efficiently. That means that more people are spending longer travelling, not less time.

And, overall, what should transport policy be about? It should be meaning that you spend less time travelling so you spend more time doing what you want to do with your day. Isn’t that such a radical idea? Where’s that in the principles? What about the idea of people spending less time travelling so they can spend more time at work, at home with their children, doing the things they love? What a radical idea! I don’t see that in the principles anywhere. It’s simply not even a consideration, because, under this Government, when you’re travelling, your time doesn’t matter.

But, of course, there’s other things which this bill covers as well. It undermines good contractual processes. The Minister went against the advice of his officials, who told him, “No, you have to go to market when you’re tendering and you’re contracting.” That market principle was taken away by the Minister. The Minister ignored the advice, and the ministry said any move from a contractual approach may reduce transparency over cost and performance. So not only are they going to make public transport worse—well, it’s already bad enough—it’s not going to be as transparent in terms of those on-time performance data points and actually making sure that the transparency around the cost is actually transparent. That is critical to a good public transport service and this is being taken away under this piece of legislation.

The other point: in-house operation. Auckland Transport is not exactly the most trusted organisation in Auckland, for those who are from outside of Auckland. But now this Government is saying, “Well, OK. Well, we’re actually going to let Auckland Council run a bus company as well as have Auckland Transport who will manage it.” I mean, how well is that going to work for Aucklanders? That’s what this legislation is saying, that Auckland Council will now be able to have a bus company within it, which won’t have to compete with the private sector, won’t have to go through a market tender process, and apparently that’s going to work better for everybody. I doubt it. This is going to cause more issues than it’s going to solve.

There are, of course, questions around exempt services and how that’s going to impact those services, the certainty required to operators who run exempt services. That is important because obviously they make investment, they buy buses, they buy boats—whatever they do to run those exempt services. They make big investments. This does not do anything to improve the certainty that those operators need.

Then, of course, we have the issue around wages and conditions. No one in this House would say that we don’t want bus drivers to be paid more. Of course we do. Of course we want everyone’s wages to be lifted, but we’re dealing with a cost of living crisis that this Government created because they printed money, because they’ve let inflation run rampant under this Government. That’s why this is an issue. So, of course, we need to deal with this issue. But this Government and operators and councils and regional councils across New Zealand are already addressing this issue by striking deals with operators. We’re seeing that in Auckland. Auckland Council has lifted wages under the PTOM model. We’ve seen the Government put $61 million towards improving wages, running through the PTOM model. It doesn’t require the Government coming in and undoing the entire model to solve it.

So there are a number of problems. We look forward to hearing submissions, because this Government ultimately has the numbers, but we will oppose this piece of legislation as it doesn’t fix the fundamental problems.

SPEAKER: Members, this debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption following oral questions this afternoon. The House will resume at 2 p.m. for oral questions.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 1.03 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Visitors

Wales—Senedd Cymru

SPEAKER: Tēnā rā tātou katoa. The House is resumed. Members, I am sure you would all wish to welcome James Evans, member of the Senedd Cymru, the Welsh Parliament, who is present in the gallery.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Education

1. TEANAU TUIONO (Green) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her comments that teachers’ pay and conditions are “not good enough”?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister) on behalf of the Minister of Education: I am going to answer this on behalf of the Minister of Education. Perhaps before I do so, by way of explanation, on her way to the House just now the Minister of Education was hit in the head by a camera in the lobby and is on her way to seek some medical treatment for that. So that is why I’m answering the question on her behalf. On behalf of the Minister of Education, yes, I want all of our teachers to feel valued in their mahi and as educational practitioners.

Teanau Tuiono: I hope the Minister of Education is well soon. Why does she think teachers are gathering outside the Minister of Finance’s electorate office today?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There are negotiations under way about teachers’ pay and conditions. It is not unusual for teachers to make their views during these processes publicly known, as the former Minister of Education has reminded me on occasion in the past few days. The Government is absolutely committed to working with teachers to resolve the issues that they are raising, and we believe that the best place to do that is around the bargaining table.

Teanau Tuiono: Has she had any conversations with the Minister of Finance to reprioritise spending to allow teachers to have a pay offer that is in line with inflation?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: This Government’s track record, when it comes to teacher pay and conditions is one of prioritising those matters when it comes to Budget considerations. Significant additional investment has been made in our teaching workforce during the tenure of this Government. I’m confident that we’ll continue to do that.

Teanau Tuiono: Why has there been no formal collective agreement offer put forward for secondary school teachers since October 2021?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I’ve indicated before, my expectation as the Minister of Education, on behalf of the Minister, is that the teacher unions and the Ministry of Education will bargain in good faith to get to the point where the teacher unions can put an offer in front of their membership for ratification.

Teanau Tuiono: Does she agree with the Post Primary Teachers Association that there is a shortage of qualified secondary school teachers?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, there is evidence to suggest that there is a shortage of teachers in New Zealand. Over a long period of time, we have not trained enough teachers.

Teanau Tuiono: Will her Government improve the offer to prevent further strike action and give our teachers the pay and conditions they deserve?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I’ve previously indicated, that is a matter for bargaining, and the best place to do that bargaining is around the bargaining table.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): Yes.

Christopher Luxon: Does he know how many times Stuart Nash offered private oral briefings to donors or other parties with a commercial interest in Cabinet information?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I indicated on the way to the House this morning, I’ve asked the Cabinet secretary to review Stuart Nash’s communications with donors. The advice I’ve had from the Cabinet Office is that that will take around two months, and I will await the outcome of that review before making any further decisions or comment on it.

Christopher Luxon: Is he confident Stuart Nash’s decisions on forestry, including the decision to exclude most of Hawke’s Bay from the inquiry into slash, were not affected by his relationship with donors from the forestry sector?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The decision around the terms of reference for the inquiry into the review on forestry—on land use—were decisions of the whole Cabinet. The decision was made at the time to limit that to some of the land where there was clear evidence that forestry slash had had a significant impact and there had been significant erosion. An independent review panel has been appointed to do that review. That was all signed off by the Cabinet as a whole, and I am confident that we will get a robust, independent outcome from that review.

Christopher Luxon: Is he confident Stuart Nash’s decisions on fisheries, including the issue of cameras on fishing boats, were not affected by his relationship with donors from the fisheries sector?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I note that those particular donors didn’t want cameras on fishing boats, and Stuart Nash has consistently been an advocate for them.

Christopher Luxon: What steps has he taken, if any, to ensure all of Stuart Nash’s written and electronic communications with donors or anyone else with a commercial interest in Cabinet information have been preserved for the inquiry into Mr Nash?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think the member probably should have listened to my primary answer. That is something that I have asked the Cabinet Office to review.

SPEAKER: I’ll get the member to ask the question again.

Christopher Luxon: What steps has he taken, if any, to ensure all of Stuart Nash’s written and electronic communications with donors or anyone else with a commercial interest in Cabinet information have been preserved for the inquiry into Mr Nash?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I indicated in my primary answer, I have today asked the Cabinet Office to review all such communications between Stuart Nash and those donors, and I will await the outcome of that review before making any further comment or decision on the matter.

Christopher Luxon: Has he asked Stuart Nash why his Facebook account appears to have been deleted last night?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No.

Christopher Luxon: When were staff in the Prime Minister’s office—either his or the former Prime Minister’s—first made aware of the email Stuart Nash sent to donors divulging confidential Cabinet information?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In terms of my office, it was at some point yesterday afternoon; I don’t have the exact time of that. I did ask this morning—or last night—for a review to identify whether the office had in any way been aware of that communication prior to that. My understanding is that in 2021, Stuart Nash’s then ministerial office consulted the office of the then Prime Minister on an Official Information Act request release, where that email had been identified as part of that release and had been identified as being outside the scope of the review. The investigations on that matter that I have undertaken since then indicate that neither the Prime Minister of the time nor the Prime Minister’s chief of staff of the time were made aware of that.

Christopher Luxon: How can Kiwis believe they’re getting a fair hearing from this Government when Labour donors get special access to ministerial decision-making?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject the premise—I don’t agree with that assertion. I do agree that Stuart Nash has behaved inappropriately here, and he has faced a consequence for that; quite a serious consequence for that.

David Seymour: How can he be confident that no other Minister, including from New Zealand First, have behaved in the same way as Stuart Nash, effectively operating as lobbyists within this Government’s Cabinet?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If the member wants to go down a road of, basically, requiring the communications between every Minister and every political donor to be vetted and reviewed, that could go back a long, long way. And if that’s what the member is asking for, it would be a very, very, very big inquiry. I have seen no evidence to suggest that any Minister in this Government, other than the questions raised about Stuart Nash yesterday, have anything to answer for in that regard.

David Seymour: Does that include the New Zealand First Ministers whose party was associated with a large fund named the New Zealand First Foundation, given that the Prime Minister has no idea who contributed to that or what their interests were?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That is a matter currently before the courts; it’s not something that I can comment on.

Christopher Luxon: Is he confident that Stuart Nash, as a Minister, declared all actual and perceived conflicts of interest arising from any donations he received from the sectors he was responsible for?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I can confirm that all of Stuart Nash’s donations, to the best of my knowledge, have been publicly declared and transparently so, and that any conflicts of interest that he had were registered with the Cabinet Office using the usual process.

Christopher Luxon: Is he confident that none of his other Ministers have undisclosed conflicts of interest between donations they have received and their portfolio responsibilities?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Every candidate for Parliament declares their donations, and that is made publicly available. Every Minister, on an annual basis, goes through a process with the Cabinet Office of identifying any conflicts of interest, whether that relates to donors or other conflicts of interest. That is a process that’s been longstanding under successive Governments, and I have confidence in that process.

Question No. 3—Arts, Culture and Heritage

3. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage: What progress has been made to lift artists’ incomes?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage): In line with our free-trade agreement with the UK, last year, we announced that the Government was establishing an artists’ resale royalty scheme. This week, I’m pleased that we’re delivering on that commitment and introducing a bill to the House that will lift incomes for visual artists, support them beyond the current spike in the cost of living, and ensure they’re properly recognised for their contribution to our economy and culture. Today represents a huge milestone in a journey that began 15 years ago.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Why is this next step important?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Artists have some of the lowest median incomes in New Zealand and have limited opportunities to benefit from their work on an ongoing basis. Currently, if an artist’s reputation grows and their art attracts a higher price on the secondary market, the artist does not receive any of the profit and recognition of their intellectual property, hard work, or success. This bill changes that and will ensure more money in the pocket for artists whereby a 5 percent royalty is collected every time an artist’s work is resold on the secondary art market.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What evidence has she seen that shows this will make a difference for visual artists?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: More than 80 countries, including Australia, the UK, and all EU nations, have a similar royalty scheme in place for their artists, and it’s time for New Zealand to join. Australia put a similar scheme in place over a decade ago, and from June 2010 to April 2022, A$11 million has been generated in royalties for visual artists. I’m confident that Aotearoa New Zealand and our visual artists will reap the benefits of such a scheme.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: How will the scheme be inclusive of Māori and Pacific artists?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: New Zealand is a unique country with a diverse artistic community, including our rich and vibrant Māori and Pacific arts community. In its definition of visual art, this bill acknowledges that unique context by making specific reference to the visual artworks of Māori and Pacific peoples. I’ve heard through engagement that artworks by some groups, including Māori, Pacific, and female artists, are more likely to be sold privately. The bill does provide the option for those involved in private resales to pay a royalty voluntarily, if they want to. By enabling private sales to opt in voluntarily, we have sought to ensure that as many artists as possible can benefit from this scheme, including Māori and Pacific.

Question No. 4—Justice

4. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Justice: Does she agree with the Minister of Finance’s May 2020 statement in relation to the Government’s consideration of options to offer rent relief for commercial tenants hit by COVID-19 disruption that “We’re looking actively at what we do in terms of the Property Act to be able to support a fairer resolution there to ensure there is some remission”, and what advice, if any, did she seek about policy options in relation to these matters?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): On the first part of the question, yes, in the context it was made. On the second part of the question, the previous Minister of Justice, the Hon Andrew Little, received advice from the Ministry of Justice about policy options in relation to these matters, the dates and titles of which are: on 28 March 2020, COVID-19 options relating to commercial leases; 3 April 2020, Advice on commercial lease issues in the Property Law Act; 17 April 2020, A note on considering the court’s powers to intervene on commercial property issues; 29 Apr 2020, A note on moratorium on cancellation of commercial leases; 30 Apr 2020, Funding for arbitration for commercial lease rent disputes; 4 May 2020, Note on strengthening commercial lease proposals to better protect small landlords. I have not sought any advice on this matter since becoming the Minister of Justice.

Nicola Willis: Can she confirm that on 3 June 2020, the Cabinet Economic Development Committee, with power to act from Cabinet, agreed to amend the Property Law Act 2007 in order to change the rent obligations facing commercial tenants?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I can confirm, on 3 June 2020, the Cabinet Economic Development Committee, with power to act from Cabinet, did make a decision to include the decision to amend the Property Law Act and to provide $20 million to support parties to access in a timely and cost-effective manner through a Government subsidy provided for streamlined arbitrations at a rate of $6,000 per arbitration.

Nicola Willis: Why, when the Cabinet agreed to a series of legislative changes, did the Government not follow through with them?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: There were a range of decisions that the Cabinet did make in regards to these matters. These decisions have all been proactively released, but I note that in total nine decisions were made across a broad range of areas, and these concluded in the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill, which received Royal assent on 2 November 2021.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. The question was very clear. It didn’t ask whether or not Cabinet had made decisions; it asked why a decision that was made was not followed through on, and that was not addressed in the answer.

SPEAKER: I’ll give the member an additional—because it partially addressed it but didn’t quite nail it. The member can have another question.

Nicola Willis: Thank you. Why did Ministers withdraw support for a number of the minuted decisions agreed to by the Cabinet Economic Development Committee in relation to arbitration of commercial lease disputes, and is she satisfied personal interests did not influence their decision making?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: To the latter question, no.

Hon Andrew Little: What difference does the Minister think there is between a Cabinet committee considering an issue and then requiring that decision to be ratified by Cabinet with a different make-up from that committee—[Interruption]—including representatives from a coalition partner?

Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, you know, there are very important and sensitive matters being dealt with today, and you have been very consistent in your ruling about interjections on questions. We had several of them continually in that question.

SPEAKER: That doesn’t matter; what matters is that supplementaries should be heard in silence, and that’s my expectation. The Minister can answer the question.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: If the member wants to ask a specific question about a specific decision that was made—

SPEAKER: No, you’re answering the Hon Andrew Little’s question.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Oh. Ha, ha! Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: Did you want to ask it again?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Yeah, sure. Please repeat the question.

Hon Andrew Little: Happy to oblige, Mr Speaker. To the Minister: what difference does the Minister think it makes when a Cabinet committee considers an issue, and, on reporting to Cabinet, has that issue considered by a different range of people, including coalition partners?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: A Cabinet decision is one that is made, of course, by all of the Cabinet members after a fulsome discussion.

Nicola Willis: Why, when Cabinet authorised the Cabinet Economic Development Committee with the power to act—and it invited the Minister of Justice to issue drafting instructions to the parliamentary counsel to give effect to a number of policy decisions relating to commercial rent relief—did the Minister not introduce that legislation?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Look, on this particular specific question: if the member wants to put a specific question in writing—

Nicola Willis: It’s very specific, Minister.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Yes, it is very specific, and the member will be well aware that there were a range of decisions taken at that time. So if you do have a specific question, I would welcome that specific question to be put into writing, and I’ll be happy to respond.

Nicola Willis: Point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was very specific. It was about why legislation was not introduced, given the instruction of the Economic Development Committee that the Minister of Justice drafted. I think that is quite specific.

SPEAKER: Yep. It’s not about specificity; it’s about the fact that the question was answered.

Nicola Willis: Did the Minister for Small Business raise concerns about the proposals contained in Cabinet minute DEV-20-MIN-0100, and, if so, what were those?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: As the member will be well aware, I was not the Minister of Justice at that time. Again, if she would like to put a specific question in writing, I would be happy to provide a written response to that member.

Nicola Willis: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Prior to coming to the House, I reviewed your rulings on this because my question was transferred to this Minister, and I was aware that she wasn’t in the Cabinet that had made these decisions. You have ruled that Ministers are answerable to the House for decisions taken in their portfolios since the commencement of the Labour Government in 2017. The Minister should have come to the House prepared to answer these questions. She is accountable to the New Zealand public.

Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to the point of order. The Minister has, as you’ve been listening, answered questions that relate to a period of time in which she was not in Cabinet, and she’s been doing that right through this period.

Nicola Willis: Why didn’t you answer them?

Hon Grant Robertson: I don’t know; it’s a point of order, you can take your own—

SPEAKER: Points of order, and speaking to points of order, are heard in silence.

Hon Grant Robertson: As I said, you would have noted that the Minister has been answering the questions that have been put so far about matters when she was not a Minister—and has answered those questions. She also, in her primary answer, read out a very long and extensive list of policy advice that was created. The expectation that a Minister could come and answer the very specific questions that the member has been putting on each and every one of those bits of advice is beyond what we’d expect of any—

Chris Bishop: It was on notice.

Hon Grant Robertson: It was beyond what we’d expect of any Minister.

Hon Member: When do they lose a supplementary question?

SPEAKER: Who was that?

Hon Member: Not me.

SPEAKER: That’s two. One, two—won’t lose count. Right. To the point of order: yes, I am very aware of the rulings that I have made. In this instance, the Minister has not attempted to not answer the question. The Minister has actually addressed the question. It is up to the House and the public to judge the quality of that answer. And now we’ll have both Chris Bishop and the Hon Grant Robertson stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Chris Bishop: I was waiting for you to go first. I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Grant Robertson: I withdraw and apologise.

Nicola Willis: Is she satisfied that all Ministers properly declared and managed personal interests that could have been seen to have influenced Cabinet decision-making on these matters?

Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order. That is not the responsibility of this Minister; that is the responsibility of the Prime Minister.

SPEAKER: Well, the question has been asked, and as everyone knows, I have allowed questions whether they’re out of order or not. If it’s the Minister’s answer that she doesn’t have responsibility, then that’s the answer.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I do not have ministerial responsibility for that particular question.

Question No. 5—Immigration

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: In silence, please. Thank you.

5. CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) to the Minister of Immigration: What recent reports has he seen about the uptake of the Recovery Visa?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): Late last month, I announced the establishment of a new Recovery Visa to help bring in workers to support the cyclone and flooding recovery. I’m pleased to announce that we have seen impressive uptake of the visa since then, with over 600 applications approved within the first month, 161 of these applicants have now arrived in the country, and more are expected over the coming days and weeks. I can also confirm that the average processing time is just four days—well within our target processing time of one week. We know how important it is to ensure that we have workers available for the cyclone and flooding recovery, especially in light of tight international labour conditions, and it’s great to see the Recovery Visa supporting this.

Camilla Belich: What is the criteria for the Recovery Visa?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The Recovery Visa is for workers who come to New Zealand for up to six months to work in a role that supports the North Island recovery from extreme weather events in January and February 2023. This support can include providing emergency response; immediate clean-up; assessing risk or loss; supporting infrastructure building and housing stabilisation and/or repair, including planning functions; and work that directly supports the recovery, such as producing relevant materials for roading rebuild, transport drivers, and the like. The application process is a streamlined, high-trust model to ensure that Immigration New Zealand can support applications as efficiently as possible.

Camilla Belich: What workers have been arriving on a Recovery Visa so far?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: There have been a very wide variety of workers who’ve come in since the Recovery Visa opened for applications. Labourers, cleaners, and carpenters are the most common types of occupation represented amongst applicants, but we’ve also seen insurance professionals, construction project managers, and fencers coming in as well.

Camilla Belich: Are there domestic recruitment efforts under way to complement securing of migrant labour through the Recovery Visa?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Yes; it is very important that we take a cohesive approach to the labour market. I’m advised by the Minister for Social Development that there are efforts under way to ensure, along with international recruitment, that New Zealanders are taking up employment opportunities presented by the recovery, as well as helping individuals to be redeployed as necessary. This includes activating Enhanced Taskforce Green, and using the Ministry of Social Development’s employment-focused case management services, which this Government has built up over recent years through products such as the Flexi-wage, to help businesses retain staff to support the ongoing response.

Question No. 6—Education

6. NICOLE McKEE (ACT) to the Minister of Education: How many students will be without their normal classroom teachers today due to the teachers’ strike?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Education: Schools are required to remain open if they are able to do so. Schools are not required to tell the Ministry of Education if they are open for on-site learning, supervision, or fully closed. However, as of 11 a.m. yesterday morning, 69 secondary schools had selfreported that they would be staying open for instruction, and 52 have reported that they would be closed with no supervision.

Nicole McKee: Does she stand by her statement, “I want every kid at school every single day,” and, if so, how many teaching days have already been lost due to teacheronly days?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, in response to the first part of the question, yes.

Nicole McKee: Does she think it is acceptable that the Ministry of Education doesn’t hold any data on teaching days that have been lost, considering the number of bureaucrats has increased by 55 percent since 2017?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It is law that schools are required to be open a certain number of half days a year, and the Ministry of Education, no doubt, has the expectation that they will do that. That is the information they are focused on.

Nicole McKee: Does the Minister trust principals to run their schools, and, if she does, why won’t she allow them to reward excellent teachers with higher pay?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, yes, I do trust principals.

Question No. 7—Justice

7. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Justice: Does she agree with the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, who said, “I know what causes violence in this world and it’s white cis men”, and are those comments consistent with the Government’s justice policy?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): While I don’t have ministerial responsibility, of course, for another Minister’s statements, as Minister Davidson has said herself, those aren’t the words that she would ordinarily use. My answers are “No” and “No”.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What does she think has driven the more-than-doubling in the number of serious assaults resulting in injury in New Zealand since her Government took office—as indicated by police data on the victims of crime released last week?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: We’re seeing an increased reporting of crime. This is a positive element that we’ve invested in to ensure that we are having a more fulsome understanding of the entire environment that crime operates in the system.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So is she saying the increase in reporting of victimisations is all down to people calling the police more often?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that that’s what the victims survey report is saying.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does she think it’s helpful for Government Ministers to blame one group in society for causing violence when the years this Government has been in power have seen such a damaging upsurge in violence in our communities?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I don’t think that anybody in this House would dispute, for example—and as the victims survey showed—that men cause more violent harm to people within our community than others. I don’t think, however, that it was helpful that race was brought into that discussion. I do think that this House has a collective responsibility to ensure that there is a minimisation of harm within our communities, and that’s something that this side of the House has actively put resource into—just this week, passed two bills that have been introduced to respond to gang violence. That’s what this side of the House is focused on.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: And does the Minister understand why comments alleging just one category of people commit violence could be seen to diminish the experiences of many victims of crime, and, if so, does she think the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence should apologise for—and not just clarify—her comment?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I don’t have responsibility for another person’s statements or otherwise. I do think, as I said, that we have a collective responsibility. And this is what this House has shown time and time again, whether that’s through investment in our police enforcement officers, whether that’s through the numerous programmes that we have invested in to capture people at both ends of the spectrum, or whether that’s through the legislation that we’re bringing through the House right now to tackle organised criminal violence. We’re focused on the issues that matter to New Zealanders most: that’s keeping New Zealanders safe.

Hon James Shaw: Does she think that people with a history of violence should be allowed to be members of Parliament?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I don’t, of course, have ministerial responsibility for that question.

Question No. 8—Justice

8. VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour) to the Minister of Justice: What new legislative tools have been progressed to combat organised crime?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): Last night and this morning, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill and the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill passed through the House. These two bills provide a range of new and important legislative tools for law enforcement agencies to tackle organised crime, respond to criminal offending, and to go after gang profits and their assets.

Vanushi Walters: How will these new tools help police seize illegally obtained assets?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Under the new provisions in the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, if it’s shown that an associate of an organised criminal group couldn’t have funded their assets legitimately, they’ll be required to prove to the court how they came to possess them, or face having them frozen. New powers will also give law enforcement greater reach to seize assets from overseas-based criminals and block criminals from being able to hide illegal funds, for example, in their KiwiSaver accounts. We’re going after gang leaders and the facilitators of organised crime and hitting them, of course, where it hurts the most—that’s in their back pockets—giving police more powers to take their properties, cars, bikes, and, of course, their bling.

Vanushi Walters: How will these new tools help police respond to gang offending?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Gang violence and intimidation is intolerable and leaves our communities feeling distressed. The Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill, passed this morning, delivers practical and targeted measures for police to continue to keep our communities safe. Anyone caught discharging a firearm to intimidate others, such as during a drive-by shooting, faces up to five years in prison. Police will also have more powers to search for and seize weapons during times of gang conflict. The new laws also target dangerous and intimidating driving, money-laundering, and the moving of large amounts of money to facilitate offending by gangs. Coupled with the changes to the criminal proceeds recovery regime, we are making it harder for gangs and for their leaders to benefit financially from crime.

Vanushi Walters: How do these changes sit within the Government’s wider response to organised crime?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: This Government has a strong record in combating organised crime, gangs, and drug use, including removing unlawful firearms off the street, actually progressing firearm prohibition orders, when the other side failed miserably, delivering nearly 1,700 additional police officers and investing in officers—more officers focused on serious and organised crime. We’ve delivered these law changes at a time when police have just reached a major milestone of more than 30,000 charges laid in Operation Cobalt, which focuses on disrupting unlawful gang behaviour. This follows Operation Tauwhiro, which led to 1,800 firearms being seized from organised criminal groups.

Question No. 9—Environment

9. JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland) to the Minister for the Environment: Why was the majority of Hawke’s Bay excluded from the ministerial inquiry into forestry slash and land use, which was announced following Cyclone Gabrielle?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): The inquiry is into the slash and other woody debris/sediment issues in the Tai Rāwhiti, Gisborne, and Wairoa districts. The issues are different in those districts. Tai Rāwhiti is very steep and highly erodible—about 25 percent of the North Island’s most severely eroding land is found in this district. Steep hill country in that district accounts for 71 percent of the land, and most of those problems do relate to pine forestry practices that go back to Cyclone Bola. The issues in most of the rest of the Hawke’s Bay area are different. Many members have been there; they will have seen that the woody debris issues in and around Hastings are mainly as a consequence of the river banks having been eroded, and the willows having been—

Simeon Brown: Has the Minister been there?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, I have; have you? The huge flood events that came down those rivers pulled out all of the willows. The willows then banked up against bridges; the stopbanks then broke. The willows and the floodwaters then cleaned up orchards, shelter belts, and those issues are very serious but they are different in nature to the mainly pine forest-related erosion in the Tai Rāwhiti and Wairoa areas.

Joseph Mooney: Does he have concerns about the integrity of the ministerial inquiry in forestry slash and land use in light of one of the three ministerial inquiry panel members standing down yesterday, acknowledging that he had compromised his independence on the same day as Stuart Nash, one of the sponsoring Ministers for the inquiry, was dismissed?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes. Mr Bayfield made a mistake in being in—he was approached to help the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council resolve a lot of the post-flood issues. He admits he unwisely entered into employment negotiations as to whether he would take that role. In the end, he decided not to, but, in the meantime, he had created the impression that his duties as a commissioner in the inquiry could have been brought into conflict. He rightly—under discussions with the chair of the inquiry, the Hon Hekia Parata—thought that that was untenable to continue. As a consequence, he stood down. In his place, Mr Dave Brash is being appointed and he will complete the inquiry.

Joseph Mooney: Did the Minister of Forestry declare any potential conflict of interest when the exclusion of the majority of Hawke’s Bay from the ministerial inquiry was discussed in Cabinet?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, but I can inform the House that the driver for the ambit of the inquiry being the Wairoa and Tai Rāwhiti districts was driven by me. There’s also a written record of that, because I personally wrote the draft terms of reference.

Joseph Mooney: Would he consider it appropriate for sponsoring Ministers of a ministerial inquiry to have declared any potential conflicts of interest to the Cabinet Office?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, but I’m not aware of there being anything untoward in that regard, in this event.

Joseph Mooney: Why did the Government’s language about the inquiry change from initially talking about forestry slash and land use, to simply referring to land use?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I have the terms of reference in front of me, and I will read out the first paragraph, which says: “The purpose of the Inquiry is to describe the history of land uses associated with the mobilisation of woody debris (including forestry slash) and sediment in the Tairāwhiti/Gisborne District and Wairoa District, and to make recommendations about the further work needed to address the land use impacts”—

Hon David Bennett: He didn’t even read the first paragraph.

Hon DAVID PARKER: It’s in the first paragraph; it’s also repeated throughout. I’m happy to table the terms of reference if the member has not managed to read them yet.

Question No. 10—Health (Māori Health)

10. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) to the Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health): What progress is he making to address inequities for Māori with mental health and addiction needs?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health)): This Government launched free kaupapa Māori primary mental health and addiction services. This is part of the wider five-year Access and Choice roll-out and allows for a bespoke approach to helping our tāngata whaiora. So far, 29 kaupapa Māori service providers in approximately 60 locations have been stood up across the country to support our whānau. I’ve personally seen the difference these services are making on the ground and in communities, and it’s changing lives and reaching many who have previously been considered hard to reach. Earlier this month, an independent interim evaluation into the Māori Access and Choice programme highlights the programme’s procurement and workforce and its dedication to achieving equitable outcomes for tāngata whaiora. I’m proud of the commitment from this Government in giving our Māori providers a chance to look after our whānau. Had we not supported tailored approaches or invested in this way, we would not have been set up to pivot and respond to mental wellbeing issues in smaller communities across our country.

Arena Williams: How does the report address inequities for Māori with mental health and addiction needs?

Hon PEENI HENARE: The initial findings of the report speaks to the procurement phase. The interim evaluation highlighted the programme’s success at improving equity for tāngata whaiora. This was done by using innovative approaches through bespoke procurement processes such as video submissions using te reo Māori and tikanga Māori. This new approach gave smaller providers a chance to apply for funding for services that work in their communities. The evaluation also pointed to the kaupapa Māori primary and mental health and addiction workforce, and how dedicated they are in achieving equitable outcomes for Māori. Between 2021 and 2022 alone, the programme delivered 53,000 sessions, and more than 4,100 people were seen in the month of December alone. Many of these services simply did not exist before this Government’s Wellbeing Budget in 2019. The number of services in locations will only increase as the roll-out continues, and, in the last month, thanks to the launch of a new website, wellbeingsupport.health.nz, tāngata whaiora and whānau can search for their nearest providers by using their address or location.

Arena Williams: Can the Minister share some feedback on how the Māori mental health kaupapa is working?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Earlier this month, I visited Kaikohe’s Whakaoranga Whānau Recovery Hub, a community-led centre for people with mental health and addiction issues. There I heard firsthand the impacts drugs, alcohol, and violence has had on those seeking support, and their whānau. I heard from a man who had taken up meth at a young age and been in and out of prison and was at risk of losing his kids. He is now meth-free and is taking his tamariki to school and working to have permanent custody. A woman who started injecting drugs at the age of 12 has got the help she needed, through the support and manaakitanga of the staff at Whakaoranga Whānau, and is now—I’m proud to say—drug-free and employed in her first job.

Arena Williams: What else is the Minister doing to support Māori whānau with mental health and addiction needs?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Through Te Aka Whai Ora, we launched a project together with Te Rōpū Matua, which is a collective of hauora Māori providers in Te Tairāwhiti, to deliver mental wellbeing services to our Tairāwhiti whānau who have been impacted by the cyclone. We have almost reprioritised half a million to go towards the cyclone recovery to support mental health initiatives to help uplift the spirit of those communities with targeted campaigns, resources, training, and rongoā Māori services. There is more to do, but I will commend this Government for being brave in investing in these systems that work for Māori and communities right across our country.

Question No. 11—Immigration

11. Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT) to the Minister of Immigration: What is the total minimum investment value of Investor I and II applications that are currently with immigration officers, and how many immigration officers are currently responsible for processing those applications?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Immigration): I’m advised that as of 28 March, the total value of allocated Investor I applications is $1.18 billion, and the total value of allocated Investor II applications is $238 million—across 118 Investor I and 80 Investor II visas. There are 14 fulltime-equivalents currently allocated to process these applications.

Dr James McDowall: Given the scheme closed in July last year, why is his Government not doing everything it can to process those visas and secure that investment—in the billions—and why is he so against getting that funding into New Zealand businesses?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I certainly reject the assertion at the end of the member’s question. I note that across the 2022 year, 152 Investor I applications were approved and 115 Investor II applications were approved, and that, as of October last year, we introduced the new Active Investor Plus category, which is aimed at attracting more investment into New Zealand and more active investment that will actually drive jobs and growth rather than just the passive investment that was a feature of the old system.

Dr James McDowall: Is he satisfied with his new investor visa scheme, which, in the 6 months since it launched, has potentially cost New Zealand businesses $1.7 billion of lost investment when compared to the same time period under the previous scheme, given the Government hasn’t approved a single Active Investor Plus visa?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The member’s assertion in his question is an entirely hypothetical one. I am satisfied that the Active Investor Plus category is now beginning to attract applications and that, as they make their way through the systems, they will support Kiwi businesses to grow, because they will direct investment into areas that will actually deliver jobs and growth across the different regions of New Zealand.

Question No. 12—Police

12. Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei) to the Minister of Police: What recent announcements has the Government made on supporting the safety of front-line police and communities?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Police): Earlier today, the Prime Minister and I announced the roll-out of a state-of-the-art toolset to help keep front-line police safe and communities safe across New Zealand. The Tactical Response Model (TRM) is a safety system created to ensure police officers are trained, equipped, and supported to keep themselves safe. Using police intelligence, risk assessments will be made earlier. The model will strengthen decision making and critical thinking skills while under pressure. Offender prevention teams will also be rolled out to every district, along with two-person tactical dog teams. It’s critical that we give front-line police a higher level of protection without changing New Zealand’s community policing model.

Dr Emily Henderson: What are the main components of this initiative, and how is it different from armed response teams?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: The Tactical Response Model is a safety system. It is made up of three elements, including training, deployment, and capability. Each of these elements are important in their own right, but we have seen from the evaluation that we get a greater impact when they work together as a system. The TRM staff will not be generally armed and they will not be on community patrols, like armed response teams were. The underlying principle of a tactical response model is a commitment to retain our community policing service. Staff will wear standard police uniform, drive standard police vehicles, and Police remains a generally unarmed service.

Dr Emily Henderson: How is the model delivered and what evaluations on its effectiveness have taken place?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: The model is delivered with the front-line officer at the very centre. It focuses fundamentally on the officer having the equipment, the training, and the cognitive response under pressure to be able to make the right decision in critical incidents. The model provides further support through deployment and the additional intelligence capacity that is focused on identifying and managing those persons who present the greatest risk to hurting our front-line staff. Last year, a successful trial of the TRM was completed in four police districts: Northland, Counties Manukau, Waikato, and Central. A formal evaluation of the model showed that it worked and that each component produced safety benefits, but the greatest impact happened when it operated as a combined safety system.

Dr Emily Henderson: Why is this training so important?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Every day, we hear that police officers are being called to deal with potentially dangerous and risky situations, so they need to keep themselves as safe as possible. It’s critical to give front-line police a higher level of protection without changing New Zealand’s community policing approach, which we strongly believe is effective and appropriate for our country. Resolving incidents safely and reducing the risk to everyone involved is the goal. I’m looking forward to seeing the Tactical Response Model roll out to the remaining eight police districts to enhance the safety of police staff as well as the communities that they serve.

Debate

Leave Declined—Hon Stuart Nash, Removal as Minister

CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Leader of the Opposition): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for the business of the House to be suspended so that a debate can take place on the dismissal by the Prime Minister of the Hon Stuart Nash as a Minister, and for the time for the debate—moved by me—to be in accordance with that of a debate in a matter of urgent public importance, as set out in Appendix A of the Standing Orders.

SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Bills

Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on a very important piece of legislation, the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill, which sets out a new sustainable public transport framework. This framework gives regional councils more flexibility. It gives them more planning, funding, and procurement of public transport, and it does so by allowing public transport authorities, like the regional councils, to operate public transport services in-house.

The current framework, of course, which of course is the PTOM model—Public Transport Operating Model—does not help deliver the best bus or ferry services, or public transport services, for that matter, which we desperately need in places like Tāmakimakau-rau / Auckland and across New Zealand. This bill heralds a new approach, and, namely, it supports on-demand public transport services. It allows councils to own and operate services in-house. It improves the pay and working conditions of people like our bus drivers. It delivers routes and services that reflect local community needs, and it incentivises, most importantly, the decarbonisation of our fleets.

Prioritising fair and equitable treatment of employees and mode shift are important things to do for our Government. Some transport operators have had perverse incentives to squeeze worker conditions, limit pay and opportunities, all of which has limited the potential of our public transport system in this country. Improving the conditions of employees will make it easier to recruit, to retain our workforce, allowing frequent and reliable services, and we have recently seen the first fair pay agreement come into force, something that members on this side of the House felt was very important.

Public transport is a lifeline that connects people to work, to their local schools, to recreation, and to their friends and whānau, and, it won’t surprise members—it’s something I’m very, very proud of, of course—that my home electorate of Northcote has the third-highest use of public transport and buses to get to work, at 14.7 percent against the New Zealand average of 4.2 percent. So something I’m very proud of in this piece of legislation is getting on with what we need to do as a fairer public transport system for Aucklanders, for New Zealand, and ensuring that we are meeting our climate change obligations.

So, without further ado, and as the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, I’m looking forward to this piece of legislation coming through to our select committee. I commend this bill to the House.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, isn’t this interesting? Here we were told, only a few weeks ago, that this Government was going to be back to basics—the “back to basics” Government. Yet they couldn’t help themselves, could they? This failed socialist experiment—it’s in their DNA; they just want to get in and they want to centralise everything. And, look, there’s a clue in the bill, in the start of it, the main provisions. What is this bill about? More central planning and control; they’ve even written it in the first page. That’s exactly what this is about: Labour knows best! Wellington knows best! More central planning.

Of the failures this Government has had—KiwiBuild, three waters, the Government’s $1.9 billion for mental health, everything they’ve touched around centralised planning, the health reforms, the tertiary sector reforms—you think they would have learnt. Every centralisation reform they’ve tried to introduce has gone to custard. Then they said, “Don’t worry. We’ve had a new Prime Minister. There’s a bit of a change; we’re back to basics.” But they can’t help themselves, because for this Government, it is always ideological—it is always ideology that’s driving them.

What’s interesting, when you unpack the regulatory impact statement that goes along with this bill, even the Minister’s own ministry was warning against the options that he had chosen. It was going to drive up cost. It was going to remove transparency. It actually wasn’t going to give public transport customers the best service, but, of course, Michael Wood knows best! He overrode his officials. He overrode his ministry, because for him, it’s ideological—ideological transport Minister.

I must say, I know that many New Zealanders, on 14 October, can’t wait for Simeon Brown to be the transport Minister for New Zealand. Let’s take a stocktake under what’s happened under this Government. Potholes everywhere. No roads have been maintained. Buses—well, I don’t even know if they run any more. And then, ghost trains—that’s their transport plan. Their biggest issue now is they want to centrally plan the bus system—purely ideological.

I’ll tell you what it means for people I represent in Waimakariri in North Canterbury—good, salt of the earth North Cantabrians in provincial and rural New Zealand. The issues for them, as I saw on Monday night when we had a tailback from the town of Woodend right back to the Waimakariri bridge—what they’re missing is that State highway this Government cancelled five years ago.

So it’s all very good centralising the bus system, but just to give you a clue, that bus is going to have to go on a road, and if you can’t get your roads right, how are your buses going to go? At the moment, they’re redirecting hard-earned road-user charges being paid out of the back pockets of hard-working Cantabrians and redirecting that funding from the land transport fund to pet public transport projects in Auckland.

You can tell by the language they’re using that they’re initiating a war—what was the term that’s used through the bill?—on single-occupant vehicles. What nasty people they are, in single-occupant vehicles! I’ve seen a few of them in my patch. In fact, Waimakariri has the highest rate of three-car families in the country. Why? Because when you live in rural, provincial New Zealand, no public transport system is ever going to get you where you need to go. If you live in Swannanoa and your kids in high school need to drive to Kaiapoi, and one of the parents works in Christchurch and the other in Rangiora, they might be in those nasty single-occupant vehicles. Watch out, because the Government’s going to wage a war on you.

Because, of course, as we heard from that last speaker, Shanan Halbert, the soon-tobe former MP for Northcote, it’s all about the lens of big metropolitan cities. This Government—it’s all they care about. Get out to rural and provincial New Zealand, and then you start to understand the challenges that New Zealanders have, because what this bill is doing is removing choice. They call it “modal shift”. On this side of the House, we call it “modal choice”.

We want to give people choice. And I’ll tell you what this bill removes: the ability for the council to go out into the market and contract someone. They can do it in-house, with no openness and transparency. That’s exactly what we see from this Labour Government. So much for being open and transparent.

When you look at clause 9, which amends section 115: “providing public transport services assists in furthering the principles set out in paragraphs (a) to (d).” Why that is important: in the bill that this is replacing, paragraph (e), which is now overlooked, was (f). This means the efficiency and value for money at paragraph (e) are not a requirement for public transport provisions, which is incredibly different from the previous legislation.

So no longer do services need to be—under this bill that we’re debating today—efficient and good value for money. I’m looking forward to the Labour callers, and, of course, the Green caller as well, who take their call on this bill. How are we going to get a better public transport system if we’re removing efficiency and we’re removing value for money? Of course, this Government doesn’t worry about it. It all grows on trees, doesn’t it? But only a few weeks ago, they were telling us that the cost of living crisis was their number one issue—“back to basics”. But here they are again. They had a great opportunity to look at the opportunities within public transport—on-demand going gangbusters down in Canterbury, especially South Canterbury. This bill had an opportunity to really unleash that.

As I mentioned at the start of my call in this debate, this bill will allow for the in-house provision of public transport delivery—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Choice.

MATT DOOCEY: —with no tendering processes required. Chlöe Swarbrick just shouted out, “Choice.” How do you get choice when there’s going to be no tendering processes required? Even in the regulatory impact statement, the Minister and his officials—because he’s got a lot of officials that he can talk to. That’s right—officials arriving by the day at the moment; 14,000 extra bureaucrats in Wellington since this Government came into office. But what the ministry said is that enabling in-house provision of public transport services without contracts will lead to performing worse than the status quo when compared to the criteria. So that would be very interesting for the Labour speakers today in this debate. How are you overriding the advice from the ministry that this bill will perform worse than the status quo? The ministry added, “Any move away from a contractual approach … may also reduce transparency over cost and performance.”—reduce transparency over cost and performance.

So here we are: we’re debating a bill today that is all about central planning and control. It actually says it; the front page of the bill—it’s quite open about it. Central planning and control. It’s going to end up in a worse performance of the system than is the current status quo. And as the advice said, it’s going to reduce transparency over cost and performance.

Once again, this Labour Government—this failed socialist experiment—can’t help themselves. They promised us “back to the basics”, and here they are a few weeks later. The only solution they had—they had a real opportunity—was central planning and control again.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): Well, that was pretty difficult to listen to if you live in Auckland, where our transport system is really broken. We don’t have buses and we don’t have ferries because the old model was ideologically driven and it threw away common sense, Mr Doocey, because what we had was a system that said that people like the council couldn’t own the buses or the ferries. And because they couldn’t own them and they had to contract them out—i.e., give taxpayers’ money away to private enterprises—we had a system that was absolutely run down.

We have that system today, Mr Doocey. And I’d like to take you to meet the drivers of those buses, because I represented those drivers when they were on conditions that involved split shifts. It means they come in from South Auckland, and they come in and they sit in the depot. In the middle of the day, they are on no pay and they sit there in the middle of the day with no pay. And then they start again.

That system doesn’t work, and it doesn’t attract New Zealand workers in a time of high unemployment. What I hear from the Opposition is “Well, you’re actually ruining it by not allowing us to bring in workers who are willing to work in the worst possible conditions.” That’s not the solution either, Mr Doocey.

The solution in this situation is that we forget about ideology, and we get a bit of common sense, and we make sure our conditions for our bus drivers are good enough; and we relieve our councils from the obligations they’re under to actually contract out that work, and we allow them to own the fleets of buses and ferries so they can actually build up an infrastructure and they can make the call. And that’s not centralisation: that’s actually local power and that’s actually an important part of the solution here. I commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe, tēnā koutou e te Whare. I guess, just to wind back the pretence a little bit, this is something which I regularly bang on in this House about: we are all ideological. That’s the point. We all have ideologies and values that underpin the policies that we put forward because everything that we do in this place is about trade-offs and about whose side we stand on and about the kinds of outcomes that we want for society. They’re the same things that we’ll take to the hustings through to October. So, again, all political parties, all politicians, are ideological.

The ideological line in this House, and as we’re hearing peppered throughout this debate, is largely whether people, or whether New Zealand—whether cities and towns around this country—would like to see our public transport operated primarily by private interests, as has been the case under the Public Transport Operating Model—or the PTOM—which is being changed by this new model, which allows choice, Mr Doocey, in the form of, for the first time, the ability for our local authorities to own the public transport network and those buses, those depots, or otherwise.

So, now that we’ve said that, I’d also like to address some of the points made by the National Party about how, somehow, this is all fire and wrath and rule and a terrible situation if this thing goes through because it’s demonstrative of the fact that the buses are being cancelled at the moment. Mate, the buses are being cancelled at the moment under the Public Transport Operating Model which privatises public transport in Auckland and, actually, as a result of this slash-and-burn budget, as proposed by Mayor Wayne Brown at Auckland Council to permanently cut over a thousand buses a day. So I’d just like to, once again, make a call-out to Auckland-based colleagues to join me later tonight on a meeting about how we can try and actually prevent that with greater investment in public transport.

So to the core of this legislation: the Greens have actually advocated for some of the things contained in this, particularly that point around the ability for our local authorities to actually publicly own their public transport in the first place for a really long time. We actually put out a petition, as led by my colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter, a few years ago on the basis of bus driver pay and conditions and the fact that there was not alltoomuch public control over those because of the fact that under the PTOM there was a requirement to contract out. That is, as colleagues on this side of the House have been demonstrating, precisely why we’ve seen that downward pressure on those wages and on those conditions.

I guess that takes us to one of those, God forbid, ideological questions of what it is that we’re talking about when we’re talking about public goods or public services and what it is that we want when we’re talking about this public infrastructure.

And, I guess, just to weave through a few of the other examples in the public sphere, where we have sought to privatise to really perverse outcomes. It’s not only in public transport; we’ve also seen it in the likes of housing, for example, where in the 1980s and 1990s, we saw the sell-off of our State houses and the introduction of the accommodation supplement because, hey, the private market was going to sort it out—they were all charity and otherwise! And guess what! What we’ve seen is that the accommodation supplement, which the Government continues to pay up to the tune of approximately $2 billion a year, is a subsidy for private landlords.

Then, I don’t know, look at the early childhood sector, where we’ve seen the continued privatisation in that space to the effect that now we’ve got a 62 percent privatisation. We continue to pay amongst the highest amounts, as a Government, into the early childhood sector, yet, somehow, for some reason, New Zealanders continue to pay amongst the most expensive costs for childcare in the developed world. Why is that? Because of this private intermediary, and that is exactly the thing that the National Party continues to advocate for the retention of, and it is why people across Tāmaki-makau-rau and in my patch in Auckland Central and across the country continue to pay far too much, but also for nowhere near enough serviceability on their public transport.

I think that’s, perhaps, the greatest lie of the trickle-down economics mythology that continues to be peddled by this side of the House, and that’s that somehow we’ll get an affordable or efficient outcome by continuing to contract out—ironically, to contractors, who they’ve also declared war on—and somehow get greater affordability and greater efficiency when somebody else has to make money on top of what you are contracting out. The maths simply does not add up, and that’s, frankly, why we’re getting these really perverse outcomes in reality.

I’d also just, in my closing remarks, like to allude to some of the comments made by Mr Doocey, in particular about how this was “purely ideology” and what we were seeing was the “rebuking of officials’ advice.” I’d like to refer Mr Doocey and the National Party to a 300-odd page Official Information Act (OIA) request, which I’m more than happy to table in this House, which is all of the advice that the former Minister of Transport Steven Joyce, under the former National Government, received on not exempting the Fullers ferry route to Waiheke from the Public Transport Operating Model.

Under the Public Transport Operating Model, there is the ability for the Minister to provide exemptions in statute. That is, from that Public Transport Operating Model, which is largely one that requires contracting out and the privatisation of public services, there is also the ability to exempt certain public transport routes from complying even to those standards of transparency, serviceability, supposed affordability, and otherwise.

Here we have this 300-odd page OIA where officials, time and time and time again, were telling the former National Government and Minister of Transport, then Steven Joyce, that it made no sense to exempt the Waiheke route from compliance within the Public Transport Operating Model. None the less, for no apparent reason other than one that we can perhaps connect the dots on in this House, the Minister then forged ahead, and that is a mess which, to this day, we are continuing to try and unpack. It is, therefore, the only public transport route currently in this country which is considered necessary by the local authority—that is, by Auckland Council and Auckland Transport—as integral to the public transport route but excluded from the Public Transport Operating Model. So that’s just one very niche and very local but specific issue which I’d really like to drive home when we’re talking about ideology and influence on legislation.

At the end of the day, this really just boils down to whether we are willing to enable public services to be owned publicly. The Greens say, “It’s about damned time.”

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill. And it’s not just because they’ve got the word “transport” twice in the same phrase; it’s because it is bad policy. If you boil this bill down to a very simple summary, this bill tries to ensure that councils have the opportunity of operating bus services and ferry services and any other public transport operation they can think of. And when I say “operating”, I don’t mean going out to the market place and saying, “We would like the following bus routes to run at the following times. Who can provide that service for what price?”; I mean, the council actually buys the buses and the electronic equipment to guide it and collect the payment, and it employs the bus workers.

I think people might want to think a little bit about their local council and think they’re nice folks, but do we really want them to also be in the transport business—not just commissioning at a high level but actually fixing the buses, working out how to maintain the buses? Is that the sort of thing that councils should be doing or should they, as is the status quo right now under the Public Transport Operating Model, have a job of saying, “On behalf of our ratepayers, this is where we’d like the buses or the ferries to go and we would like to go out to the market place and ask people who are actually in business doing transport to provide the services.”? Those are the two basic choices.

The ACT Party would just make the point that private enterprise, that businesses where people are risking their own money—a lot of people in business get started by borrowing money against their house. With those kinds of people, where they’re putting their own skin on the line, where they’re the ones that are kept up all night, they tend to offer more efficient services than public services. And you just have to ask yourself: what’s the record of councils as landlords owning homes? Hopeless, mostly trying to get out of it, and very sensibly so. What’s the record of councils managing three waters infrastructure—drinking water and stormwater and waste water and sewage?

Well, funnily enough, this Government says that councils shouldn’t be able to operate their own three waters infrastructure. This Government has gone to an enormous effort with at least three pieces of legislation in Parliament so far—a massive multi-million dollar advertising, or some would say propaganda, campaign. They’ve taken enormous amounts of political heat. But this Government has done all that because they don’t think councils should operate three waters. They’ve said councils don’t have the scale or the expertise or the balance sheet in order to be able to borrow the money to invest in the three waters assets, so three waters assets have to be taken out of the purview of councils.

What about planning, resource management? What about the Natural and Built Environment Bill? Well, David Parker, the environment Minister, has a huge piece of legislation that actually establishes 15 new entities to do resource consents and planning and create plans. Why is he doing that? Because he doesn’t think the councils are up to it. So it’s very strange that Labour doesn’t think councils can run three waters, doesn’t think that they should be as involved in planning their communities. It’s very strange—you know, we know they’ve been pretty hopeless at managing most things, actually. However, Labour is determined that they’re going to run bus companies, and we heard possibly the reason why, just a second ago. She talked a bit about transport—Helen White did, the member for Auckland Central. She talked a little bit—oh no, sorry; that was Chlöe Swarbrick. She talked a little bit about different issues, but the thing that she really fixated on—you know, a former unionist or perhaps a current unionist—was “This will change conditions of employment.” And that’s the issue.

This is not being done to provide better public transport for Aucklanders or people in North Canterbury, like the former speaker Matt Doocey. This is being done, actually, as a payoff to Labour’s union mates—they want the councils to be the employer. They want to start using public transport as a form of job creation. And this is another great irony of Labour and another great failing of Labour. The Labour Party believe that somehow they’re above ideology, that somehow what they’re doing is just practical and right. But in reality what they are finding, as they bring this legislation to the House, is that they are not going to deliver practically better services for New Zealanders. What they’re going to do is try and deliver for the unions and the labour movement in this particular public service, when the practical answer is to actually go and talk to some people that operate public transport.

You know, I was out at the opening of Pavlovich late last year, out of West Auckland, a brand new terminal, all private investment to make transport better. I met with the chief executive officer and chair of Fullers just a couple of weeks ago. It’s not difficult. They’ll say the problem is there aren’t enough people. The argument you hear from Labour is “Oh, it’s because they’re horrible to the workers. They make them do split shifts and, you know, they’re not treating their workers well.” The truth is that there are just not enough workers in New Zealand. There are not enough drivers. Talk to anyone in a trucking company. Talk to anyone in logistics. Talk to anyone in the airport precinct. There aren’t enough people to drive the ferries and drive the buses. That is the problem.

So the Labour Party, failing to understand the practical issues, instead turn to ideology and attempting to serve their constituency and the union movement that built them, just as they did when they got rid of charter schools. It wasn’t about public policy. Always goes back to paying off the unions, with the Labour Party. They are trying to distort the entire public transport system purely to pay off with jobs for the boys and girls.

That is not going to make the boat go faster. It is not going to make New Zealand a more prosperous country. It is not going to make New Zealand a more livable country, and it’s not going to help us reduce the amount of carbon or greenhouse gas emissions that New Zealanders emit when going about their daily life with a given living standard. All it’s going to do is further complicate the way that services are delivered, the way New Zealanders solve their practical problems from day to day, as the Labour Party attempts to pursue ideological, administrative changes to the way that public services are run. There is no problem there to be solved. They haven’t got up and explained, “There’s a big problem. This is why we’re doing it.” The only problem in public transport right now is there aren’t enough people available.

Mr Speaker, here’s another thought for you. They haven’t explained why a publicly owned bus or ferry service would be better. We had an attempt. We had an attempt from Chlöe Swarbrick, who said that, “Well, because these private companies make profit, then it’s going to be more expensive because they have to make a profit on top of their cost structure.” But what she fails to understand is, well, business, really, and profit and the role of it. You see, in order to make a profit, you have to actually ensure that the costs of what your company consumes are less than the value of what it sells. It’s not complicated, but it’s very hard to actually do. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of risk, a lot of nous. And it’s the profit motive, the opportunity to make a profit that actually gets people focused on: how can we do more with less; how can we be more efficient in this firm?

In actual fact, if it’s true that profit drives efficiency, because it makes people constantly compare the costs of what they consume with the value of what they sell, then what will removing the profit motive mean? What will it do when councils that the Government doesn’t trust to do three waters or planning or anything else are suddenly in charge of operating businesses that run buses and ferries? Well, it’s not rocket science. You can work it out. What it does is it takes away the incentive to think extra hard every day about the cost of what’s consumed and the value of what’s provided. You have a monopolistic service run by people with no profit motive. The service levels get worse, the cost gets higher, the only winners are the unions, and the losers are those people—particularly those people in large metropolitan areas like Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch—who actually need a decent public transport system for their lives to work.

So we oppose this bill. We oppose the ideology behind it, we oppose the bankrupt economics behind it, and we hope this Government will one day see sense or else they’ll all have to go.

SORAYA PEKE-MASON (Labour): I stand to take a short call on the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill. The electorate where I live and where I’m based goes from Porirua through to Tokoroa, covering the rohe of Te Tai Hauāuru and Rangitīkei. We’ve had our fair share of public transport woes over many years. Many people rely on public transport. Many people have no choice but to use public transport, whether it be bus, ferry, or whatever.

So it pleases me to see the replacement of the Public Transport Operating Model with the Sustainable Public Transport Framework. In particular, what stands out is the thoughtfulness towards the workers and users of public transport—improving conditions of employees, retention of the work force, and job security. What also stands out is the responsiveness to changing demographics, travel behaviour, and support of innovation.

The bill provides flexibility for the sector to determine the best way to give effect to the new priorities. It addresses the systematic issues in the sector and improves regulation of public transport systems. I want to acknowledge the challenges of our communities over the years and the hard work of former Feilding councillor Councillor Humphrey, other councillors, and community groups who have advocated for change for their communities for years. This bill allows councils to operate public transport services inhouse. They know the needs of their communities. What we’ve got now does not serve the public.

I’m delighted that a key element of this important bill is to lay the foundation to achieve emissions reductions. I commend the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill to the House. Kia ora.

SPEAKER: This is a split call.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s good to rise and talk on this bill. Just to run a bit about it, I mean, we’ve already discussed some of the elements of it, but one of the main tenets is that we’re moving towards more of a central planning model of control. A couple of key focuses in this bill are around mode shift—contentious—and also reducing emissions—not so contentious there. I think that’s something that we all want to achieve.

But it also has another goal in there of reducing the instances of single occupancy vehicles, which would mean I would be in trouble because quite often I am the sole and single occupant. And as much as I talk to myself, there’s only me, and me only, and occasionally my podcast or a child in the back giving me a bit of stick. It will also allow councils to run in-house provisions of public transport services. And one of the key things to note there is that it doesn’t necessitate contracts be used, which I find reasonably alarming. I know my colleague the very insightful Matthew Doocey down there in the front row alluded to that during his good 10 minutes earlier today.

It also allows for different asset ownership arrangements to allow regional councils to directly own public transport assets. We did hear a bit of criticism from the Green Party earlier today about private companies owning some of these assets because they would want to be putting a profit on top of it, and I’m not sure I’d necessarily agree that that would be more expensive than a heavy bureaucratic public system which doesn’t have contracts and doesn’t have competition, and, without contracts, doesn’t necessarily have that oversight or operational requirements or performance measures that must be met. So all things to take into account when considering the virtues of public v private or a mixture of the both.

Key messages my party wants to get across, and I want to get across as the speaker, is that we oppose this bill. That’s already been made clear by the earlier speakers on our side of the House. We believe New Zealanders are fundamentally better off when public transport services are provided under free, fair, open, transparent tenders, and I think most people, reasonable people, would agree that that is how most manners of contracts should be conducted. You want them to be competitive, you want people to lay out on the table what they intend to deliver, and then it also enables the person putting forward those contracts or paying for them to be able to hold the provider to account.

We also want flexibility. You know, we understand that providing greater flexibility is what we want to see, and enabling the shift to an in-house delivery model is completely different. It stands to limit competition.

We have a lot of talk around, you know, single occupancy vehicles, and, I mean, yeah, cool, if you live in Wellington or Auckland, there’s a bit more of an ability to ride share or Uber or look at other alternatives there. I mean, the reality is for a few of us who have stood up and—I mean, on my side of the House we’ve got Hamilton West. We’ve got someone from Pukekohe. You know, regional areas, Pukekohe—I mean, I live rurally myself.

Angie Warren-Clark: What about our ferry, then, eh?

SAM UFFINDELL: What about our ferry? Yeah, indeed, Angie, wouldn’t that be good? It’s not that realistic to say that people should be able to go outside in single occupancy vehicles when they don’t live in inner city Auckland or Wellington.

I lived in big cities before returning to New Zealand and I didn’t need to own a car. I was on the mass rapid transit, or the train, or whatever you want to call it, in the different places every day, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was incredibly wonderful to be able to get around that way. The reality is that most places in New Zealand aren’t like that and they won’t be like that.

But there is good news. There is good news for those members on the other side of the House, because we want to lower emissions and we have a plan to lower emissions, and cars are moving towards being electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle or hybrid. I know my friend Tama has a plug-in hybrid. We drove in the mighty Haval H6 down the island and we really didn’t use much gasoline. The good thing is that more and more cars, by the day, are moving to being electric, and they will, under a National Government, be run off of renewable energy, more so than over that side of the House.

I think one of the other important things to remember is that—I mean, it’s already been alluded to by Matthew Doocey—the buses that people need to get around, and they will be electric buses, do run on roads. We need to make sure we’re funding them. Fundamentally, I oppose this bill—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill. As a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, I’m looking forward to hearing submissions and considering this bill.

Previous speakers have tried to say tonight that there isn’t a problem. But we can see across the country there’s definitely a problem with how our public transport system runs, and a lot of that comes back to the heart of the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM).

One of the issues with the PTOM is that it focuses on contracting out and encouraging companies to bid at the lowest possible price. What that does is it drives down wages within the sector and—lo and behold—we have an issue with bus companies finding enough drivers. And gee, I wonder why. Could it perhaps be that the wages are low due to the contracting out model? That is one of the things that this bill addresses, and it is overdue and about time that we are doing it.

The previous speaker, Sam Uffindell, made some comments around flexibility and around enabling choice. If you actually read the bill, you’ll see that the bill enables regional councils to operate public transport services in-house or to continue to outsource the operation of services. It’s got a choice.

The other really good part of this bill—just coming from Nelson, where we have unitary authorities so we don’t have separate regional and territorial authorities—is that it will establish a requirement for greater collaboration. One of the really good things that has happened in my electorate in the last couple of years—thanks to the Government putting a lot more investment into public transport—is that we now have a joint public transport plan between Nelson and Tasman. We’re going to get buses into those smaller places, which there is demand for. I’ve been talking to people who live in small towns who are telling me they want public transport. We’re going to have an entire fleet of electric buses. The buses will be far more frequent, at a reasonable price, and the public are really looking forward to that service coming on board in the middle of this year.

It has been enabled because our two councils, which are unitary authorities, have been able to work together with investment from Government. We’re going to have a fantastic service with decent wages for those drivers. So this bill will actually help other councils do exactly what we’ve done in Nelson. I commend it to the House.

TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki): Meitaki maata, Mr Speaker. Like my colleague Rachel Brooking—sorry, Rachel Boyack—I am also on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and am also looking forward to this bill coming through the House, because it is—

Rachel Brooking: Rachel Brooking likes the bill, too.

TERISA NGOBI: I know. Rachel Brooking just said she likes the bill too. Because not only is this a great piece of legislation, this is great for our bus drivers, for our train drivers, and for our staff that work in the public transport space. This bill ensures good working conditions and, of course, improvement in pay—who doesn’t want that? In the Ōtaki electorate, which is also part of the rural and provincial Aotearoa New Zealand, like Mr Doocey was talking about earlier, we have regular trains that go from Waikanae through to Wellington. We also have buses from Ōtaki through to Wellington as well.

This week, I had the privilege of spending some time with the Ōtaki-famous Barbara, who has been driving school buses for about two decades now in the Ōtaki electorate. Barbara loves her job as a bus driver, and Barbara loves to make sure that she gets our tamariki to and from kura—our kids to and from school—safely. But Barbara also knows that there’s different pays, different conditions out there in certain bus companies. So we want to make sure that we keep amazing bus drivers like Barbara, especially in our rural and regional towns like the Ōtaki electorate. I know it’s getting harder, especially in this competitive market, and so that is what this bill does.

The Sustainable Public Transport Framework—one of its priorities includes the fair and equitable treatment of employees. The Capital Connection also runs through the Ōtaki electorate from Levin through to Wellington, only Monday to Friday, only once, and is always full of commuters going to and from mahi, or work. However, it has struggled due to staff as well. Again, this bill focuses on employment conditions and pay, and if we get that right we will encourage people back into the public transport sector. And that can, again, be considered a great career pathway for people. Hopefully—just a plug—we will someday see regular train services right through to Wellington, and maybe beyond to Palmerston North.

The Sustainable Public Transport Framework also focuses on mode shift and improved environment and health outcomes. And while I absolutely support the benefits to the environment and reducing emissions, I also know that some of our whānau out there don’t have a car, or if they do have a car they find it really difficult to run it. At the moment with public transport, especially with this Government’s half-price public transport, it is an affordable option for those whānau. So it’s critical to make sure we get this right.

Look, I know essentially, at the moment, we have so many things in this bill that I could talk about, and especially the mode options, the reduction in emissions, and looking after our employees, but I don’t have enough time. This is a great piece of legislation, and I commend it to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a short call on the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill. My own thoughts will be very much originating from local concerns of the mighty Kaipara ki Mahurangi electorate in rural North and Northwest and West Auckland, and I do just want to reflect on some of the comments that have been made on both sides of the House in relation to that.

Some, like my friend and colleague Matt Doocey, have pointed out that for rural parts of New Zealand, the fixation of the current Government on matters of public transport as though they were applicable all across New Zealand is unfortunate, but he is right to identify that not only in relation to areas outside Auckland and Wellington but also, I would add, parts of Auckland in which there are large rural areas—for example, the Rodney District of Auckland, as it then was, constitutes nearly half the landmass of what is now known as Auckland. So, on behalf of the good people of my electorate, I point out that even in Auckland, ostensibly an urban area, actually, large distances between points of interest mean that the kind of public transport solutions—and I use the term loosely—that are being offered by Labour are no such thing. So it’s not just geography; it’s physics, it’s speed times distance, and the reality, simply, for my constituents is that this kind of bill will do nothing for them to get more quickly from A to B, and more safely from A to B as well.

We see that the aims of the bill include more central planning and control of public transport services. Well, they lost me at more central planning, because I’ve been paying attention in the last 5½ years and I’ve seen what more central planning of the tertiary sector has done in the polytech space, with Te Pūkenga, and I’ve seen what’s being proposed in relation to three waters—and the most vociferous opponent, I think, of that must not be the National Party but in fact the current Labour Cabinet, or at least some members thereof. It’ll be very interesting to see what eventual policy we see in that space.

And other examples of central planning, of course, inevitably lead us down a road, not in a bus but in a bus without a driver, parked at the end of the road. I congratulate Labour on introducing driverless vehicles to this country. Unfortunately, those are buses that actually were supposed to have been running but they can’t attract the drivers; they don’t want to allow them to come in from overseas, and they’ve in fact, in doing so, introduced passenger-less vehicles as well. Lots of empty vehicles are trundling around North-west and North Auckland and giving a lie to the idea that public transport is the be-all and endall in terms of what should be provided to allow people to meet their transport needs.

In fact, we’ve also got this interesting situation in my particular electorate—and just indulge me for a moment please, sir, as I mention that we have a rail line, a passenger rail line, that’s unused for passenger rail beyond Swanson. So perhaps if the Government had money, time and energy, and imagination to invest in public transport, then, even leaving aside the demonisation of the private motor vehicle, as Messrs Doocey and Uffindell have said, then it would be good, actually, maybe if they could utilise some of the existing infrastructure that already sits there, because they talked a good game about it in Opposition and they’ve done nothing. In fact, they’ve done less than nothing, because by pretending to themselves and the rest of the country that there’d be light rail built in other parts of Auckland and then North-west Auckland, of course, they’ve stymied any reasonable conversations about using the infrastructure that is available in the form of that rail line already there.

I do want to mention, as well, the fact that we often have this strange debate, or at least the left wing of politics do, about the importance of, for example, buses versus investing in roads, as though the two were mutually exclusive. So we have State highways and other main arterial routes that have a single lane in each direction, and the proposal that we put buses on those just so that people can sit in congestion behind private motor vehicles, single-occupant or otherwise, is baffling, because that actually doesn’t improve their situation at all, particularly when you don’t have very many people on the bus. So you don’t even get that economy of scale and environmental benefits that you would have at least if there were a few more people on them, albeit sitting in traffic like the rest of us.

So, for all these reasons, I can’t conclude that this bill will do anything whatsoever of a useful variety for the people in my area; we’ve heard from others on this side of the House that it won’t do much for the people in their areas either. I don’t think it will do anything useful for anyone in any part of New Zealand, because unless the fundamental settings that need to be changed to allow people who want to drive buses, who can drive buses, come to this country and—guess what!—drive buses, then nothing will change. We oppose this bill.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Tēnā koe te Māngai o te Whare. Can I say that it’s great having the last word on this bill. This legislation, of course, is welcome news for the Wellington region because we know that the current legislative framework has straitjacketed councils, particularly regional councils, into that private sector delivery model. And that really fails to provide the agility and responsiveness to ensure that we actually have a public service; the words “public” and “service” being key here. And, look, we’ve heard a lot about bus drivers, and despite issues and problems securing bus drivers all over New Zealand, Wellingtonians are strong adherents to public transport. This is a city that used to have “big reds”; I like the colour red. But we used to run the buses ourselves—in-house, by the city council—until legislation came in saying we couldn’t do that.

This bill enables us to have the best of the old world in the new world. And that means private operators will join with public operators, in time; councils can bring the assets inhouse, a bit like the rail fleet here in Wellington where, actually, those assets are owned by the regional council and then we’ve got some agility in terms of how to respond to service changes across the network.

The bill also allows regional councils to say, “Hey, look, if we want to do things differently in-house”—it gives the councils time to do that. So it will pave the way for that in-house operation. I think the last thing we need is for councils to emulate the failures that we’ve seen in the delivery of services by the private sector, and we need to be upfront about that; the current operation doesn’t work under this legislation. However, this bill addresses that. We get the best of the private and public sectors working together for great bus network and bus transport services in Aotearoa. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 76

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

Noes 44

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

SPEAKER: The question is, That the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill be considered by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Instruction to Transport and Infrastructure Committee

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Minister of Conservation) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: I move, That the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

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

Ayes 76

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

Noes 44

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill

First Reading

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage): I present a legislative statement on the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill.

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

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I move, That the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

It is my pleasure, as the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, to introduce this bill today. Our visual artists are an integral part of New Zealand’s rich and diverse artistic community. Their skill, passion, and creativity represent a key contribution to our society and to our culture. However, they also have some of the lowest median incomes in New Zealand and have limited opportunities to benefit from their work on an ongoing basis. People who buy and sell visual artwork on the secondary market make money on artworks when an artist’s reputation grows, but currently none of this profit—which is a result of the hard work and success achieved by the artist—goes to the artists themselves.

Under the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill, this will change. The bill will establish an artist resale royalty scheme in New Zealand, providing eligible visual artists with a resale right to benefit from their work. In contrast to copyright, the resale right is unable to be waived or transferred away from the artist while they are living, and so the right remains with the artist for their whole life. The resale right means a 5 percent royalty payment will be collected each time an artist’s eligible work is resold. Beyond the monetary acknowledgment of the royalty payment, this bill also provides confirmation to artists that their important cultural and societal contribution to New Zealand is both recognised and valued.

Over 80 countries around the world—including Australia, the United Kingdom, and all European Union countries—already have an artist resale royalty scheme, most of which have been in place for many years. It is time that our talented artists receive these same rewards, here in New Zealand. An artist resale royalty scheme has been a long time coming. Back in 2008, the Copyright (Artists’ Resale Right) Amendment Bill was introduced to the House, but, unfortunately, was never enacted. This Government demonstrated its commitment to an artist resale royalty scheme by bringing it back on to the political agenda in 2019, before including it as part of the free-trade agreements with the United Kingdom and the European Union.

The Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill now represents a huge milestone in a journey that began, really, 15 years ago. Vital to designing the bill has been engagement with key stakeholders across the arts and cultural sector, and the secondary art market. We have sought the views of a wide range of people, including visual artists and estates, art market professionals, advocacy groups, academics, and art and legal experts.

The key message I have heard from this sector is that there is strong support for an artists’ resale royalty scheme, with the general sentiment being that this bill is both welcome and long overdue. However, I have also heard that the scheme needs to be carefully designed to ensure that not only do artists benefit but our valuable secondary art market is supported to grow and thrive. In designing the bill, we have drawn on the insights and experiences of overseas countries who have similar schemes in place. However, New Zealand is a unique country with a diverse artistic community, including our rich and vibrant Māori and Pacific arts communities. In its definition of “visual art”, this bill acknowledges that unique context by making specific reference to the visual artworks of Māori and Pacific peoples.

For a sale to be eligible for a royalty, it must involve an art market professional or it must be a resale to or from a publicly funded museum or art gallery. The bill requires this because we know that tracking and collecting a royalty on every single sale—especially private sales—is simply not feasible. However, the bill does provide the option for those involved in private resales to pay a royalty voluntarily if they want to. I have heard through engagement that artworks by some groups—including Māori, Pacific, and female artists—are more likely to be sold privately. By enabling private sales to opt in voluntarily, we have sought to ensure as many artists as possible can benefit from this scheme.

We also know that there are administrative impacts when paying a royalty on all sales, even very low-value ones. This means that for a resale to qualify for a royalty, the sale price must meet a certain threshold and value. This threshold will be set between $500 and $5,000, with the exact figure to be set in the supporting regulations to the bill. I have chosen to set this figure through regulations so it is futureproofed and there is the flexibility to adjust it in the future if necessary.

As well as receiving royalties when their artwork is sold in New Zealand, visual artists will also be able to receive royalties when their eligible artworks are sold in countries which have reciprocating artist resale royalty schemes. For example, New Zealand artists will be able to receive a royalty when their eligible artworks are sold in the United Kingdom, and the scheme will also benefit others as well as the artists themselves. Under this bill, artists, successors, or beneficiaries can receive royalty payments for up to 50 years after the artist’s death. This provides an intergenerational benefit, and will mean an artist’s successors—including their family, whānau, or iwi—will be able to share in the artist’s creative success. As is common overseas, the artist resale royalty scheme will be managed by a non-Government collection agency which can deduct an administrative fee from each royalty collected. The administrative fee is a fee in return for the service provided by collecting the royalty, and will cover the agency’s administration costs. In this way, the scheme will ultimately sustain itself and have no ongoing costs to the Government.

We have seen the benefits of artist resale royalty schemes overseas, for example, from the commencement of Australia’s scheme in June 2010 through to April 2022, A$11 million has been generated in royalties for visual artists. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island artists have benefited greatly, representing 65 percent of the artists receiving royalties, and receiving 38 percent of the total value of royalties.

In the United Kingdom, the secondary art market has strengthened considerably since the introduction of a resale right in 2006. This was despite concerns raised in Australia and the United Kingdom about the potential negative impacts of an artist resale royalty scheme on the art market. I have heard some similar concerns raised here, which is why this bill has been designed to minimise the impacts on the secondary market as much as possible. While the New Zealand art market will have some increased compliance and administration costs relating to the scheme, overseas evidence shows there are no overall negative impacts.

While this bill provides the key framework for an artist resale royalty scheme, supporting regulations are needed to bring the bill into operation. Regulations will set out further detail on how the scheme will operate, including how royalties will be collected and distributed. I intend to release a regulations discussion document for public consultation in April this year, at the same time as the bill is being considered by the select committee. This discussion document will give the public an opportunity to provide feedback on the draft proposals for regulations, and see how the regulations will work alongside the bill.

An artist resale royalty scheme in New Zealand really is long overdue, and I believe will be warmly welcomed by communities around the country. The Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill strikes an important balance between recognising the contribution that artists make to our society and allowing a valuable secondary art market to flourish. Alongside the Government’s broader investment in the sector, this bill will also contribute towards a more resilient and sustainable New Zealand arts and culture sector.

I urge all parties to support the first reading of this bill and its referral to the Social Services and Community Committee for the hearing of submissions and further consideration. I commend the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill to the House.

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

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I thank the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage for outlining the bill, its history, and, obviously, where she expects it to go. The National Party is supporting this bill but with many questions, and with reluctance, and I’ll touch on why. We are, first and foremost, very supportive of our creative and artistic community, and I’m actually looking forward to releasing National’s arts policy in the coming weeks and months to demonstrate why. But we do have reservations, if you will, philosophically with this bill. In fact, shades of it, dynamics of it, have been before the Parliament before, and it’s something which National then, as now, has real hesitations around.

But—and the big but, particularly for those who are wondering why we are supporting this—fundamentally, this is something that the House has to do. We have to do it as part of a free-trade agreement between the United Kingdom and New Zealand, and it will soon be also part of the free-trade agreement with the European Union. So it’s not really a matter of whether we can, should, or might. We are bound by that free-trade agreement to make this happen. That does raise some minor—well, actually not minor. It does raise some constitutional questions to the extent that the work done by officials to create a trade treaty in many ways binds the Parliament to be passing other legislation. We can leave that to the academics to work through, but it’s something I do want to note to the House—that traditionally with a free-trade agreement, we would pass a domestic piece of legislation to bring it into effect. In this case, we’re not only bringing domestic legislation to bring that treaty, the trade treaty, into effect but we are being asked, forced, bound to bring about this artist resale law as well. And that is of a concern to this side of the House. How we better approach that could perhaps be a discussion for the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee or the Business Committee in times to come, but we just want to signal disquiet in that regard.

It won’t surprise anybody—you’ll probably hear it from different speakers on this side of the House—that, as I say, there’s been a variety of views around this, and, particularly, not leaping with great joy at the piece of legislation. But as I keep repeating, it’s ultimately something we have to bring about. I suppose the fundamental issue here is: why is it that a royalty is paid on artwork or in this case visual artwork when it’s not paid on, for example, shares that you buy? If I bought shares off an honourable member from the Labour side and I sell them a week later for more profit, why am I not giving a royalty back to the person who sold them to me? When I have now what is a classic car, should I be paying a royalty back to the original designers? I think there are arguments of why we can make a difference in this space. I don’t think it’s without argument, but I think it fundamentally has to be well articulated. What is it about visual artworks that requires a royalty when that artist has chosen, I assume, to sell their artwork on to someone else?

It then moves on to the practical considerations of how this is going to operate. There’s a few aspects to touch on here. One is that it is very focused on the professional art market, our auction houses, and art dealers. I’ve spoken to many. They’re not particularly thrilled about this. Of course they’ll comply—they are good honourable New Zealanders—but this is a layer of bureaucracy that is required. It’s an extra set of process, and as some have pointed out to me, it’s effectively a tax that is going to be applied. Well, in some ways it’s a tax—an extra cost that’s going to be applied to the art market.

As the Minister has pointed out, it is only directed to the professional art market. I will acknowledge that the bill says people can voluntarily choose to pay this, and kudos to them if they wish to. But you’re going to have this funny potential dynamic that people will choose to actually do their sales now through the likes of Trade Me or whatever rather than actually through auction houses or art houses. Yes, I’ve read the regulatory impact statement and so forth, but I wonder—and it’s only a question at this point, and it’s why we need a good select committee process—whether the Ministry for Culture and Heritage has underestimated what might be a transfer out of the arts’ professional sector into others.

There’s then going to be debate, of course, around just what benefit there is. I think, if I’ve read the documents correctly, we’re not even talking a million dollars a year of royalties. Now, look, don’t get me wrong, if you want to give me $700,000, that’s fantastic. But when you think of the number of artists in New Zealand and what amounts to about—well, not even, as I say, a million dollars in total of royalties a year. We’re not talking a massive amount of money. But I will stress—I know it through various reasons—our artists do a wonderful job in this country, but they are certainly not well paid. So any amount of money will be welcome. But when you look at setting up a scheme, it’s not simply about the benefits—$700,000 or so a year—but it’s also the costs, and let’s be very, very clear: this side of the House sees enormous amounts of costs as you set up a bureaucracy to note the worker, who is the owner of that, particularly if they are deceased. Let’s not even get into the copyright issues—this is for 50 or 70 years. Where’s that person now, how much is that royalty going to be, how much has been paid, who paid for it, how is it going to be transferred, and so on; let alone, of course, then moving into the tax implications. There’s a lot of complexity here, and, again, I know that the Government know this. This is not a surprise. It’s just that that’s a cost. I’m thinking the Minister could be a little bit optimistic to say that there be no cost to the Crown. If that does become the case, then someone is wearing the cost, and, at this moment, I fear it’s our art dealers.

We’ve also got the wider issues of whether this is going to function well and prudently. We will be very interested to see what the regulations say. I know the legislation as currently drafted says the minimum threshold for triggering whether or not you pay a royalty is going to be somewhere between $500 and $5,000. Importantly for the viewers at home, that’s not the bottom and the end range. It just says that somewhere between NZ$500 and NZ$5,000 becomes the trigger point. So for an artist—which I am not; you’d be incredibly generous if you paid $20 for anything I did—that will not trigger this. But where that figure is set—between $500 and $5,000—will be important.

That ultimately brings me to my last couple of points, which is around the select committee process and the Minister’s indication in her speech that she’s going to be putting out regulatory proposals. I think it’s really important that we as a select committee, or those on the select committee, get to see those regulations, as to people submitting. There’s already a little bit of a red light in my head that there is ultimately a sped-up select committee process. I understand we’re going to have to report this bill back by July this year. The select committee will be looking at the bill, as will the general public who have been asked to submit, and the public in particular will not have had time to digest the regulatory proposals and make that part of their submissions to the select committee.

So I would hope the Minister will see that there’s some alignment and that the chair of the relevant select committee will take that into consideration, because on this side of the House it’s really important, particularly when we have the sort of enabling primary legislation which enables an enormous amount of regulation to be created, to go, “What is that? What are these regulations going to be?” I do not like “blank cheque-ism”, where a piece of legislation gives enormous power to any ministry to simply make regulations without sufficient review. So I think that’s going to be really, really important.

The final point, and acknowledging why I suspect we are talking July 2023: we have two years from the signing of this free-trade agreement with the United Kingdom to implement this scheme, and, if memory serves me correctly, it was February 2022 that we signed the agreement. So, in other words, we’ve got until about February 2024 to get this into play. So I do understand the speed, but I really want to underline and emphasise that this needs to be done well and properly. We do have a number of countries—Australia, the UK, of course, and pretty much, in fact all, the European Union countries—that have this scheme in place, so we can learn from them. But the initial hesitation from the National Party remains, which is that ultimately we are not, as a Parliament, able to have a completely free conversation on whether this is meritorious or not. The free-trade agreement has bound our hands to put this into play, and, again, I think that’s something that the House needs to look at as a much wider discussion into the future. But with that, I’m happy to support it at this stage, the first reading, and to send it to select committee, and, if it passes, for the public, particularly those in the artistic sector to write in and let us know what they think.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, I’m delighted to stand and take a call on the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill. I just want to acknowledge the Minister for bringing this bill before the House. I think it’s a real recognition to our artists and the way that they earn income, so I want to acknowledge you, Minister. I’m looking forward, as the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee, to working diligently—

Terisa Ngobi: Great chair.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: —thank you—across the House to get this piece of legislation into a good form and order.

I want to acknowledge Simon O’Connor’s comments. I think they were thoughtful. I thought they were useful. I certainly don’t have the view that our hands have been tied. New Zealand entered into these free-trade agreements with our eyes wide open, knowing what the consequences would be, and I think this is a good consequence for our country. The rest of the world does it, and I think that that is a good thing.

The bill does a lot of things, and I just wanted to make it really clear and to read off a list of what artwork is covered, because there are a few sets of definitions in this bill which are really useful to tie back to the legislation. It establishes a 5 percent royalty and it establishes a scheme to do that and an agency, which is a non-governmental organisation, to collect this royalty. It enables some things, like what happens if you’re an artist and you have collaborated with other artists. It also talks about what happens if you die intestate and what happens to your estate and how for how long the lasts for.

So final comments from me: the bill defines what artwork is. So that is limited copies or numbered editions and original visual artworks. This includes paintings; drawings; carvings; engravings; etchings; lithographs; woodcuts; prints, including books of prints; photographs; sculptures; collages; models; crafts; ceramics; glassware; jewellery; textiles; weaving; metal ware; furniture; and, finally, computer-generated or electronically generated devices. As it also suggests, it supports the artworks and cultural expression of Māori and Pacific peoples. I commend it to the House.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to contribute to the debate. As my colleague Simon O’Connor has said, on this side of the House we will be supporting this bill to select committee, with some concerns that officials who actually signed the free-trade agreement—which we support—have bound this Parliament’s hands in having to introduce a piece of legislation that is rather unusual.

I know that my colleague across the House—Angie Warren-Clark—said if the rest of the world have done it, it must be a good idea. I would not think that she would agree with everything that the rest of the world actually does.

But, you know, in this particular sense, this is the same bill that was introduced back in 2008. When this was introduced last night during the urgency motion, I decided to have a look at the Hansard debate notes that happened in 2008, and I read the speech of the Hon Christopher Finlayson. Some of the comments that he raised—some of the concerns that he raised—do sound really pertinent in our examination of this bill, and that is because this is actually about property rights.

This is about the property of an artist who paints the art, who actually sells it to someone through an art gallery or a museum, and once it’s resold, there is going to be a 5 percent tax on it. But if it happens to be sold privately, that doesn’t occur. So the tax doesn’t actually get attached if it was a private sale. There’s also a threshold between $500 and $5,000, which will be set in regulation. [Interruption] Madam Speaker, I’m trying to speak and I don’t think I said anything that was controversial, and there is massive—

Angie Warren-Clark: It’s not a tax. That’s why.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Go ahead, Melissa Lee. If we could just let the member give her speech.

MELISSA LEE: Thank you very much. Well, there is a fee that is being charged that is, effectively, a tax, really. People who are purchasing the art potentially have to pay the art gallery’s commission and the 5 percent on top of that.

I quote one of the things that Christopher Finlayson said, which also gives rise to some questions that I hope the select committee will actually examine: “This legislation will encourage an exodus of art transactions to jurisdictions where the royalty is not paid. Art resales will become private and underground, in order to avoid resale imposition.” I think that is a really pertinent comment that he made during the 2008 debate, and I hope the select committee will ask the officials to provide certain evidence.

The other thing he also has mentioned in his Hansard is: “The scheme has been condemned by the people it is designed to benefit. Seventy percent of the 50 million francs levied under the French scheme in 1996 went to the families of only seven artists, including the heirs of Picasso and Matisse. The same situation has occurred in both Germany and Australia. The scheme will be very costly to administer.”

I wonder, Minister—I guess this is something that we may actually traverse through select committee and also through the committee of the whole House stage—if this threshold is set at $500, for example, it is a very low threshold and it may potentially be that the cost of administering the scheme may be higher than the 5 percent levy or the resale right for visual artists that will be returned to the artist or the artist’s family, for example.

One of the things when we look at the bill: it actually talks about visual arts. I think the definition of “visual arts” needs to be quite tight in the sense that, according to the departmental disclosure statement, I note that the visual art includes a range of artwork sold in New Zealand and they include specific reference to the—and I quote—“cultural expression of Māori and Pacific peoples as well as to the ethnic and cultural varieties of the listed artwork.”

Does that actually mean that if a tattoo is created—which is cultural and has mana—and that design is sold and somebody else has it, it will incur the levy as well? So if somebody designs a tattoo and they resell it and more than one person has that design, how does the levy actually work or the tax actually work? Does that mean that every tattoo that the tattoo artist actually works on gets the 5 percent on that resale of that artwork? [Interruption] Well, these are questions that we have to actually ask. The obligation of the Government is to make good law, and I think when you come to art, we enjoy art. And I know that somebody walking past my office actually made a comment about this beautiful painting of Mount Cook which was painted in Korean colours, and that was actually done by an amateur artist.

Sometimes I go to school fairs and I collect school student art and I pay no more than whatever—I think student art often goes for a maximum, I think, of $300. So those actually don’t hit the threshold. I don’t ever resell those; I bought them because I love them. But the thing is that should I ever resell those—if I actually sell it for more than the $500 threshold; potentially it could be the $500 threshold—does it mean that for a piece of art that I bought 30 years ago, I have to go and start chasing, trying to remember which market I bought it from? These are some of the questions that will have to be asked during select committee, I think.

I do realise that this is a piece of legislation that we do need to pass because of the free-trade agreement with the UK and the EU. But I think there are major concerns that this side of the House actually does have. I think these are questions that need to be put to a select committee and the officials, and we look forward to the submission process where the public, the artists, and the industry involved can query, answer, or raise their concerns about this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. It’s always a privilege to stand and make a contribution, and this time it’s on the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill. I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Carmel Sepuloni for bringing this matter to the House, but I want to take it back—this bill. In 2008, the Hon Judith Tizard introduced a similar scheme; that’s 15 years that these artists have missed out on royalties, and a royalty is not a tax. The money belongs to the artists, and the Minister has referred to the fact that a non-Government, non-profit organisation would be authorised to manage and gather it with a small fee. So none of that is tax; it’ll go back to the artist. And 80 countries around the world, including the UK, the EU nations, and Australia already have this in place.

I want to acknowledge that this is part of this hard-working Government. This is part of our free-trade agreement with the United Kingdom to have this in place by 2024. So I really want to acknowledge what has been said and what the intention of this bill is: the artist resale royalty right entitles visual artists to a share of the proceeds of their work. And, on that note, I commend this bill, the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill, to the House. Mālō.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I’m delighted to rise on behalf of the Green Party in support of the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill. It establishes the artist resale royalty scheme, where visual artists will get a 5 percent royalty when their work is sold on the secondary art market here and overseas.

It is tough work living as an artist in Aotearoa, so this is really, really important progress for our visual artists that they will finally get the royalties that their colleagues who are musicians and writers already have and have had for a long time. It contributes to a more equitable art sector and brings us into international standard practice.

Now, we note this legislation is a requirement of the Aotearoa free-trade agreement with the UK and the EU. We did not support that trade agreement. However, we did support a similar change that was initiated by Labour, looking at that amendment to the copyright law back in 2008. Since that bill did not progress past that select committee referral with the change of Government, we thank Minister Sepuloni and her officials who have done so much work to get this bill to us today.

The Greens’ arts, culture, and heritage policy supports the protection of artists’ rights and the recognition of their intellectual property. It also states that we need to, and I quote, “support and promote the right of Māori to protect both traditional and contemporary Māori art and art forms via customary rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.

So we note the stated intention in the regulatory impact statement that this scheme design will have flexibility to account for changes arising from the response to the Wai 262 for toi Māori, which includes the ability to recognise collective ownership of works and keep the definition of “visual artwork” broad, so it can be responsive to any developments. We very much support that.

It also notes that the engagement with Māori in the development of this bill was less widespread than had been hoped for. So we acknowledge that Toi Māori Aotearoa and Toi Iho charitable trusts were part of that consultation. They are formidable and very highly respected and representative bodies. So we encourage any Māori, Pasifika, any artists who have come from any nation or around the country to make their home here, artists who are takatāpui, rainbow, disabled, or from any other marginalised communities to make sure that you submit on this bill, come to the select committee, be heard, and make sure that we’re listening to what you have to say, what the art sectors might have to say.

I note that the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage reported last November that the secondary art market had more than doubled for the 2021-22 year, and that’s because the secondary art market generally outperforms other markets in times of economic uncertainty, which COVID brought us. So where auction house sales account for like 80 percent of all the sales, they did very, very well out of that, but the artists made nothing with that huge growth. So I’m very excited that this artist resale royalty scheme means that those dealer galleries, those independent agents, those brokers, those public institutions in Aotearoa, and any of those other countries will be able to make use of this or are required to do this.

I think people would be surprised about how many people who buy art privately will definitely do this, because when you invest in art, when you love art, you’re actually doing it because you respect the artist—or that’s where I come from. In fact, my father was an artist and a master carver. I grew up in a whānau of artists, so I know what this bill means, not just for our flashest artists who sell works for thousands and thousands of dollars, who will probably benefit the most from this but for those still starting out and just getting by—and a shout-out, you know, to someone like my niece Savannah, who’s just trying to get a fledgling art business going; people who do their art while they have full-time jobs, because, actually, our art is our cultural expression. It’s our wairua. It’s our mauri. It’s our rongoā.

So I think that this bill enhances the mana of our artists, our visual artists, and it makes life a little bit better. I will shout out then to the painters; the drawers; the engravers; the lithographers; the board cutters; the printers; the photographers; the sculptors; the collage and model makers; the crafters; the weavers; the creators of ceramics, glass, jewellery, textiles, metal ware, and furniture; and those whose visual arts are created using electronic means. For all of them, I commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill, very hesitantly and only for the first reading.

For people following along at home and at Ryman and other villages up and down New Zealand who watch Parliament TV, what is this bill about? Well, this bill says that if somebody creates a piece of visual art—and it could be a number of prints, it could be a painting, it could be a carving—then for 50 years after it is created, if one person sells it to another, then 5 percent of the resale value, excluding GST, incidentally, and excluding any buyer’s premium, must be sent back to the artist or their estate. On the face of it, when you think about poor starving artists, and particularly those artists who may not have their brilliance discovered in their natural life, or at least not at the time they produce their works, it seems like a reasonable thing to do.

The problem is that we have far too much bureaucracy and far too many laws and requirements that people are required to spend far too much time complying with in this country and not enough time actually producing valuable stuff. This law is a perfect example of that, because we had a Government that only two or three weeks ago said it was going to return us to bread and butter issues, and now it is trying to make sure that people get royalties after the fact on paintings. And the question you might ask is—

Hon Members: Bread and butter for artists.

DAVID SEYMOUR: And the Labour Party say this is bread and butter for artists. I mean, this is how desperate and deranged the Labour Party has become. They’re now seriously trying to say that this bill is being done to help starving artists with their bread and butter. Give us a break—give us a break.

Let’s get to the purpose of this legislation.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That’d be great. Let’s come back to the bill.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you, Madam—well, actually, with the greatest of respect, Madam Speaker, I’ve been discussing the bill the whole time. I’ve returned to discuss some heckling by the opponents. It’s unfair of you to characterise me as not speaking about the bill.

The reason for this bill can actually be found in the regulatory impact statement, and what it says is: “What is the context behind the policy problem and how is the status quo expected to develop?”, “Diagnosing the policy problem”. And it’s very simple. It says, “The UK FTA commits New Zealand to introducing a reciprocal ARR scheme.” So this doesn’t make sense. It’s not a bread and butter issue, as the Labour Party just tried to describe. It is being done, according to the bill notes that the Government produced and the regulatory impact analysis that the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage has produced—it’s quite a thick piece of paper, a lot of paperwork, a lot of bureaucracy in producing all of this. It’s been done because our Government signed up to a free-trade agreement (FTA) and agreed with the European Union that they would do this, and now they’ve come to Parliament and said, “Can you please do it? Because we made this commitment.”

That’s why ACT is reluctantly supporting this bill, because we’re free-traders and we appreciate that we have to keep promises that the Crown has made on New Zealanders’ behalf overseas to maintain the credibility of our whole country. So that’s why we’re doing it for them. But I just ask a simple question. You know, if the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, and Korea—that’s a substantial portion of the entire world economy—do not have such a scheme as this, was it really necessary that New Zealand signed up to one when negotiating to try and sell a bit more butter and beef to the French?

To give you an idea of why they insisted on it, this goes back to the late 19th century. That is the late 1800s when a resale right, or, as they say, charmingly, droit de suite—which is French for right to follow—was introduced. So this is a nearly 200-year-old French law. That’s why we’re doing it. It doesn’t stack up. It doesn’t make any sense. It is not what the French would call du pain et du beurre— the bread and butter. It is something that they are being forced to do because they signed up to a free-trade agreement without looking at the details. So now New Zealanders will face additional bureaucracy for almost no benefit, and I say “almost” because here’s a few predictions. You see, if you put a 5 percent tax on something, and that’s what this, effectively, is—

Angie Warren-Clark: What tax?

DAVID SEYMOUR: —a 5 percent tax on selling an artwork, which then must be transferred to a particular beneficiary—well, when the Government puts a tax on something, and the Labour member says, “What tax? What tax?”, let’s have an economics lesson. You know, when the Government forces a person to pay as a condition of doing something, that is a tax—that is a tax. This Parliament’s been asked to make a law saying if you want to sell between a professional art dealer and another professional art dealer, then 5 percent extra must be paid for a specific purpose. That is a tax, and when this Parliament puts a tax on something, one of the things that happens is people end up paying or being prepared to pay less for it. So one of the things that’s going to happen is that when someone buys an artwork from an artist in the first place, they know that they’re going to get less revenue when they sell it because of this new tax.

So one of the things that’s going to happen, ceteris paribus—that’s Latin for the Labour members that actually got rid of Latin from the curriculum—other things being equal, is that, actually, artists will be worse off when they sell their art the first time because there is now a 5 percent tax on every resale. So when you look at “Are they going to be better off overall?”, well, actually, not so much.

Here’s the other issue. This tax only applies if a professional art dealer is involved in the sale. So it’s going to create the incentive to actually do sales off book, because if you’re buying a $1,000,000 painting, if you avoid this, that’s $50 grand. Are people going to find ways around that? Of course they are, and that’s another layer of bureaucracy involved in avoidance behaviour.

And you know what I find interesting? It’s that we’re at a time in our history when this country faces many challenges, but in order to raise rational debate and rational objections on basic economic grounds, do the Labour Party listen and say, “Oh, well, that’s an interesting point.”? No, you could hear them before. They’re quieter now because they’ve run out of things to say. But you could hear them before rabbiting on, raving, and that’s why we don’t have decent discussion in New Zealand. That’s why we’re losing our ability to problem solve. So we actually need to ask ourselves, is this the right law for New Zealand? And is it needed in light of the free-trade agreement with the European Union? That is why ACT is supporting this law to the select committee.

But the question we’d like an answer to is: what happens if we don’t pass this law in respect of our free-trade agreement? Because we already know it’s a bad policy. It’s just going to distort the market and lead to avoidance behaviour and additional compliance and bureaucracy, more people employed in Wellington. I’m sure the Ministry for Culture and Heritage think it’s fantastic. They’ll need a new office to administer it. However, we’re going to find that we have a more bureaucratic country with less benefits than people think, and, as a result of that, we’re going to have to ask ourselves a question of the select committee: is this actually necessary in order to comply with the conditions that we have signed up to in the European Union FTA?

I think it’s up to Parliament not just to go along with whatever it is that the executive signs up to, but actually scrutinise commitments that the Crown has made and send a clear message to the Crown that if you go and sign up to international agreements with other bodies outside New Zealand, then you’re putting New Zealand’s credibility on the line and you better have got it right. And if you absolutely can’t wriggle out of this, then, unfortunately, Parliament is going to have to put a whole lot more 200-year-old French bureaucracy on to New Zealanders. However, if there’s a way out of this where New Zealand can avoid this bureaucracy, where New Zealand can actually carry on as a free and open society, just by that little bit of difference of this one law, then I think we should be asking how we can do it.

So the ACT Party will support the law to go to select committee. We look forward to hearing from people. No doubt there’ll be people from the artistic community. We should listen to them. There’ll be people in the art-dealing world. We should listen to them. There’ll be people from foreign affairs and trade, and we should listen to them. But what is important is that New Zealand does not accept additional bureaucracy for no benefit when it’s not even required by our international obligations. And if that is the case, we will be opposing later stages of this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. It’s always a pleasure to listen to an economics lesson from the member opposite, and particularly wonderful to hear about the freedom from bureaucracy—ah, yes, the freedom to starve in a garret if you’re an artist. So there are a couple of ways that this butters the bread. It butters the bread of those artists who currently, on the whole, earn well under the minimum wage.

I remember speaking to a very famous young New Zealand artist, whose works now sell for tens of thousands of dollars in the Whangārei Art Museum—an excellent place to go, members, should you be in Whangārei—and this person said to me that she had sold art in the past. She had got all the way somewhere and her car had broken down. She had so little money, she had to hock off her artwork. She got just enough to get her car back on the road—I think it was $350. That work is now selling for thousands upon thousands, and she doesn’t see a cent of it.

I think also that Mr Seymour might like to consider—I think the quote was “to sell a little bit of butter and beef”. It may also be slightly relevant to the bread and butter of the farmers producing said bread and butter. But never mind, let’s leave that one to the side.

This is a relevant piece of legislation to help our artists survive. At the moment, and this goes to Melissa Lee’s earlier comment about tattooing, if you have copyright and if you have a work of art that can be replicated easily—so a book, a song, a tattoo design—you get copyright on that. If, however, your skill lies in producing original pieces of art—one painting, one carving, one piece of weaving, a limited edition of prints—you sell that once and you sell it once only, and you miss out on the increasing value of your work.

Art adds immeasurably to the value of our society. It was, I think, a reasonably good politician—and even Mr Seymour may agree—Sir Winston Churchill, who was told by his leaders and economists in his war effort, “We need to cut the arts funding because we want to fund more tanks.”, and he said, “Sure, but what are we fighting for?”

This piece of legislation enables our artists to keep body and soul and head above water, and, yeah, to earn their bread and butter. I commend it.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill at its first reading.

Isn’t intellectual property interesting? I am not particularly expert in the area, but I do always find it fascinating to grapple with these concepts of who owns intellectual property to—

Angie Warren-Clark: Speak some French to us.

CHRIS PENK: Pardon me?

Angie Warren-Clark: Speak some French to us.

CHRIS PENK: Speak some French to us—maybe later. No, I don’t trust my high school French or my high school Latin, actually, for that matter, sufficiently to do that, so you’ll have to do with my bad high school English instead.

So, with this bill, we’ve heard from others that there are a couple of reasons, I think, in summary, that we might agree on this side of the House to support the bill at its first reading. The first and most obvious is because there’s piece of international law that says that we should, a bilateral agreement admittedly as between New Zealand and the EU—I suppose at that multilateral level there are more parties involved. But, roughly speaking, we’ve signed up with the EU as a country to various different terms and conditions, to use the language of the private contract, and this is one of them.

So with the executive having signed up the country to do that, the Parliament is being asked to ratify that, essentially, so we’re obliged in good faith to consider that as a Parliament. National’s said that as an exercise in respecting that treaty-making process and good international relations, we will do just that. So we support it at least to the first reading. And, of course, the other reason that we have said we’ll agree to support at first reading is because, at the select committee stage, we’ll have the opportunity to hear from those in the sector, but also those more widely, I think, who will have a view on this.

It’s pretty novel within New Zealand to have a resale right, such that the royalties will accrue to the originator of the work, the original owner of the work, the original creator of the work, so it’ll be interesting, actually, to hear the views of those who are most directly affected. I suspect that we will hear overwhelmingly from people who are in the business of making art of various types that they are in favour of this. But I also wonder if some unintended consequences will be aired. I think it’s a reasonable question to ask as to whether this might have a chilling effect on sales in the sense that the thing that a person purchases isn’t an unencumbered title to that property in the sense that there are no further obligations to a third party, of course. In selling from person B to person C, person B will, of course, have an obligation back to person A to give them some percentage of that. So that’s, I think, a reasonable question to ask. And certainly for those on the select committee, I’m sure they’ll be interested in hearing those views, and I look forward to any of those discussions that I’m fortunate enough to take part in. So that’s a couple of reasons that we might, and, in fact, do, support it at this, the first, reading.

Then I suppose, for the sake of completeness, within the rest of this short contribution that I’ll be making, it’s worth considering if there are any factors—that we shouldn’t support the passage of the bill further. Without prejudging that decision, there’s an obvious point around consistency. So why should it be that art or visual art is covered by such a regime but not other goods? We can go back to the first point, which is, of course, narrowly speaking, this is what’s in the free-trade agreement. But if it’s a good idea for this particular sector, might it be a good idea for others? I probably would tend to suggest that that won’t be a conclusion we reach, but it’s, again, I think, a fair question at such an early stage of New Zealand’s consideration of these kinds of matters.

And, finally, the question of red tape—the practicality, the practicability, the enforceability of such a regime will be really interesting. I don’t know if we’re going to inadvertently create a black market for art or—I mean, if such a thing doesn’t really exist; I suppose it might. I wouldn’t know, but that’s the point about a black market, isn’t it? You just don’t know.

Anyway, these are all fair considerations, I think, both for and against, and we look forward to that discussion at the select committee. In the meantime, as I say and as others have said on this side of the House, we support the bill at this, its first, reading.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Mālō e lelei, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a brief call in support of this bill, which, in essence, actually provides an entitlement for visual artists to be part of a share of proceeds in situations where there’s a resale of their original works. There are two things that I want to say about that. The first is that this is an approach that is common around the globe—that’s the first thing. The second is that I think most reasonable New Zealanders would think that it is fair and reasonable to be able to do that.

It also establishes a specific scheme that will ensure that that royalty payment that would sit at 5 percent to the artist in situations where the definition covers the particular sale and the visual artist themselves.

The bill itself also at first reading establishes a collection agency that does two things: (1) it’s a non-governmental agency, and, (2) it’s one that is not for profit. So it aligns itself in a similar vein in terms of what this bill is seeking to achieve: fairness, and what would be considered as something that is reasonable. The bill as it’s currently drafted would authorise that collections agency to manage the scheme in itself but also would allow for enforcement opportunities around that.

So this is something that is common around the world. It is something that is fair and reasonable. I’m sure that the Social Services and Community Committee will be focused on listening to the community, as it always does, and will engage with this bill in a positive fashion. I commend this bill to the House.

TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki): Mālō e lelei, Madam Speaker. It’s with great pleasure I rise to take a quick call on the first reading of this, the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill; a bill that is long overdue. I am proud to be part of this Labour Government that truly values the talent and hard work of artists and Aotearoa New Zealand; to be part of a Government who ensures fairness—and, essentially, that is what this bill is.

We know currently that those who buy and sell visual arts on the secondary market make money. But we also know that the artists of those artworks—the original artworks—they don’t see any money, any profit from those sales, and that is not fair. This bill will establish an artist resale royalty scheme in Aotearoa New Zealand, and it will provide eligible visual artists with a resale right to benefit from their work. This differs from the current copyright resale right, as it’s unable to be waivered or transferred away from the artist while they are living. There’s a 5 percent royalty payment—as we’ve heard—that will be collected each time a visual artist’s eligible work is resold, which is great for the artist.

Engagement was sought with a range of experts in this sector and people in this sector, and the strong feedback was that there was support for an artist resale royalty scheme—but, actually, many said, again, this is long overdue. We know and we’ve heard that over 80 countries around the world already have this in place: some of them have a longstanding artist resale or some kind of artist resale royalty scheme. And so this is about making sure that Aotearoa New Zealand also offers that to our talented and fantastic artists. I want to also add my voice and say mālō ‘aupito to the Minister—the Hon Carmel Sepuloni—and her team for bringing this through to the House, and I commend this bill to the House.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to be standing and speaking in support of the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill, and, in doing so, I want to acknowledge the many very talented New Zealand artists that we have, and I’d particularly like to acknowledge our student artists who I have had some dealings with over a number of years, and it’s always a real pleasure to be involved with student art. As many of the speakers have canvassed, this is part of a free-trade agreement. So, in fact, we are not debating whether or not, but rather how to implement this piece of legislation. But notwithstanding that, I do think there are issues that need to be canvassed, and I think it’s important for the artists; they deserve that we canvass it fully and make sure that we understand exactly what we are doing.

So I suppose the first area that I’m trying to get my head around, and I think it will be useful to hear submissions from artists, is around the definition of “visual artwork”. So, you know, is photography included? Is carving, would korowai be included, is mixed media included? Would animation be part of it? So I think there’s some definition aspects where we need to listen to the artists because that is always evolving with particularly digital art, evolving so quickly.

The other one is around the entities and the resale. Here it says the resale must involve an art market professional, or be to or from a publicly funded art gallery or museum. And I think of a number of other publicly funded entities that have quite substantial collections, and if you look at the education sector, often universities and polytechnics have an art procurement policy and so they will have quite substantial collections. Often those pieces of artwork will have been purchased when a student is a very new artist, and so they may have been purchased at a very low price. So how would that be dealt with if there is quite a substantial change in appreciation of that artwork?

Also, there’s a number of artists in residence schemes that operate across the country. Often those artists in residence will donate a piece of their artwork to a public entity. How would that be dealt with? Would the first sale of that be the first sale because it was donated initially, or would it be the subsequent sale? So I think there are genuine details that do need to be ironed out in the select committee process.

The cost of administering the collection of the commission is a worry. I’ve looked at the estimate, that it may be around $700,000, and my concern is that that could very quickly get eaten up by a hungry collection agency, particularly if they are having to sift back and find relatives—50 years later—of an artist. So I would hate us to be in a position where we approve a piece of legislation that is giving rights to visual artists, and yet the amount that finally gets to them ends up being a very, very small amount. So I’ll again be interested to hear what artists and those in the art industry say about that. Also, I’m somewhat perplexed around the notion that if the income is not taken up by the artist, then that will be redistributed through a cultural fund for the benefit of the artistic community. That’s an incredibly broad statement, so I think we’d be wanting to see some teasing out of just exactly what that means.

I am incredibly supportive of our artists and, as I said, particularly our student artists in their very early days. I just want us to make sure that as we work through this, we do it in a way that is respectful, not just congratulating ourselves that we’ve got a piece of work here when, in actual fact, some of the detail may mean that the money actually getting to those visual artists doesn’t occur. So I just think we need to take a deep breath and not be critical of the fact that we are wanting to look at the detail, we are wanting to hear from the submitters, we are wanting to get some definitions right so that we’re not just virtue signalling, we’re not just congratulating ourselves for having passed a piece of legislation but, by all accounts, we may be behind some of our other countries that we might normally compare ourselves with. I understand that Australia may have had this for about a decade, so there must be learnings that we can pick up from other jurisdictions that have these schemes in place, to make sure that we get the detail right, that the money is collected in a way that it’s not all eaten up by the administration, or the implementation of the collection, and that those artists who need this funding and deserve this funding do actually get the funding.

So with that, I’m happy to support the bill to select committee stage. Thank you.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand in support of this bill. In Invercargill, outside my office, on the other side of the road, is He Waka Tuia gallery. It’s an amazing gallery, and I often pop in there on a Friday night when they’ve got exhibitions opening, and there’s always some amazing art on display. But the problem we’ve got at the moment in New Zealand is that after that initial sale by an artist, they get very, very little recognition financially when their work is on-sold in a secondary market. And that means that sometimes we’ve got situations where you’ve got artists struggling on really low incomes while others are financially making a profit from the on-selling of their work.

So what this bill does is make sure that visual artists are financially recognised when their work is on-sold in the secondary market in particular circumstances; so if it’s being sold by art market professionals—that’s professional auctioneers or art dealers—or if it’s been bought or sold in publicly funded galleries and museums. And, in such cases, what we’re saying is that we think a 5 percent royalty on the resale price is returned to the artist, or, following their death, whoever they’ve indicated they want to receive that in their will.

And I’d just like to point out to speakers such as David Seymour that this is actually not a tax that’s going to be returned to the Government; it’s actually a royalty that’s going to be returned to the artist who produced the work. And also, the other thing is that the resale royalty is voluntary for those that are privately selling the artwork between two individuals. And so it’s really important to make sure that what we’re seeing is that the financial benefits from the work would get returned to the artist. So it’s a really, really important bill, and I’m very happy to commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is, That the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill be considered by the Social Services and Community Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.

Instruction to Social Services and Community Committee

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage): I move, That the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2023.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I present a legislative statement on the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill.

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

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I move, That the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 24 May 2023 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill will remove the discriminatory policy which has withheld child support from some of our most vulnerable sole parents. Through this legislation, this Government is delivering on its commitment to put dignity back in the welfare system and to make it fairer. Currently, child support payments that sole parent beneficiaries are entitled to are retained by the Government rather than being passed on to support their children. However, this is not the case for other beneficiaries, such as those on a couple rated benefit or those only receiving supplementary assistance, who have their child support passed on. The bill fixes this inequity by passing on child support administered by Inland Revenue directly to sole parent beneficiaries, as is currently done for other parents receiving child support and benefits. This child support will then be treated as income by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) for benefits and other assistance.

This bill will put more money in the pockets of sole parent families. Passing on sole child support will mean that from 1 July 2023, approximately 41,550 sole parent families will have more money in their pockets. These families will gain overall by an average of $47 per week, with a median gain of $20 per week. The lift in income this will provide for these families also contributes to our Government’s ongoing focus on reducing the number of children living in poverty in New Zealand. It is estimated that this will reduce the number of children in poverty by up to 14,000 in 2023-24.

As well as increasing a family’s financial resources, research suggests that passing on child support will increase the incentive for liable parents to meet their child support obligations. This is likely because liable parents are more willing to pay child support when they know that their child will receive that financial support. There is also evidence that if child support is passed on, it increases engagement by the parent paying child support with their child.

These changes contribute to our ongoing welfare overhaul work programme and build on our earlier work, including the 2019 change which removed the financial penalty for sole parents who did not name the other parent of their child when applying for assistance. Passing on child support was also recommended by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group in 2019.

When a parent receives child support, the normal monthly payment they receive needs to be spread equally and charged across four or five weeks against their benefits. The Ministry of Social Development will then treat this child support as income for their assistance using automated systems. Because information on child support payments will be shared with the Ministry of Social Development by Inland Revenue, parents will no longer need to self-declare their child support payments to the Ministry of Social Development, in most cases. This approach will reduce the likelihood of debt accumulation, demands on the time of these families, and increase MSD’s consistency and accuracy of income charging.

The bill also removes the requirement for sole parents on a benefit to apply for a formula assessment of child support through Inland Revenue. This means that these parents will be able to make arrangements that better suit their circumstances, such as formula assessment, voluntary, or private agreement. The bill will also allow liable parents who have a formula assessment of child support through Inland Revenue to claim this as a cost for temporary additional support and for special benefit.

This is a complex bill, and our Government is taking the time it needs to get this right. Preparation for this reform has been substantial and time-consuming, requiring changes to IT systems, operational guidance, and business processes. Work on the detailed design of this policy has brought up technical issues around how to treat child support as income while maintaining fairness and consistency.

Due to the complexity of the changes required to the welfare system to facilitate this, our Government is taking a phased approach to implementation. The first phase prioritises getting more money in the pockets of sole parents by passing on child support from 1 July 2023. A second phase of changes will focus on ensuring that the charging rules used for child support create fairer outcomes in more niche situations. Overall, this means that all sole parent beneficiaries will benefit from child support pass-on, but some will be temporarily advantaged or disadvantaged by the first phase of changes compared to how they will be impacted after the second phase of changes are made. This Government isn’t shying away from implementing child support pass-on because of the complexity, and that’s why our phased approach ensures sole parents on a benefit get additional income from July this year while we continue to work through phase two.

This is one of those complex pieces of legislation that I’ve spoken about so many times as we’ve been undertaking the welfare overhaul. This is a policy that has, basically, been in place since 1936. Other Governments have identified it as something that’s discriminatory and needs to change, but it has been viewed as too difficult to change and therefore not tackled. I’ve seen how difficult this is, but we’ve still gone ahead with pursuing that change. We do recognise that there has to be two phases to getting it done, but the primary consideration for us is making sure that we get the money in the pockets of those sole parents as soon as we possibly can, which will be 1 July 2023.

This bill is a representation of this Government’s continued focus on the things that matter most to New Zealanders. We know that sole parents do it tough, and we know that they do need more money in their pockets. By delivering on our commitment to pass on child support to sole parents, 41,550 affected sole parent families will receive the benefits of the policy as soon as possible. These changes will make a real difference for these whānau and raise up to 14,000 children out of poverty. I’m really proud that as a Government we get to tackle this discriminatory policy, and I really am hoping that we get support from across political parties to get this over the line and in place and that money in the pockets of the whānau that need it by 1 July 2023. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am pleased to take a call in this first reading of legislation that will pass on child support to those on the sole parent benefit. I have to say from the outset that we will support it in the first reading, but with some significant reservations. So I do want to speak through that in the first reading to be clear about where our support lies and where it doesn’t lie.

So the first thing is in terms of families being able to keep more of their own income—that is absolutely a philosophy that the National Party supports. In an instance of a sole parent where the child support is paid to support the children in that household, it does make sense to find a way to be able to pass that through from Inland Revenue. So I do support that measure, and that is based on the fact that if we are able to—and it would be very interesting to see when we get to the committee stages how many more liable parents will pay their child support commitments if it is passed through directly to the sole parent, and they are, more often than not, women, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes.

We absolutely recognise that sole parents—particularly in a cost of living crisis—are doing it tough, and we want to be able to look at measures that alleviate that pressure on their households. We also want to make sure—and this is the bit that we don’t support. The Minister talks about this being a complex piece of legislation. Well, the more complex it is, the more there should be public scrutiny.

This is the seventh piece of legislation by Minister Sepuloni that has had either a shortened report-back, or none at all, being done through urgency. So it is particularly concerning, and I want to put that on the record now: that the Minister is calling for a shortened report-back. It means that those in the sector—those who are affected directly by this legislation—don’t have the opportunity to assist the House in improving the legislation. So I do want to put that on the record.

I think the other thing, when we talk about child poverty—and, of course, we’ve seen the statistics come out last week—is there’s been no change in the last year, and that’s not good news for anyone. So I don’t take any pleasure in saying that that’s a measure that we’re not seeing any progress in. But what we also know is that for the children in material hardship, 60 percent of them are in benefit-dependent homes. What we continue to see Labour’s answer being is simply to increase the benefit or increase support for the beneficiary—in this case, a sole parent—as opposed to looking at how we can support more sole parents into work.

I’ve been on the record on multiple occasions recognising how incredibly difficult that transition is from personal experience, and I know other members in the House have had the same experience. It is incredibly challenging to do that, but not impossible. When we look at the statistics, five years ago, there were 60,000 people on the sole parent benefit, and 5½ years later, that has gone up 13,000 to 73,000 New Zealanders. So we have one in five of our children being raised in a benefit-dependent home.

So that is the statistic, when I’m speaking around the community and in New Zealand, that has people’s jaws drop, because if we are coming out of an economy that has been going so strongly, why is it that we still have one in five of our children being raised in a benefit-dependent home? We all know the evidence tells us the outcomes for children who are raised in benefit-dependent homes are less positive than other children. So there equally needs to be a focus on how to lift children out of households that the primary source of income is a benefit, and to reduce benefit dependency.

Unfortunately, what we are seeing is not only are there more on benefits but they are staying there for longer. What we’ve seen in the sole parent support category is that, in addition, 14,000 have been on the sole parent benefit for more than a year. So I would like to see some of the focus and policy effort on how to actually support families into work, because we do know that’s when they will have greater incomes, greater opportunities, and greater choices in life.

Of course, we have seen two of the policies that Labour have already passed—the subsequent child and the requirement not to name the father—have both had an impact in terms of lifting the number of children being raised in sole parent households. So that of course has been a step backwards, in our view.

In terms of this legislation, the other part that we do not support is the fact that the unsupported child’s benefit hasn’t been included in this first phase, as the Minister refers to it, because, again, those who are receiving the unsupported child’s benefit are some of our most challenged and vulnerable families. So I think it is somewhat frustrating that that hasn’t been included. I’m hoping in the select committee process that we can push to have that included, and I’m sure there’ll be many stakeholders and submitters who ask exactly for that as well.

The other measure that we don’t support is the change for liable parents to be able to access greater benefit support. We think it’s really important in terms of the social contract, both in terms of, if you are providing assistance from the State, that there are responsibilities that you have as well, and, in this instance, where there is a liable parent who is receiving a benefit, to then allow them access to greater benefits where they have child support obligations. To me, it feels like a backward step.

What we should instead be doing is asking: how do we support parents to provide for their children rather than loading that burden on to the taxpayers? That was exactly what happened, unfortunately, with the change that the Government made when there was no requirement for fathers to be named in terms of the sole parent benefit.

So it’s a mixed report on this bill, and that’s why we do support it with some pretty significant reservations. Yes, on the surface of it, additional money into a sole parent’s household for their children is a positive step, but we do want to see some of these other measures thrashed out in the select committee, and I accept there’ll be a further discussion on the time frames of that in a little while. I would encourage as many people as possible to submit on this legislation. Because it is technical and because it is complicated, it is more important that we get it right. We definitely don’t want legislation back in the House fixing things, which is what we’ve had to do in the past when there’s been insufficient time for scrutiny. All that does is actually have an impact on those that we are all here to serve.

So I don’t think because it’s a complex bill that’s any excuse not to get it done. It was a Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendation back in May 2019—one that, in principle, the National Party agreed with. So it is somewhat frustrating to be here years later, dealing with legislation and having it rammed through under a short time frame without sufficient scrutiny, and it not being the whole job anyway, with the unsupported child’s benefit excluded and more work to happen.

So, as I say, we support the bill. We have significant reservations and we do want to have some of these issues ironed out in the select committee. It would be nice to be in a position where it is legislation we could continue to support, but that will depend on what happens next. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I’m really stoked to be standing and speaking on this bill. This is about us fixing a longstanding inequity that exists for sole parents out there who have, for whatever the reason was—and, frankly, I think it was a philosophical argument, fundamentally, about the punishment of single parents—it has happened for many, many years. We are looking to fix this.

Look, this bill is incredibly complex, and don’t get me wrong, I want to acknowledge the Minister for that. I want to acknowledge the Minister because of the amount of work that has had to go on to bring this bill to the House, and the complexity that we will be addressing in two tranches.

I also want to acknowledge that the member the Hon Louise Upston has spoken of supporting this bill in part, and I also just want to acknowledge that we appreciate that. We are working on other things, and, of course, the Training Incentive Allowance will really help get people off benefits, and we can’t disagree that living on a benefit is not the best for our families.

But this bill is actually about helping those sole parents get the same amount of money as any other beneficiary family. That’s the bottom line, really. Any other family that is a beneficiary family is not having their child support treated in this way, and that, fundamentally, is wrong. It is an inequity that has sat for many, many years. I appreciate the member the Hon Louise Upston saying that, actually, you know, it’s sat since 2019—well, no, actually, it’s sat since 1936. They haven’t done it, we haven’t done; we’re now doing it. I commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is, indeed, quite a responsibility to take a call on this Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill, and I do so in support of the bill, in support of the Minister, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, in support of my colleague the Hon Louise Upston, both of whom are women who have been dedicated as parliamentarians in this highly specialised area and highly needed support area for our children.

As spokesperson for children for the National Party, it’s important that—and I’ve said this on many an occasion in this House speaking to child welfare legislation, and this is child support legislation—we keep a lens on those children front, centre, and foremost to ensure that they are deserved of the best welfare that not only the State and the nation can provide but their families.

So this bill is very much a technical bill; a highly complex bill. It’s often referred to in the House—and for the sake of lay people who were listening in, this is an omnibus bill. The term omnibus is derived from Latin and means “two, four, by, with or from everything”. So with this being a proposed piece of law—legislation—as an omnibus bill, it is a single document that is accepted in a single vote by a legislature, but packages together several measures into one or combines diverse subjects. So I say that because the explanatory note to this bill identifies that in being an omnibus bill it is addressing amendments to three other pieces of law—Acts—two sets of rules, and two sets of regulations. So, in total, this is a bill that—in its complexity—is addressing seven different elements of the law, all encompassed and wrapped up into one.

So that’s one element of its complexity and the technical aspect. The other element, of course, is drilling into the detail of what benefit entitlement there is to the sole parent families. So, again, in the explanatory note to this amendment bill—and for those members of the public listening in—the estimated general effect of this is that approximately 41,550 sole parent families will receive, on average, $65 per week of child support income with a median gain of $24 per week. What does that mean? In essence, this is a bill that is addressing the entitlement under a State welfare provided system to those sole parent families to now be the direct recipients and beneficiaries of a liable parent payment that is currently at the moment rerouted through IRD. This legislation will redirect and direct payments from the liable parent directly to the sole parent and the subject child. That’s the importance of the child-centricity element of this bill, this legislation.

It is highly specialised and technical. It will go before the Social Services and Community Committee for scrutiny. The concern that my colleague the Hon Louise Upston has identified is the truncated process; Minister Sepuloni has indicated that the select committee is to report back to this House by 24 May. A prior speaker—and the Minister, in fact—said that this has been a policy in place since 1936, that it is now before the House, introduced, and now at its first reading, will go before select committee, but it’s being rushed through under urgency. It is so important that we get this right. And the reason to get this right, from my point of view as the children’s spokesperson, is the impact that it will have on the children. Ultimately, the State welfare system is where the parent is unable to provide, and there is a liable parent—the State has been drawing funds from those parties towards the sole parent who is providing for the needs of the child or the children.

My mind turns to—before we had a State welfare system, the dependence and the responsibility lay at the fabric of society which is the family and the whānau. This is a substitute for those families, for those parents, for those caregivers who, for variable reasons, are dependent on the State to do that. There has been mention made that we wish to see fewer children in poverty and that this is one means of lifting or easing children out of poverty. This addresses some material hardship; not all. This is a way of working—tweaking—the system that will ensure that the liable parent payments are directed directly into the mouths of our children. But that’s going to be dependent on the response. Hopefully, the responsible parent, in prioritising and making decisions that the extra handout from the State is going to be responsibly managed by the parent to ensure that that goes directly into the mouths of our babes. That’s not always the case. So to suggest that this is going to address poverty is tinkering at the edges.

My point is that, coming from a generation where many did not depend on the State, they depended on community and the responsibility of those within our whānau to provide. And I’ve mentioned, in the House before, conversations that I’ve had with some of my elders, one of whom is the Hon Tariana Turia. And also, he has come up in conversation, he has since passed, the Hon Parekura Horomia. Coming from a generation where poverty was something that was there in terms of deprivation of material provision, but we had subsistence standard of living and providing and meeting the needs and the means of our children and our families. And what’s come out of the kōrero and the conversations from some of the old people—which I happen to be becoming one of those more quickly than I would like—is that poverty of spirit is a big factor that’s impinging on our society. So this legislation addresses the material struggles and hardships, but it does not address and lift the responsibility and elevate the importance of addressing value systems, addressing attitudes, and lifting our people out of that poverty of spirit.

I think it’s important to put that into context because as a child advocate, many of my former clients were dependent on the State and I would have conversations with them about the importance of the family support that they came from. And I know, Mr Speaker, I’ll be reminded to come back to the bill, but this does have bearing on this bill because the message is that—as a child advocate representing not only children but mothers, but fathers, but grandparents—it’s about how we as a fabric of whānau can provide the supports without being dependent on the State and wrapped up in generations of oppression of State welfarism.

In the final minute—and less—that I have, the point that is being made from my kōrero to the House today is: yes, we can have legislation that will provide for material means. We don’t have legislation that provides for the importance of values and addressing that poverty of spirit that our old people, the Hon Tariana Turia, the Hon Parekura Horomia and others of their ilk who have gone before, who will always come back and say, “Mana motuhake starts in our whānau.”

We will get into the detail of the bill. I’ve transgressed from what I was going to say, but the important thing to say is that we focus on the importance of feeding our babies. This bill is about child support and to ensure that what support comes from the State, the responsible parent ensures that it goes into the mouths of our babes.

ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora, e te Mana Whakawā. It’s always an honour to stand and make a contribution in this House, but in particular in this case. The bill, in itself—Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill—it is about the first word that is important: about the child, and followed on by support.

I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister, Carmel Sepuloni. It’s difficult; this has been a difficult matter to get to this stage, and through her passion and her advocacy, we are here, 87 years since 1936—we are here.

And there are four things that I want to speak on in my short contribution: (1) that the bill removes the discriminatory policy that withheld child support payments from parents receiving a sole parent rate on the main benefit—and their children; (2) it passes on about $47 a week, or a median of $20. If it’s $20, it’s $1,040 a month—

Angie Warren-Clark: A year.

ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI: —a year, sorry about my maths. And if it’s $47 a week, it’s $2,444 a year. For 87 years, these families and children have been robbed of what they’ve been entitled to. I want to remind the House that this was a recommendation, recommended by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) in 2019.

And we are here tonight to pass it in urgency—and it so should be in urgency that we pass the first reading, and I want to really acknowledge, again, the leadership of Carmel Sepuloni that we are here. We’ve gone through a lot of recommendations by the WEAG, but we are now here, and I want to commend this bill to the House. Mālō.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Children growing up in households where their incomes are below the poverty line—it’s a political choice, one that, unfortunately, too many successive Governments have made for decades, which is why the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill is a step towards remediating some of this. It will make important changes and finally remove and reverse an unfair decades-old rule, often labelled the parents tax, which says that if the primary caregiver of a child is on the sole parent benefit, Inland Revenue is entitled to take child support payments to recoup the cost of the welfare system.

This, basically, has penalised our families and has created the conditions where the other parent of the child is not encouraged to actually be participating in the sort of family unit, and ultimately all that it creates is a situation where the caregiver, the primary caregiver, will be disadvantaged. So we do support this bill because it will put more money into people’s pockets and it will restore certain dignity to our welfare system.

I did want to note, though, that a Government that centres the rights of the child, the wellbeing of the child, would not just be passing on child support but ensuring that children are growing up with enough to thrive. And this is why in this complicated bill, we do have some concerns and things that we would like to explore further at the select committee stage, particularly in the way that the bill would intend to treat the pass-on as income for the purposes of determining entitlements to income support and the benefit.

I would want, actually, the child support payments to not actually prejudice the ability for someone to receive their full entitlements under the welfare system, and that, actually, we work towards ensuring that parents are able to receive everything that they can. And I do want to push back on some of the National Party’s comments around that focus on putting people off the benefit, because I think often these comments seem to ignore that caregiving is work that we should value as such. And if caregivers want to move into paid employment, that is a choice that caregivers can make in their own right, but I think at no point should we diminish the importance of caregiving as labour that often goes underpaid and not recognised. I think this bill will go some way towards that.

I do, though, agree with some of the comments from the National Party members around the concerns about a sort of shortened select committee stage. We do think this bill is complex enough to warrant a more fulsome discussion and to have input from stakeholders around, for example, the impact that treating benefits as income would have. And, actually, I would want officials—as much as I see the brows from the Labour Party members on this—to be able to give us substantive advice, for example, on what it would mean if we didn’t take this pass-on as income for the purposes of determining someone’s benefit entitlements. It’s important that we get this right because, as the Minister noted, this has been in place, the current policy has been in place, for far too long and this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get things right. From what I’ve heard from the National Party members, I wouldn’t trust that if we had a National Government there would be any attempts to remedy this. So I want to make sure that we actually do do the right thing.

Finally, I hear the Minister’s points that this is a complex bill. I want to acknowledge the work that has gone in to get this over the line and to a place where we’re able to debate this. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group report is four years old now. It is by no means a gospel, and it was a snapshot of the welfare system at the time, before the pandemic, before inflationary pressures. And so now that we’re finally getting this through, it is important that we prioritise all the other important Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations and more that will put more money into people’s pockets and will lift people out of poverty, because ultimately this is a choice, and a choice the Government can make. Kia ora.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you for the opportunity to rise on behalf of ACT today. We’d like to convey to the House that ACT will do what it needs to do to make this successful, but we’d like to—without taking any disagreements with the current Minister, who we’re pleased has brought this bill to the House—step back a little bit to talk about the fact that $1 billion has been paid by parents in child support over the past five years to the Government.

The practical reason the Government said that they wouldn’t pass it on was because it would have to pay for the costs of the welfare system. I think the people of New Zealand—the solo mothers, the Pasifika and Māori mothers and caregivers—deserve an apology from the Prime Minister because of the pain that this has enacted on New Zealand society. A third of these payments have been intercepted by the IRD and it has been described as work that Jacinda Ardern wanted to complete as Prime Minister, and it was called a parent tax. But this is no time for spin, and I noticed Mr Hipkins came out the other day and said that this policy has been defended as a way for the Government to fund the welfare system. Mr Hipkins described it not as a tax on the poor, but a diversion of the child support payment.

This is where the bureaucratic system in this country is getting the connection with the public wrong. This is a very serious matter that needs to be resolved. It has caused endless pain in households up and down the country, it has stopped the incentivisation of men paying for proper child support for their children, and it has affected children’s livelihoods. The Government hasn’t defused this over the last five years, and it is not enough to hide behind the fact that this is a complex bill.

Complexity over five years can be surely fast-tracked. If you look at the regulatory impact statement, this has never made logical sense in this country, and the payments now, which will be counted as income, have a solution that takes it out of the hands of the IRD. That’s a good thing: 41,000 sole parents are affected by this. It’s an extra 20 bucks a week, median-wage wise. But the policy has been totally discriminatory against these people, and we believe an apology is necessary to get over this hump of miserableness and illogical Government settings that have allowed this benefit to be distorted.

There’s no policy that should be defended as a way to defend the welfare system or the IRD system as a cost. Just to give you some facts and figures, which I think are important, the costs and savings for the Government are as follows: $458 million is the cost of passing on child support—that is, no longer retaining child support to offset the cost of income-tested financial assistance. There’s $25 million—that’s the cost for enabling child support liability to be considered allowable costs for temporary additional support and special benefit purposes. Then there are savings of $175 million from benefit statement due to increased incomes passing on child support payments, and then savings of $25 million on how child support is treated for the purposes of income-related rent subsidy. This will provide a net benefit of 41,000 sole parents receiving something extra in their pockets at the end of each month.

This was a social contract that has been abused. ACT will support the bill in its first reading to select committee. We are disappointed, as well, with regards to the fact that this process is short and, ironically, is being pushed through in an election year, when it should have been dealt with, in a fashion, when Jacinda Ardern was in Government herself.

So we now look at the impact of this tax—or is it a diversion payment? We don’t know, but we’ll find out. But it is sad that $1 billion paid by parents in child support over the past five years has gone to the Government, and it hasn’t been managed properly. For that reason, the ACT Party requires change and real reform in this area. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Good heavens! Two extraordinary lessons, or, rather, mis-lessons, in economics today. The first, from Mr Seymour—I beg your indulgence for one second, Mr Speaker. The earlier one was a lesson in what a tax isn’t. A tax is not something where it goes to an individual; it is something where it goes to a Government. Maybe Mr Seymour and ACT need to think about that.

But now we have had a lesson in economic history. Mr Damien Smith has just spent the last five minutes or so telling us and lambasting this Government for having had this terrible policy that discriminates against single women, or single parents—particularly, of course, that’s going to be single mothers. This terrible policy—87 years this policy has been in place. It took this Government to unravel the complexity and to now get rid of it—87 years of Governments. Don’t blame us, Mr Smith. The question is: why did it take so long?

We’re doing it. We are relieving this burden from women and from solo parents generally, and I am so darned proud to stand here as a member of the Government, as a member of the wāhine caucus, and as a supporter of Minister Carmel Sepuloni, who has championed so many initiatives for women and for mothers, in particular, through this House.

I am so darned proud to be here and I am so darned proud to be a member of the select committee who will do this, because I am going to tell you now: why did this take so long within this Government—not the 87 years, but the last couple? I have watched tax experts go white when asked why we can’t remove this. It is that complex. It has taken this time to get to the point where we have a bill that is workable, and by all that is holy, we are going to get this thing through in time for July so the money goes into the pockets of the women and the children, where it should have been, and it should never have been put in such a discriminatory regime.

Again and again, our women are discriminated against. Under Carmel Sepuloni, no more. I commend it to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a five-minute split call.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I did realise that. I have pleasure in standing in support of the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill in its first reading here today. The National Party is supporting it to select committee with some reservations that I will traverse as we go through this short reading.

The key messages that we would like to talk to—and I take the point that the previous speaker, Dr Henderson, raised about it taking 87 years to get to this point. The reality is that this was a recommendation from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group four years ago, and it has taken four years to finally get to this point. But after investing four years of preparation, we are now faced with a very shortened select committee process, and as the previous speaker has mentioned, this is complex and it has taken some time to get here. Yet the community and the public don’t have the courtesy of having enough time to give it due consideration through the submission process. In fact, if we have a look at the sitting schedule for Parliament before the report-back date for this bill, which is 24 May, basically we have four sitting weeks ahead of us once this has moved on to the select committee. So the Government may be very cocky about finally getting it here but it’s a shame that the public isn’t going to enjoy the similar respect due to it in having an opportunity to work their way through the complexities.

The bill is complex but National is supporting it because we know that, at the end of the day, it is going to benefit the children of single parents, but we are also the party that wishes to see fewer children living in poverty. We see this as a step in the right direction but the problem we have is the former Prime Minister made herself the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction and she has fallen short, by about 81,500 children, in her goal of something like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty by 2020. So while the Government is crowing about its success in getting this little piece of legislation through, the bigger picture is still a complete failure.

We also need to put it in the context of other sole parents as well, because if we look at the stats for sole parent support in December 2022, who had been on benefit for over a year—and we know because the data tells us this—the longer people are on benefit, the harder it is to re-enter the workplace. There are now 14,000 more people on sole parent support in 2022—that’s 59,000 people. So this is not a proud day for the Government. In fact, it is band-aid over a poor-performing Government over many years.

But I’d also like to remind the Government that when we’re talking about the benefit of child support payments going through the Inland Revenue Department directly to the other parent, we are taking the money that was going into the Government’s coffers to subsidise the benefit of those people on a sole parent support payment. So that was the responsible parent paying for their children by subsidising the taxpayers of New Zealand who are supporting their children. So we are taking that money off the taxpayers, and we are talking a figure of $350 million over four years that once sat subsidising the taxpayer support. That is no longer going to be there and this is a cost to the country. Thank you.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. All I can say is, that was a real downer, and there would be no doubt in our mind that, if it were up to a National Government, we would probably have the discriminatory policy in place for another 87 years. The National Party is obviously all talk and no action. And so I want to join my colleague Emily Henderson in her rousing speech in acknowledgment of a brave Minister, one that is very indicative of a Government that is not afraid to kick the can down the road, who actually tackles the long-term challenges, make life better for New Zealanders, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill continues our Government’s work to make sure that we are creating a fairer welfare system that upholds the dignity of people and families and kids. I’d just like to say at this time, as well, that I want to acknowledge our commitment to do this—of our Minister Carmel Sepuloni. I know this one is close to her heart.

We know currently that parents and caregivers who receive sole parent support are not treated the same as others, like people on couple rate benefits and people on supplementaries like temporary additional support and accommodation supplement. Currently, IRD are collecting that money and offsetting it against their benefit. This is discriminatory, and this bill seeks to remove that inequality and the discriminatory process against the sole parent support.

This passing on of the child support will lift 14,000 more kids out of poverty. We’ve heard that over 41,000 sole parents and their children will now have at least $20 or more in their budget. This is about supporting our kids. This is about supporting all New Zealanders. This is what the Labour Government does. I commend this bill to the House.

PENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Speaker. So I rise to speak in support of the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill in this, its first reading, and I listened carefully to the Hon doctor Carmel Sepuloni in her introduction of the bill, and also to the Hon Louise Upston in her response, because it’s important to listen carefully to people who have got significant experience and knowledge in this area.

As a number of people have said, the bill changes the way child support is paid to sole parent beneficiaries, and it’s being considered today under urgency. We’ve heard much about the 87 years that this has been in place, and of course, the bill removes that different treatment for most sole parent beneficiaries.

The current law, as we’ve talked about, creates this inequity and inconsistency between how beneficiaries receiving a sole parent rate may benefit, and other beneficiaries are treated in the welfare system. So the key change is the child support income is treated as income. I noted the Minister said that she felt this would increase the motivation for liable parents to pay, and I would say I hope this does occur and, from the reasonable regularity that I have constituents coming through with complaints in my electorate office about this, I’m hopeful that that may well indeed occur.

I also listened to the Minister saying it is such a complex matter and the Hon Louise Upston dealt with those complexities a little further. Obviously there is significant technical support needed to enable this to happen, and a phased change does seem appropriate. I also listened to what has been described as a rousing speech by Emily Henderson, and it was indeed a rousing speech about how pleased she was to be able to spend taxpayers’ money. I think that it’s important for us to just remind ourselves when some of the speakers on the other side get terribly excited about what they are doing and what Labour is doing—it’s actually taxpayers that are doing this. So it is taxpayers’ money that is going on this. So let’s not get too excited about what we are doing individually.

The other point that I do note is that this is only part of the solution. So, yes, 41,500 sole parent families will receive additional support—a median gain of $24 a week—and, following the abatement of income test and financial assistance, that medium gain will be $20 a week. That’s certainly not to be sniffed at; it is an important amount of money, and it will be a small step towards reducing child poverty. But we all know the big step in reducing child poverty is to support parents—sole parents—into employment. That is the main way in which we are going to decrease child poverty. So let’s not think that we’ve put the final piece in the puzzle by ensuring that $20 to $24 extra is going to those sole parents a week.

It cannot go past without being noted that the number of individuals receiving the sole parent support has increased under the watch of this Government by 21 percent—21 percent; that’s an additional 13,000 people receiving sole parent support. So that should be of major concern because that is not lifting children out of poverty. So we have been dealing with an uneven playing field between different beneficiaries, and we need to be improving the efficiency of administering social security. We all want to see fewer children in poverty. I hope there is no one in this House that does not want to see fewer children in poverty, and so this is a sensible change, a small change, but we also want to see a focus by the Government to reduce the number of children in benefit-dependent homes. That is where a real difference will be made. We want to ensure that children are getting out of that welfare trap, and that is where we would like to see greater emphasis by this Government.

This Government has had a lot of rhetoric about how they care but, often, their actions have fallen well short of that rhetoric. So let’s not get too rousing in speeches about what good this has done, when there is far, far more work that needs to be done. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to speak on this bill, which is going to lift thousands of children out of poverty, and it builds on the work the Government has already been doing to increase family incomes. Things like the Best Start payment for newborn babies, Working for Families, increases to benefits, and winter energy payments are amazing things, and by removing this discriminatory policy, we’re going to see around 41,550 sole parent families financially better off by a median gain of about $20 per week. A fantastic bill, and I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill be considered by the Social Services and Community Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.

Instruction to Social Services and Community Committee

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I move, That the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 24 May 2023 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Shortening select committee and reporting back to the House by 24 May means that we can have the bill in place by 1 July and get money into the pockets of sole parents quicker. The reason we have not been able to introduce this bill earlier is due to the complexities in reconciling issues between how the child support and welfare systems are administered. For example, the policy design has required separate income charging rules to be developed to account for child support being paid over a forward-looking period while ensuring this aligned with the broader income charging system under the Social Security Act 2018.

The legislative design and drafting must be prescriptive and contain limited discretion to allow for child support via the information share to be automatically charged. This requires clearly and tightly defining what is child support income.

A number of options were considered to manage this complexity, but, ultimately, the best option to accomplish our objectives was to push forward and implement the core features on 1 July 2023 in order for sole parents to get extra money in their pockets as soon as possible.

Because of this approach, some additional income charging rules for rarer cases will be considered as part of phase two. This reflects that it is important the Government get these changes in place and ensure that sole parent families can start benefiting from their child support being passed on as soon as possible. In the current economic climate and with the effects of recent weather-related events, any extra financial resources for sole parent families could not be more important.

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

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): As I said, this is the seventh time this Minister has introduced legislation in this House with insufficient scrutiny by the public—the seventh time—and that is outrageous; absolutely outrageous. She’s just said this is a complex change—oh, so the officials get all the time, but the public don’t. The public don’t have the right to be consulted, to have time to submit, to consider the issues. So whether it’s a tax specialist, whether it is the Child Poverty Action Group, whether it is Save the Children, whether it is beneficiary advocates, whether is it the Children’s Commissioner—no, none of them get the opportunity to submit on this legislation.

I’ll tell you why—I will tell the House why. So this was a recommendation in May 2019, in the Welfare Expert Advisory Group; one of the proposals I have to say that the National Party in principle agreed with. But why is it that five years later, in the final kind of run, all of a sudden there’s a rush? Oh, guess what! Oh, it’s called an election, and this is a Labour Government that’s been criticised for not delivering, for failing to deliver to lift 100,000 children out of poverty. So what do we do? Here we have another shortened report-back—another process where the people that are compromised are the public, and yet they will say, “Oh, it’s about getting the money out the door. It’s got to be done by 1 July.” Well, there’s been five years to do that. So why is it now just a run in the final—oh, it might have something to do with the fact that the child poverty statistics came out last week, and there was no change in the last year. Oh, and I think the other thing it’s probably got to do with is that former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is about to exit the building, and they want her reputation to be intact when, actually, she’s failed to deliver on child poverty.

So the fact that five years after this policy was agreed to by the Government—five years later—

Hon Peeni Henare: Hurry up, but slow down.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: —we have two months—less than two months—yep, and there’s a Minister who doesn’t care about the public, doesn’t care about democracy, doesn’t care about the ability of submitters to look at complex pieces of legislation, to offer their views. If it was so urgent and it was about getting the money out the door, why aren’t the unsupported children involved? Why is the unsupported child benefit not included? No, because there’s an election round the corner and Labour are desperate to say they’ve done something, and that is all it is. So the public are the ones that are sacrificed because they don’t get to have a say in this legislation. So it is absolutely outrageous. Five years after the decision was made, but eight weeks—eight weeks—for the public.

But this is the Minister, who’s actually now the Deputy Prime Minister, who has a common level of behaviour, which is to ram legislation through this House. Where is the planning; where is the execution? “Oh, no, no. We just ram it through in the final hurdle.” And because there’s an election coming up, they’re desperate to say they’ve delivered, and that Minister is desperate to say they’ve done something, because the Child Poverty Action Group come out time and time again and say, “Of the 42 Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations, how many have been delivered?” Zero—zero.

So this is another example. One of the recommendations that this Minister is desperate to jam over the line—and it’s a failure in process; it is a failure to respect the public and to respect the sector. Harete Hipango and I have met many of the children’s sector over the last couple of weeks. They will be disgusted at this; they will be disgusted that they will not have the opportunity. Many of them have small organisations; they don’t have lots of staff ready to go—the same with charitable organisations who will want to submit, that I know that my colleague Maureen Pugh has been talking to. To get a bill like this that is so complex landed on them with a shortened submission time frame and a shortened report-back is, quite frankly, insulting to the very, very important work that they do on our behalf each and every day. It is an insult to them that this Minister is jamming a piece of legislation through again—this is number seven; number seven—without the ability for the public to scrutinise, when she herself says it’s a very complex piece of legislation. That is a disgrace. It’s simply not good enough.

Here we are again having a debate about a Government that is shortening due process and has zero regard for the public in their views and the sector. Even on an absolutely critical issue on measures that we all agree—we all want to see child poverty being reduced—but, actually, we want it done in a meaningful way. We want legislation that is accurate; we want legislation that we know will work, and, actually, we want the sector who was so involved with this, who is so invested in improving the lives of New Zealand children—oh but, no, they don’t have the opportunity. They are dismissed. They are patronised with a Government who continues to say and think they know best, and that they don’t seek or give the opportunity for input from the public, whether it’s those who are working on the front line, those in charitable organisations, those in the children’s sector. No, their voices don’t count.

I think it’s a sad day in this House when there’s legislation that is predominantly supported in the House, and then to have an absolute sham process, with a report back in eight weeks’ time is disgusting—absolutely disgusting. They made this decision to do this five years ago. They didn’t decide last month or the month before that, or even a year ago. Actually, the Prime Minister announced it a year ago—or the then Prime Minister did. I would have thought if the Prime Minister announced something like that then, actually, as a Minister, you’d get a wriggle on and get the work done and get it delivered and into the House. But that obviously hasn’t happened in this instance.

So there is now a rush to the finish line to get this legislation done so that the Labour Government can say they’ve done something in this area and they might be in a position, come election day, to say they’ve delivered—fully implemented—one of the 42 Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations. Actually, I’m sure the members of the expert advisory group would really like the opportunity to submit, and I’m sure they’d like to have more than a week to consider it, given the months and months and months of work that they put into the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. So I would say they’ll be having a quiet word—or perhaps a not so quiet word—in the ear of the Minister for Social Development and now the Deputy Prime Minister, about how disgraceful this policy is—sorry, how disgraceful this process is—when their input, their considered work, is just treated so shabbily with a process like this.

As I say, five years ago the decision was made to support this. And, while there wouldn’t be any member of Parliament in this House who doesn’t support the need to reduce the number of children living in poverty—and many of us actually focus on lifting children out of benefit-dependent homes because that is the bigger indicator of their lifetimes—lack of opportunity, of which we have one in five children in a benefitdependent home. I’m sure our submitters would like the opportunity to contribute to this process to ensure we have good legislation instead of having a rushed process that does not take their views into consideration, and we, unfortunately, then have a rushed process at the end so the Government is able to say—and even in the press release, it’s an absolute disgrace in terms of the Parliament; they’ve already put it in the press release what date they are going to start doing this. The absolute arrogance of that in disregarding a parliamentary process doesn’t go unnoticed.

I think there are, unfortunately, too many members opposite who have forgotten this is a Parliament, this is a House of Representatives. We represent, for those of us in electorates, 60,000-odd people, and their views matter. They can sit there on the other side, and smile and sneer and laugh. Actually, I take that responsibility seriously and I want the opportunity for people that I represent to be able to have an input into legislation like this which, as members opposite have said, changes something that has been in place since the 1930s. Surely if you’re changing something that’s been in place since the 1930s, you actually take a bit of time, you get it right. But no, no, we just jam it through in the last piece of legislation in the final run to the election, and they disregard the public of New Zealand.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time has come for me to leave the House for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7 p.m.

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

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House is resumed. We are debating the instruction to the committee on the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill. Karen Chhour.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d just like to also speak to the fact that I am also concerned about the processes that have been followed—not just in this bill but in many bills previous to this bill. And it just goes to show the things that I myself have been saying over and over again when it comes to legislation that’s going before this House: that efficient due process is not happening. We are not hearing from the people in a proper manner; we’re not giving people enough time to come forward and express their views around this particular issue. Even though most parties will stand here and say they agree with the premise of what’s going to happen within this bill, there still needs to be a proper process where we can sit down and make sure that we get this law right. By shortening this process, it’s actually insulting to all the groups and all the people that would’ve wanted to come and make a submission but may not be able to make the time to get here to make that submission. It’s not an easy process; it takes time—and some of these charities and groups are very small and don’t have the resources to be able to put together something like this in this short period of time, and I really think that this needs to stop.

This is from a bill that was suggested five years ago as an issue, but it’s been an issue for well before that. And what I’ve heard is that “This is a very complex issue” and “This is why it’s taken so long”. Well, if it is so complex and it has taken so long, doesn’t that prove it needs more scrutiny so that we can get it right, and so that we can hear from the right people who understand how this works so that we don’t get it wrong and we don’t end up back in the House fixing a law that wasn’t done properly in the first place? All that does is make the children that we’re trying to help suffer—because we’re changing it again and again and again. Let’s get it right the first time, and let’s stop skipping proper process and make laws that are good and sound, and that will not have to come back to this House to be fixed. So I oppose shortening the committee process.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary No. The Ayes have it. A party vote is called for. Please conduct a party vote.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Sorry—point of order, Mr Speaker. Are we voting on the closure motion or the shortened report-back date?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. I’ve gone straight—I waited to see if there was another speaker, and there wasn’t, so we’ve gone straight to the question. I’m not taking the closure motion, as you will have noted. As you will know, the closure motion was not in its correct form, anyway.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): No, I’m not disagreeing with that, sorry. The last vote—was that for the closure motion or the shortened report-back?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, the closure went for the shortened report-back.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Oh, OK.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, and fair enough—so, just to explain to the House, the closure motion was not in the correct form, so it was ignored. I then looked to see if there was another call, and there wasn’t, so we now go straight to the motion, which is the question. So that’s where we—if you’ll remind me where we are with that at the moment, I think it was that a party vote has been called for. Are you happy with that, Mr Doocey?

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you, Mr Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 24 May 2023 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Ayes 76

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

Noes 43

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9.

Motion agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 76, Noes 44.

Bills

Coroners Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon RINO TIRIKATENE (Minister for Courts): I present a legislative statement on the Coroners Amendment Bill.

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

Hon RINO TIRIKATENE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Coroners Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

I’m pleased to speak to this bill, which has returned to the House after a constructive select committee process. I thank the Justice Committee for its careful consideration of the bill, and I’d also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the previous Minister, the Hon Aupito William Sio, for his work on the bill to date.

Coroners are struggling to keep pace with the number of cases being accepted into the coronial jurisdiction. This has resulted in an increase in active caseload and an increase in the average time taken to conclude coronial investigations. This bill aims to reduce the distress caused to grieving families and whānau from the increasing length of time they spend waiting to receive coronial findings, while ensuring the public interest continues to be well served by the coronial system.

To achieve this, the bill will make some targeted amendments to the Coroners Act. These changes were discussed at length during the bill’s first reading. Broadly, they are intended to reduce the time it takes for certain cases to move through the coronial system, and free up coroners’ time to work on reducing the number of active coronial cases.

The Justice Committee received around 2,500 submissions on the bill, and I acknowledge those people who took the time to make a submission, particularly submitters who shared personal stories about their own experiences navigating the coronial system. It’s important that these voices are heard, and matters dealt with by the coronial jurisdiction are inherently sensitive and can be highly emotive—especially for families and whānau who have lost a loved one unexpectedly.

The Justice Committee recommended several changes to this bill, largely to clarify its policy intent and to ensure workability. I’ll speak to some of these now in the time remaining. Clause 10 of the bill, as introduced, would enable a coroner to record the cause of death as “unascertained natural causes” if the coroner considers that the death is likely to be from a natural cause and no further investigation is required. That is, the coroner does not consider an inquiry needs to be opened, so the case can be concluded.

Despite being a minor change—minor in the sense that it is clarifying current practice—almost all submitters had some degree of concern with clause 10 as introduced. For instance, submitters were concerned that the bill might enable less thorough investigation of deaths, especially deaths that do require a coroner to investigate further—such as unexpected, violent, or suspicious deaths.

To clarify, the ability for a coroner to record a cause of death as “unascertained natural causes” has always been intended to be limited to a subcategory of cases where an inquiry is not opened, because the evidence available to the coroner leads to a presumption of a natural-cause death, and the coroner deciding that further investigation is not required to discharge their duties under the Coroners Act.

The important point here is that the coroner’s decision is informed by the evidence available to them. “Evidence” in this context means information provided to the coroner by others regarding the death. This includes—but is not limited to—information from the police, the whānau, GPs, and pathologists. The establishment of the new clinical adviser role in the Ministry of Justice will further support coroners to make informed decisions.

Where the evidence available suggests to the coroner that further investigation may be required—for example, the GP has raised concerns, police have unresolved suspicions, or the death is of a type that may require further investigation such as a self-inflicted death—then it would be highly unlikely that a coroner could be satisfied that the death can be presumed to be from natural causes.

If the coroner is not satisfied, based on the available evidence, that the death is from natural causes, then the death would require further investigation. It’s fair to say that the intent of clause 10, and particularly the circumstances in which it could apply, were largely misunderstood by submitters. I’m pleased to see, as I’m sure submitters are too, that the Justice Committee has recommended changes to clarify this. This will provide families and whānau—and indeed coroners—assurance as to when clause 10 can be used appropriately and why.

I should also acknowledge another recommended change to clause 10, namely replacing the phrase “unascertained natural causes” with “presumed natural causes without investigation”. Many submitters felt that the phrase “unascertained natural causes” is inherently contradictory and confusing. Many asked how a cause of death can be both “unascertained” and “from natural causes”. The new classification—“presumed natural causes without investigation”—will better reflect the policy intent, especially when combined with the other changes recommended by the Justice Committee.

The Justice Committee recommended several other minor changes to the bill, particularly in relation to the associate coroner role. These included changing the title of the role from coronial associate to associate coroner, clarifying that associate coroners have the same judicial immunities as coroners, and ensuring that associate coroners are included in the Judicial Conduct Commissioner jurisdiction. These changes were suggested to better reflect the likeness between the role of a coroner and that of an associate coroner.

Other minor changes included clarifying that any limitations placed on the role of an associate coroner by the Chief Coroner should be set out in coronial rules rather than binding practice notes, and clarifying the process for transferring a case from an associate coroner to a coroner when an inquest might be required.

Just to wrap up, it’s worth addressing the differing view of the National Party in the committee’s commentary. I agree that it is important for coroners to investigate both the cause of death and the broader circumstances of the death—for example, the events leading up to the death. The bill does not change this requirement. What the bill does do, however, is provide the coroner with discretion as to whether they include the broader circumstances in their written findings after their investigation. This discretion is based around whether the coroner considers there is a public interest in the broader circumstances. For example, would publishing the details about the circumstances of the death help reduce the likelihood of similar deaths in future?

If the coroner considers there is no public interest in the broader circumstances, which necessarily requires the coroner to look into the circumstances to some extent, then they will not be required to include these in their findings. Like all coronial decisions, this assessment is informed by the evidence provided to the coroner. This change is, essentially, an administrative one to help streamline the process to write up and publish findings. It does not alter the requirement that a death be investigated to the extent required by the Act.

This bill is part of a wider work programme currently under way to improve the coronial system. This includes appointing more permanent coroners, appointing clinical advisers to assist coroners, and better integrating tikanga Māori into coronial processes. The targeted amendments in this bill will facilitate better access to justice for families and whānau, while ensuring the public interest continues to be well served by the coronial system.

I am confident that, taken together, the changes recommended by the Justice Committee will further support the bill to achieve this. I commend this bill to the House.

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

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I start by acknowledging the Minister for Courts, the Hon Rino Tirikatene, in his new role. He is known to be a member of integrity. He’s a former lawyer. I don’t wish to contradict myself, but he is nevertheless a man of integrity; he is respected across the House. I think in this role he’s receiving somewhat of a hospital pass. The court system is well known to be in dire straits, including in the coronial space. To the extent that the Government is making moves that may alleviate that with this bill, we will support it. We do support it, we supported it at first reading, we were a constructive participant at the select committee process, if I may say so, and are for the remainder of the passage of this bill, which will no doubt take place over a relatively short period of time being in urgency as we now are. But I would be remiss if I didn’t record our view on the place of the bill within the overall context of what’s happening in the coroner system, and the court system in general and also just highlight that one issue on which we differ from the Government’s view about what the bill can and should do.

So, as the Minister has acknowledged, and I think in his own words, as closely as I can paraphrase or recall, the coronial system is struggling to keep up with the number of cases that is going through it at the moment. It’s not the place within this debate—I’m sure you’d pull me out pretty quickly, Mr Speaker, if I were to rehearse some arguments for ways that resources can be freed up elsewhere to apply to the coronial system—but it is at least useful to some extent that what the bill is going to do to try and alleviate that pressure is to have a few more participants involved—not coroners exactly, but coronial associates, and the Minister’s mentioned the fact that we want that role to be aligned as nearly as possible with the role of a coroner proper. And he’s mentioned some of the ways in which the bill would do that.

The way that the bill achieves these things is actually relatively straightforward, although I think it’s worth noting that the National Party agreed with the Government members on the Justice Committee that clarification was needed on that question of unascertained natural causes. And, of course, we don’t want to have a situation where it’s suggested, or believed, that the coroner won’t be—well, where there’ll be ambiguity in the case of deaths, findings being ambiguous as to whether it was natural or not natural.

So, as the Minister has said, and if I can express it slightly differently—I think it’s a question of syntax—we are saying that there are deaths that we know are natural, notwithstanding that we haven’t ascertained and don’t need to ascertain the exact nature of the natural cause, rather than to say that the qualifiers unascertained and natural are somehow in conflict. I’ve probably made it less clear, not more, but for what it’s worth, you know, just to shortcut all that, we do agree with the position that the select committee as a whole took, and as the Minister has expressed it tonight.

The only matter on which we weren’t in agreement was to do with this issue again, as acknowledged by the Minister, of whether it is in the public interest to have the circumstances of a death recorded and reported by a coroner. We understand and agree with the need to expedite the process in the system more generally, but we think this is looking in the wrong place to achieve such time and resource savings. We think that for the coroner in a single specific instance to decide whether the circumstances of a death are significant in the way that would meet a public interest threshold, then he or she would need to know whether there were other similar circumstances leading to other deaths elsewhere in the system before—maybe yet to come—and as handled by other coroners or coronial associates. So we don’t think that’s a judgment as to public interest that any individual coroner in any individual case can, or should, make. We will propose at the committee of the whole House stage a Supplementary Order Paper to that effect. We don’t suppose it will be supported by the committee. Nevertheless, we will continue to support the bill, but we did want to place on record our belief that that’s an unnecessary amendment to the coronial regime that this bill is making.

So with those pretty general remarks—but otherwise we are saying that we concur with the report of the select committee, we thank those who were involved in that process, and we continue at this, the second reading, to commend the bill to the House.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to begin by commending the current Minister for Courts, and the former Minister, on bringing this important legislation to the House. It’s an issue that this House has been petitioned on in the past. This bill, at its face, is very much about addressing the serious delays in the coronial system, but, at its heart, it is about being respectful of the grief process that many families go through, and we did hear from those families at the Justice Committee.

It’s also about community safety. I do remember in 2015 when three members of a Southland family passed away: eventually, their deaths were attributed to a faulty kettle which was actually in 66,000 Kiwi homes. It remained for sale until The Warehouse voluntarily withdrew them seven months after the event, but had The Warehouse waited for the coroner’s findings, the kettles would’ve been sold for another two years. So there are very important public safety reasons here at play as well for us making these changes.

The Minister himself has spoken to the recommended changes from select committee, so I won’t do that. However, I will commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I take a call on the Coroners Amendment Bill, which was referred to the select committee on 30 August 2022. My National Party colleagues who were members participating in that—the Hon Paul Goldsmith, the Hon Mark Mitchell, and Simon O’Connor—my colleague Chris Penk, and I are carrying the banner for the National Party as this bill is about to be passed from the second reading through to committee of the whole House and the third reading this evening.

It does have the support of the National Party, although there has been a minority view expressed within the Justice Committee report indicating what my colleague has spoken to. And I do acknowledge Minister Tirikatene in the House. It is indeed an honour to stand and speak before my former colleague from the Māori Affairs Committee and former chair. So congratulations, Minister, in carrying this through its passage and into the making of law this evening. The differing view that has been espoused by the National Party is in relation to the investigation of sudden deaths, including the circumstances of death. So, although I didn’t participate in the submissions and the discussion that happened at select committee, in my former life I did appear in the coronial court, I did appear at inquests, so I do have some lived experience as a practitioner, but also as a family member for persons who have gone through the process of the coronial court system and the impact that it does have in terms of delays.

I picked up a book during recess and I did a touch of reading. I haven’t gone through all of it. It’s written by Wallace Bain, who for 28 years gave service as a coroner and retired in early 2020. This book—there’s a relevant significant part—is called A Coroner Speaks for the Dead to Protect the Living. Really important; that’s the importance of the coroner’s court where we have persons who are grieving, bereaved family members, getting to the crux, getting to the heart of finding out what the causes of death were, suspicious or otherwise. And there’s an important part—speaking to the National Party’s particular view that’s taken. Mr Bain has stated that the Coroners Act, its first purpose is to establish (1) that a person has died; (2) the person’s identity; (3) when and where the person has died; (4) the causes of death; and (5) the circumstances of the death. This bill does address that in terms of the process and ensuring that there’s unnecessary delay associated with the overload on the whole of the court system, in particular the coroner’s court system.

Mr Bain further goes on to say, “The second purpose is to make specified recommendations or comments that, in the coroner’s opinion, may, if drawn to public attention, reduce the chances of the occurrence of other deaths in circumstances similar to those in which the death occurred. It is in this area surrounding the circumstances of a death that a coroner and the coroner’s court provide a very significant role for society and are able to meet the ever increasing demands of our complex society as it cries out for the truth”—cries out for the truth—“surrounding the circumstances of death.” So that’s the whole heart and crux of the concern that is in the minority view by the National Party, which will be debated further under the Supplementary Order Paper in the committee of the whole House. So I thought it important to highlight that because that is a statement that has come from one of our longest-serving, most distinguished, and experienced coroners, Wallace Bain.

So, on that note, this coronial system is about ensuring that there is no prolonged suffering for the members, to ensure that it is in better heart, and that there are no ongoing coronial events associated with these delays, and making sure that the whole system gets pumping, is much healthier and upbeat in how it services our community. On that note, for the second reading, I commend the bill to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I too commend this bill to the House. We have a system that is groaning under the weight of the work that it has done. We have not enough coroners and we have too complex a procedure. This bill addresses both of those things. I commend the Minister for bringing it forward. I commend my friend the chair of the Justice Committee and the members of the Justice Committee for working it through, and I commend the bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to join colleagues from around the House in congratulating the Minister in his new role and for shepherding this bill through the House. This is a simple and practical bill and we support it. It solves problems of delay and stress on the coronial system for those who work in it, and families affected after a death of their love.

A lot of the issues have been canvassed around the House. I’m not on the Justice Committee, but I was reflecting on some of the words of the Minister in terms of what the select committee did—and I support it—where they were changing the wording around recording the cause of death as “unascertained natural causes where no further investigation or inquiry is necessary”. And I think the wording that he had—and, people in the Justice Committee, please correct me—is to change that wording to “natural causes without intent”. I was just reflecting on that because, you know, those words are very small. They are small changes in words, but I know—and maybe all of us know—that when someone passes or when groups of people pass, and you don’t know exactly what are the causes of their passing, as well, words become very important. And if you have words which are open to all sorts of other types of interpretation, that can just compound the grief and compound the intense pressure of the grieving process. So I do want to commend the select committee for finding other ways to say that, or other ways which would actually help to be focused on the families, be focused on those who have been left behind.

I want to acknowledge the comments that have been made about the coronial system, which is overworked and under pressure and under stress, and those very real delays in the coronial process and how that impacts upon people as well.

I do want to reflect and recall and mihi to Metiria Turei, who first brought the coronial inquiry when she was in Parliament, and it is good to see that the Minister and the previous Minister, as well, have been carrying this work with the expectation that this will help families, and help those of us who are left behind, through that grieving process, as well, but also trying to help the coronial system get better. And so, on that, I commend this bill to the House.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to begin by acknowledging the new Minister for the coronial courts. Rino Tirikatene, you’ve inherited a lot and it’s a pleasure to see you sitting here for this the second reading of what is a very important bill that the ACT Party intend to continue to support.

I’d also like to acknowledge my colleagues in the Justice Committee, the officials that helped us navigate through some of the more—I don’t know—the wording—

Teanau Tuiono: The wording.

NICOLE McKEE: —the wording of the bill, and also to the submitters. There were over 2,500 submissions, and we heard from 35 others who gave oral submissions as well. We worked through, with the Justice Committee and the officials, those areas that the submitters had raised with us, and we’ve gone on to change some of that wording within the bill as a result of their concerns. More and more, I hear from communities that they feel they aren’t listened to when they submit on bills, with their concerns. And I hope that the changes that we’ve made in this bill reiterates the importance of people actually submitting, giving public views on bills, so that we can make changes to make our legislation tighter and relevant to the communities it’s going to affect. So, again, I acknowledge the public’s input.

There’s quite a backlog within the coroner’s courts. It has grown over the years, especially as the number of coronial investigations has also grown. Once a coroner starts an investigation or an inquiry, then the delays, of course, become longer. This bill addresses those delays in the coroner’s court, delays that were first identified back in 2014. That was over nine years ago. ACT supported the Government’s changes last year, the ones that introduce room for appointment of more coroners to also help the system. At the time, we were sceptical that the ability to appoint only two more coroners wasn’t enough to address the issues. We were told that another significant change was coming, and here it is.

That increase of coroners was the first step in addressing the coronial delays. This bill now allows for associate coroners to help with the administrative workloads, and we’re happy to support these changes that continue to address and relieve the pressure on both the coroner’s courts and also the families.

When a coroner looks into a case, they can make recommendations, and those recommendations are often an attempt to identify and bring to the attention of officials and the public areas of concern that may need addressing. Concerns remain until determinations are made, and, at times, the weight has been known to be over half a decade or more. Recommendations are important. If an investigation or inquiry is held, then those recommendations are released in an effort to stop dangerous practices from happening again. So the sooner the coroner can investigate and conclude, the sooner the families have relief, and any potential recommendations can then be made public.

This doesn’t mean we rushed through coronial hearings—not at all. It means they get processed in a timely and respectful way towards the families. If we can do that, we can give families closure while working on decreasing the backlog. This bill will allow associate coroners to be established within the coronial system. They would be given similar powers, functions, and duties of a coroner. What they won’t be able to do is hold an inquest; nor will they be able to decide that an inquest is necessary. In return, the coroners will be able to spend more time on complex cases or investigating, on questioning, or on determining causes of death.

We heard from submitters who are concerned about clause 10 of this bill, where the proposal was to add a section that would allow a coroner to record the death as being from “unascertained natural causes”. Officials assured us that this determination would only be made where they were satisfied that the death was the result of natural causes based on evidence that they had already collected and that no further investigation would therefore need to be required. Many of the submitters were worried that this particular clause would result in less thorough inquiries into some deaths. The officials assured us that the use of this clause is intended to be for circumstances where there is evidence already available that would point to a person’s natural death. For example, an elderly person aged in their nineties with known heart conditions who then, say, drops dead on the bowling green unexpectedly—they can have the coroner declare that their death was from natural causes because they had evidence to show that was the likely cause.

However, the concerns from the community were noted and, as such, we changed the wording of clause 10 to reflect the submissions and discussions that we had on it. We’re therefore changing the wording from “unascertained natural causes” to “presumed natural causes without investigation”. The coroner will need to be satisfied that all the evidence he has in front of him shows that the likelihood that a person has died from natural causes is enough for him to declare that the death is of natural causes and that the coroner doesn’t need any further investigation or evidence to make that determination. ACT have agreed to this change in the bill as we believe it is better wording to be used.

However, we have the same concerns as our colleagues in the National Party that one person alone—namely, the coroner—shouldn’t be left to make such a decision as it’s ultimately shortcutting the process which could be detrimental to public interest. Hence, ACT will be supporting our colleague’s Supplementary Order Paper 327 in the next stage of this bill.

We are amending section 77 of the Act to ensure that the coroner considers the views of interested parties as well as relevant factors and information that has been presented by those parties when holding an inquiry on the papers, so to speak, rather than as an inquest. Any interested party can express their view that an inquest is warranted and present evidence for this, and that evidence must be considered.

We outlined in the bill that an associate coroner cannot determine if an inquest should be held and that if on the papers they believe there should be an inquest, then they are to refer that to the Chief Coroner. But, in the interests of time, we can’t expect the Chief Coroner to look at every single case like this in a timely manner, where an interested party considers that an inquest is required, so we’ve made an amendment that when the Chief Coroner receives advice from the associate coroner that an inquest is recommended, the case can then be assigned to another coroner for timely consideration.

Amendments have been made to give the associate coroners the same immunities that coroners have. That’s a bit of a no-brainer. If we’re expecting them to undertake so many of the same duties and functions of a coroner, we should make sure they have access to the same types of powers. In saying that, they will also be subject to the same complaints and removal regime that the coroners currently face. Therefore, the bill has been amended to also reflect that.

Finally, an important part of this bill is for the families out there. We heard you when you told us—sorry, I’m just speaking to the families. We heard the families when they told us that coroners are often unavailable to assist families to tidy up a deceased person’s affairs—accessing and closing bank accounts, dealing with life insurance agencies. Generally getting one’s affairs in order cannot happen without either a death certificate or a certificate of interim findings. When coroners are so busy, they struggle to complete these really important documents for the families. An amendment has been made which will allow another coroner to issue the certificate for the families instead of those families having to wait on the availability of their assigned coroner.

We hope that these agreed amendments assist not only the coronial courts to catch up but gives families some certainty that they won’t be facing year upon year of waiting for hearings, for outcomes, and for closure. And, in that respect, ACT supports this bill.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): First, I’d like to acknowledge all the families who have interfaced with suicide: it has affected so many New Zealand families, including my own. I’d also like to acknowledge Corinda Taylor and the work of my predecessor Clare Curran in this space.

What this bill doesn’t do is it doesn’t change an inquisitorial system that has somehow become adversarial—and it doesn’t change the levels of legal support. But the bill goes a long way to increasing access to justice for families in terms of the four changes around coronial associates, natural causes, the discretion regarding inquests, and the focus on cause rather than circumstances. So I acknowledge Corinda Taylor and Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust; I hope that you can take some comfort in the fact that your work in this area has made a huge difference. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Can I actually echo what the member Ingrid Leary has said: Corinda’s actually been a very strong advocate over many years on a number of issues, including this one. I’m very happy to support this bill, and in order to show some, I don’t know, amity to the House so that a coroner’s report doesn’t say that people were bored to death, I’ll end my speech there.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and like the other contributions in the House this evening, I would like to support this bill, the Coroners Amendment Bill. I know that the Justice Committee is a very thorough select committee in this House—and from across the House, as well—and can I acknowledge the members.

The Coroners Amendment Bill will amend the Coroners Act 2006 to facilitate better access to justice for families and whānau interacting with the coronial system. We support this bill, and I commend it to the House.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora, e te Mana Whakawā. It’s always a privilege to speak in the House. Tonight, I speak on the Coroners Amendment Bill. Like other speakers have, I acknowledge the leadership of the new Minister, the Hon Rino Tirikatene, who has taken over this bill from the Hon Aupito William Sio and is shepherding it through the House.

I acknowledge that the Justice Committee has made a few changes. I have just recently joined the committee so I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the important work that coroners do, as they are one of the final people who actually see the tūpāpaku before the family has an opportunity to say their goodbyes. On that note, I’d like to commend the Coroners Amendment Bill to the House.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak, briefly, on the Coroners Amendment Bill. The National Party supports this bill. This will, we believe, help to achieve reduced waiting times, which is a step in the right direction. However, some caution is needed, as making public recommendations is a vital role of the coronial system and we do not believe shortcuts should be made in this area. Recruiting suitable candidates with the required level of experience and an interest in specialising will likely be difficult, due to a limited pool of qualified candidates. It’s certainly something we’re seeing right across our country at the moment—is this shortage of available workers, no matter what industry, and this is, unfortunately, one of those. It’s important that we also have good health data, and we don’t want to see those compromised with more findings of unascertained natural causes, as that data is used to inform our decision making in health programmes and is currently considered of high quality, and we want to see that continue. So, with that, I will take my seat, but say that we do support this bill.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I support this bill because it reduces the time it takes for cases to move through the coronial process, and it frees up coroners’ time to work on reducing the number of active cases. May I finish the contributions in this House tonight on this reading of the bill by thanking the petitioners to the Justice Committee for speaking with us about the issues within the coronial system. You have made a difference. We have heard your call for change. This bill goes some way to doing that. May I also thank the Minister Rino Tirikatene and his predecessor, the Hon Aupito William Sio, for taking up the challenge to improve the process. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Coroners Amendment Bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Coroners Amendment Bill.

In Committee

Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, the House is in committee on the Coroners Amendment Bill. We come first to Part 1.

SHANAN HALBERT (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order. I seek leave to move all parts to be taken as one.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Is there any objection to that? We shall take this bill as one. The question is that Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part.

Hon RINO TIRIKATENE (Minister for Courts): Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to open this committee stage of the Coroners Amendment Bill. Can I thank the members for their contributions at second reading. I think they clearly demonstrated the depth of understanding and concern that they had, which ultimately led to some very, very sound amendments that have been made to this bill. As has been traversed, this bill aims to reduce the distress faced by families and whānau from the increasing length of time they spend waiting to receive coronial findings.

The targeted amendments to the Coroners Act made through this bill are designed to reduce the time it takes for certain types of cases to move through the coronial process and free up coroners to work on reducing the number of active cases. The bill will also help to ensure that the public interest in reducing the chances of further deaths occurring in similar circumstances is well served. Part 1 of the bill contains the principal amendments to the Coroners Act, together with the transitional provisions for one amendment. A big major part of Part 1 is the creation of the associate coroner’s role. That is, in essence, a role that performs all of the roles and duties of the coroner, except for the inquests—being able to approve whether an inquest is required and ultimately undertake that role. So that is a very much an important new addition. This bill is all about—as I’ve mentioned—ensuring that we deal with the heavy backlog of cases that are in the coronial system and to relieve the stress that families do face. And these are sensible amendments.

I do understand that the National Party and the ACT Party with their Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) and I thank them for their SOP in relation to—I guess—the discretion that a single coroner has when considering the circumstances, and whether that should be included in the written report. As I’ve mentioned, this bill is about ensuring that we get efficient processes. We are able to put less obligations or unnecessary work on coroners to provide written special circumstances when they believe that it’s not required.

However, what I would want to stress is that this doesn’t detract from the statutory role that coroners have to do. There is a duty for them to consider the cause of death and the broader circumstances. All this bill does is provide the discretion that when they are considering those broader circumstances, to consider the public interest. If they feel that it is in the public interest, then those broader circumstances will be included in the report. So I understand the position that you’re taking. But I think, on balance, the policy intent of this bill is to ensure that we get a more efficient flow of cases coming through the coronial system.

That’s why I regret we won’t be supporting the SOP, but I’m confident that the provisions of the bill that we have before us ultimately achieve those objectives and ensure expeditious dealing of coronial cases, which will ultimately benefit those whānau who are dealing with such difficult circumstances when interacting with the coronial system.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. The Minister in the chair, Rino Tirikatene, is relatively new in his role, but he’s demonstrated the wisdom that would befit much more experience than that. He’s preempted the objections or the questions that I was going to raise with him. First time in the chair in the committee of the whole House stage—we’re not going to let him off quite so lightly as not to answer any questions at all, but we’ll do that in a reasonably light touch, because, actually, we’ve given a little bit of airing at the second reading to this particular issue, both on this side of the House—and I include in that, with gratitude, our colleague and friend from the ACT Party Nicole McKee—and the Minister has addressed the question in the sense of outlining why, on balance, he does not think it necessary to adopt my suggestion, and nor did the Government members on the Justice Committee. Of course, there must be a balance between the interests of justice in the very broad sense of maximum exposure to circumstances but also the dictates of justice as timely justice would require. So I do acknowledge there’s the tension there. I don’t think anyone in this House would say that there shouldn’t be some kind of balance struck. We’ve just ended up, I suppose, in a slightly different place about exactly where that balance lies and the weighting, perhaps, that we give on each of those respective factors.

I think it would be helpful, however, for the record just if the Minister can confirm—well, he doesn’t have to, but I’m going to suggest, and hope he will respond to my suggestion, that it should be an unusual use of a coroner’s power to say that it’s not in the public interest to report on the circumstances of a death. I think I’ve got that right—I hope I haven’t inadvertently thrown in a double negative. But my suggestion is that while a coroner will be afforded that discretion, that he or she may choose not to report on the circumstances of a death, precisely because that coroner won’t know what other decisions elsewhere might have been made similarly, and therefore the public interest in building up a pattern of risky circumstances that might lead to a death, we might lose that opportunity as a system.

So if the Minister can provide anything for the record that I think would be helpful for coroners going forward applying the law, even as it stands now, unamended by the Supplementary Order Paper no doubt, given that we’ve had an indication that won’t succeed on the Government side, then I think that would be a helpful thing to take out of this process.

Hon RINO TIRIKATENE (Minister for Courts): I thank the member for his contribution and also restating his position on the Supplementary Order Paper. I’d just reiterate that the changes that we’re making are an administrative step that will help streamline the process to write up and publish findings. They do not reduce, however, how a death is investigated prior to the written findings being issued. Like all coronial decisions, this assessment is informed by the evidence provided to the coroner. So the Coroners Act will still require coroners to establish the circumstances that led to the death so far as possible, and the Act will still require coroners to include the circumstances of the death if they consider that publishing these details will contribute to the public interest in terms of reducing the likelihood of further deaths occurring in similar circumstances, and this is in line with the purpose of the Coroners Act. So I’m confident that coroners will continue to fulfil their statutory duties to establish the circumstances of deaths that they are required to investigate and will include these circumstances in their findings when necessary to help prevent similar deaths from occurring in future.

So, in essence, the coroners, yes, they do have the discretion. They will, as they are obliged to do, look at all the circumstances. When they feel that it is in the public interest that those wider circumstances are included in their report, then they will do that. So I’m confident that providing that discretion to coroners based on their experience, they will be able to make that judgment call around what is in the public interest. I’m sure that if it came up in their examination of not only the cause of death but also the wider circumstances, if it becomes clear that there is indeed a matter that is of public interest, they will be obliged to include that in their report writing. So I’m confident that where we are at with the provisions of this bill and the way that it has been constructed, the functions and the roles of the coroner remain the same. This is just about ensuring that we can get a more expeditious flow of cases, and where special circumstances do warrant in the public interest that they be recorded, that will be done.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Chris Penk’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 327 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9.

Noes 74

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

Amendments not agreed to.

Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Coroners Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The Coroners Amendment Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon RINO TIRIKATENE (Minister for Courts): I present a legislative statement on the Coroners Amendment Bill. I move, That the Coroners Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’m pleased to see this bill reach its third reading today, with constructive contributions from across the House. The issues that the bill seeks to address have been well canvassed. We all recognise that the coronial system is under pressure; the number of active coronial cases and the average time taken to conclude these cases has increased in recent years. Most significantly, grieving families and whānau are facing distress from the increasing length of time they spend waiting to receive coronial findings. This bill aims to reduce the distress while ensuring the public interest in reducing the chances of further deaths occurring in similar circumstances continues to be well served by the coronial system. To achieve this, the bill makes some targeted amendments to the Coroners Act. These are intended to reduce the time it takes for certain types of cases to move through the coronial process and free up more coroner’s time to work on reducing the number of active coronial cases.

The bill will establish the new judicial position of associate coroner, and associate coroners will be able to exercise all the functions, powers, and duties of a coroner except for deciding that an inquest is necessary or holding inquests. This will help to free up coroners so they can work on more complex cases. The bill will also clarify that coroners may record the cause of death as presumed natural causes, where appropriate. This provision only applies to a limited subcategory of cases, namely cases where an inquiry is not opened because the coroner is satisfied that the death can be presumed to be from natural causes. In such cases, the coroner’s decision is based on their assessment of the evidence. The coroner must also be satisfied that there is nothing in the evidence to suggest that further investigation by a coroner is required. This amendment is intended to enable families and whānau to receive a coroner’s findings sooner, where it is appropriate to do so. The bill also enables coroners to hold a coronial inquiry solely on the papers if they consider that an inquest is not required.

Finally, the bill will enable coroners to issue written findings with the cause of death only and not the broader circumstances where the coroner considers that there is no public interest in reducing the chances of further deaths occurring in similar circumstances. This amendment is an administrative change that will help to streamline the process to write up and publish findings. It does not reduce how thoroughly a death is required to be investigated prior to the findings being issued.

This is an important piece of legislation. I want to acknowledge, again, the contributions from the Justice Committee and their very helpful amendments to the bill. They certainly have improved and refined the language and the provisions of the legislation. I want to also extend my appreciation to all of the many submitters who provided input into the bill, especially through the select committee process. The Justice Committee did recommend several changes and, as I’ve mentioned, they have been largely adopted and they have helped to improve and enhance the bill. I want to thank the Parliamentary Counsel Office, the Office of the Clerk, the Ministry of Justice for their advice throughout, and to my predecessor, my colleague the Hon Aupito William Sio, who first brought this bill to the House.

The targeted amendments in this bill will facilitate better access to justice for families and whānau while ensuring the public interest continues to be well served by the coronial system. Just as I conclude my speech at this third reading, I know the subject matter of this bill can be quite heavy, I know we are talking about deaths and various aspects, and so just as is customary in the Māori World, I’d like to just wrap up my contribution as we will go on to pass this legislation, just to say apiti hono, tātai hono; ko te hunga mate ki te hunga mate. Apiti hono, tātai hono; ko te hunga ora ki te hunga ora—so we bind together through ancestral links those that have passed on, the dead with the dead, and we bind together through ancestral links us here, the living with the living. With that, I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for a very thoughtful contribution. We’ve gone throughout the debate in the House tonight emphasising, of course, legal aspects. I think it’s rather nice that the Minister has introduced a spiritual aspect, to which I might continue with an emotional and also practical aspect when we, importantly, consider the real-life impact on those who are affected by sudden death such as the coroner would be investigating.

Of course, it’s right that we consider very carefully the wording of the bill and the technical aspects. But also it is worth acknowledging, as the Minister has effectively done, the true human cost to people when they lose a life suddenly—whether that ultimately is proven to be for natural or non-natural causes.

The emotional aspect, I suppose, is the closure that is eventually able to be obtained—at least to some extent; at least to the extent possible—when one grieves by the fact that the coroner will come up with some manner of finding, be it by a process that’s on the papers or otherwise.

Then the practical considerations, as others have mentioned, might relate to estate administration. They might also relate to the status of a person close to the deceased as a victim—in the victim support and resource sense of that phrase. It might be relevant to a life insurance claim or other relevant practical aspect. So they’re important reasons that we want the coronial process to go well, to go smoothly, and also to go quickly, or at least in a timely fashion. I don’t mean to suggest there would ever be undue haste, but of course at the moment our system is beset by difficulties very much at the opposite end of the spectrum.

So we must do anything that we can to help. And in that spirit, the National Party has supported this legislation. The National Party has also actually, for the record, supported the various other measures and initiatives by this Government over the last 5½ years in the court space, whereby reform of existing court and tribunal structures has been suggested. We’ll continue in that spirit for the next six months. After that, we would welcome the reverse from the other side when they are perhaps in our shoes. But, in any case, that’s a political comment that need not be dwelt upon further.

So I’ve written to the Minister; I’ve assured him in writing of our ongoing bipartisan support for anything that will improve the situation of the court system. It’s something of a briefing to the incoming Minister—it’s not the official sense of that phrase, but for what it’s worth, I’ve been very happy to outline what we see as the problems. We’ll work together on the solutions. In the context of this bill, we’ve said that the underlying purpose is a worthy one—which is to add to the capacity for coronial duties to be undertaken.

Of course, the mechanism is by the coronial associate position being created. Another option would be to provide more coroners, perhaps by removing the cap on the number of coroners—and I don’t quite understand why that should exist elsewhere in legislation. But the fact that it’s elsewhere in legislation is, of course, meaning that we don’t need to delve further into it today.

But looking at the problem as a whole, there are a number of different solutions. This is at least one option. It’s a good option as far as it goes, and I’d be remiss not to at least mention in passing the discussion that we’ve had at the second reading and then committee of the whole House stage in relation to those circumstances of death. I just place on record that we would hope that there wouldn’t be any pattern of deaths—perhaps deaths of a certain nature or a particular category—that would go unremarked in the sense of having their circumstances fail to be reported. I don’t suggest for a moment that that would be the intent of the legislation, and I’m sure no individual coroner would wish that to be the case. But I do state for the record, again, our reservation about allowing a coroner—well, actually requiring the coroner—not to make such a report if they consider it in the interest of justice not to do so.

So, with that, in summary, we support the bill. We’ll support any measures that improve the lives of New Zealanders and those whom they leave behind bereaving, and commend this bill at this third and final reading.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d just like to thank the Minister the Hon Rino Tirikatene for his time in the chair. I do take the point made by my colleague Chris Penk in his Supplementary Order Paper 327, but I believe the Minister is correct that coroners are in a sound position to be making that judgment in respect to that public interest test. The Justice Committee has a very full agenda, but I believe, for those of us who were there during the hearing of the petition, that it’s not a submission that we will forget lightly, nor are the submissions made on this bill. I believe that that is a powerful statement about the voices of individuals and the voices of community in impacting the legislation in this House, and I would very much like to commend this bill to the House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I was remiss in my second reading speech, as fast as it was, to actually acknowledge the Minister, and not only because I haven’t actually had the chance, Minister Tirikatene. It has a wonderful ring about it to actually acknowledge you in taking on the role and in this role here, and to acknowledge too what my colleague Chris Penk had said about the speed—which is not a surprise, actually—with which you’ve picked up and articulated the issues here tonight. So thank you for that.

Look, as far as I understand it, we’re all in support of this bill. I think we can all see the need; there’s always the political element to this. We would, on this side of the House, rightly stress that we feel the court system in general is getting a bit out of control, but I’m going to try and be ultra-nice. It’s the—

Vanushi Walters: Yes.

SIMON O’CONNOR: I know—I shock myself occasionally. Actually, there is pressure there, and this is a good example of not only the Government but the Parliament stepping in to try and make things better. At the heart of it, it was, ultimately, what the previous speaker, Vanushi Walters, just touched on, which is actually a heartfelt, passionate, but articulate and rationale petition which has moved us to this situation—moved us both rationally and emotionally, I would suggest. A big part of it is to create this new role of associate coroner.

The long and short of it for the people at home: there are more individuals with at least five years - plus of legal—I think it’s barrister, or barrister sole. Look, I’ll leave that to the lawyers, to someone who’s got decent legal experience—as I look across to Emily Henderson at this moment. But it’s someone with good legal experience who can kick in and assist in the coroner’s role, and that’s a positive thing. A number of families, certainly in my own family—and the Minister will know this through his own electorate work—not only struggle with the loss of a loved one, which can be a shock; they struggle, often, with not fully understanding the how and why and they want a quick resolution, and when it takes weeks, months, and, sadly, into years, that becomes a major, major issue. So this is a really positive step forward.

I will say I would have liked to have seen that earlier Supplementary Order Paper brought in. I think it’s always in the public interest. For reasons to be explained that I don’t fully understand—I don’t think it’s anything to completely stop the bill by any means. But, actually, I think it is always in the public interest, if only for the sake of statistics, that we have a better understanding of why someone has passed, even if it is, let’s say, strictly an educated guess by the associate coroner. That is still better than simply saying the person is deceased, but it’s not in the public interest to say why, and, to illustrate it really, really simply, the length of time it requires an associate coroner to say it’s not in the public interest is about the same time they could write down what they believe to be the understanding.

Look, I have to say, even just from personal experience, as odd as it sounds, I helped an epidemiological team in Fiji, when I was there, go through the death records and work out reasons why people had passed or not. It could be a shock to some people that old age was noted by some people without coronial experience. An arthritic knee was also a reason for death, which is also a bit of a surprise to me. The fact that a shark ate someone—that was not a surprise. I thought that was one of the coronial highlights in Fiji; not for the person involved, of course, but in terms of a coronial document in epidemiology. But, on that, I continue to be happy to commend the bill to the House.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): I want to take my final brief call on this bill to do as the Minister did, and as previous speakers have done, and mihi to the people who are at the heart of this matter, who are whānau of the deceased and who have struggled with the huge delays in the system. I want to mihi particularly to those who came before us at the select committee and thank you for your bravery, your courage, and your grace in bringing you difficult lived experience in the coronial court before us. We hope that what we are doing will help to alleviate the suffering of other whānau. Thank you for your service. I commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. As has been acknowledged by many of those who’ve risen to speak tonight before me, this is a pretty simple and practical piece of legislation, in that it seeks to undertake, particularly as outlined by many colleagues, the new position of the coronial associate, who is able to take forward some of that more straightforward work in this space. It is also enabling coroners to hold coronial inquiries solely in the chambers, where appropriate and where a full inquest in court is not needed, and enabling, of course, written findings to be issued stating cause of death only and not necessarily the circumstances, where they consider that there is no public interest in making findings as to the broader circumstances, as well as enabling the recording of cause of death as “ascertained natural causes” when no further investigation or inquiry is necessary, which better reflects current practice. To that effect, of course, the Greens support this legislation, as people would have heard throughout the other speeches in the other stages of this bill tonight.

One of the core things, though, that I did want to touch on—because, of course, it’s not contained within this legislation. I was just talking to my colleague Nicole McKee, on the other side of the political spectrum. We found ourselves, actually, on Budget night last year, working through a process—and I also want to acknowledge our members from the National Party, who are also engaged in this process—in what it might look like to provide greater resourcing and increase in coronial numbers, particularly, potentially, the likes of a ratio of coroners to head a population, because, if I recall correctly, I believe that we’re increasing the numbers by two or—

Chris Penk: Yeah.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —five or so? Two?

Chris Penk: Two—the fulltime-equivalent.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I’m being aided by the member Chris Penk—two. But that, of course, puts us in a situation where, per that Budget night legislation, we will continue having to amend the primary legislation as much as we want to continue increasing those numbers of coroners and therefore the resourcing for them. So, again, a bit of another practical opportunity to increase the efficacy and the resourcing of the system unfortunately missed. But none the less, I’m putting that point on the record, hoping that moving forward with the consensus that we’re finding in the Chamber tonight, there is an opportunity for us to do something like that moving forward, because this is something which touches the lives and, obviously—very obviously—the deaths of many New Zealanders.

To that effect, I wanted to acknowledge Corinda Taylor and the Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust from down South, in Dunedin. I first had the privilege of meeting them several years ago, in one of my first years here in this place, when they brought a petition to Parliament asking for a fairer, more equitable, and more effective coronial system that didn’t leave, as another colleague was referencing before, many bereaved families—particularly, suicide-bereaved families—in a situation where they were waiting at times years and feeling as though they themselves were being treated as though they were under suspicion throughout those processes. So just putting that on the record that this is one step towards that justice.

Also, acknowledging the chronology and history of how we got to this place, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the process as undertaken in former iterations of this Parliament, such as in the 2018 tabled select committee inquiry at, I believe, the Māori Affairs Committee. This was initially instigated by our former co-leader Metiria Turei, then picked up by Marama Davidson, with the Government then going on to accept a number of the recommendations, particularly around supporting grieving whānau accessing and managing the deceased bodies of their loved ones.

I commend this bill to the House, but I’ve got to say there’s more mahi to do. So I’m hoping that with the consensus, as I said before, that we’ve found in the House tonight, we can pick up once again those debates and discussions that we had on Budget night at the beginning of last year, and continue to improve the system and the processes for all moving forward. Kia ora.

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand in this third and final reading of the Coroners Amendment Bill, again in support of this bill going through. At the beginning of the second reading, I acknowledged the new Minister for Courts, the Hon Rino Tirikatene, and I’d like to, in this third reading, acknowledge the former Minister for Courts the Hon Aupito William Sio, because he did quite a bit of work, work that has been needed for a very long time. So I’d like to start off by acknowledging his efforts in this space that got this bill under way.

We’re going to have not only additional coroners—the two—but now associate coroners to help take the workload. I did once upon a time in my youth—it was many, many years ago, but my very first full-time job ever after leaving school was working in a law firm called East Brewster, in Rotorua. It was the late Paul East’s father who had established that business with Roger Brewster, and Roger Brewster was the coroner in Rotorua. As a young 17-, 18-, 19-year-old, I was under his guidance and was his secretary pulling together a lot of the coronial work. Some of it was really quite disturbing. It was so disturbing that when I turned 20, I used to wonder why I’d go home and cry at night, and I realised it was the type of work that I was doing. I can only imagine what some of those families were feeling.

What I felt at the time was the pressure of so many different cases. But to now think back that at least we got through those cases in a reasonable time, and to know that there are families out there that have been waiting so many years, it must be absolutely devastating for them. So to be able to put this bill through, to help them get through their personal situations, can only be good—good for the families, good for the justice system, and good for the service that we try to offer those families as well.

By supporting this bill, we are assisting in reducing the amount of time that those families have to wait, and that means that they can move on. By making changes, we also expect that there will be not such long delays in being able to have families close off certain things while they’re going through the coronial process, and that’s where I spoke earlier of the certificates of interim findings and how important it is. We’ve heard how families have asked coroners to give them a certificate, but the coroner’s been away, the coroner has moved somewhere else for a couple of months, or the coroner will come back to them and just simply doesn’t have time. The new clauses that we’ve put into this bill means that the Chief Coroner can appoint another coroner to give that certificate of interim finding for those families while the coroner that’s been assigned the case is busy doing something else.

Again, I’m going to reflect on a personal experience here. It wasn’t violent, but my stepfather passed away suddenly in a marae kitchen, and that meant that he had to go through the coronial process. My mother, as you can understandably accept, was very, very upset about what had happened and at having to go through the process, but, at the same time, she was getting letters from IRD demanding that he was overdue for payments for child support. My mother kept trying to contact the IRD to tell them that he had passed, but because she couldn’t produce a death certificate, they kept sending these letters over and over again. It was very distressing for my mother. She eventually replied, sending them to the plot that he was buried in, but we had to, effectively, wait to be able to get these interim findings to be able to put that at rest, and I again reflect that that was only a short period of time compared to what some families are waiting for now.

These certificates are essential to help families close bank accounts, to start insurance processes, and potentially to even stop agencies like the IRD from courses of action because there was no proof that could be provided that a person is deceased. There is assurance now that the associate coroners will have the same immunities as coroners, while, at the same time, they will also have the same responsibilities as a coroner and be answerable in the same way.

We’ve amended a clause that allowed a coroner to record some deaths that eventually show a person’s passing was from natural causes. It is not to be recorded as an unascertained natural cause, because that’s like an oxymoron in itself, but, rather, presumed natural causes without investigation. At this time, I reiterate to submitters that where further investigations are required, they will happen, and that this clause is only to be used where the evidence available already points to a natural death.

I’d like to take the opportunity once again to thank my Justice Committee colleagues, the officials who walked us really well through the complexities of this bill, and the 2,500 submitters who took the time to write in to us with their views, wanting to be heard. We have heard them. May those that are sitting within the system have speed so that they can go through and finish off the passing of their families and move on themselves. ACT commends this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you. At this third and final reading, it is consensus in the House for this bill to be passed into law. When I have previously spoken in the House both on this bill and the Coroners (Coronial Cap) Amendment Bill back in 2022, I reiterated that justice delayed is justice denied. So, with the passage of this bill, hopefully, justice will no further be denied to the families of the bereaved—the bereaved and the deceased who are the subjects of the coronial court. In closing, as when I opened with the second reading of this bill, to quote Wallace Bain, a coroner speaks for the dead to protect the living.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs: I present a legislative statement on the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It’s a pleasure to speak in support of the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill following its first reading on 26 July 2022. I’d like to thank the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for their sterling work in the consideration of this bill. The committee tabled its report in November 2022, and it recommended that no amendments be made.

The bill is necessary to ensure that Government has the ongoing ability to issue loans to New Zealand citizens and permanent residents in accordance with the New Zealand consular functions. An unprecedented global pandemic and complex geopolitical events have highlighted how necessary it is for consular officials to have the ability to provide temporary financial assistance in the form of a consular loan. This doesn’t mean that it’s a free-for-all, but that specific criteria must be met before a consular loan can be considered—that includes that a person is in distress, exceptional circumstances exist, and lending money would provide short-term assistance consistent with New Zealand’s consular functions.

There are two key provisions of this bill. Firstly, the bill will create a permanent delegable statutory authority for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to issue consular loans to New Zealand citizens and their immediate family members—and, in rare cases, permanent residents who are overseas facing exceptional circumstances. Secondly, it will create retrospective statutory authority for all consular loans granted between July 2013—which saw a public finance amendment inadvertently remove the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s legal basis to issue consular loans—and June 2020, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade received its current delegated authority from the Minister of Finance to lend money for this purpose. So the bill simply fixes an anomaly and reestablishes legislative authority for a longstanding practice. It does not seek to create a new policy to issue consular loans, but to create ongoing certainty around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade ability to provide consular loans.

In summary, the bill does two things: it allows New Zealand’s consular officials to continue the longstanding practice of issuing consular loans and it corrects some unintended consequences for consular loans when the Public Finance Act was amended in 2013. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend the bill to the House.

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

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I’m very happy to support this bill, the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill. Obviously, we’re only at the second reading at the moment. We have the committee stage and the third reading to go, but as we intimated on this side of the House during the first reading, we support the legislation.

This is a really good example of a practice which has been going for a long, long time. There were some statutory changes—and I might just highlight a little bit of that—which changed the legality of the process. So I think one of my first themes from this side of the House is to say that the idea of consular loans to support New Zealand citizens, and occasionally permanent residents—and I might elaborate on that slightly—is a positive thing. There is absolutely no dispute, I suspect, from any side of the House that New Zealanders overseas in distress are able to go to our consulates and embassies and get assistance, and consular loans are just one of the aspects that can be provided. The Minister who has just resumed his seat, Minister Webb, has pointed out that family members can be assisted as well.

The context to this is that it’s something that has happened for a long time. Consular loans have been a pretty standard activity. I think it was back in 1989 that there was some legislation—part of the Public Finance Act—which authorised this, but Parliament made changes in 2013 to that Act, and it was unknown at the time that the change to that Act meant that, actually, legally speaking—not morally or ethically, but legally speaking—the giving of consular loans was no longer legal. So, again, for listeners at home, it’s not to stress that anything wrong was happening; it’s just that all of a sudden it became illegal and, in effect, the new Public Finance Act 2013, or rather the new expression of it, said a very specific delegation must be given.

So this is a bill which is, in effect, doing two things. One is making it absolutely abundantly clear in a new piece of legislation, this Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill, that a permanent delegation is given to the chief executive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to exercise that authority to give consular loans, and it’s also retrospective to make it clear in respect of the loans that have been given in the past.

I just want to make one very brief comment. The Minister touched a few times on the exceptional nature of assisting New Zealand permanent residents. I don’t want to give particular examples here. People are welcome to go and read the New Zealand Herald. There are occasions when New Zealand permanent residents do need more assistance than we currently give, and I want to acknowledge through the Speaker that this is not precisely within the bill, but it’s an encouragement to the Government and future Governments to perhaps look at how our consulates and embassies not only help New Zealand citizens but New Zealand permanent residents as well to get further and fuller assistance. I really want to make that clear. Some assistance is given, but I feel that, in many ways, our permanent residents have pretty much all the rights of a citizen, and certainly those overseas require that as well. But with that, I would like to commend the bill to the House.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to rise to take a call on the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill. This bill provides express statutory authority for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to continue the practice of issuing consular loans in exceptional circumstances to New Zealand citizens, and permanent residents in distress overseas, as the last resort. This is a practice that’s been going on for the last 25 years. The Minister has been assisting New Zealanders overseas. The need of this was highlighted during the pandemic where about 300-plus New Zealanders were assisted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, so amending this legislation is timely.

I’d like to thank the two submitters who submitted to the committee. One of them was asking for permanent residence to be included in this legislation, and the second one simply expressing his gratitude and saying that this bill provides him with comfort. So it’s a good bill; I commend it to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I also welcome the opportunity to speak to the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill. I wasn’t part of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee when it was considering this bill, so you may be wondering why I’m speaking on it. I was just wondering that myself, but we’ll do our best for at least a short contribution.

In the matter of making loans from consulates overseas to New Zealanders—by which, we mean not only New Zealand citizens but also permanent residents, as my friend and colleague Simon O’Connor has astutely pointed out—this is a longstanding practice, I understand. So, to some extent, it’s merely providing authority for that which has already been taking place, not only on the basis of that going forward but also to validate retrospectively or retroactively that which has already been taking place. I think that’s a worthwhile endeavour for our Parliament.

I’m reminded, of course, of the famous Shakespearean maxim “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” I think the reticence of the select committee to broaden the eligibility of lending reflects that we should rightly be reasonably tight in the circumstances in which the State would lend money to those who need help, only because we need to demonstrate clearly that they do need help. And, of course, that quote is from the famous Hamlet play. And for fans of Hamlet, they might have noticed there’s a new section 2AA. So, at some point, the drafters have a decision whether to insert a clause 2B or not to insert a clause 2B!

But anyway, with probably more on Hamlet and less on the bill, I think I’m perhaps the wrong “Bill”, actually—for those fans of the Bard. I think I should probably leave my contribution at around about that, and only add that we commend the bill to the House.

DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take this call on the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill. It’s necessary to ensure that the Government has ongoing ability to issue loans to New Zealand citizens and permanent residents in accordance with New Zealand’s consular functions. But, essentially, it just tidies up the legislation to make it fit for purpose. So it’s for that reason that I commend the bill to the House.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise in support—it appears, with the rest of the House—of the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill on behalf of my colleague Golriz Ghahraman. This is a short and technical bill, which we thank the Minister and the officials who worked on it for bringing here for us today.

We mihi also to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and your officials. We understand that there were just two submissions—and one of them just to say thanks. So that must have been a great day at the office—but the main point, of course, being that no changes were made to the bill from that process.

So we note these loans have been going on for a long, long time, and it is the worst thing to be stuck overseas. I am thankful—I am very, very thankful—that we have a mechanism whereby our people can get hold of our consulate or our embassy and make their way home. We saw it with COVID, people trying to get back here. You just never know what might happen around the world that gets you stuck.

I see that we need to do this. We have to have the explicit authorisation for the changes to the Public Finance Act, and that seems all good with us, so we commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of ACT on this happy occasion to say that we too support the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill.

I wanted to take the opportunity to recount actually seeking help from our embassy in Washington, DC. One day, I actually needed to get something signed by a New Zealander and, being in Washington, not knowing any other New Zealanders having just arrived, I went to the embassy. It was a very interesting experience, because, first of all, there were all these Kiwis who only talked to each other. I actually had forgotten how bad we sound, having been in the States for a while. So we heard all of these flat vowels.

They also had a fountain and lots of ferns, so it was almost like entering the New Zealand bush—this wee oasis in the middle of a city of madness: Washington, DC. I needed to get something signed and they did it. This woman who worked at the embassy said that she was certain that she was supposed to charge me a fee for the service, but she couldn’t find the piece of paper that said how much the fee was—so she said she’d just do it as a freebie.

I think that’s probably a good summary of how New Zealand consular staff and embassies around the world have sought to help Kiwis far from home for a long time, and we should be very grateful for the work that our diplomatic corps do—with the possible exception of the recent arrival in Dublin. However, for the most part, they’ve done a wonderful job and made New Zealanders proud and welcome around the world.

But, of course, while it’s nice to be friendly, as Stuart Nash has recently discovered it’s also very important to follow the rules—even when you’re trying to help people. That’s something that this bill helps to put back in place, in the sense of consular loans. If an embassy overseas is to give some money to a stranded Kiwi, the thing is that money spent from the taxpayer can only be spent if there’s a proper appropriation made by this Parliament. It’s an old principle: no taxation without representation.

So it’s important that if that money is going to be taken from taxpayers and applied to a purpose, then there’s actually a proper procedure under the Public Finance Act to allow that to be done. I’ve got to commend the Government for making sure that these few hundreds or thousands—maybe a few tens of thousands—of dollars of small and formal consular loans are done by the book.

But what about the $55 billion allocated to COVID? As I read in the Herald earlier this week, the Treasury can now say that of the estimated $55 billion allocated to COVIDspecific appropriations, $36 billion had been spent. They actually don’t know what a large portion of that $55 billion was spent on. In fact, this Government has a terrible history of taking money that Parliament appropriates for one purpose and then spending it on something completely different.

A good example would be the $30 million that was used to buy the land at Ihumātao. Totally outside appropriation, as the Auditor-General found. So while it’s extremely important—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The member is speaking totally outside of this particular bill. So if you can come back to this, please.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, Madam Speaker, it’s a theme, isn’t it? While it’s very important that we are for a few tens of thousands of dollars doing the right thing, what would be good to see is if this Government—from Labour—could actually come to the House and start being a bit more fastidious about the way that they spend taxpayers’ money more generally.

But that doesn’t take anything away from this particular bill, which is a very good start. And long may “no taxation without representation” be honoured by Governments of New Zealand—starting with this one, who have a bit of retrospective work to do. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill.

In Committee

Clause 1 Title

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the House is in Committee for the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill. Members, we come first to clause 1. This is the debate on the title. The question is that clause 1 stand part.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 Commencement

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to clause 2. This is the debate on the commencement. The question is that clause 2 stand part.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 Principal Act

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): We come now to clause 3, and this is the debate on the principal Act. The question is that clause 3 stand part.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 New section 2AA inserted (Transitional, savings, and related provisions)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to clause 4. This is the debate on the new section 2AA to be inserted into the Foreign Affairs Act 1988, “(Transitional, savings, and related provisions)”. The question is that clause 4 stand part.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clause 5 New section 12A inserted (Consular loans)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): This is the debate on the new section 12A to be inserted into the Foreign Affairs Act 1988, “(Consular Loans)”. The question is that clause 5 stand part.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just wondered if I could ask the Minister a couple of questions that I’m sure people might be interested to know. Can the Minister give us a sense of the quantum of money and the number of loans that have been made in recent years, perhaps in the last two or three years, just to give people a sense of how many Kiwis seek help from embassies and consulates overseas and what sort of amounts they borrow?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs): Yes, yes, I’m happy to provide that information. Most loans are for under $5,000 with a repayment schedule of up to 12 months. In exceptional circumstances, a loan can be issued up to $20,000. To retain some flexibility the legislative authority is greater than that. In respect of how many loans have been made in recent months, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, around $2.5 million of loans were made. That was mainly to support assisted departure flights back to New Zealand and, in some situations, some small loans to allow people to shelter in place. And, of that, over 70 percent has already been repaid. I think, from memory, I also saw somewhere else that in the period from 2014 to 2020, there were generally less than 10 consular loans per year and the average loan was just over $1,000.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Clause 6 New Schedule 1 inserted

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): This is the debate on the new Schedule 1 to be inserted into the Foreign Affairs Act 1988—clause 6. The question is that clause 6 stand part.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Point of order. I seek leave for the remaining clauses to be taken as one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Is there any objection to the motion. No objections.

Clauses 6 to 8, and the Schedule

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that clauses 6, 7, and 8, and the Schedule stand part.

Clauses 6 to 8 and the Schedule agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon DAVID PARKER (Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs): I move, That the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

As those who have been following this debate will now know, this is an uncontentious piece of legislation that fixes a mistake that was made some years ago which removed the legislative authority for consular loans. The bill therefore allows the Minister of Foreign Affairs to continue the longstanding practice of providing temporary financial assistance to New Zealand citizens and permanent residents overseas who find themselves in distress in exceptional circumstances or when their immediate health and safety is at risk and they are without other means of immediate assistance.

Just in respect of the anecdote that we heard from the member David Seymour for the ACT Party about his Washington, DC trip, I’m sure he would join with me in recalling what a beautiful building it is that Sir Miles Warren designed at the Washington, DC Chancery.

With that aside, I’m not going to say much extra. As others have said, the bill does two things: firstly, it retrospectively creates an authority for the consular loans that were granted in good faith between July 2013 and June 2020, and, secondly, it creates a permanent delegable statutory authority for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to issue consular loans rather than relying on the delegated authority from the Minister of Finance that was put in place once this issue was discovered in June 2020. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.

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

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. As the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs has resumed his seat, this does remain an uncontroversial bill—just happy to report that to the House and put everyone at ease.

Look, again, in some ways we are repeating—well, sorry, not we; I—I am repeating what was said at first reading, second reading—not at committee stage; it was very prudent to get through that. This is not controversial. It’s actually a good example of how the Parliament works to—it is to fix a legislative oversight, but I’m hesitating as I say that, because I actually don’t think there’s any particular reason that the error happened beyond that a rather complex bill, that being the Public Finance Act, was changed. People carried on the practices that they were familiar with, and it was only until more recent times that eagle-eyed officials went, “Hold on a moment. The legislative power granted to us to allow these consular loans has ended.” And, as I noted in previous speeches, the original Public Finance Act, I think in 1989, provided that that power, that statutory or legislative power—because, as people at home will understand, you just don’t give out money, and so there needs to be an authority to do that.

When—I think it was in 2013—changes were made to the Public Finance Act, it was overlooked at the time that, actually, that statutory or legislative authority to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) had ended. Consequently, loans were being given out, rightly, as I said earlier—morally, ethically, or whatever words you want to use—just, unfortunately, not legally correct. And as the Minister pointed out, not only is this legislation now making sure that future loans will be legal but retrospective as well—and it’s probably important to say that we don’t use retrospectivity all that often, but this is an excellent case of where it makes sense.

It was useful, actually, in the committee stage, to briefly hear some of the numbers from the Minister. These are not used often, these loans, but in a growingly—growingly? Yeah, growingly—troubled world, New Zealanders do find themselves in difficult positions. And consular loans, I’d better stress, are just one way that our embassies and consulates help people.

So, as I move to wrap up, I’d just make a couple of quick observations. Firstly, it is actually with grateful thanks to our consulates and the Minister and our embassies. The Minister is right: our facilities in DC are amazing and always worth a visit. But to our MFAT people who look after those consulates and embassies, we are grateful for the work they lead on behalf of the Realm. And can I just acknowledge the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for its work. Vanushi Walters—no, apologies. Apologies. I’m mixing up my select committees; it’s because Jenny Salesa is the chair of that. But also to acknowledge the officials within MFAT—I think that’s probably the overarching theme I want to end with. We are grateful to our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, each and every one who represents the Realm of New Zealand overseas, in many, many different ways but, in particular, in reference to this bill, is making sure that New Zealanders get the assistance they need. And once this bill passes and receives Royal assent, they’ll be doing so legally.

IBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill, third reading. It’s good to see—it’s a good night in the House when the whole House comes together to debate a bill that might look insignificant, but it’s actually very important to a lot of people who travel overseas.

The bill does a few things, but one of the things that it does is it seeks to re-establish legislative authority for longstanding practice. This is not to seek to create a new policy approach. Rather, the intention is for the power to make loans provided for in legislation to be applied in the same way as reflected in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (MFAT) consular loans policy. It also retrospectively validates the loans issued between 2017 and 2020. In early 2020, MFAT became aware of the lack of authority under the Public Finance Act so, as it manages a significant increase in the number of consular loans due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I too wanted to add my voice, thanking and appreciating our diplomats all over the world who look after us.

Last October, I was in Addis Ababa, and the embassy staff and Ambassador Michael Upton looked after me very, very well, and I’m sure that they do this throughout the world for Kiwis that travel overseas. I want to acknowledge the hard-working select committee that’s chaired by yourself, for the good work that they have done scrutinising this bill. I’d like to thank the submitters, the Clerk’s staff, and everyone who contributed in this bill, and also everyone who spoke in favour of this bill tonight across this House.

It’s heart-warming to see that once we can disagree on things, but when it comes to things that affect Kiwis, we come together and we get the job done and that’s exactly what happened in this House tonight. This is a good bill; I commend it to the House.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak briefly on the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill on its third reading. This is a relatively simple bill, but an important one that will re-establish legislative authority for a longstanding practice. For over a quarter of a century, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has provided financial assistance to assist New Zealand citizens and permanent residents when their immediate health or safety is at risk.

And certainly over the last few years, we’ve seen a real challenge, where a large number of New Zealanders were stuck overseas for quite some period of time and found themselves in very difficult situations. Our great consular services did assist them. This bill will ensure that those loans are retrospectively approved where necessary and ensure that the right legislation is in place to ensure this is legal going forward. So it’s a simple but important bill, and one that, hopefully, we won’t be needing to the same degree that we have over the last few years for a very long time to come. But with that, I commend this bill to the House.

DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It is my pleasure to speak on the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill. At this stage, at the third reading, I think it’s fitting to acknowledge New Zealand’s network of 60 embassies and consulates and their 863 offshore staff who play a vital role in representing New Zealand abroad and protecting Kiwis when they’re facing difficult situations overseas.

One of the tools available to them is to assist New Zealanders in distress with the consular loan. This financial assistance is a last resort provided in exceptional circumstances when the health or safety of the person is at stake. So I commend this bill to the House.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I am very pleased to rise in support of the Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill in this, its final reading. Thank you again to the Minister, the officials, the select committee—everybody that’s helped move it through so we can gracefully send it on its path tonight.

I too wanted to add my thanks to the embassies and the consulates around the world. Last year, some of us who are part of the European Union Parliamentary Friendship Group did a trip to Europe. We visited six countries in two weeks. It was a whirlwind, but we had ambassadors and people from our embassies around the world looking after us every step of the way. I know we’re fortunate, as MPs, as members of Parliament, as Ministers, that we have certain privileges, but the rest of our people who head out there in excitement to see family and experience different things, they don’t always have that back-up when something happens. But this is the back-up. We’re pleased that we can take care of the technical issues. It means that this can continue.

I also thank the Minister for giving us that outline of what kind of money we’re actually talking about here. It’s not a fortune, but when there’s an emergency and someone’s health or safety is threatened somewhere else in the rest of the world, it’s the lifeline that they need, and I’m really thankful that we can make sure that it continues. We commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of the third reading of this Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill.

I stand feeling obliged to make a speech without having a huge amount more to say. I imagine this is what it’s like every day being a Labour backbencher, in fact. I just want to say a couple of things about this bill. We all enjoy the camaraderie with Kiwis overseas; that this bill represents the idea that even when you are far from home, help is possible.

I think it’s wonderful that the Government has decided to pass this legislation so that money that’s taken from taxpayers and spent on a purpose—in this case loans to people in trouble abroad—is actually done legally, within the law. That’s a very good thing.

I think it’s great that this bill was introduced to the House last June, debated for the first time in July, and went off to a select committee to be considered for four months, even though it is only two pages in substance, of actual content—only two pages. Yet this law is about spending money within the law, legally, and it was properly considered.

Now, you contrast that with the cacophony of rushed lawmaking and illegal expenditure that characterises this Government, and I think this may be my favourite thing Labour’s done. One of the best things that they’ve ever done. Spending money legally and properly considering making a law. Now, if only the Labour Party could apply the principles it’s applied to this bill, then I think that they would be in a much better place to govern this country.

Now, it would be churlish of me not to congratulate Duncan Webb. I saw Duncan Webb introducing the second reading of this bill tonight. I was reminded when I was listening to that guy from Helensville—I think Chris Penk—he was quoting Shakespeare, he was quoting Hamlet. And that made me think of Twelfth Night and Malvolio. Malvolio said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” But there’s a fourth option in the case of Duncan Webb: none of the above. And it just made me think of him when I saw him speaking earlier today.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: I can answer that! Will you yield? Will you yield?

DAVID SEYMOUR: Nevertheless, without too much more to do, I think I’ve almost done my Labour backbencher’s two minutes. Duncan Webb’s now trying to heckle, but he’s also got his mouth full. And that’s actually a breach of the Standing Orders because he shouldn’t be in the Chamber, and he also shouldn’t be talking with his mouth full. But you know, Duncan Webb says he’s a lawyer—although some people from Christchurch say that’s a bit questionable. But nevertheless, he’s breaking at least two rules at once: one of manners, and the other of the Standing Orders.

Thank you very much for extending my speech beyond the requisite Labour backbencher one minute, but there really is not too much further to say about this Foreign Affairs (Consular Loans) Amendment Bill.

Therefore, finally—and this may be the final speech unless Duncan Webb gets up to give one, and that would be fantastic. Let’s see if he’s got something to say; he’s certainly got the time and the opportunity. But ACT, for one party, commends this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Come on, Duncan.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Civil Aviation Bill.

Bills

Civil Aviation Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House in committee for the Civil Aviation Bill. We will start with Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 12, “Preliminary provisions”, and Schedule 1, “Transitional, savings, and related provisions”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

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

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. ACT welcomes this bill coming back to the House. It’s about time that we modernised some of the regulation and red tape that is stifling New Zealand businesses, and the Civil Aviation Bill, when it becomes law, will go a long way. However, there are some issues that have been raised at the Transport and Infrastructure Committee with the performance and operation of civil aviation, particularly with respect to the independent review of decisions made by the Director of Civil Aviation, and while submitters in the industry have indicated that they are somewhat satisfied by the changes made to the bill, they are not entirely satisfied.

ACT also has raised concerns about the performance of some entities that fall under civil aviation—in particular, the monitoring and the independent assessment of aviation security services, as we referred to in the report back to the House. So I would like to ask the Minister to please explain why only yesterday, on 28 March, two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) have been tabled which make some rather significant changes to some aspects of the bill, what it is that the Minister and officials mean to achieve by tabling those SOPs, and why have members and stakeholders not had an opportunity to review those SOPs until yesterday? Minister.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): It’s a pleasure to be here in the Chamber this evening under urgency. Very briefly, in response to the member’s questions: they have been tabled because they are Supplementary Order Papers, and they’ve been worked through a fulsome process going back to 2021. Stakeholders have been engaged the whole way through. It was good to be able discuss these—actually, at the same function that Mr Court was at last night—with some key stakeholders again. These are minor in the scheme of things, and they do nothing other than what has been previously indicated that this Government will do.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call. I would like the Minister to actually outline some of the key changes that are being made by the two Supplementary Order Papers. One of them appears to be splitting the bill; the other one appears to be making a range of different amendments to the bill, which, of course, has gone through a fulsome select committee process. The National Party has supported this piece of legislation because it is important that we do update the legislation around our civil aviation in New Zealand.

There have been a number of issues, though, where there has been contention in the select committee, with a range of views put forward by submitters, and I would appreciate if the Minister could take some time to talk through what the specific changes are in relation to the Supplementary Order Paper. She said they were minor and technical, but the Supplementary Order Paper is an entire 18 pages long, and it amends multiple clauses throughout the piece of legislation, and as my colleague Simon Court said, this was only tabled to Parliament yesterday.

The explanatory note for it is less than one page long, and the Ministry of Transport considered that the departmental disclosure statement was not required for the Supplementary Order Paper, which gives us as MPs a very limited ability to scrutinise what is a significant reform of the civil aviation legislation in New Zealand. And so I would like the Minister to outline the key changes. I note that it makes changes for airports in relation to the Public Works Act, which was a contentious issue in regards to holding and disposal of land. There are questions that were raised in the select committee as to whether public works provisions should be able to be retained by airports, or whether Land Information New Zealand should be able to take on board those powers, which would, of course, limit airports to be able to make those decisions around whether they could dispose of land.

Having the Minister answer those questions would be useful. I note that it also includes some additional fees and charges for people under the new body which was set up to review decisions of the Civil Aviation Authority. I know they’re going to make some changes now around that as well. It would be good for the Minister to actually tell the committee exactly what this Supplementary Order Paper does so that the committee can have confidence in relation to her statement that these are only minor and technical improvements.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): I’m happy to respond to the member’s question in so far as this relates to Part 1. The Part 1 amendments are very limited. In that Supplementary Order Paper, it’s clause 2 only, which relates to the extension of the commencement date of the bill to 24 months after the Royal assent.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Can the Minister provide rationale to the committee for why the extension from 18 months to two years is provided as being made in this Supplementary Order Paper?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): I can: because it was a change that was sought and it was one that the Government has agreed to.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Minister, who sought the changes and on what grounds? Did they believe they required an additional six months in order to give effect to the bill?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): Yes, it’s a significant bill. It’s going to have large implications. The member will have heard about this with the people he was with last night. But, indeed, over the significant period of time that this—

Matt Doocey: What happened last night? I missed out.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Yes, he was at a function last night. It was an airports function; one that I think your mayor might have been at. It was a good function. But, look, as you’ll be well aware, it’s a significantly large bill, massive implications for the entire civil aviation environment. Primarily, the changes have been sought by the Civil Aviation Authority and the Ministry of Transport, but that’s been through engagement with the sector.

SIMON COURT (ACT): So, were there specific reasons that the authority, the Ministry of Transport, and any stakeholders that might have been consulted about the extension—were there any specific reasons that they gave? Because there are many things in this bill that the industry has been asking for to streamline the way they operate to make it more efficient and to update the regulations. So, while some of it might be complex and difficult to implement, based on current state, I’m surprised that that extension of time has been asked for, for the date of when the bill comes into effect. So if the Minister could just tell us who asked for the extension and what was the reason, that would be very helpful.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): I’m happy to reanswer that question because I think I was relatively clear, but I’ll restate it for the member. Clause 2, “Commencement”—it will extend the commencement date of the bill for 24 months after the Royal assent. So that won’t have a specific date because the Royal assent is yet to be determined, subject to tonight and other matters, and, secondary to that, as I said before, the secondary legislation—its substantive programme is large. This has been well canvassed with the industry, and we’re giving effect to those changes.

Simon Court: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): If I may, Simon Court, before you ask another question about commencement, commencement is not actually to be debated until right at the end of the bill. Clause 2 only talks about the preliminary parts, not the actual commencement date. So go ahead and ask other questions, but we will debate the commencement much later on.

SIMON COURT (ACT): I just want to come to clause 5, Madam Chair, the definition of “eligible New Zealand operator”. There was a lot of debate, a lot of questions in select committee, Minister, about whether local council owned and operated airports should come under the same regime as the larger commercial airports. And there were some significant concerns that, actually, they would have a different regime of treating the way they operated. So would the Minister provide some explanation as to why, in clause 5, the definition of “eligible New Zealand operator” now includes after Part 6 in section 4(10). Because when we look at section 4(10), it requires a whole lot of information about, essentially, climate-related disclosures, which are quite extensive, quite onerous, and look like they would put quite significant costs on airport operators. So would the Minister please explain why airport operators appear to have to supply a whole lot of information that actually looks like it’s quite onerous.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport) Thank you; this is a good question. It’s at clause 226 of the bill, where it’s really expanded upon, so it clarifies who the exemption to operate an airport commercially applies to and specifically ensuring that we capture Crown and local authority joint venture airports who choose not to operate commercially. So the eligible New Zealand operators—it’s really about emissions from international airlines primarily, where Air New Zealand would operate out of.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): I’d like the Minister to just provide a bit of clarity in regards to that particular point about eligible New Zealand operators. Is the Minister saying that clause 410 doesn’t operate—doesn’t apply—to all airports, or is it only applying to some airports? Currently, the definition of “eligible New Zealand operator” doesn’t refer at all to clause 410, but this Supplementary Order Paper is adding in reference to 410 which, as has been mentioned, is in relation to “Regulations relating to carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation”, and relates to “how an eligible New Zealand operator may be attributed to New Zealand”, “how flights … be attributed to an eligible New Zealand operator”, “the content of an emissions monitoring plan”, and “the method or methods by which fuel emissions may be calculated.”

So it has a variety of things which are very different to the variety of things which are referred to in clause 206(2). So it seems to be that the bill is now pointing us in a very different direction from what it was originally pointing us towards. Appreciate any clarification around why that new definition has been added to this particular clause.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I apologise if I wasn’t as clear as I could have been, and I’m remiss if that was indeed the case. So, a “New Zealand operator” is defined at 206(1)(a) and (b), and you’ll see there that it specifically applies to airlines. Clause 410 is aligned in that the definition it refers to, indeed, what we were trying to capture, which is international aviation, so it’s really related directly to those airports that operate internationally.

SIMON COURT (ACT): So, Minister Allan, just with respect to clause 410, clause 410(1)(a) refers to a convention, and to “Annex 16, Vol IV of the Convention:”. So would the Minister like to describe—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Point of order to the member: even though clause 5 refers to clause 410, you can’t actually debate clause 410 at this time, because that is part of Part 6.

SIMON COURT: Right. Well, thank you, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Go ahead and ask questions about clause 5, though.

SIMON COURT: Yeah. So when it comes to clause 5 and we’re looking at the definition of an “operator”, it is actually material what they’re required to do. I would have thought that actually getting a bit more clarity on this from the Minister would be helpful, because we are talking about definitions of who operates in New Zealand airspace and what their obligations are. And if their obligations, by being defined as an “operator”, include having to report on their carbon emissions and so on, with a whole lot of other international obligations, it would just be helpful if the Minister would just clarify that now. And happy to come back and debate it later, Madam Chair.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I mean, this is drawing into that broader part of the debate. This sits under subpart 3 of Part 6, as the member Simon Court’s well aware, under clause 206, and, as I said, is defined there. I’m happy to read it out, but I’m sure the member has it before him as well. For the sake of clarity, though, clause 206(1)(a) reads, “has a registered place of business in New Zealand and holds a New Zealand AOC with ANZA privileges; and (b) operates an air transport service offering air transport services to 1 or more places outside New Zealand as a New Zealand airline”. So just to reiterate my point, for the third time: this applies to international airlines, and specifically Air New Zealand. This is directly tagged to eligible New Zealand operators, for the purposes of emissions.

CAMILLA BELICH (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek leave to have all parts taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Is there any objection to the motion? There are no objections. We will take the rest of this bill as one.

Parts 1 to 11, Schedules 1 to 10, and clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that Parts 1 to 11, Schedules 1 to 10, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): I assume this is a very wide-ranging debate now. Is that correct?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Correct.

SIMEON BROWN: Fantastic. That’s great. I was getting very nervous there, having to find out about every interpretation to try and keep this debate going, but Simon Court was doing a fantastic job, so hat’s off to Simon Court. He’s the man when it comes to the committee of the whole House, from the ACT Party.

Anyway, I’m keen to ask some questions about Supplementary Order Paper 325 which the Minister has tabled. The first change, I think, is one of the substantive changes in relation to the Public Works Act, and, of course, this was one of the significant issues raised by submitters at the select committee, and I’d like the Minister to explain to the committee what these changes make in relation to public works and the public works powers that airport operators can use, because this was a contentious point raised by airport operators, in that the powers that they have around being able to acquire land or dispose of land in the original bill was being significantly curtailed, and those powers were going to be given to Land Information New Zealand to be able to make decisions around whether land was surplus. And, of course, an airport is an asset which has a very long life cycle, and to have a Government department coming in and saying to an airport that certain land was considered surplus, would pay disregard to any long-term plans that an airport operator may have.

So I think it would be useful for the Minister to outline what these changes are doing to ensure that airports are able to make those decisions and what these changes do to ensure that airports continue to hold those powers that they require and to, I guess, give the committee some confidence that these changes are not necessarily winding back the significant amendments made by the select committee, which removed that excessive involvement of Land Information New Zealand into the process. I think that a number of airport operators up and down the country would appreciate hearing directly from the Minister—I’m sure they’re all watching now—to understand exactly what these changes do regarding their powers under the Public Works Act.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): First of all, I’d just like to acknowledge the Minister, obviously clearly engaged in identifying what is indeed a significant power and where there were significant and substantive issues raised throughout the select committee process. I think it’s probably just important to note for the record that the select committee changes that the select committee members undertook throughout the course of that process, it did clarify some of those matters. As a matter of fact, in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) before us today, it doesn’t renege or pull back on that.

I think that, following the report back by the select committee, it became clear that there was still a significant amount of confusion, I think it’s fair to say, from the industry as to what the clauses in the bill related to the Public Works Act provided for. So this SOP seeks to clarify and expressly state what the law is. These clauses are drafted in a manner that’s consistent with the language used in section 186 of the Resource Management Act, something that operators are familiar with, and it is intended that they’re easier to use.

Clause 227 confirms the general position, as currently stated in the Airports Authorities Act, that an airport operated by an airport operator that is not a local authority must be treated as a Government work. Clause 227A more clearly provides for airports not operated by a local authority to compulsorily acquire lands through the Minister of Lands. Clause 227B more clearly provides for airports that are not operated by a local authority to dispose of land through the Public Works Act, for the chief executive of Land Information New Zealand to be empowered to lodge a caveat on airport land, and for the chief executive of Land Information New Zealand to comply with the procedural requirements in relation to any offer-back process. I hope that clarifies it for the member.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. There’s a number of other questions that I’d like to ask in relation to—one of the changes that was proposed at the committee stage was in relation to a new body being set up to review decisions made by the Civil Aviation Authority, and my understanding is that this Supplementary Order Paper puts in place a fees and charges regime for people who apply to the reviewer. It amends clause 416 to allow fees and charges to be prescribed “to reimburse the Secretary and the reviewer for costs directly and indirectly associated with the reviewer’s functions under subpart 4 of Part 10”. I’d like to understand, I guess, the bounds of what those fees and charges may be, because the ability to have decisions reviewed was something which was raised by a large number of submitters through the process because there was a feeling from many submitters that the Civil Aviation Authority was a very challenging organisation to work with from time to time, that the only way to review decisions was to go to judicial review, which, of course, as we know, is time-consuming and expensive for those who feel that the decision that was made by the Civil Aviation Authority was not the one that was right. So the right to be able to have a reviewer was hard fought for by the submitters, would be the way I would put it, and it was agreed that that should be put in place to give them the ability to have those decisions reviewed.

So to now have a Supplementary Order Paper which I guess, in some ways, gives a power to the Civil Aviation Authority to set fees and charges on people who may make an application to have a decision reviewed—well, the Civil Aviation Authority could put those fees and charges at quite a substantial rate to, effectively, make it very difficult for people to be able to have their decisions reviewed, and I think that would go against the principle of why the review body was agreed to at the select committee stage.

It must be noted that this review body has very little teeth, and I think that’s a fair criticism, that many submitters would say that this review body doesn’t have many teeth and are concerned about it. So the question needs to be asked: what parameters are there to ensure that those fees and charges are not going to be used to make it prohibitive for people to be able to have their decisions reviewed and to ensure that the review body is an accountability mechanism to give those people that ability to have their decisions reviewed? I’d appreciate the Minister’s response to those questions.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): The member’s absolutely right: it was a very well-advocated position by submitters to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee about being able to test and challenge the decisions outside of a court, and I want to acknowledge, again, just the committee for working together to agree that that policy should indeed be included. My predecessor, the Minister of Transport, the Hon Michael Wood, in particular, was supportive of that policy, and the scope of the decisions that could be considered were to be relatively broad. So I just want to make it clear tonight to this committee, and particularly everybody who’s up watching this with some, indeed, fervour, like we all are this evening in participating in this discussion, that this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) doesn’t undermine that collective decision made by the committee and, indeed, advocated by those that submitted to that committee.

What the SOP does do is it allows for fees and charges to apply—so, essentially, introducing a user-pays scheme as opposed to anything like a levy. I note that the member was concerned that it would be the Civil Aviation Authority that might, you know, use this as a mechanism to conflate or acquire fees from users. We can assure this committee that it is not going to be the Civil Aviation Authority that sets that fee, that it will be the Minister. So this enables the Minister to be able to set fees and charges in accordance with Treasury and Audit Office guidelines. So I can firmly assure the House that these are not powers that will be exploited.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to prod, I guess, the Minister’s view on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 329, because throughout the select committee stage we did hear a really strong submission, and, obviously, there’s been a media campaign by Consumer New Zealand around consumer rights and relationships, and the possibility to improve consumer rights as part of the amendments we’re making in this bill.

Basically, one of the things that Consumer New Zealand was arguing is that we have fallen behind two other jurisdictions, particularly the European Union, in relation to the ability to legislate and put in regulations around protecting passengers in the case of delays or cancellations of flights. The SOP that we’ve put forward would, effectively, introduce a code of passenger rights—where the Minister would actually have the ability to design this to better protect consumers, and it would, basically, allow the Minister to have a year to work with entities that would be appropriate to set this out.

In the SOP, we are taking into account the European Union’s way of doing things, as well as the input from Consumer New Zealand to also set out what the content of the code would have, including things like how and when a carrier may deny a passenger boarding on a flight, and carriers’ obligations to offer assistance, refund, or pay compensation. We know that in Aotearoa, consumers are not particularly well protected.

I understand that some feedback has been received around the need to perhaps go through a completely separate legislative process. But I think what this SOP, hopefully, shows is that there is a way to incorporate it within the work that we are doing. So I’d like to hear from the Minister as to whether this could be an opportunity to improve consumer rights, and, if not, whether the Minister has interest in advancing this work elsewhere.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): I appreciate and thank the member for his contribution. Indeed, Supplementary Order Paper 329—that has been prepared in an area that’s particularly significant: consumer protection rights.

I note that the bill that’s before the House tonight largely carries over the consumer protections from the current legislative regime and it clarifies the consumers’ recourse to the disputes tribunal. It provides for regulations requiring airlines to inform passengers of their rights. The issue of a comprehensive consumer rights regulation scheme was raised in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. At that stage, no changes were made.

The Supplementary Order Paper tonight would make such a code mandatory, and is relatively prescriptive in terms of the matters that would need to be included. One of the issues that officials identified is that it didn’t distinguish between international air transport where the code would need to be consistent with international obligations and with domestic travel. Consumer regulations—in essence, they would need to be prioritised within the context of the overall civil aviation regulatory programme. It was the officials’ view that extensive work would be required to determine what matters should be included in any such code to avoid any unintentional consequences in our domestic environment here in Aotearoa, but a proposal put forward by the hard-working officials was that these types of regulations could be provided for in a regulatory systems transport amendment bill.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair. Another issue I’d like to raise, which I would ask the Minister to give some consideration to, is in relation to Schedule 2, clause 21(2), which is in relation to the medical convenor. This is another issue which was raised by submitters through the process, and has been advocated quite significantly by pilots who have been—sorry, Schedule 2, clause 21(2) in relation to medical convenors. It’s a particular part of the legislation which is in relation to the medical certificates, and the role of the medical convenor.

The issue here at play is the fact that there are no time frames prescribed for a review of a decision made by the medical convenor. The issue here is that there has been a number of stories of pilots who have been required to get medical certificates where there have been disputes in relation to their tests or examinations, and those disputes or those decisions have in some cases taken many, many months before they are overturned, potentially, or a decision is made to give that pilot some form of decision.

If the Minister were to look at other parts of this Schedule, the Minister would note that there are time limits on the director throughout this process in relation to medical examinations—in some areas, 60 days after the date the medical was issued; in other areas, it talks about shorter time frames. The issue in relation to clause 21 of Schedule 2 is in relation to a decision which is made that there is no time frame in relation to how long a period of review could go on for. And so a number of pilots have applied for reviews, they’ve put them in writing within 20 working days after the date that the decision was made, and then they sit waiting and waiting and waiting, and many, many months go by, and there is no requirement in here to actually have a time frame whereby the decision or the review must be made.

So, as the Minister will note, there are time frames throughout this part, in terms of other things. The individual whose licence is in question because of the medical certificate, they have to make an application within 20 working days. But there is no time limit in relation to the convenor actually making a decision. So I put it to the Minister—and I note that there have been many submissions on this particular issue by pilots—that there should be a time limit in relation to that decision, and I would ask the Minister to consider including in that section a time frame.

Now, I did put a written question to the Minister on this very issue around a proposal which has been put by a number of pilots in relation to a 30-day review period. The Minister responded to that question, saying that because of the complexity of the situation the Minister didn’t feel that that time frame was needed. However, I would put it to the Minister that some time frame is required. Thirty days may not be the right number, but the situation is that a number of pilots have been left waiting for many, many months. I don’t think that is a fair response to something which does impact on their ability to undertake their job, to be able to get their licence and be able to fly planes—if indeed the issue that has been raised is being able to be contested, and there’s evidence that can put the potential medical issue at bay.

So I would put it to the Minister that there should be some limit or time frame put in place for these reviews by the convenor. That may not be 30 days; it may be 60 days, or a period around that, but it should not be many, many months in an open-ended situation, which is where a number of pilots have found themselves. And when they finally do have a decision made, they’re then able to have—in some cases—their licence reinstated.

The fact is, though, that many, many months have taken place, and that does seem unfair. And so I would ask the Minister to consider that. I’m happy to put a tabled amendment on the Table around that, if it’s something that the Minister would be open to, but also I understand and appreciate the Minister has the numbers on that issue.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): Thank you to the member just for raising that, and that was something that sparked my interest because I think any time we do have unsatisfactory and untimely decisions, it leaves people hinging their lives on the decisions of others. So I acknowledge the member for raising that point.

My understanding is that why there is no prescribed time limit within the Schedule 2, section 21 test really is that the medical reviewer needs to be assured that they’ve got all of the medical history available to them. Secondly, that timeliness is really dependent on a range of other things apparently coming to them—this is how I best understand it.

The officials have said to me that in most cases, this medical review is completed in three months, or not more than three months. However, I think there’s been a couple of particular instances where it really has exceeded that. So, on the advice that’s been provided from the director and from the medical profession, it’s just not tenable—is, essentially, how they described it—to be able to put a strict time limit on it. But I was satisfied to hear on probing that the time frames were, by and large, within that threemonth period, which wouldn’t seem unjustifiably long.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Appreciate the answer from the Minister. So can the Minister clarify: so the Minister has sought evidence around those time frames—that’s what was stated—and she was given evidence that the majority were dealt with within the three-month period. Is the Minister able to provide some additional information to the committee as to what percentage of applications to the medical convenor for review were dealt within that three-month period? Over the last five years, for instance, what percentage were beyond three months? I’m not sure if the Minister has that specific information here, but, if she does, it would be great to have that tabled so that we can actually see it from this side of the Chamber, because I think that that’s a very important piece of information for this particular part of the debate.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): No, but in consultation with the officials, I understand that the Ministry of Transport have previously provided that evidence to the select committee. So I don’t have that particular piece of advice here in the Chamber tonight, but I’m happy to provide it to the member through a written question.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask the Minister a few questions about the requirements to make space in airports—the provision of space for different activities, particularly those activities undertaken by airport security, biosecurity, and Customs. There was quite a lot of debate at select committee about what that might mean to airport operators who are already facing budget constraints, their own space constraints, infrastructure constraints, and how much of an imposition this might make on airports, particularly those international airports, to provide for Government departments to have a place in the facility.

I just want to draw the Minister’s attention to commentary from travellers arriving at Auckland International Airport for the past few days who have described scenes of feral hordes of thousands and thousands of people queuing for hours just to get through screening. I want to ask the Minister: will the requirements to give space to those Government departments for their screening activities do anything to improve the situation? Is the time frame that the bill now envisages, two years after Royal assent, going to help in any way, in the interim, the way airports are operated—given the imposition that Customs and biosecurity and aviation security put on airports, is it going to provide them with spaces and places to operate? And what are the costs that are likely to flow to the airports and then to the travelling public? Because when we look at Auckland International Airport’s proposal for a $3.7 billion upgrade, it could be asked: well, how much of that cost will be as a result of requirements that have been communicated from Government agencies that have a legal requirement to be in the airport, but who can impose those costs on the airport operator and the travelling public?

So, Minister, just to recap, we’ve heard about terrible queues, long waits to get into the country from airside to landside, particularly at Auckland Airport. Again, in the past few days, we know that Government agencies should have a place in airports, but, given the provisions of this bill which allow them to, essentially, engage in regulatory undertakings to require the airport authorities to give them a space, is there anything likely to happen in the next two years before the bill becomes effective to make it easier on the travelling public?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): Thank you to the member, and that was a really important question. I was quickly just consulting with officials about what the actual impacts are, because I think we’ve all been through the border in the last X period of time, and we understand the constraints and timeliness, and it’s not necessarily the best way to introduce New Zealanders to our fine country, so I take that point.

And so what this bill has done is it has, essentially, already kicked off the discussion. There’s a couple of parts to it. So, first, is the requirement right now, as part of being an international airport, is that they need to accommodate those agencies at the border. We can see that there isn’t necessarily the space. What these provisions have already done is kick off that process by which those agencies are engaging—I understand it’s already commenced, that consultative process, because this is what this legislation, effectively, does: it sets out the way that the consultative process should work to get to that end point. So they’re already starting to engage; there’s nothing to prohibit, obviously, that happening swifter, and I’m sure that there’s a collective will within this House and actually by the agencies responsible to ensure that those matters and having that entrance that we all collectively deserve can proceed without any inhibition.

SIMON COURT (ACT): I just want to ask the Minister: that being the case—and look, it’s great to know that these agencies are already engaging with airports. But when Auckland International Airport announced that what is, essentially, a spaceframe shed with a long run ColorSteel cladding on it was going to cost $3.7 billion, many in the industry and airline operators have said, “How on earth could a building that is meant to process people in an hour or so coming from aircraft landing in New Zealand, moving on to domestic flights or moving on to buses or private vehicles into Auckland—how on earth could a building for what is, by international standards, a relatively small airport cost $3.7 billion?”

So would the Minister be able to give any indication about what role these other Government agencies might have had in forcing that $3.7 billion cost on to Auckland International Airport? Because while it’s gratifying to know that they’re engaging in early negotiations, what will result under this bill is an enforceable undertaking—which the airports must comply with. Of course, that means the Government has the power to force them to accept cost. So are we seeing, through Auckland Airport’s announcement of the $3.7 billion build for a new shed, an example about what’s to come?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): Obviously we don’t have responsibilities for the decisions of Auckland International Airport; those are commercial and other decisions for them. No, I think, in short, is the answer.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): I’d like to ask a couple of extra questions. The first one is in relation to the recent International Civil Aviation Organisation report in relation to New Zealand’s aviation security, which took place towards the end of last year. I’d like to ask whether any findings or recommendations from that review of our aviation security have affected any of the amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper, which we have on the Table today, and, if so, what are the changes that that is making?

The second is in relation to aviation security. I think many who use airports recently would note that aviation security has certainly become wanting, in terms of the timeliness that it is causing upon those who travel up and down our country or internationally, and I note that this bill does provide for aviation security services to be outsourced, potentially. Is that something the Government is considering?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport) So, in short, just to the primary question, the answer is no. The review hasn’t led into that Supplementary Order Paper. However—where am I? No, I’m on the wrong page—there we go. Look, I understand that, no, that review hasn’t led to any of the amendments. National security is of course a substantive issue which all Governments have taken seriously since 11 September 2001, which changed the modern world, as we’re all well aware. But there’s no intent of the Government at this time; there’s been no discussions to that effect.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Minister, I just want to explore a little bit more about the functions of the Aviation Security Service (AVSEC). The bill attempts to address the perceived conflict of interest between the civil aviation and aviation security. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is responsible for providing the AVSEC service, and the Director of Civil Aviation is responsible for monitoring AVSEC, and that creates a perception of a conflict of interest—or could. AVSEC is tasked with not just a really important security function but also with having a role in getting passengers to their flights in a timely manner.

Just coming back to that theme of what role do these agencies like aviation security and others play in the efficient performance of our airports, has the Minister considered ACT’s proposal—or have officials considered ACT’s proposal—for an independent auditor to evaluate whether aviation security are performing their functions effectively and efficiently, exercising their powers in an appropriate manner, and minimising disruptions to travellers and airport operations? Has the Minister or officials given any consideration to ACT’s proposal to establish an independent performance auditor, such as by the Office of the Auditor-General?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I think, first, just to acknowledge that there is an actual conflict of interest between the director of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Aviation Security Service (AVSEC)—that’s clear. The way that they’ve sought to circumvent or protect, limit, impact that conflict is by removing some of the certification, and delineating out the roles. The advice received on this is that it didn’t warrant the cost and time, in terms of having an independent regulator to perform that function, and, given that the costs and the changes within this environment have been pretty substantive, unless there’s a compelling case to do otherwise and implement that type of independent regulatory regime, it’s not something that’s being considered at this time.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Minister, that is a really insightful explanation; I do appreciate it. So what we take from that is that the cost of engaging an independent auditor—and let’s say we’re a corporate business. Imagine we’re a private airport operator, like an Auckland International Airport, for example, or a Wellington International Airport. We would have to have our annual accounts and performance audited by an external auditor so that our shareholders and our board could be satisfied that, as an airport operator, we were operating to a standard expected of us by financial and other regulators. Aviation security around the world, particularly since September 11 2001, has had a very significant role in safeguarding airport operations and airline operations and the safety of passengers. Yet, it appears to many people travelling around the world that in some places and cases, aviation security services are not operated efficiently and they are not necessarily operating in a way that is adapted to our changing needs and people’s expectations of what good customer service looks like in airports.

So I just want to contrast your statement that it was seen as too expensive to engage an independent auditor, with what every other commercial organisation including airports and airlines operating in this space would need to do, which is to engage independent financial auditors, independent health and safety auditors, and all of those independent reviews of their performance so that their shareholders and directors can be satisfied they’re operating to the highest standard.

So, Minister, given that contrast, do you think it’s worthwhile that officials, the Ministry of Transport, have another look at the potential to engage independent audit, whether that’s through the Office of the Auditor-General or a similar function Officer of Parliament, so we can have confidence that aviation security is operating efficiently and effectively.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): Yeah, look, I thank the member again for his inquisition into this area, and I don’t want my statements to be conflated as something that I didn’t quite intend. I think what I meant is that in terms of setting up a whole new independent regulatory regime like an independent auditor as an actual separate and independent regulatory function; that was what I meant. That was not a cost that was considered necessary in these circumstances. I note the member is being well engaged on these issues. If I just set them through, the regulatory performance is overseen by the director in the civil aviation board. The ministry then has the governance responsibilities for civil aviation. That falls within my role. In the end, the accounts are audited. And when it comes to the civil aviation, we’ve delineated out so that the director of the civil aviation isn’t the person that’s directly responsible for the Aviation Security Service (AVSEC). Instead, it’s the board of the Civil Aviation Authority that AVSEC is managed by. So I hope that clarifies it. It is a relatively complicated regime.

TANGI UTIKERE (Chief Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

set out on Supplementary Order Paper 325 be agreed to.

set out on Supplementary Order Paper 240 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9.

set out on Supplementary Order Paper 241 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9.

Supplementary Order Paper 329 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 12

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

Noes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9.

Supplementary Order Paper 239 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Civil Aviation Bill and the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 109

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9;Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Minister’s amendments

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendment to clause 3

Amendment not agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 10, Noes 108.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendment to clause 4

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s amendments set out on

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Chlöe Swarbrick’s amendment replacing clause 58 set out on

Amendment not agreed to.

Parts 1 to 11, Schedules 1 to 10, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): I move Supplementary Order Paper 326 dividing the bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment and divided into the Civil Aviation Bill and the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The committee has considered the Civil Aviation Bill and reports it with amendment and divided into the following bills: Civil Aviation Bill and Civil Aviation Amendment Bill. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Bills

Civil Aviation Bill

Civil Aviation Amendment Bill

Third Readings

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): I present a legislative statement on the Civil Aviation Bill and the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill.

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

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Civil Aviation Bill and the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This is a Government committed to the safety and security of all New Zealanders, and these bills represent a significant modernisation of civil aviation legislation, which will ensure the aviation system in Aotearoa New Zealand is safe and secure for everyone. The legislation that we are passing tonight represents a comprehensive rewrite and modernisation of existing provisions.

Just before I turn to the substantive part of my bill, I actually really want to acknowledge the House this evening, and the helpful contributions and engagement and dialogue that we’ve had through the committee of the whole House. I can imagine that that was indeed the tenor of the discussions throughout the consideration of this bill since it was introduced in the House in 2001.

The Civil Aviation Bill introduces a new policy in several important areas. It requires all commercial operators to implement drug and alcohol management plans, including random testing of those working in safety-sensitive activities. It includes powers for the Minister of Transport to consider national security risks within the aviation system and to make rules about when national security considerations might need to apply. The bill makes provision for the declaration of temporary landside security areas at airports, if they are needed to respond to a heightened threat environment. This bill incorporates amendments for remotely piloted and autonomous aircrafts, and clarifies the responsibilities of the operator. It also provides new intervention powers for police and authorised people to respond to serious misuse of such aircraft.

The bill puts in place an enabling framework to allow New Zealand to meet its obligations under the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation emissions. This bill introduces a modern registration regime for airports—administered by the Secretary for Transport—which includes a requirement for airports to consult on their spatial plans. For some airports, the bill includes a requirement that they set out how they will meet Government agencies’ space requirements, renamed “regulatory airport spatial undertaking”—or RASU—by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. The bill internationally limits the statutory basis for airports to set charges to identified aerodrome activities, and removes the existing provision that they can do so as they see fit. It recognises that smaller airports provide vital connectivity to their communities but are not always able to do so on a fully commercial basis.

I briefly want to acknowledge those chief executives, mayors, and others that were at the Airport New Zealand function here in Wellington yesterday who shared their stories, and we reflected collectively on that vital connectivity role that those airports and airlines play. The resilience of our transport networks; for example, during the crises that we’ve all collectively just experienced as a nation in Auckland and throughout the East Coast, Hawke’s Bay, up North, Gisborne recently—in a little place like mine in Gisborne, Gisborne Airport became an absolute critical communication link for our entire region during Cyclone Gabrielle, after it was the first to get its connectivity back. I reflected last night that there was a gentleman—Andrew Gaddum, actually, he’s the CEO of Eastland up in Gisborne, and this would have been the case at rural and regional airports up and down the country—but they were out there in their high-vis and their stubbies at all hours of the night checking on that critical airline infrastructure to make sure that those places were a safe haven for all of our communities, and I acknowledge them for the role that they played.

This bill also improves the effectiveness of regulatory decision-making by strengthening the process of authorising airline cooperative arrangements. At its core, the bill continues to emphasise the fundamental importance of safety and security. Again, just to reiterate my sentiments in the House this evening, I acknowledge and thank the members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and, in particular, I just want to acknowledge the contribution of the person who chaired that committee throughout this process—he’s now known as Mr Speaker—the member for Ōhāriu, Greg O’Connor. I’d like to highlight one particular important change made during the select committee process. This is the new process for reviews of decisions made by the Director of Civil Aviation, and we canvassed this off a little earlier this evening. Statutory decisions that the director makes can have a significant impact on aviation participants’ livelihoods. And the ability to have those decisions reviewed independently—without the need to have go through the cost and expense of the courts—will increase confidence in that regulatory system. I want to emphasise that the provisions in the Civil Aviation Amendment Act dealing with in-flight security officers are futureproofing provisions and will not come into force until the Government considers it is necessary and an agreement is in place with the other countries involved.

It is likely that any situation that requires in-flight security officers to be deployed on foreign or New Zealand aircraft would arise at short notice. It would be imprudent of the Government not to have legislation ready to deal swiftly with the situation where it was necessary to continue flights to and from New Zealand. So we considered carefully the Supplementary Order Papers introduced by our friends in the Green Party. The bill already provides provisions allowing rules to be made relating to noise; more specific provisions with that regard were considered as not being necessary. The bill also clarifies consumers’ recourse to the disputes tribunal, as I answered this evening in response to the member Ricardo Menéndez—and provides for regulations requiring airlines to inform passengers of their rights. I note that the issue of comprehensive consumer rights regulation was raised in select committee and no changes were made.

We are also confident that the Climate Change Response Act and the emissions reduction programme are the appropriate mechanisms to take account of aviation’s impacts through whole-of-economy measures. The Civil Aviation Bill sets a clear foundation for the aviation sector as it continues its recovery from the disruptions caused by COVID and moves into a future with an exciting range of new technology. Therefore, I’m pleased to commend these bills to the House.

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

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the third reading of the Civil Aviation Bill, which the National Party will be supporting tonight. This bill has been a long time coming. In fact, I think it has been around 10 years in the preparation and consultation and many various different stages. Of course, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, which I sat on, considered this bill and all of the submissions and the input from officials in relation to this particular piece of legislation, and now we’re finally here at the third reading, where this bill will finally be passed.

This bill, as the Associate Minister of Transport has described, is very important for our civil aviation sector, which plays a critically important role in our economy: 11.2 percent of our GDP, and enabled over $17 billion of international tourism into the country as well. So this is not just about aviation in New Zealand. This is critically important to helping us to sustain and grow our economy, particularly our tourism sector, which is a critical component of our economy, providing jobs and opportunities here in New Zealand, exporting our goods to markets around the world, and providing the ability for industries in New Zealand to be able to thrive and flourish and to be able to serve their communities.

The Minister talked about the role aviation played recently with the cyclone and the response to that: being able to get into remote communities, being able to respond rapidly and quickly. The reality is that was due to the fact that so many New Zealanders are so passionate about aviation. They’re passionate about what aviation can do, they love flying, they love the ability to get around our country in this way. I must say it was New Zealanders who stood up to those challenges, who donated their planes, who helped to fund-raise efforts which were then taken into those communities which were cut off because the roading network was down, and who were able to respond in that way. I’m incredibly proud of what they were able to do.

But, of course, it’s not just about having the aviation sector; we need to make sure there is good regulation in place which supports them and also Government agencies which are focused on outcomes and focused on ensuring that the whole sector can operate as efficiently as possible, and that is what this piece of legislation is about doing. It’s about making sure that it’s fit for the 21st century; that it is keeping up to date with new technology, including drones, autonomous aircraft, and other technology which is rapidly changing the face of civil aviation across New Zealand at the moment.

Of course, also, the issues around security and threats and climate change are all addressed in this piece of legislation, and, of course, the Government has recently had an International Civil Aviation Organisation report which has audited our aviation security, and that found it wanting, and that was because we had not been keeping pace with our international obligations around security at our airports—the international security that is required at our airports to ensure that our civil aviation is given that confidence for other airlines to come to New Zealand.

But there were a number of issues that have been dealt with in this piece of legislation. We’ve discussed that now in the committee of the whole House in relation to the Public Works Act. The original bill was far too ambitious on behalf of the officials, who wanted to give Land Information New Zealand significant powers to be able to make decisions around where airport land was surplus or not. The committee felt that that was far too excessive. We listened to the submissions, in which it was put to us that that should not be made by the chief executive of Land Information New Zealand, because those decisions are best made by airports through an objective test rather than by officials who aren’t part of the long-term plans that are required for airports to be able to make those long-term investments and to give those airports that confidence.

There were other issues in relation to regulatory undertakings, the space that has to be provided to airports—that issue has been, I think, put into a better position than it was in the original bill, but I’m not sure if it completely deals with all of the issues that were raised by airports. And, of course, it is a space which must be provided by airports to ensure that those Government agencies are able to operate, whether it’s civil aviation security, biosecurity, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI)—of course they all need space, but the original bill made it clear that they could tell the airports how much space they needed to have and then it was the airport’s job to provide that, and, of course, if you’re in the business of building airports, you can’t just add an extra thousand square metres on to a building; it’s not that easy. So we have got to a position which does require the agencies to work with the airports around what those spatial plans should look like. There is still a regulatory backstop for the officials if they cannot come to common ground. I would hope that that regulatory backstop is not having to be used, because, ultimately, the officials and the departments should be working closely with airports. It is in both parties’ interests to make sure that those conversations are dealt with through negotiation rather than through regulation and enforcement. I think that would be a bad outcome.

There was a big discussion right through this process around the need for decisions made by the director of the Civil Aviation Authority to be able to be reviewed. There was significant disquiet by submitters across the board around the fact that the only recourse for people who had decisions made was to then go to the courts and through judicial review, which, of course, takes a long time and costs a lot of money and really only benefits lawyers who are prepared to charge a lot of money for the privilege. It is good to see that there is now an independent reviewer who is able to make decisions within 10 working days around those decisions. That will make a significant improvement, but I do note that it still does not give that independent reviewer teeth; all it does is require those decisions to then be reviewed again by the Civil Aviation Authority. So I do hope that the Civil Aviation Authority takes note of those reviewers’ decisions after the passing of this legislation to give people better confidence in the decisions that are made. That is something which I hope the Civil Aviation Authority takes incredibly seriously.

There were other smaller submissions made, but important nevertheless—such as, in regards to the issue of medical certificates, the fact that, in appealing those, there are no time limits for the medical convenor. We’ve had that discussion here. I do disagree with the Government’s position; my view, and our view, is there should be a time frame on those decisions being reviewed, because it’s critically important that pilots can have those decisions made quickly so they can either get on with their lives or have that decision around their medical certificate made and decided. It’s critically important that the Civil Aviation Authority is not just consuming time, that the medical convener is not just consuming time, because time is of the essence.

And when it comes to time, we’re all seeing up and down the country the significant wait times that we have, whether it’s at biosecurity, civil aviation security, or MPI. In all of these places, we are seeing significant queues, and a significant part of that is due to workforce shortages. But this is where the Government needs to have a focus on outcomes. A Government needs to be focused on the consumer. The Government needs to be focused on making sure that departments are operating efficiently and actually serving the people who pay the fees. People who travel, the travelling public, pay for those services through their airfares, and they deserve to have timeliness when it comes to the provision of those services, whether it’s civil aviation security, whether it’s going through the border. There needs to be timeliness brought back to the system. And it’s not just here in aviation but it’s across the board. We need to have timeliness of New Zealand’s travelling public considered.

So, on that note of timeliness and on the whip’s suggestion, I will recommend this bill to the House and thank all the submitters and officials for their help through the process. Thank you very much.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, before I take the next call, just to clarify, the motion we are debating is that the bills divided from the Civil Aviation Bill—that is, the Civil Aviation Bill and the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill—be now read a third time. That means that we have one question for both bills, unless members indicate they wish to vote separately at the end.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. My colleague Simeon Brown’s previous speech reminded me of this particular bill. It was a slow take-off and then he started to launch to the end and then finished abruptly. That’s certainly the journey that the Civil Aviation Bill has taken through this House. This bill fits squarely with Labour’s plan in reconnecting New Zealanders with the world—and the civil aviation sector is, of course, a huge part of that. Our commitment to economic development and our economic recovery is incredibly important.

The Civil Aviation Bill creates a single, modern law that will provide safety, security, and economic regulation of the civil aviation system. We traversed this significantly under the leadership of Greg O’Connor in his time as our chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and I know we heard a number of submissions.

So it’s a good piece of legislation, it is timely that this has come through, and I’m certainly pleased about it. I commend this bill to the House.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Good choice, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much for selecting me. I’m going to take a call on behalf of the National Party—that might come as some surprise—on the third readings of the civil aviation legislation.

I just want to carry on from my colleague Shanan Halbert, who was introducing some puns around the aviation sector into this debate. I quite like that the Hon Michael Wood in his PR said, “This bill was to help aviation recovery take off.” I encourage all speakers that will follow me to add their take and puns on the aviation sector in this bill as well, just to bring some light relief to what I think will be a fairly dry debate, because, as we can tell, we have some support across all parties.

Hon James Shaw: You’re running out of runway, Matt!

MATT DOOCEY: So far, so good. Let’s hope I don’t crash and burn! Hey, look, I just want to say how good our aviation sector is. I think something that we do—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I laughed—I laughed.

MATT DOOCEY: I know. Look, it’s good. I’m glad that you’re listening, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I’m listening.

MATT DOOCEY: It gives me great delight. But coming back to what we’re debating tonight, the aviation sector, I just want to say how good it is. I mean, it’s something that we actually probably take for granted in New Zealand. I mean, we have a huge number of airports. I’d argue that anywhere you are in New Zealand, you’d probably be an hour and a half, a two-hour drive to an airport. And why I raise that is, for a small country like New Zealand—some will know my wife is Hungarian. It’s quite a large country; 10 million people. You’d be fascinated to know that it only has one airport in the whole country.

Simon Court: The Soviets bulldozed the rest of them.

MATT DOOCEY: And just to acknowledge other Magyars with their heritage in the House tonight as well. But isn’t that interesting? It’s something that we actually take for granted with the many airports we have and the aviation airlines as well. So I want to acknowledge them. They bring huge economic growth into the country, as my learned colleague Simeon Brown alluded to, supporting 11 percent of GDP and enabling over $17 billion in our tourism economy.

Of course, this legislation has been somewhat long in gestation and it repeals and replaces the Civil Aviation Act 1990 and the Airport Authorities Act 1966. So it’s fair to say, when you look at those two Acts some time ago, 1990 and 1966, there’s some issues in this bill that potentially weren’t around in those times—obviously, the advent of new technologies like drones and autonomous aircraft. We’ve also got the uncertainty of the global environment and the ever-evolving nature of terrorist threats, meaning that our airport security systems should be keeping up with the best in the world.

This is legislation that I think has been traversed quite widely across the three readings and the committee of the whole House, and that is why I commend these bills to the House. Thank you.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe; tēnā koutou e te Whare. I rise on behalf of the Greens, perhaps unfortunately, to break the consensus that appears to be breaking out celebratoriously across the House on the civil aviation update to the regime in the form of the Civil Aviation Bill and the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill. The Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), as voted down at the committee of the whole House stage, may give some insight into why that occurred, but let me step everybody who may have the unfortunate pleasure of listening to the House late at night tonight as to why we hold that position.

So, of course, as others have traversed in their speeches, it of course is important that we do have these long overdue contemporary updates to our civil aviation law. None the less, what we are looking at here is a piece of legislation that really misses a trick when—Matt Doocey—we don’t have a lot of runway left. We don’t have a lot of runway left in the form of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report as released last week, which told us that we have to not only think ahead but we have to act now in terms of the climate crises—which we in Tāmaki-makau-rau and much of the North Island experienced very literally on our doorstep at the beginning of 2023.

So, to that effect, we are missing, here, massive opportunities to contemplate the impact of civil aviation, and particularly the proliferation of private civil aviation on our own backyard in denser areas such as the city centre in Auckland Central, but also, actually, on our conservation estate. This also impacts the Hauraki islands, another amazing part of the electorate of Auckland Central. But it also—as outlined in the Supplementary Order Paper, as just voted down in the committee of the whole House, from my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March—misses a bit of a trick on the opportunity to provide necessary consumer protections that I note that Consumer NZ has made quite a lot of noise about.

So the bill, interestingly enough, actually, as put forward by the member Simeon Brown for the National Party, focuses quite a lot on commerciality. It focuses a lot on the so-called economic impacts here—thinking a lot about the impacts of airports, in particular. It thinks a lot about, “How do we enable civil aviation and the commercial operation of civil aviation?”, but it doesn’t so much think about what happens outside of those commercial operations—that is, the whole ecosystem - kind of approach.

To give you a really explicit example of this—to kind of zoom in to what’s been happening in my own backyard on the Hauraki islands, in particular on Waiheke and Aotea Great Barrier Island—we have this really interesting intersection where you have the process of resource consenting for private helipads, obviously facilitated by the Resource Management Act, which the Auckland Unitary Plan is built on top of, which facilitates the consenting of these helicopter pads. But as soon as those helicopters are up in the sky, what we’re looking at is the remit of the Civil Aviation Authority. I’ve had a lot of engagement, interestingly enough, with the Civil Aviation Authority over the past two years about the potential to implement what’s called a “special use air space” under the pre-existing legislation. A special use air space can be implemented for sake of contemplating adverse effects on the environment or the communities or otherwise.

But what we’ve seen in those engagements with the Civil Aviation Authority is that they are pretty up front about the fact that they’re simply not resourced to contemplate impacts on the environment, on conservation, on our communities, but that they think that that should sit with Auckland Council. And therein lies the problem: what this bill continues to contemplate and continues to work on is the commerciality and the enabling of that commercial operation of civil aviation, particularly pertaining to our airports. But it misses that trick when it comes to climate, when it comes to conservation, and when it comes to our communities.

To this effect, we’ve seen that more than 50 private helipads have been consented on Waiheke Island over the past wee while, which has led to what my Waiheke Local Board chair, Cath Handley, calls not so much a “controlled airspace” but an “out-of-control airspace”. Again, this is where this bill falls down and where we as the Greens put forward a number of SOPs to try and make some changes. I note that the Minister, in her contributions before, spoke to how there are, of course, the opportunities for the Minister to potentially—or “may”—have consideration of these things in making these rules.

But as I impressed upon the former Minister—and I’d like to acknowledge him, the Hon Kieran McAnulty, for engaging with me quite seriously on these issues—we still very strongly hold the view and reserve the reservation that if the Minister and any potential Minister only “may” have contemplation for the environment or the community or conservation or otherwise, that it’s not a requirement to do so. As we see time and again in the face of crises or whatever else is the top issue of the day, climate, communities, and conservation continue to fall down the agenda.

So just to reflect on some of those SOPs, we had obviously No. 239 from myself around requirements for noise abatement purposes. We had the SOP from the Hon Julie Anne Genter considering climate. We had one—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Can I just remind the member that the third reading is not the time to rehash SOPs, particularly which have not been successful. So can I ask the member: a passing comment, yes, but please just come back to the third reading.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The point, for me—and for the Greens—remains that there has been a trick missed when it comes to consideration of, or baking in of, protections for consumers, for the climate, and of course for conservation. This is reflected in the select committee submissions from the Federated Mountain Clubs, so too from Quiet Sky Waiheke, Quiet Sky Waitematā, also from Waiheke Local Board. I’d like to acknowledge the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for their willingness in being able to and open to accepting those submissions a little bit later than usual. But, in a nutshell, what we’ve seen is that with that engagement—and with the willingness of successive Ministers to engage on those concerns of the Greens that are reflected in clause 52 at present—there is the insertion of clause 52(1)(ba), where the Minister may make rules “regulating the effect or potential effect of civil aviation on people, activities, and things.” Again, our concern remains that this stays as a “may”, not a “must”.

Secondly, at clause 58, around rules for abatement purposes—those who are really interested in the specificity of the legislation as presently drafted—notes that those rules “include” the vicinity of aerodromes, which, if you’re reading closely and tightly, would mean that it expands beyond those vicinities of aerodromes.

So I guess I’d like to put on the record tonight and for the sake of Hansard and for the sake of future political debates that the former Minister—the Hon Kieran McAnulty—made the commitment, to a certain extent, to me that he would be interested in engaging in, and I hope that this is something that the Hon Kiritapu Allan can continue with; that they would be willing to engage in making these rules and regulations under these clauses, which don’t require them to because of that rejection of the Greens’ SOPs, but that they have the opportunity to if we can prove that there is an issue. To that effect, we will be making those cases to the Minister. So they can expect those cases to be made as soon as this bill is passed, and we’ll have them on their desk.

But in its current form, this bill, as I’ve just said, updates things so that it is of a more contemporary framework, but really misses a trick when there is no runway left when it comes to ensuring that we have consideration—but not only consideration, protection—of our climate, conservation, and our communities, especially when we’re looking down the barrel of further proliferation of private aircraft and vehicles in the next 10 to 20 years. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Firstly, I just want to acknowledge all the hard work that went on in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and from officials and from all those submitters who came to share their aspirations for New Zealand’s aviation future.

I also want to acknowledge the impassioned plea of my parliamentary colleague Chlöe Swarbrick, who advocated for the people of Waiheke and other places around the Hauraki Gulf, who feel that aircraft operations impinge on their quality of life and on the quality of the environment. But what I would also offer to that MP is, once you get to fly around in helicopters a lot, you never ever want to stop. In New Zealand aviation, the way we use aviation in New Zealand, whether it’s small fixed-wing aircraft to get to places like Milford Sound and land on the Milford aerodrome, or whether it’s to use helicopters to get up into the bush and carry out pest control, pest eradication operations, whether it’s on private land or in the conservation estate, general aviation small aircraft are integral to the way that we enjoy New Zealand.

Now, ACT is really interested in a more efficient and effective operation of Government regulations, and the Civil Aviation Bill goes a long way towards meeting ACT’s aspirations. But it is a very, very, very large piece of legislation. It’s nearly 500 pages, once you include the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) tabled by Minister Kiritapu Allan this evening, and ACT is concerned that while it is aspirational, there is potentially some real risks in its implementation. That was acknowledged tonight by the Minister with the SOP that sought to extend the time frame for implementation of the bill, the time for commencement by an additional six months—so to give the Civil Aviation Authority two years from the time of Royal assent, to give effect to the provisions of this bill. Given how long it’s taken to bring this bill to the House and to pass it through various stages, it does seem unfortunate that we must wait two more years for the efficiency measures in this bill to be given effect to.

I just want to recap some of the things that this bill does and that ACT supports. It does provide for a much simpler operating environment for remotely piloted aircraft—unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAVs are going to be a very important part of the way we manage New Zealand’s environment and our infrastructure in the future. In New Zealand, it’s still very, very difficult to get permission to fly an unmanned aerial vehicle out of line of sight. That means if you want to do a survey of your infrastructure—whether it’s transmission lines, pylons, hydroelectric dams—and you want to fly a UAV out of line of sight, it’s very difficult to get permission to do that. In fact, the permitting regime for UAVs, whether they’re operated as aerial spray drones or for geospatial survey, for infrastructure survey, the current permitting system is clunky. There are operators waiting months, sometimes over a year, to get permission.

So it’s great that this bill provides a more streamlined approach, but waiting two years for it to come into effect, some operators, commercial operators, of autonomous aircraft might decide it’s not worth operating in New Zealand.

Damien Smith: Go to Canada.

SIMON COURT: They might go to Canada, as my colleague Damien Smith said, or certainly Australia.

ACT has concerns about the operation of the Aviation Security Service (AVSEC). AVSEC was given a mandate after September 11 2001, the attacks on the World Trade Center, which were carried out by terrorists who hijacked the aircraft. It was given a mandate internationally to actually screen passengers, identify risk, identify things that shouldn’t be taken on an aircraft, and make sure that for people travelling, the aircrafts and the airports were safe places to operate. But, unfortunately, it appears that over the years, as more and more expectations have been put on AVSEC, the way they process passengers, and the issues that that causes in airports, have actually slowed down and reduced the enjoyment of the travelling public. It takes a lot longer to get through security than it should.

One of the problems that this bill has identified, and the Minister acknowledged, is that there is a conflict of interest between the Director of Civil Aviation and AVSEC, in that the director is responsible for monitoring aviation security but also responsible for its operation. What ACT proposes—well, we’d actually get an independent auditor, the Auditor-General or a similar independent officer, to have a look at AVSEC on a regular basis and to confirm that they were in fact operating efficiently and meeting all the obligations that they have under the Civil Aviation Act and this bill that we’ll pass. But the Minister, while acknowledging there is an actual conflict of interest, has declined to take ACT up on that offer. Even though, if you were a business operating in the aviation space, whether you’re running an airport or running an airline, of course you would have independent operators looking at your performance, whether it’s health and safety or financial. ACT believes that Government departments should be subject to at least the same level of independent audit as businesses do operating in this area.

What was heartening during the submission phase was the recognition by officials that the need for a just culture be made explicit in the bill. For those watching at home wondering what “just culture” is, it’s that concept that if you have a near miss or you identify a safety issue with an aircraft or airspace with aeroplanes coming too close together, for example, you can tell somebody, and even though you might have made a mistake, you won’t be blamed and prosecuted and have put your flying career or your business at risk, because what a just culture approach tells us is that it’s more important to investigate the cause of a potential incident or accident than it is to punish people for having made a mistake. That’s the approach that general aviation, civil aviation, commercial aviation, and military aviation have taken for almost a hundred years. That is why, even though thousands and thousands of aircraft, you know, weighing hundreds of tonnes in many cases, carrying millions of passengers a year, have very few accidents and incidents that cause harm—and that’s because of the just culture approach. So it’s wonderful that that’s actually been included in the text of this bill in its subsequent amendments in what we’re passing tonight, as well as being referred to in the explanatory notes.

I also just want to touch on the issue of an independent review of the director’s decisions. It has been canvassed, but I just want to remind people listening at home that there are many people passionate about civil aviation, about flying, and, at some point during some pilots’ careers or some operators’ careers, something happens, whether it’s something in the family—they have a motor vehicle accident, they have a physical accident, and they have to get assessed for either medical or psychological fitness to continue to operate aircraft, to operate in the aviation space. Their applications, once having identified that they’re not fit to fly, when they come back and want to prove their fitness again, their applications have sat languishing, some for years, without decisions being taken. It is a great concern to ACT that despite there being now a provision for independent review, there is no time frame for that independent review. So people who would like to fly again and whose doctors have said they’re fit and who have all of the necessary references to get back into the air or back into an aircraft have no certainty about when a decision about the potential to get airborne again will be made. That is very, very unfortunate and seems to be very, very unfair.

But, on balance, one thing the ACT Party observed is that the difference between this bill and the Labour Party is that this bill will land tonight, unlike the Labour Party, whose plane appears to be disappearing off Kiwis’ radar screens. I commend this bill to the House. ACT will be voting for it. We look forward to delivering more good quality legislation in a future Parliament. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Bills read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill.

Bills

Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 and 2, the Schedule, and clauses 1 to 3

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the House is in committee on the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill. We come first to Part 1.

TANGI UTIKERE (Chief Whip—Labour): I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): 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 to 3 stand part.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this particular bill, and there’s an aspect within this that I want to raise with the Minister, because, broadly, the intent of the bill is good. We absolutely support that. We’ve supported it so far, and, in fact, it’s looking to enhance a piece of work that was put in place under the previous National Government to try and better protect participants within the construction sector, particularly at the lower end of the contract spectrum, subcontractors, and the situations where we have seen unfortunate cases of a head contractor or one of the larger participants falling over and then those subcontractors or other participants further down the contract ranking being left out of pocket. So the retention money process was to ensure that that money being retained by the head contractor, for example, was set aside for those subcontractors.

So we’ve supported the bill to this stage. The amendments made through the select committee have been relatively straightforward, and in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) there are technical changes that we support but I have proposed an SOP that I want to speak to, because an issue’s been raised with me off the back of this piece of legislation going through its stages so far, and that’s around the potential and, I believe, unintended consequence tying up additional retention money that could be used in cash flow.

So I’ll run through an example, because I think it’s important to give context to how it could play out in a particular construction contract scenario where you have, in this legislation, currently proposed, a party A being the client or head contractor, and a party B, being a subcontractor, and party A withholding money from party B that needed to be kept in trust for the period when it is subsequently released or any remediation work deducted from it and the remainder released. That all makes sense. The challenge arises in the situation where there are more than those two parties, and indeed that’s quite a frequent scenario. It’s a situation where you have a client that engages a head contractor to carry out the contract. The example I’ll use, to try and keep the maths a bit simple, is you might have a $10 million contract where a client engages the head contractor to deliver that project for $10 million. So the client then is eligible to retain $1 million as the typical 10 percent retention threshold, and put that in trust. So that’s 10 percent of the total contract put in trust.

That head contractor then engages a subcontractor to do, often, the majority of the work. So the head contractor might do, say, 20 percent of the work—$2 million of the contract—and the subcontractor does $8 million. So that head contractor then retains 10 percent of the $8 million—$800,000. And then you can get the scenario where the subcontractor engages a sub-subcontractor, so maybe they do $5 million of the work and they pass on $3 million of the work, so they retain a further $300,000 of retention money. The issue there arises because you have 10 percent of the retention money held by the client. You have a further 8 percent, so $1 million held, another $800,000, and another $300,000. So you end up, actually, with $2.1 million of retention money held on that $10 million contract, which is well above the 10 percent that is eligible to be retained. And this only arises in a situation where you have multiple participants within a construction contract, which, actually, is quite frequent.

So the issue there then becomes that you’re tying up a significantly higher amount of working capital than should be the case. So each of those steps within the chain then has to have that money sitting aside, and indeed, in some cases, they may be paying out retention money at the end of a contract, before they’ve, potentially, received all that money down from the tier above them. So what I’ve proposed with my Supplementary Order Paper is to try and address that issue by making an amendment to section 18 (FB), in clause 7, which is the section around complying instruments, to, effectively, enable multiple parties to become part of one complying instrument.

So what I’ve proposed there is new subsection (3A), “Where there are multiple construction contracts for a single construction work [or project], any 2 or more of the party As or party Bs who are a party to one or more of these contracts can agree to issue a single complying instrument for the whole of the work covered by their collective contracts.” So what that would enable us to do with this legislation is then to capture that unintended consequence and enable all of those parties to agree on a collective complying instrument—for example, a bond held at the top level by the client issuing that main contract to the head contractor. In the example I used, the $10 million contract, they would hold a $1 million bond, being 10 percent, and all subsequent parties can then connect into that same retention. So you achieve the outcome of securing the retained funds in a safe environment so that they are protected irrespective of the solvency of the head contractor down the track. That’s the issue we’re trying to address here—to ensure that money is available to be paid out to subcontractors and the likes once they have completed their works. But it gets away from that additional cost that we are adding into the industry by seeing, effectively, a doubling of the retention money being held.

This, when we look at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE’s) figures saying, right, there’s $31 billion - odd of contracts—in the scenario I gave, where we saw $2.1 million, so, effectively, an extra 110 percent over and above what we should be retaining is being retained, we’re looking at about $3.5 billion dollars’ worth of working capital being constrained through the construction pipeline, going on MBIE’s figures, and that’s a pretty significant level.

So what I’m proposing to do is to create a scenario to help us alleviate that pressure, and we’ve looked at a few potential SOPs over the last few weeks to try and address this, potentially having all party As and Bs retaining in a single trust model. That was considered to be out of scope of the bill by the Clerk’s Office. So we’ve ended up with this scenario, which is imperfect but, I believe, can achieve the intent of unlocking that potential working capital by enabling all of those parties A and B to convalesce to agree to the single complying instrument—for example, the bond—and to therefore create the capacity to get on and do the project, achieving the intent of the legislation, i.e., protecting those retention funds, but unlocking that working capital that is, I believe, unintentionally captured as the legislation is currently proposed.

So I’d be really interested in the Minister for Building and Construction’s insights around that and whether they’re aware of the risk for potentially locking up additional capital over and above what was anticipated, and the potential cost of that for the industry. Thank you.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the members of the select committee, who I think have given this bill some very thoughtful consideration. I think it is one of those pieces of legislation that is an incredibly pragmatic and sensible piece of legislation that makes sense, and it’s something that needs to happen. It’s good to see all members across this House getting behind it.

In that spirit, I have examined the Supplementary Order Paper that the member has just addressed in his contribution. It is talking about a scenario where you may have multiple head contractors with multiple construction contracts with multiple subcontractors beneath. So it is a complex construction contract arrangement that you are talking about, and suggesting that there be one complying financial instrument that could be used for the whole of that job.

As I said, I have looked at it, and I have sought advice on it. One of the things that I keep coming back to is that we won’t be supporting it because it is not a necessary amendment. There is nothing in the legislation that precludes anyone from doing that; they would need to find someone to issue them a complying financial instrument in order to be able to do it if they were to use the bond mechanism in order to do it. It simply not good legislative practice to provide for something in the legislation that can occur anyway. So the fact that there is nothing to stop this happening does mean that we won’t be supporting that Supplementary Order Paper.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chairman. I appreciate the Minister’s consideration of that, and I wanted to come to the section around complying instruments because, to me, it’s not clear that it is possible to do that currently under the current section on compliant instruments, section 18FB. It makes it clear that the complying instrument must be issued in favour of party B or endorsed with party B’s interest, and it must require the issuer to pay the retention money to party B if party A fails. So nothing in this—and there’s a couple of other aspects—gives any indication that it can apply to multiple party B participants within a construction contract.

That’s the real challenge here—that in most construction contracts, there are more than one party B layer. So when you have a subcontractor and then a sub-subcontractor, which is quite normal, then you are—I believe—not allowing for that under the current legislation around complying instruments. That’s why my Supplementary Order Paper seeks to clarify that multiple parties, who all have an interest in some aspect of the overall project, are able to then come together around one individual complying instrument because, as I say, the complying instrument currently must be issued in favour of party B or endorsed with their interests. That doesn’t, in my mind, refer to multiple participants being able to attach to the same complying instrument. So I’d be interested in the Minister’s view on that.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): I direct the member to clause 7 of the legislation, which says that section 18FB will be amended. This is, of course, the complying instruments, replacing section 18FB(3)(a) with “(a) be issued in favour of, or endorsed with the interests of, (i) party B; or (ii) party B and 1 or more other persons (each being a party B under a construction contract); or (iii) a class of persons (all being party Bs under construction contracts) of which party B is a member”. That is the clause that allows what is outlined in the Supplementary Order Paper to occur.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chair. While we’re just digesting that—and thank you to the Minister for that response—I suppose the first question is that the first reading was in June 2021, and here we are in 2023. I seem to recall being on the committee doing the original work on this. Can she perhaps just explain to the committee and, no doubt to construction entities and organisations that may be listening to this debate—even though it’s just after 11 at night—why there has been such a delay, because this is a very significant piece of legislation and many people have been calling for it. It follows a couple of court cases, particularly the Ebert court case. So I suppose that’s the first question I’d like to understand from the Minister.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I just wonder if the Minister could tell us what quantum of money is currently subject to retentions in the New Zealand construction industry right now.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): In answer to the two questions that have been put in the committee, there are two reasons why this bill has taken some time to come back to the floor of the House. One is availability of House time. Quite a lot has occurred in terms of lost time in the House over that period of time, but the other and more substantive reason is in terms of the Government Supplementary Order Paper. We’re wanting to make sure that we have the compliance regime there so that it actually did have some force.

In answer to Mr Seymour’s question that he’s put, one of the issues is the fact that there isn’t a regime around it means there actually isn’t a good handle on what money is held as retention moneys at the moment. This is the kind of regime that will allow us to have those protections in place and, because there is more of a system around it, to have more of a handle of what the quantum is.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Surely one of the effects of the bill is that it will reduce the amount of working capital available to construction firms at a time when a lot of construction firms are under a lot of pressure. Doesn’t it seem perhaps a bit irresponsible to pass legislation without knowing what the quantum of the effect on construction firms’ working capital will be?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): In answer to Mr van de Molen, over the Supplementary Order Paper that he was introducing in the clauses of the bill that I read out—actually, it is possible to package up clubs of subcontractors and contractors in terms of what that can be. The whole point of this is to make sure that we do have protections for those subcontractors; that, you can argue, becomes really important at a time where there is a tight property market and they could be at more risk. But the other point I’d make is that many of our construction companies already operate this. It is good practice; it is the way in which they do already operate. But there are options to make sure that we can have the ability of our construction sector to get ahead.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Chairman. If the Minister’s unable to tell us how much money is currently subject to retention in the construction industry, can she give us an indication of the value of defaults due to companies failing to pay retention money when they otherwise should’ve?

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate the Minister’s response around the clarification on that Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) she’s brought forward, and I just wanted to query that because I see the section 7 she’s referring to.

My question would be whether or not that gives enough clarity around the party Bs being in relation to one construction contract, because, looking at that, my understanding of it would be that it relates to a party A that has sought a complying instrument, that complying instrument could potentially cover multiple contracts that they have across a range of different projects, and, therefore, that would be party B or party B and one or more other persons, each being a party B under a construction contract, or party Bs under construction contracts. But nothing in that specifies that they could be party Bs of the same construction contract.

That’s the issue for me. Obviously, to me, this acknowledges the fact that one head contractor, for example, being the party A, could be working across multiple sites and multiple contracts, but it doesn’t seem to me to be entirely clear that it relates to both the subcontractor and the sub-subcontractor and any other participants within the one overarching contract. So that’s what I’m seeking to address specifically with my SOP, because I think it is really important that we do have clarity, and perhaps if the Minister is able to give us confidence that indeed it does address both, the situation where party A is operating across multiple sites and therefore multiple contracts and also the situation where party A has multiple party Bs on the same contract. If we can get clarity that both of those apply under the proposal that she’s brought forward, then that would be fantastic.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): The section that the member is referring to does allow for multiple parties, if they want to do across multiple contracts, there is nothing precluding that in this legislation. That was the point I made in my initial contribution speaking to the member’s Supplementary Order Paper.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): I just want to turn to the lessons out of the Ebert liquidation, which also followed the Mainzeal failure. What came out of the court decision was that it confirmed that the legislation—this is 2017 legislation—did not work as Parliament may have originally intended.

For example, in the Ebert case, the High Court confirmed that although it may have been Parliament’s intention to create a deemed trust—which clearly it was—by operation of the statutory regime, the actual effect of the language used in the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act only creates an obligation on the payer to create a trust.

So my first question is: can she give assurance to the committee that this bill actually deals comprehensively with that matter? And the second thing: there’s been many examples of situations where contractors have had their tools on site and there’s been a liquidation or receivership event overnight, and they’ve been precluded from getting access to those tools.

Can she also, in that second regard, confirm to the committee that that situation is also provided for in this bill and will be necessary, the result being that contractors will be able to get access to their tools? So two questions there.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): In answer to those questions—the first one: yes. In answer to the second one—and I believe this was something that was talked about quite a lot at select committee—the issue of contractors and their tools, and subcontractors and their tools, and their ability to access on site, we all know that is a significant issue but it is not an issue that is covered off under this legislation. That is an issue that is covered off under the insolvency laws. This, in many ways, is a carve-out for a specific piece of that insolvency legislation.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you for the response, Minister. I know it’s outside the realm of this particular Act, but given the relevancy of it, is it her understanding that under the insolvency laws, that arrangement, the tools and the stock that they may have on site, like an electrician, would be covered? Because it’s very relevant to this whole issue around failure and contracts of construction contractors, which is the motion we’re debating tonight.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): While it’s not my role as the Minister for Building and Construction speaking on this piece of legislation to get into the ins and outs of insolvency law, essentially, yes. It is the role of the person administrating an insolvency to work out whose assets are whose, and to distribute them accordingly. But I think we should keep this to the bounds of this piece of legislation.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Mr Bayly, while we are broadly looking at the whole bill, it’s creeping outside the provisions of the bill.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Yeah, and I appreciate the indulgence of the committee. I just want to return to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper, which we haven’t had much time to consider, but I suppose the primary purpose of this—well, one of the one of the primary purposes—is the issue around councilcontrolled organisations and also the wider responsibility of councils, who obviously procure a significant amount of work, whether in respect of infrastructure or just procurement of other construction-related projects. The issue over the councilcontrolled organisation, which is covered under section 18E(3)(b)(va) and (vi), in clause 4, seems reasonably clear, because my understanding of it—and I’m just going to get the Minister’s understanding as well—is that where you’ve got a council-controlled organisation, there would be directors in place who could fulfil the obligations and take responsibility for failure. And we all know that the bill includes a $50,000 fine or penalties for directors who don’t conform to the requirements of keeping the retentions in a proper order and reporting on them, etc. So that bit, I get, but I suppose my question is a wider one: where councils, in their own right and not necessarily through a council-controlled organisation, procure directly, how do we know, if there is an issue where a council has failed to adhere to the retention policies set out in this bill, where the liability lies in the event of failure?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): In respect to whether this law will apply to councils as well as council-controlled organisations, I can assure the member there’s one law to rule them all.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): With all due respect, that was quite a serious question. So the question is: directors, if they don’t perform their duties, are subject to a personal liability of $50,000. This talks about council-controlled organisations (CCOs) where there are directors in place, so I can understand the liability. My question specifically—and I’ll just maybe repeat it for the benefit of the Minister—is: councils clearly do not have directors; they have councillors. If there was an event where councils direct procurers of a construction project and they do not account for retention, where does the personal liability lie in that situation? And I’ll just keep talking, if I may, while the Minister’s just getting an answer on that, because I think it’s a very important point. Councils are very large procurers in their own right—whether it’s for wastewater services, whether it’s for roading projects, all those types of different projects—and there will often be wider construction of buildings, and they won’t be done through a CCO; they will be done directly through the council entity.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): Councils already sign contracts directly, not only through council-controlled organisations. There is direct contracting through many of our councils. So issues around liability already apply, and these differ from contract to contract, depending sometimes around the delegations of who could sign the contract, whether that’s at an officer level or whether it requires the endorsement of the table. So there is not one simple answer for that. It will depend on the contracts.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): But that is my point—that is my point. The Act specifically rams home the liability for not complying with the bill provisions to directors. And, you’re right, that includes $50,000 of personal liability for each director. Why should a council be in a different situation—although it has a different structure—because councils may and often could actually not perform the duties that they should? So where in the bill does it direct me to say where those liabilities lie for nonperformance, who I would sue, and who the court would sue if there was nonperformance? Is it the councillor; is that the council officers? But I can’t see any reference in the bill. Perhaps the Minister can help me.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): I think what the member is getting into is what will differ from situation to situation and contract to contract. And like any other dispute that there is over a contract, the council would need to take legal advice.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I’d just like to come back to the example I gave at the start, and I’m just interested in testing whether it’s the Minister’s understanding that there is the risk here of seeing significant cash flow amounts tied up through the trust process that is, effectively, one of the two options here for retention money—either being held in trust or a complying instrument being sought. So I’m interested in whether that example, as I explained it, is the Minister’s understanding too, where you could end up with, potentially, more than double the amount of retentions being held that should be held in an overall contract, and the implications of that because when I was looking at the regulatory impact assessment, I didn’t see any information pertaining to potential cash flow costs to the industry off the back of possibly having $3.5 billion dollars’ worth of constrained cash flow, and the impact that might have on those businesses.

Secondly, alongside that, I’m also interested in whether the Minister can shed some light on the potential costs of these complying instruments—whether there is any indicative range that she’s sought or obtained from insurers or banks to give some insight into the additional cost we are imposing on these participants within the building industry. Obviously, there is a cost, and we accept that, to try and better secure those retention funds—there will be a cost. I totally am on board with understanding that, but I’m interested in whether she can give an indication of what those costs might look like because that could influence a head contractor’s decision to either, potentially, look at retaining money on trust in the separate bank account, as proposed, and all the different requirements around that, or taking the alternate option of a complying instrument. So some insight into those costs, and also the impact or the example I gave around whether that cash flow could be tied up through numerous participants in having these multiple party A, party B agreements, where you end up with additional retentions.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): I think we’ve dealt with the multi-party question several times. What I will point the member to—and I think that this would be well understood from the examination that I know that it did receive at select committee—is that holding retention money is voluntary here. So I think that’s one of the critical things to understand. There is nothing prescribed in the bill that has a set amount to it—that is going to be for the parties to determine themselves when they’re entering into an agreement. So I think that is one of the things that has to be understood about this legislation.

The other that I would point to—I understand the anxiety that members have around unnecessarily tying up working capital, and I think it is a good question to be asked, but we must remember and go back to the principle of why it is that we are passing this legislation, and that is because there have been times when head contractors have used retention moneys which should have been protected from their everyday business, from their working capital, and it is their subcontractors that have paid the price for that, and that is the whole purpose of the legislation.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chair. Yes, look, I absolutely accept that, and that’s the intent here of what we are trying to achieve. But by locking up more than double the amount of retention, surely that is an unintended consequence, and that’s where I want some clarity. The Minister hasn’t addressed that yet, and I would like it if she could give some insight into whether or not that is also her understanding of it. I think it’s also important to understand that it is very normal practice in the construction sector to retain money through these contracts, and the typical level is 10 percent. So, therefore, I’m interested in some insight around the potential cost of that because I think it’s a bit flippant to say that “Oh, well, it’s entirely up to them whether they have retentions.” Yes, to an extent, that is the case but it is standard practice that retentions are held—that’s why we’re passing this legislation—because it is normal business for these retentions to occur, and so, on that basis, there must be some insight into their potential cost imposition on those businesses.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): I will answer this one more time, but I think we are at the risk of repeating ourselves here. This is a voluntary system. Nobody has to enter into it. There is no prescribed amount; it is up to parties to determine how much is going to be put aside, if it is going to be put aside.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Can I just briefly comment on that answer—I guess doing construction is voluntary. You know, it’s certainly true that businesses could choose not to enter into any contract at all, but that’s kind of moot. I think the point is that under this law, if people do want to enter into construction, and if they do want to use retentions—which have been part of construction for a very long time—then there are some constraints put on them. So I’m not sure that the Minister is really addressing the question. But the question I asked earlier was if the Minister could quantify the amount that is lost by insolvency. Now, just to be helpful to the Minister, the regulatory impact statement says annual insolvency costs are $89 million. Does the Minister think that might be how much is lost from retentions that aren’t properly paid each year in New Zealand—$89 million—or is it some other number?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): I’m aware that the regulatory impact statement puts that insolvency cost at $89 million, but one of the issues that I addressed as an answer to an earlier question is because there isn’t a regime around recording all of this in terms of the flow of retentions, you cannot just extrapolate from that and say that that is the amount it could be. But with having this framework around the retention moneys and the fact that we will have a structure around it, we will be able to have more of an idea around what that will be.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. I think this is a really important point. There is a cost and a benefit to this. There is the cost of having what could be working capital ring-fenced and not able to be used by the business. That’s a cost, but the Minister doesn’t know what the quantum of that working capital or that retention money is. But then there’s also a benefit that there’s less insolvency. But the Minister said they don’t know what the benefit is. So am I correct to think that this Government has brought a piece of legislation to the House and the Minister responsible doesn’t know what the costs or the benefits are?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): No, the member is not correct.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

SIMON COURT (ACT): I just want to ask the Minister a question to clarify. So if the cost of insolvency as a result of construction businesses going under is in that region of $89 million a year, under the amendments to the Construction Contracts Act, the impact summary, it says that retention moneys held are between 2 and 10 percent of the contract price. Now, let’s assume, generously, that $89 million - odd is lost to insolvency, 10 percent of that being the contract price—is all of this legislation, all of this compliance requirement, really for $8 million, $9 million, $10 million or, potentially, $1 million or $2 million a year? Is that the net quantum of the amount of money that we might be protecting for subcontractors who have performed work, who may well have been paid for the work they have done, apart from that 2, 5, or 10 percent withholding, which is genuinely withheld because of the risk of defects or quality issues being found with their work or their work being found to be incomplete or not conforming, or some aspect of the contract?

So is all of this legislation intended to protect, on an annual basis, maybe, I don’t know, $1 million, $2 million, or $5 million worth of payments that would otherwise be due to subbies? And that’s assuming, of course, that, actually, those retentions weren’t going to be used for dealing with quality issues or withheld by the head contractor because of a failure to deliver to the quality standard.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): Again, I have already covered this question off in previous contributions. The extrapolations and assumptions that members are making to draw from that are simply not correct.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Could I ask the Minister if it’s true that I’m incorrect, that the extrapolations that every other member on this side of the Chamber is making is incorrect? One last chance: can the Minister just tell us, what are the costs in terms of tied-up working capital and the costs of tying that working capital up versus the benefits of insolvency that won’t happen? Because if the Minister responsible can’t tell us what the numbers are for the costs and benefits, then it’s not really fair for her to tell everyone else that they’re wrong when she doesn’t know, herself.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): I’ve been over this several times, in terms of not being able to extrapolate that out. But let’s actually get back to what this is. This is the retention money that is there for the subcontractors. It is put aside because this is money for people who have done work and should be, and deserve to be, paid out. That is the whole point that is occurring in this legislation.

In terms of the wanting to extrapolate from those numbers, I’m not going to be ruling in or ruling out. It could be, but, as I have said, you cannot draw the assumptions that members are trying to. But let’s think about some of the high-profile cases where we have had businesses go under, where we have seen contractors and subcontractors that haven’t been paid out. We have seen a number of small businesses who have worked incredibly hard on projects not get paid and—I take the point that was raised by members in the National Party around that—not get access to their tools. In the case of Mainzeal, that meant their business couldn’t operate, but that is covered under a separate piece of legislation.

But the point of this is the fact that even if we’re talking about a couple of dollars here, this is money that people have worked hard for, and they deserve to be paid and not for people to use that in an irresponsible way. What we know is the best practice in the building industry is already to do this.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that Tim van de Molen’s clause 7 amendment to Supplementary Order Paper 278 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 328 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 9.

Noes 74

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

Amendment to the amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the Minister’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 278 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Parts 1 and 2, the Schedule, and clauses 1 to 3 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The committee has considered the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Voting

Correction—Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I seek leave to amend a vote on the instruction to committee on the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill. People may wonder why ACT has done this a couple of times. We’re missing a member who’s had a particularly bad case of pneumonia, but I also want to tell the House that his wife says that he sounds like Rod Stewart now, so it’s not all bad. But we would like leave to amend that vote if that’s OK.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none. The vote will be corrected.

Bills

Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Building and Construction): I present a legislative statement on the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill. I move that the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I’ll just say that that legislative statement is punished—published. Ha, ha! I feel punished; I don’t know. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I move, That the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It’s with a great deal of satisfaction that I now begin the bill’s final progress and passage through this House. I want to begin by acknowledging and thanking my predecessor, the Hon Poto Williams, who introduced this bill in June 2021.

I think everybody in this House knows why we need this bill. The Construction Contracts Act 2002, regulating construction contracts, included processes for dealing with payments and disputes under a construction contract and the protection of retention money. The Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill, this bill, strengthens and clarifies the retention money requirements that sit under that Act.

The changes made by the bill contribute to the Government’s building system reforms by providing fairer outcomes for subcontractors when things go wrong. That is one of the important things that we have in place, that we have a structure and a system in place for when those things do go wrong.

Retention money is an amount of money held back from a payment under a construction contract as security for performance. Holding retention money is voluntary; however, when retention money is held, it must be held on trust by the head contractor for the benefit of the subcontractor. An independent review by KPMG in 2019 on the effectiveness of the retention money regime found that while there was overall compliance with the regime, a number of those businesses who were surveyed were using retention money as working capital and co-mingling money. This is an issue because it increases the risk of subcontractors not being paid for the work they have done, particularly when the head contractor becomes insolvent before paying out the subcontractors’ retention money.

The changes in this bill safeguard those subcontractors who are often—and too often—the first to miss out in the event of a construction company becoming insolvent. It gives those greater protections for subcontractors’ retention money. The bill clarifies and strengthens the requirements. The key changes that we’re seeing here include clarifying the existing trust requirement and improving the transparency of how retention money is held. It introduces offences, penalties, and defences, and clarifies how retention money is administered in the event of insolvency.

By strengthening the trust requirement, the bill mitigates the risks with the use of retention money as working capital by head contractors. It clarifies that the trust requirement will almost also mean that the money becomes clearly identifiable and separate from other assets held by the head contractor, and the bill also introduces offences for those who fail to comply with the retention money requirements. It also clarifies holding accounting and reporting requirements for that retention money, and, under the bill, head contractors will have a role in providing subcontractors with updated retention money records on a regular basis.

People need to know what is occurring. This will aid compliance and better allow subcontractors to know when head contractors have not complied with their obligations. This also helps to address the power imbalance between subcontractors and head contractors, where subcontractors are often unable to enforce their rights.

Finally, this bill clarifies how unallocated withdrawals or deposits from a bank account used to hold retention money between subcontractors is held.

The majority of the submissions received by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee generally supported the policy intent behind the bill. Submitters’ feedback has been considered throughout the development of the bill and, since select committee, the bill has been further amended through a Supplementary Order Paper to clarify that the chief executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will enforce the retention money regime. This is in response to submitters’ feedback that clarity on enforcement will help deter non-compliance with the regime. These changes will ensure that there are strict penalties in place for companies who fail to meet their obligation to those who carry out their work. I would like to thank the members of the committee that put the work into making these changes at the committee stage.

The changes made today provide important protections for subcontractors so that they can be certain their payment is being kept safe. It can’t be used for any other purpose, and will be there for them should the head contractor’s business fail. The bill clarifies and strengthens the regime. It will ensure that risk is fairly managed across contractors, subcontractors, and clients. These changes are planned to come into force six months after this Act receives Royal assent. I’d like to thank the many people across the building and construction sector who gave their time to help make this bill what it is. As I’ve already thanked the committee, I’d also like to thank the officials and the Parliamentary Counsel Office who worked on the bill. I commend this bill to the House.

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

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I’m happy to take a call on the final reading of the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill. We will be supporting this final reading, as we have with the previous stages.

There’s just a couple of comments I want to note in relation to this as we pass through. Firstly, I want to thank the Minister for making it clear in the committee stage that the amendments that she has proposed under section 18FB will enable either situation where parties B are working on multiple contracts within the one project, or, indeed, working for the same party A across multiple different projects—that they all indeed can come under the one complying instrument. That was a concern that had been raised with me by industry participants. I heard clearly from Dempsey Wood, a great construction company out there—focused on this legislation—that there were some challenges around the potential implementation of this. So it was encouraging to hear the Minister confirm that that is the case, and that was her reason for not supporting my Supplementary Order Paper which provided clarity to that extent. On that basis, I think it’s really clear to put on record that that was a key concern from industry participants, because the other aspect that we didn’t see addressed was around some of the questioning we had on this side of the House from both National and ACT members around the potential cost versus benefit aspects of this legislation and the lack of clarity around that and the potential impact of the additional working cash-flow being locked up if we’re going through the trust model, as has been supported by the committee of the whole House in the previous stage of this bill.

So what I think we will see in practice as this starts to roll out is that most participants will be looking more at complying instruments, although it would have been nice to have had some insight into potential costs of those complying instruments. I’m sure there could have been, or certainly should have been, some information around what that might look like because, as I say, having more than twice the amount of retentions potentially held up by using the trust model—where each participant in that chain holds aside 10 percent, for example, in a pretty standard sort of contract scenario, party A down through multiple party Bs—then you can indeed end up with more than double the amount of retentions held, which is not the intent of the bill.

We all agree in this House with the intent to better protect that retention money that has been held aside, and to the Minister’s point, yes, it is voluntary, but, actually, it is standard practice. That is what happens in the construction sector. There are multiple participants within any given contract scenario. The head contractor generally only performs a portion of the work and subsequent levels of subcontracting are utilised to complete other aspects of those contracts. And so it is critical to ensure that we are not overburdening the sector, because we have seen far too many instances under this Government of additional cost being added to industries for negligible benefit, and it’s simply impacting our economy unnecessarily and reducing our productivity as well.

So we do have some reservations around those aspects and, as I say, I expect that will probably play out with people or construction contracts being more around the compliant instruments side than the retention money trust to try and alleviate that cash-flow pressure—of course, dependent on the cost of that, which we have yet to get any clarity around. And I think that is a concern that I’ve had, and the Minister talked as well, and to me it was clear there wasn’t a strong understanding of what the construction sector are needing or wanting or how it operates, when we saw a relatively flippant response around the potential impact of some of those scenarios that could play out in a realistic contract environment between participants on any given construction project.

So, look, we do support it. It’s a good step to help protect those subcontractors. There is further work to be done. And this is to the point, particularly around those subbies who have their tools on site or any other assets—you know, materials or products that they may have left on a site—which then suddenly becomes insolvency property. I accept that is outside the scope of this bill, but I would like to see a strong focus from the Minister on addressing an issue that is very clearly prevalent within the construction sector, because not only is it the loss of the monetary value of those assets but indeed in the case of tools, the inability for those subcontractors to then go and work on other projects. So that is a real issue we need to address, particularly at a time when we have seen a significant increase in the number of construction companies failing. We have over the last 12 months seen that lift to 336. That is nearly one every day. That is a worrying increase from what we saw the previous year. That was nearly a 100 percent increase, from memory. There are real challenges within the broader supply chain for the construction sector around accessing workforce, consenting processes, getting new products registered—any raft of issues that are stymieing the productivity of our construction sector—and it would be really encouraging to see a strong focus from the Government to try and address and alleviate some of those additional pressures.

But, look, we do support this stance that’s been taken here to strengthen the retention money and make one contribution to supporting an important sector.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): It’s a pleasure to rise in support of the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill. This was one of the first bills that I dealt with as an MP. I was on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and it was just a real delight to see this, because I’d seen the problem and I was seeing us create a solution, and it was done relatively cooperatively, I think, between every side of the House.

The underlying issue here is that there had been a habit of taking a percentage—say, 10 percent—of a price to be paid and to hold it back, and it had been abused—I go that far. It wasn’t being held back and then remitted. Every excuse under the sun was being given as to why sometimes that wasn’t returned, and the money was being used as working capital. Those are not good things. They are not fair things. So it was really nice to see this piece of legislation come alongside our subbies and our contractors, who work really hard and actually deserve to have the whole of the price paid, not a piece held back.

So what happened here was that we ended up with a piece of legislation responding to a bad habit of not everybody but some people to hold back that money, and the intermingling of that money and the use of it, for capital. It was a situation where it was David and Goliath. It was the big guys versus the little ones. I am very, very proud of the Labour Party and the Labour Government but also all the other parties for getting alongside this particular group of people and recognising that that power imbalance had led to an abuse that needed to stop. And it stops tonight. I commend this bill to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): It’s an absolute pleasure to be talking at 11 minutes to 12 a.m. on this fine night, on the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill, third reading. Well, it’s a long time since this bill was introduced to the House back in 2021. Gee, a lot’s happened since then. Gee, a lot has happened in the last week, I think, when you reflect on what’s happened.

So my first point is I think it’s very disappointing that it’s taken so long. If this legislation is so important, as the Minister and the previous member, Helen White, spoke of, why the dickens did it take so long to get into this House? Gee, this House has been in urgency so many times doing the most ridiculous pieces of legislation. If you really wanted to help the construction sector, you would have done this years ago rather than at 12 o’clock on this night nearly two years later.

So, anyway, the second point is: I think the issue that Mr Seymour brought up just showed how poorly advised or disinterested the Minister is, actually, in the building and construction sector, which employs 280,000 people and accounts for about 10 percent of the GDP of New Zealand. It is a mammoth sector and probably employs the most amount of people in New Zealand, the second one being manufacturing, employing about 250,000. So it’s pretty standard, and in answering Mr Seymour’s question, it would have been pretty easy to say, “Well, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment”—who actually advise the Minister and would have told her, no doubt, at some stage, that “Last year, we did $11 billion of commercial construction, we did $22 billion of residential construction.” That’s why my good colleague Tim van de Molen was talking about roughly $33 million, being 10 percent, which was about $3 million. They were pretty easy numbers to work out. And what this bill will mean is that those retentions are there, and let’s hope for the Minister’s assertion, which may be contrary to some of the legal advice we’ve had, that there can be a system put in place that we don’t end up doubling up in the amount of retentions as it cascades from prime contractor, subcontractor, sub-subcontractor, as Mr van de Molen quite rightly pointed out. Hopefully, that is not the case, because if it is, National’s bill will change this if we were lucky enough to win in October and it was necessary.

The second thing is about the tools. I hope that’s been dealt with. And the third thing was the court case, the Ebert court case that talked about the trusts, and the Minister again has given an assurance around that. Let’s hope that is the case. If all those things are as the Minister asserts, then we all agree this is a much better piece of legislation. It has just been too long in the making, too slow in bringing it to fruition, and in the meantime, the construction industry is now in a perilous state, with many, many companies going into receivership as a result of some bungling of the economy and some of the rules and regulations that have been put on them.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think that this is a very important piece of legislation, at this time of night, that we would be contributing to, the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill. This Government is providing greater financial protection for the construction subcontractors. As part of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee who heard directly from these subcontractors, we know that they wanted change. This offers a fairer system for them. This offers the opportunity for them to be paid on time. So, without further ado, at this time of night, I commend this bill to the House.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill. To follow Andrew Bayly’s points, this bill has indeed taken a little while, so I won’t take much longer. This bill is good for workers, it’s good for people in the industry, and the Green Party’s happy to support it and see the outcomes that it will bring.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House is suspended and will resume at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 11.55 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)

TUESDAY, 28 MARCH 2023

(continued on Thursday, 30 March 2023)

Bills

Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): It’s a pleasure to rise on the third Tuesday morning in this House to speak to the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill at the third reading. The ACT Party will be supporting this bill at the third reading, and it’s because we want to see a system where subcontractors, who work really hard up and down New Zealand, don’t lose out because of the work they’re doing to help in New Zealand’s residential and commercial building construction work throughout our country.

Retention money is a really interesting area of our law. Currently, a lot of people are involved in building work, commercial and residential, up and down New Zealand. People might contract on a large provider, a building company, but a lot of that work will be subcontracted. Not every single company involved in building can do everything that’s required. You’ve got electrical work, painting, a lot of fitting for gas, for example, a lot of bricklaying, and people involved in the roof infrastructure work. There’s a lot that goes into a building that not every single company can be involved with. So people bring in subcontractors to help with that work.

In many cases, although it’s not a legal requirement, money held for subcontractors to do work is withheld. It’s retention money. So somebody might end up asking for a whole roof to be put on. But part of that contract says that some of that money is withheld until a few months or years after that work is completed to make sure that it’s done at such a high quality that if there are any defects, the subcontractors will come and fix it as part of their contract. Now, this law is to say that we’re reducing the likelihood that some contractors will become insolvent. And because some of that retention money, or money that’s been withheld for that end part of the contract, has been mixed with other money or working capital for other projects—and when they go insolvent, that money doesn’t exist—it’s setting aside that money in a trust, so that when a company does become insolvent, there might be money set aside to continue to pay that subcontractor for that work that they had completed.

We think, overall, that this is a good idea, because ACT wants to support our subcontractors, who do work hard and are a vital part of our construction industry up and down New Zealand. I talk to them constantly, people who have real pride in their craftsmanship and who have a real pride in knowing that they’re actively participating and helping to grow a thriving New Zealand where everybody can have a good home and everybody can be proud of the infrastructure in which some of our businesses operate.

Now you see some beautiful new buildings and developments being set up around New Zealand for our growing industries and for our growing number of families. And people do have a lot of pride, but they also put in a lot of hard work and want to know that when they are doing this hard work and some money is going to be retained for a few months or years down the track to help pay for any defects, that money will actually be paid out if there is no problem at all.

But we did want to raise one issue which came up in the committee of the whole House last night, which I think is really important for the third reading, and it was that when we questioned the Minister about how much money is currently lost to subcontractors because retention money is withheld and people do become insolvent, the Minister couldn’t answer those questions. She also couldn’t answer how much working capital is currently tied up in construction, which is also money that should be used for retention money. She could not do the breakdown on how much money is currently being used for working capital, and, under this law, how much money therefore would be withheld and taken away as working capital by construction companies. I think it is slightly concerning that we have Ministers putting through bills in Parliament here where we don’t know the true costs and benefits of these proposals and we don’t know therefore what the clear policy benefits and the policy costs will be.

We will be supporting this bill because we do want to have a regime that supports our subcontractors, who do a lot of great work up and down New Zealand and help provide jobs for New Zealanders, help provide food on the table for their families, and help get our construction businesses up and running so that we have more homes and more buildings for our industries to work and live in. But it is concerning that we are having such a low level of scrutiny from this Government about what are the clear policy benefits and costs. We do support it through the House.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well, thank you, Madam Speaker—ahead of time, which is very good to have; thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to speak on the Construction Contracts (Retention Money) Amendment Bill.

This bill will be helpful. I think it’s really important that we do ensure that the legal processes are in place for the retention of money and ensuring that it does go back to those people that it should do, particularly in an inflationary environment that we’re in today.

In July last year, inflation was at 7.3 percent, which is high. Actually, as of today—and I recommend the Massey GDP Live website: you can track GDP and inflation on a daily basis, and it’s actually more accurate than the Stats NZ numbers when they bring out their stats for a quarter. They actually go back later on and adjust it and it’s pretty much right where GDP Live is. As of yesterday, inflation is tracking at 7.28 percent, so it’s dropped off a little bit from July and then it’s started to track up again.

So we’re in a really inflationary environment at the moment, and one of the most vulnerable sectors to that is the construction sector, which take on contracts—often with a fixed price out to the future—and then they get caught with the inflationary pressures. So now more than ever, we need this to ensure that those people working in the construction sector are not even more disadvantaged by contracts that don’t fully cover people in the way that they were intended. So with that in mind, I commend the bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill.

Bills

Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 to 7, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2 (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, good morning. The House is in committee on the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill. When we were last considering the bill, we were debating Parts 1 to 7, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2. The question is that Parts 1 to 7, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

CAMILLA BELICH (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order—point of order, Madam Chair. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Leave is sought for that purpose. Oh, we’ve already done that—we’ve already done that, because we are continuing our consideration of the committee stage.

CAMILLA BELICH (Junior Whip—Labour): Speaking to the point of order, I was under the impression that leave was sought in the previous committee stage and not granted, so my point of order is to seek leave again for all the provisions to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): OK, thank you—I’ll check that one out. Thanks for that. It’s our understanding that leave was granted. I’ll put the question again: the question is that Parts 1 to 7, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

The question is that the Hon Dr David Clark’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 237 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Hon Ginny Andersen’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 324 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Chlöe Swarbrick’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 260 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 103

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; ACT New Zealand 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 10, Noes 106.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Chlöe Swarbrick’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 261 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 103

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; ACT New Zealand 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 10, Noes 106.

Parts 1 to 7, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 105, Noes 10.

MAUREEN PUGH (Junior Whip—National): Point of order, Madam Chair. We wish to adjust the previous two votes, please.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Is there any objection? There is none.

MAUREEN PUGH: Can we adjust them to 31 votes, please? Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): So this is for Supplementary Order Papers 260 and 261? OK. So the Ayes are 10 and the Noes are 103. Thank you. I will report this bill with amendment.

Bill to be reported with amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Voting

Correction—Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Deputy Musterer—Green): Point of order. I seek leave of the House to correct our vote on that last vote.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Are there any objections to that? There are no objections. Please go ahead, Dr Elizabeth Kerekere.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE: It turns out we’re not opposing that bill; we are in favour. So 10 votes in favour on that last vote.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): So then the vote is unanimous on that last bill. Thank you. The Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Bills

Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill

Third Reading

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications): I present a legislative statement on the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill.

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

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: I move, That the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill be now read a third time.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present for a third reading the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill. I would first of all like to acknowledge the work that the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee has done in this space. I’d like to acknowledge those select committee members and officials who have put much time into getting this bill this far. As the new Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, I would like to thank the previous Minister, the Hon Dr David Clark, for his work on this bill, including starting the bill’s committee stage back in December 2022.

I have just a few comments to make following the debate that’s pursued in the second reading. This bill sets up the digital identity services trust framework, which is an opt-in regulatory framework for the digital identity service industry. Digital identity services give people the ability to easily share information about themselves, such as name, date, and birth. This enables access to services like setting up a bank account online, providing a new employer with information—basic day-to-day things that will make life easier for people.

The bill is part of a wider programme of initiatives that support key Government priorities in the digital community, and is the cornerstone of the Digital Strategy for Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s also trade enabling, as a digital identity can enable digital trade in other cross-border transactions. A mutual recognition of digital identity services with Australia is something that our Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Australia have both signalled as a high priority for the Single Economic Market agenda.

During the select committee process, some submitters expressed concern that the trust framework was establishing a mandatory centralised identity regime. I want to reiterate, at this point, that the bill does no such thing. The trust framework does not establish a centralised identity system. In fact, it enables users to choose what information is being stored and shared with third parties. It does not create any new powers for the Government to collect or share people’s information without their express consent.

The trust framework introduces minimum standards for security, privacy, information, and identification management that must be met when people choose to share information through this mechanism. The bill, and all actors within the trust framework system, will be subject to the Privacy Act and the privacy requirements.

The new regulatory framework will be overseen by the Trust Framework Authority, Trust Framework Board, and also the Māori Advisory Group. We are very proud of the Government’s arrangements, and particularly want to acknowledge the input of the Data Iwi Leaders Group in this area, and the time they’ve put into refining this work. The debate on the make-up of the Trust Framework Board in the committee stage was particularly interesting, but I am confident that we have a system that will ensure that there are diverse perspectives and expertise while also creating a board that has the appropriate technical understanding of digital identity—this is incredibly important. We are creating a system which, through board appointments and consultation requirements, will enable those to have an interest in specific issues, and also be able to be heard on the matter. The trust framework regulations and rules being developed will round out the technical and administrative requirements to implement the trust framework.

I would like to wrap up by saying that this bill introduces a regulatory framework that establishes standards for the provision of secure digital identity services and gives New Zealanders more control over their own data, including what they choose to share about themselves, and also, most importantly, who they share it with. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

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

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I start by saying on this side of the House, we obviously support—and it is wonderful to actually note that the whole House supports this.

I start by congratulating the new Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, and I’d like to thank the previous Minister, the Hon Dr David Clark. I have to say that this may be the first bill for which he has support from all of Parliament in his tenure as the Minister.

I don’t really want to take too long on the third reading, because it is something that is actually required. I echo what the Minister said in the end, which is about the protection of data and the fact that through this bill, New Zealanders can have more control over their data, how that data is going to be used, and how much control they actually have.

The world is becoming more digital, and strong protections are needed. Having a framework that we are actually setting up in this Parliament today will make a huge difference to New Zealanders as they navigate the world of digital. I commend the bill to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s been an interesting journey to be part of this select committee, the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. Moving through this piece of legislation, and as has already been spoken, congratulations to the Hon Ginny Andersen for her new role, and honouring and respecting the previous Minister, the Hon Dr David Clark, who originally brought this into the House.

Now, if anything in this legislation, timing is everything, and part of it, I think, as a select committee, was—and Melissa Lee can vouch for this—the time when we started hearing submissions actually was obviously at a very heightened time in our country’s history.

Melissa Lee: Seems like a long time ago.

GLEN BENNETT: It does seem like a long time ago, and it was 2021 that we were hearing submissions. We received a lot of submissions, but they came in really late and I do note that the advisers noted that—I think it was of the 4,000-plus, 3,000-plus of those were form submissions that were last minute and said very little. But what they did say was obviously a lack of, I’d say, understanding of what this piece of legislation was about because this is actually—as Melissa Lee and others have said in this House—around protection, it’s around safety measures, it’s actually around the trust framework. And it was unfortunate, through the select committee process, to have the misinformation come through that people were concerned, whereas what this bill does is protects what’s going on online, protects our digital integrity, protects people in terms of their information—whether it’s your name or your licence or your date of birth, those sorts of things that are there. It’s actually around the protection and the trust of the framework.

This gives people more control—more control over how they share information about themselves and when they share it. If you look at the internet, it was something invented 40-plus years ago, and as it’s come through over the years there are many things that haven’t been put in place around protections. Many regulations haven’t been put in place because it’s in many ways an experiment that has exploded and is growing. So for us to have things put in place like the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill is very important for us in this House, and, as has been said, I’m glad that we all support this legislation this morning so that we can see it through.

Now, RealMe was also brought up in select committee, and I don’t want to talk too much about that, because we’ve got a lot of work to do still and I’m glad that this is part of making it better, and because I know that everyone loves a good RealMe account. We will keep moving on this. I support this and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Madam Speaker—what an excellent choice. I commend this bill to the House. It is absolutely crucial in a digital age that we have a trust framework around identity, and it is absolutely going to be incredibly important for our digitising of Government when we have to come in and pick up the mess that the current Government has made.

We know that there are people who worry about what might be happening to their identity and yet still go on to things like Facebook and other platforms and go to very dodgy platforms where they end up with conspiracy theories. It is important that people have control over their own identity, their own information, but it is going to be absolutely crucial for the provision of Government services in particular, that people can have trust in the digitisation of their information and to be able to rely on it.

I will just mention RealMe, just for one moment, and that is simply to say that that was, what, 2013—it’s been 10 years since anything has been done to improve that, and 10 years in the digital space is like a century anywhere else. It is a shame it has taken this long for this bill to come through. It was first being talked about, actually, in a 2020 Cabinet decision, back in, I think, July 2020. It is very important that the whole of Parliament supports it. I just think that that’s a great way forward, and I’m very pleased to be able to support it as well.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): This bill for me has two main impacts, and many speakers today have spoken about the protective elements, but it’s also about the ability to have ease of functioning in the digital world, both as individuals and as other person entities in the digital space. So there are two big benefits there, and, as others have said, we are moving increasingly into the digital space, whether it’s around accessing medical records or being able to have them handed, say, from one medical provider to another, or whether it’s setting up bank accounts, or whether it’s doing business or even contracts in the international space. There is a need to be able to have one consistent, safe, and easy way of establishing a digital identity, being able to trust it, and being able to work effectively. And I have to say that at times when I’ve forgotten my RealMe password, it has not been that easy to use that particular platform that the previous speaker raised.

There are also inconsistent standards currently, and so that is one of the things that makes it onerous for people—having one way of doing a secure digital identity for one function, such as banking, and then having to have a different one for a different thing, such as accessing Government services. So what this bill will do is create a framework, a regulatory framework, in secondary legislation that will enable that to happen, but also give it the flexibility so that as technology changes, the ability for the digital identity to keep up with technology will also be able to change.

That brings me to another element, which is around the need for good governance and the ability for the trust board to be able to access expertise. There are already functions in place to ensure that there will be diversity on that board, but, actually, what this framework will do is enable the board to be able to call in specialists, whether it’s Māori, whether it’s women, whether it’s Pasifika, children’s experts, and so on, so that as technology changes the board will be able to get the expertise it needs in order to ensure that there is inclusive considerations in the digital identity space.

The last part is really just a little bit more on the regulatory body, which the bill sets up in Part 5, and that is really also to monitor the performance and effectiveness of the accreditation regime, to undertake compliance and monitoring of the trust framework providers, receive and assess complaints, and investigate breaches. These are all fundamental elements of a good governance structure that oversees a framework to ensure that there is continual monitoring, evaluation, and learning from that so that we can be sure that as we move into this ever-evolving world, our digital identity keeps up with technology and continues to keep people safe but also allows ease of access of doing business and conducting day-to-day life. It’s a great bill. I commend it to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I guess, just to outline for those who are following along this very fast-paced House this morning, that there are three key things that this legislation seeks to do, or three pillars of it.

The first in establishing the framework is for an opt-in Government accreditation scheme, which is, obviously, as outlined by other speakers, for digital identity providers across all sectors. But, notably, it is opt-in. The second thing that is does is establish a Trust Framework Board, that is the governance group that many others have alluded to, with responsibility for developing the rules for the accreditation scheme and running wider education and potentially guidance campaigns. The third thing that it does is set up that Trust Framework Authority to run the accreditation scheme, which involves approving accreditations, enforcement and compliance, and maintaining the registry.

So while I am stoked to see that we’ve support across the House and consensus on this really important framework, what it’s important to note is that this doesn’t quite go far enough to grapple with some of the challenges of our time, which some of the other speakers have also alluded to.

To that effect, it doesn’t look anywhere near as far as entrenching digital rights in the form of, kind of, a digital bill of rights format. It doesn’t grapple with the likes of people’s identity online and their digital footprint. It doesn’t grapple with, as we’ve sometimes discussed in this House, the issues around deepfakes and utilisation of people’s face or voice or identity in those places and spaces. This simply sets up a framework of accreditation for those who are utilising and providing services and the accreditation of identity to that effect.

So it’s a great start, but there’s so much more to do in this ecosystem. I just want to say that I agree with the sentiment, as expressed by the Hon Judith Collins, that there is so much more to do here. So frequently we see that this House is just catching up five or 10 years after we’ve seen that technological evolution. So perhaps there’s some work to do in a cross-party manner to that effect.

Throughout the committee of the whole House but also through the select committee stage, we’ve heard that there was a number of submissions from those who perhaps didn’t quite understand the purpose of this legislation. To that effect, we did, however, see that there were some quite substantive submissions from stakeholders who are really involved in this space. We had InternetNZ and the Council for Civil Liberties suggesting that this authority and this board should not exist within the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) as it currently does. This is something which I alluded to in my second reading speech, and I’m stoked to see that the Minister has actually taken that on board, and what we now have here is the potential in the amended legislation that we’re debating at third reading to have this review after two years to ascertain whether it should be that the digital identity agency becomes its own stand-alone Crown entity, because, of course, it’s currently contained within DIA, and this did raise the spectre of concern for some of those stakeholders. I think when InternetNZ and the Council for Civil Liberties are raising those concerns, they are the things that should be paid due notice to.

We also obviously heard from InternetNZ and the Council for Civil Liberties that there should be broader requirements of consultation and appointments of, for example, people with disability or accessibility needs. We also heard from those who were suggesting that perhaps there should be rainbow representation.

I’d note that, as the Minister herself has outlined, there is, of course, the opportunity, or the discretion, for the Minister to appoint people with those skills or those lived experiences to the board. None the less, by virtue of what’s played out at committee of the whole House and the Greens’ proposals to that effect, there’s no guarantee.

So, once again, what we’re talking about here is a welcome step in the right direction, but it is an opt-in accreditation framework for digital identity. It doesn’t grapple with those far bigger issues of one’s rights online, of one’s digital footprint and the right to be forgotten, for example. So there’s still so much more work to do, and we continue to encourage the form of consensus that we’ve seen break out celebratoriously in the House this morning on this to the future challenges of our time in that technological space and the rights of citizens in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll just start by giving my thanks to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, as others have. I know it’s obviously a very technical bill, but also just, I guess, the huge number of submissions that came in at the eleventh hour, which were quite interesting in terms of what they were saying the bill was about. So, hopefully, we’ve allayed some of those fears, and convinced them that there’s just no way that the New Zealand Government is capable of actually doing what they’re worried about.

I’d also give my congratulations to the new Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, and my commiserations to the old Minister—Hon David Clark—who’s here in the House to see it through, but, I guess, hey, it could be worse, right?

This bill establishes a framework that has been well traversed in this House. It enables secure user-authorised sharing of personal information. I’ll note from the legislative statement that it sets minimum standards for security and privacy, and ensures that those taking part in the scheme demonstrate that they meet the requirements for handling information.

Now, I think it will be very interesting to see how this all plays out—obviously, we support the bill—in practice, because the world of cyber-security is getting fairly ugly if we look at what happened over the last few weeks—being made aware of the hack on Latitude, as one example; we’ve got over a million New Zealanders who had their licence details hacked and leaked, passport information and addresses and those sorts of things. So it’s very personal information that’s been part of that. Now, I guess there’s a hypothetical question: what if this framework were in place and what if Latitude were a part of that framework? What would the ongoing effects of that be? What would the consequences be? And how would that affect the stability of the whole framework, of all those different participants that were in it? So if a company’s doing their best to comply and they’ve been certified, these things are going to happen, unfortunately, even once this is in effect. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, since the consequences of these security intrusions are quite significant.

The consultation requirements in the bill with various stakeholders is well set out, well-thought-out, and we support that—how it’s done in the legislation.

I guess I’ll just finish by saying that it’s good to see that this bill is, at long last, going through the House, albeit under unusual circumstances. I’m guessing that the previous Minister is very proud that it’s doing so. So it will be very interesting to see how this plays out in practice. We shall support it. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Organic Products and Production Bill.

Bills

Organic Products and Production Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 25 November 2022.

Part 1 Preliminary provisions, and Schedule 1 (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the House is in committee on the Organic Products and Production Bill. When we were last considering the bill, we were debating Part 1, which is the debate on clauses 3 to 7 and Schedule 1, preliminary provisions. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki-King Country): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s very good to have the organic products bill finally back in the House. I think I was sitting where you were last time we were discussing it during urgency. I just have one question for the Minister, as a lot of work we did on this was actually in the last Parliament, but related to the fact that our exporting organic people have lots of checks and balances in that process—there was quite a concern around our small organic producers’ costs, in terms of complying with standards and things. I’m talking about farmers markets and small growers and people like that. I just wanted to ask the Minister if you’re certain that we’ve got the balance right there in terms of protecting, I guess, those start-up organic producers—making sure they’re doing it well but not being over-burdened by compliance.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you. That’s a very fair question, and it also goes to the heart of a Supplementary Order Paper that is in the name of Mr Cameron, from the ACT Party. We recognise that, in respect of small organic producers for the likes of farmers markets, those businesses won’t be able to go through a certification regime. The Ministry for Primary Industries believes that that’s best dealt with through the way in which regulations are promulgated when standards are set for who must do what, and who should be certified in order to meet the requirements of the legislation. So they think that it’s best dealt with at that level where there can be some protections put around exemptions, perhaps, if necessary, rather than having a general carve-out in the primary legislation.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Hon Damien O’Connor’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 262 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Teanau Tuiono’s amendment to clause 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 279 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 104

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; ACT New Zealand 9.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that Part 1 as amended stand part. All those in favour say Aye; to the contrary No.

Hon Members: Party vote.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Sorry, I can’t hear the member because she’s sitting down and the microphone is not picking her up. Did the member have a point of order, or—

Brooke van Velden: No. We’re party voting, no.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. OK, so I haven’t called for that. A party vote has been called for. The Clerk will conduct a party vote—apologies to the member.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2

Approval and recognition

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, we come now to Part 2, which is the debate on clauses 8 to 44A, “Approval and recognition”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like to take a moment to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 309 in my colleague Mark Cameron’s name. It’s in regards to who must or may be approved as an operator, and I know you’ve spoken to this just before, but I just urge the Minister in the chair, David Parker, to take on board the concerns that were expressed for small operators that may just be selling products only to local markets or to substitute their income in some way, like neighbourhood markets or farmers markets. They’re going to get caught up in this regulation and red tape, which may cause it to no longer be viable for them to continue to do so at the local markets in the weekend.

My colleague Mark Cameron spoke to me about a retired couple that he had spoken to that had a few extra cucumbers left over at the end of what they’d been growing and so they took them down to the local markets to kind of substitute their income, their retirement income, to have a better quality of life. This legislation may cause them to reconsider that. There are many people that are just small players in the market—not selling to shops and things like that, not exporting overseas—that will get caught up in this. At a time when we’re in a cost of living crisis and people are just trying to get by, do we really think that it’s necessary to have a one-size-fits-all policy that affects these small players? Thank you, Minister.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): The member raises a fair point. I don’t think the intention is that those people be regulated. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) advised that the bill already includes provisions which enable classes of operators to be exempt from the requirement to be approved as an operator. The proposed regulations that MPI is developing under the bill do recognise that the costs of approval can be disproportionate for the small businesses that the member describes, and therefore a class exemption—they wouldn’t have to apply for an exemption; the regulations are expected to come through with a class exemption from the requirement to be approved as an operator for the business. One of the reasons that MPI considers that’s the more appropriate route for an exemption, to sit in regulations, is it enables other things to be put round it that we might not be able to contemplate with a general exemption provision, such as that which is proposed by Mr Cameron. But I accept the concern behind it, which is reflected in the comments that I’ve made.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the Minister’s Part 2 amendments to Supplementary Order Paper 262 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 284 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 2 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 262 as amended be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that Mark Cameron’s amendment to clause 10 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 309 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Noes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Part 3 Imports and exports

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, we come now to Part 3, which is the debate on clauses 35 to 50, “Imports and exports”. The question is that Part 3 stand part.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 262 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 3 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Part 4 Cost recovery

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, we come now to Part 4, which is the debate on clauses 51 to 59A, “Cost recovery”. The question is that Part 4 stand part.

The question is that the Hon Damien O’Connor’s amendments to Part 4 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 262 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 4 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 9

ACT New Zealand 9.

Part 4 as amended agreed to.

Parts 5 to 8, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members, we come now to Part 5, which is the debate on clauses 60 to 104—

CAMILLA BELICH (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Is there any objection to that? There are no objections. The question is that Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, and Schedule 1, Schedule 2, and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I have great sympathy for the people in the gallery who must be wondering what a boring place this is. So I thought I would take a very brief call to explain what we’re doing. We have an organics industry in New Zealand which is expanding and has trouble selling products overseas and to some jurisdictions because they don’t recognise organic standards, so we’re introducing a regime that enables our exporters as well as New Zealand consumers to be able to rely upon claims to organics. And the only comment I would make in order to bring this within the Standing Orders, as I make this contribution, is that one of the parts that we’re approving now is the ability to make regulations. Those regulations are effectively food standards and standards for what goes into an organic product, how it’s produced.

Interestingly, New Zealand is probably the best at developing standards for food production and exports in the world—born of the fact that we’re so distant from world markets and that we’ve had to develop standards for refrigerated meat, for a lot of perishable products that we sell to the other side of the world. We’ve had to do that both to get it there safely but also to meet the requirements of other countries, which are sometimes unfairly strict in order to try and block our exports into those countries. But as a consequence of our need to meet those imperatives, we’ve become very good at that and this is another example of that. There are lots of checks and balances before those regulations can be imposed, including consultation with the industry at two stages in the process to make sure that when those regulations are necessary, they’re fit for purpose.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I really appreciate that explanation. Thank you, Minister.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Supplementary Order Paper 262 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 284 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question now is that the Minister’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 262 as amended be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the Minister’s tabled amendment to clause 125 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Amendment agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Parts 5 to 8, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 105

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand National 10.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the report be adopted.

Ayes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Parts 5 to 8, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The committee has considered the Organic Products and Production Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The Organic Products and Production Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture: I present to the House a legislative statement on the Organic Products and Production Bill.

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

Hon DAVID PARKER: I move, That the Organic Products and Production Bill be now read a third time.

Can I begin by thanking everyone who’s worked hard to get this to the point that it is—there has been a lot of work on this. It’s quite a large bill; this was evidenced by the number of parts. The Primary Production Committee did a lot of work knocking it into shape.

Can I acknowledge the useful feedback received from stakeholders during the development of this bill over the past three years. There’s probably only one negative in this for me, in that it’s probably the end of the series of puns that we had through the years from the Hon James Shaw as he asked the Leader of the House about progress on the stalled Organic Products Bill, but they got increasingly bad, and so I’m pleased to see that we are “moo-ving” on. Ha, ha!

We’ve delivered a bill to increase consumer confidence in purchasing organic products. This will improve outcomes for businesses making organic claims because they can be more confident that they will be recognised and that they’re meeting the required standards. Through this, we also facilitate international trade in organic products. It’s an important growth area for New Zealand, with over half of our organic produce now being exported overseas. Our major trading partners such as the US and the EU increasingly expect others to have an organics regulatory system that produces similar outcomes to their own. I understand that there’s—I think—a 2026 deadline in respect of exports into Europe. If we didn’t pass this legislation by then we would be creating problems for our organic exporters. Therefore, features of the bill meet these international expectations, and this supports our participation in international trade now and into the future.

The intent of the bill is threefold. This is set out in the purpose clause of the bill: firstly, consistency in making organic claims, requiring businesses who make organic claims to meet consistent organic standards and be approved by the relevant ministry. In that regard, I would record a question from Barbara Kuriger and Mark Cameron about the need to have exemptions for small operators who are, effectively, selling into farmers markets and things. I am assured by the ministry that they intend that there be class exemptions available so that we are not over-regulating that space.

But secondly, the bill supports organic businesses by making it clearer what they have to do to be able to make organic claims. These requirements will be set through secondary legislation. As I said during the committee stage, we’re actually very good at this in New Zealand. It is probably one of the best areas that we perform—in a regulatory sense—relative to other parts of the world, because we’ve had to, for the reasons that I explained during that debate. There are lots of steps in that process to make sure that the regulations are fit for purpose because they are complex, and you can get them wrong if you’re not careful. So those safeguards are set out in the legislation.

Then finally, as I’ve already said, this provides a strong foundation for our participation in the international trade of organic products. To put that into some financial scale, I’m advised that—I think it was 2022, it may be a year or two earlier—the organics industry estimated that their export values were $723 million each year. That will increase in part through this, but it was increasing anyway. This will help it grow even more. So you can see it’s closing in on a billion dollars of exports. So it’s an important part of our export economy, and therefore supports the standard of living that we need in this country by selling products to the rest of the world in order to pay for the things that we don’t produce, like cars and computers that we import from overseas. The flexibility of the enabling regime will ensure that incumbent products or sector-specific organisation regulation is workable, robust, and enduring. I commend the bill to the House.

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

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki-King Country): It’s an absolute pleasure to be standing here this morning on the third reading of the Organic Products Bill. The bill goes back a long way, not just in this Parliament but I can remember when I first came here almost nine years ago, we had people like Brendan Hoare and others who presented to us and had been asking for a long time for some protection and some standards around organic products. And I know, myself, as an organic farmer—although my daughter and her husband, Rachel and Kenneth, take all the credit for the transition and certification around that—that there are a lot of countries that expect a different compliance level, and there’s lots and lots of different audits that go on, and it would be really, really good to have one standard in New Zealand where we can say, “All organics comply to this level”. Then, if a particular country wants something a little different, well, it’s up to them then to ask for it.

I also wanted to mention this morning the Hon James Shaw. His persistence has been remarkable in terms of every Thursday afternoon that this House has sat, actually standing up and asking where the organic products bill was on the Order Paper. We almost got through it at the last segment of urgency back before Christmas and didn’t quite make it, so it’s very good to be here today.

So the organic sector—as the Minister said—has been rapidly growing and is growing and there’s more and more interest in it as time goes on. And, you know, we do have a lot of vegetables in this country—fruit and vegetables, largely. Dairy, meat, and wool combined actually make up quite a lot in agriculture, and then processed food. And I will make a note of the recent announcement. So, in our situation, the farms are supplying Fonterra, and the current milk price forecast for conventional milk production is currently at $8.50, and the forecast for organic milk production is $10.80. So it does give an indication that there is a demand growing for organic product—it’s something that’s been sitting at a level in the early days, and over the last few years it has been growing and growing and growing to a point where we are starting to get a good name for ourselves in organics as well as our other food production in conventional ways; we do it in the market. As the Minister mentioned, we are very good at food safety and we are very good at producing food, not just for our own people but for export.

So I do want to note, as the Minister did, that we did have some concerns. So I think back to the last Parliament, where the Hon Kiri Allan and I were on the Primary Production Committee and we spent a lot of time working through submissions on this. So it does take me back to what’s been going on for a very long time—and, as the Minister said, the concerns of some of the smaller suppliers are not so much the major exporting groups but the smaller suppliers and the farmers markets didn’t want the regulatory system to cost them out of the market, because what happens when products come on board is that it’s normally those smaller providers and growers who actually pave the way, and so we would really stifle some of our start-ups and some of our growth in organic if we costed those people out of the system. So it’s good that the Minister and the ministry are cognisant of that.

So, having said that, I don’t know whether there’s a whole lot more to say this morning—I’m just very keen to get this bill passed and get it going. It’s actually taken a very long time, but very proud to be standing here today and I have great pleasure in commending it to the House. Thank you.

DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour): It’s my pleasure to take a call on the Organic Products and Production Bill. The bill will create consistency for making organic claims and increase consumer confidence by enabling mandatory requirements for any product represented as organic. Requiring businesses who make organic claims to meet a consistent organic standard and be approved by a relevant ministry will ensure our domestic consumers and trading partners that our system is robust.

The Organic Products and Production Bill establishes a basis for mandatory organic standards in New Zealand, and this will increase consumer confidence in purchasing organic products, increase certainty for businesses making organic claims, and facilitate international trade of organic products. The bill establishes standards for organic products and production, and introduces a way to monitor compliance with these standards. It will set out a framework for the organic system and regulations, and it will set out what organic businesses need to do in order for their products to become organic.

Currently, certification agencies provide a verification and assessment service, as well as a final peer review of all paperwork and processes for a business, before issuing certification. Under the bill, the relevant ministry will undertake this final peer review step and give approval. All other verification and assessment activities will remain the role of recognised entities, very similar to the current practice.

Some might be asking “Why is the term ‘organic’ not defined in the bill?” The bill, as introduced, did not have a definition for “organic product”. However, to reduce the confusion over what “organic” is, the Primary Production Committee amended the bill to define an organic product as a product that was produced by an operator in compliance with the relevant standard. The Supplementary Order Paper rephrases this, for clarity, but the definition of organic remains linked to the standard.

This bill aims to increase consumer confidence when purchasing organic products and allow businesses to assert certifiable organic production, both domestically and internationally. The bill brings New Zealand practices in line with the way that our major trading partners already regulate organic products, and this will assist us in growing our organic industry exports, currently estimated at around $500 million per year. For that reason, I commend the bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call here in the final reading of the Organic Products and Production Bill. Look, we’ve heard some of the nuts and bolts about it. For me, ultimately, it’s about having greater confidence for consumers here in New Zealand but also internationally, when we rely so heavily on exporting our fantastic food and fibre products. This is a significant opportunity for us to enhance our reputation in the market to give greater confidence to those consumers, and so of course it’s appropriate to take that where we can, with the caveat to that being what the potential cost is to implement it and the impact it may have on participants within the organics industry.

So, look, on the balance of it, that is a concern of mine, but I think we have managed to mitigate that risk and the concerns, particularly around exemptions for the local farmers market. I think that is in a pretty good place, and acknowledging the Minister’s comments as well—there were some terrible puns there. But for the farmers markets, we just have to make sure that they’re not getting in a pickle and coming up with any difficult situations. So I think we’ve created a way to get them out of a jam, and enable them to get on and meet the needs of what they are trying to do. So, hopefully, they won’t have any beef with us, and we’ll just be able to get on with passing this legislation. I seem to be getting lambasted with comments across the House now, but—

Hon Dr David Clark: There’s going to be egg on your face.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Stop it!

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —ultimately—oh, the egg on a face. Well, I was going to come up with some egg jokes—yolks—but I couldn’t really think of any. But, anyway, I know I’m cracking you up.

Right, I think that’s just about enough. It’s the will of the industry here to get on with this bill, so I don’t think we need to hold it up any more.

Hon James Shaw: Milk it.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Perhaps I am milking it—yes—but, ultimately, it’s a good piece of legislation. It’s appropriate to bring this forward for a critical part of our food and fibre sector. We want to enhance that where we can. It’s a good opportunity, of course. The caveat remains around the regulatory aspect and the detail coming out there, so we need to make sure that industry is included with that to get the right outcome for them. Thank you, Madam Chair.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The pressure is on to come up with some peachy little produce pun. I’ll leave that there.

It is a great pleasure to rise and take a call on this third reading. It’s already been noted that this thing’s been around longer than some of us in this House, and that it’s a worthy bill to be getting through. I just want to note that this bill is about supporting producers and consumers who are trying to build a thriving and sustainable future. A little shout-out: part of the electorate that I live in is a hotbed of organic producers—in Raglan—and they are leading the world. We’ve got exporters in Raglan like the Raglan Food Company.

Barbara Kuriger: That’s right.

ANGELA ROBERTS: Yep, Barbara and I, you know, we’ve enjoyed their yoghurt. They are doing the right thing, they are world class in their standards, they’re living wage employers, all sorts of things like that, and they’re being protected by this bill and supported to do the right thing. Consumer confidence; being able to have a register where we can go and be better informed so that we can make great decisions about supporting these producers. We’ve heard about how important organics are becoming in our global story as exporters, and we have to make sure that in such a rapidly growing environment we’ve got the structures in place so that they can go in confidence to the world. And we’re supporting them to do that; it’s a wonderful thing.

So it’s great to hear the recognition of the concerns of my neighbours who sell me my produce on a Sunday morning at the local farmers market. It sounds like, you know, we’ve really been able to address those concerns and it means that we can really look after consumers and producers to be sustainable. That’s an exciting place to be. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): You know, as the old guy in those cheese ads used to say, “Good things take time.” This is so important that I’m wearing a tie. It’s a big day in the House, and it is a day that this House has anticipated for a long, long, long time. But don’t panic, go organic. Many members of this House—that was Teanau’s joke, by the way. Many members of this House, I think, have queried of their own volition, with entirely pure motives, when we might perhaps finally reach the third reading of this esteemed, storied piece of legislation. I think it is fair to say that the Green Party has waited even longer than most of those in the 53rd Parliament. On the first day that Parliament sat this millennium, Jeanette Fitzsimons stood in this House and challenged the Government of the day to, and I quote, “achieve the high value added economy by becoming a centre of excellence in organic growing and in the science that underpins it”. That was 23 years ago. Even if some organic crops do take a little bit longer to grow without intensive production, they don’t take as long as it has taken for us to pass a law in this place. And we are under urgency, but of course this bill has still taken us five years.

I digress, it is a day to celebrate. Because now we are finally here passing a bill that will take us a step closer to the goal that Jeanette set the Clark Government in the year 2000. So, Madam Speaker, you will not be surprised to learn that the Green Party could not be happier. It is a change that has, shall we say, not been without struggle to achieve—the bill has taken nearly five years to reach this point, but it was precipitated by very strong work well before then from the organic sector. It turns out that winning people over does take time. I want to specifically mention the work of Organics Aotearoa New Zealand, OANZ, because their advocacy for the benefits of organics has had a real impact on legitimising the push for healthier and more sustainable forms of farming in Aotearoa New Zealand.

I do want to just mark a couple of things that have put us on the journey here, one of which was actually in 2005, in the post-election negotiations, when Jeanette Fitzsimons negotiated for $3 million to go to the organic sector to kind of start to sort of lay the groundwork and to provide a more professional service to farmers as well. Now, I have to say, I would probably at least add a zero if I was in that situation today. But, you know, as we said, it kind of started small and it started a long time ago, but it’s really taken an effect.

There have been a number of other kind of key points along the way. So, I think it was in 2013, OANZ said, “Well, actually, we do need a regulatory environment to underpin this.”—so that was 10 years ago—and formed a regulation working group and established terms of reference and kind of got the ball rolling, essentially, on where we are today. In 2015, they produced their position paper on why we needed to regulate that and matched it up with the Ministry for Primary Industries’ smart regulation approach at the time, under the previous National Government. And so that, again, started to align the interests of the sector with where the regulatory approach was going.

In 2016, there of course was the launch of the organic markets report at Parliament, which was backed by our spokesperson Steffan Browning at the time, and Damien O’Connor, the Labour Party’s agricultural spokesperson at the time—and I just want to thank Damien again for his support over the years for this. I think that was significant because it really helped to underpin the confidence in the sector that this was the right way to go, with that market study. And then that led to the presentation to the Primary Production Committee and started the ball rolling. Until eventually, in 2018, the OANZ forum, which the then Minister Damien O’Connor attended and affirmed his support. And that kind of got us into the beginning of this process.

So it was, you know, 10 years ago—more than 10 years ago now, actually—that that first report on the economic potential of the sector came out. And there has been a huge amount of work that’s been done since to build the case on this bill, but also on myriad other reports—on strategies and on research and so on. Organic Farm New Zealand, Te Waka Kai Ora, and many others that I won’t list here have played their part too. But I do want to mention some individuals in particular: Chris Morrison, Viv Williams, Brendon Hoare, as well as my Green colleagues Sue Kedgley, Steffan Browning, Eugenie Sage, Gareth Hughes, and Teanau Tuiono who have put their work into this over the years.

So I’ll just say some brief comments about the content of the legislation. You know, obviously others have said quite a lot about it. It does, at its heart, a relatively simple thing: it enables the implementation of organic standards for Aotearoa New Zealand. But that fairly simple thing has the potential to do so much for the prominence and the success of the sector and, of course, now regenerative organics production in New Zealand. OANZ’s sector strategy that was released in 2012 said that there is the potential to add $4.7 billion in what they call “better growth” to our economy by the year 2030. And the strategy identifies this bill—soon, very soon, to be the Act—as a key tool for formalising and maintaining the organic trade arrangements.

I want to just shout out to Barbara Kuriger for her intervention earlier here in the third reading, just talking about the premium that the organic sector has over the kind of regular commodity or more intensive production systems. For Aotearoa New Zealand, which has so aggressively adopted moving away from just volume and towards value and towards values—particularly in those high-end markets that we are participating in and aspire to participate more in—this bill actually becomes a really important economic underpinning of that entire strategy. So I actually have great hopes for it. There are other jurisdictions around the world that we have looked at where once there was a set of nationwide standards in place in the regulatory environment, and the organic sector actually quadrupled, in some cases. So that really does start to offer our farmers and producers some alternatives and some real economic options for less intensive, more environmentally friendly, healthier, but also more valuable forms of production.

So by incentivising those cleaner forms of farming, the organic sector really does have the potential here to do so much for the things that we truly value here in this country: for our waterways, for our land, for our climate, for our people. Other nations are well ahead of us in recognising the potential—as we formalise the free-trade agreement with the European Union, it’s worth making note that they have a target of 25 percent of all agricultural land in organics by 2030. This one bill won’t be a silver bullet for us, but we do need to take a range of actions to reduce the environmental impacts and to cut pollution. We’ve known that for a very, very long time and there remains a long road ahead. But this is a really important part of our pathway there.

It is high time that we truly recognise the contribution that organics can make to this journey and it is high time that we get on and pass this bill. I had hoped—I would have loved it if Jeanette could have been here to witness its final passage through the House, but as I said before, good things take time. Ngā mihi, Madam Speaker.

KAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand on behalf of ACT and speak to the Organic Products and Production Bill. I’d just like to just voice our concern and disappointment in the voting down of the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in Mark Cameron’s name, SOP 309. Our concern is around this one-size-fits-all policy that doesn’t allow for the discretion for smaller businesses. The SOP was seeking clarity for the smaller operators, the farmers, the growers in the organics markets place, and especially to those who are just selling in the weekend or selling their excess products just to get a little bit of extra money to get by. And whilst we are in a cost of living crisis at the moment, where people are struggling for the basics and people are trying to just make a little bit extra or go that little extra mile to make their life a little bit more comfortable, we feel that this one-size-fits-all approach goes against these smaller players.

Whilst I appreciate the Minister gave some explanation and appreciated our concern around this and said that he didn’t feel it was the intention of the bill to capture those people, the clarity just wasn’t there. And so the SOP was to seek clarity around that for these suppliers. So we appreciate that a convention around the certification that is internationally recognised in organic product space is necessary for some in the industry moving forward—for example, organics exporters and large commercial operators. But the bureaucracy and the added cost to smaller organic producers would arguably outweigh many of the benefits, if not all, of going to those Saturday morning markets or their neighbourhood markets.

The ACT Party always feels that somebody should stand up for the small-business owners and be there and be their voice. That’s what we’ve been doing, and that’s what we will continue to do. So whether it’s for the farmer or rural communities or equality in the urban-centric environment lens, small to medium sized enterprises, we will always try to stand up for the smaller business. We think the SOP struck the needed balance to address the disparities that we were worried about within this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I’m just going to ask the member, at this third reading, it is not the time to traverse in depth either matters that were raised at the committee of the whole House stage or what another party might do in the place of this bill.

KAREN CHHOUR: Well, allowing for greater access to global markets and big producers and making surety for smaller businesses is what we were looking to do.

So, in the end, we saw that we just couldn’t have the confidence that this would work for everybody. That’s why ACT cannot support this bill in the third reading. We believe it doesn’t strike the balance between the large commercialised operators in the industry and the mum and dad farmers and growers that often just supply them to make a little bit extra in the weekends. So ACT just can’t support this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Organic Products and Production Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 10

ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill.

Bills

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 15

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, we come now to the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill. We come first to clause 1. The question is that clause 1 be agreed to.

CAMILLA BELICH (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Is there any objection to that? There is no objection. The question is that clauses 1 to 15 stand part.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Minister of Internal Affairs): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just some brief notes in relation to this particular stage of the bill, before we go into answering questions.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand provides critical services for our community. The Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill will ensure we have a fit for purpose funding model to enable Fire and Emergency to deliver this role in the future.

Fire and Emergency receives 97 percent of its funding from a levy on insurance contracts. The Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017 outlines the framework for a new levy system that will provide a secure and predictable source of funding that can adopt to changing needs and priorities over time. It will also be as fair as possible and ensure that all those who benefit from the potential to use fire and emergency services contribute to its funding. The Act sets out the types of insurance contracts that must pay the levy and specifies the value of property to be used as the basis for calculating this levy. This bill makes important changes to these features to ensure the levy is simple to implement, to minimise disruption and compliance costs, while remaining aligned to the levy principles in section 80 of the Act.

The bill means only property insured against physical loss or damage from fire will be levied, instead of property insured against any physical loss or damage. Additionally, the levy will be calculated using the sum insured, an insurance contract rather than the term amount insured. These two changes will clarify which insurance arrangements are meant to pay the levy, avoiding potentially complex calculations and stopping some property being charged twice. These changes are more closely aligned with insurance practice and terminology and increase the likelihood that the system will be consistently applied.

The bill also amends the starting date of the new levy system to 1 July 2026. This is needed as COVID-19 delayed how quickly the Government could progress a review of Fire and Emergency’s funding model and develop this legislation. Additionally, this change provides enough time for regulations to be set and for the insurance sector to update their systems to calculate and collect the new levy once the regulations have been finalised.

Finally, the bill makes a minor drafting change to ensure third-party motor vehicle insurers pay the levy. This was the original intent of the Act.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Hey, just to acknowledge, first, the Minister, I think, in her role as Minister of Internal Affairs—the first time in the chair—to acknowledge that. Look, a simple but a technical question—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: She’s an old hand now.

SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh, well, I won’t go easy then—no, only kidding. It’s around motor vehicles and some submitters have raised the question “What is a motor vehicle?” There’s some concern that this current drafting might capture the likes of e-scooters, e-bikes, ride-on lawnmowers, and so forth, and I know that some submitters to the Governance and Administration Committee—particularly within the insurance realm—were asking “What is a motor vehicle?”, and/or “Has the Minister or her officials considered making it very clearly defined?” Because, don’t get me wrong, I pretty much know what a motor vehicle is—cars and trucks—but, at the moment, there is a concern that this could actually go wider and be including the likes of e-bikes, scooters, ride-on lawnmowers, and so forth, which we don’t think, on this side of the House, is what wants to be captured.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Minister of Internal Affairs): Thank you to the member for his question. I acknowledge some of the submitters had concerns around the broadening application of this particular bill. I’m advised, at the time when officials responded to the Governance and Administration Committee in relation to those submissions, there is a definition within the Act; however, they did not believe, on balance, that there was enough of a problem to change the definition. I should probably also point out that a very important part of this is the insurance contract itself, so insurers will have their own definition of what a motor vehicle insurance is—so what insurance is for motor vehicle purposes. So, on balance, there was no need to change the definition, and we believe we’ve struck the right balance.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I thank the Minister for that. I suppose the question is, ultimately, whether she will consider looking into this further; I know there’s a wider review. I think one of the concerns that comes out of the insurance industry, in particular, is the dis-alignment—that’s probably bad English—between their rules, understandings, and definitions, and what we use in legislation, and the sort of raison d’être of this amendment is to try and align things a little bit more to what the insurers understand things, so it’s smoother, simpler. Is she open to considering defining further, so that, actually, what is levied does align more clearly with the definitions, if you will, of the insurance industry?

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Minister of Internal Affairs): Thank you to the member for his question. At this time, on balance—given the submissions, given the Governance and Administration Committee review, and given the advice I’ve received from officials—no, but however, obviously, always in future I’m open to looking at—if there are further calls, and once the legislation is put through, once the regulations are put through, if there is a need to amend in the future, I will of course be open at that time.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair, and I join with other colleagues around the Chamber in congratulating the new Minister of Internal Affairs on her first time as the Minister in the chair.

I was wondering if the Minister could give us some reflections in light of the intensive weather events that happened at the beginning of the year. This legislation came to the House and we’re passing it, and so on and so forth, but between then and now we’ve had some pretty intensive weather events, and with the narrowing down of the levy to just fire damage within the context of flooding in particular, and I was just wondering, in terms of alleviating any concerns or anxiety around that, if the Minister had some reflections.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Minister of Internal Affairs): Thank you to the member for his question, and I always want to acknowledge the people that have been affected by the recent extreme weather events. Having been on the ground in both Napier, Auckland, and throughout some of the other affected areas, I have seen firsthand the impact of it and also the longer recovery that it is to come.

In relation to the member’s question—and I’m going to narrow it, to keep it within the scope of this particular bill—the purpose of this bill is to be able to provide a much more consistent approach in relation to the levying of insurance contracts to ensure that Fire and Emergency New Zealand has the sufficient revenue it needs. Obviously, that is something that, with extreme weather events, any Minister, no matter what portfolio they are in, needs to be cognisant of. However, for this particular bill, because it is a levy for insurance contracts, there has been no particular attention taken to those extreme weather events. But I think, in general, we have to make sure there are sufficient funds there for Fire and Emergency New Zealand to do the job that they need to do to respond to the extreme weather events.

Clauses 1 to 15 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Minister of Internal Affairs): I present a legislative statement on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I am pleased to be leading this bill through its final stage in the House, and, in doing so, we are improving the new levy framework that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand. For our whānau and communities, it means far more than that. Today’s changes will ensure that firefighters can continue delivering much-needed services across the country.

As a nation, we have all seen the pivotal role of Fire and Emergency New Zealand in the response to Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland flooding. Firefighters worked tirelessly throughout these devastating weather events in fast-changing conditions. They did everything they could to safeguard people and to limit damage to property and whenua.

I acknowledge, again, that in Muriwai, the two firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice were performing their jobs. Again, I’d like to pay tribute to Dave van Zwanenberg and Craig Stevens, two heroic firefighters who lost their lives helping their community. Again, we thank them for their bravery and courage.

Fire and Emergency is a constant, ever-present support in challenging times. During the period of 2021 to 2022, they responded to over 85,000 call outs, ranging from natural disasters, motor vehicle accidents, medical emergencies, fire, and search and rescue calls. It’s clear that we couldn’t do it without them. As Fire and Emergency is funded by a 97 percent levy collection on insurance policies, it’s important that the system works well in order for them to deliver critical functions.

This bill amends the start date for the new levy to 1 July 2026. In doing so, it allows preparation time for insurers to implement the new levy, along with time for associated regulations to be complete. Property insured against physical loss or damage from fire will pay the levy, instead of property insured against physical loss or damage. This bill also means that the levy will be calculated on the sum insured rather than the amount insured in an insurance contract.

What these changes do is better align with insurance practice, avoiding the need for complex calculations or the risk of people being levied twice. We are committed to ensuring that the new Fire and Emergency levy is simple and efficient to implement. The bill will minimise disruption and compliance costs from the new levy, while remaining aligned to the levy principle that the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act sets out.

I want to take a moment to address the concerns about the Government continuing with the insurance-based levy model. We believe that a levy on insurance policies is still fit for purpose for the medium term. It will provide Fire and Emergency with the funding it needs and be the least costly to system administrators. Therefore, it stands as the best option.

The changes made in this bill will not impact how much revenue Fire and Emergency receives. It can spend the levy on whatever is required to deliver its functions. I want to assure our communities that Fire and Emergency New Zealand will have enough revenue to respond to all events under its mandate, including the floods and natural hazard events.

I’d also like to acknowledge those who have contributed to the success of this bill. I acknowledge the previous Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon Jan Tinetti, who introduced this bill to the House. I would like to thank those involved in the Fire and Emergency funding review which led to the changes in this bill. This also includes the 71 submitters to the funding review, and everyone that took part in the 13 public meetings and hui back in 2020.

I’d like to also thank those who are part of the insurance reference group and commercial property reference group that helped improve the insurance-based levy in the build-up to this bill—in particular, the Insurance Council of New Zealand, the Insurance Brokers Association of New Zealand, the Property Council New Zealand, and of course Fire and Emergency New Zealand.

Again, I’d like to thank the Governance and Administration Committee for their constructive consideration of this bill. I appreciate the time the committee took to understand this bill and the views of submitters.

Hon Member: Worked very hard.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: Avery hard-working committee, I understand. Before concluding, I’d like to extend my thanks again to those who submitted to the committee and for their suggestions which improved and strengthened these changes.

As Minister of Internal Affairs, I have been proud to lead this work through its last stages. This bill will benefit all New Zealanders and ensure that Fire and Emergency can continue their vital mahi of supporting whānau, communities, and whenua. I commend this bill to the House.

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

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Look, I’m pleased to take what will be a relatively short call in this third and final reading. It’s been quite a journey to get here.

Can I echo many, if not all, of the thanks which the Minister of Internal Affairs made—so that I don’t have to repeat all of them. I think this side of the House is just grateful to those she thanked, but it would be remiss not to specifically once again thank our fire service. They do an incredible job at the best of times and certainly at the worst of times, which we’ve seen through these weather events. And as the Minister rightly pointed out, two of those crew—David and Craig—lost their lives and so we acknowledge them. And as I mentioned in earlier speeches, I think it behoves us as the House to support the service that they undertook in Fire and Emergency New Zealand as best we can.

Look, as I’ve said before, this is a good bill. I’m not going to run through all the particular changes. The best way for people at home to understand this is that it’s trying to align the levy more to insurance practice. So it’s trying to make things simpler. New Zealand’s in a somewhat unusual, not completely, but a somewhat unusual position in that we, as in the Crown, do not—sorry, not we; I’m not the Crown—the Government doesn’t fund the fire service in the same way it does, say, the police force. We instead use insurance levies and they, in particular, are targeted on property. So if you insure your house, your motor vehicle, your commercial property, you are paying a fire levy.

That does raise a wider question, and it’s a bigger challenge that multiple Governments have looked at, of: is there a better way of funding? I’m not going to opine on that beyond saying there is a little bit of a disconnect at the moment. Those in the fire service will tell you not only are they attending fires but, actually, they are doing multiple calls out now, particularly into the paramedic space, car crashes, and otherwise. So what is happening, in effect, is that a service is being provided very positively by the fire service, but not being paid for by those people. So it’s probably a conversation for the political parties over the coming years of how we better address this. I suppose there’s always a little bit of a habit to stick to what we know. But I want to just reiterate again, while I personally sense we could improve the system, I don’t have the answers. It’s probably just something that we need to think about.

So, with that—and I’m conscious the House has been sitting for a jolly long time—I’m happy to commend the bill to the House.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is my pleasure to stand and take a call on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill. We’ve already heard that this bill is about making sure that it does what it says on the tin. This is a good bill because of the significant contributions brought to the process by experts, and that is a wonderful thing about the progress that we go through with progressing a bill through this House. The bill, we have heard, is going to make the levy process simpler, more efficient, and thus cheaper to administer—and that’s great news, because the levy needs to do what it needs to do, which is fund our firefighters.

I think it’s really interesting—every one of us will have a story in this House of one of those 85,000 call outs. We’ve all got a story, a grateful story, of where we have been impacted by the significant work that our fire service delivers to us. I can remember waking up in the middle of the night once—I live in the middle of nowhere—but hearing the roofing nails being fired out of the Tariki Tavern was very distressing. For a rural community, I think we feel the support from people like our firefighters even more acutely. So it is because of that that I am going to be saying that I commend this bill to the House.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I too rise to take a very short call on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill today. We’ve heard very great tributes to our Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) people, and I add my voice to those and also to the structure that we now have.

I recall working with Dame Margaret Bazley as she worked her way through the restructure, and for a rural council at the time, this was seen as a lifesaver for some of our rural fire parties. But when the original bill was enacted, Part 3, which we’re discussing today, was delayed until 1 July 2024, just to allow the time to understand how this was all going to fall, and, as a consequence, it has been identified that there will be some challenges and complexity with the structure as first proposed.

So this bill sets out to clarify that, make it simpler, and, hopefully, cheaper. But one of the things that the National Party would like to note is that FENZ’s budget has increased dramatically. In fact, their estimate was exceeded by $200 million for the current financial year. So we will be very focused on how FENZ manages their expenses and on making sure that front-line staff are not sacrificed in any of those considerations.

There is still a transitional phase. This is going to push the enacting of this particular part of the bill out to 2026, so, hopefully, there are no further fish-hooks recognised and, in the next few years, we will see this enacted and in place. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini): Fa‘afetai lava, Madam Speaker. It is a great privilege to rise as the MP for Takanini to take a brief call on the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill third reading. Again, I would like to say a huge fa‘afetai lava to the Minister Barbara Edmonds and also the hard-working Governance and Administration Committee for bringing this through the process of the bill.

I also want to acknowledge the work that Fire and Emergency NZ—especially our Counties Manukau team—do. We recently had a fire last week which affected five businesses. It was an overnight fire; I saw the video, and it was raging out of control. We had nine fire trucks come and two ladder trucks as well. The amount of work that they do—it’s dangerous and they put themselves on the line. I just want to acknowledge our Counties Manukau crew for helping out with our Takanini fire last week. I also want to say my thoughts and prayers for one of the staff members who got injured during the fire and who’s still recovering in hospital.

As you can see, we know what the bill will do, but, ultimately, it will bring an efficient levy regime that will benefit the back pockets of everyday New Zealanders, and it will also give assurance to our fire and emergency services. It also upholds the funding principles for the levy system—that is, to be, number one, stable; universal; equitable, which this new amendment will do; predictable; and also flexible. So that’s why I commend this bill to the House.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I join with other colleagues around the House in acknowledging the important and amazing work that our first responders do, our firefighters do, and in particular in the context of the recent intensive weather events. Our position hasn’t changed from first reading to second reading to now, because there are still unanswered questions, larger questions. I do appreciate the sentiments from the Minister in terms of the narrow scope of this bill, but there are questions around how we’re going to fund Fire and Emergency services.

Last year, I remember, and the Greens remember, when we went to visit fire stations across the motu and looked at the state of the gear that they’ve got to work with, the pay and working conditions, the state of some of their fire stations as well, and the challenges within Fire and Emergency New Zealand itself, that there is not only the need to be better in terms of the administration—and my understanding is that this is what this bill will do as well—but you’ve got to be able to deal with all of those other issues as well, and making sure that there is sufficient funding.

So, yes, this bill will bring some efficiencies in trying to align it with best insurance practices and making sure that the administrative inefficiencies are taken out of the system—and I can see that being a good thing—but my concern is and continues to be that by narrowing it just down to fire damage, well, then what does that mean in terms of the possibility of all that other work that our first responders do—all that other work that our first responders do, all the other work that the Fire and Emergency services do?

When we introduced this bill in the House, all of the efficiency side of it did make sense, but we’ve had intensive weather events—intensive weather events—for our firefighters who were out there, they weren’t dealing with fires; they were dealing with floods. So, yes, this bill is narrow and it has to deal with bringing up and weeding out those administrative inefficiencies, but there are wider questions here at play that have not been answered about how do we actually properly fund so our firefighters have better working conditions, good gear, and making sure that there is enough funding, because there are more intensive weather events on the way. Climate change is here.

So, because of those unanswered questions from first reading, second reading, and today through the committee of the whole House, the Greens are unable to support this legislation.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the ACT Party for the third and final reading of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill. I’m happy to say that ACT will continue to support this legislation.

First up, I’d just like to offer my congratulations once again to the new Minister. I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot recently; I’ve got seven shadow portfolios and every single one of them has had a new Minister in recent times.

Secondly, a big shout-out—very important—to our fire service and front-line firefighters, especially, for the extraordinary work they do, whether it’s the response to the cyclone or it could range to things like all the car accidents they attend, the home emergencies they attend. Having visited fire stations around the country and spoken to firefighters, they tell a lot of very harrowing stories. And, obviously, they’ve had a lot of issues with pay and with conditions and with equipment and, you know, they definitely need more funding and the funding model sorted out, which I know is an ongoing discussion.

The fire service is funded by an insurance-based levy, and we’ve had a chat about that, around whether that’s the best way to fund the fire service. I note the Minister said it’s still fit for purpose, but I hope that we can keep an open mind about that.

So this bill—very technical, targeted changes to simplify the implementation of the original legislation to reduce costs and the complexity for insurance brokers and companies, and that all makes perfect sense. We’re happy with that. So a lot of technical changes—physical loss or damage from fire that will need to pay the levy, and that the levy will be calculated from the sum insured, and things around motor vehicles. This stuff is all totally fine, but I think we still do need to focus on the fire service and our fire firefighters because there is a lot there that they need. The scope of their work is just absolutely extraordinary. So they need clarity. This bill provides a little bit. I think the delay in the commencement was never really that well explained and kind of kicks the can down the road a little bit. But none the less, we’re happy to support this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Levy) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 107

New Zealand Labour 64; New Zealand National 31; ACT New Zealand 10;Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 10

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, urgency has ended. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today, when we will resume for oral questions.

Just before members go, I would just like to acknowledge the Speaker’s Assistant, Roland, who has just had three days of birthdays, because, until the last moment, we were still on Tuesday, when his birthday was. So via an anomaly, he is presumably three years older.

[Members sing “Happy Birthday” to Roland Todd.]

The House adjourned at 11.09 a.m. (Thursday)