Wednesday, 7 June 2023

WEDNESDAY, 7 JUNE 2023

WEDNESDAY, 7 JUNE 2023

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

Hon JACQUI DEAN (Assistant Speaker): 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, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and peace of New Zealand. Amen.

Visitors

Australia—House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport

SPEAKER: I am sure that members would wish to welcome members of the Australian House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport, Luke Gosling and the Hon Scott Buchholz, who are present in the gallery.

Speaker’s Rulings

Oral Questions—Members Quoting Partial Statements

SPEAKER: Members, following a point of order from the Leader of the House, I’ve decided to make the following ruling. It is both the longstanding practice of this House and exceedingly common for members to use excerpts in questions—Speakers’ ruling 177/7. Standing Order 390 explicitly states that questions must be concise, which means quotations of any great length will be ruled out of order. Members asking questions may choose which part of a Minister’s statement to quote, as long as they do so accurately, can authenticate it, and do not misrepresent the statement—for example, by failing to include the word “not” or similar. If words are missed from the middle of a quote, an ellipsis must be used—Speaker’s ruling 178/3—and the missing words cannot fundamentally change the meaning of the quote; if they do, the question will not be allowed. In return, a Minister can choose how much context they wish to include in their answer. All members will be familiar with the phrase “I stand by my full statement in the context in which it was made”. The answer is so familiar as to be routine in this House and only underlines the accepted practice of quoting partial statements.

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 Jody Hopkinson for Humans of Family Court Aotearoa requesting that the House act so warrants can’t be issued to social workers and police to take children, and that people cannot use allegations of parental alienation to avoid accountability for abuse.

petition of Kevin Scott requesting that the House amend legislation to require holders of on-licences and club licences to provide a range of zero-alcohol beers, wines, and spirits in addition to existing requirements to supply a reasonable range of zero-alcohol and low-alcohol products

petition of Theresa Zame requesting that the House amend the Therapeutic Products Bill regarding patients importing prescription meds, clinical trials through the SCOTT Committee, and the definition of “advertisement” so it does not risk criminalising patients, advocates & media.

SPEAKER: Those petitions are referred to the Petitions Committee. No papers have been delivered for presentation. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the briefing on the 2021-22 annual reviews interim report

report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Water Services Economic Efficiency and Consumer Protection Bill.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading, and the briefing is set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

CLERK: Emergency Management Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Health

1. Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA (Labour—Takanini) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcement has she made about curbing youth vaping?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): Yesterday, I was pleased to announce, alongside the Prime Minister, a suite of measures to reduce the number of young people taking up vaping. By next year, all vaping devices sold in New Zealand will need to have removable or replaceable batteries. This could limit the sale of cheap, disposable vapes that are popular among young people. We also want vapes as far from the minds and reach of children and young people as possible, so any locations within 300 metres of schools and marae will be off limits for new specialist vape shops. All vapes need child safety mechanisms, and potentially enticing names—which accompany far too many products—will be prohibited. These new regulations build on protections that the Labour Government introduced in 2020, including banning sales to under-18s and prohibiting vape advertising and sponsorship.

Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: Why is the Government making these changes?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Youth vaping is becoming increasingly prevalent, with many choosing to vape despite having never smoked. Alongside our efforts to reduce tobacco smoking, we want to ensure vaping products are safe, regulated, and primarily being used for smoking cessation purposes, as intended. We’ve heard from parents and other family members and from teachers and principals, all of whom are concerned at the prospect that a lifelong bad habit is becoming established for many at a young age. We’re creating a future where tobacco products are no longer addictive, appealing, or as readily available; the same needs to apply to vaping.

Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: How will these changes improve the health of young New Zealanders?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Vaping has played an important role in the record reduction of New Zealanders smoking over the last few years. But it is not entirely without harms, and too many young people are vaping. Alongside these changes, a health promotion campaign is already under way to encourage young people to live vape-free lives. Through a co-design process with rangatahi, Te Whatu Ora developed Protect Your Breath, which launched on social media last year. We’re taking an evidence-based approach, working to protect youth from the appeal and attractiveness of vaping.

Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: What feedback has been received about these proposals?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: There has been significant positive feedback following the announcement. Jacqui Brown, principal of New Plymouth Girls’ High School, said, “[Changes] to disposable vapes is probably the strongest step because I think that helps young people from starting to vape.” Hāpai Te Hauora commended the announcement, saying, “[It] is a praiseworthy commitment to safeguarding the hauora of communities, rangatahi and tamariki.”

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. NICOLA WILLIS (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: On what occasions did the Cabinet Office ask Minister Michael Wood whether he’d divested his shares in Auckland Airport and, in each instance, what commitments, if any, did the Minister make to the Cabinet Office about any next steps he would take?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): I asked the Cabinet Office to provide a detailed time line of their interactions, and following a review of the records, I have been advised that on 19 November 2020, 9 and 14 December 2020, 24 March 2021, 30 June 2021, 17 December 2021, 1 March 2022, 28 March 2022, 4 May 2022, 16 January 2023, 6 March 2023, and 27 March 2023, the Cabinet Office sought to confirm whether he had divested the shareholding. Throughout the process, Michael Wood confirmed that he was about to or was in the process of divesting the shareholdings.

Nicola Willis: How many times did the Cabinet Office ask Michael Wood to divest his shares or whether he had divested his shares, and on how many occasions had Minister Wood failed to do so?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: By my count, the interaction—there were 12 interactions.

Nicola Willis: Does he think it was honest of Michael Wood to on 12 occasions commit to divest his shares, but then on 12 occasions fail to do so?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I indicated yesterday, I think he should have divested the shares when he first said he was going to.

Nicola Willis: Why does Minister Wood retain his position in Cabinet when on 12 occasions he failed to meet his commitment to the Cabinet Office and when there is an ongoing investigation into his conduct, with clear evidence that he failed to appropriately manage conflicts of interest?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I have indicated that I don’t think Minister Wood had met the relevant expectations, and that is the reason he has been stood down as Minister of Transport.

Nicola Willis: Why is he still in a Minister when on 12 occasions he misled the Cabinet Office into believing he was divesting his shares, but failed on 12 occasions to do so?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Mr Speaker, that was the same question that she just asked, and the answer is the same.

Nicola Willis: If Minister Wood had been clear that he had not sold his shares in Auckland Airport, then why didn’t the Cabinet Office, which the Prime Minister is responsible for, ensure that they were noted on the Cabinet Office register of ministerial conflicts of interest until such time as they were sold?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Ultimately, that’s a decision for the Cabinet Office. I think the first that I was made aware of the shareholding was over the weekend or on Friday, which was when my office was made aware of that. In terms of why they didn’t signal that, I’m somewhat frustrated that when I was doing the reshuffle, which the Cabinet Office were consulted on, they had not highlighted that as an issue for me.

Nicola Willis: Is it good enough for the Prime Minister to be “somewhat frustrated” when again and again his Cabinet Ministers and the Cabinet Office appear not to be enforcing the rules of Cabinet as set out in the Cabinet Manual, and has the Prime Minister considered simply locking his Ministers in a room for an hour, telling them to read it, and then to apply it?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the first part of the question: no, it’s not acceptable.

Nicola Willis: Can he assure New Zealanders that all his Ministers have appropriately declared all conflicts of interest to the Cabinet Office and that those interests have been appropriately managed?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It is my expectation that Ministers will follow the rules around conflict of interest. Those rules are clear, and where there is any evidence that they haven’t, then I will deal with that.

Nicola Willis: Will he now authorise an independent investigation into how it is that on 12 separate occasions, Minister Wood told the Cabinet Office he was selling his shares, but on 12 separate occasions failed to do so, and will the Prime Minister stand Minister Wood down from his ministerial duties for the duration of that investigation?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don’t believe that there is a need to have an investigation on that matter, because the facts are clear and they are not contested.

David Seymour: Were the communications between Minister Wood and the Cabinet Office written or spoken, and if written, will he release the correspondence to the public?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: A mixture of both, and the Cabinet Office’s records of course are subject to the Official Information Act.

Question No. 3—Regional Development

3. TERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki) to the Minister for Regional Development: What announcements has she made about investment into our regional economies?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister for Regional Development): On 25 May, I announced a further round of investment from the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund, with $24 million allocated to 10 diverse projects up and down the country. Our regions are the backbone of our economy, and these projects build on the Government’s investment to boost regional economic resilience and set up our communities so that they continue to thrive in the future. As at 25 May, around $3.2 billion has been paid out from Kānoa-managed funds to support our region’s economies, and 1,148 projects have been completed.

Terisa Ngobi: What projects from the Waikato received funding from the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund as part of this announcement?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: A $1.1 million loan for Clean Technology for Fertiliser, to support the construction of a new geothermal energy uplink which will provide process heat in the manufacturing of slow release fertiliser membranes; a $4 million loan to He Ahi Limited Partnership for the development and construction of an industrial park with geothermal process heat options; and a $3 million grant to the South Waikato District Council for development of the Maraetai Road Intermodal Business Park.

Terisa Ngobi: What projects from the East Coast and Hawke’s Bay received funding from the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund as part of this announcement?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Fantastic region. With respect to the East Coast: on the East Coast, a $4 million loan to Judds Composting for construction of a facility to allow an existing composting operation to take in other waste streams from in and near Gisborne. In the Hawke’s Bay, a $2 million to bbi Wood Products to expand a Building Futures programme for disadvantaged youth, as well as training and employment initiatives; and a $3.5 million loan to Ngāti Pāhauwera Commercial Development Limited for developing the initial phase of a 60-hectare orchard near Wairoa, for horticulture.

Terisa Ngobi: What other projects received funding from the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund as part of this announcement?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: And the member that just questioned me—a fantastic electorate of Ōtaki: a $2 million loan to 26 Seasons Limited for the Foxton Scale Up Project, to support growth of indoor hydroponics-based horticulture business; in Nelson, a $2.5 million loan to SnapIT to support manufacturing and development of its live camera artificial intelligence hardware and satellite communication system technology—perhaps the Leader of the Opposition might be able to make some use of that—and in Timaru, a $500,000 grant to the Fraser Park Redevelopment Trust for the transmission of the Fraser Park facility into a multi-event arena.

Question No. 4—Prime Minister

4. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Is he confident that officials and Ministers are making decisions transparently and impartially?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Prime Minister): Broadly, yes. Ministers and officials make a broad range of decisions, each governed by different processes and considerations. The high-quality nature of those decisions, and the accountability and review mechanisms for decision makers in those decisions, is a core feature of New Zealand’s Government, and one of the main reasons for New Zealand’s renowned for transparency, good governance, and ease of business.

Brooke van Velden: How can a developer applying for a subdivision consent be confident the independent hearings commissioner does not have an investment in a competing subdivision, when the Prime Minister couldn’t trust his own transport Minister to declare shares of Auckland Airport when declining “airport authority” status to the North Shore Aerodrome?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Those two things are completely unrelated. But if the member has any evidence of the first, I’d encourage her to share it.

Chris Baillie: How can a humble pub owner applying for a liquor licence under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act be sure that the district licensing committee members haven’t invested in a competing pub, when the Prime Minister couldn’t trust his own transport Minister to declare shares in Auckland Airport when declining “airport authority” status to the North Shore Aerodrome?

Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Two parts of a question need to have something to do with each other. I think we can see what’s being attempted here by the ACT Party, but I can’t see how the first part of that question is in order as a question to a Minister—the Prime Minister, in this case.

SPEAKER: The primary question has quite a wide scope to it. The Prime Minister is basically responsible for everything that the Government does, so I’m going to allow the question. But like I’ve warned members before, especially when they get more than one lead to a question or it’s not particularly—if you’re wanting a specific answer like that, you may not get that.

David Seymour: Is he going to answer the question, Mr Speaker?

SPEAKER: Yes. The question’s been asked and the Prime Minister will address it.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The two issues that the member raised in the question are completely unrelated. Again, the allegation in the first part of the question is a serious one. If the member has any evidence that that has happened, then he should produce it. But in answer to the second part of the question, the Minister concerned had declared the shares.

Simon Court: How can miners applying for mining permits under the Crown Minerals Act be confident that the responsible Minister hasn’t invested in a competing mine, when the Prime Minister couldn’t trust his own transport Minister to declare shares in Auckland Airport when declining “airport authority” status to the North Shore Aerodrome?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Again, that’s a very serious allegation that the member has made in the first part of the question. If he has any evidence at all to back up the allegation that he’s just made, then he should produce it.

Dr James McDowall: How can he be confident that nobody approving or declining Callaghan Innovation grants has an undisclosed share in the applicant or their competitors, when the Prime Minister couldn’t trust his own transport Minister to declare shares in Auckland Airport when declining airport authority status to the North Shore Aerodrome?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If the member has any evidence to back up the claim he’s made in the first part of the question, he should produce it.

Karen Chhour: How can people dealing with Oranga Tamariki (OT) be confident with OT staff making decisions to put children in foster families’ care don’t have undisclosed interests in the adopting families, when the Prime Minister couldn’t trust his own transport Minister to declare shares in Auckland Airport when declining airport authority status to the North Shore Aerodrome?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think that’s an absolutely disgraceful way of abusing a system that’s designed to protect children, and the member should know better.

Damien Smith: How can overseas investors be confident that nobody in the Overseas Investment Office making decisions about—

Hon Dr David Clark: He’s using a dead baby’s passport.

Damien Smith: —the application has shares—

David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I just heard David Clark make a pretty outrageous heckle which, first of all, he shouldn’t be speaking—questions should be heard in silence—and, second of all, he might like to consider withdrawing the remark that he made, if he feels that’s appropriate.

Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, it has occurred a few times, in your reign as Speaker, where the nature of questions has led people to interject during them. We’ve just had a succession of questions from the ACT Party that have impugned a range of public servants, public service agencies, and Ministers, and I don’t think it’s surprising, in light of those questions, that there will be interjections during them.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, it’s not for individual members in this House to determine the appropriateness or otherwise of a question—that’s your job. That’s why we have collectively supported you in the chair. And the questions that were asked from the ACT Party may not be comfortable for people who are hearing those questions, but they are, none the less, legitimately asked and should, wherever possible, in the public interest, be given an answer.

Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to that point of order.

SPEAKER: Do you have to? Quite clearly, the questions being asked have upset some members of the House. That doesn’t automatically mean that they’re out of order. I have allowed the questions to be asked, and members of the public will make their own judgment around them. But I thank the father of the House for his intervention.

Hon Members: Grandfather.

SPEAKER: Yeah, well—I think I’m acknowledging the experience of the member and his contribution. So whilst members might not like what they’re hearing, in terms of the question, the member does have the right to ask it. Would you like to ask it again?

Damien Smith: How can overseas investors be confident that nobody in the Overseas Investment Office making decisions about their application has shares in land or companies affected by the investment, when the Prime Minister couldn’t trust his own transport Minister to declare shares in Auckland Airport when declining airport authority status to the North Shore Aerodrome?

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m absolutely satisfied that if any of the very serious allegations that the ACT members have raised in any of their questions have any basis of fact, there are systems in place to deal with them.

Question No. 5—Defence

5. DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour) to the Minister of Defence: What progress has been made on the procurement of Bushmaster protected armoured vehicles?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Defence): Last month, I had the pleasure of visiting the Trentham Military Camp to mark the arrival of the first 18 Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles in New Zealand. This Government has purchased a total of 43 Bushmasters to replace the ageing Pinzgauers. The remaining vehicles will be arriving in the coming months. The Bushmasters are a world-class land defence platform designed to carry out a range of tasks from protected troop transport, ambulance response, mobile command, and advanced communications. They will ensure our army is ready to respond to the range of national security threats New Zealand faces both here and abroad, from extreme weather and natural disaster response to search and rescue to peacekeeping and security missions.

Dan Rosewarne: How much has the Government invested into Bushmaster procurement programmes?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The Government has invested $106 million to procure the 43 vehicles, including spares and supporting systems. In Budget 2023, we committed a further $58 million to equip the Bushmasters with world-class, secure communications. That was the appropriate time to green-light this investment because it allows us to apply the very latest partner interoperability and cyber-security standards. Like all significant defence procurement projects, we should expect to see ongoing upgrades to the Bushmasters’ platform over time.

Dan Rosewarne: Where would the Bushmasters be stationed?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: After the delivery and commissioning phases, the fleet will be stationed at Linton and Burnham army bases. This means there will be Bushmasters ready to respond to extreme weather events and natural disasters in both the North and the South Islands.

Dan Rosewarne: What reaction has he seen from the troops to the arrival of the Bushmasters?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. One lance corporal was quoted in the media saying, “we’ve definitely moved up there in the world” and the Bushmasters “will make a big difference to the role our soldiers play overseas”. A number of defence personnel and officials told me about the pride they feel in this programme having now delivered in what is almost record time for defence procurement—and I know that the Minister of Finance is thrilled about that as well—from Cabinet sign-off in June 2020 to the first Bushmasters being unveiled last month. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the soldiers, officers, and civilian staff who have contributed to the delivery. And, of course, I thank one of my predecessors, or my predecessor but one, the Hon Ron Mark, who initiated the programme.

Dan Rosewarne: How does the investment into Bushmasters align with the Government’s wider investments into defence?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The Bushmasters are part of the more than $4.5 billion this Government has invested into strengthening our defence capability across land, sea, and air. This includes four new P-8A Poseidon aircraft, five C130J Super Hercules, and upgrades to our frigates. In Budget 2023, we’ve also invested in housing upgrades and the largest pay increases for our defence personnel in a decade. This is a Government committed to New Zealand having a defence force that is ready to respond and protect our national security.

Question No. 6—Auckland

6. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister for Auckland: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Auckland): Yes, in their full context.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he stand by his statements to the Cabinet Office about his personal shareholdings in Auckland International Airport?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Yes, I do, in their full context.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: And if he stated to the Cabinet Office that he was going to sell his shares in Auckland Airport, why didn’t he sell them?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I commenced the process of selling those shares in early 2022. I regret that I did not complete it. That is an issue that I am focused on fixing now.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Did he not say to the Cabinet Office in late 2020 that he was going to sell them, and why did he only start in 2022?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: It’s important to note that I declared all of my shareholdings to the Cabinet Office at the time that I became Minister. They did provide advice to me on a number of occasions that I should have sold them. I regret that I did not pursue that as quickly as I should have. That is the process that I am focused on fixing now.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he acknowledge that for a Minister not to do something he has told the Cabinet Office he will do, once, is a mistake, but to do it twice as the Minister for Auckland and another 10 times before can only be either deliberate concealment or rank incompetence; and if so, which one is it?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: The member’s assertion is wrong. I only became the Minister for Auckland in February of this year.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Point of order, Mr Speaker. We just heard from the Prime Minister that he was asked twice during the time he was the Minister for Auckland by the Cabinet Office whether he’d sold his shares or not.

SPEAKER: Either way, the question was addressed.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he agree with the characterisation of his performance over the shares in The Post this morning as, “creeping incompetence”?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I agree that I should have sold the shares more quickly than I did. I deeply regret that I did not. My focus now is on fixing that issue.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: During his meetings with the Mayor of Auckland, when the conversation turned to tourism and Auckland’s connectivity, did he disclose to the mayor his personal shareholding in Auckland Airport?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: No, I did not, but I note that I did publicly disclose that shareholding on the register of pecuniary interests in early 2022.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Did he have any conversations with the mayor or with any unions about the council’s proposed sale of Auckland Airport shares?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I have had no conversations of that kind. On a number of occasions, the major has spoken to me in general terms about his budget process, and I have said to him, as I have said publicly, that that is a matter for Auckland Council.

Question No. 7—Oceans and Fisheries

7. Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries: Is she confident that the vision that “New Zealanders work towards zero fishing-related … mortalities” in the National Plan of Action – Seabirds 2020 is resulting in significant progress to protect seabirds; if not, will she ensure stronger action is taken?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): Yes, I am confident in this vision and the significant progress being achieved by this plan. This plan has four goals: avoiding bycatch, healthy seabird populations, research and information, and international engagement. Preliminary 2020-21 estimations indicate a downward trend in seabird captures. This is a result of a comprehensive programme of scientific research, monitoring, and active management currently under way to achieve these goals. There is more work to do but Aotearoa’s seabirds are a precious taonga, and I want to make sure they’re here for future generations.

Hon Eugenie Sage: What, if any, further work does the Minister consider is needed before making all three best-practice mitigation measures for surface longlining, tori streamer lines, weighted lines, and night setting compulsory to reduce seabird bycatch and address the “low uptake of voluntary measures” identified by Fisheries New Zealand in its 2022 review?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: A review of the surface longline mitigation regulations is currently under way. The consultation closed on Friday, 12 May. Submissions are currently being assessed and I will receive advice on those shortly. As the member said, this consultation addressed the three out of three mitigation measures on surface longline vessels and whether they should be applied at all times. That is, a tori line—or a bird scaring line—setting at night, and weighting the line. So I’m awaiting that advice.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Is the Minister satisfied that the numbers of reported seabird mortalities in surface longline fisheries are accurate, when observed effort of surface longline hooks in 2020-21 was only 11 percent?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I don’t have information about that specific issue to hand; I’m happy to provide it in a written question.

Hon Eugenie Sage: What action, if any, is the Minister considering to avoid seabirds being killed by bottom longline and trawl fisheries, when each of these fishing methods captures more seabirds each year than surface longlining, between 1,400 and 2,598 birds in the case of bottom longlining in 2019-20?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: The plan has an annual report and there are review processes in that. At the moment, it’s focused on the longline, and it will look at these other mitigation measures as well.

Hon Eugenie Sage: What does the Minister say to BirdLife International, who predict that the critically threatened antipodean albatross will be made extinct by 2050 because of deaths from commercial fishing bycatch and a population which has declined by more than two-thirds since 2005?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Protection for the antipodean albatross is an issue that needs to be solved with the international community, and New Zealand is leading the measures internationally to help protect these majestic seabirds. We do have a lot of research under way and are actively working with other countries to understand where the risks to seabirds are occurring across the Southern Hemisphere, and how best to manage these risks. The proposals to strengthen the seabird mitigation in surface longline fishing that I’ve just discussed and will receive advice on soon will help with that.

Hon Eugenie Sage: With no significant improvement over the last 10 years in the number of protected seabirds killed each year, will the Minister consider using her powers under the Fisheries Act to establish mortality limits for seabird species after which fishing stops; if not, why not?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I will continue asking officials for advice on the best mitigation measures.

Question No. 8—Rural Communities

8. ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki) to the Minister for Rural Communities: What recent reports has he received on Government support to cyclone-affected rural communities?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Minister for Rural Communities): I receive regular updates on the Government’s work to support rural communities to recover from Cyclone Gabrielle. I can confirm that, as of 6 June 2023, $62.8 million has been paid out in recovery grants to farmers and growers for 5,474 impacted properties. There are also specific recovery projects that have been funded through a fully committed $4 million mobilisation fund. These grants have gone towards immediate cost of recovery following the cyclone. I acknowledge that many of these farmers and growers continue to do it tough, so I’m regularly meeting with them to get on-the-ground perspectives on what further support is needed.

Anna Lorck: What projects have been supported through the $4 million mobilisation fund?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: I’ve been advised that the fund has been fully committed to projects covering aerial surveys, mental wellbeing, recovery advice, logistics, and reimbursement of costs of urgent response activity. Since the start of March, Operation Muster has facilitated the transport of more than 45,000 livestock off Hawke’s Bay farms left cut off following Cyclone Gabrielle. The areas covered include Patoka, Rissington, Dartmoor, Puketitiri, Tutira, Putorino, and Waikoau. More than 6,000 tonnes of critical supplies have been delivered to cut-off rural communities in Tairāwhiti, but through Operation Reach the support is ensuring vital supplies get to farmers and growers left isolated by severed transport links.

Anna Lorck: What further support has been announced through Budget 2023?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Budget 2023 allocated a further $35.4 million to support the recovery of rural communities. This is broken down into a $5.4 million fund for the North Island Weather Event Isolated Rural Communities Recovery Fund and $30 million for the North Island Weather Event Time-Critical Primary Industries Recovery Fund. The Ministry for Primary Industries is seeking expressions of interest from industry partners, including industry good organisations, community groups, and Māori entities that can provide supplies and services in affected regions.

Anna Lorck: How will the $5.4 million isolated rural communities fund be used?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: This funding will be used for activities which deliver support for impacted rural communities, including support for marae or other suitable facilities in communities to provide hub locations and supporting the hub’s operations; funding community groups and support networks to coordinate community-led recovery and increase community members’ access to the support needed for their recovery; helping community groups to cover the logistical cost of operating in severely impacted regions; the development of iwi-led wellbeing initiatives supporting community hubs to host regular community clinics and events; and the delivery of specialised support and information resources, support for maintenance of telecommunications links, supply of materials and equipment to community hubs, and movement of community coordinators and specialist advisers into and around isolated regions.

Anna Lorck: What support is available for the management and removal of silt and debris in Hawke’s Bay?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Applications for the sediment and silt recovery fund have opened today. Available funding includes grants of up to $40,000 and further funding of up to $210,000 on a 50:50 cost-share basis. Applications can be made directly to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.

Question No. 9—Education

9. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education)) on behalf of the Minister of Education: On behalf of the Minister, in the context they were given, yes.

Erica Stanford: How many students are not enrolled in school, based on the latest data she has seen?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: I don’t have that information directly to hand, and if she wanted specific information on that subject, she should have put it in the primary question.

Erica Stanford: Is the reason the numbers of non-enrolled students are not reported in the publicly released attendance data because her office requested this data be omitted?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: On behalf of the Minister, no.

Erica Stanford: Why is it that the number of young people who’ve completely disengaged from the education system is not released to the public alongside other attendance data?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Look, I don’t have a specific answer to that question. Again, that’s something I think she should put in writing to our Minister, and the Minister’s office will get back to her.

Erica Stanford: Is the reason she isn’t proactively publicly releasing the number of young people unenrolled from school because under this Government, that number is two and a half times higher after six years in office; and will she commit to regularly publishing the number of unenrolled students with the rest of the attendance data?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: There were about three questions in that—no.

Question No. 10—Digital Economy and Communications

10. GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth) to the Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications: What recent announcements has the Government made about boosting our digital workforce?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications): Budget 2023 lays the foundations for a low-emissions, high-wage economy, with major investments into our digital and tech sectors. The Government is investing $27 million in a digital skills package that will focus on growing the tech sector workforce under the Digital Technologies Industry ITP—Industry Transformation Plan. Funding will support the development of apprenticeship-like pilot programmes that will include support for both trainees and employers to make the most of these pathways into employment. We’re supporting these pilots so people can earn while they learn and also get industry experience while they study.

Glen Bennett: What else will the digital skills package be supporting?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: We’re also, then, supporting in-school outreach programmes. These programmes are designed to provide students with the opportunity to get a real view of the industry by highlighting tech careers and integrating the skills needed into their education programme. This includes integrating in-school learning and work-based learning with local employers. For example, students might gain NCEA credits and work towards completing qualifications in information technology. Through programmes such as these, students become work-ready and are able to earn higher wages.

Glen Bennett: Why are you looking to grow the tech sector workforce?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: The digital tech sector significantly helps lift New Zealand’s productivity and wealth. In 2021 alone, the sector contributed $7 billion towards New Zealand’s GDP and, since 2016, has grown twice the rate of the wider economy. We want to make the tech sector accessible, especially for women and underrepresented groups such as Māori, Pacific peoples, those with disabilities, and also neurodiverse people. We know from looking at advanced economies like Germany, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore, the best investments you can make in the future of your economy are in science, technology, and skills and infrastructure.

Glen Bennett: What feedback has the Minister seen on the digital skills package?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Heaps. NZTech chief executive, Graeme Muller says, “It’s great to have some focused funding to address the skills shortage in the tech sector, particularly around new pathways and diversity, and the ITP provides a framework to help coordinate efforts across Government and industry.” Stephen Knightly of RocketWerkz said, “It’s great to see the Government taking tangible action to support not only interactive games but also the wider digital economy too.” Health Informatics NZ board chair Karen Blake said she’s “particularly excited to see funding for boosting women’s participation” in the sector.

Question No. 11—Land Information

11. Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Independent) to the Minister for Land Information: Does he agree with the New Zealand Geographic Board Te Rautaki | Strategy 2020-2025 vision statement, “We continuously improve our capability and processes to achieve our goals and objectives”; if so, what changes, if any, have been made to improve processes for Māori participation?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Acting Minister for Land Information): To the first part of the question, yes. In terms of the goals and objectives of the New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa, this includes naming “features and places so that people can effectively communicate information about location and preserve New Zealand’s heritage and culture”. To the second part of the question, the board is bound by a statutory process which generally requires historical research, direct iwi engagement, and public notification. The board has made a number of improvements in recent years to their engagement with Māori to ensure that Māori are supported to participate in the work that the board does. This includes significant engagement with mana whenua on the development of new maps for Te Ika-a-Māui and Te Wai Pounamu to encourage the use of original Māori place names, establishing a fast-tracked process to work directly with mana whenua to have unofficial place names added to our maps and records, and agreeing an approach to encourage councils and iwi to submit alternative Māori place names for towns and cities.

Dr Elizabeth Kerekere: What does the Minister say to kuia Aki Paipper and Margie McGuire from Operation Pātiki at Kohupātiki Marae, who struggled with the lengthy New Zealand Geographic Board application process to successfully restore Te Awa o Mokotūāraro as the rightful name of their river today?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: On behalf of the Minister, firstly, I would begin by congratulating Aki Paipper and Margie McGuire for their leadership in restoring the name of Te Awa o Mokotūāraro. The original proposal made by ngā kuia, which was to have the river named Ngaruroro Moko-tū-ā-raro ki Rangitira, was declined because that is the name of the original river before it was diverted for flood protection and before the river was split, and, therefore, also to avoid confusion with the adjacent Ngaruroro River. Members of the board personally met with Kohupātiki Marae on 26 July last year to break the news of that proposal being declined and to be there to acknowledge their disappointment, and to make the suggestion that they come back with a different name that they would be happy with. Following that, the proposal of the name Te Awa o Mokotūāraro was then proposed by Kohupātiki Marae instead and that name is official, and, indeed, it has been made official from today. The name Te Awa o Mokotūāraro acknowledges the stories and history of the river and is a step towards restoring its mauri, which was what prompted Kohupātiki Marae to propose a new name in the first place. The process—it is true—has been lengthy, but it has allowed for ample consultation and engagement with stakeholders to ensure that their whakaaro will respect it and the board will fulfil its statutory responsibilities.

Dr Elizabeth Kerekere: How will the Minister ensure tangata whenua are fully supported to achieve the New Zealand Geographic Board’s goal of restoring original Māori place names, and will he commit to simplifying the process to one led by tangata whenua?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: On behalf of the Minister, to the member: by definition, all the work that the board does involves engaging with Māori and upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi—that’s the statutory obligation that they have. Some things that the board has done are to establish a fast-tracked process to work directly with mana whenua to have unofficial place names recognised, and on some occasions when there is no objection and there are no alternative names, then that can be done in a way that doesn’t have to be publicly notified. Secondly, it involves agreeing an approach to encourage councils and iwi to submit alternative Māori place names for towns and cities, and then, finally, developing new maps for Te Ika-a-Māui and Te Wai Pounamu to encourage the use of over 1,800 original Māori place names.

Question No. 12—Police

12. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa) to the Minister of Police: Does she stand by her statement, “It is my view that New Zealanders feel safer”; if so, why?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Police): The quote in the member’s question is not my full statement and is a misrepresentation of my actual statement.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Mr Speaker, that response is clearly out of order. She cannot say that a question itself that has been ruled in order is a misrepresentation.

SPEAKER: Given my ruling earlier today, I agree. The Minister will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: New point of—I’ll do the apology first. Stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The question contains a statement that is not the full statement that the member made, and, therefore, misrepresents the statement of the member. The fact that it has been accepted as a question does not change the fact that a partial statement misrepresents the statement of a member. If the question is to be allowed, the Minister responding should be allowed to state the fact that it is a misrepresentation. I think that if partial statements that change the meaning of a statement are allowed, then a Minister must have the right to be able to say that that misrepresents their view.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, Mr Speaker, can I just say that you have ruled today—and, I think, very appropriately—and I just suggest to Mr Robertson that people like him and me should not try dancing on the head of a pin, and particularly when you get the sort of result that you’re seeing at the moment. It is quite clear that the Minister can respond—that might give clarity to why she said what she said.

Hon Andrew Little: This is not a point of order.

SPEAKER: This is a point of order, and it will be heard in silence.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, thank you “Mr Speaker Andrew Little”.

SPEAKER: I’ve made my ruling; I’m not changing it. The Minister can address the question and the context of it—as I said in my ruling earlier today. The breadth to which the Minister does that is entirely up to her, but he can’t say what she says.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Mr Speaker, shall I ask that question again, or—

SPEAKER: No; I’m pretty sure she knows what it is.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: I stand by my full statement in the context of that time: “It is my view that New Zealanders feel safer with a Government on track to deliver 1,800 extra police.” As I noted yesterday, this Government has now delivered on its commitment to deliver 1,800 extra police. This Government has also passed new laws to tackle gangs by allowing additional warrants and search powers for gang conflict, introducing a five-year prison sentence for discharging a gun with intent to intimidate, and allowing greater ability for police and other agencies to seize cash. We’ve also committed to ongoing funding to keep the police ratio of one cop per 480 of the population. We’ve introduced an extended retail crime prevention programme and the fog cannon retail subsidy. We’ve introduced firearm prohibition orders to keep firearms out of the hands of those most dangerous New Zealanders who shouldn’t have them. We’ve supported police to crack down on gangs and organised crime through Operation Cobalt, which has seen over 38,000 charges laid and nearly 400 firearms seized. We’ve introduced legislation to crack down on fleeing drivers, including the ability to seize and impound vehicles. We’ve announced a nationwide roll-out of the tactical response model to better support front-line police in dealing with dangerous and high-risk situations. We’ve established and delivered a firearms registry to set and begin on 24 June—that’s this month. We’ve created programmes like Kotahi te Whakaaro and Circuit Breaker to disrupt cycles of reoffending. We’ve passed new laws to seize criminal assets and targeted associates of organised criminal groups and forfeit illegal funds in their KiwiSaver. We’ve also invested $94 million into tackling gangs and organised crime through Budget 2022. We’ve established Te Tari Pūreke—Firearms Safety Authority—as a dedicated business unit within police to improve gun safety in Aotearoa. I could go on, but I think I might save some more highlights for the next question.

SPEAKER: Order! I’m on my feet. That answer was far too long. I didn’t interrupt you—I was taking tally and deciding how many extra questions Mr Mitchell is going to get—two extra.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. When she says, “It is my view that New Zealanders feel safer.”, who is she speaking for?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: That is not my full statement.

Hon Mark Mitchell: When she says, “It is my view that New Zealanders feel safer because we’ve delivered 1,800 extra police officers.”, who is she speaking for?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: For myself. That’s why I said it is my view.

Hon Mark Mitchell: So just for clarity for the House, when she says that New Zealanders feel safer, she’s just talking about herself?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: When I said it is my view that New Zealanders feel safer now that we have 1,800 more police officers on the beat, I believe that New Zealanders are safer than they were under a National Government, when we had fewer police officers on the beat.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Does she consider that she is gaslighting the public of New Zealand when she stands in this House and continues to tell the people of New Zealand that they should feel safer?

SPEAKER: In so far as the Minister is responsible—you can address it, if you like. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: The only gaslighting going on in the House today is that member, who continually misrepresents my quote.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Mr Speaker, we’re now getting into some territory of the Minister openly defying not only the ruling you gave at the start of question time but the ruling you gave at the start of primary question No. 12. The second thing I would say is that if the Minister feels that she has been misrepresented, there are ways to deal with that, and this isn’t that.

Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to the point of order. Mr Speaker, again, acknowledging the way in which you have chosen to run the House and that you have often said that it is up to members in the House to be able to behave responsibly within that framework, it will be obvious to absolutely everybody in the House that Mr Mitchell’s last supplementary question was completely outside Standing Order 390, and he should expect the kind of response he got.

SPEAKER: Yep—and expect no relief from the Speaker. So if you’ve got another question.

Hon Mark Mitchell: When the Minister says that she’s met with shopkeepers that have been subjected to ram raids and that they now feel safer, what’s the number—how many has she met and how many have said that?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: I have met with retailers in Auckland, I have met them in Wellington, and I’ve also met them in Christchurch. I’m happy to provide the member with a written account of each of those visits.

General Debate

General Debate

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s something I hear too often from people up and down this country. They say, “If this Labour Government gets back in, I’m going to Australia.”, and some go on to say, “If it’s Labour propped up by the Greens and Te Paati Māori, I might move even further just to be safe.” Well, ACT’s message is very simple: don’t give up on New Zealand. Yes, the problems facing our country are large. Recently I asked a group of 12-year-old kids what they would do if they were king or queen of New Zealand today. In happier days, they’d say, “Save the dolphins.” or “Make you go on Dancing with the Stars again.”, but not now. Three at once said, “Make food cheaper.” I said, “Really? If you were all-powerful, what else would you do in charge of New Zealand for a day?” “Make petrol cheaper.” That’s what a cost of living crisis really means.

Then I visit dairies being fortified with wire mesh and special gates like Harlem; but they are in Hamilton. You can explain it to a four-year-old: if you follow the law, you’ll be safe; you’ll have rights; nobody will hurt you. But if you break the law, you will face consequences making you wish that you hadn’t. You can explain those basic values to a four-year-old, no problem. But try explaining it to Poto Williams or Stuart Nash or Chris Hipkins or Ginny Andersen or whoever is going to be the Labour Party Minister of Police next week—you can’t.

And I hear from time to time—in fact, just about every week—another example of a Government policy, from health to local government to resource management, that divides New Zealand into two peoples. And the people out there, they know they were never asked, “Would it help if the Treaty was interpreted in such a way to create two different sets of political rights based on race?” Of course, this Government and no Government has ever asked the people, because no majority would ever agree to it, because nothing good would come from it, because dividing people by their superficial characteristics, putting their identity above their common humanity, has never, ever worked. And what used to be called bigotry and discrimination and prejudice when I grew up has become the official policy of this Government in so many facets of life. And that’s on top of education results that have been in free fall in global exams all century. This Government can’t even reliably tell you if kids went to school let alone what they were taught, and the problem is they are not taught. They are subject to the failed fad of child-centred learning—you know, modern learning environments, the big barns with three teachers, a hundred kids, and lots of bean bags where they teach themselves.

Do you know what’s worse? Labour are making these problems worse faster, but they didn’t start with Labour. The cost of living crisis is really a productivity crisis. When John Key was elected, the median wage was 11 grand higher in Australia; nine years later it was 17 grand higher; and after six years of Labour, there’s a $23,000 gap between New Zealand and Australian wages.

It was National’s Amy Adams who raised the age of criminal responsibility before youth crime took off. It was National’s Hekia Parata who told schools, “You can have any type of classroom you like so long as it’s a modern learning environment.” And it was National that signed us up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that gave us He Puapua. What’s clear is that, this time, change alone won’t be enough. New Zealand needs real change, and that’s why I was so thrilled to see such a bumper crowd and so much energy at ACT’s rally Real Change Now this weekend. People want a party that hears them. People want a party that puts forward new ideas to solve their problems. And people want a party that will say unpopular things when they need to be said, if it truly believes them. And that is why the ACT Party is the party that puts out more policy than any other, the only one with a fully costed alternative budget, and that’s why ACT is the fastest growing political movement in New Zealand today, and it’s not even close.

I say to people: don’t give up on New Zealand, real change is coming, and the ACT MPs look forward to delivering that real change this October with your support.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Prime Minister): I would hope, and I pray, that New Zealand wants a Government that uses an evidence base to make their decisions, not political philosophy or a Government that uses culture wars to divide New Zealanders. And so we have faith in New Zealanders that at the end of this year, in October, they will look at the political parties that make decisions based on what is best for New Zealand and on the evidence that is in front of them.

I want to make mention of the fact I was in Samoa last week for Samoan independence, the end of their 60th year and going into the 61st. They were wonderfully hospitable, and it was a reminder of the strength of our relationship with the Pacific region.

This week also, we’ve had the opportunity to welcome Prime Minister Rabuka from Fiji. And in recent months, making up for lost time because of COVID, we’ve had the opportunity to meet with multiple Pacific leaders across the region. These were very interesting conversations because we share challenges with our region, and we are not alone. A priority for Pacific nations is, of course, climate change and the environmental issues that we face as a Pacific region.

They’ve also raised with us their labour workforce issues and areas where they have shortages. One country even brought up that there has been a spike in youth crime in recent years, off the back of the pandemic, saying that it was the uncertainty. And this is something that many countries have experienced across the globe as well, because, often, this is what happens after you experience a big event like a pandemic. And, of course, all of our Pacific neighbours have raised the impact of global inflation and the impact of cost of living increases on their nations. We are not alone here in Aotearoa. We are not immune to what the rest of the world is facing.

But I’m really proud—I’m really proud—because we have come through better than so many. We had a very, very difficult Budget to pull together this year because of the circumstances that we face. And I want to acknowledge our amazing Minister of Finance for the very smart Budget that he presented Aotearoa with. He was very aware of the fact that New Zealanders needed some reprieve from the cost of living pressures, but he also understood that if he wasn’t clever about how that was done, then it could actually fuel the fire of inflation and see New Zealand families no better off.

It was disappointing, then, to see some of the measures that were put in place, which will make a real difference for New Zealand families, not only not supported by Opposition parties in the House but for Opposition parties to come out and say that if they have the opportunity, they will take those things away from New Zealanders.

Terisa Ngobi: Shameful and out of touch.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: How stingy and out of touch is it to think that the $5 co-payment—the removal of that for prescriptions—won’t make a difference to New Zealanders? Who are the ones that are going to benefit most from it? It is our seniors. It is our disabled. It is the people that more often have health conditions. And so it’s one of those measures that makes sense to just about every New Zealander except for the people on the other side of the House. And, yet, to come out and say they will charge for contraception is just indicative of the support that the Opposition political party has always denied women in this country.

We have been very much focused on those areas that cost New Zealanders a lot of money. Childcare is one of those areas. On 1 April, we saw the thresholds lifted, we saw the amount increased, and then we saw that followed up by 20 hours’ free for two-year-olds. That makes a difference to families. And I have to remind the House that it was National, back in 2010, that froze those thresholds, and that it was National that shut out thousands of New Zealand families from being able to access childcare—one of the main measures to support families to get into employment and for them to make a living for their whānau.

We know what New Zealand wants and needs right now, and we are focused on that. We are all about the cost of living. It’s such a pity that the other side continues to vote against these measures.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise today to speak about a subject close to my heart, which is democracy—close to all our hearts, hopefully, in this House of Representatives—and to draw the House’s attention to the recommendations of the independent review of our electoral system that were released yesterday—finally. We’ve been waiting for this review all the way back when Labour and the Green Party first negotiated our cooperation agreement, where we highlighted democracy as an area of cooperation.

I introduced my member’s bill, the Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill, last term, and it seemed like it wasn’t a priority to either of the big parties. But, as we heard more and more about the concerns that New Zealanders have of groups who were excluded from voting—like young people, like those in custody—as we heard more from members of the public who were concerned about the way that elections are funded and political party donations are governed, and as we heard more and more about the ways that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is breached or undermined through our electoral system, this is an area that did become, thankfully, an area of priority.

We’ve seen some good changes. We’ve seen transparency around electoral donations improved vastly. We’ve seen most prisoners’ rights to vote restored. We’ve seen the Māori electoral option changed so that people can, in fact, switch rolls much more easily. Those were all Green policies.

But, now, after being told over and over again by both sides of the House that we need another independent review, we have those recommendations. So my call to this House, in particular to the Government but to all parties in this House of Representatives—because we do have a convention that electoral reforms, whether they’re required by legislation or not, are done with some degree of consensus across this House—is that we all come to the party, so to speak, and we take party politics out of electoral and democracy reform and look at the independent recommendations.

A lot of them are recommendations that have come to us before, like the restoration of the right of those in prison to vote. That has come to us from the Supreme Court, it’s come to us from the Waitangi Tribunal, and we’ve heard it from our Human Rights Commission.

Then we have the right of 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. Again, we’ve heard from the Supreme Court that we’re breaching their fundamental right, pursuant to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and that 16- and 17-year-olds specifically have a right to be free from discrimination in having their New Zealand Bill of Rights Act rights fulfilled. That obligation falls upon us. That’s the way human rights work.

So we are in breach, and we have heard now from an independent review that our democracy would be strengthened if all of these groups whose rights we are breaching were, in fact, included. Our decisions would be stronger. Our democracy would have more trust in it from members of the public.

We know that young people take an interest in politics. They may, indeed, be marginalised from formal voting, and even at 18, when they become eligible to vote, young voters are among the lowest numbers in terms of our constituents. But we know that they care about issues like the climate crisis, they care about their mental health care access, about public transport, about education; they are more likely to be dealing with hardship now than anyone. We know that if young people are made eligible to vote while they’re all together at school, and if their right to vote is facilitated through civics education and they all register to vote, that, as first-time voters who vote in that first election when they become eligible, they will become lifelong voters. That’s good for all of us.

The other thing that I will briefly touch upon, because we’ve done so much with electoral funding reform, is that finally we have a recommendation that says that not only should we make it possible for everyone in New Zealand who has a right to vote to vote, but also it says that, finally, we need to put a top on our donations; we need there to be a limit—a $30,000 limit per election per registered voter. Get big money out of our elections and get more people to vote. That would make democracy stronger.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I acknowledge the member who’s just resumed her seat, Golriz Ghahraman, and her longstanding commitment not only to international human rights but to rights around democracy. It’s well worth pointing that out, because the reality is, in many countries today, it is democratic institutions that are under threat.

I want to draw attention to the challenges that this Government has been facing for some time and to acknowledge that, 5½ years into this Government, it continues to tackle some very hard challenges in these difficult times and is delivering on them.

The spirit of democracy is not thinking three years by three years by three years but is actually serious about challenging some of the really serious, intractable problems that have been ignored for years—things like responding to climate change, things like having an affordable water regime—so that when the rains get harsher, the storms get stronger, and climate change creates greater intensity in our weather systems, we actually have stormwater systems that can cope and we have waste water systems that can keep our water supplies hygienic and operating.

But this is a Government that came to office determined to restore or to rebuild public services; to restore, more recently, the economy after the ravages of COVID-19; to recover from climate change - driven weather; and to make sure that we build back better. How thrilling it was today that the Hon Kiritapu Allan has now already confirmed the preferred contractor to rebuild one of the bridges in Coromandel that has been taken out—a plan is already in place, contracts have been identified, and that work can get under way.

That’s what a Government does when it responds seriously to the challenges we’ve got, has got its eye on the ball, and is prepared to do the hard graft and respond to the public need to make our systems and our roadways better.

But it doesn’t, of course, just stop there. This is a Government that came to office when the previous Government had run down our public housing stock, had sold it off, and left it unoccupied; and this is a Government that has committed to rebuilding our housing stock—making sure people have warm, dry homes—and, more recently, expanded the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme so we continue to get insulation in homes and drive down people’s power costs.

In health, we’ve invested massively in restoring our health system: $7 billion invested in infrastructure when the last Government—over its nine years—spent just $1 billion. We’ve increased the incomes of most of our health workers; nurses’ incomes have gone up significantly. In this year’s Budget, we’ve now taken off the prescription charge—something that members opposite completely and utterly opposed because they don’t get what poverty looks like for those who struggle to afford $5 to get their prescription filled.

Of course, on law and order, 1,800 additional police were added to our front-line workforce; the clearance rate for serious crime is better, and those who commit serious crimes are being caught much more quickly. The biggest deterrence to crime is the high probability that you’re going to get caught, and our police force has demonstrated that that is exactly what is happening.

Of course, addressing child poverty: our Government has committed to it, we report on it, we’ve reported on it again in this Budget, we’ve increased childcare assistance, we’ve extended the school lunch programme, and we’ve lifted benefits—all of which helps to alleviate child poverty and family poverty. Those are things you do when you are faced with a cost of living crisis and when you’re trying to assist those on the lowest incomes.

These, of course, all are long-term challenges. In defence, we’ve now got money to pay our front-line soldiers and sailors and aviators more—that’ll assist with the retention challenge that we’ve got. We’re modernising our equipment; we’re investing more—because that’s what we have to do for our internal security when we face storms and we need humanitarian assistance and to help our neighbours in the Pacific when they need humanitarian assistance, and also to have trained and equipped people ready to deploy overseas when that call is needed.

What we aren’t going to do is descend into the kind of gimmickry that we’re seeing opposite. So for the ACT Party, who says they want smaller Government, their headline announcement is a Government department to look at Government departments. That is just a silly gimmick from a silly party, and we saw that in full display today in question time.

In the end, what is needed for parties who aspire to Government is a vision for all of New Zealand, a vision for every New Zealander, to lift those out of poverty, to help grow the wealth of the economy; and to make this country safe.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well, what a sorry tale we’ve seen today and this week, in this House. I have never in my time in Parliament seen a Prime Minister so lost, so discombobulated by the events, and having to explain the unexplainable, at a time when we all want the Prime Minister to be outlining how his Government is going to deal with the cost of living crisis in this country—and National’s got a plan to do that: it’s about bringing discipline back to Government spending; it’s about removing costs from the community and giving people some taxes back so that they’ve got more money in their pockets. No, instead of hearing about that, instead of hearing about how this Government will restore law and order—we haven’t heard anything about that, but National’s got a plan to restore law and order.

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Eighteen hundred more police!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: It’s about—yes. It’s about starting off with the very top direction in the justice system which is to say that, currently under this Government, the number one and only priority is to reduce the prison population, irrespective of what happens in the community—

Andrew Bayly: Just let ‘em out!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Just throw them out, and somehow, somehow, we’re all going to be safer. Well, that hasn’t worked, and we will focus on keeping people safe as our priority for crime. So instead of focusing on that, instead of focusing on actually delivering decent outcomes in health and education—where we’re seeing half of the kids aren’t at school; where we’re seeing a falling off, dropping off, in actual developments in reading and writing; and in health, longer waiting lists for everything that you look at in health. Instead of making any progress on that, what do we hear the Prime Minister talking about? We have the Prime Minister trying to explain why a senior Minister in his Government was asked not once, not twice, not thrice, but 12 times by the Cabinet Office to sell his shares in a company—Auckland international airport—that he, as Minister of Transport, was clearly conflicted over. Twelve times, he was asked, and 12 times the Minister didn’t get around to it.

I’ve never seen a Prime Minister look so lost, so confused, so weak, and so helpless, trying to stand up and explain the unexplainable. And so we all stand here trying to figure out why Michael Wood is still a Minister in this Government, because he’s failed on three areas: he’s failed to declare—well, first thing, he became Minister of Transport; he failed to do the obvious thing, which was to sell a parcel of shares that he had in Auckland international airport. Why is that important? Because it’s important that Ministers, when they make decisions, aren’t conflicted by their personal interests. So he failed to sell them, then he failed to declare that he still had the shares, for more than a year as Minister, and then he finally got round to declaring them publicly on the pecuniary interest list, but then he failed to do anything about managing the conflict of interest.

And we’ve got examples—we wake up reading the New Zealand Herald today about the North Shore Airport, which is a clear decision he made as Minister—a conflicted decision, because he owns shares in a competing airport, an absolute no-no. And then we’ve heard later today that he, as Minister, signed off hundreds of millions of dollars to the airlines during COVID, of which the secondary beneficiary of that was Auckland Airport. We had a press release from Auckland Airport saying thank you to the Minister for it. Again, that was a conflicted decision. So how on earth does the Prime Minister still think it’s appropriate for him to be there?

Then we have—at the same time, he was in conversation with the Cabinet Office, and the Cabinet Office are telling him to sell the shares, and he’s saying, “I’m going to do it”—12 times—and yet the Cabinet Office never made public that conflict in the ministerial list, and they never seemed to deal with it, and they never seemed to stop him from making conflicted decisions.

So it’s almost bizarre and almost black comedy that we have a Minister 12 times not dealing with it. And so why is this important to people? Because integrity in our political decision making is a foundation of our democracy, and we have a Prime Minister who’s meant to defend that, and instead he seems to be of the view that so long as Michael Wood, on the 13th request, finally gets around to selling his shares and changing his pecuniary interests, he’ll be back, welcomed on—nothing’s happened; it’s all fine. Those are the standards that are appropriate in the Chris Hipkins Government.

What a disgrace. What a joke. He needs to stand up and clear out the stables and get rid of a Minister that has clearly shown—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Minister of Statistics): When it comes to integrity, how does integrity go with a party that has investigated one of its members but refused to release that report to the public? Glass houses to the Opposition—glass houses; just think about it for a little bit. However, I don’t want to engage in too much “what aboutism”; what I want to talk about is the challenges that this Government has faced and what it has done about them.

This Government, since it has come to office, has had to deal with three major crises—three really major ones. The first was the COVID-19 pandemic which affected the entire world and had a dramatic effect on the world economy and, of course, on New Zealand’s economy. It stopped trade worldwide. It stopped travel worldwide. It changed our way of life. This Government has had to deal with this crisis that affected the entire world and, of course, had an enormous effect here in New Zealand. This Government has had to deal with the war in Ukraine, which has had an extraordinary effect on energy prices and which has pushed, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide inflation to quite high levels. This Government has had to deal with that problem that has been a worldwide problem—felt in particular ways in New Zealand but nevertheless a worldwide problem. On top of that, this Government, this year, has had to deal with the intense weather events in the Auckland anniversary weekend floods and in Cyclone Gabrielle—three enormous challenges that have had an extraordinary effect on our economy.

The good thing is that this Government has been up for it and has dealt with them in a really effective way. Let me give you the evidence of that. Net debt is sitting at 19 percent of GDP; that’s well below OECD averages. Unemployment is sitting at just 3.4 percent; that’s one of the lowest rates of unemployment ever—and, actually, it’s been below 4 percent since 2021. This Government knows how to get people into work and how to keep them there. Our economy continues to grow. Our economy continues to be on a path for growth. So, instead of facing recession, we are actually looking at continued growth in our economy.

Now, of course we are dealing with inflation—we are dealing with inflation—and it’s really hard to deal with that. It’s at higher levels now than many people remember. The last time inflation was higher was way back in the 1990s. However, it is at levels which have not been seen for a while, but the good news is that it is on its way down. In fact, the Governor of the Reserve Bank said in his latest Monetary Policy Statement—said around it—that this Government’s Budget had been a friend to the Reserve Bank in its efforts to control inflation. The predictions are to be back on the 1 to 3 percent band by the end of next year.

So this Government is managing the economy extraordinarily well. In the face of those challenges, I say, the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, has done a remarkable job. Of course, ordinary people don’t feel that, all right? Those are just numbers and stats about the economy. So we can say it’s going well—and it is going well—but for the person trying to balance their household budget, things are tough. This Government has addressed that in our Budget as well, too. That change to the $5 prescription charges, a change that the Opposition rejected, will make a difference to ordinary families’ budgets—no longer having to pay for prescription medicines; twenty hours of free early childhood education for children aged two and up. We think that that will make a difference of about $130 a week to families with young children. On top of that, we have free public transport for children aged under 13. That will make a difference to families’ budgets, and it will enable families to make greater use of public transport for getting children to and from school instead of using cars. Half-price public transport for people aged under 25—that helps students, and, again, it just helps families to manage their daily living costs.

So, in this Budget, not only is the Government running the economy well but we are also addressing the cost of living for ordinary, everyday New Zealanders.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, at the start of question time, the Clerk of the House gets up and reads the petitions that have been presented for the day. There was a petition today read out in the name of Theresa Zame to amend the Therapeutic Products Bill to allow importation of medication. Theresa Zame was actually sitting in the gallery today watching her petition being presented. Theresa calls herself “vulnerable”, “just a mum from Gizzy”. I describe her as someone who is incredibly courageous, brave, and strong. It would be very easy, when you get a diagnosis of stage four lung cancer, when you only have nine months to live—it would be understandable if you would contemplate giving up the fight. In fact, Theresa Zame has done the opposite: she’s galvanised many voices in New Zealand, she put together a petition, and in only two weeks she got 6,500 signatures. It was a real honour to be the member of Parliament to receive that petition today.

Theresa’s story is: she has a script from her oncologist because she doesn’t qualify for any publicly funded medication in New Zealand. She imports via compassionate access schemes a medication called Tagrix, which comes through the mail. Tagrix costs Theresa $1,000 a month. In her words, her cancer has shrunk and she is feeling a lot better. She’s actually quite hopeful. After her diagnosis of June 2022, when she got given nine months, she feels stronger for taking that drug.

But, unfortunately, what Theresa and many other New Zealanders have learnt under Labour’s Therapeutic Products Bill is that the ability to import prescription medications will be stopped. Not only will it be stopped but it will be illegal. Theresa and many other New Zealanders will be criminalised. As Malcolm Mulholland said on the forecourt of Parliament today, as he speaks on behalf of Patient Voice Aotearoa, if the Therapeutic Products Bill is not amended, people will die. This will cost people’s lives.

What was really encouraging is seeing the parties out on Parliament’s forecourt—the ACT Party, Te Paati Māori, the Green Party, and the National Party—standing up in opposition to this bill. What was really disappointing and a real blow to people like Theresa is that the Labour Party did not turn up. No one went out and met that petition today—not one of the dozens of MPs they have. They didn’t think those people deserved the respect of a democratic process where any Kiwi can turn up on the forecourt and give Parliament a petition. These are the real stories of legislation like this and of the impact it will have on everyday Kiwis.

You’d ask yourself the question, in respect of Theresa’s story—stage four lung cancer; nine months to live; she’s got a prescription from her oncologist in New Zealand to import Tagrix, a prescription drug, from Bangladesh, at a thousand dollars; she wouldn’t be able to afford the tens of thousands of dollars for privately buying a similar medication in New Zealand; it’s a lifesaver for Theresa Zame; the ability to import prescription drugs is a lifesaver for many Kiwis at their time of vulnerability—why will Labour not listen? Why did they not go out today?

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Mr Speaker. There are two things that I like most about Budget 2023. The first one is that it makes sensible, meaningful support for today, and the second is that it takes the opportunity to continue to build for tomorrow. I think those two high-level things are worth celebrating. We’ve already heard several contributions from colleagues from this side of the House as they went through specific measures. I think they’re worth repeating.

The Government has introduced a suite of measures to help people, because we know people are doing it tough at the moment. There’s no denying that. We know that people are experiencing a change to their budgets and that they’re feeling a bit more vulnerable than they were a couple of years ago because of global inflation rates. And we know that it’s not just people in New Zealand; it’s people right across the world. But it’s people in New Zealand too, and that matters, and we know it matters to them.

What’s important, though, is how the Government tackles this. A good Government steps in when needed and helps the people who need it most, and that’s what this Government’s doing. We recognise the issue. We’ve created measures that can be helpful and sensitive but are also really, really balanced so that they don’t then go on to cause more inflation. As my colleague the Hon Deborah Russell just said, these measures were lauded for the fact that they can be inflation friendly, so to speak. So we’re really pleased about that.

When I said there were two things, I very broadly said the second thing was about building for tomorrow, and over the last couple of weeks, we’ve heard several contributions about what that might look like specifically. But the one thing that I wanted to talk about today was that Budget 2023 positions the New Zealand economy for the future because of some major investments into our science, into our digital spaces, and into our horticultural technology sector as well. And even within that, there’s a specific investment that I think’s worth talking about, and that’s the support that we’ve given so that our gaming industry can grow. I don’t know if many people realise just how big this industry is and just how much potential it has.

Last week, I tagged along with my Christchurch colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, and we went to a place called CerebralFix, and we met the boss, Tim, a fantastic young man who’s done an amazing job over the 10 years that CerebralFix has been operating. It’s an entertainment studio. It’s not just about gaming; it’s about all sorts of things. They are an experienced technology firm, they’ve got developers, they’ve got artists, they’ve got designers, and they’re pretty top notch. And he was, I think it’s fair to say, pretty chuffed with the measures that the Government has introduced. By providing the 20 percent rebate for video game developers, what we’ve done is even that playing field. This industry, like many other industries, is always competing for skill and always competing for talent. And they know, I think, that they have barely even scratched the surface of how this industry can grow and what the potential is. So they’re pretty excited and we appreciated the tour.

The other thing we’re doing is investing in science research centres. Many of us, depending on what select committees we’re on, would have travelled around looking at different Crown research institutes, and what we’ve heard when we talk to people there is that often they just want more collaboration. So we’re creating three multi-institute research hubs that are actually going to bring those scientists together and make them work closer together and increase that collaboration. It ensures that we use the resources better—these are really expensive facilities with really expensive equipment—and it positions New Zealand to meet what are our complex challenges—and we know what they are. They include things like health and wellbeing. You know, so much more is expected from health and wellbeing than even 10 years ago. We have to move and grow in that direction.

Climate change: the advances that we need to make in advanced manufacturing and technology—these are all really good, positive things, And, as I said, while it’s incredibly important that we keep our eye on what matters most to people right now, today—which is tackling the cost of living—we’ve also got to be really wise and future-focused and think about how we build for tomorrow. So we are focused on the issues that matter to most New Zealanders while still keeping a healthy eye on tomorrow.

TAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Thank you for this opportunity to kōrero. A mahalo nui loa to Tā Herewini Parata.

The safety, prosperity, and success of Māori in education have been compromised, particularly in the last six years of Government. Tā Apirana Ngata, a great National Party man, gave an enduring message to nearly all a hundred years ago: thrive in the days destined for you, your hands to the tools of the Pākehā to provide sustenance, your heart to the treasures of your ancestors to adorn you, your soul to the Atua, to whom all things belong. This House must ensure that all Māori and, indeed, all Kiwis have an equality of opportunity to access and succeed in parenting, education, and learning. International human rights documents articulate that everyone has a right to education, but that right is balanced with responsibilities to turn up, to show up, to participate, and to be curious.

This Government spearheads an education system which religiously fails and discriminates against Māori. Kāwanatanga has ballooned to the detriment of tino rangatiratanga and equality, undisturbed when an audacious Government spends $5 billion extra since 2017 and hires 1,400 extra staff in education, and Māori are not doing any better in our schools. The results are lamentable.

I’ve scored Government performance on three simple measures. Number 1: attendance—not achieved. Whānau, we’ve got issues. Thousands of tamariki between five and 13 are just not enrolled in school: 260 schools, or more than 10 percent of all schools, have full attendance below 30 percent. In term 4 of 2022, only 38 percent of Māori kids went to school regularly. Neither Labour’s nor ACT’s ideological warfare fermented at that party hui will change this.

The Ministry of Education’s purpose states, “We shape an education that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes.”—Tui ad pin drop—yeah, right! If equitable and excellent outcomes mean that 38 out of 100 kids turn up to school regularly, we need to learn to count brilliantly again.

Here’s a thought for our ministerial colleagues—although who sits in what seat, I don’t know these days—make it compulsory for every school to publish weekly attendance data: less bureaucracy, more accountability.

Number 2: retention—not achieved. Retaining kids in schools is a multifaceted responsibility across parents, schools, and rangatahi. Completion of senior education helps with wellbeing, higher-level skills, and knowledge and participation in society and the global community. Education Counts remarks that “Simply keeping boys at school (by making school relevant) until they have decided what they want to do in their next step in life … can reduce the chances of a boy ‘arriving at a prison gate’.” It reminds me of watching Boyz n the Hood in the early 1990s, Nicola Grigg, or a daily, shocking rerun of retail crime issues that are drowning fine places like Dinsdale in Hamilton West—hang on: “blow on the pie”; safer communities together—Mr Eagle.

But in 2021, the number of Māori school-leavers remaining at school to at least age 17 was a mere 68 percent, underwhelming Pākehā at 82 percent, Pacific at 83 percent, and Asian school-leavers at 95 percent. It could not be clearer: keeping school and learning relevant, along with holistic fitness—as my Chiefs’ brothers Jamie and David remind me in the parliamentary gym—is not a “nice-to-have”; it’s a “need-to-have”.

Number 3: achievement—not achieved. Getting kids to school and keeping them ends up helping kids achieve at school—surprise, surprise. However, educational achievement is a societal ladder pulled up from a lot of Māori kids, particularly those in poverty. Programme for International Student Assessment test performance and literacy and numeracy performance rates are abysmal, with 35 percent of Māori passing the relevant year 10 assessments.

Only 19 percent of Māori left school with university entrance in 2021. You could say that that’s better than the Government’s 2 percent delivery on KiwiBuild. Our Asian brothers and sisters were at 68 percent. Almost 25 percent of Māori kids leave school without a level 1 NCEA result. After 13,000 funded hours, no qualification—wow!

These are more frightening, despite the extravagant dumbing down of the NCEA curriculum. It reminds me of Inspector Hogben, whose 1906 report on Te Aute College claimed that Māori needed to recognise the dignity of manual labour, forcing the college’s academic curriculum to change away from Euclid geometry and Latin towards so-called vocational and domestic training. What’s changed?

The education system needs to realise the human potential of young Māori, not the prejudicial nonsense deepening years of poor investment into Māori educational success. Māori education keeps further going down the pothole-filled highway to the red danger zone. If we keep following the current spending and policy pathway, many more Māori kids will be lost to the system, to welfare, to risk, or to Australia.

Duplicating successful models like Māori for Māori, like at Manukura in Palmerston North, is necessary now. Follow innovative and determined leaders like Dame Georgina Kingi at St Joseph’s in Napier, Kieran Fouhy, formerly of St Paul’s in Ponsonby, and Marie Gordon at Hamilton Girls’ High. We need relentless passion to support rangitahi to attend school, to stay at school, and to achieve. If we do that, we might generate many more entrepreneurial Māori women and men who elevate New Zealand’s standards of living, a future taxpayer base that can shoulder the debt burdens faithfully expanded by the current Kāwanatanga, and a culturally proud demographic who further activate the proverb of our greatest national sentinel, Ngati Porou man Tā Apirana Ngata, tau te ora e hoa mā [let there be health and vitality, friends].

SORAYA PEKE-MASON (Labour): Again, there is so much to celebrate on this timely, traditional, no-frills Budget 2023. We are laying a foundation for the future, for future growth and improved productivity, by investing in skills, science and technology, and infrastructure. We are doing the small things well at this point in time. There is so much in this Budget that will make a real difference in the lives of all New Zealanders.

Last night, I spoke on the third reading of the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill. There is a saving of $20 per week. This may, as I always say, seem a pittance to some, but actually it’s gold to others. But when we join this up—yes, when we join this up with the Budget—along with winter energy payments, helping with health costs, cheaper childcare fees, free transport costs, and infrastructure in whānau, whare, and whakapapa, the savings are our way of helping keep the cost of living down. That is the priority—keeping the cost of living down, at the same time investing in skills, science and technology, and infrastructure.

I am grateful, and reiterate the investment in whānau, whare, and whakapapa, as I mentioned earlier on—by Māori, for Māori. Let me reassure everyone: what is good for Māori is good for everyone. It is good for this nation, Aotearoa, such as the extra funding to build and repair more homes; a boost to Te Matatini; more funding for Whānau Ora; increased funding for hauora providers, iwi-Māori partnership boards, rongoā practitioners, and more prevention funding; more support in Māori education—for that speaker that’s left the room, if I may say—for kura, kaiako, and ākonga across the country; more funding for Māori media; and funding made available for Te Ao Mārama programmes in the courts.

I just want to touch also on the delivery of 3,000 additional public homes—yes, this is a big issue. There are many issues for this country, and this is a significant one. An extra 3,000 public homes will be built by June 25—that’s on top of the over 14,000 that have already been funded to June 24. There is support, also, for Māori housing—322 more homes for Māori and 400 relocatable cabins to assist people and whānau that are displaced by extreme weather events across the North Island through by Māori, for Māori programmes. Also, too, this Budget is boosting two homelessness action plan initiatives, including delivery of an extra 80 places for rangatahi.

We care about people. We have a plan, and we have a Budget that is future focused. Kia ora.

SPEAKER: This is supposed to be a Te Paati Māori call. Would some honourable member like to take it?

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. So when the story of the 2023 election is written, as it will surely be, and edited by Stephen Levine, as it most surely will be, this week will be identified as the week that the Labour Government lost the election.

So let’s helicopter back up to just before Christmas last year, when it was very clear that Prime Minister Ardern had lost the country. The polls were talking to a huge defeat for the Labour Government, and the senior team of four or five decided that there needed to be a seamless transition to Chris Hipkins. That occurred at the start of the year, and he stood up immediately and said that the Ardern era is over and that this is a new Government that will be focused on bread and butter issues.

So let’s just test how well that has gone. His signature focus, of course, has been the Budget. And you’ve heard a couple of MPs try to talk about that today. So the bread and butter focus has been an utter failure. Any conversation with any New Zealander can reinforce that point. Inflation is at the highest level it’s been in decades. Interest rates are going up. Every action that they are seeking to put on the table is creating more pressure on New Zealand households.

Hon Louise Upston: And pain.

TODD MULLER: And pain, as Louise Upston has said, and it is real. So the only other focus that he had, or approach that he had, was to try and create the impression in New Zealand that somehow his Government was focused on the issues that matter for New Zealand and was different from the incredibly unpopular Government of his predecessor.

But, over the last few weeks, he has had four hammer blows to his credibility. First up: the Hon Stuart Nash. I like him as a guy, but he had to leave Cabinet for disclosing confidential information from Cabinet to external people—a remarkable failure in judgment. Then, Meka Whaitiri had to leave, and walked away from her Cabinet colleagues and the Prime Minister without even picking up the phone and telling them why. And then, Jan Tinetti is now in front of the Privileges Committee because of her behaviour. And in this week, one of the Government’s rising stars in the front bench, quoted as a future leader, is stood down from Cabinet because he was asked by the Cabinet Office to sell shares that conflicted him as a transport Minister—not once, not twice, not three times, but 12 times.

Everyone in this House knows that that is fatal politically. Perhaps he could have hung on to an argument which said, “I am so busy, I have so much to do, I am so important that this just slipped my mind and I should have got round to it.” when he told the media and his boss yesterday that, actually, he had been told five times to do it, but 24 hours later he had to admit, and force his boss to admit, under the cross-examining by the deputy leader of the National Party, that, actually, it’s not five times that he was reminded, it’s not half a dozen times that he was reminded, it was 12 times.

So a Prime Minister that has essentially said to New Zealand, “We are different to what we were pre-Christmas.” has now demonstrated that he is weak and he has lost control, and four Ministers—nearly a fifth of Cabinet—have had to be sacked or walked away. This is the week that the country has realised that, actually, these guys have got to go. They simply don’t have the capacity to govern in our interests.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I despair sometimes but I’m a patient teacher. There’s a constant reminder from the other side of the House that there is a lack of basic understanding of how our economy works. So it’s great that I’ve got a teachable matter, because there’s a level 2 concept in NCEA which talks about our production possibility frontier. It is a little curve, but it’s an important little curve, because, actually, what the model does is it helps us to explain what happens when we provide support for today and invest for tomorrow.

So there are two things that an economy generally tries to do: they try and shift the economy towards the frontier, and then they also like to shift that frontier, because that means that our possibilities are growing and we are much more likely to be able to grow our economy. There are some really wonderful examples—in fact, dozens of examples—in this year’s Budget that were brought to us by the Hon Grant Robertson, and so it’s wonderful; we’ve got some great teachable moments.

There are things that help us move towards possibilities that we already have, such as making sure that we look after health and housing so that our children can get to school and so that our workers can get to work. Housing, transport—we’ve heard so much about that in the last few weeks. Our low unemployment is evidence of where we are getting to the edge of that frontier. Of course, then we have supply issues and we get pressure points externally, globally, and we have inflationary pressure. So what we need to do is we need to shift our frontier, and we do that by investing. We do it by investing in our infrastructure, and we do it by investing in our people, because when we invest in our people and they become more productive, our whole curve moves out and our entire nation is better off because of it.

So I just wanted to touch on a couple of aspects of investing in our people that I’m really, really proud to remind the House of, such as the Training Incentive Allowance that we know people in this House have been able to take advantage of over the years. Since its reinstatement in 2021, it has supported over 6,000 eligible Ministry of Social Development clients. We know that this is life changing. This is about making sure that individuals are able to reach their potential and that we move them towards the production possibility frontier.

I think I’ve already spoken about this in the House, but it’s pretty exciting, so it is worth reminding people about our Apprenticeship Boost. It has been significant. We’ve heard concerns about success for Māori, and we do know that there’s been a 71 percent increase in Māori apprenticeships since we supported industry and we supported small firms and large firms to invest in their workers. We know that that pays off, not just because they become more productive but because those workers are more resilient and more adaptable in the future and their careers. It’s a great thing to have seen that continued in this year’s Budget.

One of the other things that we have invested in is our industry transformation plans. This is about making sure that we don’t just keep up but that we are transformative and continue to be world leading. There are eight of those plans; they’ve taken a long time to develop with industry. It’s wonderful to see evidence of the Government and industry and workers walking alongside each other and making sure that we grapple with those really challenging issues about making sure that we have a sustainable and wonderful economy in the future. There are seven industry transformation plans, and three of them are highlighted in the Budget for additional investment. We’ve heard about the digital technology plan many times in the House, even just today—especially how exciting it’s going to be to see the gaming industry being supported and how we make sure that our young people transition into the workplace and into further training and skills. It’s a wonderful process and, I’m sure, one that will be replicated as we see the industry training plan for tourism and for agritech and all of the others continue.

It is a wonderful Budget, and it is going to make sure that we have a just transition, that we have a strong and sustainable economy, and that the wellbeing of our people and of our planet is something that we will be happy with in the future.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the New Plymouth District Council (Perpetual Investment Fund) Bill.

Bills

New Plymouth District Council (Perpetual Investment Fund) Bill

In Committee

Parts 1 and 2

and clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the House is in committee on the New Plymouth District Council (Perpetual Investment Fund) Bill. We come first to the—

TANGI UTIKERE (Chief Whip—Labour): Point of order. 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 and clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Chair, and thank you for this opportunity to address the House this afternoon. It’s been a new experience for me in terms of shepherding through this piece of legislation, the New Plymouth District Council (Perpetual Investment Fund) Bill, but I am grateful for the support not only of members across the aisle in this House but also, too, the New Plymouth District Council—to our mayor, Neil Holdom; to councillors who have pursued this piece of legislation; but then to their officials and the work that’s been done not only in-house at council but throughout the community. They had this open for submissions for a number of time.

I just want to, I guess, clearly remind people the purpose of what this is about today and why we need it in New Plymouth. This very much is around ensuring the Perpetual Investment Fund, the PIF, continues as a long-term financial investment for the benefit—and it goes across the board for us in New Plymouth: it’s the social, it’s the economic, it’s the environmental, and it’s the cultural wellbeing—not only for today and for the residents and ratepayers of New Plymouth District today, but it’s also holding it in perpetuity for the future, so for those who are to come.

In terms of what this is about, it is ensuring that it lasts, that it’s not used for vanity projects or for short-term gain. It’s around how do we make sure that the investment we have grows and continues to serve generations to come. Just a note that at the end of April, the fund was worth $349.7 million, and we look forward to seeing that continue to grow and to be drawn down upon each year to support the initiatives of the community, of the environment, of the cultural fabric of the New Plymouth District.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki-King Country): Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you to the member, Mr Glen Bennett, for that initial statement.

I just wanted to underpin a couple of things, and perhaps ask Mr Bennett if he’s pleased we—in the past, New Plymouth District Council have actually had the fund running at a loss due to some investments which didn’t turn out the way that they were wished for. The bill now creates responsibilities that ensure the council must ensure that investment decisions are made only by persons designated or appointed by the council to make decisions on the investment of the perpetual investment fund. Does Mr Bennett see that as an improvement?

Also, just the second question for the member: while there’s new apparent plans for amalgamation, the New Plymouth District Council have expressed a desire to ring-fence this fund for their own ratepayers, as the capital came from selling their assets. National has spoken in favour of ratepayer assets staying in the ratepayers’ hands. We just would be interested in a comment from Mr Bennett on those two things, thanks.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Thank you, Mr Chair. You are right, there, Barbara Kuriger, in terms of the challenges. It’s almost 20 years since the fund was established. Early on, there were a few hiccups and a few investments that may not have been as helpful as they could have been—looking at farm investments as well.

We look to move forward. I could have brought some graphs and charts and props today, but I chose not to. But the good news is that in recent years, we’ve managed to pull things back. For the council themselves, they’ve been able to get things into a place. They have the Perpetual Investment Fund Guardians Limited, who are a council-controlled organisation who sit at arm’s length.

Currently—obviously, in terms of that situation—the mayor and councillors have no involvement. They’ve actually gone a steady-as-she-goes approach now, in terms of making sure that it’s not the big flashy Tasmanian farms that we invest in, but it’s actually looking at the bigger picture and the long term. So I feel confident that we have got the balance about right.

Secondly, the comment was around the size of the district. It’s very clear in this piece of legislation that this investment will be what the actual current District of New Plymouth is today. There is no talk of amalgamation, there is no talk of changing council boundaries—but if there were, then this fund will specifically be for the people who live within the current district of New Plymouth and in years to come.

I’ll just note that South Taranaki District Council, back in 1999, I believe, did a similar piece of legislation and it has the same effect that, whatever happens, which hasn’t—and it’s not been since 1989 that there’s been any change around boundaries—but that would retain for South Taranaki as well.

So I think us, in Taranaki, have some good investment plans and options to ensure the wellbeing and the future of our region.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, the ACT Party supports this bill. We believe that local government should be able to use their assets as they see fit and that where they have adequate democratic accountability for the use of their assets—whether they be financial or physical assets like the three waters—then that should be up to a democratically elected council and their officers to determine how those assets are managed.

I want to ask the member a couple of questions about how the fund is managed. Clause 7 lists two principles to govern how this would be achieved. The fund will be used for “social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing”, and that’s fantastic because, of course, wealthy societies are able to afford to invest in social infrastructure whether it be swimming pools or libraries or childcare centres. Of course, wealthy societies are also able to invest in environmental outcomes, so that’s laudable.

But I’m interested in the concept that the fund should be managed with the intent of maintaining or increasing the real value of its capital, and I’m interested in the member’s perspective: would the member be comfortable with the fund investing in oil and gas production; or mining, including seabed mining; or offshore wind, for example—all of which have an environmental effect but which generate great wealth and add to New Zealand’s economic and social potential?

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): The Perpetual Investment Fund (PIF), the PIF Guardians Limited, they sit at arm’s length. That’s not, I guess, within my remit or requirement to do that. I’ll note to the member that yesterday, I think, the South Taranaki District Council actually came out very loud and clear against seabed mining, which was an interesting thing for elected members to do. In terms of when it comes to this fund, that is completely at arm’s length from the elected members to decide. They have their own policies and internal decisions to be made, and we will trust for them to do the right thing.

I will note that I think as we look to the future, green investment often is something that has been looked at more and more, whether you look at the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, which I know is looking at offshore wind options. So, obviously, it’s a space in that clean energy, which is profitable and has a future. So I’m comfortable with the guardians doing what they see fit to ensure that the fund continues to build and grow.

SIMON COURT (ACT): I’m wondering if the member is aware that—of course, there is potential for offshore wind investment to deliver clean energy and return a profit on the investment for the shareholders. But is the member aware that even though the Government’s professed its support for this type of technology, that in fact there is no form you can fill out to apply for an offshore wind farm in New Zealand; that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—the agency responsible for that—hasn’t developed the regulatory structure? So while we appreciate that the fund could be used for that, is the member aware that there’s actually no way we could do offshore wind in New Zealand yet, because the Government that he’s a member of hasn’t designed the regulatory system?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I’ll allow the member to answer that, although obviously it’s off the topic of the bill.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Yeah, that’s what I was going to say, Mr Chair. It feels very off topic and, as an ACT Party, I’m not sure if you’ve actually read the bill. But it’s worth coming to have a look at, and what the bill is actually about. If you want to politicise it and play games, that’s fine. But that’s actually not what the bill is about.

SIMON COURT (ACT): I’m interested in the independent financial management. The member mentioned that the guardians do operate at arm’s length from elected members, and that sounds like a perfectly reasonable approach to take. Are there any environmental, social—what’s the G? Can anyone remind me what the G is of ESG? No.

Hon Stuart Nash: Governance.

SIMON COURT: Governance. Thank you, Mr Nash. You see, it’s so hard to get your head around all the acronyms that tell people what a kind, cuddly, friendly investment is, compared to one that actually makes money—it’s hard to keep up. I don’t know what DEI means and I’m struggling with ESG, but would the member be concerned if the fund was to invest in businesses or activities related to oil and gas exploration or mining?

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): I will remind the previous speaker that that’s, I think, steering away from what this bill is about. This is around ensuring the perpetuity of this piece of legislation. If you want me to go there and speak around what the New Plymouth Perpetual Investment Fund Guardians—I know Mercer is one of their agencies that they deal with, of course, so they’re always being investigated and looked into. I have no concern, neither is it my concern to concern myself in those kind of discussions.

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

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The committee has considered the New Plymouth District Council (Perpetual Investment Fund) Bill and reports without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Bills

Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 10 May.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my privilege to speak on the third reading of this, the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill.

National is supporting this bill. What it does is it seeks to extend the time for an employee to raise a personal grievance alleging sexual harassment from the current 90 days’ time limit to a year. People who don’t follow this particular area of law might be puzzled by this, but, in essence, if a relationship at work breaks down and an employee seeks a personal grievance against their employer, which is an appropriate sort of process, there is a time limit around that which is 90 days—so three months. That’s in place so that employers and, particularly, small-business owners don’t have the potential for some kind of claim against them hanging over their heads for years to sort of reappear, say, five years later—that they’re unhappy with the way that they were dealt with. So that sort of statute of limitations, as it were, of 90 days is in effect.

But the point has been made, and I think quite well and quite strongly, by the member responsible for this bill, Dr Deborah Russell, that allegations involving sexual harassment are a unique category in the sense that it is a very difficult thing to deal with and often takes a long time for people to, sort of, think over it, to process it, and then to be in the position to raise it as an issue. That’s why the case has been made for giving more time for that process to evolve and, indeed, giving people a year.

I think everybody in this House is conscious of the terrible impact that sexual harassment can have in the workplace. Many, in fact, will have experienced some example of that. Nobody should have to go to work and face any kind of sexual harassment. So the law is clear in this area, but this is an area that we can come together as a House, as a Parliament, to pass legislation that will, I think, help—let’s not hope many cases, because this is not something we want to see in our workplaces anywhere, but it may well indeed help many cases where people have faced sexual harassment in the workplace and had to deal with it.

Now, there was lots of debate about elements of it. There was a desire to extend it further, beyond sexual harassment, to a much wider, broader category of bullying and to change that threshold. That wasn’t appropriate within the scope of this legislation. There were some who wanted it to be more than one year, but five years, or to have no limit, and we were still conscious of the need for some sense of certainty, particularly for the small-business owners who have to try and get on with their business. So I think where we’ve landed is sensible and it will make a small difference. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House, and congratulate the member for bringing it and for its passage in this Parliament. Thank you.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real privilege to be able to stand here and take the final call in the third reading of the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill.

First of all, I would like to commend everyone who has worked on the progress of this bill, and especially, of course, my good friend and colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, who had the good fortune to have a great bill drawn out of the tin but then entrusted me with the final stages of getting this bill through the House in its last stage.

It’s also my good fortune to stand here today, because it’s a double celebration: it is my birthday. So may I take the opportunity to extend a shout-out to my parents and say: meeting you has been the best moment of my life.

It was a real privilege to chair the Education and Workforce Committee at the time when they had to consider the 43 submissions on this bill. This bill took slightly longer to go through the House because there was the need to go to a recommittal stage and clarify the need for some transitional provisions through a Supplementary Order Paper. That was necessary to make it clear that there was no need for employers to update every single existing employment agreement to comply with the new law.

So the previous speaker has already explained what this bill does: it makes a minor change to the Employment Relations Act. But while it’s minor on paper, it has the potential to be very significant for people who otherwise would not complain. The problem that this bill deals with is that in the current situation, an employee who wishes to raise a personal grievance with allegations of sexual harassment has a time period of 90 days to do so, and this particular bill extends that to 12 months, as has been explained. The previous speaker, Paul Goldsmith, explained really well, I think, what that process of a personal grievance is.

The change that this bill makes acknowledges that a period of 90 days to raise a grievance is not really reflective of the way sexual harassment plays out in practice, and that was a point that was made very well by many of our submitters and, in particular, also by Simon Schofield, a former member of the Auckland District Law Society Employment Law Committee who teaches employment law at the University of Auckland. Extending the time recognises the special nature of sexual harassment. The Hon Dr Deborah Russell spoke about it in her second reading speech, and I would like to actually quote her. What she said is that “The reason [sexual harassment] can be traumatising is because the person who experiences it is disregarded, … treated as an object, and is treated as being of no worth—or, if they have worth, it is only their sexual value that matters.” I think that really puts a very fine point on that matter.

I join other members of this House who have spoken of personal experiences. People spoke about how they remembered exactly what they were wearing, where they were, what was being said, and they remember, still, even if it’s many, many years later, how it made them feel. I too remember a time really clearly where I was made to feel very uncomfortable, disrespected, and powerless by the sexual innuendo of a senior co-worker. It was a long time ago but, exactly like previous speakers have said, you still remember exactly what was said. There was no physical behaviour in any way, and it was almost like a throwaway comment for the person, who probably thought it was a funny joke they were making, but it actually made me feel really bad. This incident happened many years before there was even a Me Too movement, and perhaps it happened, because, at that time, that sort of behaviour was almost normalised, but it is not OK. My colleague Helen White spoke about it in her contribution very eloquently. She said: “[the need] to examine some of the damage that we do to people when we do things we think are innocent but are not. They hurt people.”

So it’s really good to see that there is a changing attitude to this issue. It’s clearly reflected in the very respectful and bipartisan way that this bill has gone through the House. That’s really important because to achieve lasting cultural change, there needs to be a collective ownership of the need to change culture and attitudes and to establish common values. We all have a right to feel respected in a workplace.

But this bill is also important in light of gender equality. With the worldwide backlash against women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equality is being eroded. There is a long road ahead to achieve gender equality. The time to act and invest in women and girls is now.

As I said previously, this bill makes a small improvement but it has large implications. So I would like to finish my contribution by thanking all of those who worked on this bill, all the parties around the Education and Workforce Committee for their very collaborative approach. I acknowledge, as many others have, Zoë Lawton for her relentless advocacy for a change in the law, and bringing this matter to the attention of the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, who took the work forward. I thank my colleagues around the House for what Mr Speaker earlier in this debate referred to as collegial lawmaking. Most importantly, immense thanks must go to all those who courageously shared their stories to make sure that the voices of the victims were heard. It is good to see that it is not only the 50 percent of women in this House of Representatives that support this bill but it actually has unanimous support. So I’m happy and proud to commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I move, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It’s a great pleasure for me to open this third reading on a bill in my name which, if passed, will have a significant impact on a very few small but very popular thoroughbred racing and harness racing clubs, spread throughout rural New Zealand. That’s, of course, one of the keys to this bill: it does have an impact on those small clubs that represent the people of rural New Zealand and, of course, if you look at the history of thoroughbred racing in New Zealand, particularly—and well, in fact, both forms of racing in New Zealand, they were largely popular and originated, to some extent, in rural New Zealand. If only our metropolitan clubs could work out, they are still, today, the source of many owners, trainers, and people interested in what’s colloquially known as “the sport of kings”—and it is the sport of kings now, not the sport of queens.

This bill was first presented in 2018 as a result of the then Minister for Racing the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ suggesting that attendance of race meetings was being impeded by police objecting to the ability of patrons to bring their own alcohol to race meetings, where appropriate, as they preferred all clubs to run on licences. Chris Bishop picked the bill up, and as a result of this discussion, produced a bill the next morning, basically, and put it in the ballot in my name. So I need to thank Chris Bishop for the original work on this bill and, of course, I could thank the previous Minister for Racing for having the idea, but he’s no longer the Minister for Racing.

This morning we had a very interesting discussion with the current Minister for Racing about the strengths of the racing industry and also about some changes that are happening with respect to the TAB, which are very relevant to the health of racing in New Zealand, and I’ll talk about that a little later. But it was a really interesting discussion and I think the racing industry is fortunate, in a way, to have had—and I’m not great at giving credit across the House—the last two Ministers for Racing, or the last three, actually, who have all been cooperative in progressing what was a struggling, and still is a struggling, industry.

This bill makes it clear that racing clubs and race meetings are not the intended targets of section 235 of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012. The bill effectively allows families and other race goers to attend race meetings, taking their family picnics, including a bottle of wine or beer, and enjoy a day out without having to stand in a queue or a bar with family and friends. Some of you will be old enough to remember some of those barns in the bottom of grandstands at race meetings—Mr Speaker, I’m not including you in that description, of course—but the West Coast, of course, had a large number of those facilities and they were usually cold, damp and very damp by the end of the day.

This bill actually overcomes some of those challenges, because the intention of it is to create a social environment that people can enjoy. Of course, as I said earlier, this industry has struggled in recent years, and I think the changes that have been made in the last four or so years will make a significant difference to it. This bill will make a little bit more difference if it’s passed.

As with so many matters that concern our everyday lives, we only need to look across the Tasman to a country that, as recently as last month, showed a Budget Day surplus; interest rates running about 2.5 percent less than ours—probably less than that now—an economy in sound shape due to the sound use of their natural resources and doing what they’re best at. Their racing industry is no exception. Stakes are booming, attendance is going well, magnificent horses are doing well—so well that, in fact, 60 percent of our horses annually are bred and sold to Australia—and, of course, the New Zealand thoroughbred in Australia has a huge reputation, and I’ll just briefly touch on that in a second, too. They also attract much international interest and money to their country by great promotion of their racing industry. Racing to Australia is a little like the All Blacks or Black Ferns to New Zealand—a wonderful advertisement for the country.

This industry has the potential—with the changes that have been made in the last four years, and with some encouragement to our breeding industry—to be a great tourist attraction for New Zealand as well. I think that it’s important that we keep it going. We breed better horses in New Zealand than almost—I’ll take the risk of saying it in here—anywhere else in the world—

Hon Louise Upston: We do.

IAN McKELVIE: —and we’ve proved that. Of course, the member to my right, Louise Upston, comes right from the heart of the great horse breeding area of New Zealand.

So back to the bill. The activities this bill promotes can be achieved now in a form by larger clubs who have the facilities and resources to manage the licence applications, to manage the distribution and sale of alcohol under their licensing. The most notable one of those, for mine, is the CJC, the Canterbury Jockey Club, at the New Zealand Cup meeting, where they have literally thousands of people around their boots under the beautiful trees of Riccarton—and in what I would call an interesting but civilised environment, I think, quite exciting actually.

The small clubs that we’re promoting and enabling here do not have the resources to make it work in this manner, nor do they often have the facilities to run bar facilities that cater for the crowds they get, because generally these are small clubs—they’re defined as small clubs in the racing Act, and that means they run two or less meetings a year—and they’re generally run in holiday environments and enable quite large crowds to turn up.

Last night, we heard the first reading speeches on a bill designed to enable pubs, clubs, and other licensed facilities to open for World Cup rugby events being held at odd times of the day or night because of the time difference between us and the Northern Hemisphere. In an interesting sort of way, this bill achieves much the same thing for the small racing clubs of New Zealand. It enables them to do something a little easier and, I guess, it enables them to attract people to their racecourse they may well otherwise not, just as the bill we put through the first reading last night, when passed, will enable those hospitality facilities to do the same thing.

My life in racing started a long, long, long time ago, and, as a teenager, I tried to train a horse. I’ve ridden a few, but you can tell I’ve never been a jockey—I wasn’t built that way, unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you look at it.

Hon Member: Built for comfort, not for speed.

IAN McKELVIE: Yeah, the long and short of it. And I have had a lifelong interest in racing and have also been the president of a racing club—a two-meeting club, interestingly—and, as I said, have lifelong interests in the racing industry, the breeding industry, and all those things that go with it. I think, as I said earlier, it’s a very important industry for New Zealand, it’s important that we continue to promote it, and I think that it’s essential that we give people the opportunity to enjoy the things that my generation had the opportunity to enjoy, for much the same reasons that we’re here looking at this bill now.

I do want to thank the following clubs who strongly supported the bill and they’re generally harness racing clubs, interestingly: Manawatu Harness Racing Club, Kaikoura Trotting Club, Rangiora Harness Racing Club, Wairio Jockey Club, Banks Peninsula Trotting Club, and Central Otago Trotting Clubs. I want to thank all those people who had an input into it, the committee staff who helped us and, in fact, did a very good job of advising us on a way of, I guess, achieving what we set out to achieve with this bill, without involving the big racing clubs in New Zealand who have the resources to do this on their own. It was very fortunate that when we passed the racing Act some 3½ years ago now, we inserted a clause defining “small racing clubs” because that’s just been transferred to this, and I think that’s been a bonus for this bill.

I also want to thank the Governance and Administration Committee, who helped shepherd this through to this point. I want to thank all those who’ve supported the bill as it’s got this far through the House, and I very much hope that it goes a little further today. This industry has struggled in New Zealand in recent years and any little glimmer of help that we can give them will be great for them. So I urge members to support the bill at third reading as it will give our volunteers running our small rural clubs new life and may well result in new people joining our great racing industry. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is my pleasure to rise and stand and discuss the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill. It’s been wonderful: over the process of this bill, almost everyone in the House has reflected on their times at a small country race meet—and the wonderful electorate of Taranaki - King Country is also full of good stories. I was also, like my esteemed colleague across the aisle, not built to be a jockey, but simply sit on the sidelines and take a solid bet. I’m not a good better either; I just, you know, go by the colour of the horse and maybe the name. But sometimes it pays off.

So I just want to reflect—we heard that racing is the sport of kings, but up in Waipā, of course, Waipā is the “home of champions” and we’ve got some really long history of the racing industry, like we’ve heard right across the country. It isn’t just a huge part of our economy but it is also a huge part of our culture, especially for our smaller towns.

We’ve heard the pros and the cons. We know it is a conscience vote, and one of the pros we’ve heard about is the significant opportunity we get when we get to come together for a very small—and we now know the classification of that: very few meetings a year—racing club’s opportunity to come together. So we’ve got this wonderful park, and I have to think very carefully whether it’s in Whanganui electorate or the Taranaki - King Country electorate—it’s right on the border there. Maybe the carpark’s in King Country. But Te Kapua Park is a fabulous racetrack and we have had wonderful, wonderful New Year’s Eves there, and we’ve heard about it being a social environment, a family environment, and a wonderful day out. You know, we’d pack up the picnic and we’d take the kids down and there’d be a bouncy castle and a train and you’d go down to the birdcage and you’d pick out your horse and it was always very, very exciting and it was fun for everybody.

The fact that, at that stage, there was a licence required meant that there was a little bit of supervision of the alcohol consumption, but there was a licence to bring your own, and I think that the behaviour of those who turned up was very much peer-moderated. We had the young lads who turned up with a bit of beer, and those of us who had kids around, you know, we’d make sure that they kept themselves sorted. It was a real community responsibility that was taken very seriously. I can remember experiencing having a shandy with my nana. So the idea of actually introducing responsible drinking is, you know, something that happens at a race club.

Hon Member: Nothing like a shandy.

ANGELA ROBERTS: Nothing like a shandy, especially on a hot New Year’s Eve like we get under that beautiful maunga in Taranaki.

We really appreciate the care with which this bill has been shepherded through the House, and it’s interesting to observe the submissions that were made from all of these racing clubs. Not all of them are tiny and, you know, even good old Waverley Racing Club, which everyone would assume is small but mighty, it has seven meets a year so it isn’t even covered by this bill. So this is really very much about supporting those little race clubs who don’t have the infrastructure, they don’t have the bar and the licence and the staff and everybody else that would, quite frankly, not be as effective as my nana, I don’t think, at controlling the behaviour of those who did bring their alcohol.

We look after each other in our small communities, we make sure that we’ve got designated drivers, and we make sure that the shandy is very much more lemonade than beer. I think that we can be very reassured that in these really small clubs that meet so infrequently that, actually, it is possible for us to look out for each other. I know that when I had conversations with constituents across my electorate, it was a no-brainer to them. They really felt that it could be assumed that as communities they are mature enough to absolutely make sure that harm is minimised and risk is mitigated, and I think that’s been evidenced in all of the submissions that were made. I think, given that these submissions came from the communities most affected, it’s been really interesting that it is a community response; it’s about relationships and the maturity that will be expected of these communities to make sure that this lands well, and I think that’s great.

I think that actually reflects the strength of our rural communities, the fact that we look after each other. When things go wrong, we look after each other; and when things are going well—you know, when that horse comes in on New Year’s Eve on that beautiful sunny day when you’ve got your shandy—that we hang out with each other and we have a great time. It’s really nice, actually, that we have an opportunity to relax and have a good time and look after each other as rural communities, and that holds us in good stead when we have tough times like the East Coast has had.

So I think—personally, obviously, because it is a conscience vote—that this is a pretty solid bill and it’ll be interesting to see if all of those reflections that people have had about the importance of such a social occasion to our small communities is really recognised in, hopefully, this bill passing in the House.

There was opposition and they were fair challenges. We know that we have, in general as a society, got a long way to go to make sure that we are able to consume our alcohol responsibly and look after each other. We know that our statistics with drink-driving and family violence are not pretty. But this is something quite different: this is a community event and it is something that, like I say, I’ve spent many times taking my small children—who aren’t so small any more—along to race meetings and haven’t worried about, you know, a mosh pit or anything being something that they are going to have to be worried about. It has always been a family event and we’ve always looked out for each other.

I really do think that this has been a great little bill to bring to the House and I really appreciate the care—I didn’t sit on the select committee; we’ve heard from our colleagues who have shepherded it through and they were really clear that they took care to get the technicalities right. I think attending to “racing club” to “small racing club” means that this becomes really, really efficient and effective and it is something that will stand it in good stead. Obviously, we’ve had things like the Racing Act 2003 that has been replaced by the Racing Industry Act and a lot of those little technical details that mean that there’s no drama or problem with trying to reduce the compliance issues for our small racing clubs.

We’ve heard from many of our previous speakers about the challenges that our little racing clubs have had. Unfortunately, the idea of having a race meet at Te Kapua Park is no more, as racing clubs have consolidated their meets. Our really tiny racing clubs are in a precarious position, and something that can enable them to not have to have huge compliance costs—which I would argue don’t necessarily improve the behaviour of those who are attending a race meet—means that they are more likely to be able to engage their local community in a really great event.

I really thank Mr McKelvie for bringing this bill to the House, his commitment and his care for the industry and to his community is obvious, and it’s wonderful to be able to support that effort of Mr McKelvie’s to bring it to the House. So for those of us who enjoy a wee bet every now and then and a wee shandy while we’re having that bet, and whether or not we win or lose doesn’t matter because we can go and have a bounce on the bouncy castle and all will be forgiven. So I commend this bill to the House.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to speak on this bill. The reason is clear: it’s not often, when we have a members’ day and we have a bill brought before the House by a member of Parliament, that it has a chance to reach consensus and support over broadly much of the House, and then go on perhaps to become law and to make a change that, whilst it may seem small and not overly significant to some, to those communities that it will affect, it absolutely will be.

I want to commend Ian McKelvie for the way he has conducted himself from the very first moment this bill was drawn, and then all the way through the process to third reading. Ian, I think you have gained much more support for this legislation than probably many thought was there at the beginning. It’s because of the respectful or responsible way you have raised these issues, listened to those that had concerns, and looked to address them, rather than what often happens in this place—we sometimes ignore the views of others and perhaps shout each other down. I also know that Ian McKelvie brings this legislation here because of a deep-rooted, longstanding interest and much experience in the racing industry—not the part that this bill is trying to allow people to have when they go racing, although I know that he responsibly has enjoyed that as well.

It used to be said that New Zealand was a country of racing, of rugby, and there was something else in there—it was probably often the drink, I’m not sure. The world has changed. We view all of those things—some people view them all—as vices now. If we are not victorious in the Rugby World Cup, those who beat us, it would be a vice.

But certainly, if you think about racing, whilst it is a very important part of the economy—in fact, that delivers significantly in as far as the breeding of thoroughbreds of racehorses is concerned; it employs a lot of New Zealanders and it is something that we should work very hard in this House to support. From the moment we get out of bed to the moment we go to sleep, whether we agree with the racing aspect of it—because it is important there and people take a lot of pride in it, and they put their life’s work into it.

But at the same time, there is another part of this sector, which is the enjoyment that everyday New Zealanders, with their families, have when they choose to go out one day a year, sometimes, to go to the races. They go because some people get to dress up or they get to go and see the horses, or the kids can have a hotdog on a stick, or they’re just going to be together with their friends. Many years ago, they might go along and sit on the lawn and bring their own food because they would have a picnic, and they might have a little bit of wine—or, probably in those days, it was just a bottle or two of beer.

Well, we’ve had to be very responsible, as lawmakers, to make sure that alcohol doesn’t harm people because, of course, its misuse can create significant amounts of harm. But in so doing, when it comes to the way we have agreed laws, we—collectively, many parliaments; not any party, but we as a Parliament—have agreed laws around the control of alcohol and the restriction of it, there has been consequence. Sadly, those decisions, or the interpretation of those decisions, by the police force who we ask to administer this for us has led to those who are responsible—want to have a little bit of fun with their friends and family, not cause any harm, and with their lunch or whatever else they’re doing, have a little bit to drink as they just enjoy that horse racing—we have had an impact upon that enjoyment.

Well, Ian McKelvie’s bill addresses that. I want to say to him that I thought it was a very good bill when he first brought it to the House. I was very happy to support it because his intentions are correct and he’s looking to fix a bit of New Zealand history and culture that should remain so people who are not causing harm can enjoy themselves.

But I must say that I think some of the suggestions that have been brought in through the select committee process show that select committees can work when there is a bipartisan approach to listening to submitters and finding solutions rather than party positions, as we often always see. The suggestion that this should be limited to small racetracks that have two or fewer betting meetings a year, I think, probably meets the requirements and gets the balance about right.

Look, if somebody is having four or five or six meetings, then actually it is more serious, I suppose, their engagement with racing—any racecourse in the country—and then they can go to the extra expense or complication of making sure that they are properly licensed.

But there will be tracks around the country that actually, in the new year after Christmas, have always had a race meeting and they choose to continue to do that. As local people go along, it’s the one time they go to the races every year or their friends or family visitors or holidaymakers go along there and they have a huge amount of fun in the sun. This legislation brought to this House by Ian McKelvie means that, actually, they get to have that little bit of fun, and if they choose to have a little bit of wine or beer with that, then the House believes that’s OK.

It doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t be responsible or that the hosts there don’t have responsibilities when it comes to the use of alcohol or what happens in that venue. It doesn’t, in this instance, drive people to want to do this where they wouldn’t otherwise. Because, actually, if somebody wants to go and drink on a Saturday, sometimes the races are the last place that they would go and maybe take a little bit of alcohol themselves.

It doesn’t diminish from the importance of the harm—and the work that this House and others should do to minimise harm—around alcohol, particularly with younger people. But what it does do is recognise that there is a part of New Zealand and its culture that is important to this country. For some, it will be a fabric of the type of country we have become—and that where people can be responsible and will be responsible and are able to share a drink with friends and family at one or two race meetings a year, then there must be a way for that to happen. I commend Ian McKelvie for bringing this bill.

I guess the final thing I would say is that people in this House will have different views. Some parties will have a view; for others it will be a conscience vote. Look, at the end of the day, each of us has to dig deep and decide what we believe is right and the rest of us should be very respectful of that. So there were people that’ll have a different view of this than me. Actually, that doesn’t mean that my view is better than theirs or that they are wrong or they think I’m wrong and they are right. It just is something in this House where we get to use our conscience and think those sorts of things through.

So however people decide to vote on this debate, we should be as respectful to each other as we are in the way we would explain this decision to those who are out having fun. But I would ask those who are a little bit unsure—who haven’t been to a racetrack very often, who maybe themselves wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t want to go and enjoy a bit of time; a pastime with friends and family in this way—just to think of the very many New Zealanders who do this, and they do it respectfully and responsibly. See if you can get to the point of deciding that, actually, this is one of the areas where that vote in favour can enable and allow New Zealanders to do something without it causing harm for them.

I think it’s very infrequent that a member of Parliament brings a bill to this House as a member’s bill, and it is discussed and considered as respectfully and as responsibly as this has been done. For any member that wants to think that, actually, Ian McKelvie is a good guy who has come here and brought this piece of legislation in good faith to make a small change for a very small part of rural New Zealand, this will be one of the very last things he does before he gets to retire with his head held high, very proud of what he’s achieved for his electorate and all of New Zealand. That vote in support of him would mean that he can, in his early retirement, travel around the country to those 10 racecourses and share a drink with them every Christmas from now until the rest of us have a chance to join them. I commend you for this, and I am very proud to support you, Ian.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and, yes, I acknowledge Ian McKelvie for the wonderful opportunity that the biscuit tin provided him. When the previous speaker talks about how one of the last things he gets to do is this, I’m sure he’s had many last things he’s done over many years, whether it be in business, whether it be on council, whether it be here in Parliament. So I’m sure that Mr McKelvie has had plenty of wins in plenty of spaces and places. Tonight, I’m grateful to be part of a party—part of the New Zealand Labour Party—that allows us to vote on our conscience when it comes to topics of alcohol, and for that reason we on this side of the House hold differing views; who I sit next to on my left or right might hold a different perspective to what I hold.

This piece of legislation, the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill, is one that I won’t be supporting this evening. I respect Mr McKelvie and the work he does, as I’ve said, over many years, but this is one that I won’t be supporting. I want to, I guess, just explain a little bit why and sort of get to a place where—not that I convince others to vote my way but to know that my conscience in what I’ve been asked to do—

Simon Court: Go on—assume this is a debate and this is Parliament. Have a go.

GLEN BENNETT: —is the way that I will vote. So—thank you. I didn’t hear anything you said, but I don’t need to. I am the MP for New Plymouth, and in New Plymouth we have some very, very strong organisations, individuals, and groups that lobby me hard and push on many topics. Alcohol is one of them. Alcohol is one of them that, on an almost probably weekly basis, I am having conversations and being pushed on. For that reason, I want to honour the organisation New Plymouth Injury Safe, who are doing a marvellous piece of work in New Plymouth around what does it look like when it comes to alcohol reform, what does it look like when it comes to the reduction of harm in the consumption of alcohol. That’s why, for me—and I know people will think I’m a party pooper or I’m denying people things, but, thankfully, I get to make my choice on this vote, and I will be voting no.

But I guess I just want to reflect, as we look at the legislation—and I understand it’s a very small piece here today, but, obviously, I mean, I was part of an organisation a number of years ago where we did serve alcohol for a particular event and we did have to get a special licence, and I think that’s an appropriate thing to do, whether it’s to serve alcohol on the premises or to allow the BYO, I think, because it’s some checks and balances. They’ve been put in place for a reason: to ensure that organisations, to ensure that businesses, to ensure that racecourses and race meets have things in place to ensure that they protect people.

I often look at this House and what we do, and often it’s not looking at the majority of people; it’s looking at a small amount of people who often like to rort the rules or like to play them or just struggle when it comes to potentially something around alcohol. Four out of five New Zealanders do drink alcohol, and I acknowledge that; that it is a pastime that is intimately ingrained in our culture here in New Zealand, but one in four of those drinkers do drink hazardously. Of young adults particularly, two in five do drink hazardously. For me, in terms of the work I have done in community development and with young people, but also the work in this House, it is how do we ensure that our communities—how do we ensure that our culture is one that is inclusive and doesn’t allow others to trip or fall?

So when I look at this bill and I see it is—and we have several racecourses in my electorate, obviously our main one in New Plymouth, which is one of the bigger ones in our region. But I like, as I said, the checks and balances that take place when you use something, like having to apply to a council for a special licence. In terms of looking at the alcohol consumed in New Zealanders, it is a lot and I want to be part of a culture that starts to move away from that being just the given; that on a Friday night you go to the races or you go to the cinema or you go to a function or event and the first thing you are handed is a glass of wine or a bottle of beer. Because it doesn’t need to be that way.

This legislation isn’t anything that’s trying to encourage mass drinking, I know, but I think it’s the small wins that we can have where, actually, we say, “OK, how do we do it differently?” We don’t need to have alcohol served at every event or for us to enjoy an afternoon at the races, to enjoy an evening at the races. Yes, getting dressed up; yes, taking a pocketful of cash or whatever it is you do—it’s fine—but the fact that it doesn’t always have to involve a glass of wine or a bottle of beer.

When we look at the numbers, in 2018 there were 35 million litres of pure alcohol consumed in New Zealand. That equals quite a lot. Over the last 10 years, pure alcohol available for consumption in New Zealand—although it’s decreased slightly, there have been big increases when it comes to spirit-based drinks, up 22 percent, and wine, up 7 percent. I look at this House and I look back at the history of this House, and alcohol reform and alcohol legislation has often been something that has been fought out, that has been something that’s often been high up on the agenda, because it’s quite important, often for people and members of this House, which interests me. I think one of the early laws that were first passed in the New Zealand Parliament in the 19th century actually was around drinking alcohol on site at Parliament, because our rules were different to everyone else’s because—I don’t know, maybe we needed more, or maybe it was just a way of getting through the days or having to deal with other parties. I don’t know.

I want to thank the members of the Governance and Administration Committee, who have followed through; to the submitters who have been engaged in this process, because it is—and I’m always grateful for democracy in New Zealand, that we have these tools and these ways to engage. So often in current times we’ve had challenges and pushbacks, you know, in terms of a closed Government, but I look around the world and I would not want to be anywhere else but here to be a member of Parliament. Being able to sit on select committee and to be able to lean in and listen to what people think is good about legislation or to think about what they don’t like or to critique and to change and to find ways to make it better.

So, therefore, this Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill has been through that process, and again, Ian McKelvie, a passionate supporter, obviously, of the racing industry and still the spokesperson, I believe, for racing on the National Party. So yeah, I respect you for that. I won’t be supporting it tonight, but as we know across the floor, there’s been very different opinions and views on this piece of legislation. We’ve got this far, to the third reading. I’ll be interested to see where we go this evening. I assume I know where it’ll go, but that’s OK; I’m here to vote as I believe.

We need to have serious and hard conversations as a nation around alcohol. We need to be, I believe, in our clubrooms, on our sports fields, at our racecourses, in our businesses, in our schools, in our churches, on our marae, talking about a way forward when it comes to consumption of alcohol, looking at ways—for example, with smoking, 30 years ago that was just normal. My first job was in an office and smoking was still normal, and I remember walking in and being completely covered in smoke. I always thought, “Oh, this will never change.”, and then, of course, in the early 2000s, it was taking smoking out of bars and clubs. I thought that would never work; it wouldn’t change, but we have, and the culture has changed and people have leaned in and moved forward with the times.

I look forward to a day when we don’t spend time debating issues of alcohol or where it can be used or it can’t be used, because we’ve come to a place where we’ve found a path forward that supports our young people, that supports our vulnerable people, a place where we can ensure that, yes, we may have alcohol in New Zealand, but it’s drunk—if there is even a way—safely, that we don’t have addiction, we don’t have loss of life, we don’t have health issues. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the time and I won’t be supporting this bill.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party as the spokesman for sport and racing. I see this is a momentous day for Mr McKelvie—I hope—and the small racing clubs in New Zealand. He’s like a thoroughbred jockey: he’s dropped the reins and he’s coasting home, and, hopefully, tonight we will get there.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: He doesn’t look that confident; he’s still got the bit between his teeth!

DAMIEN SMITH: Yes. I’ve heard the comments from the previous speaker, Glen Bennett. This bill is really quite simple. It does try to manage and put a sensible framework around the consumption of what really is taking a chilly bin to the races, for small racing clubs who have less than three meetings a year. They just don’t have the big facilities that the big racecourses do; you have to drive up there and open your boot up and be social. I think this exemption will encourage more families to attend smaller race meetings across the country and give our rural communities a shot in the arm to carry out the traditions of what has gone before for them, their parents, and their grandparents.

I think it’s a very sensible bill and the committee’s put it together in great shape. The facilities of New Zealand racecourses do vary greatly, and it’s important that we recognise that this is an essential part of looking at the fabric of rural New Zealand and supporting it.

The restrictions that have been ordered around the small racing clubs in the Racing Industry Act have now been defined, and we can move forward. We’d like to really empathise with the previous speaker’s comments about alcohol management, but we’d like to also make sure that a fun and atmospheric place for small racing still exists in New Zealand. We will be voting in favour of the bill and in favour of the committee’s work.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill. I think it’s a great use of the House’s time to spend talking about what is a pretty important industry to Aotearoa New Zealand. Can I acknowledge my colleague Ian McKelvie, who has brought this bill in its current form to the House. I’m in the position where Mr McKelvie is the member of Parliament for an electorate that completely encircles my own electorate. I cannot leave the borders of Palmerston North without encroaching upon his electorate of Rangitīkei. But I do know that many other members from all around the House will, I’m sure, agree with me that Mr McKelvie is one of those gentlemen of the House, despite political differences from time to time, and I know that that certainly occurs at a local level as well.

I want to acknowledge that he seems to have some success with members’ bills. I’ve had a look back over time and I see that he had a livestock rustling bill that was taken up by this Government—is now a piece of legislation. He also had a Dog Control Act amendment bill that meant that people like judicial justices of the peace (JP) could deal with dog control matters as category 1 offences—something that, as a judicial JP, I was very familiar with presiding over as well. Obviously, this bill as well. I thought maybe there’s a theme here that what he has in the biscuit tin also is something related to animal welfare or something alike—no, I see that it’s something to do with allowing a little bit more flexibility with the sale and supply of alcohol in a different sense for restaurants and the like.

I also know that this is something that the member is not only passionate about but is an industry that he knows a lot about. Previous contributions that he has made in this House—I know that he has commended members who have successfully shepherded through bills, particularly in situations where they know something about it. Given that I see Mr McKelvie probably as frequently on racecourses as I do in the House, that is a testament to his involvement in that particular sector.

I listened to the comments of my colleague, the member for New Plymouth, Glen Bennett—an excellent member—who identified that the position of the Labour Party is to treat this as a conscience vote. I think it’s really important that members should be able to freely express their views around why they wish to vote the way they do, and that is exactly what I intend to do this evening. I have taken the position of supporting this bill through all stages, and it is my intention to continue to support it at third reading this evening.

This is something that I think will assist those smaller clubs that are largely in rural communities. I remember when I was young, I saw a photo of my great-grandmother, who was dressed up to the nines and was in front of a semaphore. I didn’t know what a semaphore was back then but it’s basically the tote board where they used to change the odds. She was clearly dressed up, ready to go somewhere and have a good time. Sadly, when it comes to racing in the current context, those times have changed, as we move to more of an online offering—and I know that, as a Government, we’ve made some huge steps in that particular space as well.

But I do come to this bill with some experience in two areas. One, prior to Parliament, having served as a deputy chair of a district licensing committee (DLC) for my community, considering things like special licences, considering the reports by statutory officials, whether they be a medical officer of health, whether they be the police, or whether they be the local authority’s liquor licensing inspector. And yes—

Glen Bennett: You’re a jockey!

TANGI UTIKERE: I wasn’t a jockey, Mr Bennett. My sister will tell you that I used to ride my bicycle with a whip, pretending I was a jockey, but the common theme used to be around weight at the moment. But the issue there is that there is obviously an awareness of DLCs and the responsibilities that they have.

But I also come to this House with more than a decade dealing with judicial matters within New Zealand’s racing industry. So I spent more than 10 years as a member of the judicial control authority, which was an authority that was responsible for dealing with discipline matters, whether they be alcohol-related, drugs-related, conduct-related, protests, all of those sorts of things. So I have had my fair share of visits to racecourses around Aotearoa New Zealand. I sat down and I tried to tally up exactly how many racecourses I had been to. I got to 42—42. The majority of those racecourses I have managed to—in an official capacity—deal with in terms of my role as a member of the judicial control authority.

But I do know even places like Taranaki - King Country, where you leave Palmerston North and then the first racecourse you hit is Whanganui, and then you go to Waverley and then Hāwera and then Stratford and then Pukekura Park and then you get in the car and come back. Likewise, if you were to head up the East Coast, it would be a similar experience. But I reflect on the occasions where I have spent times on racecourses like those, but also racecourse in Cromwell, Gore, Winton, Wairoa, Waipukurau, Ruakākā. They all have a very different feel in terms of how they function. Yes, there are rules; there are regulations that govern the racing and the way in which things are conducted, but there are diligent, hard-working community members who go about their duties supporting those meetings. They really are huge community events. Why? Because people are passionate about the work they do in their community, but also because they know that this is an opportunity for communities to come together.

In my own electorate of Palmerston North, I know we have Awapuni, supported by the Government’s investment for an all-weather track of more than $10 million. But that is a commercial operation; it is a multipurpose operation—quite different to the nearby Manawatū Harness Racing Club, which I note was one of the submitters that submitted to the Governance and Administration Committee. They will be disappointed with the change, because as it stood prior to committee they were one of the clubs that would be permitted to function under this legislation, but, with the move to three or fewer, they will miss out. But I’m sure that they will still be, none the less, pleased with the recommendations that the select committee has made and what that means for other communities and clubs around New Zealand.

I want to just very briefly touch on some of the changes that the select committee has made that have led to the bill in its current form today. One is obviously we now have a bill in front of the House that changes the reference to racing legislation so that it is accurate—that’s a small change but an important one. But the key one is that it creates a distinction that captures some clubs and not others. That is by inserting the word “small”, which is defined in racing legislation as those clubs that hold three or fewer betting licences a year. For those who might be tuning in, thinking, “Well, what is a betting licence?” Well, the reality is we have clubs all around the country that conduct racing all year round. Not all of them, actually, have a betting licence where people can place wagers. So this would only apply to those clubs around New Zealand where the club held a licence and it was a club that held a number of meetings that sat at three or fewer per year.

I think this change that the committee had recommended and the House has clearly adopted is a good one because it targets where this law will lie. It is for clubs that don’t run meetings every month, it is for clubs like those in Gore who hold two or three a year, or in Kaikōura who I think, strangely, is the only club that holds two meetings a year that are back to back on a Sunday and a Monday. Well attended but also will ensure that it’s able to support those diligent workers who are fastidious about the duties that they undertake from the moment you set foot on the racecourse, from the car parking attendants right through to those who are committee members who go about supporting the work of the day.

Clubs still have a responsibility—that is clear—but I have full confidence in small clubs. I have confidence in their ability to manage things, to mitigate things, but also to ensure that they are continuing to do the work that does a couple of things. It will ensure that we have a strong racing industry here in Aotearoa New Zealand, but also that communities are able to continue to gather around a hamper or a picnic from the car boot, continue to enjoy a day out at the races, and something that I think will be a huge benefit rather than a barrier to local clubs. I commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Firstly, I just wanted to acknowledge Ian McKelvie for bringing this bill to the House. That is, obviously, a momentous day for any member when you manage to get a member’s bill to third reading, so I wanted to acknowledge him in that and the work that, obviously, is necessary to get to this place.

There’s been a broad-ranging debate about this bill, about the impact of racing, about our communities, about culture, and about the intertwining and—particularly from the member Glen Bennett from Labour just before—the kind of interconnection between sports and alcohol. So I wanted my contribution, on behalf of the Greens, this afternoon to reflect on a number of those things.

But, first and foremost, I think, perhaps it would be useful to zoom out a little bit and to think about alcohol in the context of how we regulate drugs in this country. The reality is that drugs of all flavours exist—those drugs being alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and otherwise. It happens that alcohol is the most widely consumed drug in this country—of both the legal and illegal kind. It is our favourite drug, in that 80 percent of New Zealanders consume it—and, as Glen Bennett said before, a quarter of New Zealanders to incredibly harmful ends.

But when we are looking at substances like alcohol, like tobacco, like cannabis, or otherwise, we have a range of regulatory options in front of us. If we firstly accept the premise that those substances exist, then that those substances can potentially cause harm, it prompts the question of: how do we go about regulating those substances so as to best go about reducing that potential for harm? That spectrum, at one end of the extreme, looks like criminal prohibition—the kind of approach that we’ve taken, for example, under the Frankenstein Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, which has simply seen greater proliferation of substances. It hasn’t wiped substances out; in fact, they’ve got far more dangerous. At the other end of the extreme, you have a complete legal free market, and many would say that that’s the end of the spectrum which alcohol tends to lean on.

At both ends of those extremes of the spectrum, you have the maximisation of harm. That is because, in the criminal prohibition end, you have criminal organisations, and at the other end of the spectrum, with regard to a complete legal free market, you have commercial or corporate organisations. At both ends of those extremes, those criminal organisations or those commercial organisations are incentivised to exploit vulnerable communities in order to make a quick buck; to sell as much of their product as is possible.

So the question or the, kind of, challenge for this House is: how do we go about pulling back from those extremes? The answer is through sensible regulation. Of course, as has been debated many times in this Chamber—not the least throughout this term—the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 fails in a lot of ways when it comes to regulating alcohol harm. And there’s been a number of proposals—not the least, members’ bills—that have sought to address parts of that.

Some of those interventions or policy tools might look like availability—as has been recommended as one of the most, kind of, best buys by the likes of the World Health Organization, in terms of an intervention that can reduce harm—pricing and marketing. Another intervention for potentially problematic use is the utilisation of what is known as a safe consumption space, where you have a duty of care on those who are supplying—or, at the very least, looking after those who are consuming that substance. In the context of alcohol, that looks like hospitality venues; it looks like our bars and our clubs and our venues.

What this bill seeks to do, the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill, is to remove, for sake of these small race meets, the offence of offering of one’s premises as a “place of resort” for a BYO, a bring your own alcohol. This is currently used—as submissions to the Governance and Administration Committee showed—for police to negotiate with organisers of those BYO events to try and minimise alcohol harm. But, as I understand it—and looking at the history of this bill—the issue emerged in around 2016-17, with race meets complaining that those meets were being restricted by police, and, as such, we ended up with this member’s bill from the honourable Ian McKelvie.

To that effect, in thinking about how we can go about exempting racing in particular, I’d like to say, first and foremost, why is this only applying to that one section of our society, given that we tend to see criminalisation of substances occurring for other types of communities? There is an imputed sense of responsibility, as well, that we’re hearing and many speakers have also spoken to with regard to the kinds of environments that a race meet provides—that is: a sense of community and that we’re looking after each other in other ways. To that effect, I’d say: why can’t we apply that same logical consistency to other substances—for example, when we’re looking at cannabis legalisation and control?

There is the opportunity for these special licences to already be provided and through this, kind of, BYO negotiation with the police, under the current “place of resort” potential offence. So, again, it kind of does just feel like it is potentially a solution looking for a problem, to a certain extent.

Others have spoken to the deeply intertwined sense between sports and alcohol. As I spoke in another bill just last night, it was actually the former National Government that commissioned the 2014 Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship to especially address that deeply entrenched cultural problem, which was acknowledged came from legal structures which enable tens of millions of dollars to be poured into advertising, which, in turn, helps to create an environment where alcohol is consumed to excess. And we’ve seen consistent reports, commissioned by successive Governments, which have said precisely the same thing, all just to be ignored because, once again, I think, it’s put in the too hard basket.

So, in closing, on those points around how these race meets and this kind of negotiation with police about BYO is already possible, on the basis of the evidence around drug harm reduction, and in asking Parliament for a sense of consistency, the Greens are voting down this legislation today. But I understand from speakers who’ve come before me that it’s still likely to get through.

But just reflecting, finally, on those principles of basic harm reduction and, actually, some of the comments as made by previous speakers. I was listening quite intently to the Hon Todd McClay, who was speaking about how New Zealanders at these small race meets are just using alcohol, just using the substance, respectfully and responsibly—they’re doing something without causing harm to anybody else. I’d ask members across this House to think about that same logical consistency when considering the likes of other substances—for example, cannabis, which is used by 635,000 New Zealanders annually, 15 percent of this country. If we’re to talk about consistency, what we’re talking about there is a situation where, just last year alone, 180 New Zealanders were sentenced to prison for cannabis possession alone—for something which many were using, in the words of the Hon—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Can I ask the member to come back. I appreciate her references going wider, and I understand that the member is broadly within other parameters of the third reading, but she’s in danger of straying just a little far out of that lane.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Appreciate that, Madam Speaker. So reflecting on those principles of drug harm reduction—that drugs exist regardless of wherever in the world they’ve tried to wipe them out—with the next question of “How do we go about reducing that harm?”, the answer is: evidence-based regulation. The Greens are opposing this legislation today.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour): I’m very pleased to rise and take a call in this bill, and to have the opportunity to provide a contribution on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill. I do want to acknowledge the member Ian McKelvie for putting this forward as a hard-working member, and thank you to the members across the House for providing useful contributions. However, it is my perspective that in my contribution I will oppose this bill. There are a number of reasons as to why I will not be supporting this bill in the conscience vote.

So this amendment bill targets a small group of community individuals, that they would have the ability to consume alcohol, that under this bill they would not be required to apply for an actual liquor licence for the operators and owners due to their activity of small racing meets, because they will be able to purchase alcohol from an off-licence operator, transport that alcohol to the small race meet, and drink to their heart’s content, so without having to be monitored or checked. Even if the local police receive a complaint, it would not be followed up because it would be classed as legal activity.

There is no ability for the police to monitor the drinking levels of these individuals and, in my view, it is a waste of police resource. The bill is a conscience vote for democracy reform, and the definition is that the inner sense is to do what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one towards the right action. So I have taken the opportunity to speak out, because I need to highlight to the House—and appreciate the views that have been put across—that there is far too much alcohol poisoning for the ability or availability for alcohol consumption.

So I want to highlight just a couple of things in my contribution, because in the area that I come from, under-age youth illegally drinking alcohol is a real problem that Aotearoa or New Zealand, in some parts of Aotearoa, across the motu, ignore. In my local area, I just quickly want to highlight—because in a former role that I had with Auckland Council, the area that I come from in Māngere, South Auckland, there are far too many off-licence outlets that provide a real problem, because we have under-age youth who access alcohol illegally by asking older members of the community to go into that nearby shop and to purchase their alcohol. This is a regular, real-life incident, and an ongoing problem, because our hard-working police members, our hard-working health officials in our community continue to work with families that our young people—specifically, I probably would refer to urban centres and some rural areas. There are far too many off-licence operators and shops that do this, and I want to just quickly acknowledge Communities Against Alcohol Harm and those who continue to work on the ground.

Back to the bill. What I read was Te Whatu Ora’s report. They provided a public health perspective to the Governance and Administration Committee, and I thank them for their work and their contribution on 12 September 2022. That specific report had a number of points, and stated that Te Whatu Ora has a role of public health and alcohol licensing. In their report, it stated how drinking levels would be monitored to protect under-age drinking levels, and then the fact that excessive drinking levels lead always to alcohol poisoning.

As I said earlier, what this bill promotes is unregulated drinking environments, which is a real problem for some of our youth across Aotearoa. This bill sends the wrong message to our community and specifically to our young people. As the authorities who are responsible to monitor and assist in minimisation of alcohol harm - related issues, you could say that our young people are going to us if this bill is passed.

So what is it? How do you distinguish what we can and what we can’t do? Because specifically it states in this bill that small racing meets will be exempt—they will be exempt—that they are able to have alcohol with these events of small racing meets, because they have purchased, and then they are within their legal right to have that alcohol from that specific alcohol activity, and who knows how much capacity will not be monitored. So this amendment bill, it normalises alcohol as an ordinary commodity. It is normalised behaviour in that communities across the motu will have different variations or different perspectives of what they’re able to do and not to do.

I specifically want to point out that in the legislation and in the reports that I read, the difficulty for police when they rock up—if they receive a complaint, they will be unable to assess who is at fault for allowing alcohol to be consumed at these small race meets and that they don’t have to worry about that. But given the role of police, given that they protect our community across Aotearoa, this replacement section 235A, inserted by clause 4 of the amendment bill, allows that very activity to proceed.

Just as I wrap up, what I also read in this bill was that a number of racing clubs did not support this amendment bill, because they do not want people to come with their own alcohol and consume it at their premises. In fact, I saw that six submitters supported this amendment bill, but there were those 10 submitters who opposed this bill, because this bill does not send a clear message across the motu. The legislation states that under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012, the definition for consumption is clear, that if you have an on-licence, there are certain hours during the day that a club licence would be in force. This amendment bill, replacement section 235A, inserted by clause 4, has been drafted. Many submitters have provided wide views.

Also, I just want to mention the clubs who oppose this amendment bill: Alcohol Healthwatch, Hāpai te Hauora, the New Zealand Institute of Liquor Licensing Inspectors, New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing, Te Hā Oranga, the Salvation Army, Transforming Attitudes Towards Alcohol, Waikato Racing Club, and the Whanganui District Council—they opposed this bill because they are concerned about the increasing alcohol harm, and, specifically, the inconsistency of the purpose of the Act and the necessity.

Why will horse racing be treated differently than other events? Loud and clear, a contribution from New Zealand Police. Loud and clear, Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand, both who are big authorities in Aotearoa New Zealand. They have advised their perspective, professional opinion based on evidence, based on legislative policies, based on the suggested proposal.

The Ministry of Justice—just as I wind up—have advised that this bill undermines the current licensing regime and, additionally, would prevent police from providing a very clear perspective, being not clear as to have the police powers to hold someone accountable if activity gets out of hand. According to all those reasons I have stipulated, I remain opposed to this amendment bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): With apologies, before I take next speaker, can I please remind the member who has just concluded her speech of Speaker’s ruling 49/5, which describes the convention of this House that speeches are not to be read. The member is still a relatively new member, although not the newest member, and it is time that the member transitioned and to comply with that convention. Thank you.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. First of all, I want to congratulate my colleague Ian McKelvie. Not only has he had a stunning run of success in ballots, but he also has a real passion for the racing industry. This bill is a practical thing that he can actually do to help racing in New Zealand. So, well done, Ian. Ian McKelvie has been a strong member for Rangitīkei for a number of years now and he, obviously—

Tama Potaka: Second-best place to grow up.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: “Second-best”, Tama says. But your contribution to that electorate and also the racing industry is very much welcomed and appreciated and acknowledged here today. So, well done, Ian.

This bill probably doesn’t even need to come to Parliament. We shouldn’t be having to debate these things, in reality. There are some things in life that just could carry on and if we put too many regulations on in our community, we get to the stage where we have to legislate to do something that is part of New Zealand’s history and culture. The traditional Boxing Day races or small event races that happen throughout the country are there for enjoyment, for people to come along, for communities to come together, for families to come together, and just enjoy time together—and often they’re in a holiday sort of mode, and having a drink is part of that and shouldn’t be a problem in our society. We have made that so difficult.

We have, basically, said that you can’t do that, and taken that enjoyment out of people’s lives. There’s no real reason we should have gone that far down the track. The reality is that these things should have been able to happen anyway. I just am a bit disappointed that New Zealand has got to this stage where we have to pass legislation like this to actually enable New Zealanders to have some fun, effectively, and to enjoy themselves. So it gets to this point where we have to do this. Well done, the honourable Ian McKelvie, for working that out and getting that through. But the point is: do we really need to get to a stage in our country where we have to pass bills like this so that people can just live a normal life?

Next up, racing is part of the fabric of New Zealand and it has really had some tough times in recent years. We had the Minister for Racing in front of the Governance and Administration Committee, in fact, this morning—the same committee—and he talked about the racing arrangements that had come into place with the Entain deal, what they’re doing around betting, what they’re doing around the transformation of the TAB and the role it’s going to play in the future. So there’s a lot of attention in the racing industry around what is happening in Parliament these days, because they are an industry that’s struggling, TAB is struggling, and the Government has an effective role in setting legislation that dictates a lot of their future. So they are taking a very active interest now, as they have done in the past as well, around what is happening in this room, because it can actually have a huge influence on the future ambitions of the industry and where it wants to go.

The industry itself doesn’t want to lose events like this bill deals with. It doesn’t want to lose some of that community feel from race meetings that people might attend on a one-off basis or on a very basis in the community. That’s part of the excitement of the industry and it’s also part of the encouragement of people to continue to pursue the industry at other levels as well.

So when we look at what is happening in racing at the moment, it’s really important to take the perspective that this is part of the equation, and it’s actually something that, if we constrain the industry at all different parts of the equation, you can actually lose an industry very quickly. To take away that enjoyment, the fun, the ability to run these kind of meetings, to have people go along, to have horses go along, to have communities engaged can really be detrimental long term for a community.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I understand nobody wanted to take the second five-minute call, so if I drift into a 10-minute call, I’m sure I can trust you’ll indulge me. Is that all right?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): You’re going to have to put that again, I’m sorry. Point of order?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am not seeking to take the second five-minute call of that slot, so I will trust you’ll indulge me if my contribution takes longer than five minutes.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Thank you. It probably won’t be much, but there’s a few acknowledgments. I think Damien Smith, in his contribution, described Ian McKelvie as “heading down the home straight”, “hands off the reins”, and “doing something of a victory pose”. I don’t get that; that’s not my perception: in fact, I think Ian McKelvie is holding on tight to the reins as he rounds the bend, seeing one last hurdle. In fact, I’m beside him, stride for stride, supporting him in the one-one as we get to the end of this process that I know, if it is passed, if it achieves the support of this House, will clarify an element of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act and won’t increase harm.

Is it the third or fourth member’s bill Mr McKelvie has had? I must confess, and this isn’t going to be a valedictory, but this is one of the many things—for Mr McKelvie, that is! I’m not announcing anything today by any means; in fact, quite the opposite. I am so jealous of the fact that in my 15 years in this place I’ve never had a bill pulled out of the tin that I’m going to stay here until I blimmin well do. Now, given that I expect that I’ll be a Minister again in 4½ months’ time and then that for nine long years, I predict now that I might be here till about 2033 or 2034—by which time I’ll still be younger than Mr Ian McKelvie, so there’s plenty of time to get that member’s bill out of the ballot. So I’ll send him a telegram when I do!

But this is a really good day, and I think this is an example of a couple of things: a good idea by member and a select committee that worked very cooperatively and, I think, were sensitive to the concerns that a number of the submitters had.

I want to acknowledge Ms Sosene for a passionate but I think slightly misguided contribution on this bill, because one thing we will agree is that there is harm in our communities from alcohol. But the reality is: it is not happening at these small summer race carnivals.

I was actually privileged to move, on Mr Ian McKelvie’s behalf, the second reading of this bill on 7 December. Then we headed off for our summer breaks, and, as is the ritual in my family, Madam Speaker, it was to, among other things, two racing carnivals in places, parts of the country that are well known to you.

Firstly, I think it was about 2 or 3 January, at Central Otago Trotting Club in Ōmākau, a beautiful day and the largest crowd the Ōmākau races has had probably for about 20 years. I spent probably more money on coffee than alcohol. But the large crowd was incredibly well behaved. It was the first time probably in the last two decades that there was no checkpoint at the gate because—and again, Lydia Sosene’s comments about police resources being diverted—they manage risk where it occurs. There were a couple of police who I think chose to be there because it’s a great day out, but there was absolutely no trouble. Hasn’t been for the—well, I’ve probably been going there for 40 years, since I was a child—certainly for the last 20 years, regularly.

Then a few days later at the Wyndham Harness Racing Club in Cromwell, which is another area I know Madam Speaker knows well. The weather wasn’t so good; in fact, a massive thunderstorm hit at about race eight or nine, and headed said people scurrying. But again, absolutely no behavioural difficulties whatsoever.

Now, in fact, over the years, I probably spent more money on the tombola than I have on bottles of wine or beer because you know—or some obscure cuddly toy or game that my daughters insisted that they had to have. That’s run by the Omakau Volunteer Fire Brigade. That’s the sort of event we’re talking about, and it’s been great to hear from other members right around the House about their experiences of that.

I want to actually acknowledge Graham Sinnamon, the president of the Central Otago Trotting Club, because he brought a reality to what we are doing with his submission. I touched on it briefly at our second reading, but he had data and he had photographs and he had police reports and doctors’ reports going back over a very long period of time. And this is one of the largest small carnivals in the South Island at Ōmākau. So to Mr Sinnamon and the members of the Central Otago Trotting Club, we listened, we empathised, we understood, and it brought, I think, a reality to the two things that we wanted: to make sure that there was a benefit but not an increased risk. I think that submission very much satisfied those two elements.

I think I’ll leave it there. I know there were a number of members who were concerned but prepared to support it at first reading, probably less concerned at second reading when there was a significant support of this House, and I hope that we will continue to have this support because our summer carnivals, the Kiwi traditions that Mr David Bennett talked about, will be better for its passage.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, I have determined that the subject of this vote will be treated as a conscience issue. In this case, I know there are members who want a personal vote, and I am prepared to accept one. This is the process that we’re going to follow: I’m going to put the question, I’m going to announce the result. At that stage, any member can ask for a personal vote.

A personal vote was called for on the question, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 74

Noes 43

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

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

Bills

Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): I move, That the Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It is a pleasure to stand and speak on the second reading of the Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment Bill. I’ve only recently become the member in charge of the bill, and I appreciate that there are many members in the House tonight who have had a longer history than myself on this particular bill. I particularly want to acknowledge the Hon Duncan Webb, who became a Minister and so was unable to progress this bill through the House, and then passed this bill on to my other colleague who I do want to acknowledge, the Hon Rachel Brooking, who also became a Minister and so was unable to progress this bill through the House. I intend to look after this bill through its passage through the House, but I want to thank both those members for their time and stewardship of this bill, especially Duncan Webb, Minister Webb, who put this bill in the biscuit tin the first time.

The purpose of this bill, as stated in the general policy statement, is that a director, acting as the mind and will of a company, can take actions which take into account wider matters other than the financial bottom line. It’s a simple addition to the Companies Act. I’ve just got a copy of the bill here, and it’s so short that I’ll just go through its primary provisions. It does amend the Companies Act, and clause 4 puts in a section after section 131(4) of the principal Act, which is section 131(5), which just adds in that the company, when determining the best interests, must take into account—and it lists a whole range of matters which we would usually term as environmental or social matters that are not necessarily to do with the profits that a company makes. The ones that Dr Webb has put in his first draft of the bill, which were examined by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation (EDSI) Committee, are: the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, environmental impacts, ethical behaviour, fair and equitable employment practices, and interests of the wider community. So quite a wide-ranging list of considerations that people may take into account, if this amendment to the Companies Act 1993, which is the principal Act, was to be made into law. So a very simple bill, really.

If you look back to the first reading of this bill, where Minister Webb was discussing his rationale for the bill, it came across because of a very common misconception within our law, which is that the directors of companies must look to the shareholders of the company and must only look to profit in terms of the best interests of the company. And that, as people who have sat on the select committee and looked through this bill, is not quite a correct interpretation of the law as it stands, but it is none the less a widely held view that has, in fact, been reported regularly in this House and, also—I’m under no illusions—throughout boardrooms throughout the country as well. So this is an important matter to clarify.

Since the first reading of the bill, which I referred to—it was referred to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, and I want to acknowledge the members of the committee for the time and attention that they gave to this bill, no matter their personal view as to whether it should progress or not. I want to assure that select committee that I’ve taken their report seriously and it will be informing the Supplementary Order Paper that I intend to introduce prior to the committee stage of this bill.

I now, briefly, want to turn my attention to the submissions that were made to the select committee. I was not, as I’ve stated, the member in charge of the bill when the EDSI committee was considering it, so I was not there, as is sometimes usual for member’s bills, to sit alongside that committee and to hear the submissions in person. However, I have made sure, now that I have stewardship of this bill, I have read and looked through the written submissions that were made to the committee. There were 51 submissions, 34 in support, which included making improvements to the bill, and also 15 opposed and two that did not express a position. Some, as is the case in many instances, considered that this bill went too far, and some others thought that it was not necessary at all. And so some would say that that means that this bill strikes the right balance. But others may also say that you need to actually examine the bill and its purpose to see if it is achieving it, and so that’s what I have done.

I want to be clear: I do not agree with the submissions that say that there needs to be further compliance mechanisms included with this bill. There were some people that thought that that should be the case, that there should be further duties placed on directors. I don’t see that as consistent with the purpose of this bill, and that is not something that I will be looking into introducing in any Supplementary Order Paper.

The select committee report was very short and it made one recommendation. The overall recommendation—as people aware at the EDSI committee may know, that committee is made up, I think, of an equal number of members from the Government parties and the Opposition parties. And so their report is a little bit different from some select committee reports that we do have. But they did recommend a change, if this bill was to pass—and I just will look at that briefly—which was, essentially, to cross out the majority of the bill and add in a new provision that would say, “To avoid doubt, in considering the best interests of a company or holding company for the purposes of this section, a director may consider matters other than the maximisation of profit”. I just want to let members of the committee know that I am seriously considering the reasoning for that recommendation, the simplicity of their recommendation, and will be looking into that in terms of drafting the changes to this bill, because I do think that it is important to get these things right.

There’s a lot of commentary, which is available and now published on the website, which goes through the official advice on the bill—and I’m sure you’ll hear from other members of the House that it was a position held by many respectable organisations, including the advisers to the bill, that they did not agree that this bill should proceed. In their view—and I summarise—it would not add to the existing law. I disagree. I think the codification of law, as of the common law, which a lot of their advice relies on, often adds clarity and certainty. And, in my view, that is a matter of utmost importance in relation to clarity. The common law is case law, which is made by the courts, and so when we codify that, that does add a certainty to the law and clarity for people who often, probably, won’t be reading the judgments of the Supreme Court and other very important matters that they do consider.

I also have looked at quite a few of the submitters to this bill, and one of the overriding changes that I will be taking forward is the issue of clarity. I think there are some significant improvements which can be made to the bill. The matters that I wanted to note in this speech were: taking the point that it’s important that people know that the list is not exhaustive, if indeed the list is carried through; taking into account the wording change—there was a suggestion of removing that “take into account” to “may regard”, and I know Dr Webb also suggested that that would be a valuable change to the bill; and then also removal of the word “recognised” in “environmental factors”, which has been confusing for some people. So I do take those into account as well.

We do know that a similar provision to this bill has been adopted in the UK—not exactly the same, but a similar provision. We do know that in Australia, they decided not to introduce a bill similar to this, for various reasons. I say New Zealand can make its own decision.

I think that there’s also been a bit of commentary about what a member’s bill should do, and some submitters to this bill said that it’s not appropriate for a member’s bill to look at something so substantive as company law and the duties that affect directors. Some have said that we should go further within the member’s bill. And I think it’s important to this House to recognise that members’ bills do have a purpose. This is a bill that adds one new section of “communicative intent”, which is a phrase used legally, which is referenced in many journals, which is seen as a positive thing in relation to the purpose of the law. It doesn’t substantially change the law. It doesn’t require cost or compliance. It doesn’t require any additional spending. But it does set out the purpose of how we would like directors to do business, which is not to only consider the maximisation of profit but to truly and freely decide what is best for them and their business. I think that Parliament should enable them to do that.

So my intention is to proceed with the bill and to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper, in good time, prior to the committee stage, in order to address the issues raised through the select committee and to allay any concerns around compliance. I commend it to the House.

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

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Oh, we were doing so well today. We had the local bill—the New Plymouth District Council (Perpetual Investment Fund) Bill—then we had unanimity on the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Bill, then Mr McKelvie successfully negotiated and passed a conscience issue bill, and there was a real sense of fraternity breaking out across the House. Then we had this: what I have added to the long list of both Government and member’s bills that are coming to this House that are a well-meaning waste of time. And we are going to waste the House’s time doing something that, frankly, is not needed to be done.

I note that the bill as it came out of the select committee is a shadow of its former self. And let’s just say that there wasn’t much of a shadow when it went in. It’s a very smaller shadow coming back out. Mr Webb’s bill—

Simon Court: Dr Webb.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —Dr Webb, I apologise; the Hon Dr Webb, these days—had a list, an avoidance of doubt list, that talks about the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, reducing adverse environmental impacts, upholding high standards of ethical behaviour, following fair and equitable employment practices, and recognising the interests of the wider community—all of which is either in other law or something that companies routinely do. And we came out of the select committee with a single sentence, again, “To avoid doubt, in considering the best interests of a company or holding company for the purposes of this section, a director may consider matters other than the maximisation of profit.” Well, who knew that those rapacious directors had to be guided by legislation to consider things other than the maximisation of profit? Because, of course, that presumes that that is the goal of every single entity covered by the Companies Act.

Now, I used to be the chief executive of a surgical hospital. A limited liability company was the entity that ran the hospital and was my employer. It was a registered not-for-profit. It did other things. And there are thousands of companies just like that up and down the country who exist to do other things other than profit and will continue to do so if this bill is passed. And even those profit-making companies don’t, most of them, exist to make a profit; they exist to provide a product or a service.

Did Peter Beck wake up one day and say, “I know what I want to do. I want to make a profit.”? No. He woke up one day and said, “I want to change the world, because I want to change the way we communicate through small, loaf-of-bread-sized satellites that we can launch here in New Zealand.” Did Rod Drury wake up one day and say, “I want to make a profit.”? No. He probably woke up and said, “I want to disrupt the way in which accounting software is deployed globally.”

Simon Court: Did Graeme Hart say he wanted to make a profit?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Exactly. We could go through a long list of companies that are for profit, and we shouldn’t turn profit into a dirty word, because it’s the profit from those companies and the taxes paid on those profits that pay for our health, education, and social services. So the very case for this even being necessary has not been made.

Now I was going to say congratulate—that’s not quite the right word; maybe it was a poisoned chalice that she picked up from her now ministerial colleague. And she has done her very best to put lipstick on this, because I don’t think that it deserves any other epithet. And it wasn’t just me on the select committee who had that kind of derision for the bill. The member talks about the number of people who opposed this bill as if they were part of that rapacious, profit-focused business community. Well, let me go through who actually opposed the bill. Let’s start with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)—the very advisers to the member and the select committee. Their big, bold statement in Part 2 of the departmental report: “We recommend that the bill not proceed.” And they did so not because they were rapacious profit-makers, but they were the sensible arbiters of whether or not this was even necessary. No less than the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, whom I think every single member and Minister and select committee should listen very carefully to, said in their view that the bill should not proceed on the basis that it is unnecessary legislation with an unclear purpose and uncertain interaction with other legislation. Indeed, the Law Society and MBIE actually worried that this would make things worse, not better.

So why are we putting forward a bill that risks making things more confusing, which was a theme of those submissions, and actually makes things worse? As an accountant for over 25 years, I have been advising small businesses about the way in which they extend their social licence. When I was a student, they used to talk about triple bottom line reporting. We now talk about reporting for outcomes—the actual things that people want to deliver, and it isn’t a profit. Those things exist already. Our obligations to the Treaty of Waitangi, our employment obligations to be a good employer are already set out in other legislation. Directors have their specific obligations in law to be good at these things, and, if they’re not, there are consequences, not the least of which in our social media world, where there is a quite appropriate but very risky cancel culture for an organisation that gets itself offside with the sorts of stakeholders that they have: customers, staff, and so on.

So there are already significant risks on directors and boards that do not act in the manner in which Dr Webb and now Camilla Belich believe we have to put into black letter law. It’s as simple as that. This is a waste of time. I think it’s well-meaning, albeit that this focus on those rapacious profit-makers is perhaps emblematic of this Government. But it is a waste of time. It shouldn’t be here.

Anna Lorck: We love business.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I’m sorry, Ms Lorck?

Anna Lorck: We love business.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I like it when you’re in the House after dinner—always get a very interesting interjection from across that side when the member for Tukituki is participating in these debates. I’ll say no more, except this: this should not go through.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. When the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee—that great select committee—was presented with this bill, we had to deal with a couple of issues.

Firstly, we recognised that, in the 21st century, in the year 2023, there are companies that might have other reasons for existing, such as social enterprise. We wanted to make sure that those companies who weren’t there purely to pursue the bottom line had the means through legislation to protect themselves when the decisions that they were making were not only just for profit or when they had a set of decisions to make for their companies that their directors wouldn’t be at risk or jeopardy of being sued because the decision they had made was one of principle.

We were presented, firstly, with legislation from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb that had, what we call, an exhaustive list. As the select committee examined the bill, we were looking at different alternatives to see whether or not we could give the same reassurance to these companies who were not only pursuing profit as their only goal in existing.

But also, at the same time, I recognise the submissions—especially the one that the Law Society had given—that you don’t want to make this bill a back door to acting recklessly for your directors. You don’t want this to be an excuse for why they’re actually harming the company and using it just as an excuse. I can imagine some instances when the directors of a company are not acting in good faith; they could try and find some sort of far-fetched excuse to say that they’ve acted for this reason so as to justify their perverse behaviour. So I also got that point from the submitters as well.

So we were looking at this whole concept of whether or not we wanted an exhaustive list or whether or not we wanted just an open statement or whether or not we wanted a very succinct short statement—and that’s obviously, ultimately, where we have landed, just to make sure that we could use this line as, what I would say, a defence in legal proceedings, and saying that they may consider matters other than the maximisation of profit.

So while we will not give the exhaustive—and the select committee didn’t recommend—list of things, such as Te Tiriti, the environment impacts, high standards of ethical behaviour, fair and equitable employment practices, and recognising the interests of the wider community, while we had chosen to cross that out, we think that giving a non-exhaustive list of just being able to say that they may consider other matters other than maximisation of profit was the best way to respond to the submissions that we had heard.

During the select committee process, I had asked specifically of some of the advice around whether or not there have been cases brought to the courts to see whether or not people could be liable when they’re not acing to maximise profits. So we were given the case—and my computer’s now not playing; well, it shows that a millennial doesn’t always have a way with tech; I shouldn’t have touched that, but OK—of a Supreme Court judgment on section 131 of the Companies Act, which is Debut Homes v Copper. So the judgment, basically, is just saying that the shareholders can consider other issues apart from just the maximisation of profit. I think that goes back to my colleague who is the sponsor of this bill, Camilla Belich, in her opening speech, and making sure that we codify what is already there in common law. I think this is what we seek to do to make sure that those people who sit on boards, who are directors of companies, who might be in a state where they exist for different reasons as well—and it’s not just for profit but also they might want to be a responsible company, they might want to be a good corporate citizen in dealing with some of those things in our world. We know that this world today is very different to that of 20 years ago; we want our corporate citizens to behave better, to have responsibility for looking after our environment, fulfilling their Treaty obligations, and making sure that we are able to look after all of their employees as well. So being able to codify the case law that we already have—I think that’s really good.

But also just noting that it is not uncommon for a case brought against a director to allege a breach of section 131, as well as section 135 as “Reckless trading”, or section 137, the duty of care and skill. So this is the advice that we had given.

So if we turn it around and say that if we don’t pass this bill, there will still be directors who are liable to lawsuits under this, even though the case law has now so far been proven—and this is the Supreme Court; so one of the most authoritative case laws has already been produced, but that is not necessarily known by everyone. So there will still be shareholders out there who don’t think that their board of directors or any of their other directors are acting to maximise profits—they might still actually have that chance to bring a law suit against their directors, and that is, frankly, saying it’s absolutely a waste of our legal resources. It’s a waste of our courts’ time. It’s a waste of lawyers fees. So by being able to amend one small member’s bill, we’re able to actually save a lot of that court time, a lot of that dead weight lost in our economy as well—so making sure that companies no longer have that friction and that understanding between their shareholders and their directors.

So it was really nice to be able to hear from a lot of the NGOs, especially, who came to us and said, “Well, we actually do hope that our companies actually really need to up their game as well.” So during the select committee process, we were able to hear some of the submitters who think that, actually, this bill didn’t go far enough, that this bill needed to actually put that onus on to companies to say, “Well, as a company, not only do you have to consider your own bottom line, your own profitisation, but also you need to be able to consider the environment or have that active consideration of environmental issues but also have that active consideration of, for instance, your employment issues, have that active consideration of other social issues such as Te Tiriti as well.” While the select committee didn’t, in the end, follow that line of reason and we didn’t completely agree with them, I can see where they’re going.

So, I think, for the benefit of the House and to put that as a balanced debate, in the end, the select committee was trying really hard to find a balance somewhere. We weren’t going to go down that you have to actively consider these issues and nor were we saying that—and the status quo right now is that all you can consider and all you have to consider is profit.

I absolutely agree with my colleague who has just resumed his seat, saying that, right now, companies are in this environment where they can’t just consider their profits, whether it’s social media, whether it’s the awakening of the biggest groups of consumers, the citizens that they’re trying to serve and the market that they’re trying to play to, we know that consumers are now demanding different things. When we buy products, we know that we want to see sustainability. Obviously, “greenwashing” is a whole different topic we need to talk about, but at least we know that consumers have that expectation.

So this bill is one where we have to make sure that there is that freedom and availability for them to be able to consider that, even though, maybe sometimes, it is not the most, for instance, cost-saving. So the example we hear all the time is if you had two products—and I think elections are about to come up, so members of this House would know that, for instance, if we have an organic printing material versus one that is not, then, obviously, the organic printing material—I think it’s soy ink, if I remember correctly—is going to cost us a lot more than that which isn’t. So being able to choose something that we know is actually better for the environment, even though it might not be the best for our pockets or our campaign accounts, we know we’ve done the right thing for the environment. So using that analogy on to companies, we know that not everything that we choose for the environment is necessarily always the right economic decision, but we know in the grand scheme of things it’s going to better for our lives, it’s going to be greater for the planet, it’s going to contribute to our wellbeing.

So to save the courts from having to deal with cases that are already settled law, in terms of making sure that our corporate citizens play their part in our community, I commend this bill to the House.

TAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): I’m extremely enthusiastic—in fact, pumped—today to speak to this bill. Nothing stokes the fire of a former corporate lawyer more than talking about corporate law. It’s like that famous bar room line in Hood Street in Hamilton: “That’s enough about me, what do you think of me?” It’s great to see all the lawyers out there—some of whom are leaving—opining on companies legislation.

The purpose of this bill, which is to make it clear that a company director can consider matters other than profit maximisation—what those matters are we don’t know yet—is one that really provokes me. Actually, I don’t know any credible director worth their position that does not do this already. What those matters are remain the purview of those directors in place at the time, and they need to contend with those. In fact, in some instances there’s more C and E than S and G—there’s more culture and environment than social and governance—at other times there’s more culture and governance and less environment and social, and, of course, there are a few other things like language that can play into the heart of decision making: is it going to be a reo Māori one, a reo Pākehā one, or a reo Wīwī one?

On inquiry and looking more closely into the proposed legislation, I’m profoundly cautious—cautious that I don’t have a slip and fall accidentally on the side here, too; I’ll move this way. Section 131 of the Companies Act states that when directors exercise powers or perform duties, she or he “must act in good faith and in what the director believes to be in the best interests of the company.”, and common law—fiduciary law—also dictates and implores these similar expectations.

Current legislation provides that a director of a company commits an offence if he or she acts in bad faith towards the company while believing his or her conduct is not in the best interests of the company and will cause serious loss. The proposed provisions add nothing but text: “To avoid doubt, in considering the best interests of a company or holding company for the purposes of this section, a director may consider matters other than the maximisation of profit.” So you can consider anything, and that’s about as good as saying you consider nothing. As my former form teacher Fred Jackson, brother of Syd and Moana, would say, “Too vague, boy, too vague.”

The wording in this bill is a mishap, e hoa mā. It’s really unclear what the pātai is that this whakautu is trying to answer.

Directors’ duties—they’re sourced in common law, fiduciary law, and sometimes statute. They’re codified. They include acting in good faith, acting in the best interests of the company, acting for proper purpose, exercising independent judgment, avoiding conflicts of interest—very topical today—maintaining and keeping records, and complying with the Companies Act and related legislation, and these are fundamental to the credible corporate governance of companies.

B corporations are already set up to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, transparency. In my various roles and responsibilities, I’ve had the great privilege to sit along and to listen to various sages, diverse warriors of corporate governance practice in New Zealand, people like Rob McLeod and Joanna Perry, who have demonstrated a professionalism and diligence in their daily decision-making for Tainui Group Holdings. They had the temerity and the audaciousness to drive Tainui Group Holdings forward with The Base retail centre in Hamilton West—if you haven’t been there—residential developments at Rotokauri and Five Crossroads, various hotel developments like the Pullman Te Arikinui, the Novotel Auckland Airport, and the Novotel Tainui in Hamilton West, and the mother of all logistics developments, known as the Ruakura Superhub.

Those people made decisions monthly to move the economic dials, and they considered financial and non-financial implications during option analysis and, ultimately, resolutions. They did not need a statutory provision to tell them what they needed to do; they just did it.

My life as a board secretary would never be the same after one board meeting with either of those two people and others that I got to know. Backed up then as the first trainee CEO of Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, the Ngāi Tai nation, iwi karoro inu tai [the governor from Maraetai], with James Brown, or Hemi Paraone—not the dancer, but the governor from Maraetai—John Robertson, a former colleague of y’all in this House, and Anita Killeen and the indomitable Billy Brown, who instilled a genuine sense of practical intuition into decision making by governors.

Governance ambitions were inevitably disproportionate to their financial capacity, but this did not phase them. It was, in fact, the very fearlessness that drove the decision making through the history and herstory of Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki to do quite unusual things, like buying Macleans College, worth $120 million, in Bucklands Beach—a great place—

David Seymour: Macleans?

TAMA POTAKA: —great place—when they only had a $25 million asset base. Their notion of cultural and E, S, and G decision-making was hard-wired. They did not need a statute to tell them what to do.

What they and others showed me was that excellent governance practice is not driven out of amorphous statutory provisioning that jumps on the road to nowhere, but, rather, from a credible decision-making framework, an awareness of statutory and common law duties required for company decision-making, and a careful balancing of the various factors that enable a genuine and accurate assessment of risk and reward over time. Masters Woodhouse, McKelvie, Ms Kuriger, and others know this, and, deep down, I’m confident that Ms Belich and my former academic colleague Minister Webb know this too.

The legislation design and advisory committee of the New Zealand Law Society and others have all said that this is unnecessary. It could have unintended consequences, and it could give rise to more judicial activism, and that’s all we need! Imagine all the legal beagles barking around the legislative dishes today as we get a real doozy, a game-changer, for directors to completely adjust their behaviour. The bill continues to reinforce this Government’s modus operandi. It knows everything and knows best—omniscience—it wields power to achieve its own objectives, however wayward—omnipotence—and it will make up solutions and see things that just don’t exist—hallucinatory.

I’ve said this before in the House and elsewhere: the best people to run businesses are business, not govt.nz, whether or not that’s from Tukituki or Northcote, and certainly not one ideologically driven agenda. Our view is that many governors already consider these matters in their decision making—that is, all matters, profit maximisation and others. It’s already in their best interests as organisations to do so, and therefore this bill is not necessary. Our learned colleagues, much more so than others—much more learned than ourselves on these matters—from auspicious organisations such as the Law Society oppose this bill, and so do we. Their guidance has been received and it will take some boldness—some boldness—by the Government to say, “No, we know best. We know what directors should do in making decisions. In fact, we might even make their decisions for them.”, because that’s the next stage of this slippery slope.

A likely theme for this Government that does nothing to fortify corporate governance practices and does everything to make things more squishy, squashy, and foggy: why not use guidance or training materials from the Government to help educate directors, and give some of those 1,400 bureaucrats something to do? The Institute of Directors and others are already training people in this space. The NZX listing rules have given guidance. Most importantly, the best interests of the company are just that—best interests.

Folks, we’re on a slippery slope. Yesterday, I got the ACC reporting function past the opposition goalie; today, it’s an unusual and uninteresting obligation on directors; and tomorrow, ko wai ka hua, ko wai ka tohu [and tomorrow, who can say]? A well-meaning waste of time. It’s like having me, a guy who’s flat on āmine, trying to sing in the whānau band—a nice idea, but not a good one.

Like Linda Ronstadt, I don’t know much, but I know I love law, and as a former corporate lawyer with a trifle of experience, I feel as though this provision creates wide space for judicial activism or misinterpretation. As such, it’s an uncertainty that I’m unwilling to concur with, and tonight, on this dark Wednesday night, I oppose the bill. Kia ora tātou.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Tonight, Madam Speaker, “I’m going to be”—I’m not sure, actually, but it felt like a sort of a game show that was just going on across the other side of floor there. I feel like it was a bit of a game show where obviously there was a dessert challenge, or something; you’d get so many different names or words or who knows? Anyway, tonight I am going to be Glen Bennett, and I’m going to speak in favour of this simple and small piece of legislation which—the fear seems to be shaking across the other side of the floor as the previous speaker, Tama Potaka, talked about things like the “slippery slope”. I’m not sure where the slippery slope’s going, but it does confuse me. Or the “slushy and foggy”—the “hallucinogenics of this legislation”, which I’m thinking maybe it’s something he had for dinner. But the hallucinogenics across the other side of the floor is something to consider; I won’t be having dessert with him any time soon.

We support this member’s bill. It’s simple, it’s something to not be afraid of because, yes, it’s abundantly clear that companies are to be good corporate citizens. Companies are required to act in the best interests of their shareholders, and many of them do, and I totally agree when we’re looking at this legislation I really agree that companies need to make sure they’re doing right by their shareholders, by their people, by the environment.

I am here because I want to see this nation better than it was when I first arrived in this place. And so I am really grateful to be here speaking on this because this is only words, as I said from across the other side of the room; only words, but words matter—words matter. And so, yes, we need to get things right when it comes to corporate responsibility, and that is why we support this member’s bill. The Hon Dr Duncan Webb, the Hon Rachel Brooking, and—I’m guessing, shortly, because obviously whoever touches this bill turns to an Honourable—the soon to be Hon Camilla Belich, but who knows.

But this year I was on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee and we did explore, and we did, I think, as a committee, we disagreed. I agree that we had disagreements on this, but I think we made changes, we did things that we thought were right in terms of bringing it back to the House in better order than we first found it.

Section 131 sets out the duty of a director or of a company when exercising powers or performing duties to act in good faith and in what the director believes to be the best interests of the company. And that’s why, you know, we talked about it and we explored it and the legislation came as it was. Because 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, this was something that often wasn’t thought through. All it was was around the bottom line of making money. We didn’t care what effects or impacts our business had on people, had on the environment.

David Seymour: Looks at the clock: oh, six more minutes.

GLEN BENNETT: I’m not even looking at the clock so I’m looking forward to checking it shortly to see how far I’ve got through.

But it was a different time. And I do remember growing up in the wonderful 1970s and 1980s and the difference that business had in that time. Earlier this evening we discussed alcohol reform and I mentioned around our tobacco industry and the difference it was—

Simon Court: Future Minister.

GLEN BENNETT: I mean, a future Minister, that’s something that, you know, I’d be considering in my third or fourth or fifth term as an MP.

But we change, we move, and we manoeuvre as a society. And words matter, that’s why the previous speaker, he had lots of words—words, words. And some of them made sense, some of them—like, for example, when he spoke about how this legislation “provokes him”. It provoked him to respond and to react in such a way that I’m unsure why, because it’s some simple words that can encourage and remind business, that can remind industry, that can remind board members of what is important. And yes, as I’ve said, there’s bottom lines, but we need to consider the environmental and the social governance—the ESG, should I say.

Now, I look at some of the examples around the world that have been implemented, and I looked at this, and obviously the United Kingdom back in 2006, and then there was the Anderson Lloyd on overseas regimes and what they looked at in terms of this piece of legislation. New Zealand wouldn’t be the first country to endorse the stakeholder approach at law. As I said, the United Kingdom required it for directors to have regard to ESG factors. Back in 2006, they passed that law. And section 172 of that Act proposed a mandatory duty on directors to promote the success of the company—to promote the success of the company—by taking into account similar considerations as those listed in the bill. The consideration—as in the United Kingdom’s case is mandatory—of the weight that directors must give to the factors is subjective. And so that’s where we need to look and to explore what this legislation would mean when it comes to companies and the director’s duties. And that’s why I think it is good for us to have a conversation, as a member’s bill, and to find a way forward where this can be something that is in legislation moving New Zealand forward.

We have things to do, we’ve got work to do on this, and I look forward to the committee of the whole House. I’ve already started writing notes and preparing my contributions for that. I look forward to it. I hope that everyone will be there for that.

But we’re moving as a society and a nation. We’re leaning into things like Te Tiriti like we’ve never leaned in before. We’re leaning into things like looking at our environmental footprint. We’re leaning into things around future generations, which so often, as companies, we didn’t. So often, we looked at the bottom dollar for today and for this year’s shareholder meeting, this year’s, you know, checking our bank account to see how we’ve done. But I’m glad that we’re now looking and saying, “You know, what is it in 2050?” If we look back on the impact that my company had not only on today but in years to come. That’s why I think as a community, as a society, this legislation is simple and important because it moves us forward. You know, very much around—we had stakeholders, we moved from the short-term to the long-term aims. We look at the winning it for me right now whereas we look at the “us” and how do we move forward together. And I know that the other side of the House rolls their eyes when we talk about community, when we talk about connection, when we talk about taking people with us. And I can hear that, obviously, I’m taking the room with me this evening as I can see that people are flipping their votes as I speak!

But I feel confident that we can we can take this and make it into the right form. And as I get shouted at from across the room from the National Party and the ACT Party, shouts of applause and excitement from this side of the House—come on, please, that was a cue—it didn’t work! They make silly comments around how this isn’t going to do anything or make an impact, and then they do make comments around my leadership in New Plymouth. And it’s interesting because in the newspaper yesterday, and today on Seven Sharp, there’s comments around the ACT Party and around the National Party for their illegal use of electioneering, which has to be removed. So that side of the House obviously is discussing things and think that maybe this bill doesn’t actually do much but they need to look at their own backyard first before they make us make a decision.

So it was good to be part of the committee to hear the submissions and to explore what this could look like. Again, I want to thank the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, the Hon Rachel Brooking, and I also want to thank Camilla Belich for bringing this to the House. I look forward to it going into the committee stage.

The Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment is something that we will be supporting, that I personally will be supporting. Words matter and the words that we have created and we will continue to create are important. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Let me begin by putting in a human rights complaint. Whoever is the Labour whip who forced that member to speak for the full 10 minutes after it was obvious he was drowning after the first 30 seconds, with nothing to say whatsoever that would not embarrass him in ways that would be played back again and again and again, if anyone cared, should be subject to a human rights complaint.

While I’m concerned about people’s rights, I also want to give my commiserations and condolences to Camilla Belich, who has taken the ultimate hospital pass. You know, one of the better souls and brighter stars of the Labour Party, who has had a successful legal career—why on earth she is championing this bill can only be put down to the strange machinations of the Labour Party that explain the Mt Albert selection.

Of course, this bill has its genesis in something that I was amused to find in the Parliamentary Library’s debate pack—and we have to thank the Parliamentary Library for putting together these debate packs. It starts with a very haunting paragraph which is headed “The trigger”—ha, ha; Madam Speaker, you’ll have to forgive me. It says, “Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb, sponsor of the bill”—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Great MP—great MP.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —“says the crystallising”—we’ll come to that member—“factor that led him to draft the bill was a view expressed in Parliament about Air New Zealand by ACT Party leader David Seymour.”, and he goes on to describe how I explained in a speech to this House that the duty of directors is to maximise the returns to their shareholders within the framework of laws that are made by this House to govern New Zealand. If the Parliament has made the laws well, and the laws that we have ensure that people can’t take advantage of each other by force or fraud, can’t undermine the commons by environmental pollution, and can’t abuse human rights, which this Parliament has done, then what is left is for those who find themselves as directors to make sure that they act in the best interests of their shareholders within that framework that this Parliament has set apart.

The difficulty for people who support bills like this is that if it is true that Parliament has done its job—and this Government’s been in power for almost six years now—and ensured that the regulatory environment in which firms operate is adequate, then it shouldn’t be necessary for firms to follow other rules and objectives than doing the best for their shareholders. If, on the other hand, it is necessary for directors of firms to fulfil a whole lot of other objectives, then maybe that tells us that, actually, the Parliament has failed in its attempts to get its regulatory settings correct, which would be a strange admission for a party that’s been in power for six years.

Now, of course, the hospital pass received by Camilla Belich was passed on by none other than Dr Duncan Webb, and Duncan goes on to protest too much. He goes on to talk about, in his submission, his experience as a lawyer—his experience. All I can say is lots of people have experiences, but I don’t think Duncan Webb’s have been very good, and anyone who spends a bit of time in Christchurch will say that when he left his law firm there was quite a lot of tidying up to be done by the other—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will come back to this bill.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —partners. Thank you, Madam Speaker. In fact, that can be seen in this particular bill—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —because the select committee—oh, here we go.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: That was a slur, and I would request that Mr Seymour apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The member will withdraw and apologise.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I withdraw and apologise, but they don’t like it up ’em, and it can be seen—the sloppiness that led to those problems can also be found in the drafting of this bill, because the bill, you know, is not a very lengthy one. It’s not a very lengthy one at all. It’s a total of five sections. It is, in total, if you count the white space at the top, less than one page, and yet the substantive part of the bill, when it went to a select committee, all of the substance had to be crossed out and replaced with a new section that was one paragraph. So this guy makes himself out to be some sort of legal genius, and his drafting, inspired by my speech, was, as it turns out, completely hopeless and had to be entirely replaced by the select committee. Some people thought the previous speech from Labour was embarrassing, but what is truly embarrassing is the lawyer, or so-called lawyer, who was responsible for the drafting of this bill and what has subsequently happened to it.

But there are more important and substantial reasons to oppose this legislation than the frankly embarrassing presentations by the members tonight and the member originally responsible for it. You see, they have misunderstood the developments of human rights in a free society that has grown up over hundreds of years. Let me spell it out. There was a time when a person, in order to exercise their rights and duties as a member of society, had to fit a very narrow window. Usually, it would be helpful to have a certain religious view, to be a man, to be a landowner, to be born a certain way, to have a certain sexuality. If you weren’t the right type of person, the rights you had were very limited, and they were limited in large part because there were prejudices about who could perform what role in society.

The limited liability company, the idea that a person has a right to transact, that they are only valued based on whether they follow the law that applies equally to everyone and whether their investors and their customers and their employees agree to transact with them, was a miracle of enlightenment. It was a central plank of the Enlightenment that each person could act and be judged upon the value they provided rather than the prejudices which had excluded people from participating in society for so long. The limited liability company was a revolution in human rights. It allowed people to come along to the table and share their ideas and trade value for value regardless of who they were. It made possible the idea that adults would come together voluntarily to provide through cooperation what could not be provided alone. Entrepreneurs with ideas, investors with savings as capital, workers with time to give, and customers with needs could all come together voluntarily and trade value for value regardless of who they were.

What we see today is a reversal of that breakthrough in human rights and advancement of human welfare and prosperity in what is known as stakeholder capitalism: the idea that you only have a right to participate in commerce if the new-age priests tick you off as having met the right precepts. Perhaps you have to be the right identity to fill a quota. Perhaps you have to have the right views on certain issues. Perhaps you have to have the right commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi. Perhaps you have to be the person that is approved by the prevailing views of the time. It’s no longer the value that you offer to those three other types of people, whether you be entrepreneur, customer, investor, or worker. It comes down to other people’s judgment of you, and that is why this bill is most retrograde—to use some Shakespeare, there’s been a lot tonight—to the desire of New Zealanders to be a free people who trade value for value and get stronger together without bigotry or prejudice.

That’s why this bill is not just a little bit wrong; it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what has made New Zealand and countries like it successful, a misunderstanding of free markets and capitalism, and a misunderstanding of human rights by a failed lawyer who doesn’t like it up him, but failed he has. That’s why we oppose this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Always great to get a human rights lecture from people who want to disestablish the Human Rights Commission.

I’m not a company lawyer; I was put off company law by precisely the sort of discussion that we’ve had tonight. I was put off because I grew up in the 80s, when it was “Greed is Good” and Gordon Gekko was king. As a result, I ended up in the highly profitable business of the Family Court.

But what we are talking about tonight—for those of us who aren’t corporate lawyers, like me—is a bit of a recap. We’re talking about putting a section into the Companies Act that would include in the directors duties that directors have to take into account when they’re making decisions about their company, a provision that says, essentially, “It’s not just about the obvious short-term interests of maximising profit for your shareholders; directors have the right and it is appropriate for them to consider longer-term interests.”

The original form of this bill—as it was presented first by the excellent and very learned Dr Duncan Webb, and then taken up, I believe, by the also excellent and very learned Rachel Brooking, and now by my friend, colleague, and also very learned lawyer Camilla Belich—specified what those additional interests might be. So it talks about society, about economy, about the environment.

The version that’s come back from the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee is a bit more limited. It just says, very simply, “a director may consider matters other than the maximisation of profit.” What this is setting out, though—despite Mr Seymour’s rather limited view of history—is part of quite a longstanding argument about how companies best do business and what their function is.

It is a conflict that goes between the profiteer shareholder model that talks about the maximisation of profit, and another model that is gaining traction that is sometimes referred to as the enlightened shareholder or stakeholder model. In the one, you’re looking for sheer profit maximisation; in the other, you’re looking for a company that might want to take into consideration longer-term issues.

It might see, as part of its company’s value, things that, while they do not immediately create profit, do—in the longer term—safeguard the company. That’s what this is fundamentally about. It’s about whether there is a way, and is it appropriate for, Government to try to incentivise and encourage the enlightened shareholder stakeholder model over the “Greed is good” Gordon Gekko profiteering alone motive. Had I known, when I was a young law student, about this, I might have been more encouraged to take corporate law. Because the fact is we have some fantastic companies who already follow the enlightened shareholder model.

For example, Patagonia recently made waves—they are one of the world’s largest outdoor apparel brands and they make a heck of a lot of money. But they reflected—and I think one of the slogans that turns up in Patagonia’s stores is “There are no profits to be made on a dead planet.” This company, which is family-owned, divested themselves—the family divested itself of all but 2 percent of the shares—and it put 98 percent of the shares into not-for-profit environmental organisations.

Now, on the face of it, that is not maximising profit for shareholders. On the enlightened stakeholder model that holds that companies have an interest in wider relationships with the rest of society—and, looking around, says a dead planet ain’t good for profits, particularly when you’re an outdoor apparel company—this is a longer-term view which does make sense in terms of their profit.

But what interests me is this isn’t a modern thing. We’ve had this conflict since the beginning. So it was the famous Milton Friedman who said, “The social responsibility of a business is to increase its profits.” But who’s the greatest capitalist? We all know the beginning of the model. What about Henry Ford, if you look to that sheer, big company model that we now know? In 1915, Henry Ford was sued by his own shareholders. What he had tried to do was to take fewer shareholder profits and put some of those profits into increasing the pay and the living conditions of his workers, and reducing the price of the cars he was producing for the consumer.

He was sued by his own shareholders, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared for those shareholders. They said it was not part of a director’s responsibility to consider the wider stakeholders in society; their duty was simply—as Milton Friedman put it—to increase its profit. But other courts, over the years, have taken a different view and this is where we see the sort of thing that we’re talking about with this bill.

In 1989, Time magazine was considering two competing bids: one was from Warner, one was from Paramount. Paramount was offering more money, but Time felt that Warner would actually protect its key value, which was journalistic integrity. They went with Warner; they were sued by their shareholders, who said, “You should have taken the deal that gave us more immediate profit.” The court said, “No, it was entirely appropriate for the directors to consider the wider stakeholders.”

It is possible for both views to coexist. But while there are these great companies, the problem is they’re not all doing the things that we would want them to do; they are not all being good corporate citizens. So we have Bhopal—the world’s worst industrial disaster—where a chemical spill on a badly maintained plant resulted in 3,787 immediate deaths and around 574,000 longer-term deaths. We have the British and American tobacco companies who buried evidence of cancer as a result of smoking. We have the oil and gas industry, who, it appears, have known about global warming and their part in it since the 60s, but buried the information so they could go on making profit.

Right down to things like the companies like Gap or Primark or Next and H&M, who were discovered to be using garment factories in Bangladesh and Pakistan over the last 10 or so years where there had been appalling factory fires with factory owners who were maximising profit. They were producing the clothes cheaply, and Primark and Gap and these other companies chose profit over this enlightened stakeholder model.

How do we grapple with this? As we look around us and we see climate change overtaking us and we are starting to see people suing those oil and gas companies—particularly in the EU—suing those companies for failures in corporate citizenship, do we leave this situation to play out? Other countries have chosen to encourage companies to take that wider perspective. In the UK in 2006—has been said. Strangely, the UK economy does remain and I haven’t heard anyone suggest that their companies are less than free. Even Singapore—it’s being discussed.

If we bring in this law—and if it makes it morally easier for one director in one company faced with one decision that will either create profit or maximise the wider interests of stakeholders around the community, protect our awa, protect our moana, protect the health of our children and the future of this planet, then I say this law is worth doing.

Sometimes, Parliament’s job is not to put in regulatory systems; sometimes, our job is to lead by encouragement. When we live in a world where we have all grown up under the “greed is good” mantra, when directors are going to be told and they are told, “Your duty to your stakeholders is profit; you cannot take that wider perspective as to the way in which a company should operate.”, when we live in that world and we need it to shift—we need it to shift—that is where a bill like this can really offer us hope. It can offer us example, and I personally commend it to the House.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to acknowledge the talent that many people have in filling those 10 minutes with a speech, but I do want to commend the previous speaker, Dr Emily Henderson, who I think has been the one that has managed to fill the whole slot with actually speaking to the values of the bill.

Hearing, though, Mr Seymour, I wanted to reflect on some of his comments because it feels to me that one of the ACT Party’s arguments for opposing this bill is that we have now got a world where anyone—queer or no matter your gender or your ethnic background—can become a company director and therefore capitalism is working just as intended. Therefore, we do not need to make legislation to actually ensure—or, actually, this bill is not even ensuring—the possibility that directors may consider, for the avoidance of doubt, other things other than maximising profit. I mean, we support this bill but I do not think this is some radical idea, and by no means by reforming capitalism we are going to get out of a climate crisis, but it just goes to show where each party’s priorities lie in that some people just seem to be OK with this status quo and kind of almost pink-washing capitalism by suggesting that because previously people of specific sexualities could not have become company directors and now they can, that everything is fine, and this is not needed.

As the select committee process went through for this bill—and I acknowledge that we don’t have a Green member in this select committee, but I looked at the submissions—I was none the less disappointed to see that in the select committee report there was a recommendation to take out some of the suggestions, actually, of the things that should be considered because they were great suggestions, and I do think—to echo what the previous Labour member was speaking about in terms of leading the way, the encouragement—actually by having a list of items that could have been considered, including environmental wellbeing, you are actually encouraging it in the right direction.

Several submitters, actually, including The Environmental Law Initiative, NZEI Te Riu Roa, Lawyers for Climate Action New Zealand, the New Zealand Public Service Association, Unite Union spoke at length of the need to perhaps not just say that they “may” want to consider other things other than maximising profit, but that perhaps company directors “must” consider other things beyond maximising profit. I want to sort of echo those, because unless we start genuinely forcing companies to look at other things other than maximising profits, those other things may just be “good to haves”. Looking after our environment, looking after workers, looking after our communities, and honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi are not just “nice to haves”. They are things that should be happening and therefore company directors should be doing, and so we support the submitters who were calling for a strengthening of this bill rather than a removal of these considerations.

While we, of course, support the intent of the bill, which is to add clarity that company directors may be able to consider these other things, we could have gone way further in not just encouraging capitalism, but to actually twist capitalism’s arm into doing things that are good for the planet and the people to, I guess, expose those tensions that exist—inherent tensions that exist in our economic system—that actually may finally bring to light the fact that—

Simon Court: Is this what you meant, Dr Webb—twisting capitalism’s arm?

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —a sustainable planet and the wellbeing of our workers is just simply not compatible with the current economic system that we have. And yes, actually twisting capitalism’s arm because we’ve got to. To imagine—

Simon Court: Each Minister will be turning up with a little green book, waving it in your face.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: I kind of love the red-baiting from the right hand side of the House, because they always make our political party sound way cooler than sometimes we are. Like, you know, I kind of love it when they call Labour members “socialists”, and I sometimes go “Damn, like, I really wish they were actually were socialists.” But by all means, by all means.

Simon Court: Turns out they’re teenage capitalists, Riccardo, and we’re proud of them.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: By all means, continue making us look cool—

Simon Court: And shareholders in capitalist companies; that’s what we’ve learnt this week.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Yeah, and indeed, I do think recent events may want to help us all consider where our interests lie and whether it is to simply—thank you for giving me all these talking points, too—just encourage company directors to do the right things or to force them to do the right things. I heard the concerns around, you know, this bill potentially encouraging more court actions, and that creating more barriers and problems. But actually, if it means that civil society can hold corporates to account for not doing the right thing, I don’t think that’s inherently a bad thing because we should be testing these things out in court. I don’t resonate with those concerns because we do need to start forcing the people who hold the power to make the right choices and to expose what is driving them to be in those places in the first place.

So the Green Party will be supporting the bill. We don’t support the what I would consider watering down of the bill in the select committee stage, and would encourage Labour to hear those submissions out, to strengthen it, to actually not just say “may” but “must” consider other things beyond maximising profits.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you, honourable Madam Speaker. Can I just say, first of all, I had no idea that Ricardo Menéndez March was a comic genius, but there you go. You learn something every day. And also thank you to my colleagues Rachel Brooking and Camilla Belich, who have been shepherding this bill through the process after I introduced it.

It comes as quite a surprise to see the amount of agitation on the other side of the House in respect of this gentle little bill, this small nudge towards social responsibility that the bill requests—doesn’t even request, just, perhaps, asks, just gently suggests of corporations. And in fact, the fascinating thing is that what this bill asks, what this bill says is permitted, or would be permitted, by corporate entities, is what every self-respecting, decent, forward looking and modern corporate entity is doing already.

The vitriol that came from the leader of the ACT Party seemed to miss entirely one word in this piece of legislation. He derided it for being short, but missed three letters in the bill: m-a-y—may—that a company “may take into account”. This is not even a compulsory piece of legislation, but, simply, a clarification that it is open to company directors, when looking at what is in the best interests of the company, to take into account wider matters, whether it be Te Tiriti or whether it be environmental matters, whether it be social or employee relations. And here we have the full power of the ACT Party, railing against social responsibility, calling it—Damien Smith, in the first reading—Marxism. Well, not only does he need a lesson in history and economics but he also needs to read the bill. Because all this does is to say that company directors, when looking to what is in the interests of the company, may look not just at dividends, not just at what happens today, but to take a long-term view.

And we know today—well, only recently, we’ve issued standards for the External Reporting Board to say that we need to take into account climate matters—how climate adaptation is going on, what are the climate risks of a company? Any company that does not take that into account is not doing right by its shareholders.

So what is wrong? Why are they so fearful—why are they so fearful—of recognising that a company doesn’t sit in some economic vacuum but sits within a community, that what it does impacts—impacts—its shareholders, its employees, its creditors, and the community in which it sits. And so when directors turn their mind to the question of “What should we do next?”, what’s so very wrong with asking the question, “How will this affect others?” The days of radical individualism are gone; the days of connectedness and community are ahead of us. And so that is the corporate governance we expect.

Whilst there are some who are stuck in the past—I can’t deny it, I saw them at the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, I read their submissions and listened to them, the legalistic type who think that only what is in black and white and letters on a page counts; certainly, they were there. But people that I spoke to who recognised that companies have impact and purpose, that directors have impact and purpose, saw that this bill was a small step, and many of them said not a large enough step in the direction of recognising that companies have responsibilities and are corporate citizens and citizens as well. And as citizens, we can rightly expect them to act properly—with ethics.

Now, we are not asking them to live up to some super rocketry standard, something more than we expect of an ordinary citizen. All we are saying is, “Turn your mind to this.” Ask yourself this question: if you embark on this course of action, will it degrade our environment? Will it degrade our society? Will it undermine our families? Will it make us poorer?

Hon Peeni Henare: And what is the cost?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: What are the costs, Minister Henare? That’s exactly right. Because a company is in a symbiotic relationship with our community and society. A strong society leads to a strong economy, and a strong economy leads to strong businesses and companies. But we seem to have forgotten, on the other side of the House, that we are connected. We are not radically individualistic. We are not islands unto ourselves. We rely on each other—we are a community. And I embrace those companies who recognise that. I embrace those businesses that recognise that we rely on them as they rely on us. That is all that this legislation does.

So I find I struggle—I struggle—with the argument that, in some way, this is a radical departure. In fact, there was a moment in time in the 1970s and early 1980s when neo-liberalism was in the ascendant, when we thought that all that mattered was the rights of the individual and the maximisation of profits, and some people in this House, some parties in this House, are stuck in a time warp. They are stuck in the past and we have moved on. The 1990s have arrived, Brooke van Velden. The 1990s have arrived and we’ve woken up from our slumber. And so all we are saying is that, in this situation, in the modern era, a good company director doesn’t simply look at the balance sheet, doesn’t simply look at the numbers; they look at all of the other bottom lines: the environmental bottom line, the social bottom line, and the community bottom line. We run our Budget in this way. We look at the wellbeing of the whole of New Zealand. And any company should look at the wellbeing not just of what’s going on in the office and on the balance sheet but in the community that serves them and that they serve.

So I was surprised, I must admit I was—and I do thank the select committee for their deliberations. I appeared in front of the select committee, but I was very surprised that—and I’m not sure if it’s unprecedented, but very unusual—the committee gave no report of substance. It was unable to agree. So even though the committee turned its mind to listen to a number of submission and took considerable advice, they didn’t actually come back to the House with any substantive recommendations. I’m a little disappointed that that was the case. And it has fallen to my friend and colleague Camilla Belich to pick this up. And I know that she will be looking very carefully at what the select committee said, but also what a number of submitters said about how the bill should proceed.

Can I just say that I’m very pleased that I brought this to the House, but, equally, I’m very happy to hand it over to the custodianship of Camilla Belich, who will have her own views and her own improvements of this bill. I’m very happy to do that because this is an important step forward. It may not go as far as the UK has in its own reforms—and other jurisdictions—but I’m surprised that on the other side of the House, who say that they’re the friends of business, they are laggards in equipping businesses in moving into the modern world. So I look forward to seeing this bill progress. I know that there’ll be improvements as it meets the committee of the whole House. I look forward to being in that debate. But for my friends from the ACT Party: I’m simply perplexed that stuck they are in 1982.

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

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s an honour to rise and speak on this little gem, the Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment Bill at the second reading. I’m sure it will do a lot better under the stewardship of Camilla Belich.

I’ve listened to the debates, I’ve been in this House since the dinner break finished, I was summoned by whip to be here, and I’m very thankful that I endured the last hour and a half of debate.

What I’ve been able to ascertain so far from this is that we have a Government that doesn’t actually trust companies to do the right thing. We have heard these examples about how companies have done bad things out there, and of course there are companies out there who have lost their social licence, but the reality is that in the 21st century, we live in an age where, if you do that—guess what? Investors, clients, customers, super funds, everyone else walks away from you and they don’t invest in you and they pull their money and they don’t buy your products or your goods or your services and—guess what? You generally start going out the back door. And shareholders and all of the social media culture that we have at the moment will pinpoint these companies.

I’m very sad to see Anna Lorck leaving, she’s always one of my favourite crowd moments, but there she goes. Thank you, Anna—farewell. And Duncan’s back, so I guess it’s a balance.

As I was saying, you don’t need legislation to tell companies what to do, because companies will act in their own interests and their own interests are in making sure that customers keep coming back to them so that they can maintain their profit margins. If they lose their social licence, the money and the customers walk away, and that’s how this thing works.

I think this is a fairly well-intentioned bill, to give a bit of credit to it, but I think it misguided and I think it is a solution looking for a problem, in a lot of ways. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment did note that there were other ways that this could be dealt with and it didn’t need legislation to achieve that. The Legislative Design and Advisory Committee also recommended that the bill was not necessary.

As I’ve sat here, I’ve thought about a few companies that have been some of the most profitable companies in my lifetime. I go to Apple. Steve Jobs’ vision for Apple wasn’t to be the most profitable company in the world; it was to put a dent in the universe. He went out there and build products that changed people’s lives and he built them in a manner that improved people’s lives. And guess what? As a result of that, Apple thrived.

As you will see in a lot of companies these days, people expect their directors, shareholders expect their directors, customers expect their directors to take into consideration the wellbeing of people, the wellbeing of the environment, the wellbeing of society, and the wellbeing of communities.

I think that is largely already happening. Yes, there will always be outliers, but I don’t think this legislation is going to achieve its intention. I think there are already natural measures in place to ensure that we get to where we need to get to.

My main concern with this bill is that it is risky for directors, because they are now in a situation where they may be taken to court because someone may have determined that they may not have acted accordingly—[Interruption] They can do that, but they already take into account fiduciary duties, Arena Williams. They already do, and I’m glad I got you in Hansard, as well. It’s my little goal for the day.

I don’t think this is necessary in that regard, and I think the drafting of this bill creates more questions that solutions. It doesn’t incentivise companies to be more socially responsible, but it creates uncertainty around what the directors can do and what they’ve committed to and whether they’ve committed an offence.

As a result of this bill, you are going to have situations where directors wind up in court, and it will be for the courts to determine whether the directors have acted accordingly. That is a dangerous situation for directors. I’m not sure that we are in the right space. I appreciate the intent behind it, but I fundamentally don’t think it’s the right way to go about it, and, as I mentioned already, companies are already taking steps to ensure that they are looking after the environment, looking after their communities, looking after society because, guess what? If they don’t, the money walks away.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s been interesting to sit in the House since the end of dinner and listen to the robust debate on this particular bill, the Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment Bill.

I had the privilege to travel to Christchurch this morning with other members in the House to the Building Nations conference—one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest infrastructure conferences that takes place. And I met a number of people, consultants, of course, people that are working on infrastructure projects, and many of them would be company directors as well. They will have governance roles, they have leadership roles, many of them CEOs. One of the things I was quite proud of in the discussion point there was around the fact that it came out that $70 billion has been invested in infrastructure under this Government in projects under way—$70 billion—whether that be in hospitals, whether that be in education and schools, whether that be in community facilities. But my part was around transport infrastructure. But I come back to the people that I spoke to today at the conference. They are good people. They are passionate about the things that matter in Aotearoa New Zealand. They’re passionate about our environment. They’re passionate about the social wellbeing of our communities. They’re passionate about our economy.

I guess as I reflect on this particular bill this evening—and I do want to acknowledge a good Northcote Point resident in Camilla Belich for the work that she has done on this, bringing this to the House, and those people before her: Rachel Brooking, and we heard from Duncan Webb. The work that has been done on this particular bill makes it clear that a company director acting as a mind and will of the company can take actions that take into account wider matters other than the financial bottom line. These are the things that I do believe and agree with many from across the House that people may be doing it already, that they may be interested and passionate about certain areas. I guess where some of the Opposition is coming forward on this bill this evening is that they may see it as a slippery slope or they may see it as a negative thing, where, actually, it’s about recognising the progress that different companies have made in these areas. That we’re not just focused on the profit margin that our organisation or business makes, that we’re actually passionate about the environmental advantages that the work we do brings to our country and to our climate, or to our local wellbeing and communities and the wellbeing—most of all the wellbeing of our communities.

I wanted just to acknowledge one of the readings that I was doing from Selwyn Gordon Coles from the University of Oxford. And some of his conclusions in this particular argument—and it references Dr Webb, of course. And he talks about this bill as “It packs a surprisingly large punch for a little bill.” And I think that’s the point this evening, everyone: it’s that this is a little bill on a significant, big members’ day. And I think it’s important that we don’t overrate, I guess, some of the incremental change that members’ bills can achieve. But he says, “I have argued, however, that the bill exhibits a communicative intent. And while changing nothing about what the law allows for directors, it communicates a deeper message about how directors really ought to act. The message I suggested is to some extent symbolic, and that symbolism carries obvious political advantages in tapping into powerful cultural currents around the proper role of business and society.”

I do believe in supporting business. I do believe that they have a significant role to play in our day-to-day economy, but I also genuinely believe that businesses make a severe and positive impact on the wellbeing of people and the communities that they live in. I commend this bill to the House.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As the last speaker from this side of the House, I’d like to signal that I concur with my colleagues in opposing this bill. I’d like to commend the speeches that were actually made—particularly my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse, who did almost a dissertation on this bill and the reasons why he has actually come to the conclusion of why we don’t submit this. I don’t intend to actually repeat some of the words that he said.

I’d like to also congratulate Government members opposite who have actually dutifully done their full calls. I think it takes a lot of effort for a very tiny member’s bill that literally says, “To avoid doubt, in considering the best interests of a company or holding company for the purposes of this section, a director may consider matters other than the maximisation of profit.” That’s literally it. I think the rule for members’ bills, often, is that it has to be a small bill, that it doesn’t actually have—particularly for Government members—fiscal impact to the Government coffers, and I think that’s often the rule, and we understand how members can be really passionate about this.

But I just wanted to bring attention to what the Hon Duncan Webb, who was the original sponsor of this bill, said—that in this day and age, forward-looking companies are already doing this; meaning that what he is actually wanting this bill to do is already doing this and what the bill asks for.

One of the things that I just want to actually quote is from a stakeholder, Chapman Tripp. It says, “But we hope that the select committee will recommend Dr Webb’s bill not proceed, as it will achieve nothing useful.” That was one of the comments. I can also quote other submissions, but literally what they’re all saying—not all, but what they actually say is that the bill adds nothing to the existing law of directors’ duties, and is a virtue signal to the stakeholder theory of corporate governance.

Even the Supreme Court has confirmed in a judgment that acting in the best-interest test is a subjective one, that the director must act in what the director believes to be in the best interest of the company. Therefore, there is no doubt that a director can, under the current section, take into account factors such as those in the bill that they believe is also in the best interest of the company.

One of the things that Dr Duncan Webb has actually talked about was the bottom line; that people should think about the bottom line in context of things like social responsibility. I guess some of the things that he actually wanted to put in his bill were struck out by the select committee and, actually, we ended up with that last sentence that I quoted from the bill.

But I wish this Government would think about the bottom line for this country when they are doing this, because Labour has wasted so much money, I wish they could—

Ingrid Leary: Stick to the bill.

MELISSA LEE: —actually think about the bottom line. Yes, I am sticking to the bill, because I’m quoting what Dr Duncan Webb has actually talked about: bottom lines. Apparently, businesses only think about bottom lines; I wish the Government would think about the bottom line too, that we create a country that is wealthier, better, kinder—think about our wellbeing, for example, is one of the things that he was talking about.

One of the things that I am really concerned about is the fact that this bill is a pretty inoffensive bill, it’s a tiny bill, and a lot of people have already said that it’s a waste of Parliament’s time. So I wish not to waste Parliament’s time, and I do not support this bill.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): It’s a pleasure to take a call and the last call on this bill. I’d like to congratulate my friends Dr Duncan Webb and Camilla Belich for continuing to bring this bill, because for me, this bill is going to bust the myth that you have to maximise the profit of a company. That’s a myth that has been around my entire life. In 1970, there was a paper published in The Times, and that was the paper which was called A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits. What it said was it said that there was no social responsibility that a company had other than to maximise its profits. That must be done; that’s what its sole purpose must be. That myth shaped the economy. That myth shaped the way that businesses worked.

I looked up the fallacy of maximising a profit, and when I did, I saw that Thomson Reuters had a very good statement of why this fallacy continues, and yes, it does continue today. It continues to shape our businesses and the responses of our directors. What it said was that there are several reasons for this. The first is that there is pressure from heavyweight shareholders for short-term bonuses and profit. That’s what this does. This myth encourages those shareholders to push directors into producing profit at all cost—that’s what it does.

It said that another reason was bonuses and rewards. That is one of the reasons why this fallacy persists. It says that it is an easy metric and it is a simple metric, and it says that a fear of competitors actually making more profit in the short term keeps this alive. It does us damage, because it erodes our environment and it erodes our social responsibility, and it puts directors in a really hard position quite often, because they’ve got to justify to their shareholders why they are not going for the shortest and maximised profit. This is the environment that we have lived in.

Now, I read a book that maybe some of you have read. It’s a book by Yuval Noah Harari called Sapiens, and it was an interesting read. It talked about the development of limited liability companies. What it said was that these were actually part of the evolution of our economy, and they did good for quite some time, because they separated us from our responsibilities, from our moral and social responsibilities—we were separate from them. And they separated the risk in those businesses, because the risk was separated by the limited liability nature. But what he says in the end of that book is that the time has come for us to re-examine that, because it got out of hand. We actually got to the point where we no longer had it in balance any more.

My example for that, and it is a dramatic one, was Pike River, because I remember when Pike River happened and I was an employment lawyer, and I had several friends and relations, in fact, who actually put up—they put up—the argument that it was OK what happened at Pike River, because what actually those company people were doing was they were looking after the shareholders’ interests. That was actually put up as an argument. That was the fallacy in action. That’s where it can lead us, people. That is not where we want to be in modern New Zealand.

The reason why we had the ACT Party slur Dr Duncan Webb, the reason why we had Mr Woodhouse talk about profit and how important that was in terms of its social contribution, was because that fallacy is still around and alive and well, and we have to fight it by nudging. We have to actually make sure that people feel secure when they are directors of companies, and they can actually stand up and say, “These are clearly things that matter. These are things that matter. The environment matters. Social responsibility, the way we treat our staff matters.” These are all things that are legitimate to care about in a company structure, and that’s a very, very good thing.

That is something that is happening in our society, and we should be there as a legislature. And we’re not there with an iron fist; we’re there with a nudge. We are there to support businesses to do that. This particular little change does that. So why is Mr Seymour so frightened of it that he has to slur, that he has to suggest terrible things about people who have happened to be brave enough and creative enough to come and actually reinforce the capacity of our companies to do something that they desperately need to do, as we face an environmental crisis, as we face a need for social growth, because we actually do need those things? It shows to me that I am in the right party, because I am not in a party that is stuck in the 1970s, where several other parties in this House do seem to be stuck. I urge those people to read a little more, to get a little less religious about these beliefs, think through a little more what, in fact, they are saying, because it is very, very important. We stand by our companies when they are innovative and they are brave and they want to do something real and good that isn’t just about maximising short-term profit, because maximising short-term profit is going to actually rip our children off. It’s going to hurt us, it’s going to hurt our environment, and it’s going to make this place a darker place to live, and that is not what we are about.

Now, I wanted just to finish by talking for a minute about other nudges that we’ve had which have worked, because this is a “nudge” piece of legislation. I come from the background of an employment lawyer, and in the employment space, this is what happened with good faith. I’m pretty sure that when good faith was introduced as a principle, there would have been people from the other side of the House saying, “But employers always act with good faith.” Yes, lots of employers do. But isn’t it nice that we introduced a concept like that into legislation and it became the foundation of good employment relations in New Zealand? So I hope that this law, by introducing this concept in this very simple way gives people a foundation in company law to actually do the right thing and to grow and evolve. So I don’t agree with the idea that this does nothing. I think that this does a lot. It is simple. It is elegant. It is supportive of our businesses. That is a very, very important thing at this time.

I hope that we have a law here that will actually stand the test of time, and that in a few years there will be no more fallacy of maximising profit. There will be no more religious adherence to that, even from the right, because the status quo will be, of course, all businesses—all businesses—are perfectly entitled to care about the environment or feeding their children or looking after their workers. That’s the New Zealand I want to live in. And the only way we’re going to live in that New Zealand is if we move on from the 1970s. Thank you. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Companies (Directors Duties) Amendment Bill be read a second time.

Ayes 74

New Zealand Labour 62; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 9; Te Paati Māori 2; Kerekere.

Noes 44

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 5 April.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Very happy to be taking a call on this, the Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill, and can I acknowledge the member that brought it to the House, Brooke van Velden.

The last time we chatted about housing so intensely was when we were tracking through the changes to housing intensification, talking about medium-density residential standards. It was a very important conversation. It was something that we tried to tackle as a cross-party solution, to try to get more houses in across New Zealand. It lately hasn’t—the Opposition have decided to back away from it. The ACT Party, at the time, also didn’t support it. But at the time, the member for the Opposition, Nicola Willis—she brought it to the Environment Committee as something that she believed wholeheartedly in, a way that we could grow more houses in our country and do a better job. The ACT Party didn’t support it at the time, and I would say that it was potentially a mistake, because we still have a real need around our country to be able to build more houses.

One thing that this side of the House have done is that we have introduced the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, which is all about trying to build more houses, because that’s what we’ve got to keep focused on. That’s what this bill does—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, in the meantime, we need a bit of focus on the bill before us too, Mr Coffey.

TĀMATI COFFEY: It is all connected, Mr Speaker, but I’ll come back to it—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, connect them up for me.

TĀMATI COFFEY: I will, I will. Because whether it’s this bill—the Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill—or the initiatives that the current Government are already facing, what we’re all trying to do is get more houses built all around the country in our various communities. So I acknowledge the member for bringing this to the House.

But as far as this side of the House are concerned, we won’t be supporting this bill. We do believe that there are mechanisms within any future Government to be able to do it without changes to legislation. We believe that it has got a very hefty price tag on it. We don’t believe that councils would necessarily be able to triage the GST portion in the way that it’s supposed to be, and intended to be, directed to.

This is a well-meaning, well-intentioned piece of legislation, but it falls short on a lot of fronts. I do want to say that I think that—I definitely acknowledge the fact that the member has brought this to the House in an attempt to try and get more houses built. I don’t believe that this is the way that we should be doing it. I do believe that the policy has the potential to cost about $1.3 billion a year. It’s a lot of money.

On this side of the House, we prefer things like the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund. I know that in Rotorua we were privy to $85 million of that. I know that our local council and our local developers are very happy about that. I know that it’s a way that developers and councils can help with the costs of building these developments. Investment into stormwater upgrades, investments into things like detention dams: these are all things that are currently being done with the systems that we already have, and, therefore, I don’t believe that this bill is needed. For that reason, members on this side, we’ve gotten together, we’ve put our heads together, and thought, “Is there any merit in trying to support this?” We don’t believe that there is. We believe that there’s already mechanisms in place. We’d like to think that the Opposition parties would continue to support the current initiatives that are in place.

With the $85 million that’s going into the Rotorua Lakes Council to be able to help with that infrastructure cost, we’re looking at an additional 3,000 houses in Rotorua. We are desperate for houses. We are desperate for housing. Unfortunately, the member’s part of a party that was part of a regime that ensured that we got rid of our State houses in Rotorua. They’re actually partly responsible for making sure that we were 44 short, after the decade that they were in charge.

So we just need to make sure that we’re following good practice and things that are currently succeeding in our communities to be able to develop good houses. This bill doesn’t do it. This bill falls short. The current initiatives that are in place—and I can tell, from my own experience back home in the geothermal paradise of Aotearoa, that we are currently making moves in that right direction. It’s because of good Government, good solid policy that’s already in place. For that reason, I don’t support this bill. I think it needs a whole lot more work.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Well, it’s a bit of a surprise to be standing and taking a call right at this moment, however I do want to acknowledge—

Shanan Halbert: Back in the 1970s.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Back in the 1970s, obviously. I do want to acknowledge the member Brooke van Velden for having her bill drawn from the ballot and also for bringing the bill to the House.

I am pleased to be talking on the Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill, and, I must say, I missed the beginning speeches last members’ day so I went back over and read the Hansard record of the member’s speech, and I still couldn’t understand that concept or how the member had got to this. So I just want to go through the bill in a little bit more detail. Now, I am a barrister and solicitor, and I do understand legislation and the legislative process, but I can’t for the life of me understand how you have created a system that is so complex for a matter that perhaps could be so simply clarified.

One of the matters in clause 8, the “Housing infrastructure development payments”: “After each financial year, Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities must pay each territorial authority an amount calculated in accordance with the following formula: a = b × c × 0.5”. OK, so we get that. However, that is 67 territorial authorities—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Carry on speaking, Ms Warren-Clark.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Thank you. If you could direct me as to how much time I have at some point, sir. I could go for a long time around this.

So we’re talking about 67 local authorities that a statistician needs to calculate for. So we’re talking about the difference between one of those authorities, which has 1.44 million people in it, and we’re talking about another which has got 600 people in it. So I can’t, for the life of me, work out that is equitable when we know that, for example, the local authority of the Chatham Islands, with 600 rateable houses, needs to have infrastructure that costs a tremendous amount, just like other places in the country. So I cannot work out how the member thinks that that is a fair process or fair analysis. Nevertheless, I do understand that it has been a simple tool that the member has approached this with.

I’m also unsure why each financial year the Minister of Housing then must, on behalf of the Crown and without further appropriation, pay Kāinga Ora the money that Kāinga Ora has paid the local authorities—really complex. Now, this is from a party that keeps talking about cutting red tape; this is from a party that keeps saying to us that they think that there are too many bureaucrats as well—or is that the National Party? I can’t recall. So it is quite interesting that we have this process happening which is slow and cumbersome and needs to be paid in a way that is perhaps difficult; a statistician needs to be involved.

The second thing is that the calculations we talk about is $1.3 billion roughly per year. Now, the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund is looking at over $3 billion currently per annum. It certainly doesn’t add up.

We’re also doing a whole pile of things to support housing. Everyone agrees that housing is a massive issue. Now, I’m going to do it, because it’s actually my birthday today [Cheering]—thank you. It’s my birthday today, everybody. I was born in 1971, so that makes me 52. Do you know, Mr Speaker, that we have undertaken the biggest build of social housing since the 1970s? I’m 52 years old and we’re looking at having the most social housing—one in seven houses have been built in the last six years, social houses built, by this Government. We don’t actually need to have this level right now. What we do need to have is a series of consistent processes that happen. We’ve got a lot of different things going on, and one of the things is this complexity we don’t need; we just need more houses. I commend the bill—I do not commend the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Speaker apologises to Ms Warren-Clark for the muck up around the time, and happy birthday.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Happy birthday, Angie, good on you; that’s very exciting, and I’m very proud to hear that you support the bill as well! Thank you for that! We also support the bill on this side of the House. It’s good to see National and ACT, in this case, bringing sensible solutions to the infrastructure crisis to this House—in this case, GST sharing.

David Seymour: Smartest thing a King’s boy’s ever said!

SAM UFFINDELL: We recognise that councils do not have enough money—I missed the quip; I don’t know who it was directed at—so this bill is a good step in that direction to allow more revenue sharing, focused very strongly, in this case, on Kāinga Ora (KO).

Angie Warren-Clark: Tell us how it’s going to work.

SAM UFFINDELL: As we look at that—how it’s going to work, well, councils don’t have the money at the moment, Angie, and it’s a real shame because this Government expects them to do all of the heavy lifting without giving them the necessary funding. The National Party did have mechanisms in place when we were last in power; it’s a shame a lot of those haven’t been continued through. It’s a real shame, as well, that this Government has embarked on a bit of a war against landlords, and we’ve seen that with interest deductibility being removed and the brightline test. The recommendations to the Minister was that it was going to increase rents. Have they increased rents? Yes, they have indeed—up $175 a week under this Government; the largest contributor to the cost of living crisis.

When I go around and talk to people in the fine electorate of Tauranga, they tell me that they are suffering under this Government, they don’t have enough money to make ends meet, and accommodation costs are the number one contributor to that. So what we need to do—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: But they’ll be wanting to hear about the bill, though. So let’s talk about the bill, shall we?

SAM UFFINDELL: I know they are tuning in, wanting to hear about this bill, and I acknowledge the member Brooke van Velden, who has brought this very sensible bill forward.

We’ve got a few questions to ask around how councils actually get encouraged to develop more infrastructure, because, at the moment, I think they see it as a bit of a burden. So this bill, through the GST sharing arrangement from KO, will help to deliver that. I mean, we would have wanted to see it if they’d built over and above what their target was—which was what National took to the last election. We don’t have that here but we are very open to suggesting those generous amendments in the select committee stage. I see the wise members of the ACT Party looking up for wisdom from the member of Tauranga, which I am happy to continue to deliver! A few smiles in the Labour Party as well as they realise that if only the rest of the speakers had also supported the bill like the previous speaker, then this House would be in a better position.

We do note that there are a lot of families doing it tough, so it is important that we do develop more housing infrastructure. It’s the number one cost that families face. We have seen a significant rise in the number of families homeless under this Government, or living in motels or emergency accommodation, and I think that’s a real blight on our society. We’re currently spending a lot of money in this space and we really need to make sure that we are delivering the infrastructure, because that’s important. Because if we don’t have houses, then people aren’t going to move to where the jobs are, and if they don’t have houses, they’re not going to have dignity. So it’s really important that we address this.

We do think the bill could be better targeted. We have noted how it would be better for just paying above the target builds. We do raise serious concerns with Kāinga Ora and the way they’ve gone about doing stuff. We note that their debt obligations are going to be absolutely—

Shanan Halbert: Only because they’ve built more houses than you ever did.

SAM UFFINDELL: —significant. I hear the member from Northcote barking at me from the other side of the Chamber. I did note in the Budget that KO had been allocated $3 billion to build—what was it?—3,000 houses on land they already owned. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that that’s about a million dollars for a house where they already hold the land.

So the current system of this Labour Government empowering KO to go out there, buy the land well above market rates, take all of the people from the local councils to do the approvals, drive up the price of consents, and ultimately drive up the price of houses certainly is not delivering for New Zealanders. We would be much better off giving local councils, through a member’s bill such as this one, more money to fund the infrastructure, and then letting the parties who actually build houses—such as the many property developers out there—the opportunity to come into a market that hasn’t been ruined by KO being able to overbid any time they want, and then they could deliver quality, affordable houses for New Zealanders. I support this bill.

HELEN WHITE (Labour): It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on this bill. I congratulate Brooke van Velden for getting her bill out of the ballot.

David Seymour: It was just luck.

HELEN WHITE: Yes, that’s unfortunately where I have to stop because I can’t support the bill.

When I look at what this bill does—which is provide 50 percent of the GST from the construction costs or value of a new home to the local council—it doesn’t target spending in the way that we need to target it in a situation where we have a housing crisis. We need to build houses in the right places, and we need to fund the infrastructure in those places. So this would be a scheme where the amount of money that was produced went back to the local council, regardless of the infrastructure needs of that community. So in a place like Hastings the cost may be much more expensive than that, or in another place it may be less, and the GST would come back at the same rate.

What actually is happening at the present time is that there is big, good, supportive infrastructure funding going on. So we have an accelerated housing fund, and that is $3.8 billion—it’s a lot of money, and it’s going to be targeted and it is going into places where we need to build houses and where they make sense to build. That is how we’re supporting the local councils. That is the right way to do it.

Now, obviously, there is a need to have more than one thing going on at the same time, and so we have done some other really good things. I just want to go through them. One is, unfortunately, we came to an agreement with our—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just relating them to the bill as we do so, Ms White.

HELEN WHITE: Yes. Of course, this is actually relating to the bill because it is why we aren’t supporting the bill, because, in fact, we are doing other things that are a better use of the money. So the money that actually is gathered up in that way—the GST, etc.—goes into those funds. It goes into the accelerated housing fund—the $3.8 billion—it goes into the affordable housing fund, it produces money for those things.

It is actually with a little bit of sadness that I see that ACT is now joined by the National Party, moving away from the accord that we had that was actually releasing the capacity to build in our cities, where we need it. It is such a pity, because that gave a lot of certainty to private developers, etc. It meant that they knew that they could invest in that housing. Now, the carpet has been pulled out from under their feet. Unfortunately, New Zealanders are going to pay the price for that.

So this is not a bill that would actually target funding where it is needed, but rest assured that the reason the Government is not supporting it is it wants to target that money where it’s needed and it is doing so. That is what it will do. It will continue to make sure we build in the right places for our environment, for our building better cities. It is going to do that because that is what is necessary at this time. Unfortunately, this bill is one of those bills which is probably very well meaning, but it is not targeted in that way

So it cannot be supported by this Government because, let’s face it, this money’s actually taxpayers’ money. The GST collected, etc.—that’s taxpayers’ money. And guess what? We care what happens to taxpayers’ money. It shouldn’t just be spread; it’s got to be targeted. So in this situation, we have to be respectful of our taxpayers and make sure that the money goes into the right places. That is one of the great fallacies, isn’t it? That, in fact, people who want to do these kinds of things do need to be respectful. Actually, the fallacy is that ACT and National care about the taxpayer, when in fact it’s the Labour Party that’s sitting here, guarding the money that the taxpayer needs and making sure that it is used in the right places. That is what it’s all about, people. Thanks. I commend this bill to the House.

TAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): We support this bill from the noble Greenlane resident of the ACT Party. We’ve heard a lot of fuzzy math and foggy recollection today, respect for the taxpayer, a bit of candle-seeking for a birthday, and overstatements—happy birthday—from one member mentioning the geothermal paradise of New Zealand, where apparently 3,000 extra houses will go—who knows where?—but the folks at Tikitapu and Okataina will be very uncomfortable with that statement.

It’s a good idea to incentivise local councils to allow more homes to be sustainably built by recycling money out of the GST proceeds to help fund that new infrastructure. I know, as I had the great misfortune—as my Chiefs brother Jamie Strange knows—to try and interrogate the Hamilton City development contributions model many years ago. It was The Krypton Factor all over again. The idea of central government partnering with local government to fund infrastructure is nothing new. We had the Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) and then our colleagues over here had the HAF—Housing Acceleration Fund—and maybe we’ll have to have the “HUFF Fund” one day, but that might be for the vaping discussion.

This bill facilitates, after GST payable on a residential development, to be paid by Kāinga Ora to the territorial authority where the development took place. Prima facie, this is an idea worth considering and exploring. We’ll support it, albeit with some observations. Tuatahi, first, some houses would be built in some places were affordability might be less problematic. Councils in those situations could get a windfall gain. That’s all we need in Hamilton, Jamie.

Ingrid Leary: You’re reading your speech.

TAMA POTAKA: Second, target the change where houses are built above affordability for that place—and at least I’ve got a speech that ain’t about birthdays. Fund areas that are unaffordable. Thirdly, as many people who can count, and have taken a look at Kāinga Ora, the most important basket case of taxpayer wastage we’ve seen since the last one, which operates prima facie probably regularly on a Ponzi debt-funded scheme that’s going to have to fund itself for the next 60 years out of what taxpayers’ money—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Potaka, we’ll just—on the bill, please. Relate to what you’re talking about.

TAMA POTAKA: Whānau, we need to get the country back on track, and infrastructure is the key to make that happen in a smooth and credible manner. This GST-sharing bill will help support that, help incentivise councils to enable and permit developments in various areas. The country needs a more relevant and appropriate funding system, not one that’s funded out of the Government using your money every day to fund its wild and vain projects. Don’t get me started on light rail—don’t get me started on light rail—or the million dollars a day this Government spends on emergency housing because they can’t actually build it fast enough.

Do you know why? A million dollars a day—do you know why? Because Kāinga Ora starts driving up the value of land throughout the city, including Borman Road—where Jamie Strange is the MP—27 houses for $20 million. Couldn’t do it themselves, so it went to a private developer, surreptitiously, to buy it. No contribution to GST. So I say Kāinga Ora is the vehicle to fund this or to channel the payments—very worrisome indeed, Ms van Velden. KiwiBuild, need I say more—2 percent. This GST-sharing arrangement will not help it meet the target, because it was a failure. Gone, gone, gone by lunchtime.

Sharing the GST might be one step forward—it might be one step forward. It could operate and act with other dials, though. Getting away from these vanity projects and egotistical announcements—cutting ribbons means nothing if we can’t cut through on infrastructure. I’ll cut the ribbon to anyone’s birthday, but on infrastructure we need funds, and it’s not going to be funds that people are spending on vain projects.

Expanding the role of Crown Infrastructure Partners to establish a national infrastructure agency is something that we will be committed to. We won’t be committed to spending $30 billion on a light rail project road to nowhere; we’ll actually fund infrastructure that is needed for our communities. What we have right now is a Government with an agency called Kāinga Ora that just represents the development aspirations of some of the Ministers who couldn’t do it in their private lives. So instead, they said, “Let’s put our money in the taxpayers’ pocket to fund our ideas and our aspirations because we’ve never been able to do it ourselves.”

DEPUTY SPEAKER: In your last 30 seconds, back to the bill, please, Mr Potaka.

TAMA POTAKA: A more innovative suite of investment opportunities, particularly revenues to incentivise payments, to incentivise investment from private sector capital is useful. Right now, that’s what we need. We need private sector capital to invest in New Zealand. Do you know why? Because the private sector is scared of the Labour Government. It doesn’t matter if it’s an offshore sovereign fund, it doesn’t matter if it’s a super fund or ACC, the private sector capital is concerned that this Government wastes a whole bunch of money, cannot deliver anything on time, and cannot deliver for the future of New Zealand. Back on track! Kia ora tātou.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take this final call on my bill, the Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill.

Everybody deserves the feeling of stability and security of having a home, and everybody should feel that they could one day own their own home. Too often, when I’m out in the community, I hear people say, “I’m not sure I will ever have the opportunity to own my own home.”—or even if they do have their own home, hearing from people say, “I can afford it, but I’m afraid of what the future looks like for my children and for my grandchildren.” and young people in their 20s and 30s saying, “Maybe it would be better to move to Australia because I just cannot see a future for myself in this country.” That is not good enough.

There aren’t enough homes for the people who want to live in them, and that’s why we have a housing crisis. This bill fixes that problem. It provides an incentive to councils to provide an environment for more housing development so that more people can have access to a home. It doesn’t promise 100,000 Government-built homes; it doesn’t promise three three-storey homes on any section throughout all of our large cities. It actually asks the question, “Why do we have a housing crisis?” and finds the solution.

We have a housing crisis because we have an infrastructure crisis. Councils don’t have the funds that they need to provide the vital infrastructure to connect new homes to the community. Currently, councils have very poor incentives to allow for more building. Every new home that goes in involves cost to the existing ratepayers for water, for sewerage, for everything that’s needed to connect that new home to the community. This bill will change that incentive.

It works by allowing for 50 percent of the GST revenue on a new house to be shared with the local council that issues the consent. That provides a very good environment for approving more homes, allowing for more consents and enabling builders to build without more delay. Our estimate is that it would be around $1 billion a year going back into the hands of local councils, but a local council that issues more consents gets more money; it gets more funds. That’s the beauty of this policy.

The only time that you get a prompt service from a council is when they’re issuing you a parking ticket. That’s because they know that they get funds every time one of those tickets is issued. Imagine what we could do, and imagine how much faster homes could get built, if councils knew that there was an incentive in it for them, that they got funding every time a new home got in. Builders that I talked to say that it takes longer sometimes to get the consent to build than just to build the home. We need to change those incentives.

The other great part about this policy is that this transfer of funds will be a long-lasting solution to the infrastructure problem and the imbalance of costs and benefits with council. We’ve heard from Labour members today about the Housing Acceleration Fund. That’s a slush fund that the Government gives for projects it likes, where it gets councils to approach the Government cap in hand and beg for money. Imagine if councils actually had the ability to put infrastructure in their own communities where they knew it was needed, rather than begging the Government for projects that the Government likes.

We know that we need better infrastructure. We’ve seen this with the floods and with the cyclones, we’ve seen it with the sewage on the beaches in Tāmaki. We know that councils don’t have the funds, so let’s change that. Let’s vote for this bill to go through Parliament, and I urge my parliamentary colleagues to support this through the House.

I think it’s great that the National Party has come to the table with ACT to support this bill. It shows that we can work together on a good idea whose time has come. But I’m proud to belong to a party that has the guts to put forward good ideas. We actually look at defining the problem before standing up on a podium to make big grand announcements. This is a policy that will work. It identifies the real problem with the housing crisis, which is an infrastructure crisis.

So if we want young Kiwis to feel like they have a future in this country, if we want more homes to be accessible and to be built in New Zealand, and if we want our homes not to flood because we actually have good infrastructure, we need a long-lasting, enduring policy—and this bill provides that. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 57

New Zealand National 34; ACT New Zealand 10; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 9; Te Paati Māori 2; Kerekere; Whaitiri.

Noes 62

New Zealand Labour 62.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I move, That the Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill.

I am delighted to be speaking on this bill. It’s the only member’s bill that I’ve been lucky enough to have had drawn in nearly 12 years in this House. It’s a bill which seeks to fulfil Labour’s commitment that there be no new mines on conservation land. The 2017 Speech from the Throne set out the Government’s priorities for that term, and it said there will be no new mines on conservation land. Yet, nearly six years later, Tai Tokerau hapū, Forest & Bird, and communities in the north have had to organise to protect Puketi Forest, one of our last remaining unlogged kauri forests, from the prospecting and potentially destructive mining of Mineralogy International, directed by billionaire Clive Palmer.

Kauri forests are nature’s cathedrals. Individual trees can live for centuries. Why would we contemplate mining them? Last term, New Zealand First was a handbrake on that commitment that there’d be no new mines. That handbrake has gone from this House, and for good, I hope. We can act to change the law—in this case, the Crown Minerals Act—to properly protect our public conservation lands. Those lands and waters comprise nearly a third of Aotearoa New Zealand. We need this bill because only half of the conservation estate is protected from mining, through Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act 1991. Schedule 4 prevents access applications for Crown-owned minerals such as gold and coal from being granted in national parks, nature reserves, scientific reserves, wilderness areas, wildlife sanctuaries, marine reserves, and Ramsar wetlands. Apart from things like ventilation shafts, this bill would extend the protection that Schedule 4 provides to prohibit new exploration, prospecting, and mining activities on a Crown land held under the Conservation Act and other conservation legislation, such as the Reserves Act, not just those categories that are listed in Schedule 4. And the bill would prohibit new coal mines on any land after 1 January 2025.

In 2022, there were more than 516 permits and mining licences, extending over more than 424,000 hectares of conservation land, and, since then, just one company, Mineralogy International, has subsequently had minerals permits approved for thousands of hectares on the West Coast, surrounding Kōtuku Moana / Lake Brunner.

New Zealanders need the confidence that their public conservation lands will be protected as places where nature can thrive, where they can walk, tramp, climb, fish, and gather kai without the threat of those places being cleared, dug up, for private profit. Hundreds of New Zealanders have written to the Green Party, saying that they believe our conservation lands and waters should be protected, giving the reasons why that protection should exist. As Peter from Marlborough says—and I quote—“I worked for some years on the West Coast and have seen the terrible mess left by gold mines in recent years. Loss of habitat, biodiversity, fouling of streams with huge amounts of sediment and vegetation, as well as oil from machinery. Conservation land must be just that, for conservation, not for production of assets the planet doesn’t need.” Josh from the Bay of Plenty says—and I quote—“Bulldozing trees that absorb carbon to dig up carbon and put it into the atmosphere is about the worst thing you can do, never mind the habitat destruction and all of the rest of it.” And as Jane said—and I quote—“This is the time to make decisions for the long term, to stick to good agreements made when times were easier and never take decisions which only benefit short-term trade and employment. There are other ways to help those things, but there is no way back once destruction is allowed to happen.”

New Zealanders care. They know that we depend absolutely and utterly on nature for our economy, for our wellbeing, for our lives and the health of our communities. Forested uplands protect steep slopes from erosion. The snow fields and glaciers in the mountain lands of the conservation estate feed rivers and streams which provide water for communities and farmers downstream. We protect these areas and we protect our future. Mining causes significant harm to both protected species and landscapes. Digging huge pits for coal and gold, river terraces for alluvial gold mining, can permanently change landforms and landscapes and destroy conservation values and nature in the process. Former Government mining company Solid Energy New Zealand Ltd decapitated Mount Augustus, the habitat for our giant carnivorous land snail Powelliphanta augusta, in its quest for coal. Where do those remaining snails now live? Largely, in ice cream containers in fridges in the Department of Conservation’s offices in Hokitika.

So mining does create damage. We’ve got acid mine-drainage from big waste-rock stacks. We’ve got a huge pit in the middle of the North Westland wildlife corridor on the West Coast—those forests are supposed to enable wildlife to move from the Paparoa Ranges to the Southern Alps, and, instead, Macrae’s Mining Co. and then OceanaGold Ltd have mined them, there are big tailings reservoirs and big waste-rock stacks which pose a risk to the Īnangahua River and the Kawatiri Buller River. That conservation land has been stripped bare of forest—it won’t recover in our lifetimes.

We need this bill because mining has got an extremely privileged status compared to almost every other commercial activity on conservation land. If you want to do a guided tourism operation, gather sphagnum moss, those activities have got to be consistent with the purpose for which the land is held. Yet, under our current law, mining on conservation land can be approved even if it is inconsistent with conservation outcomes. Economic benefits can be prioritised over conservation even though the Department of Conservation holds the land and is supposed to manage it for conservation purposes.

Of the mining which happens on conservation land, 75 percent happens on the West Coast of the South Island, Te Tai Poutini coast. Most of those permits target gold or coal, they don’t target the essential minerals or materials that would help us to shift to a low carbon economy. And the bill would still allow mining, of course, on the two thirds of Aotearoa which is outside the conservation estate.

We need this bill to protect the climate. It would ban new coal mines from January 2025 to help prevent emissions leakage when coal is mined and then exported to be burnt offshore.

There have been some concerns raised about the impact of the bill on Ngāi Tahu. It makes absolutely no changes to any Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlement commitments, including the Ngai Tahu (Pounamu Vesting) Act, which gives Ngāi Tahu control of all pounamu; nor does it change the rights of Māori to access customary materials such as obsidian and red and yellow ochre on conservation land. But I understand that alluvial gold mining on the West Coast can uncover pounamu boulders as the miners dig up the river terraces to find material to put through their gold screens. So by stopping new alluvial mines on conservation land, it would make the excavation of pounamu more expensive for Ngāi Tahu because they would have to have their mining directed just at pounamu, but it wouldn’t stop Ngāi Tahu excavating and mining for pounamu.

Ngāi Tahu hapu Makaawhio value aotea. It’s a stone similar to pounamu, it’s found only in the Makaawhio River and beaches in South Westland, including on public conservation land. The Makaawhio have a 40-year mining permit over the river and its headwaters, and if further provision needs to be made in this bill to safeguard access to that stone, then that can happen at select committee.

Supporting this bill at first reading would enable the public to have a say on their conversation lands, which the Department of Conservation manages on their behalf, and any changes that need to be made could be made to address those issues.

This bill would protect some of our greatest natural treasures: the climate, our public conservation lands, the habitat and ecosystems of some of the most special species in the world—species that are only found here in Aotearoa. It would prohibit new exploration, prospecting, and mining on the conservation estate. I commend it to the House and would welcome members’ support for it. Kia ora.

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

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill. I want to start by congratulating the member: if you only get one crack in 12-odd years, it’s good to be something that you really deeply care about. So I’m really pleased that we are spending time—

Simon Court: Does Labour care about it, though?

ANGELA ROBERTS: —considering this. It’s really important. We got asked—we’ve just been asked—on 8 May, our Rt Hon Prime Minister, Christopher Hipkins, reconfirmed our commitment to no new mines on conservation land. So we have got a lot to talk about.

The really interesting thing is we support the intent of the bill. We support everything that encourages us to have a really good debate about how we best protect our conservation land. We appreciate the policy intent. But this bill goes beyond that commitment and it doesn’t actually, I believe, give us a process where we end up in the strongest position for protecting our conservation land.

So we’ve heard about this amazing nation of ours, where a third of our land area—8.5 million hectares of land—is conservation land. Now, for those who would be zoning in from other parts of the planet, that sounds like, “Wow, you’ve got all of these national parks; that’s pretty cool.” I’m very privileged, I live in the shadow of Te Papakura o Taranaki—I never get sick of saying that fabulous new name—under that beautiful maunga, and I’m very, very grateful for the forethought that created that national park so long ago. When you fly over Taranaki and you see that ring plane where, at some point, somebody realised they needed to stop clearing trees, and that recognition is really, really significant.

But of that 8.5 million hectares, we have a whole pile of different classifications and different levels of protection. The intention is to best preserve the natural, historic, and cultural resources that we have within them. So we have our national parks—like our beautiful maunga—and we have our wildlife areas and we have our conservation areas but we also have stewardship land. Most of that stewardship land was transferred across to the Department of Conservation when it was first created in 1987, because it was kind of considered to have some conservation value. But those areas haven’t been assessed since 1987—those areas haven’t been assessed to see if they require additional protection. So there’s this massive piece of stewardship land which we’re not quite sure how we should best be looking after it.

If we think back to 1987—many of us can remember back that far. I wasn’t actually living in New Zealand at the time but I do remember all of the things that we were thinking about in 1987, and we certainly weren’t thinking about our relationship with the whenua in the way that we do today. I think that the maturity that has grown over those decades since 1987, where we have really changed not just our relationship with our land and the way that we think of it—this whole idea of classifying how valuable something is seems, well, a bit 1980s to me; I think that we’ve moved on since then—but our relationship with iwi, and their relationship with the land, and our learning about Te Ao Māori and mātauranga Māori has changed considerably. So the conversations about classification are so different now than they were in 1987.

When I think about the latest Treaty settlement with Taranaki iwi, with the seven iwi that live around our maunga, and the latest settlement, with the way that the partnership has been developed between the Crown, with the Department of Conservation (DOC), and with all of the iwi, it’s been a fascinating process to witness, and it is a really, really different relationship than would’ve been formed 20 years ago. So we’ve got huge opportunities with the shift in the way that we relate to iwi when we have these conversations about what these different classes of land are—for want of a better term—and our relationship has changed.

The problem with this legislation, unfortunately: it goes beyond our commitment to no more mines on conservation land, and it goes before. So the problem is it goes before a true engagement in partnership with iwi about the implications for them. There’ve been quite significant assumptions about the four Treaty relationships that may be impacted—there probably are more—and it goes before we have completed the process of reclassification that we have been involved in. We know that the reclassification, that 2.5 million hectares, 9 percent of land area and 30 percent of the DOC estate, which is the stewardship land which needs to be reclassified so that we can actually add greater protections, further protections, to protect that conservation land, should be done before we have this blanket piece of legislation which will in the end be less robust and will not have the longevity that taking our time and our care to really make the most of the relationships that we have with iwi and with the reclassification—there’s a lot of land, and we need to take the care. I appreciate the sense of urgency that has been expressed from the other side of the House—I get that completely—but we need to get it right, because it’s way too important to get it half wrong, or half right, and then have some careless gaps in it and for it to not be robust.

I spend a lot of time in my national park. You know, it’s quite a thing when one of my children gets their first pair of—when they graduate from sneakers to tramping boots, because, you know, their feet grow too quickly to wear out their tramping boots, and finally their feet get big enough that we get their first pair of tramping boots. We absolutely cherish our national parks. This Government is completely committed to protecting our conservation land—that is a given. We know this. So many of us in this House have stories of how precious this land is to us. You know, you drag your kids out of bed at 5 o’clock in the morning and say, “You’re going to love being on the mountain for the sunrise.” and they don’t think it’s a great idea, and then suddenly, you know, an hour and a half later, you know, you come around a corner on the track and the sun’s just popped over the horizon and you see Ruapehu and you see Tongariro and you actually realise how small our little country is. And the kids go, “Oh, yeah, I suppose that was all right.”, and they’re just beaming.

You know, how good is it for us to have access to such amazing places? A third of our nation is under the conservation estate, and we have to make sure that we get it right, because if we don’t, then there will be opportunity for loopholes to be exploited. I think there are challenges around making sure that we get it done in a timely manner, but we also need to make sure we get it right.

It is about relationships, and the weird thing is, in 1987, we never talked about our relationship with the national park. You know, at that point we were arguing about, you know, the bumper stickers—you know, who was Egmont anyway? You know, that’s how far we’ve moved since 1987. In 1987, we were arguing about whether or not we should be naming our mountain and our national park after a guy who didn’t even know it existed, and now we have Te Papakura o Taranaki. So our conversation has shifted since then. It’s really, really important that as we reclassify the stewardship land and everything else, we do it properly. Our relationship with the whenua and our relationship with iwi require that of us. It is really, really important that we do it right, and we absolutely respect and endorse the intent of this bill, but it is going not just beyond our commitment but before what we need to do to fulfil our commitment to no new mining on conservation land. And it is because of that that I cannot commend this bill to the House.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki-King Country): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, congratulations to the member, Eugenie Sage, for having the member’s bill drawn. National will not be supporting this member’s bill. Part of the reason is we have just had several cyclones in this country, we need in areas to rebuild bridges, we need to rebuild roads, we are trying to get renewable electricity, and we need to build structures for that—and at the moment, we are still bringing Indonesian coal into the country to generate our electricity.

When we look at the conservation estate, we all want to preserve our natural habitat as much as possible; we all want to make sure we get as close to predator-free as we possibly can; we all want to use our land wisely. I want to mention, at this point in time, our colleague Maureen Pugh, who would love to have been here speaking on this bill tonight. She’s from the West Coast of the South Island, and 81 percent of the West Coast of the South Island holds one-third of the country’s total landmass in the conservation estate and 81 percent on the West Coast. So it’s huge.

But I think the thing that we need to remind people of is that the Department of Conservation holds a lot of this land; the Department of Conservation holds a lot of stewardship land. So when people think about it as national parks, it’s very important to all of us that we preserve our national parks but the stewardship land is in very varying value.

The member before, Angela Roberts, just mentioned that it’s taking a long time to reclassify it. It’s taking far too long to reclassify it. We suggest that there could be some that could be quickly classified into something else, because we don’t see the value of all of it as it’s not all national park, to be sure. Mining only takes place on 0.04 percent of the conservation estate. Maureen Pugh would describe that as an A4 page on a rugby field. That’s probably a much easier way of describing it, because it’s a very small area for a lot.

What I will say is that, historically, there has been damage done with mining, but the mining companies that I talk to—and others in our party talk to these days—are actually building back better. They’re actually replacing some of the biodiversity that’s been lost as part of the process.

As part of rebuilding our country after the cyclones, we’re going to have an and/and; it’s not an either/or. If we went totally down the conservation path and didn’t think about what we need in terms of resources to rebuild and run our country, we would have no money to do conservation. A lot of the philanthropy and money that goes into rebuilding our conservation estate actually comes from the people who take their resources from the land.

I really would love somebody in this room to tell me—I always say: if you can’t graze it on the land, grow it within the land, or extract it from underneath the land, what is it? There is nothing that we build, nothing in this House, nothing that I see anywhere. The only exception to that is probably a fish—and we haven’t seen any of those in the House for a little while, but it has been known.

So, look, miners have to apply for access to conservation land. There is no open access. It’s a rigorous process. There is no mining in national parks, but it is a matter of balancing the economic opportunities with our environmental responsibilities.

The National Party cares deeply about the environment, but would take a different approach towards mining on conservation land. There’s land of variable quality, and in some cases it makes sense; in some cases, we have to mine for these things. I mean, there is no way—we’ve got our energy spokesperson here, Stuart Smith—that we are going to build any new renewable electricity in this country without digging something out of the ground to do that. So many mining projects are there; they’re already acting in good faith with high-quality restoration occurring afterwards. We do not support this bill.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Mr Speaker, thanks for the opportunity to take one of the last calls for the evening on the Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill. I’d also like to acknowledge the member the Hon Eugenie Sage, a very hard-working member, a very conscientious member, and she will be missed from this House when she retires at the election.

Just to start on a little bit of a response to what the previous member Barbara Kuriger mentioned: in terms of conservation land, the member seemed to allude to the fact that we don’t gain an economic return from conservation land like we do in terms of agriculture, like we do in terms of mining. But I would argue that there is a commercial return on conservation land, and that is in terms of tourism, for one. The second one would be in terms of the sequestration of carbon, which is absolutely important. If we don’t do that, we have to buy carbon credits as a country. So there certainly is some economic benefit to conservation land.

As we’ve heard previously, 33 percent of New Zealand is conservation land, and we have some absolutely wonderful conservation land and it is important that we protect it, and that’s what this bill talks about. It talks about protecting the taonga that we have. Just to highlight just one in particular, in an area near where I was born, the Abel Tasman National Park—absolutely beautiful area. Not quite as nice as some areas of Hamilton—Hamilton Gardens, for example—but it’s getting close. Getting close. Look, that’s just a small example of the treasure we have in conservation land, and it’s important. I hear members laughing; I’m not quite sure why, but it is absolutely important that we protect it.

The Government does agree with what the member’s espousing here in terms of protecting our conservation land. Back in 2017, when I first came to this House, I remember listening, and others in this House were there, too. We listened to the Speech from the Throne from the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. As we were sitting there, I accidentally sat on the wrong side. I actually accidentally sat on the National Party side, and I actually heard the Speech from the Throne. The Prime Minister at the time, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, what she said in that Speech from the Throne is that her Government will make a commitment to no new mines on conservation land—no new mines on conservation land—and nothing has changed from this Government’s perspective. So we are continuing to work in that area in terms of no new mines on conservation land, and we agree with the member on that wholeheartedly, and we’ve heard that from the previous speaker.

However, the member goes a little bit further than this Government is comfortable with at this point in time, because the member also, in her bill, she prohibits the granting of any permits for coal after 1 January 2025 on any land of any tenure to protect the climate from greenhouse gas emissions generated by burning coal. Now, there are some problems there, particularly in terms of the private land. The previous speaker espoused those, so in terms of repetition, I won’t go into that, but just to highlight the fact that conservation land is one thing—it’s an area owned by the Government; effectively, owned by all of us—but private land is a little bit more challenging. But, you know, we will continue to work in that area, because it is important that we do achieve our Paris targets in terms of climate change.

I recently visited a gold mine in the Coromandel region—Thames—and I went underground. It was incredibly impressive. There were some huge trucks going down metres underground. I was genuinely impressed with the work that they are doing in terms of the climate and in terms of the way that they remediate the land. I was impressed with the work that they were doing there. But we all know, in terms of coal mines, it is a sunset industry, and we have made that quite clear as a Government, and many Governments around the world have made that clear as well. That’s something that we’re standing to. So, look, in the last few seconds, just to confirm, we agree with the Minister in terms of no new mines on conservation land, but the Minister goes further than we are comfortable, as a Government, in terms of private land. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I agree with the Hon Eugenie Sage that our natural environment is important and that the Department of Conservation (DOC) has an important role in protecting our very special places, but the Department of Conservation are not doing a good job at that, and they’ve been given an impossible task. In the 1980s, the Department of Conservation was allocated a whole lot of public land that came from State-owned enterprises like the railways, like the Department of Lands and Survey, and Government farming businesses, and that was dumped in the DOC bucket and called “stewardship land”, on the intention that that land be then made available for other economic and social benefits. But it never was. From the 1980s till the 2023s, DOC and successive Governments have done nothing to make that land available for the maximum, the most efficient environmental and economic and social benefits.

That land makes up 30 percent of the DOC estate, or 9 percent of New Zealand’s total land area. That is not the land that I’m concerned about. That is not the land that is in our national parks. That is public land that DOC administers that’s called stewardship land. That land is used for farming on long-term leases, it is quarried and resources are made available, and it is mined by responsible and respectful operators who restore the land in a way that New Zealanders would expect it to be restored—in fact, to a much higher standard if you were to look at mining operations like, say, OceanaGold Globe Progress Mine in Reefton, which saved the tree stumps from the former forest harvesting decades before, saved them, carried out the mining, restored the land, and brought the tree stumps back into the restoration as a habitat for creepy crawlies. I’ve been to that site and I’ve seen how the private sector, how mining companies, can restore nature and restore biodiversity in a way that DOC, with its limited budget, with one or two hands tied behind its back, never could.

So I agree with the Hon Eugenie Sage that there is a problem where the Department of Conservation is not upholding its responsibilities to New Zealanders and, in fact, to our global effort to maintain and enhance biodiversity. So why do people mine on conservation land? Well, that’s because economically viable deposits occur on some of this land, public land, under the control of DOC, because of plate tectonics, because of magma rising from deep in the Earth’s crust that brings valuable minerals from deep underground and then leaves them as deposits near the surface. Now, DOC, the honourable member, the Government, can’t choose where those deposits of gold and platinum and silver and rare earth elements that go into things like this laptop or everyone’s cellphone or your TV or your Tesla—you can’t choose where these are placed because they have been left there as a result of natural processes. That’s why it’s important in New Zealand we continue to have access to these resources and not restrict them on a philosophical basis or on an ideological basis.

And we need to respect the fact that there are businesses which are already carrying out resource development activities and which can put the environment back in a better state than they found it, because that’s what people do. We discover an environment, we discover building materials and natural resources, we utilise them, and we want to make our world a better place. And if that involves recovering resources that we can all benefit from and that create wealth through the resource development, through the jobs that are created—high-paying jobs, particularly in places like the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand; Taranaki; of course, in Northland; and, more recently, around Rotorua and the Taupō volcanic zone, where lithium that’s used in electric vehicle batteries has been discovered. We should be able to recover those resources and be confident that New Zealand engineers and scientists can put the earth back, can restore nature better than they found it.

So ACT won’t be supporting this bill. We support the member’s intent to restore nature; to restore, enhance, and protect biodiversity wherever we find it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Have a good evening.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m.