Thursday, 20 July 2023

THURSDAY, 20 JULY 2023

THURSDAY, 20 JULY 2023

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

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

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

Ministerial Statements

Serious Firearms Incident—Auckland

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Prime Minister): I wish to make a ministerial statement relating to the serious incident that unfolded in Auckland this morning.

This morning, at 7.23 a.m., the morning commute in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland came to a halt. A serious incident unfolded after reports of a person discharging a firearm inside a site on lower Queen Street. Two people have died and also the male offender is deceased. Police have confirmed an officer has been injured as well as five members of the public at this stage. The police officer was transported to hospital in a critical condition, but his condition has stabilised. The four members of the public have injuries ranging from moderate to critical.

I can advise the House that this is not a national security risk, and police are now commencing an investigation into what has occurred. Within three minutes of the incident being reported, the New Zealand Police Eagle was en route. At 7.34 a.m., police had arrived on the scene and the armed offenders squad was there by 7.38 a.m. I really want to thank the first responders—New Zealand Police, the armed offenders squad, and St John Ambulance—for acting and responding as swiftly as they did this morning.

Aucklanders were on their way to work. Aucklanders were at work. In a country like our own, this is the last thing you would expect to encounter on your morning commute or whilst doing your job. But the rapid response from our first responders meant they could move at pace to protect as many people as possible.

I want to reiterate that this appears to be the actions of one individual and there is no wider national security threat, nor are police seeking anybody else in relation to the incident. It’s also important that we acknowledge the number of people we have visiting New Zealand and staying in Auckland currently for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This event has not been impacted and will proceed as planned.

To Auckland, particularly those who were physically injured, witnessed the event, or were within close proximity to this situation unfolding, I acknowledge the impact that this would have had on you.

To the loved ones and whānau of the victims, I know that words cannot heal trauma, but I want you to know that there is much strength to be drawn from solidarity and community, something that we as Aucklanders and New Zealanders offer up in spades. You are not alone in this grieving process and nor should you be. Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): On behalf of the National Party, we share the shock and sadness of all New Zealanders who this morning saw downtown Auckland, which so many people know so well, become the scene of a tragic shooting and a huge police response. To see armed police swarming through the area, including regular police, the armed offenders squad, and the Special Tactics Group, was a sight that was both confronting but reassuring. We know that two people who probably went to work this morning will not be going home tonight because they were killed. The impact on their families and their colleagues can only be imagined, and we express our sincere sympathies to those families and their friends. The gunman, who we are told was on home detention for violent offences, is also now dead, and several members of the public and at least one police officer have been hospitalised. To those members of the public who were injured, we send our best wishes for a full recovery.

Let me talk now about the police because, once again, we have seen them put public safety ahead of their own. When the call comes, the police answer it, and they answered the call this morning with courage, with skill, and at least one was injured in the course of that duty. Our thoughts are with him and his family. To all police involved this morning, we say thank you, and to all police families, probably following this morning’s events with their hearts in their mouths, we say thank you also for the support you give. We thank the ambulance first responders on the scene and the hospital staff who are right now treating the injured. Many people will be traumatised by being caught up in this incident, and we trust that support is made available for them as well.

There are many questions needing to be answered about the events of this morning, some of them probably in this House, but today is about the police, about the first responders, and about the victims. Several families’ lives will be forever impacted by the events of today. We will get to learn more about the victims in the hours and the days ahead. Our thoughts are with their families.

I saw a striking picture this morning online of an armed police officer, I think on the roof of the building where the shooting occurred, standing up alone with a rifle as construction workers took shelter lying on the ground around him. That’s what the police did today: they stood up. They stood up for public safety, they stood up for law and order, they stood up for New Zealand, and to them we say thank you.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I’d like to join with other speakers on behalf of ACT in support of this motion. I’d like to begin by paying tribute to those deceased victims and the families of those deceased this morning. To those who have been injured and who seek to recover in hospital, our hopes are with them for a speedy recovery to good health. To all of those workmates who have got up early—as people on building sites do—to start their day and could never have imagined that this could happen, our thoughts are with them too, and we acknowledge that they will be facing considerable trauma as well.

The police and ambulance staff—I’ve often said that the front-line officers of the New Zealand Police are some of the greatest New Zealanders for what they do, what they put up with, and the way that they seem to unfailingly rise to challenges that can happen at any time and are always there. I have no doubt that amongst them and the ambulance staff, who were available from St John Ambulance, are some real heroes and heroism will be identified as the full details become available.

There will inevitably be questions about this incident, but the purpose of asking and answering those questions should be to ensure that we become better, that we emerge with better policies, and that we emerge as a better country. People will ask why such a person was on home detention and able to go to work in spite the allegedly very serious crimes they’ve been convicted of. There will be questions about how such a person, who did not have a firearms licence, none the less had a firearm, and what sort of firearm exactly it was in relation to recent law changes. There will be questions about the state of mental health services and whether he got help he may have sought, because, clearly, the person had had some difficulties.

We should ask and answer those questions, but in good time and with proper information and time to reflect in order that we fulfil the purpose of doing better. That is the correct way to honour victims in a circumstance such as this. Until then, we should do what Kiwis have always done best: wrap ourselves around those who have been hurt badly, egregiously, though no fault of their own—on all sides of this problem today—and make sure that we come out of this as a better and wiser country. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): I te tuatahi me mihi ka tika ki ngā mate, i tēnei mamae kua haere ki te pō. Haere haere haere atu rā.

[It is firstly appropriate to acknowledge our loved ones who have passed on to the night. Farewell, farewell, farewell.]

I’m sure I joined with all my colleagues in the House today in shock and sadness at the tragedy that has happened in Auckland today with people losing their lives, people being injured, and people being scared across entire Auckland—Auckland’s central communities. My relief is probably equal to the level of pōuri and sadness and aroha that I send to people who have to bear the news of losing loved ones, of loved ones being injured. The relief I speak about is—probably like many of us, I had a daughter on her way to work in central Auckland this morning who was, thankfully, able to avoid going there and work from home. So being able to understand that that’s just such an ordinary thing to do—to make your way to work—and you expect to come home and not be harmed.

So I also want to acknowledge the police officer who was shot. I think we still should expect that no one should have to go to work with the expectation of being harmed. But I do know that that is a sacrifice that our front-line agencies and forces willingly and generously avail themselves to, and I really, really acknowledge that. I am quite sure that further lives and health and wellbeing have been saved today by the quick actions of many.

As the prevention of violence Minister, I’m aware that it has been confirmed by the police that the shooter had a domestic violence history and offences, and I want to acknowledge the prevention of violence sector and everyone who has been impacted on by violence, who may be feeling incredible trigger and trauma right now. I want to assure people that the services to be able to help people work through that are fully operational and available, as they always have been, and they are particularly aware of the extra need and that they might be called upon right now, including if people only know to contact the police. The police are well set up to refer people to the right expertise and specialist help in the community, and they have those relationships. I’m further aware that violence is never ever OK and that we have big work, together, at every level to do, taking particular leadership from the sector and the experts who know what needs to be done. That work will absolutely continue.

For now, in my office, we will continue to keep abreast of the police investigation—being able to confirm information—but this space right now is prioritised to support people through the trauma, the grief, and the shock, like many of us here are feeling, and to make sure that people know there is help there right now. Many, many questions to come from all of us, and much discussion to be had to understand what the work is ahead of all of us.

I just sum up by also recognising the trauma, particularly for the workplace and the construction sector in general, and I note that migrant communities are overrepresented in the construction sector. When it comes to trauma we are wanting to make sure that there are support services there for everyone who needs them, including those who may not have the deeper community support that we might expect and assume of everyone else.

So I acknowledge all of those needs for this space right now for healing and support, and I thank the Minister for her statement today. Kia ora.

SPEAKER: That ends this statement. Sorry, did the Deputy Prime Minister want to respond?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, I don’t have much to respond with. I think everything has been said from all the contributions today. But I would acknowledge the House for the shared sadness that we feel and for the graciousness in the contributions that were made, and I acknowledge that, yes, across the course of the coming days and weeks, I’m sure there will be questions asked, and there should be when instances like this occur.

It is our role, as a Parliament and as a Government, to ensure that we are providing transparency around what is occurring in our society and in our public spaces, particularly in instances like this. So I do acknowledge the graciousness of all the political parties in the House today.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Deputy Leader of the House): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Legislation to be considered next week will include the committee stages of the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill, and the second reading of the Land Transport (Road Safety) Amendment Bill. As notified to the Business Committee, there will be an extended sitting of the House on the morning of Wednesday, 26 July. After oral questions and the general debate, Wednesday will be a members’ day.

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 Bronda Smith requesting that the House ensure there is mandatory menopause training for all GPs and medical students, menopause awareness and support in every workplace, and menopause in the curriculum in schools

petition of Christine McCarthy requesting that the House introduce a maximum time that people can spend remanded in custody

petition of Chained Dog Awareness NZ Trust requesting that the House mandate the desexing of dogs in New Zealand except to registered breeders.

SPEAKER: Those petitions are referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers—17 of them.

CLERK:

The following treaties, with their accompanying national interest analysis:

the Agreement between the European Union and New Zealand on the participation of New Zealand in Union Programmes, and

the Protocol on the Association of New Zealand to Horizon Europe, and

the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) and the accompanying National Interest Analysis

Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and the European Union

the Protocol to the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, and

the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education.

2022 annual report of New Zealand Health Partnerships Ltd

2023 Long-term Insights Briefing to Te Puni Kōkiri

statements of intent for the:

Independent Police Conduct Authority

Fire and Emergency New Zealand

Law Commission, and

Te Mangai Paho

2023-24 statement of performance expectations for the:

Electoral Commission

Fire and Emergency New Zealand

Human Rights Commission

Independent Police Conduct Authority

Law Commission

Te Mangai Paho, and

Waka Kotahi.

SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Reports of the Education and Workforce Committee on the 2023-24 Estimates for Vote Labour Market (excluding the appropriation that is the responsibility of the Minister of Health, related to border support services)

report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the International Treaty Examination of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies

report of the Health Committee on the 2023-24 Estimates for Vote Health, and the 2023-24 appropriation within Vote Labour Market that is the responsibility of the Minister of Health, related to border support services

report of the Justice Committee on the Land Transport (Road Safety) Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading, and the treaty is set down for consideration. No bills have been introduced.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Health

1. SORAYA PEKE-MASON (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. Te mea tuatahi, e ngā mate, e ngā anahera tapu, haere, haere, haere atu rā ki te torōna o Ihowa o ngā mano. E mihi ana ki a koutou, ngā mihi aroha, ngā whānau pani. Tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. The first thing are the deceased, the sacred angels, go, go, go on to the throne of Jehovah of the multitudes. I acknowledge you, an acknowledgment of compassion, to the bereft families. Greetings to you, greetings to all of us.]

What announcements has the Government made about its long-term vision for the health of New Zealanders?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): Can I briefly join colleagues in the House in expressing condolences to the families of the shooting victims and extend our recognition to the ambulance and hospital staff caring for the casualties. Last week, the Government released the Pae Ora strategies and our long-term vision for health, where all New Zealanders can live long and healthy lives and unfair differences in outcomes are a thing of the past. These strategies contain an ambitious vision. It requires new partnerships and a shared commitment to long-term action. The launch of the Pae Ora strategies is a significant milestone in the transformation of our health system. The strategies will help us create a health system that is equitable, sustainable, and responsive to the needs of New Zealanders.

Soraya Peke-Mason: What population-specific strategies have been released?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The New Zealand health strategy addresses the health of all New Zealanders and sits alongside five population-specific strategies: the rural health strategy, hauora Māori strategy, the Pacific health strategy, health of disabled people strategy, and the women’s health strategy. This is also the first time Pacific peoples, women, and rural communities have had their own health strategies.

Soraya Peke-Mason: What impact will the strategies have?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The strategies will address underlying barriers which may have held back progress. They will give people, whānau, and communities greater control over decisions about their health and the design of services. Change of this scale will take time; however, health isn’t just a short-term outcome. These strategies provide the direction for lasting change.

Soraya Peke-Mason: Why has the Government released Te Pae Ora strategies?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: We’ve heard from New Zealanders that we need to end the one-size-fits-all approach to health services and focus on what people actually need. The old health system had become remote and detached. Pae Ora strategies and our wider health reforms are designed to tackle this and support greater community-driven participation over health service delivery.

Question No. 2—Social Development and Employment

2. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment: How many applicants on the Housing Register, if any, indicated they were living in a car at the time of application in June 2023, and how does this compare to October 2017?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment): I’m told that the accommodation type at the point of application will not reduce over time, because it’s a cumulative figure and people stay on the list even if they are in emergency housing or transitional housing after the point of application. In saying that, in June 2023, there were 480 primary applicants who put “a car” down as their accommodation type, compared to 102 in October 2017 who put down “a car” as their accommodation type. I will also say that the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) will always consider people’s immediate housing needs to make sure that they are housed and that people do get their full and correct entitlement, including housing support products. What I will also say is that the more accurate figure is that this Government has added 12,198 net additional public homes between October 2017 and May 2023, as compared to that member’s Government, who left us with 1,500 public homes fewer compared to when they took office.

Chris Bishop: Of the 480 applicants she just mentioned as indicating they were living in a car when they applied for the housing register, does she have the data on how many children those applications involved?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: That is not information that MSD specifically collects, and I’m told there is no specific data available on the number of children currently living in cars. As I mentioned in my primary response to the first question, it is actually the numbers—the figures relate to primary applicants. While they may or may not have children in custody, there are some cases where the children actually live with family members, and that data is not captured.

Chris Bishop: Is she seriously claiming MSD don’t collect that information, when I have repeated written questions back from her senior Minister indicating precisely how many children are involved in those applications on a quarterly basis?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Inasmuch as primary applicants disclose how many children there are included in their application, MSD holds that information. But there are cases where the primary applicant does not disclose that information, and that won’t be captured.

Chris Bishop: Does she think there’s a connection between the increase in rents around New Zealand of, on average, $175 per week in the last six years and the quadrupling in the number of families presenting as living in cars when applying for the housing register?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: As I mentioned previously in my primary response, the figure that the member is putting forth to us and using to assume there’s an increase in the number of people living in cars, I’m told, is not an accurate way of capturing that data. What we are doing is building our way out of a housing crisis that we inherited that was created by that member’s Government.

Chris Bishop: Is she saying that when someone presents to the housing register and ultimately gets placed into a social house, MSD don’t update their records to show that they are no longer living in a car but that they are, in fact, in a house?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: I am told that this is a cumulative figure. So when a person applies, if they then disclose that they live in a car, that is captured in the data that MSD keeps. They are not removed from the list, I am told, if they are in emergency housing or if they’re given an emergency housing special needs grant or transitional housing. They’re only removed when they get a public house, and that is why we’re building our way out of the housing crisis that we inherited by delivering 12,198 more public homes since we took office.

Chris Bishop: Why do people living in cars who present to the housing register attract the same subsidy to go into public housing as everybody else on the housing register, when, clearly, their needs are greater?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: I am told that there is a higher level of support required for people and whānau living in cars and that there are services in place for people in this situation when they come to MSD for help. As I mentioned previously, MSD does ensure that they do get their full and correct entitlement, including housing support products. There are a number of ways in which people are supported when they present with a housing need, and that’s the support they get.

Chris Bishop: How many applicants who present to MSD as needing support, living in a car, are classified as A-20 on the priority list for social housing?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: I don’t have that information on me, but if the member puts that in writing, we can get it to him.

Question No. 3—Justice

3. JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Justice: What recent announcements has the Government made about increasing accountability for young offenders?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): E te pae Whakawā, e tika ana ki te tautoko te tangi o ētahi tangata kei roto i tēnei Whare mō te whānau pani mō ngā tāngata kua wehe ki te pō i tēnei ata, heoi, haere haere haere atu rā.

[Mr Speaker, it is appropriate to support the condolences by the members of this House to the families of the victims and to share sympathies to the victims who died this morning, and so I’d like to say travel well.]

Yesterday, the Government continued to expand on our approach to law and order by announcing the introduction of a new offence for ram raiding offending with a maximum sentence of 10 years. Our approach to date has focused on interventions for children and young people who have committed ram raid offending by providing those intensive wrap-around supports. While our approach so far has been effective in decreasing youth offending rates overall, there is still a cohort that we have not been able to reach. So we have introduced further measures to enable decision makers to have a broader suite of tools, particularly for serious and persistent offending behaviour. We are introducing this offence because we understand the concerns that exist, that offences do not adequately recognise the seriousness and the destructiveness of ram raids, and the harm that they cause victims.

Jamie Strange: How will the new offence address gaps in the youth justice system?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Currently existing offences, such as burglary, are used to charge alleged ram raid offenders. We’ve heard concerns that there is a gap in how we respond to children under 14 whose offending does not already meet the threshold for Youth Court, or care and protection interventions. We will also be amending the Oranga Tamariki Act, so that a 12- or a 13-year-old who is charged with a ram raid offence can be escalated through to the Youth Court jurisdiction. This recognises that for a small group of these offenders we need to do more to break the cycle of offending, and to provide greater accountability. As a result of gaps in the current system, children and young people do not always receive the responses with the right level of immediacy, intensity, or duration to address their needs and the underlying factors that contribute to offending.

Jamie Strange: What new powers will this offence provide police and the wider youth justice system to deal with those offenders?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The new offence will mean police and the courts will have more tools to keep offenders from getting back on the streets, including through bail conditions, measures such as non-association, curfew, residing at specific addresses, not taking drugs or alcohol, and in some instances, detention and Oranga Tamariki custody where there was a risk of the child absconding, reoffending, or preventing loss or destruction of evidence or interferences with witnesses. It can also include warnings and alternative actions with escalation available to an Oranga Tamariki - led intention-to-charge family group conference. An intention-to-charge family group conference plan with escalation is also available to Youth Court if the plan is not agreed, or it’s not completed, and in addition, Youth Court orders for a minority, including residential orders of up to six months being available if the charge is proven, and supervision up to 12 months following the order. However, as we’re really clear: locking kids up and throwing away the key is not an approach that is evidence-based. It is likely that the most children would receive is a section 282 discharge if a family group conference plan is completed successfully.

Jamie Strange: What other announcements to address youth offending has the Government made this week?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Earlier this week, the Government announced new aggravating factors for offenders, for example, posting their crimes online, and for those who use young people to commit a crime, as well as greater requirements for young offenders to attend education programmes or undertake community activities. We’re increasing funding for police prosecutors, supporting the police to clear the case backlog in District Courts and to enable them to pursue criminal offending. We are also improving family group conferences and providing funding for more family group coordinators who will be focused specifically on youth crime issues. We’re expanding the circuit-breaker fast-track intervention programme for young offenders to new regions, and creating a new intensive programme to break the cycle for up to 60 recidivist offenders. It’s important to note these interventions are working, but for a small cohort which we aren’t reaching, stronger deterrents and consequences are required to ensure accountability to communities. This Government is committed to doing what it can to break that cycle of crime.

Question No. 4—Climate Change

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Forty-five percent of our commercially planted forests are owned by Māori. I was aware that the Minister of Climate Change wasn’t going to be here in the House today, but I also notice the Minister of Forestry isn’t here. This is a significant question. I will seek your guidance and your ruling to have this question to have this question referred to next week.

SPEAKER: No, you can ask it now.

4. Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) to the Minister of Climate Change: Does he stand by all the Government’s statements and actions regarding engagement with Māori land owners on the review of the emissions trading scheme?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister of Climate Change: Yes.

Hon Meka Whaitiri: How can he stand by the Government’s action when his own lawyers said the pre-engagement period was too short and the Crown conceded in the High Court that engagements to date have been “hopelessly inadequate”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I believe that’s not a correct characterisation of the Crown’s position. I am aware that one group did seek an interim injunction to stop the publication of the consultation document on the emissions trading scheme review and they were not successful. There are a range of views within Māoridom—as is the case, more broadly, in the community—and the Government wanted consultation to go ahead so that we can hear everyone’s views before we make a decision. I would also note that it is not in the interests of Māori land owners or anyone else to have a price of carbon that collapses so as to neither encourage gross emission reductions or forestry.

Hon Meka Whaitiri: What is his response to the Māori forestry land owners’ collective, Te Taumata, who have said that the lack of engagement is a breach of Te Tiriti, given that there are significant potential impacts, including their “ability to exercise rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga over the land” and the potential “material loss of control and value of lands, forestry, and income streams”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The only value that is obtained from carbon farming is under the emissions trading scheme. If the price collapses, there is no value. These issues should be consulted upon, and they are.

Hon Meka Whaitiri: What guarantees can he give, if any, that going forward, engagement with Māori forestry land owners will be Tiriti-compliant and will respect the tino rangatiratanga of tangata whenua?

Hon DAVID PARKER: There was pre-engagement with Māoridom ahead of engagement more broadly with the community—that was appropriate. The consultation in respect of emissions trading scheme settings is important for the broader economy as well as for Māoridom.

Hon Meka Whaitiri: Will he adopt Te Taumata’s three-stage engagement process, which includes comprehensive briefings from officials and advisers, time for Māori to properly consider the technical detail, and direct face-to-face engagement between Māori land owners and the Crown; if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The position of the Crown in respect of consultation has been set out in my earlier answers.

Hon Meka Whaitiri: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table the Te Taumata letter dated 23 June, which outlines the consultation process.

SPEAKER: Who is the letter to?

Hon Meka Whaitiri: The letter is to the Ministry for the Environment, so it’s not publicly available.

SPEAKER: Leave this for that purpose. Is the any objection? There appears to be none; it may be tabled.

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

Question No. 5—Education

5. ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statement that “my bottom line is to ensure our young people are getting the education they need and deserve”, and does she believe the 85 percent of year 8 Pacific students who are not achieving at curriculum level 4 or above in maths, according to the 2022 NMSSA data, are getting the education they need and deserve?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Defence) on behalf of the Minister of Education: To the first part of the member’s question, yes. To the second part: the data the member refers to shows effectively no overall change since 2018, which was just after the National Party were in Government. It shows that educational performance for all students has remained steady overall, despite the tremendous disruption of a global pandemic. There has been a very longstanding gap in performance between years 4 and 8, and this is more pronounced for Pacific and Māori learners. Measures to address this historical level of performance were disrupted for two years because of COVID. However, Government efforts to address that disruption for Pacific students included free Wi-Fi and, in some cases, devices in homes—and free catch-up tutoring sessions which saw Pacific students double their initial credits by the end of the programme and gain 9,138 credits. Right now, we’re firmly in the recovery, and we’re focused on boosting Pacific achievement. Just recently, we have, for example, delivered new equity funding: that’s $75 million in this year’s Budget to give additional funding to schools where learners face the biggest barriers to academic achievement. Secondly, we’ve rolled out the tapa whā cultural competencies framework for teachers of disabled learners, because we know that culturally appropriate education is more effective, and we’re redeveloping the curriculum to make clear what learning needs to occur and when. It’s about supporting teachers to teach and giving parents confidence in their child’s progress and achievements.

Erica Stanford: Why is it that, despite all of the efforts the Minister has just outlined, the number of Pasifika students achieving at curriculum for maths has dropped by 40 percent in the last four years, with nearly 86 percent of students behind by the time they reach year 8?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I think the member is—on behalf of the Minister of Education—being somewhat selective in her comparisons. I referred, in my answer to the primary question, to the historical gap in performance between years 4 and 8, including for Pacific learners. That gap was present throughout the entirety of the national standards framework—it did not change one bit. That is why, when this Government was elected, every effort was made to address that gap; it was disrupted by COVID. Efforts were made during COVID through things like the provision of free Wi-Fi, but the problem with that was that even though we could get Wi-Fi—and we did, for about 40,000 homes—30 percent of homes were Pacific homes and many of those homes didn’t have enough devices for all of the children to do all of their learning. So it’s not surprising that the gap has widened somewhat, but I can tell you that every effort is being made to address that now and to catch up that learning.

Erica Stanford: At what point did the Minister realise that her Government’s actions to minimise the impacts of COVID on low-decile learners were not working, when the latest data from 2022, shows 83 percent are failing to meet curriculum for maths in year 8, a drop of 25 percent from 2018?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: On behalf of the Minister of Education, of course, what we realised on being elected to Government was the complete failure of the national standards framework to delivering effective learning, and so we set about correcting that. We then had the disruption in calendar years 2020 and 2021 to learning, and so we started the recovery in 2022, at the very time this survey—the latest survey—was taken. It was obvious that that survey was going to pick up an ongoing gap, but the Ministry, and indeed the Government right up to the Cabinet level, have continued efforts, and we will continue to be unrelenting until we close that gap, and we’ll do better than that member and her party.

Erica Stanford: Can the Minister explain why not one single cohort of students improved in their maths performance at the end of year 8 in 2022, despite six long years of this Labour Government?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: On behalf of the Minister of Education, that is the most absurd and ridiculous question I think I’ve heard given the information now available to that member. I am happy to take that member through it again. This Government, on being elected, made it a top priority to address the abject failure of the national standards framework and did so. The recovery efforts were disrupted for two years, in 2020 and 2021, by COVID and the fact that much learning was disrupted—many classrooms were closed for extended periods of time. The recovery process for that started in 2022, at the very time the survey took place. Every effort is taking place. That is why there has been extra funding for more tutoring. That’s why there has been more funding in this year’s Budget. On behalf of the Minister of Education, I am very proud of what this Government is doing to recover learning for this cohort.

Erica Stanford: Is there any maths achievement data that the Minister can quote to show that any of their education initiatives have any positive impact, given that tier 1 data released this week shows every group going backwards, and, by her own admission in this House, that the e-asTTle data shows no improvement in mathematics in our primary schools?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: On behalf of the Minister of Education, I don’t know what it is about that member and her party, where they’ve suddenly forgotten that there was a pandemic that caused disruption to this country but, most importantly, to education for two years—the year 2020 and the year 2021. So it’s not surprising that the survey taken in 2022 is going to pick up the impact of that disruption on that learning. That is why remedial efforts were taken in 2022 and more remedial efforts are being taken this year, funded out of this year’s Budget, with the additional $75 million targeted for that reason.

Erica Stanford: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I was quite specific in my question about whether or not the Minister could point to any data that shows any improvements.

SPEAKER: And that was absolutely addressed.

Erica Stanford: What does she say to parents in our low socio-economic communities, with 83 percent of their kids failing to meet the curriculum standard in maths by the end of year 8, a 25 percent drop in four years, who are now on average 2½ years behind the students from high decile schools?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: On behalf of the Minister of Education, the first thing I would say is that when the National Party uses figures, they can’t be relied upon because they get it wrong. And the second thing I would say is, we take seriously the impact of the disruption of COVID on learning over the years 2020 and 2022. And that’s why, when it comes to education, we have made it a priority to put in place measures to recover the lost learning. We did it in 2022 and we’re doing it in 2023. That’s why we funded extra tutoring. That’s why we’re funding extra support for teachers and for schools: to make sure they can support those communities where the learning has slipped.

Question No. 6—Immigration

6. CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) to the Minister of Immigration: What recent announcement has he made regarding working holiday visas?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Immigration): Recently, I announced a range of changes to the United Kingdom Working Holiday Visa scheme, which entered into force on 31 May. This was the result of successful negotiations alongside the New Zealand - UK free-trade agreement, and I acknowledge the work of my colleagues the Hon Damien O’Connor and, indeed, the Hon David Parker, in that respect. Working holidaymakers from the UK will now be able to spend up to three years in New Zealand and will also be able to work for the full duration of their visas; previously, they could work for only up to 12 months during the time they were here. The age limit has also been extended from 30 to 35 years old, because being younger takes longer. These changes are reciprocal; New Zealanders, at least up to the age of 35, will also be able to stay and work in the UK for an extra year. These changes underline the strength of the relationship New Zealand has with the UK, and it’s great that we’re able to further enhance the people-to-people links our countries share.

Camilla Belich: How many people are likely to benefit from these changes?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We know that around 10,000 people each year come to New Zealand from the UK under this scheme, and thousands of New Zealanders take advantage of the equivalent scheme in the UK. Since the new settings were introduced just three weeks ago, Immigration New Zealand has received over 850 applications and approved just under 470. There are also 3,250 UK working holiday visa holders already in New Zealand who will be able to extend their stay thanks to the extension to the UK working holiday visa. To be clear: both those who are currently in the UK or New Zealand on a working holiday will be able to take advantage of these extensions as well.

Camilla Belich: How will this help ensure businesses have the workforces they need?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We know that working holiday visa holders play a vital role in our overall workforce, particularly in the regions and in industries like horticulture and hospitality. Since the borders opened, we’ve seen over 47,500 people arrive here on working holiday visas—an impressive figure, given the intense global competition for migrant labour at the moment, and proof that we’ve been successful in reopening to the world. Particularly now, it’s vital we do all we can to ensure New Zealand is an attractive location for working holiday makers. Earlier this year, we also announced an expansion of the Spain Working Holiday Visa scheme, with the number of places increasing tenfold, from 200 to 2,000.

Camilla Belich: Were these changes brought in on schedule?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have to say no, they were not brought in on schedule. I am, however, pleased to report to the House that they were, in fact, brought in well ahead of schedule so that we were able to support businesses and regions experiencing labour shortages as quickly as possible.

Question No. 7—Health

7. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of Health: Does she stand by all of her statements and actions in relation to the release of health data by Health New Zealand?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): Yes, in the context in which they were made.

Matt Doocey: When she said yesterday that staff in her office had asked Health New Zealand to not release health data on 5 July because of other announcements, which health data was she referring to and what were those other announcements?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: The data was the data integrity review and clinical performance metrics report, and there were a number of announcements made in the week of 5 July, which included a large announcement on the health workforce, on nursing placements, on pay equity for midwives, on pay equity for nurses, and on one other which I will have to reply to that member on—and wait times for cataract surgery.

Matt Doocey: Was the Prime Minister’s office or any other Minister’s office involved in the decision to request the delay of the health data to avoid a conflict with other announcements, and, if not, when was the Prime Minister’s office first informed of the delay?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Could the member please specify which delay he is referring to?

SPEAKER: I’ll give the member another go at the question.

Matt Doocey: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Was the Prime Minister’s office or any other Minister’s office involved in the decision to request the delay of the health data on 5 July to avoid a conflict with other announcements, and, if not, when was the Prime Minister’s office first informed of the delay?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: No. The conversation was between my office and Te Whatu Ora, and the Prime Minister’s office would have been aware of this matter yesterday.

Matt Doocey: Just to confirm, there was no other Minister’s office involved in the discussion or decision to request the delay of health data on 5 July?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: No, not that I’m aware of.

Matt Doocey: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I didn’t actually hear that answer.

SPEAKER: Can you repeat the answer?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: No, not that I’m aware of.

Matt Doocey: On what other occasions, if any, has her office requested the release of public health data to be delayed?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: None that I am aware of.

Matt Doocey: When did she find out what she said yesterday was wrong in relation to her office’s request that the release of health data be delayed, and who told her?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: A member of my office team—the one who had sent the message to Te Whatu Ora—at approximately 4.30 p.m. yesterday.

Question No. 8—Community and Voluntary Sector

8. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector: What recent announcements has she made about modernising the charities sector?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): I recently announced that the Charities Amendment Bill passed its third reading. This legislation takes some important steps to modernise the charitable sector. For example, it reduces the red tape that many charities face, particularly small charities, and it improves charities’ access to justice and establishes new requirements for the Charities Registration Board and the chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs to promote best-practice regulatory decision-making. The changes to the legislation were brought about by a review of the Act that recommended some practical changes that could be made to better support charities and to improve public trust and confidence in the sector. There are approximately 28,000 registered charities in New Zealand and this Government recognises the important role they play and we want to ensure that our legislative settings are fit for purpose so that we can continue to back them in the great work they’re doing to support our communities.

Angie Warren-Clark: What are some of the ways the Charities Amendment Act supports smaller charities?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: The Charities Amendment Act 2023 makes it easier for smaller charities to comply with legal requirements. For example, the Act empowers the chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs to exempt very small charities for the not-for-profit reporting standard that’s set by the External Reporting Board. Now, that new reporting standard came into effect in 2015 and changed the landscape—made it quite difficult for small charities to be able to comply. I’m told by some very small charities that they even had to hire accountants just to meet their legal requirements, and that was onerous. The Act also provides greater access to justice for charities by empowering the Taxation Review Authority to hear Charities Act first appeals rather than the High Court. This reduces the costs, complexities, and resources associated with taking appeals straight to the High Court. Charities will also have more time to lodge an appeal and can self-represent at the authority to avoid legal costs. So that’s particularly beneficial for small charities.

Angie Warren-Clark: How does the Act improve charities governance?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: In addition to reducing the regulatory burden on charities, the new Act amends the definition of “officer”. Previously, this was the source of a fair amount of confusion. The new definition will ensure everyone who has significant influence over the management and administration of a charity will be defined as an officer and therefore accountable for the running of the charity. The bill also requires charities to review their governance procedures at least once in three years. This will help ensure that charities are actively considering whether their resources are being used to meet their charitable purpose and whether their governance processes are up to date but that they aren’t overly burdened with a compliance requirement.

Angie Warren-Clark: Why are these changes important?

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Kiwis have been rated the second-most generous country in the world. Our charitable sector has an annual total income of over $21 billion and is supported by over 217,000 volunteers. These organisations contribute in diverse areas. The charitable sector in Aotearoa New Zealand delivers an extraordinary contribution to communities across the country and they approximately contribute 1.7 million hours every week and more than 98,000 people work full time in the sector. These changes recognise that important mahi and improve the ability of charities to operate effectively and efficiently, while also ensuring public trust and confidence in the sector is strengthened.

Question No. 9—Corrections

9. TONI SEVERIN (ACT) to the Minister of Corrections: Does he think it is acceptable that, as at 31 May 2023, 2,191 sentenced prisoners had attended a rehabilitation programme during the 2022/2023 year, 4,140 fewer than attended rehabilitation programmes in the 2017/2018 year, and how many sentenced prisoners attended a rehabilitation programme during June 2023?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Corrections: There has been an anticipated reduction in the raw number of rehabilitation programme attends since 2017-18, as Corrections has refocused the rehabilitation programmes it runs. I can confirm that the number of attends has declined from 6,588 to 2,451 since 2017-18, as at the end of June. A significant proportion of this reduction comes from the 2019 discontinuation of just two alcohol and drug programmes that could each be completed in less than 24 hours. In reality, these programmes were just too short to make a difference in offending, but they did significantly pad the raw data statistics. There are also fewer people in prison, and the department has been navigating the impacts of COVID-19 staffing challenges. I’m advised that, in June 2023, 666 sentenced prisoners attended a rehabilitation programme, which is, proportionately, broadly in line with historic levels.

Toni Severin: Why is it that, as of 31 May 2023, only 1,508 sentenced prisoners had successfully completed a rehabilitation programme in the 2022-23 year, a decrease of 3,993 compared to those who completed a programme in 2017-18?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: There has been an expected decline in the raw number of rehabilitation programme starts and completes since 2017-18, as Corrections has refocused the rehabilitation programmes it runs by replacing those two high-volume but low-effectiveness programmes with more intensive programmes. They are rehabilitating a smaller prison population, and, of course, they’ve been dealing with the impacts of COVID-19 and staffing challenges.

Toni Severin: Why has the number of sentenced prisoners who successfully completed rehabilitation programmes decreased by over 63 percent and the number attending rehabilitation programmes decreased by over 65 percent on his watch?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: On behalf of the Minister, I refer to my previous answer.

Question No. 10—Commerce and Consumer Affairs

10. HELEN WHITE (Labour) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What updates can he report about the New Zealand Claims Resolution Service?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): The caseload of the New Zealand Claims Resolution Service has been steadily growing as people affected by the recent weather events turned to it for support. At the end of June, the service had 972 open cases. In readiness for growth, the service has taken on more case managers, three of whom started work in June. Kiwis dealing with tricky insurance claims need support at this time, and the New Zealand Claims Resolution Service is there to provide it.

Helen White: How many households has the service been helping in the areas of recent extreme weather events?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: With regard to the Auckland floods, the service has 101 open cases and 222 cases it has already closed. In respect of Cyclone Gabrielle, there are 150 open cases and 162 have been closed.

Helen White: How satisfied have people been with the service they’ve received?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: There’s a very high level of satisfaction.

Chris Bishop: Oh, really?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well, yes, Mr Bishop, and it’s great that we can do this for New Zealanders who need help. There’s a 90 percent satisfaction rate in the year to date.

Hon Member: What?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I know—more than some on the other side of the House. Notably, June had a 93 percent satisfaction rate. In the month before, it was 100 percent. Homeowners have registered their thanks for the help and advice they’ve been given free of charge in this difficult time, and I want to thank the team at the New Zealand Claims Resolution Service for the work they’re doing in this space.

Helen White: In what circumstances should people get in touch with the service?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Anyone who’s having difficulty with their insurance claim is free to turn to this service for help. For some people, this is technical or legal advice. For others, it may just be about feeling overwhelmed and needing assistance to navigate a tricky insurance pathway. Whatever the reason is, if Kiwis have got stuck in their insurance claim, they should look up the New Zealand Claims Resolution Service. It’s free support: 0508 624 327 or nzcrs.govt.nz. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Question No. 11—Revenue

11. SIMON WATTS (National—North Shore) to the Minister of Revenue: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As a registered paramedic, may I acknowledge, briefly, the role of the Auckland-based St John paramedics and special emergency response team for their actions this morning.

My question is to the Minister of Revenue. Does he stand by his statement on the Government’s proposal for a wealth tax that “As is clear from the papers, I supported it”, and does he think Inland Revenue was right to say a wealth tax would “generate a range of economic costs and other risks”?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Yes, I stand by my statement. It is IRD’s obligation as public servants to provide unfettered advice to Ministers of the economic, equity, and other benefits and risks of proposed tax changes; that is a role I respect as Minister.

Simon Watts: Why did he describe himself as “disappointed” over the decision not to pursue a wealth tax in this year’s Budget?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Because I was.

Simon Watts: Was Inland Revenue right to say that they were “concerned” about the time frame for development of the wealth tax, and, if so, why did he try to rush his wealth tax through?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The inequities in the tax system exposed by the high-wealth individuals report is one of the reasons why I was pushing for that change.

Simon Watts: Has the Prime Minister or his office had any communications with him over any potential breaches of collective Cabinet responsibility because of his public statements of disappointment with the Government’s tax policies?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I was responding to an answer from the media; any other answer would have been entirely inconsistent with the papers. The Prime Minister has ruled this out. I’m collectively responsible for the decision that Cabinet has taken, and I stand by the Prime Minister’s statements.

Simon Watts: Has he met with the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister, since the Budget, on a wealth tax?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, prior to the Minister and the Prime Minister ruling it out as Labour Party policy.

Simon Watts: How can Kiwis take this Government seriously on tax, when senior Ministers, like himself, are publicly agitating for a wealth tax, even after the Prime Minister tried to rule it out?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The Labour Party has kept every one of our promises on tax to the electorate, unlike the last Government, that promised not to increase GST, and then did.

Chris Bishop: Oh, whatever. You said you wouldn’t extend the brightline test and then did it anyway.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Yeah, you did. You lied about it.

Simon Watts: Has he expressed his disappointment directly—

Hon Damien O’Connor: You were dishonest.

Simon Watts: —to the Prime Minister—

SPEAKER: Order!

Simon Watts: —that he’s tried to rule out a wealth tax—

SPEAKER: Order!

Chris Bishop: You’ve been here 25 years—

SPEAKER: Order! And for that, you can both get up and apologise—the Hon Damien O’Connor and Chris Bishop.

Hon Damien O’Connor: I withdraw and apologise.

Chris Bishop: I withdraw and apologise, and sorry to Mr O’Connor.

Simon Watts: Has he expressed his disappointment directly to the Prime Minister that he’s tried to rule out a wealth tax, or is he saving that for his next letter to the editor?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I’m very happy to quote my letter to the editor. I said to the New Zealand Herald that “I was interested to see the extensive space you gave to two former National ministers to uncritically air their views in your paper over the weekend. One column, from Steven Joyce, seemed [to] solely focus on attacking me for being a Labour Government Revenue Minister, rather than a National one. I recall that Joyce enjoyed spending up large on roads in [the] day, so long as they were [big] flash new ones—he wasn’t so keen on the more mundane task of maintaining existing roads. The other column, from National’s campaign fundraiser Paula Bennett was devoted to telling us what a great guy Christopher Luxon is. Rust never sleeps! I hope your readers were enlightened.”

Question No. 12—Transport

12. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Transport: Is reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport still a priority for this Government?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Transport): Yes. For example, both the Clean Car Standard and the Clean Car Discount are making a tangible difference to emissions. These two initiatives are now estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around three times the originally estimated reduction for the period 2022-25.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will the new draft Government Policy Statement on land transport support mode shift from private cars to public and active transport in a manner consistent with the Paris Agreement targets and the emissions reduction plan?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The Cabinet has not yet finalised its consideration of that matter, but yes: mode shift is an important part of our response, as is vehicle efficiency, obviously. There have been significant investments by this Government in mode shift, including unprecedented support for rail, buses, and other active forms of transport.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will his Government commit to funding extensions to public transport services in tier 2 and 3 cities and towns in the next term of Government, given it has deprioritised funding this term?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The announcement of Labour Party policy for the next term on transport policy will be made during the election.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will he commit to a Waitematā Harbour crossing that prioritises active and public transport options that reduce congestion and emissions?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I certainly agree that the next harbour crossing for the Waitematā needs to include both public transport and active routes.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will he commit to replacing the Public Transport Operating Model this term so that councils can ensure public transport services are operated for the public good of New Zealanders, not just the private benefits of shareholders of private companies?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I am not envisaging a substantial change to the operating model before the election.

Bills

Crown Minerals Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 29 June.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. As a member of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, it’s a pleasure to stand here on behalf of this hard-working committee to speak on the second reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. We considered this piece of legislation. We worked hard together on it, and although we didn’t reach agreement, there were constructive processes done together, on both sides of the floor. I want to acknowledge my colleague, the member Naisi Chen, the chair of the committee, for her brilliant leadership throughout this, and I also acknowledge the previous chair, Jamie Strange, who did a wonderful job of chairing and ensuring that, even though we didn’t agree on much of this, we were able to work closely together to reach the outcomes of today.

Now, for those in the House, I know you’re desperate to know a bit more about this piece of legislation. So listen very carefully, because this bill seeks to clarify the role of the Crown Minerals Act 1991 as an allocation and management framework and enable flexibility in the management of Crown-owned minerals. It sits around flexibility, around management, but also around engagement with iwi and hapū, which is an important piece to consider.

For myself, as the member of Parliament for New Plymouth, this is particularly dear to my heart and my region and electorate. Obviously, in terms of Crown minerals, in terms of what we have in my region, it’s something that for many, many, many years has been neglected, and that is the engagement with local hapū, with local iwi; for decades and decades they have never been at the table or part of the conversation. Therefore, the plan within this legislation to improve, with permit licence holders, the engagement with iwi and hapū, and I think that’s really important.

We received 334 written submissions for this legislation, and 17 oral submissions, and the diversity was great. It was really interesting to be part of that. Just to give you a bit of a feel for that, in terms of the submitters, we had BusinessNZ Energy Council, we had Carbon Neutral NZ, we had Climate Justice Taranaki, we had Energy Resources Aotearoa, we had Methanex, and we had Minerals West Coast. We also had OMV NZ and Taranaki Energy Watch. We had Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Mutunga. We had Todd Energy and Victoria University of Wellington, just to name some of those who engaged in this process. It was robust. It was challenging.

I just want to focus, as I finish off this afternoon, on a very simple change in wording, which makes a big difference. As I said, we will amend the Crown Minerals Act 1991, and we will amend the purpose statement, replacing the word “promote” with “manage”. I believe that, as we move forward into the 21st century and we look at the climate challenges, managing our resources rather than promoting them is important. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Well, in contrast to the previous member for New Plymouth Glen Bennett and his proposal that New Zealand should simply manage its mineral resources, the ACT Party believes we should promote the use and acquisition of our minerals. By doing so, whether they are highly valuable and rare minerals, or things that we use every day in our cellphones and other technology, like gold and silver and platinum, or those minerals like titanium, for example, which are found in association with iron-rich sands, volcanic sands, off the west coast of the North Island, which are used to manufacture steel—and, in fact, not just manufacture any steel but low-emissions, high-quality steel right here in New Zealand—we must continue to promote the use and the acquisition of these mineral resources in order to ensure New Zealand’s future prosperity, a healthy economy, but, more importantly, healthy communities.

It is people who work in those industries who earn some of the highest wages and salaries of any people in New Zealand, and it’s those wages and salaries that allow people, even if they didn’t finish high school or go to university and get a degree, to earn as much as people who did, and put food on the table, school uniforms on the kids, pay for holidays, save for a home, and get ahead. That’s what promoting access to our natural and physical resources and minerals means—in Taranaki, on the West Coast of the South Island, in Southland, in Canterbury and Central Otago, where we have extensive gold deposits, and, of course, in the Coromandel, not far from where I live in Auckland, where New Zealand has been undertaking gold extraction for over a hundred years. More recently, there have been proposed developments to access gold from underneath the conservation estate—from underneath the conservation estate—by drilling a tunnel from private land to get into the gold resource without disturbing a single snail, frog, lizard, or even a leaf on a kauri tree.

Hon Eugenie Sage: Dreaming!

SIMON COURT: We can promote the use of our natural and physical resources, despite what the member the Hon Eugenie Sage says—that we’re dreaming. I’ve seen it done in other places around New Zealand, where the resources have been recovered and they’ve been recovered in an environmentally friendly way, such as at OceanaGold’s Globe Progress Mine at Reefton, on the West Coast of the South Island, where that company not only rehabilitated a site that had been used for over a hundred years for all types of informal and less sophisticated mining activities but had actually saved the tree stumps from historical logging activities. When they went to do their mine—extract the gold from the Globe Progress Mine—not that long ago, in the last 10 or 15 years, they took the tree stumps off the site first, before they started digging, and they stockpiled them all on one side of the site. Then, when they’d finished mining, they built a fantastic lake and a wetland. They’ve landscaped the site, they’ve planted it with hundreds of thousands of trees, and they’ve put the tree stumps back as little hidey holes as habitat for little creatures and insects.

That’s how you promote the use of New Zealand’s natural and physical resources. That’s how you generate wealth: you generate export earnings, you generate revenues and royalties for the Crown, and you pay fantastic wages and salaries to people who might not have finished high school or got a university degree but are active contributors in their community and who are able to put food on the table, able to pay for school uniforms, and never have to ask for charity. Those people are the backbone of New Zealand because they earn good money in the natural and physical resources sector, and we get a much improved environment. Now, if now only the Department of Conservation, on whose land the OceanaGold Globe Progress Mine—

Hon Eugenie Sage: Our land!

SIMON COURT: The Department of Conservation (DOC) administers the land. As the Hon Eugenie Sage rightly points out, that is our land; that is New Zealanders’ land that DOC administers. If only the Department of Conservation could afford to control the weeds and the pests on their enormous estate that they manage, maybe there would be a case to say, “Hey, we should be kind of managing minerals in a different way.” Imagine if we could actually generate more revenue from promoting the use of minerals and resources, and organisations like the Department of Conservation could benefit from increased revenue—from concessions and access fees, for example—to actually pay for pest control, weed control, and all the other things that New Zealanders want them to do well. Well, by changing the definition from “promote” to simply “manage”, all of that opportunity is put at risk.

It was quite recently that a former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, said that mining is not a threat to conservation in New Zealand: it’s pests and weeds. And she should know. She’s a scientist and was the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. All of that knowledge appears to have been neglected in pursuit of this policy. Now, of course, every Government has the right to set its policies and priorities, to deliver on policies, such as when the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Dame Jacinda Ardern, as she is now, announced no new mines on the conservation estate. Well, it turns out, actually, that represents about a third of New Zealand’s land area, and that’s a very, very unfortunate policy, because it would sterilise access to valuable minerals, not just gold but rare earth minerals that are absolutely vital for the technology that we use today, whether it’s the cellphone network, putting satellites into space, or communication technology, but it would also sterilise access to valuable resources like aggregates and sands, which are also on the conservation estate and which are required for building roads and building infrastructure. There are many places around New Zealand where the Department of Conservation, for example, has the right of veto, essentially, over which businesses get access to these resources.

So what ACT would say is quite simple: we need to have policies that, instead of simply managing Crown minerals, and managing them in a way, currently, which involves an enormous backlog of applications through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for access permits from the New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals department—managing currently means a handbrake. It means a whole lot of in-trays but very little going out in the out-tray, back to the sector that actually needs permission to get on with extracting minerals. Instead of managing it, which is something that nobody trusts this Government to do anyway, ACT believes we should be promoting access to these resources, whether they’re on private land or on Crown land, whether they’re on land or on sea, because what that does is allow us to generate economic wealth, social wealth, and to take advantage of our natural potential and our human potential.

If New Zealand wants to play its part as a 21st century nation, one that is committed to a low-emissions future, to net zero 2050, we’re going to need to play our part by recovering the minerals that are lying under New Zealand, either on our continental shelf or on that part of the country that’s still above water, and we’re going to need to recover them so we can turn them into products that use less hydrocarbons, such as batteries and all of that other technology. ACT won’t be supporting this bill and, if we have an opportunity in a future Government, we will return the language to “promote” the use of these resources.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The 10 hottest days in recorded human history have been in this month. There are currently extremely dangerous temperatures across many settlements, towns, and cities in the Northern Hemisphere, and we’re also seeing record warming of the North Atlantic Ocean at an incredibly unprecedented rate. If this is not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is, and the speech made by the previous speaker, Mr Court, was kind of terrifying in its absolute blindness to the threat to human wellbeing that is caused by our continued use of fossil fuels.

Last year, fossil fuel companies recorded their largest profits—record profits. So we have large corporations that are making enormous amounts of money out of digging up and selling a product that is leading to pollution that is slowly—in this case, possibly rapidly—smothering the Earth. We don’t have that much time left, so it’s a bit absurd to hear members on this side of the House arguing that they still think it’s appropriate to have legislation saying that the Government should be promoting exploration and production of fossil fuels. That is outrageous. It’s a death wish from those people.

I don’t want to be alarmist, but, you know, it’s 2023 and we are running out of time, and it seems like they really have no idea that the 10 hottest days in over 10,000 years—possibly 100,000 years—have happened in the last month. What do you think is going to happen next year? What do you think is going to happen in five years? Do you people have children? Do you care about them? It’s outrageous that these people want to continue to allow private companies to get rich off things that are causing the death of the future of this planet. That is what’s happening. I’m not afraid to show emotion on this issue because I have two young children and I care about their future, and I’m aware of the science, which clearly you are not—members of the National Party; not you, Madam Speaker.

This is a practical action. I don’t know if people watching at home or members here have seen the movie Don’t Look Up, but the justifications given for having legislation that continues to promote exploration of minerals rather than manage it is very indicative or reminiscent of the crazy billionaire character who’s saying that we shouldn’t stop an asteroid from hitting Earth because we could get rich off it. It is an allegory, and obviously, if you live on another planet, a planet on which climate change isn’t happening, I guess you won’t be concerned about that and you wouldn’t support the bill, but it’s the responsibility of the Government to look after our natural resources for all of us. It is a clear example of market failure when people can get rich off activities that are a threat to human health, wellbeing, and our future.

I think that people watching at home know this. There’s a huge number of people who are extremely concerned about climate change, and they’re concerned, particularly, in the wake of record flooding events and Cyclone Gabrielle. It’s unfathomable to me that members opposite think that we should still be promoting exploration for the use of fossil fuels, which we know we can’t afford to burn, when we are going to continue to be hit by dangerous droughts, dangerous floods, and dangerous cyclones that will have enormous human cost. The stress on food production that is caused by high temperatures and record rainfall events is one of the contributors to the high food prices we are currently experiencing. All they can do is point the finger and blame the current Government, while just paying no attention to what’s actually going on out there in the world. It’s irresponsible.

I love the smirky smile on your face—I’m sorry, I can’t remember her name; Nicola from the South Island—Nicola Grigg. What a smirky smile. Come back and talk to me in 10 years. Come back and talk to me in 15 years. These members believe that we are going to be able to continue getting rich off taking more out of the Earth than the Earth can afford. We have the ability to have good lives while respecting the Earth and respecting natural resources and stopping the use of fossil fuels. We have the ability to do that as humans, but we will not be able to do that if we have a Government that represents the vested interests of the status quo—the people who want to continue getting rich by exploiting the environment and people so that they can personally fly their private jets and own seven houses or more—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! The member will come back now to this bill. I know that it relates in general, but come back to the bill.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: It’s a very simple choice that we have at this election—a very simple choice. We can continue taking action that is responsible and is going to look after the things that matter most to people, look after our future—and I really hope people at home are watching and paying attention to the speeches from the National Party and the ACT Party. We in the Green Party actually believe—and my colleague Eugenie Sage has a member’s bill that would amend the purpose—that rather than manage exploration, it’s the responsibility of the Government to regulate, and we would prefer to see that language used. Those sorts of changes would help assist the transition from oil, gas, and coal extraction to a more sustainable form of living and a sustainable form of producing our food, carrying on our trade, and doing all the things that humans want to do, so that we can continue to live good lives and so that our kids and their kids can continue to live good lives, and we can stop the rapid acceleration of warming of the planet that is leading to devastating storms, droughts, and temperatures that will quite literally put human lives at risk.

NAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I too join with my deputy chairperson, Glen Bennett, in thanking the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for the hard work that we’ve put in, especially the officials that have worked on this bill.

I note, similarly to my deputy chair, that the submissions were extensive, the submissions were really in depth, and the submissions had a lot of different views to show to us. I walked away from that process with this overwhelming impression that those who submitted to our select committee care deeply for our environment, and that is an impression that will forever be ingrained in me. The amount of people, individuals—young people especially; I remember this one young female individual who talked about the fact that New Zealand needs to have a regulatory system that looks after the overall wellbeing of our environment. Through this bill, this is another part of making sure that we have the right regulations and a suite of legislation in place to make sure we balance that.

I just wanted to address some of the comments that the ACT Party member Simon Court made about economic wellbeing coming from our minerals, or from our mining sector. I think that is one very, very short-sighted and singular vision of how we need to develop our economy. New Zealand trades on our image of being clean and green. “100% Pure New Zealand” is the slogan of this country. When we go out there on to the global stage and we promote our products, we promote tourism to New Zealand. If we don’t keep going with decarbonising our future, if we don’t keep producing the high quality products of being a low-carbon economy, low-emissions economy, we are going to lose our advantage that we have on the world stage.

When I visited China with the Prime Minister earlier on last month, we knew that New Zealand’s products had an edge in that market, because we had the reputation that our products were produced in an environment that was clean and green—that we had high standards of regulating our economy and the way that we produce our goods. So this is a bill that has a lot of foresight into what kind of economy we want to be in the future—how New Zealand has a comparative advantage on the world stage. This is one step in that direction. I’m also really proud to bring iwi and hapū engagement into this bill as well, making sure that there is a little bit more clarity when we bring in the wisdom and the knowledge that our mana whenua has of our land when they engage with us in that process, and give us the best of their knowledge in this entire process as well.

The last part of this bill, which I think seldom got acknowledged, was also the decommissioning part—tidying up the last bit of that part. We know now that the Crown had to foot the bill for the decommissioning of the last failure of the private company who just walked out the door with actually no obligation; it was the taxpayers who had to front up with that bill, despite a private company making all of the profit in that process. So we know that this is a real-life example where we as Government need to step up and make sure that, if you’re going to make money from New Zealand, from our precious minerals, and our precious natural environment, you need to be held accountable for that responsibility back to New Zealand taxpayers to make sure that there are stringent laws and regulations on how we assess and grant permits.

Yes, this is also another bill that we’ve already passed into the House. But this bill—this amendment to the Crown Minerals Amendment Act in 2022—will just tidy up and close all of the loopholes in that respect as well. So this is a great bill, and I commend it to the House.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Well, it has been quite startling listening to the last two contributions in this debate from the Green Party and the Labour Party, because what they have given clear voice to is the absolute divide that sits in this House between those who see a future—

Rachel Boyack: And the country.

TODD MULLER: —and the country, perhaps; let’s see—those who see a future for mining rare minerals to assist the decarbonisation journey and those who see it, and any of that activity, as purely extractive and therefore shall be banned from New Zealand. That is the argument they have put forward in the last 10 minutes. They are anti-extraction, anti-mining, and if anybody stands up—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Point of order—point of order. My understanding is that the bill changes the wording to “manage” not “ban”, so I’m not sure why that member’s misleading members at home about what is actually said in the bill.

Matt Doocey: Speaking to that point of order—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): It is actually not a point of order. It is a debating point, so I will go back to Todd Muller, who’s still giving his speech.

TODD MULLER: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So there is an absolute clear divide, in my view, between the Labour and Green parties, who hold the view that any mining, any extractive industry has no future, and, worse than that, that anybody who stands on this side of the House and has a different view is a climate denier. We had full noise from Julie Anne Genter just before, saying that in the National Party, because we have a different view, because we see that there is a place for mining in the decarbonisation journey of this country, we are supposedly the climate deniers. I think the argument is false, it’s flawed, and actually does this debate a disservice.

We are trying to walk this country, over the next 20 or 30 years, to be less reliant on carbon to underpin our economy, and the minerals that exist in this country, in Australia, and in other parts of the world, will be a critical part of that. So we stand here saying: yes, the climate crisis around the globe is extreme and serious, and, yes, 190 countries need to make the best efforts to go on a decarbonising journey. But what does that mean? In 2030, to meet global demand for electricity storage, the International Energy Agency predicts 50 new lithium mines, 60 new nickel mines, and 17 new cobalt mines. Without minerals, there is no transition to a decarbonised future.

So the argument of the Greens in particular, echoed by Labour, is completely nonsensical. They are living in a la-la land, thinking that somehow, for the decarbonisation of this country and this economy to occur, we should just walk away from any mineral that sits underground that actually could assist not only us but the rest of the world to make the transition. Norway does it, Europe does it, Africa does it, America does it, Canada does it, Australia does it, but for the Greens and the Labour Party, no, New Zealand should not touch it, because somehow it’s going to impact our positioning on the world stage. What absolute trite nonsense.

We have to change the economy to move to a decarbonised future, but minerals are a critical enabler for that to happen and they’re underground. You’ve got to dig them up to actually make them contribute to the global economy. To sit there and say that any touching of any mineral extraction is bad and is flawed and shouldn’t be the way of the future for New Zealand is absolute economic illiteracy. What’s worse is that it’s wrapped up in climate change language that if we hold this view we are deniers, and if we hold this view somehow we don’t care about our children’s futures.

Nicola Grigg: Lazy.

TODD MULLER: Well, that is lazy, it is wrong, and, frankly, it’s offensive, because this debate deserves far better intellectual rigour than what we’ve had to put up with over the last 10 minutes or quarter of an hour. This is critical—that we get the settings right for our decarbonised journey—and this bill says, “You know what? We are not going to promote or in any way be active in seeking to see what we could do with our New Zealand minerals that are caught up, and applying the best practice in terms of extraction and remediation—we’re going to say no to that opportunity and let the rest of the world grab it.” Frankly, it looks like we are the country in the Dark Ages. By goodness, we need a change in Government come October to have some sense brought to the table in this debate. Thank you very much.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the second reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. We’ve had quite a few impassioned contributions from around the House on this bill, but I think, as someone who didn’t sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation (EDSI) Committee that considered this bill, I’d like to look at what the bill actually does say, and in terms of the provisions it’s actually introducing.

So “This bill would amend the Crown Minerals Act 1991”—and I’m taking this from the report from the select committee; the EDSI Committee. It’s a split committee between the Opposition and the Government, so it doesn’t necessarily have a view which supports either way. In their agreed report, it states that the bill would “alter the purpose clause of the Act to remove promotional intent”, and it would mean that “allocation would be promoted where there is a need, and minimised where [this is] not [needed].” So I do agree this is a practical bill; it strikes a balance on the need for mining in some circumstances, but it also recognises that there are changes that we need to make.

It does take away “promotion”, but this does not equate to a ban on mining, as some others have stated, and it is quite clearly there in the bill—and we can just check, to be extra sure that we’re correct on this, by looking at Part 1. In clause 4, section 1A as amended, the word “promote” is replaced with “manage”. We can all agree, I think, that there are environmental concerns with mining, and so changing from promotion to management—especially when we’re in the time of a climate crisis—does seem to be a practical, sensible way of addressing both the need to mine and also the needs of our changing climate. I commend this bill to the House.

DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour): Kia ora. Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a call in support of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, and I want to thank the Hon Megan Woods for bringing this bill to the House. I also want to thank my colleagues in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for their work on this fantastic bill. This bill was part of the Government’s review of the Crown Minerals Act 1991, and this Government is preparing Aotearoa for the environmental transition and to reduce the emissions linked to our extractive industries.

Minerals will be an important part of the environmental transition and they will be absolutely necessary in the technologies that we’re going to need to help us decarbonise our economy. But continuing as we have done until now cannot be the solution, and we should try to do more with less; to reduce our carbon footprint and ecological impact. Energy transition is an issue that not only New Zealand but the whole world actually faces, and this bill is part of our effort to participate in the energy transition and achieve our net zero goals by 2050.

This bill changes the Crown Minerals Act so that the Crown no longer promotes the prospecting, exploration, and mining of Crown-owned minerals, but instead manages them. We are committed to phasing out fossil fuels in New Zealand and to achieve net zero by 2050. It’s no easy task, but it’s essential that we do our bit to fight climate change.

This bill does not change the framework surrounding the extraction of minerals in New Zealand; it simply creates more certainty about future decision making around minerals in New Zealand, and we are committed to phasing out fossil fuels while ensuring that our energy remains secure, reliable, and affordable for all New Zealanders. This bill also strengthens the engagement between permit holders, iwi, and hapū to ensure that Māori interests are recognised. So it’s a fantastic bill, and I commend it to the House.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. The member that has just resumed his seat, Dan Rosewarne, has fallen into the trap that all Labour and Green MPs have fallen into, and that is believing that this piece of legislation is actually going to assist our climate change objectives and goals. It’s going to do the reverse—it’s going to do the reverse. If there was ever a piece of legislation to come before this House that is based on ideological claptrap, it’s this—absolute ideological claptrap. Every aspect of our lives that we live in a modern, thriving economy—well, I wish that the economy was thriving; an economy that should be thriving—is based, actually, at its essence, on an extractive mineral resource that gives us the opportunity to live the lives that we do.

If we are to achieve—as we on this side of the House absolutely believe we will and are committed to—our Paris Agreement commitments, our international commitments, and our domestic legislative commitments in terms of climate change, then we are going to need a mineral-extractive sector within our economy. To think otherwise is to just deny the absolute truth of what it is that makes a modern economy work and what gives us the opportunity to live the lives that we want to live and aspire to have for our children and our grandchildren.

Now, I did not sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that heard submissions on this legislation, but I’ve had an opportunity to listen to speeches today and also to do some reading about some of the submissions that were received, and some of the arguments both for and against. I want to pick up on a comment or two that my colleague Todd Muller made, because I thought his was a very, very good contribution to this broader debate and this speech. If we look at economies around the world that are, in many ways, leading their climate objectives, we find that some of those economies—in fact, most of those economies—are using their own mineral-extractive sectors to help achieve the goals that they have set for themselves and for the planet. For us to say, “Well, we’re not going to participate in that. We’re going to just manage rather than promote an intelligent, useful, and smart environmental approach to mineral extraction” is just to deny the obvious.

Look, for a moment, at Norway. Norway is a world leader in terms of their climate ambitions and in terms of the way that they have been able to, for instance, change the way that their transport sector is funded. They are electrifying their transport fleet at rates that make us look like rank amateurs, but their economy is based on a mineral-extractive economy. How they’ve funded that growth has been through support for their own extractive economy. They’ve used that to provide their citizens and their nation with the goals that they want to achieve and the tools that they want to use to get to the climate objectives they need. This legislation would be an anchor in terms of helping New Zealand and New Zealanders achieve those goals that, I think, collectively, around this Parliament, we do want to achieve.

So this comes down to, in many respects, an ideological debate. It’s an ideological debate. It’s about whether we have the smart, clever thinking that is going to effectively and environmentally consciously and environmentally responsibly use the minerals that we have available to us in New Zealand to achieve goals that we want to for our citizens, or are we just going to take an ideological approach such as that that the Hon Julie Anne Genter was talking about in her speech, which is, basically, to crawl back into a cave and do nothing? That was, essentially, I think, the essence of her speech. I thought it was Catherine Delahunty, a former member of this House—I thought that was her view. It seems that that is still commonly held within the Green Party.

Actually, we need to be smarter than that. We need to be more nimble, we need more finesse, and we need to be able to realise that it’s not a binary option for New Zealand and New Zealanders to simply say, “Well, we want to achieve our climate objectives, but we don’t want to use any extractive mineral resources at all to do that.” That is simply not an opportunity that we have. We are a small nation at the bottom of the South Pacific, blessed, might I say, with a lot of mineral resources that we should be using and should be maximising to achieve our goals.

So, in this legislation, the primary function of it seems to be simply to remove terminology from the existing principal statute that says “promote” all types of mining and instead replace it with the words “manage mining”. Well, I just think that sends very poor signals to those businesses, those stakeholders, shareholders, and entrepreneurs who want to invest cleverly and imaginatively in extractive mineral opportunities that will help us achieve our goals. I can’t see why the current Government wants to be so closed in their thinking as to that, because this change actually sends a chilling message to those investors that, actually, in New Zealand, mining and mineral extraction is not something that is welcomed by our Government and it doesn’t, in their view, form an important part of our economy.

By crikey, given the opportunity later this year, in October, if my colleagues and I in the National Party and the ACT Party have an opportunity to lead a new Government, we are going to have to focus far more carefully on growing our economy, because it’s a growing economy that gives us the income and the wealth and the opportunity to invest in the roads and the schools and the health systems and all the things that we want for our society. To simply close off opportunity, in the way that this current Government wants to, is to deny the logic of basic economics, but it’s also to deny opportunities for New Zealand citizens.

I want to just comment, for instance, in relation to my own electorate in the beautiful Coromandel. Waihī is a town that, for more than a hundred years, has been literally and figuratively built on mining. Waihī didn’t exist before gold mining. Waihī is a town that, like so many other small towns around our country, exists entirely because of its mining heritage. Now, I know there are some who say, “Well, we shouldn’t be doing any mining at Waihī.” Well, I don’t take that view at all. I think that Waihī provides a great example of how it can be a business that provides for community, for jobs, and for the local district and local people. Just to give you an idea, something like 22.7 percent of the Hauraki District Council’s total gross domestic product comes from mining. That’s important to a small district council like Hauraki. To deny that, I think, is to deny the facts and the logic and the rationale of economic reality.

So, on this side of the House, we take a far more pragmatic and sensible approach. We apply our blue-green environmental principles to these matters, and we say we take a practical approach to environmentalism—a practical approach that says we can have a degree of nimbleness and smartness that allows us to extract minerals wisely, sensibly, and for the economic benefit of the nation, that helps us achieve our combined climate objectives while at the same time ensuring that our environment is protected and that we are not stupid enough to degrade and do long-term harm. I know that my South Island colleagues will point to examples where mineral extraction has actually enhanced, at the end of the mineral extraction process, the local environment.

So, look, with that, I’m happy to conclude my remarks in this second reading. We oppose this legislation, we oppose the ideological claptrap and nonsense that it represents, and we will apply, given the opportunity in October to lead a new Government, a far more practical blue-green environmental approach to these matters.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I want to say Mr Todd Simpson, who has just spoken—

Matt Doocey: Scott Simpson.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: —has followed in the same vein as his colleague who spoke before him—

Matt Doocey: Scott Muller.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: —Mr Todd Muller, and I want to say—they all look the same, I’m sorry.

I want to say that, for the young people of New Zealand who care about the future of this country, they really need to look at those speeches, and I hope that they would come to agree with me: those speeches are reckless, are irresponsible, and are greed-based.

Look, Mr Simpson also made mention of Norway. What he didn’t make mention of—sure, that economy is not as liberal as the kind of economy that they are trying to create. It is a managed economy. It is a high-tax economy with a focus on greater investment in education and health, so you can’t compare us to Norway. We are nowhere close to that.

This bill, despite the ill-informed comments they’ve made, is about changing from promoting to managing—so we’ve got to manage this better. We’ve got to do that. I think, if people look at what we’re trying to change, this is the Crown Minerals Act of 1991. Who was in charge of the Government at that time? National, under Jim Bolger—that was a time people should remember, where greed drove a lot of the policy directions that they provided.

So what we’re asking now is, because of climate change—and it is the single-greatest threat in the Pacific region—we’ve got to be in a position that we are managing and controlling how we cause harm to this planet and to our region, but also to enable us to transition away from fossil fuels into more renewable energy.

The final comment I want to make is that I’m really grateful that the committee has continued to support the participation of iwi. This is important. Indigenous people throughout the world are calling out to all Governments that their economic activities are causing harm and that they need to think about the future. Oftentimes it is iwi, it is Māori, that bring us back to our senses, and I hope that the National Party continues to listen. Even more importantly, they’ve got to pay iwi—they’ve got to pay iwi—to be able to provide us with the indigenous expertise that enables us to have a better way of managing our economy. So this isn’t about not promoting what they’re wanting to do, the liberalism that they want to continue with; this is about managing and making sure that we are on the right track.

Further, to underscore the greed-based rhetoric that they’ve said in the report, the New Zealand National Party view—the minority view—said they are opposed to this bill because “ultimately [it makes] it expensive to do business in New Zealand.” That’s about them protecting their mates. That’s about them protecting big business. That’s what this is about—it’s an ideology that will ultimately ruin this country, and I am backing my colleagues here by promoting this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 75

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

Noes 38

New Zealand National 28; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Legal Services Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Legal Services Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Leave is sought for that motion. Are there any objections? There are no objections.

Matt Doocey: Point of order. Sorry, I’m just seeking clarification: seeking leave for—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Tabling a legislative statement.

Matt Doocey: Yeah. Why are we seeking leave?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I believe it was because it was not presented by the time it was supposed to earlier on this morning, which was 11 a.m. No objections? Go on, Minister.

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Legal Services Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Legal aid is an important service that the Government provides for people on the lowest incomes. It supports people who need legal services but cannot afford to pay it on their own. Unfortunately, inflation and wage increases have resulted in many people—despite being on very low incomes—still earning too much money to qualify for legal aid. For those who do qualify, the user charge and interest payments are a barrier—if not entirely prohibitive—to accessing legal aid. A higher proportion of people are required to pay back their debt. Also, some lawyers are now not taking on legal aid work due to remuneration rates, leading to a shortage of providers and a very stressful experience for applicants.

Budget 2022 allocated funding to address these pressing issues by increasing eligibility and repayment thresholds, removing the requirement to pay a user charge and interest on unpaid legal aid debt, and increasing provider remuneration. The Legal Services Amendment Bill supports this package of work by removing references to the user charge and interest from the Legal Services Act. This will give enduring certainty to users of the legal aid system that they will not be faced with these unnecessary charges, and make the legal aid scheme fairer.

Before I discuss the bill in more detail, I’d like to acknowledge and thank the Justice Committee and the chairperson, Vanushi Walters, for their thorough consideration of this bill. I would also really like to acknowledge those that took the time to submit and have their views expressed. I’m pleased that there have only been two minor and technical changes to the bill recommended by the select committee.

The user charge—which was $50 prior to 1 January this year and is now zero—was charged to some people before legal services could begin, and was designed to make people think carefully about whether or not to engage a lawyer. Not only do we know that people who are eligible for legal aid are on such low incomes that they are likely to be very sure of the decision to take on debt and pursue legal proceedings without needing to be prompted by a charge, but this charge was actually prohibitive and stopping some people who needed to access justice from applying for legal aid in the first instance. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: for people on low incomes, being charged to access legal aid services can literally mean making a choice between putting food on the table or exercising their right to access justice. The user charge can also delay justice when people are required to pay it off in instalments and are unable to progress their case in the meantime.

Finally, legal aid lawyers may choose to waive the charge, but then they just absorb the cost themselves instead of passing it on to their clients, which isn’t necessarily always tenable. I want to acknowledge those lawyers that frequently have put themselves in that position in the interests of justice.

This is an inherently unfair process that is not achieving its intended outcome and instead causes stress for legal age recipients, and it is a substantive administrative burden for lawyers. Interest on unpaid legal aid debt was charged at a rate of 5 percent per annum prior to 1 January this year, and it is now zero. Charging interest on legal aid debt is unfair. It penalises people who need that support, which is the exact opposite of what the legal aid scheme was intended to achieve.

Charging interest can also trap people in debt, because while other debts to Government are collected first, the legal aid debt is left to continue to accumulate interest. A system that essentially punishes those on low incomes for exercising their right to access justice by charging interest on debt that they will struggle to pay down is a system that we do not consider is fair, just, or right.

The cost to Government of removing interest on legal aid debt really is relatively small, but it will make a substantive difference to those who will have that debt. As I mentioned earlier, the wider package of work this bill sits within does more than remove the user charge and interest payments. We have, of course, increased the eligibility thresholds for legal age, which means that more people will qualify for legal aid. We’ve also increased the repayment thresholds—which means people on the lowest of eligible incomes are no longer required to repay that debt—and we’ve raised the remuneration rates for private legal aid lawyers. These changes, in all, aim to reverse some of the erosion that has happened to the legal aid scheme to make it fairer, equitable, and more accessible, though we know that our work here is not done.

The legal aid scheme is a key way the Government provides access to justice for those who simply cannot afford it, and more changes are required to update it. The submissions to the select committee highlighted that, but I know that the changes in this bill will mean a great deal to the people who need that legal aid support. This is an opportunity to address a pressing need faced by many people, and I’m proud to commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website. The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you. The National Party won’t be supporting this bill. We believe that it’s another example of a kind of band-aid approach to governing that the Government has exhibited over the past five years. Rather than deal with the underlying issues, they’re just putting a band-aid on here and a band-aid on there.

The core issue, if we want to help New Zealanders get better access to justice, is to deal with the incredibly slow processes of the court system and the years of delay that New Zealanders face getting access to justice and to getting an outcome—whether it’s in a criminal setting, and thereby having a sense of justice; or in the civil setting, such as the Family Court, getting matters resolved in a timely way; and when it comes to commercial matters, getting things sorted out so that the parties can get on with their lives. These very long delays that we’ve seen over the past few years balloon into years are the primary problem that needs to be sorted when it comes to improving New Zealanders’ access to justice. Indeed, certainly, the interminable delays and stops and starts and meetings all add to the legal bills that people have to face on both sides.

So rather than focus on that more effectively—and, yes, there are programmes; there are a dozen programmes throughout the justice system focused on trying to speed up the courts. But, in our view, there hasn’t been the real focus on that as is required, because there’s about 20 things that need to be done to deal with his longstanding issue more effectively. Some of them are indeed related to the rules of the court, which are very laxly dealt with, where people who are meant to be turning up to a hearing or a part of the court process don’t turn up, there are no consequences and so legal bills are paid but nothing happens, and for another two months they’re waiting for something else to happen, and then they don’t turn up and there are no consequences, and another two months of delay occurs.

So there are so many more fundamental things that need to be dealt with. Then when you look at the priorities that this Government has had in the justice sector over the last six years, rather than really focusing on this issue, they have preferred to focus on things like banning hate speech, and screwing the scrum on electoral finance, and a whole bunch of other things, which, I think, they would have been better to have kept focus on the issues of access to justice.

So what they’ve proposed in this bill is a couple of things—some of which we’re happy with: removing the user charge of $50 for legal aid; fine, not the end of the world. Maybe it provided some way of dealing with the cost of the system. What people have to realise is that there are sort of three categories of people in this context: people who just pay their own way through the court system, who have the resources to do so; then there is another category who can access legal aid but it is in the form of a loan that needs to be repaid because they have been judged to have the means to do that; and then there’s another group of New Zealanders without the means to do that, and they are granted legal aid directly and they don’t have to pay it back—it’s a grant; it’s a gift.

So this bill is focused on that middle group who do get legal aid but are required to pay it back because they are judged to have the means to do so. The proposal here is that they should pay no interest. Now, of course, the primary problem with that is that it will mean that people will pay back that loan even less than they are at the moment, because there’s no incentive to do so whatever. Inflation—which is ripping in the economy at the moment at 6 percent and has been over 6 percent for a couple of years—is steadily eating into the value of the debt.

So all that means is that money that could be used to deal with other issues, such as increasing the rates further of legal aid payments to lawyers, to make it a more attractive proposition to them, or money that could be diverted to one of the many, many issues that need to be resolved to speed up the overall process of justice, and thereby increase people’s access to justice and also limit the amount of cost in the system in the first place—instead of focusing on that, they are indulging in what we would call a “band-aid solution”.

So, on that basis, we think the Government could have come up with a better response and should have come up with a better response. So we don’t support this bill today.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call at the second reading of the Legal Services Amendment Bill. Can I start just by joining with other colleagues who’ve expressed their deep sympathies at the atrocious events that have happened in Auckland this morning, but also joining with colleagues in commending the work that the police force do for us and have done today.

I had the privilege of spending nine years in Community Law, where I frequently came across the saying, “The opposite of poverty isn’t wealth; it’s access to justice.” That was very much our day to day. We saw young people under 25 coming in seeking legal advice, and on a number of occasions we would see their eyes light up and the sense of recognition when we gave them advice that showed they had a potential case. Then you would see that look of hopelessness as they realised they weren’t going to access justice; they could not apply for legal aid because it was too prohibitive to pay the fee—the user fee—but also take on the interest payments.

Yes, some of these were people who were judged to be able to take on that interest payment as well, but they were often young single parents—they had a series of expenses to deal with. So it just wasn’t going to be an option for them. So it is very surprising to me that the Opposition aren’t going to be coming to the party and supporting this very important bill today.

But before I respond to the arguments made by the Hon Paul Goldsmith, I did just want to make a side note and give almost an ode to regulations. Regulations have a truly special quality about them—some might say an almost magical quality—because in this instance, we’re passing law that has actually already changed in regulation. So the regulations relating to the $50 user charge as well as the interest rates are contained in the Legal Services Regulations 2011, and the amendments to those two aspects to the regulations actually came into force in January this year. That is already law.

What this law does is ensures that there’s consistency between our primary legislation and those regulations. So it just does give me a certain amount of delight that while Opposition members might believe that they’re arguing against a legal change, they are not; they are simply arguing against consistency between our primary legislation and our secondary legislation.

But I will address the arguments made by my colleague across the floor, as well, in substance—although the law has already changed. So one of the arguments that Mr Goldsmith has spoken to in the past was the user charge. While it’s wonderful to hear that he’s come around on that point, I believe their differing view states that they disagreed with that because their sense was for most types of loans, you are required to pay a user charge to access the service. But that’s not always the case, and there must be a sense that there’s a public interest test that applies.

In fact, the Hon Chris Finlayson often spoke beautifully about access to justice and this idea of a principle of equity being one of the things that you should turn your minds to when you’re looking for guidance on when fees should be imposed. Indeed, we also have OECD Guidelines and our own Office of the Controller and Auditor-General guidelines on fees for services which say that equity is a first principle. This is not unusual. So it’s absolutely acceptable to remove that $50 charge.

Mr Goldsmith also made the argument that if there’s no interest, people won’t repay—it removes the incentive. But at select committee, to the whole committee, we were advised that if people do not pay their legal aid debts, the Legal Services Commissioner has the power to issue deduction notices directly to their employer or bank. So the commissioner also has the option to secure debt by placing a charge or a caveat on the legal aid recipient’s property as a condition of the grant. There are consequences. We were advised this in the room. That is not an argument for not supporting this bill.

The third argument that was raised—a substantial amount of the start of Mr Goldsmith’s speech was around the most powerful thing that the Government could do, which is speeding up the legal system, ensuring that people have timely access to justice. I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Goldsmith on that point. However, he has been part of processes where we’ve proven that the Government is doing just this: in the coronial space and in the Family Court space.

So to be honest, I just remain puzzled at why our National Party colleagues aren’t supporting this critical bill in its entirety. Those last two arguments simply don’t fly. This is an essential bill and I commend it to the House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): If I might, as an Auckland MP, in joining with other colleagues in the House to acknowledge, obviously, the tragic circumstances and action today in central Auckland, and acknowledge, obviously, the victims—those who have died but also the injured. If I might, as well, I acknowledge our police, particularly the Armed Offenders Squad and the Special Tactics Group teams, and the St Johns Ambulance, but also all those who were present and witnessed what had occurred. These are horrific events that we don’t expect to see here, and again I just want to put on record my thoughts with all involved, particularly the loved ones who are mourning the loss of a loved one.

We’re standing here today to debate and discuss the second reading of the Legal Services Amendment Bill. Look, like a suite of other justice or legal bills which the Government has put forward, it looks good and it sounds good, but it’s actually really not enough within the justice space to actually change the dial or change where things should go.

The previous speaker Vanushi Walters mentioned changes within the Family Court and coronial court, and, as I said on those two bills, there’s nothing particularly wrong with them. To some degree, there’s nothing particularly wrong with this one either, although there is one point I’m going to particularly raise. But it’s just not making the necessary and substantial changes which are required in our justice system, because if you’re anything like myself, an electorate MP who has to deal with constituents happily, day after day, they are coming in with major, major issues: slow access to justice, a sense of an ever-going process which is broken, and, often too, results that they are not happy with.

Again, this may look to the public as a whole set of positive changes—yep, maybe they are—but they are only minor. They’re tinkering, for want of a better word.

The way I look at this—and I heard the debate between the Hon Paul Goldsmith and Vanushi Walters, point and counterpoint, but mine is much more simple. The changes proposed here around both the levy and interests are going to cost just shy of $4 million, and, for me, if I had $4 million in the justice space, would this be the area I would apply it to, being the change around legal aid? The simple answer is no. There are so many needs within the justice system at the moment that that money could be better spent elsewhere.

We have always paid, to a certain degree, for access to justice. I don’t think it’s overly onerous. As I said, the fundamental point to me is with that $4 million, we could do so much better. Something as simple as providing some video feeds for those who need to present to the courts—particularly for the prisoners, actually, or those on remand—would be a good step forward.

So it’s only a simple argument, this, on a Thursday afternoon, but I think the fundamental point that the public needs to understand—and I’ve come across it and spoken to it time and time again—is that nothing is free in this country. Every time a Government chooses to waive an interest or a fee, the taxpayers in New Zealand are having to foot that bill. This is not free; this is another cost that the Government is wearing, which means more taxes are required from hard-pressed New Zealanders. As I say and have said, for that almost $4 million that this is going to cost, I could think of many other and better spends in the justice system right now, and therefore we’ll be opposing this bill.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Ka huri ō whakaaro ki te tini me te mano kua mate, our whānau in Tāmaki Makaurau, moe mai rā, moe mai rā.

[My thoughts turn to the many, the multitudes who have passed away, our whānau in Tāmaki Makaurau, rest in peace, rest in peace.]

Our hearts are all at this moment with the whānau and the victims of the shooter in Auckland. I just want to acknowledge that, and I want to acknowledge—as all my colleagues have done—the sacrifices and the extraordinary courage of our first responders.

I move now to the bill, which I stand as a member of the Justice Committee to commend. I want to make a few points. It is always interesting, as someone who has spent a lifetime as a practitioner in and out of the courts until coming to this place, to be—if I can put it this way—mansplained to and scolded by those who have no practical or even theoretical knowledge of the system whatsoever. There’s nothing I like more than a good mansplaining on a Thursday afternoon, but let’s talk about the reality. Let’s talk about the people I dealt with and my firm dealt with day after day and my colleagues in the profession continue to deal with day after day. I want to acknowledge those colleagues, because I hear from them day after day as to the strains and the stress that they are under in continuing to pick up this work.

I want to acknowledge those who have come to me and said thank you for this increase, the first increase they have seen since around 2008. One of the things we have done as part of the package we released in this Budget, of which this bill is one, is to give them the first pay increase, of 12 percent, since 2008. I will get to that 2008 figure again when I come to answer the assertion that we should be dealing with the delays in the court, because I think it’s time we talked about who created them.

But talking about legal aid realities, one of the arguments made on the other side of the House was that this is about letting people escape responsibility; that they should be being forced to repay their legal aid bills and that it’s frankly a bit sloppy of them to not have to pay that $50 contribution. Let me tell you about a few of those people.

Let me tell you about Tanya—not her real name. Tanya had a hard upbringing. She had four children. She had an ex who hunted her up and down the North Island to beat the proverbial out of her. Over and over again, this woman came back to our office to seek help. She was having to live hand-to-mouth because she had to go into hiding every six months to a year. If you think that it would be possible for that woman to absorb a $50 cost every time she needed not just a domestic violence protection order—which are, thankfully, free—but help with a custody arrangement or any of the many things that went wrong for her in her life as she was chased and on a number of occasions nearly killed, then I suggest that that would be something that needed to be reconsidered fairly promptly.

Let me tell you about Sarah—also not her real name. Sarah was a working mum with two children. She worked hard in an office job. She also was fighting a long-term Family Court battle against a man of remarkable persistence and unreasonableness. She had absolutely no ability to pay for lawyers, yet she did not qualify for legal aid. Our firm had to effectively subsidise her. She had given up trying to use lawyers because she could not afford it. When a particularly terrible incident happened and she was dragged back before the courts yet again—thankfully, something we will doing something about—by a vexatious litigant, we stepped in to give her essentially pro bono legal assistance because she could not qualify for legal aid under the previous settings.

That is why it is so important that we pass this bill and take away that crippling $50 fee—which I and many of my ex-colleagues in the law profession have paid for their clients over and over again out of our own pockets—and that we extend the eligibility threshold, as we have done, to cover struggling, hard-working, ordinary Kiwis like my client Sarah.

It is farcical to suggest that we should be trying to claw back money from people who are doing it hard in circumstances that are not of their own making in any way, shape, or form. So yeah, there’s nothing I like more than being mansplained to—and on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’d just like the member to consider the use of that term four times during her speech. I won’t ask her to apologise but I will just ask her to reflect on whether that is conducive to the good order of the House. But the member may now sit down.

CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): I would also like to pay my respects and say thank you to the members of the Auckland Police who attended the tragic incident this morning. It makes me proud to be part of the blue whānau.

I rise, on behalf of ACT, to take a short call on the Legal Services Amendment Bill, a bill that was pushed through under urgency at the end of last year. With the urgency which was mentioned just before, it doesn’t seem to have been quite as urgent. But it is a bill that has been supported by ACT. I wasn’t on the Justice Committee, and the consultation process seems to be all pretty amicable. There were 10 submitters, and they all supported the bill, with six making additional suggestions about the legal aid system. It seems like some of those suggestions have already been addressed, from what I heard before.

The $50 user charge, which is payable by most applicants for civil or family legal aid, has been identified as a barrier to accessing justice, especially for those on low incomes. This barrier doesn’t seem to serve any purpose. People who receive legal aid are already assessed as to whether they are eligible or not, so the $50 charge does seem unreasonable or unnecessary. The amount makes it hardly worthwhile to actually administer. The other part, removing the 5 percent interest on the legal aid after six months: many legal aid clients often have debts, and interest adds to those debts and just compounds the legal difficulties. Often the spiral will begin from there.

ACT were concerned that removing the interest from the legal aid debt would mean that people have no incentive to pay that debt back, but we understand that, if people refuse to pay the debt, the Legal Services Commissioner has the power to issue a notice and deduct it from the person’s bank or pay, or place a caveat over the property for the repayment of that debt.

National opposes the bill because they are wanting a more substantive bill on legal reform, and we get that; it’s a good objective. They also point out that, under Labour, the court system has become significantly slower, and the average number of days to resolve criminal cases, in the District Court, has gone from 114 days to 176 days. It’s a problem and highlights the need for a new Government that will reform the court system. But that’s something we can look at in October.

I note that Duncan Webb’s first reading contribution was 24 words; half of that was about the Opposition. It really is just tinkering. But, anyway, we have a bill in front of us. The reality is that a $50 charge is a deterrent for poorer people, as is the 5 percent interest. The ACT Party prefers Government that delivers services simply and equitably, and the charge and the interest rate just do seem unnecessary. We will support this bill.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. Though, as others have said, it is a small change proposed by this bill, in some cases it will go far in the context of the lives and the financial situations of those who are impacted by it.

I remain on the legal aid roster as a barrister and I worked in that system for years. So I know that, actually, $50 is quite often a very real barrier to those bringing civil cases, as others have spoken about, such as in the Family Court where the most egregious of those cases that may be barred by this fee would be those seeking, for example, a protection order to be safe from violence, and others who would be bringing other cases to do with the care and protection of children, for example—some of the most basic of our rights as they are touched upon by the substantive right, which is access to justice in the context of this bill.

But I do want to also talk about the criminal cases, because they seem not to be the ones that people want to talk about as much, and they are affected by the introduction under a previous National and ACT Party Government of this obligation to pay back legal aid and the interest that’s accrued by that. It is an obligation of us as a Government to provide for the right to justice, and that means an equal access to justice. The components of that right include the right to mount a legal defence, to have that provided for by the State and resourced by the State if a defendant can’t afford it, but also that that legal service or legal advice is of a high quality and that it is, in fact, provided for freely.

No one in New Zealand should be choosing between whether to challenge detention in a prison, challenge search and seizure rights that may have been breached, challenge a use of force by the police, or, in fact, defend themselves against a criminal charge that will have some of the most dire and serious of consequences on their rights and their liberties because they’re choosing between paying rent, paying a mortgage—and I did know people who had to sell the family home to defend themselves against charges sometimes, and you never get that money back—or, in fact, given the cost of living crisis that we live in, the basics, like food. We shouldn’t be living in a society where someone may choose to plead guilty and go to prison rather than rightly challenge a case against them because their family will be obligated to pay off a debt even after they have been assessed not to be able to afford those legal services.

Therein lies the aspect of this bill that absolutely does not go far enough, which is that we live in a justice system where legal aid is not, in fact, legal aid. It’s not free at all; it’s just a debt. It wasn’t always the case and it isn’t the case in other similar judicial systems. Legal aid is the recognition that justice shouldn’t be up for sale and available only to those who can afford it.

In fact, when the amendments and when the changes to the legal aid system were brought in under that previous justice Minister—and I remember it because I was a member of the executive of the Criminal Bar Association, it was the Hon Judith Collins. We mounted a challenge—the criminal bar represents judges, prosecutors, and defence lawyers, including also police prosecutor—to that legal aid system that is the one that’s under scrutiny and is being changed somewhat by this bill. The case went all the way up to the Court of Appeal, and the legal aid provisions and the changes that were put in place, that system, were found to be unlawful. That judgment still stands.

So the reforms that are needed that this bill tries to address are not just rectifying a system or progressing it somewhat; it’s actually to bring our legal aid system in line with the law. The legal aid Act says that policy should only be made, for legal aid, by the Minister, in terms of their discretion, for the purpose of providing high-quality legal services for the accused in terms of that criminal legal aid service. The court found that, in fact, the policy that we’re still talking about right now was unlawful because it was made for the purpose of cutting costs. That’s not a legal purpose that the Act provides for, and we really should be aware of that because the right to justice is one of the fundamental rights that makes this a democracy.

The rights that are taken away and touched upon if people can’t access justice in our criminal courts, as well as in Family Court and other civil proceedings, are some of the most fundamental. Equality before the law is one of the most fundamental ways that every other right can be undermined or upheld.

So these changes are good and they will mean something to those who are impacted. The $50 isn’t nothing. The interest on legal aid debt is absolutely crippling for the families who are dealing with it, and you absolutely don’t get a cent of it back if you’re found not guilty, if you’re acquitted, if you win your protection order case—that’s just gone; so you are choosing between a debilitating debt or justice or protection or safety or freedom. But they absolutely also don’t go far enough.

Our legal aid system does need an overhaul, at the very least to bring it in line with the empowering legislation. It absolutely needs to focus on providing high-quality legal services, equality before the courts, and access to justice that’s substantive. But I do commend the bill to the House.

TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to take a very short call on this one. You’ve heard from people that have been working at the front line for quite some time about just making sure that we’re doing everything that we can to allow our fellow New Zealanders, that may be trying to navigate the legal system—as tricky and as complex as it is—to be able to access justice.

I mean, I’m not a lawyer, but, I’ve got to say, when I talk to colleagues that are, when I talk to people in my community about legal aid, especially from the lawyers, they kind of reel, and then they start telling you what’s wrong with the legal aid system. There seems to be a wide acknowledgment in the House today, especially from this side of the House, that we are definitely making moves to try and improve our legal aid system to make sure that we are not burdening our communities with debt.

Debt is heavy. Debt is even heavier if you’ve got no money to be able to service that debt. For those people that are on the breadline or living in complete poverty, actually having debt hanging over them is a very, very heavy thing and a heavy burden for them to bear. Knowing that—for applying for legal aid—you’ve, up until this point, had the system where you have a debt and then there’s this interest that gets accumulated on it, as you’re trying to navigate the legal system, just sounds ludicrous.

So, you know, I think about those people in this time when we’re facing a cost of living crisis—increasing prices for everybody, but the people that feel it the most are the people that have got nothing in their pockets; there’s not enough money coming in and they’re having to make ends meet. If they happen to also be navigating the legal system, then that kind of stuff can be a big pressure in their lives. So I think about them at times like this.

I’m just so unsure about why some members of the House aren’t supporting this, because it doesn’t sound right—it doesn’t sound right—that there are members of this House that think that we should continue to charge, to put a tax on these people as they’re trying to access justice, and that they are OK with the fact that any kind of debt then should continue to incur that extra interest charge as well. Some of these people that access this fund, they are the most impoverished people in the country, and, usually, you know, maybe with a criminal record, maybe trying not to get themselves a criminal record as well.

Surely—surely—we as a House must come together on this one to support it for our fellow New Zealanders, for those people that are doing it tough out there at the moment, so that they can actually try and navigate the legal system, get the access to justice that we all expect, we all want, we all demand—if we need it—and to make sure that we we’re providing legal aid with no hooks, no caveats, to people that really need it in this community and this country. For that reason, I commend it to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call—five minutes. Tama Potaka.

TAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Yes, can I first acknowledge the tragic events in Tāmaki-makau-rau this morning. Haere pai, oti atu, rā.

[Go well, as your journey ends.]

And I also acknowledge the welcome appointment of legendary of Māori land law lecturer Caren Fox as the first wāhine to be the Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court. Ka pai hoki ngā kōrero.

[The comments are very good.]

After the mansplaining lecture, it is with great enthusiasm that I can talk to this second reading on the Legal Services Amendment Bill, and no doubt Chief Judge Fox would be very interested in this proposed legislation, given that she was instrumental in the establishment of the Māori Legal Services here in Wellington many years ago. I’m reminded of the pithy quote of Francis Bacon, a former Attorney-General of England—and often attributed with writing some Shakespearean plays—who stated, “If we do not maintain justice, justice will not be maintained.”, and justice is what we’re talking about today. National is concerned that our justice system is becoming Dickensesque, like something out of Bleak House and the infamous case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce.

The bill implements the Government’s decision to strengthen legal aid through the removal of the user charge and the interest on unpaid legal debt. Overall, this will have a multimillion-dollar impact on a taxpayer over four years—moneys that we believe could be better used to improve court processes for parties, including those in the Māori Land Court, which has been seriously underfunded and under-serviced for IT and other matters for applicants for years.

Now, Kiwis are struggling to access justice on a daily basis under the current Government, especially victims. Dysfunctions, delays, frustration with court users, with the increase in waiting times, and criminal cases being particularly unjust—46 percent more than the victims than prior to the pandemic. But the best thing that we believe the Government could do right now is actually improve access to justice through expediting the slow court processes that they continue to preside over. Using audiovisual and other methods more effectively could help that and, effectively, use the enormous taxpayer resources which have been hoarded and accumulated over the last five years to deliberately enhance productivity from a sluggish judicial system.

Submitters unanimously supported this bill, with many noting that $50 is a significant amount of money for those on low incomes. Kei te tika hoki.

[That is very true.]

This is appreciated. However, the Labour-led Government could actually better address the fundamental poverty issues that beset those folks by giving a bit of tax relief, making housing more affordable, and ensuring educational attainment by school leavers rather than this well-meaning and sometimes misguided reform.

Importantly, all the submitters have commented that the wider reform of the system is absolutely necessary, and it was not unnoticed by my learned colleagues in the National Party. It’s that very reform that we seek, not the nickel-and-diming that the Government continues to perpetuate through this type of legislation. The purpose of having interest is an incentive to people to pay their unpaid legal aid debts. Without incentives, debts will remain unpaid. Today, it’s legal aid, Mr Muller; tomorrow, maybe it’s speeding fines, and next week court fines also.

Todd Muller: That’s right.

TAMA POTAKA: There’s an existing exemption pathway for legal aid debt on the basis of financial hardship and just inequitable reasons, and that’s set out in the legal aid legislation right now. But this legislation, in our view, is superfluous to the substantive issues that undermine our justice system. The futility of “Bleak House” has beset the courts, including the Kooti Whenua Māori—the Māori Land Court—albeit the Shakespearean comedy The Merchant of Venice continues to provide us with some theatrical hope about mercy, and I quote, “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesseth him who gives”—or her who gives—“and him [or her] that takes.”

I look forward to hearing from other members of this fine House on their learned views on access to justice in the context of a failing justice system. Kia ora tātou.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Potaka, just before you sit down, your comment at the start was noted. Can I just say that the comment about the good order of the House—being flippant around a Speaker’s comment is not assisting that, so I’ll invite you in future just not to comment on other matters that have taken place. Thank you.

Tama Potaka: I didn’t hear that, Mr Speaker—part of your comment there.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s comment at the beginning of his speech, which was pertinent to a previous comment by the Speaker. So, for the member, I’ll invite him to go back and have a look at Hansard if he wants further explanation, or come to my office—either way. But flippancy of that sort does not assist the good order and running of the House.

DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour): It’s my pleasure to be taking a short call on the Legal Services Amendment Bill. But before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the victims of the shooting up in Auckland. While the cordons may lift over time, the pain that the families will have to endure will go on and they will need a lot of support for the community.

I’d like to also just touch on the comments from my colleague Vanushi Walters, who was at the coalface of Community Law and she took use through a lot of the challenges that she faced when she was working in that space. It’s a shame to say that some of those challenges are echoed in the Waimakariri electorate, where I live in. There’s some harrowing stories in Kaiapoi—Kaiapoi Community Law—and when you when you sit down with them and have a chat to the challenges that some of the people that access their services face, there is definitely a need for this bill.

It’s also echoed out in Rangiora with the budgeting services out there. The one challenge that they always face is around the cost of justice and how it impacts the ability for a lot of their clients to get on to their feet. So this is an important bill.

It repeals sections from the Legal Services Act 2011 that require a payment for a user charge and interest on unpaid legal debt. These proposed changes will mean that thousands of people who could otherwise not afford a lawyer will be able to have proper legal representation, and that’s hugely important. The justice system can be a stressful place for people who are not familiar with it, and financial barriers and stresses that come with that can make the experience much more overwhelming, not only for the individual but also these families that are trying to shepherd them through the process.

This bill responds to the Ministry of Justice’s findings in a 2018 review of legal aid, and these changes are part of the Budget 2022 package of $148.7 million to strengthen the legal aid system. So this is much needed, and I commend the bill to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Legal Services Amendment Bill this afternoon. I want to reference, at the beginning of my contribution this afternoon, the story of one of my close friends who has had a significant amount of interaction with the justice system through the Family Court—having left a violent relationship—and the impact that aspects of the legal aid system had on her over a long period of time. It’s my view that the changes in the bill today would have had a positive impact on her, alongside some other changes we are making to the Family Court system.

The particular situation for my friend was that she entered a relationship and, as a result, there was subsequently relationship property, and because the matter presented itself in front of the Family Court on so many occasions, she did end up picking up a substantial legal aid bill. The terrible result of all of this was that when the relationship property was finalised, she had to pay back her legal aid bill and it was such that there was no further financial support for her from that point; she lost all the money that she had invested in that property.

So a young woman with three young children who had relationship property, but as a result of our legal aid system—and the family court system subsequently—is now a woman who is renting property and has done so since. So the security that her family would have had has been lost. So there are some changes in this bill that are really important, particularly around the removal of the interest penalty, because that was such that it did impact on her particular situation.

I also note that the increased thresholds and eligibility for legal aid will also benefit a number of people who are in my friend’s type of situation where they’re having to make difficult choices: it could be around whether they can actually do things like leave a relationship because, unfortunately, we know that for many women and men who are affected that in choices to leave a relationship, sometimes there are financial elements. So everything we can do as a Parliament to make the legal aid system fairer and more available to people is very, very important.

I have had representations made to me by lawyers—I just want to reference the comments from the previous speaker, who doesn’t seem to think this is a priority. Lawyers who work in the legal aid system have made representations to me prior to my entering Parliament and also while I have been an MP, specifically seeking this type of reform to legal aid. I want to note one in particular: Nelson lawyer Steven Zindel, who picks up a significant part of the legal aid workload in Nelson with people who often would struggle to get representation. I want to acknowledge those defence lawyers. They are often defending people who others wouldn’t wish to do so, but those people—everybody has the right to have access to justice, has the right to a fair trial, has the right to access defence.

So everything we can do, such as the changes in this bill to ensure people have greater access to legal aid—and waiving the $50 fee is a big part of that. It that might seem to us parliamentarians to not be very much money, but for people who are potentially facing significant criminal charges; significant issues in the Family Court, where they do need to access legal aid, where they do need that support of the State to ensure they have good access to justice—any barriers we can remove to ensure they have that right upheld is something that I think this Parliament should take very seriously; that is our role. Our role is to ensure that New Zealanders have that good access to justice.

Alongside other changes that the Government has signalled, such as removing the ability for people through the Family Court to take things like vexatious litigation where they repeatedly return to the Family Court, there are other changes such as including changing and adding judicial officers to help ease the backlog through the Family Court—all of these pieces of work are things that we are doing to ensure that we make the Family Court work as best as we can for people.

So this is excellent law; it covers a range of parts of our judicial system, it is one small step in supporting some of our most vulnerable people and people who sometimes may have committed a terrible crime but who—regardless of that—under our laws and our principles and values in this country, deserve the right to have justice and a fair trial and access to the legal support that they should have. So I want to congratulate the Minister on bringing this bill through the House and thank the Justice Committee and officials for their work on it, and I commend it to the House.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll just take a quick, short call to conclude the National Party’s contribution. As you’ve heard this afternoon, we have consistently opposed the Legal Services Amendment Bill. There were elements of it that were worth consideration, but typically, for this Government, the harder job of actually reframing and investing in our judicial system in a way to speed up court procedures and to enable justice to be served—which is the harder job—has been kicked to the side, and a very sort of forensic focus on the issues around cost and debt. There are already exemptions for legal aid in the original legislation. There’s a cost to this and, from our perspective, we see there’s a huge amount of House time and select committee process for very marginal benefit.

There would have been an opportunity—which we had called for and would have supported—for a more substantive approach from this Government, assessing where the bottlenecks are in our judicial system, where the opportunities and investments could go to actually speed up that court process so people can actually have justice served in this country. But instead, as I said, the Government chose to prioritise a different area. So we have made our point; I think it has been very clear—good contributions from Paul Goldsmith and, more recently, Tama Potaka—around our point of distinction. We will continue to oppose this this afternoon.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. As I have sat here this afternoon and listened to some of this debate, it’s been really interesting to hear people’s perspectives; to hear and understand why different parties and people think the way that they do. Part of it, I sometimes wonder, is around lived experiences or things that have or haven’t been experienced by different members. I’m not one to judge or to know each of our experiences, but I know I have my own reflections and experiences on this.

I’ve been involved, not as a lawyer, but as a support person on many occasions, through our legal system—our justice system here in New Zealand—whether that be through youth justice or in the mainstream court system. It’s always been interesting to be walking alongside an offender, and to go through the experience of sitting in the foyer of the courthouse, of lining up to meet with the duty lawyer—which is a service which again I’m grateful we have here in New Zealand, but it has it has its limitations—and to go through that process often with young people or with people who haven’t experienced it before, or have little expertise in the justice system, or little money, which I guess very much is what this legislation is about.

What I’ve heard several times as I’ve been listening this afternoon, is that we need to ensure that justice be served. That is important—that is really important, and so often you look at the headlines in the newspaper or on the TV, and sometimes as we watch it’s hard not to get cynical when you see those who have money and those who have resources, those who have been born or found spaces where they know the justice system, they know lawyers, or they have money to pay for those good, for those effective—not always good, but those effective lawyers that can actually do the mahi for them. So that’s when, for me, there’s been times going through this process, having to fill out forms, having to advocate to ensure that justice is served.

This legislation, I believe, is a step to continue to open up that space for justice to be served. It seems like a little, but for many, $50 is a lot. So to remove the $50 user charge that’s currently payable by most people, this makes a difference. This makes a difference. For some, it seems so little; it seems like nothing. But for some of us, and for many of the people in our communities, that is a lot.

When we talk about the 5 percent interest charge on unpaid legal aid debt, again, by removing this, it just makes it more accessible. Again, another thing I’ve had many times is the inability to pay, and then the letter comes and the letter gets filed in the bin, or on top of the fridge with all the other letters because they know what’s in it—they know that there’s interest on what they’ve already expected to pay. They know that it’s going to rise and it’s going to move. So often—because they can’t afford to pay it, it’s put on the back burner, or it’s completely ignored. Which shouldn’t be, but it’s the reality for many people when you’re struggling financially. So to remove the $50 user charge is important, to then get rid of the 5 percent interest charge makes justice far more accessible for people.

So that’s why we, on this side of the House, are moving this legislation through this afternoon. That’s why the Justice Committee has been in that space, and has heard submissions, and has got to where we are today. That’s why I want to thank our Minister of Justice for making sure that we stand up, because us as a Labour Party—it’s about the $5; it’s about the $50; it’s actually about making sure that everyone in this country has access to justice. If that means having to change legislation to move things forward, if that means having to have debates and push it through this afternoon, and have the other side not support us, well, that’s what we’re here for.

We’re here to stand up for those on the margins, stand up for those at the grassroots, and stand up to ensure that justice is served. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Legal Services Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 85

New Zealand Labour 62; ACT New Zealand 10; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 9; Te Paati Māori 2; Kerekere; Whaitiri.

Noes 34

New Zealand National 34.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: I move, That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This bill responds to persistent issues with alcohol licensing processes in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012. When the Act was introduced over a decade ago, it was intended to give communities a say in the way that alcohol licensing decisions were made in their respective communities and areas. However, we’ve heard from communities themselves that the Act is not working in the way that it was intended. The bill responds to these concerns by making changes to the licensing processes in three key areas.

First, the bill supports territorial authorities to adopt and apply local alcohol policies—or LAPs—to better guide licensing decisions in their area. It does this by removing the ability of parties to appeal provisional LAPs. It also gives District Licensing Committees, or DLCs, discretion to decline to renew licences where those licences are inconsistent with their local policy.

Secondly, the bill allows anyone to object to alcohol licence applications, save for a very narrow exception for trade competitors, to ensure licensing remains squarely focused on harm reduction.

Third, the bill makes licensing hearings more accessible and fairer for everybody taking part, by requiring DLCs to avoid unnecessary formality in their hearings. This includes removing the ability for people to be cross-examined in those hearings.

By making these changes, the bill ensures the voices of our communities are really at the heart of alcohol licensing decision making—the way the 2012 reforms were indeed intended to be. Before I discuss the bill in more detail, I want to just really acknowledge there were 420 people or organisations or groups that made submissions on this bill specifically. That’s a large number of submitters and I think it really goes to that point of just how interested people are in this particular area.

I want to, again, just acknowledge our colleagues across the House, chaired by Vanushi Walters—excellent chair that she is—that sit on that Justice Committee. They have been working incredibly hard to ensure that we are getting these pieces of legislation through in the form which they are intended to be. I’m pleased that the committee has recommended, by a majority, that this bill be passed. I also want to acknowledge that we’ve welcomed some suggested amendments as well.

The changes relating to LAPs make it easier for councils to adopt an LAP if they wish, and ensures that they are more effective once they are put into place. For too long, territorial authorities have worked with their communities, developed policies, only to be held up once it comes into that appeal process. This has cost ratepayers millions of dollars and it’s also delayed—and sometimes prevented, in some quite big examples—councils from being able to adopt their LAPs at all. LAPs have a role in reducing harm and they are an important way for communities to influence alcohol licensing decisions in the areas. This bill will remove the costs and delays associated with appeals and ensure that community voices are carried through to those licensing decisions.

I’m pleased the committee generally supports these changes, and we welcome the minor and technical amendments to fine-tune the proposal. In particular, I note that the bill is a lot clearer about how the new rules will apply to LAPs that have been developed when the provisions come into force. This will help territorial authorities navigate what the changes mean for them. It is absolutely important that we get this change right because this bill needs to strike that fair balance. These transitional provisions respect appeals that are under way when the changes came into effect, and protect the right to fair proceedings for the people involved in those cases.

I was pleased, also, to see that the committee agreed, by majority, with the change allowing anyone to object to an application for an alcohol licence—with a discrete exception for trade competitors. I also welcome the recommendation to apply this change regardless of the type of licensing application—be it for a new licence, renewal, a special licence, or an application to vary licence conditions. This ensures consistency across alcohol licensing, no matter the type of application, making the law simpler for everyone to engage with.

I know, also, that the committee carefully considered how to extend the eligibility for who can object to an application to best enable and protect community participation in licensing processes. Ultimately, allowing anyone to object means that no person or group is excluded from that process.

The committee heard from submitters who gave compelling evidence to support this. One submitter noted that allowing all community members to object to a licence will enable communities to have greater influence over their community environments, including where they live, where they work, where they learn, where they play, where they shop, and where they socialise. Another submitter said this change respects those who have family elsewhere and those that have whakapapa or ancestral connections to particular areas. For whānau across the country, this change means that they will have the ability to influence alcohol licensing decisions, those that impact their rohe, their whole painga, their iwi—irrespective of where they reside.

With greater inputs, DLCs will have a broader range of information to inform their decisions and it will be for DLCs to weigh the evidence presented. The committee has recommended an extension to the exemption for trade competitors. The bill now prevents people that are helped by a trade competitor to object to a licence. This change ensures that the licensing process is not about trying to get a competitive advantage over another business, but focuses, as I previously said, on that harm reduction point.

I also welcome the committee’s recommendation to extend the time frame for submitting an objection to an application from 15 to 25 days. The committee recognised that 15 days doesn’t always allow for people, and particularly community organisations, adequate time to put their objections together. Coupled with a change that allows anyone to object to a licence application, whether as a representative or a group organisation, this amendment gives people sufficient time to prepare and gather evidence. Increasing this time frame to 25 working days is a small but potentially quite a significant change to enable that community participation.

The changes to how the DLC hearings are run received particular scrutiny by the select committee. There are a number of changes to the bill as a result. First, the committee recommended including some suggestions for DLCs to consider when deciding on the procedures, to avoid unnecessary formality. This is particularly in response to submissions that called for more guidance to support the DLCs whilst also enabling individual DLCs to decide what works best for them in their local areas.

Secondly, the committee considered how to better support Māori to participate in hearings. I recognise that many submitters said tikanga can be poorly observed, while many more highlighted the inequitable alcohol-related harms experienced by our hapori Māori.

The committee recommended changes so that DLCs can support people to be heard in te reo Māori and allow for tikanga to be incorporated into proceedings as they are also in the other parts of the justice system. These changes will better enable DLCs and their communities to figure out what works best for them when it comes to licensing, and recognise the unique characteristics of the region.

Third, the committee also strengthened provisions related to people giving evidence remotely. The bill now requires DLCs and the licensing authority to consider reasonable requests by people to participate in hearings remotely. This gives a signal to those that have asked to participate in this form.

Finally, the committee heard a range of submissions on the provisions for DLCs to manage the volume of objections. Submitters pointed out that there are existing provisions in the Act already which give DLCs the powers, but many submitters also raised strong concern that these clauses will undermine the purpose of bill; that they could exclude valid objections and discourage participation.

Again, I want to acknowledge those that have worked on this bill and I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): The National Party is not supporting the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill, and we don’t think that it is a reasonable response to what are real issues in our community. Communities of New Zealand do obviously have the right to have a say in how alcohol is sold in their communities, and that is why the processes that are dealt with by this legislation were set up, to have local alcohol policies in place where a community can have, within reasonable bounds, some say over the way that alcohol is dealt with.

Now, there is an issue that this bill is trying to fix, which is that the process for getting local alcohol policies through has not been effective; it’s been too slow and too costly, and the court processes have been long and drawn out. So I think there is a very good argument for a review of that and an improvement of those processes so that they should be done quickly, so that a community, through its appropriate channels, can put up a local alcohol plan and people can argue about it and test it, and then it goes through. But that’s not what the bill proposes; the bill proposes to eliminate any appeals to the local alcohol policies.

The problem with that is it sort of works on the assumption that all decisions made by a council in this place are always going to be right and that the council will always get it right. I think anybody even vaguely associated with the workings of councils up and down the country would struggle to claim that councils always get it right and that they never make mistakes or they never overreach, or that they never do things which are unreasonable or make no sense. In fact, that seems to happen with monotonous regularity. So the fundamental assumption of this piece of legislation is flawed, and it’s ridiculous, ultimately, to think that councils will always get it right and that there should never be any basis for an appeal. I think that fundamental point is very weak.

The second part that concerns us around this bill is that, once these local alcohol plans have been through without appeal and adopted, the next phase of the system—the district licensing committees (DLC) which decide upon particular instances or particular requests for a liquor licence, or indeed a renewal of a liquor licence—can take into account those local alcohol policies. Now, the problem with that is that—and this is what many submitters said; they came in and they weren’t listened to by the Government members. Well, they listened to them, but they didn’t hear it or change their views in response to the submissions. Many of these people came in saying, “We’ve got a store or a cafe or a club that’s been operating for decades in a particular place. Every three years, we need to renew our licence.”

What can happen, under this legislation, is that a new plan could be passed through which says you cannot have a liquor outlet within a kilometre of a school, for example—and that, effectively, takes out just about everywhere in urban New Zealand, where there are schools tightly packed all over the place. You’d struggle to find too many places in Epsom, where I come from, for example, which aren’t within a kilometre of a school. And because the DLC can take that into account, they cannot renew their licence, and that particular little business—mum and dad business—could have been operating for 30 years with a perfect record, a perfect track record in terms of dealing with the community, could be highly regarded and respected in the community, but arbitrarily they could be shut down because of a local alcohol plan that has been put through which wasn’t appealed and now can be taken into account by the DLC when it comes to renewing their licence.

Now, that is arbitrary in the extreme, and it is unreasonable for any Parliament to pass that. Since this bill has been introduced, there have been other pieces of legislation introduced which do similar things and they’ve always grandfathered them or made it clear that it would not just end a business on the basis of such a change. So we don’t think that’s a reasonable policy, and we don’t think it’s a reasonable thing to do, because, ultimately, people who have invested in developing a business and a brand in a community, if they have been doing the right thing and providing a service that people want and are prepared to pay for and enjoy, should not be arbitrarily just waiting and vulnerable to having their business literally closed down by decisions made by the council regardless of how well they’ve been performing. That’s what this legislation does, and we can’t support it on that basis.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. This afternoon, we’ve been reflecting on two bills which have demonstrated the heavy process-element to achieving real justice, and this is absolutely one of them. Whether or not you have a right to have a say in a room, if you feel intimidated, if it’s too costly to travel to arrive at a hearing, or you feel that the language is not accessible, it is not justice to have that right on paper. And that’s in part what this bill addresses.

I would also like to thank the Minister of Justice for facilitating and stewarding this really important bill through the House. She reflected on the fact that we had 420 submissions. We heard from 80 people. There was a lot of interest in this room and quite a broad range of views. I’d also like to thank our advisors and the diligent team at the Parliamentary Counsel Office who navigated some of the quite technical changes that we did end up making.

I’d just like to walk through some of the aspects of what the bill does. So the first thing is removing the ability to appeal provisional local alcohol policies (LAP) to the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority (ARLA)—that is something that Opposition member Hon Paul Goldsmith also spoke to. But what he didn’t mention is that it’s not a total removal of appeal rights in their entirety. So he spoke to the fact that local councils aren’t always going to get it right. I agree. Local councils are subject to having to work within the bounds of the law, which is why there’s still an opportunity for entities to take a judicial review to challenge whether those decisions have been made within the bounds of the law or not.

The second is giving district licensing committees and ALRA discretion to decline to renew a licence if the licence would be inconsistent with conditions on location or on licence density in the relevant LAP. Mr Goldsmith spoke about this as well, and I can assure you, Madam Speaker, and those in the room that we did pay very careful attention to the business owners—there were a number of them who presented to the Justice Committee. I did feel that they raised, actually, very good points.

However, the concept that we don’t need to ask our institutions and our businesses to adapt to our growing and maturing understanding of the world is simply false. It’s also not what we do. We’ve done it in the area of climate change, where we’re asking businesses to adapt, today, to what we know is the science. We’re asking our businesses to do it in terms of ESG—environmental, social, and governance standards—where there are currently suggestions that businesses listed on the NZX should be reporting in this space as well. So it is absolutely the case that we should constantly be looking to research, to science, be reflecting on the modern world, and then asking—yes, business, but all our institutions to respond in this space as well.

The third thing is requiring territorial authorities to consult on a discontinued LAP if they choose to recommence its development six or more years after the date when initial consultation was completed. The fourth, allowing any person to object to an application for a licence or renewal of a licence application.

And then there are a series of others which look to accessibility provisions as well, which would allow more people, essentially, to engage with the process through things like joining by audio visual, for example, and through things like ending the cross-examination of those people providing evidence, where a lot of people would choose not to if they were made to go through that process.

Here, I would just like to reflect on some of the people who did choose to submit. And I’d like to do that for two purposes. One is to show the ambit of the submissions that we received, but the second potentially is the chair of the Justice Committee to encourage people to use their opportunity to make submissions to select committees, because they come to us in many different forms.

So here’s the first. The first is an example of a brief, succinct, but to-the-point submission from Clifford Hallett: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill—Clifford says, “Yes.” Now, some people do just express their support for bills in that form, and I would actually like to encourage members of the public, when you do feel that you’re in favour of a bill, simply write “yes” and submit. It does make a difference. I think what we find as select committee members is those who often have amendments they’d like to propose, which is a really good thing, and those who are in hard opposition to a bill will submit. Those who are in support often choose not to. Submit “yes” like Clifford; fantastic.

The second one is from Josiah Tualamali'i, who submitted in detail in terms of his community in Ōtautahi. He bullet-pointed the effects that he’s seeing in his community, but also his sense of why people choose not to submit at the moment and his view of the future and what we could look like. And he done that in one page: one very effective page that I’ve printed out—that I printed out when we were listening to submissions because it was incredibly powerful. If you have a brief set of views about an issue: submit, in bullet-point form, about your experience.

The third: a submission from councillor Sarah Thompson. Now, she is a councillor at the Hamilton City Council, who made their own submission as well. Sarah chose to submit separately in her personal capacity, and she obviously has a wealth of experience with multiple hats on. I thought that was an interesting example of a submission, because I suspect a number of people who are a part of organisations who religiously submit to select committee feel that they can’t express their personal views. That is not the case; you have extraordinary expertise, and Sarah’s personal submission was beautifully done, because it also attached a transcript of a cross examination that she and another individual had gone through, which really gave us a sense of how aggressive it could get for some of these individuals from the community who were objecting.

So again, this is a very needed bill. I do think we’ve landed in a fair space between business and also listening to community values. I think we must always be looking to ask our businesses to rise to the challenges that we’re facing in a modern world, and the science that shows we need to take action. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s interesting that the previous speaker said this has landed in a fair space, and that’s probably the element I’d quibble with. I don’t think it is fair, I think this is a bill which its exact intention is to tip the balance in a very particular direction. We’ve heard, obviously, the elements, particularly from the Minister, about how the law now will sit—basically to give the submitters a lot of influence around how things are set up, and in effect, whether or not they are happy or not with the physical set up, the translations and everything else in order to present. We’ve heard that cross-examination of one side of submitters is basically going to end. We’re hearing as well that an appeal process is effectively tossed out the window. Now, you can argue, as I’m sure the Government will do, that those are good things, but I would not say that they are fair.

But to back up the horse and cart somewhat, let’s be absolutely clear that New Zealand has a major problem with alcohol. That’s an absolute given. That said, I am not convinced that this bill is going to fix that. One, I think the problems—well let’s not get into it tonight, but why and what drives New Zealander’s drinking behaviours is one thing.

But the second is that actually a lot of the providers, those who sell alcohol—and I’m thinking of the liquor stores in my electorate. I’ve visited—and don’t take this the wrong way. I visited them all the way that I visit all the businesses in the Tāmaki electorate, but they are good, hard-working people, running small, little businesses to support their families. I don’t believe that those that I’ve met in my electorate are the problem, and, unfortunately, this particular amendment bill is targeting them.

At the very least it’s creating an enormous uncertainty, which anyone who’s been in business knows is one of the worst things you can have. Why is this bill going to create uncertainty? As some submitters—and it was interesting, the Government hasn’t chosen to speak to those submitters here in the House today—said that they could have run their businesses, their little liquor stores, for five, 10, 30 years, and all of a sudden a change of the local alcohol laws will mean that they have to shut down, and there’s no real appeal rights.

Yes, you can do a judicial review. But, boy, that is a massive overreaction, if you will, or rather it is causing a business owner to go down a very expensive, troublesome route which may or may not be successful. But the removal of what has been a good process to date to appeal doesn’t make sense to us. Paul Goldsmith touched on it—councils don’t make the right decisions. God, I mean, we know it ourselves that this House doesn’t always make the right decisions. So the idea that, again, the appeal rights go, doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

The last point for me—I mean, it hasn’t been touched on so far—is we are talking here about local alcohol policies, and yet this bill allows anyone or any organisation from anywhere within the realm to submit. So some of my local Tāmaki liquor stores could have people from Invercargill—no offence to people from Invercargill; they’re fantastic. But why would a group or a person from Invercargill have any right to opine on what’s happening in the electorate of Tāmaki is beyond me, and so it just doesn’t make sense.

I do understand though—and I want to finish on this—the intention. I do understand why the Government is looking to do this. It comes back to that fundamental point I think we all, or most of us, agree on, that there are alcohol problems—but this is not the way to address it. Fundamentally, I think it’s not going to solve the alcohol problems in New Zealand. All it’s going to do is cause a lot more harm to our business owners, and so I cannot support this bill.

Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I want to open my contribution to this debate by congratulating the Minister for doing something that has been long sought by many in our community over many, many years. Ever since the Act itself was passed in 2012, it has been a matter of great disappointment to many of our communities around New Zealand because what they watched was a bill that was supposed to put the power to determine how many and where the alcohol outlets should be where it should be, which is in the hands of the community. That bill was not capable of achieving its aim because it was stymied, and it was able to be stymied by the use of the legal process in a way that was impossible to combat for community organisations.

This bill, by removing the power to appeal, cuts that red tape, cuts that long delay, and enables councils to get on with the job of doing what their communities want them to do in controlling liquor outlets and reducing the pernicious influence of alcohol in our community. So just to give you a sense, 12 years after the Act was enacted, two-thirds of Kiwis still do not have local alcohol policies. And that’s not for want of trying: 86 percent of attempts at local alcohol policies were appealed by supermarkets and 73 percent by bottle stores. We only have 5 percent of Kiwis who are actually covered by a local alcohol policy, and that is despite 12 years of community attempts.

When my colleagues and the previous speakers spoke about those 420 citizens and organisations who came before us to talk, many of them were local activists and local advocates who had been volunteering and donating their time to try to get through the alcohol policies that they as a community wanted—it’s about community voice—but had been unable to do so. It was greatly useful to us on the committee that we not only had those voices, both from the liquor outlets and the hospitality industry and the organisations that wished to open outlets, but we had those grassroots community organisations. We had also the benefit of a great experience in amongst our Labour colleagues, and I do want to call out my colleagues Arena Williams and Lemauga Lydia Sosene, who have immense practical and long-term experience in trying to negotiate good, sensible alcohol policies within their local communities.

So the first thing of the three major things this bill does is to remove that ability to use the normal appeal process to the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority. But—and this seems to have somewhat slipped the attention of some of our members of the committee on the National side—it does not remove the ability for these matters to be judicially reviewed, because it retains the judicial review. Now, a judicial review is a tougher type of appeal process. What you’re looking at is not the strength of the decision but of the processes and the legality of the processes that were gone through to get there. So what it is about is the fairness of the decision-making process. It is a really rigorous process. It takes place in the High Court only, and I can tell you as an ex-lawyer and having run judicial reviews, it’s tough work and it is highly scrutinised. So should councils get it wrong or people feel that councils have got it wrong, there will be this extraordinary thing that they can do: the judicial review.

But in other circumstances we are going to prevent the tying up in the courts, the Bleak House type scenario, the Jarndyce and Jarndyce situation of over-expensive litigation that prevents communities having their way in their own rohe.

The second thing it does is make it easier for communities to speak. So it enables community participation, as has been said. It opens up those who can participate and who can make submissions. Now, just to make it clear, because the suggestion has been someone from Invercargill might come to Tāmaki and make a submission—they can make a submission, perhaps, but it is up to the district licensing committees (DLC) as to how much weight they put on the submission from someone from Invercargill. So, you know, it is not that someone from Invercargill will be dictating process in Tāmaki, although I have to say it is clear from the submissions that the DLCs themselves do need to pay greater attention to the links of mana whenua and, frankly, greater attention to tikanga in making their decisions.

The third thing we have done is to make hearings more accessible, because anyone who has been through a court process knows that it is legalistic, difficult, and intimidating. And we heard that again and again from the community grassroots activists who have been doing this work. We had, for example, Vanushi Walters, who spoke about the submitter Sarah who brought the example of the cross-examination. And I do briefly want to touch on this, because cross-examination is something I know a fair bit about. It is often regarded, and it was regarded by a number of our submitters and a number of people during the process, as a wonderful process that is absolutely vital to justice and should never be removed.

The truth is we have so much research that says cross-examination is pretty much the worst form of questioning you can get. It is complicated, usually antagonistic, it is very scary, and even the most robust adults—and I’m talking people who are, say, judges themselves who have come under cross-examination or expert witnesses—talk about just how impossible and how tied up and confused they become under cross-examination. It is not a necessary process and I’m very happy, as someone who has spent a lifetime working on justice reform, to see it go in this context.

So on that note, this is a fabulous, fabulous thing that is putting the power in our community where it should be: back in that same community. I commend it to the House.

CHRIS BAILLIE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Unsurprisingly, I rise on behalf of ACT to oppose the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. The bill was brought in under urgency last year, but, just like the last one, it wasn’t that urgent. This is quite bad process.

The bill has six main parts, one of which we do agree with: make clear that licensing hearings can be conducted by phone, audiovisual link, and other means where appropriate and available. That sounds pretty fair and reasonable. But the other ones, we’ll go through them.

ACT, in general, support the devolution of powers down to communities that can make decisions democratically. But that also has to be balanced against the rights of individuals and businesses to operate in what is a legal activity and with a robust and democratic process that can’t be captured by interest groups. So allowing appeals is very important.

The assumption in the debate is that anti-alcohol groups represent the community and that the shops that sell alcohol don’t, but that’s just totally wrong. These shops are part of the community. They’re not aliens. They’re owned by members of that community, and the people they’re selling to are part of that community.

I’ve recently had to renew a liquor licence, and the hoops that licensees have to jump through are huge. People outside of the industry obviously just don’t understand. Business owners are already right into harm reduction and they care about their community. This word I often hear, “the alcohol industry”—in brackets—referred to like they’re the devil, it just doesn’t exist, no matter how they try and spin it.

If there’s a legal process to strip businesses of the right to sell what are legal products, and that process is through a licensing committee, then people affected have a right to be represented and to appeal. That’s just natural justice. The fact that anyone can object—and the bill commentary says that clauses 10 and 11, inserting new sections 102(1)-102(1A) and 128(1)-128(1A), “allow anyone except for a trade competitor and surrogates, to file an objection to an application for a new or renewed alcohol licence.” That is a real overreach. It will affect, or can affect, existing business—those businesses are family businesses, often passed down.

The chance of vexatious submissions are right there. And as someone mentioned, if a dope-smoking Green Party member in Auckland can complain about a bar in the West Coast, then there’s something not quite right with that system. The other one is: giving more powers to the district licensing committees. That’s just going to equal less democracy. We just know it.

The bill removes the voice of the local business owner. When the business owner disagrees with what a local alcohol policy may come up with, they’re being restricted in their ability to oppose it. We’re talking about people’s livelihoods. We’re talking about, like I said, families’ businesses that have been passed down and that they’ve worked hard to build up and to actually make a living, to live in this country. It’s getting so difficult.

I had a look at some of the first reading speeches. Once again, if you disagree with the left, then you’re evil, you obviously just don’t care, and you’re only interested in money—you’re only interested in money! And it’s just because we like to ask questions; we want to question the actual rationale of policies that go through. Sometimes I come to wonder why these are actually called debates. We will hear from the Greens about how much worse alcohol is than cannabis. That naivety would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous, and I’d be quite prepared to have that argument any time.

Once again, this Government has managed to divide us. This time it’s with those who take the moral high ground with those in the real world.

I’ll finish with a quote from Nicole McKee, who actually sits on the committee and gave ACT’s first reading speech. She said, “Not everybody is drinking, but everyone should have the ability to make the choice. And everyone should have the ability to be able to conduct their business, or at least debate the reason why their business has been taken away from them.” We oppose this bill.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, thank you. I’m very pleased to take a short call on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. Normally it would be Chlöe Swarbrick who would be speaking on this bill, because of course it was triggered, in part, by her member’s bill on the sale and supply of alcohol and harm reduction, which was drawn from the ballot last year and created a momentum around the issue, which encouraged the Government to introduce this bill. But, of course, Chlöe Swarbrick is in Tāmaki-makau-rau after the tragedy earlier today, and like others in the House, we extend our huge condolences to the victims of that incident, the first responders, the survivors, and those who are in hospital with serious injury.

It is interesting, the National Party and the ACT Party’s stance on this bill. It is a very sensible bill, and I commend the Minister, the Hon Kiritapu Allan, who set out what the bill does very clearly in her speech. But, of course, it was local alcohol policies that were introduced under National, and they were intended to provide the community with the opportunity to have more say on what happened with licensing premises locally. This bill is not doing what Mr Goldsmith claimed—it is not going to completely override the ability of local hospitality businesses to operate. What it does do is stop booze barns, the alcohol industry, and big outlets from contesting councils’ ability to have a local alcohol policy, through repeated objections, and through appeals—and in Auckland, it’s been 10 years—including appeals at the Supreme Court. In Christchurch, it was five years, from 2013 to 2017. It cost the Christchurch City Council over $1 million before they withdrew their provisional local alcohol policy, because of the way the whole process worked.

This bill is really sensible in ensuring that objections cannot be based on trade competition. That is not a novel concept: it has been in the Resource Management Act for years to prevent supermarkets objecting on the basis of trade competition. So it is not new, members of the National Party—it operates in other spheres. I think it is really disappointing that we have had some speakers who have almost been apologists for the alcohol industry, exaggerating the impact on existing businesses and assuming that local councils will not exercise good judgment. I don’t expect that councils will try and put existing hospitality businesses that are operating well out of business by implementing a rule that they can’t continue to operate within 300 metres of a preschool or a school. But, in Christchurch after the earthquakes, locals were concerned at the “confetti-like” growth—they called it—of liquor outlets; off-licence premises, post-earthquake. Communities objected to that. It’s these sorts of issues, the proliferation of new businesses when you’ve already got businesses serving an area—that local alcohol policies can address.

This bill also, in ensuring that organisations that have an interest in an area can participate in the process, is also a good advance. In the regulatory impact statement, I think, it was noted that Hāpai te Hauora, which is a health entity part-owned by Waikato-Tainui, was declined the ability to stand in support of an objection by others in the Waikato, so this bill ensures that that sort of participation in the process can happen. We want the community to have a say. We want councils to get on and develop these local alcohol policies without having that work stymied by appeals to the authority. Local councils are elected representatives, so they can well represent their community.

What speakers like Mr Goldsmith have failed to acknowledge is the huge harm caused by the alcohol industry: $7.85 billion annually. It was unprecedented in 2021, when 20 former district health boards called for an urgent review of our alcohol laws because of the 800 deaths and more than 60,000 disability-adjusted life years that are lost due to alcohol consumption. We need to reduce the harm from alcohol. It is our most harmful drug. This bill is a small step towards reform. We need much more comprehensive reform, and the Green Party is disappointed that, in the Prime Minister’s policy bonfire earlier this year, further reform has been postponed until April next year, because the Law Commission did a very comprehensive report back in 2011 which set out a charter for reform. We need, for the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders, to get on and do much more comprehensive reform. That’s what Chlöe Swarbrick’s bill was about: a small part that has helped contribute to this bill. The Green Party supports the bill, and we commend it to the House.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to take a call on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. I find it really interesting to hear this debate that somehow communities and businesses will be in combat as a result of this bill. There’s the concern raised that it’s going to tip the balance and that it’ll cause harm to our business owners. I would have thought, if we had responsible business owners, that they would welcome engaging with their local communities. The assumption that by giving communities voice and access to participating in the decision making about how these businesses operate it would somehow stifle these businesses is a question—if I was owning one of these businesses, I’d be starting to wonder what it was I was actually trying to do. I think it’s a really fundamental question that should be sending these businesses scurrying off to have a think about what they’re doing and how they do it.

I want to reflect on a couple of the submissions that were made. There were many from communities that I am deeply involved with: rural women and women and young women. And I don’t necessarily qualify as all of those things, but I engage with those communities. Rural Women New Zealand and the National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ) had some very clear views about why they supported this bill, and I take their views seriously. I do my best to represent their views in this House, and I think they had a lot of really valuable contributions to make in the submission process.

They talked about the fact that it is really important that the communities have access to participating in this process. The NCWNZ members and branches overwhelmingly agreed that the community’s best interests are not represented in the current procedures, and they should have more influence and say. Respondents to their survey talked about local communities knowing their communities far better than those outside of it, because they are the ones most directly affected by the consequences of alcohol sales and consumption. This will enable communities to be responding to the difficulties, the challenges, and the opportunities that are unique to them.

We heard about an urban community where, because the schools are jammed in—you know, you’ve got a liquor licence, you’ve got to have a liquor licence, they will always be within one kilometre of a community. My local communities will be lucky to have a school and a pub, and maybe a dairy that has a bit of vaping on the side. So it’s almost inevitable in rural communities that there is going to be an impact, because they are within one kilometre. And the conversation to be had in an urban community about the approach and the access to liquor is going to be a very, very different one to my community.

There were some really powerful voices brought to the table by NCWNZ from some of our younger women, some of our university students. Hearing their stories and their testimony about the impact that alcohol has on their lives is really powerful. They should have an opportunity to participate in a process where they feel free to be honest about the impact and about how these decisions are going to impact them. These young women talked about events where there’s alcohol present and the impact that it has on them in a different way than older people. And it is really, really important that we recognise the unique perspectives and the different vulnerabilities that different communities have, and they should be considered.

We need to make sure that—you know, we heard about how it’s going to tip the balance. Well, that would be great to tip the balance so things are more equitable. Communities, vulnerable communities especially, do not have the resources to ride out the delays, the intimidation, and the access to lawyers that some of the other side of the balance have access to. We need to make sure that they are able to have some control and some influence over things that can have such an impact on their lives. For the young women, for the women who have children in their lives, and for the women who are impacted in rural communities more than some other members of our community, I support this bill and I recommend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, this debate is interrupted and is set down for consideration next sitting day—resumption for next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. Tuesday, 25 July 2023.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 5.57 p.m.