Tuesday, 20 February 2024

TUESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2024

TUESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2024

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

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

Visitors

United States—Senator Ron Wyden

SPEAKER: Members, I’m sure that you would wish to welcome United States senator Ron Wyden and his accompanying people in the gallery today.

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

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

SPEAKER: A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK: Petition of Jennifer Heath requesting that the House urge the Government to re-evaluate and expand Horokiwi’s school zoning options to include Wellington City schools.

SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

2022-23 annual reports for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority and Te Toka Tū Ake—Earthquake Commission

2022-23 statement of performance expectations for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority.

SPEAKER: I present to the House the report of the Controller and Auditor-General entitled Monitoring importers of specified high-risk foods. Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports?

CLERK: Report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Merran Davis.

SPEAKER: No bills have been introduced.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 9 to Minister, 30 January—Amended Answer

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): I’d like to make a personal explanation regarding my answers.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: I’d like to make a personal statement regarding my answers as Associate Minister of Health to oral questions on 30 January 2024. I’m speaking specifically to the questions that asked if I was being truthful when I denied to the media that I had requested advice on freezing tobacco excise tax. On review of my response, I acknowledge that there is confusion arising from my understanding of the differentiation between seeking specific advice and accepting advice being offered. I had no intention of misleading the House, and I apologise for any confusion. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Generally speaking, when a Minister is correcting an answer they have given, they state what the incorrect answer was and what the correct answer was. I don’t think anyone in this House would be any the wiser as to exactly what it is the Minister has just corrected.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s not quite true, because I’m very wise on these things and right up with it, as it happens. And if you think back to the way in which an earlier apology was given in this House for a matter that was potentially a matter of privilege—and we still don’t know where this ends up—then you would see that a similar course of action was taken with no objection.

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I recall the questions asked quite clearly. The Minister was repeatedly asked whether she had requested advice and she repeatedly said no. Is her correction now saying that she did ask for that advice? If so, she should say that.

SPEAKER: I don’t believe that is what has just been said, but I’ll obviously have to read it when it comes out in the Hansard. I do know what the complaint was and I do know what the response was, and, clearly, this is still a matter under consideration. Thank you very much.

Question No. 1—Finance

1. GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on New Zealand’s economic and fiscal response to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I’ve seen a report delivered to the New Zealand Economics Forum by the Secretary to the Treasury in which she highlighted that effective fiscal stimulus in response to crises should be “temporary, targeted and timely”. She goes on to note in the speech that the bigger concern is the trajectory of spending and that, in New Zealand, operating expenditure has continued to exceed revenue on an ongoing basis, stating, “This was the case even through a period in which the economy was overheating and unemployment was at generational lows—normally a time when we expect fiscal policy to be at its tightest.”

Greg Fleming: What impact has Government fiscal policy had on interest rates?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, the same speech goes on to note that fiscal policy has had an impact on inflation, with the Secretary to the Treasury noting, “Our assessment is that fiscal policy has contributed to interest rates being higher than otherwise.” And, of course, that has an impact on every single family with a mortgage, every person with a credit card debt, every small business trying to repay a loan. High interest rates hurt, and what we know is that loose fiscal policy has contributed to them being higher than they might otherwise have been.

Greg Fleming: Why should New Zealanders be concerned about structural fiscal deficits facing the Government?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, structural deficits ultimately have a fiscal impact, which means that they shift costs to future generations, they ultimately reduce Government’s ability to provide public services, and they add considerably to debt-servicing costs. This year, the Government is forecast to spend $8.8 billion just servicing New Zealand’s debt. That sum is more than the Government spent combined on secondary schools, police, and early childhood education last year.

Greg Fleming: What action is the Government taking to bring spending back under control?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The coalition Government has started an ongoing fiscal sustainability programme to embed a culture of responsible spending across Government. The first step of this programme is an initial baseline savings exercise for Government agencies, designed to find about $1.5 billion per annum in savings to deliver on our policy commitments and to fund critical cost pressures. This situation brings to mind a cartoon that the Hon Grant Robertson once shared with me in question time; I would like to congratulate him on his foresight and wish him all the best for his future.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Is it the Minister’s assessment that the wage subsidy, the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme, and other policies to support businesses during the COVID pandemic are redundant and that she wouldn’t have supported businesses to hold on to their employees during the pandemic?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: As I’ve just outlined in the answers to my previous questions, I concur with the view of the Secretary to the Treasury, which is that targeted and timely responses were warranted during the COVID epidemic. The real challenge that New Zealand is now facing is that the spending never got unwound and that it continued at very elevated levels without driving the kind of value and services that New Zealanders expect, and while seeing them endure a cost of living crisis in which they had far less money to spend in their take-home pay.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and policies?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, in the context they were given.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What will he do to protect the takatāpui community from increased discrimination as a result of his Government’s policies, such as their policy to ban transgender athletes from competing in publicly funded sports?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That is not our policy. What we want to make sure is that sports balance fairness and inclusion.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What solutions will be put in place to address Māori health inequities after his Government dismantles the Māori Health Authority?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we want to work hard to improve Māori health outcomes. We’re going to work with local iwi, in the spirit of localism and devolution, to design solutions to improve outcomes locally. We just don’t believe that the way to go about that is building a massive health central bureaucracy here in Wellington.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What actions is his Government taking to push for a sustainable ceasefire in Palestine?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We’ve been calling for a cessation of hostilities since October last year.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How bad is the Prime Minister willing to allow things to get before his Government cuts diplomatic ties and sanctions Israel for war crimes against Palestinian civilians?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I reject the assertion in that question. That is not something we’re interested in.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he stand by the statement of Christopher Luxon, “Do not be a climate denier. Do not be a climate minimalist. This is real. Give it up.”, and, if so, why did his state of the nation speech this weekend mention climate action precisely zero times?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes, I do, and I disagree with you. We talked a lot about actually how we speed up the fast-track consenting process so we can get more renewable energy in place, whether that be geothermal, solar. We want to make sure we’ve got renewable electricity in place so we can get double the amount of renewable electricity and get this country moving towards its climate goals.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

3. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, I do. In particular, I stand by my statement from the weekend where I said, “I haven’t met a single young Kiwi whose ambition, creativity, and spark would be best served by a life on a benefit.” That is why I’m very proud to stand by this Government’s actions to address the legacy of welfare dependency that the previous Labour Government was all too happy to grow. And, before I take any more questions, can I just acknowledge Grant Robertson’s announcement of his retirement today. I thank him for his service in this place in Parliament, and also in Government, and wish him well for the future.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is Louise Upston correct that changes to benefit indexation will save the Government $669.5 million through to 2027-28?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, it depends very strongly on what the forecast projections are going forward. As you know, in your previous Government, there was a period where, actually, inflation was running well ahead of wage increases. As a result, that’s why we’ve moved it back to make sure we index benefits to inflation so that people are protected from their purchasing power being eroded by inflation.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked him whether the Minister was correct or not or whether he agreed with the Minister or not. He has given a whole lot of other information, but he hasn’t actually answered whether or not he agrees with the Minister.

SPEAKER: Well, I thought he reasonably did, but ask the question again at no cost to your supplementary list.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Thank you. Is Louise Upston correct that changes to benefit indexation will save the Government $669.5 million through to 2027-28?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: It all depends on the forecast going forward. But what I’d say to you is indexing benefits going forward, indexing benefits to inflation—that’s the right way to go.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Was Cabinet made aware of the fact that a disabled Kiwi on the supported living payment would lose $2,300 a year by 2028 thanks to changes to benefit indexations; if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We’re making sure that benefits are adjusted by the amount of inflation so that the purchasing power of those beneficiaries is not eroded. That is the way we’re managing it going forward, and we think that’s the right approach.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That didn’t answer the question—didn’t come close to addressing it.

SPEAKER: Now, I disagree with you because I think, while you ask a question, you can’t guarantee what the answer is. But if the question was—sorry, I was told not to get into explaining these things, so I won’t explain it. I’ll just say ask it again and we’ll probably get the same answer that would be quite acceptable.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Was Cabinet made aware of the fact that a disabled Kiwi on the supported living payment would lose $2,300 a year by 2028 thanks to changes to benefit indexations; if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: They’re not losing anything. We’re adjusting benefits and indexing benefits to inflation so that the purchasing power of a beneficiary maintains, irrespective of what happens with inflation.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: If people aren’t going to lose anything because of their changes to benefit indexations, how is the Government saving $669.5 million?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: They’re not losing anything, because we’re adjusting benefits by the amount of inflation.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why did he state at his press conference yesterday that someone undergoing cancer treatment could be forced to work 10 hours a week?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I’d say to you is we are determined to make sure that people who are on a jobseeker benefit are upholding their obligations. There is a case by case basis. There will be valid reasons why people may or may not meet their obligations. But people who are on a health ticket under the jobseeker benefit actually also want to work, in many cases. We are supporting people into work.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: What’s the total estimated cost of the coalition agreement to restore mortgage interest deductibility for rental properties, including the backdating that they have agreed to?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That information will be available in the Budget in May.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: What does it say about his Government’s priorities that their first major financial decisions involve backdating tax breaks for landlords, increasing Government revenue from people smoking, and cutting benefits for the lowest-income New Zealanders?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do: we’re not going to do what that Government did, which was to increase the number of people on the jobseeker benefit by 70,000 people—increased it by 58 percent, took the number of sanctions and obligations down by 57 percent. We care about young people on a benefit. We want to get people from welfare into work. On that basis, that would exclude the deputy leader of the Labour Party from running for the leader of the Labour Party one day down the road.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that the Opposition is having difficulty reorganising itself, but every member from that front bench over there shouting is surely not the way to image this Parliament. We don’t mind objection—we welcome it—but that sort of screaming, mindless leadership mess is not what Parliament should look like.

SPEAKER: Well, you might say that, but I was actually also looking over this side because the Prime Minister was speaking, and there was a considerable amount of support for what he was saying loudly coming from that side. So I think it’s one all.

Question No. 4—Health (Pharmac)

4. TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) to the Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac): What benefits, if any, can New Zealanders expect to see from the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac)): New Zealanders can indeed expect great benefits from the legalisation of pseudoephedrine cough and cold treatments. The most obvious is that, when people get sick, they will be able to get stuff that works, not what is currently available, which many people regard as being little better than a placebo. In addition to that, it shows we have a Government that, when a law doesn’t work, actually gets rid of it. It shows we have a Government that is prepared to try and make life better and easier for New Zealanders rather than constantly coming up with obstructions and objections.

Todd Stephenson: Why does the Government think this law needs to be changed?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: The law was put in place with the intention of stopping gangs supplying methamphetamine; unfortunately, the law did not succeed. The evidence for that is that, since pseudoephedrine cough and cold medicine has been denied from New Zealanders through an effective ban, the price of P has actually gone down, the availability has gone up, and the volume consumed has gone up. The law simply has not worked, and, therefore, we’re getting rid of a law that doesn’t work, so that life can be better and easier for New Zealanders, including getting better cough and cold medication.

Todd Stephenson: Will the Government be keeping in place safeguards for the sale and supply of pseudoephedrine?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes, indeed. The law change is a very simple one. It is changing pseudoephedrine from being a class B drug to a class C drug. There will still be significant restrictions around the importation, storage, and possession of pseudoephedrine within New Zealand. There will also be a change in the medicine’s regulations so that pseudoephedrine goes from being a prescription-only drug to a restricted pharmaceutical. That means that, while you will not need a prescription from a GP, you will have to buy it directly from a pharmacist. These restrictions are designed to make sure that there are not negative spillovers from giving everyday New Zealanders the convenience of getting some decent cough and cold meds.

Todd Stephenson: When will pseudoephedrine be back on the shelves in New Zealand, providing effective treatments for Kiwis?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, the exact timing depends on two things: first, the Parliament changing the law, and the Government making sure that the regulations are in place and Medsafe is prepared to give the approvals to the products—their approvals have lapsed since they were, effectively, banned over a decade ago; second, it will depend on pharmaceutical companies making applications to Medsafe and being ready to sell the pharmaceuticals that people need by this winter, when the most demand is in place. We’ve had official advice that that may not take place—the full availability—until 2025, but I can tell you that Medsafe, myself, and everyone on the Government side of this operation are doing everything we can to make sure that good cold and flu meds are on the shelves by this winter, when people need them.

Question No. 5—Social Development and Employment

5. Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What reports has she received, if any, advising her of the possible child poverty impacts of indexing benefits to inflation rather than wages?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The publicly available report states that preliminary modelling shows indexing benefits to inflation in isolation as a policy, in the absence of any other Government policy interventions before 2028, may increase the number of children captured by the before-housing-cost moving line measure and after-housing-cost fixed line measures of child poverty by 7,000. The Government will, however, make other policy interventions before 2028, such as delivering tax relief and stopping petrol tax hikes, that will significantly help families with children in modest to low income households, who we know have been doing it particularly tough during the cost of living crisis.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Given that net average wage growth for the purposes of annual general adjustments is now due to outstrip inflation this year, have the reports she’s received updated the forecast child poverty figures?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: We haven’t received updated child poverty figures. Every policy and consideration that we will be making in the months ahead will, but, as I have answered in my primary question, it is not one policy intervention on its own that will support us as a country to lift more children out of poverty; it will be a collection of policies that our Government is committed to taking.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Do any of her reports highlight the disproportionate child poverty impact on disabled children, given that disabled children or children living with a disabled adult are more likely to live in households where an adult is on benefit?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I don’t think it would be a surprise to this House that there are certain groups where there is a higher risk of children living in poverty, and our Government is focused on those, whether it is Pasifika, Māori, and disabled, that we will of course take into consideration with any policies that we are putting in place to reduce child poverty.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Do any of the reports she has received highlight the disproportionate poverty impact on sole mothers and their children, given that 80 percent of sole parent benefit recipients are women?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Absolutely, and what this Government won’t do is allow the number of children in benefit-dependent homes to grow by 45,000 like that Government did.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Are Ministry of Social Development figures correct that indexing benefits to wage inflation had moved over 5,000 children out of poverty, and, if yes, why is she hell-bent on making changes that increase rather than decrease the number of New Zealand children living in poverty?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: This side of the House is really committed to reducing the number of children living in child poverty. We know there’s not one silver bullet; it’s not one policy on its own that will make a difference. Addressing the cost of living crisis, providing tax relief, and getting on top of ridiculous tax hikes for petrol are very practical things that will help low and middle income families as well as those who are receiving benefits.

Question No. 6—Health

6. DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has the Minister made in relation to improving access to breast cancer screening for New Zealand women?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Last week, the Government took its first steps towards delivering on our promise to extend free breast cancer screening to women aged 70 to 74. Breast cancer is the most common cancer amongst New Zealand women, and that’s why the Government prioritised this crucial initiative in our 100-day plan. I’d like to thank the Breast Cancer Foundation for their continued advocacy in this area.

Dana Kirkpatrick: What are the next steps for the extension of breast cancer screening services?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: There is a lot of work to be done in terms of preparation. We need to grow our workforce and support them with the infrastructure required to expand our screening services. Health New Zealand is also working through a process to ready the whole health system for the additional women that will take up screening each year and for those who will, sadly, require treatment. We’re ambitious to advance this as soon as possible.

Dana Kirkpatrick: What benefits does he anticipate from extending the age for breast cancer screening?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I’m advised that, once the programme is fully implemented, the extension will mean that women will become eligible for two to three extra mammograms, on average. This means around 120,000 additional women will be eligible for screening every two years. Catching more cancers early means better treatment outcomes. The extension could potentially save 65 lives per year; however, on our current settings, that relates to 22 lives saved. That’s not just 22 women but also their family, friends, and loved ones who won’t have to endure the emotional impact of cancer.

Dana Kirkpatrick: What feedback has the Minister received on this announcement?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I have received lots of feedback regarding this announcement. The chair of the Breast Cancer Foundation, Justine Smyth, has said, “We’ve been asking for the breast cancer screening age to be raised to 74 for the past eight years, so it’s fantastic to see work is finally underway on this.” This support has been echoed by many members of the public and health professionals.

Question No. 7—Health

7. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement that there is a health “workforce crisis” and does he accept the estimates of health workforce shortages Te Whatu Ora published in July 2023 as an accurate reflection of the shortages at the time they were published?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Yes, I stand by my statement that there is a workforce crisis, as I’ve said repeatedly for some time. To the second part of the question, yes, particularly where the document states, “[There] has been pressure on our health workforce which needs to lift; we have heard this message clearly from our workforce.” I have heard that message also.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: What urgent actions will he take to address workforce shortages that will have an impact this year?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: We’re very encouraged by the increase in general practice registrars who actually start either this week or next week, which, I understand, is the largest cohort of general practice registrars, which will then feed through into the general practice network, so I’m very pleased with that.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Would he like to congratulate the Government that implemented that?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: Yes. Thank you.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Is it correct that, after gaining office, talking up a crisis, he did not receive a briefing on the health workforce from Te Whatu Ora in his first two months in office?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I would need to see the exact dates that I’ve received briefings, but I’ve made it very clear to Health New Zealand and to the Ministry of Health that the health workforce is our number one priority, and they clearly have that in their headlights.

Question No. 8—Social Development and Employment

8. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: How many jobseeker beneficiaries, if any, get jobs as a direct result of attending work seminars they are required to attend to avoid benefit sanctions?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) cannot provide this exact measure, as the member was told by the previous Government. This new coalition Government is not content to allow New Zealanders to languish on the jobseeker benefit without proactive support or checking in on their progress to find work. We want them to experience the independence and opportunities that come from work. That’s why yesterday I announced that 2,500 additional people will receive greater face-to-face support through regular check-ins.

Ricardo Menéndez March: How can she be confident, then, that these work seminars support people into employment when MSD does not measure any outcomes after attending seminars and people risk losing their benefit if they do not engage with them?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: It’s not that the outcomes aren’t measured; it’s just that they are not accumulated across every single beneficiary. So if we look at a recent seminar in the top of the South Island, 82 Kiwi job seekers turned up to that seminar; 64 secured interviews. Had they not been there, they would not have taken that very important step of securing an interview that, for some, would have led to employment.

Ricardo Menéndez March: What outcomes, then, are measured as a direct result of people attending those work seminars?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The outcome is just that it’s not collated as an entire figure. What we do know—and a recent one that I attended in Christchurch showed a number of people who are getting additional support, whether it is being connected to training opportunities, in this instance through Te Pūkenga—employers come along to those work seminars to find staff and find employees. In another business that I visited on the same day in Christchurch, they have employed over 220 people off the jobseeker benefit, who they find at these work seminars.

Ricardo Menéndez March: How can she be confident, then, that increasing benefit sanctions will support people into secure, sustainable employment when MSD does not know if any of the people attending work seminars to avoid sanctions, actually, as a direct result, get a job, not just an interview?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: When job seekers come into the range of seminars that are available—formal and informal—in Work and Income offices up and down this country, they are getting assistance with interview techniques, they are getting connected to employers, they are getting assistance with CVs. For some of them, it’s getting them on the path to getting a driver’s licence. These are practical things that address the barriers that some people face on their path to employment. There is not one thing that will support, unfortunately, the 190,000 that are on the jobseeker benefit currently. We are doing everything we can. Yesterday was a first important step in the reset of the welfare system to support more people off welfare and into work, and obligations and consequences are part of that.

Ricardo Menéndez March: If she is unable to name direct, related outcomes to attending work seminars—people getting a job—is it that she just wants to punish people further into poverty by increasing sanctions for not engaging with workshops that have no evidence of working?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I’ve given multiple examples today. I’ve got a list of others if the House would like me to go through them, but the reality is, when someone is on a path to work, there are sensible, practical things they need to do. One of them is having a CV, one of them is knowing what to do in an interview, one of them might be to go on and do some further training, and one of them is to actually meet employers and to connect with them, to then be offered a position that leads to a job. I’ve given the example of one employer alone in Christchurch: 220 job seekers that that business has taken on. It is only fair to workers all over New Zealand that they know that those they are supporting on the welfare system are doing their bit to support them to find work: turning up to a seminar and getting support and assistance face to face with a great team of Work and Income workers is a great step. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just wait for a bit of silence.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does the Minister disagree, then, with MSD officials who told the select committee that outcomes are not measured?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I disagree that the total number of outcomes from work seminars across the country is not collated centrally. That is the point that I made in my primary answer. But, of course, we are very excited about the opportunity with this coalition Government to get more of the 190,000 New Zealanders who are currently on the jobseeker benefit into work, and particularly, I’ve got a message for the parents of young people who go on to welfare under the age of 20: we will not sit and let those young people rot on welfare for 24 years.

Question No. 9—Health

9. Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Is he committed to delivering positive Māori health outcomes; if so, what are those outcomes?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): To the first arm of the question, yes, and to the second arm, I am committed to lifting health outcomes for Māori, and this will be informed by those outcomes identified in Pae 2 in the Whakamaua action plan, including outcomes such as diabetes.

Hon Peeni Henare: What percentage of uplifts in Māori immunisation rates has the Minister seen following his $50 million announcement on 21 December last year, and what changes does he expect to see in the 12 months to follow?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: The immunisation project that we announced before Christmas was simultaneously with an announcement around the new immunisation information technology programme, which will give us much more granular and real-time levels of immunisation rates. As a consequence of that, I’ve been asked for weekly monitoring of those new rates, and we’ll be setting what those objectives will be when we announce our priorities and Government policy statement.

Hon Peeni Henare: Will the Minister meaningfully consider the recommendations following the Waitangi Tribunal’s urgent inquiry into the dissolution of Te Aka Whai Ora, and will he commit to meeting with the claimants?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: Those discussions with the Waitangi Tribunal are sub judice, but, in a very general sense, I would say that we’ll take on board all discussions and all dialogue from all parties.

Hon Peeni Henare: What consultation, if any, has the Minister undertaken with hauora providers, iwi, hapū, community organisations, and urban Māori organisations regarding the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I have had discussions in a general sense with Māori, with iwi leaders, and with providers, both on Zoom and in person, and we have discussed what a different future might look like with the dissolution of the Māori Health Authority.

Question No. 10—Social Development and Employment

10. JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What actions, if any, has she taken to date that aim to reduce welfare dependency in New Zealand?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Our coalition Government is not prepared to accept the welfare system we inherited, where work-ready job seekers were forecast to spend, on average, 13 years on a benefit, and teenagers could become trapped on welfare for 24 years of their working lives. We have higher aspirations for the prospects of New Zealanders. So, last Friday, I formalised with the Ministry of Social Development our Government’s view that all existing obligations and sanctions are applied. If job seekers fail to attend job interviews, complete their pre-employment tasks, or don’t take available work, consequences should be applied. Yesterday, I also announced that, from June, new work check-ins will begin for job seekers so that we can better support people to shift into work.

Joseph Mooney: Why has the Government taken these first steps to reset the welfare system?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: New Zealanders are better off in work, if they can work. Work improves financial independence, as well as their social and health outcomes. Unfortunately, the number of people on the jobseeker benefit has increased by 70,000 during the past six years, while sanctions applied for breaches of work obligations decreased by 35,259. Sanctions are one part of the tool kit in the welfare system. Because people are better off in work, we want to ensure that the welfare system motivates people to move into available jobs.

Joseph Mooney: What is the purpose of the work check-ins the Minister has announced as the first steps of the Government’s reset of the welfare system?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The number of people who have spent longer than one year on the jobseeker benefit has increased by 40,000 by September 2017. Vicious cycles—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How much?

Hon Member: Say that again.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: —40,000—of welfare dependency trap adults and children in hardship and erode New Zealanders’ potential. This Government wants a more proactive welfare system that ensures people are making good progress to become work-ready. The check-ins will provide a way to see if job seekers have been fulfilling their obligations such as making regular job applications, as well as ensuring they are getting effective support to help them shift into work.

Joseph Mooney: Who will be required to attend the work check-ins?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: People who have been on the jobseeker benefit for six months will be eligible for the proactive work check-ins. The longer people spend on benefits the harder it is to re-enter the workforce. We will not stand by and see New Zealanders’ potential go to waste. By intervening earlier, we can reduce the risk of people becoming dependent on welfare long term and help them experience the independence and opportunities that work provides.

Question No. 11—RMA Reform

11. Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: Does he stand by his statement in relation to the Government’s proposed approach to fast-track consenting that “This is not new, by the way, because the COVID fast-track legislation also listed projects in the legislation and also set up a process for Ministers to refer projects to an expert consenting panel”?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Yes.

Hon James Shaw: Can he confirm that a fundamental difference to the COVID-19 fast-track legislation is that, under the proposed new legislation, the ultimate power to approve listed projects will lie with Ministers rather than with an expert consenting panel?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, final design parameters of the scheme are yet to be confirmed by Cabinet, and when the bill is ready for tabling and release, it will be done.

Hon James Shaw: Is he concerned that granting Ministers the power to fast track consents for projects, including those that have previously been declined under the existing COVID legislation because of environmental risk, is, in the words of the CEO of the Environmental Defence Society, “a return to the use of unbridled executive power [that] we thought we’d left behind.”?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, and I’m not going to take lectures from Gary Taylor around what we should or shouldn’t do in this country. What I am concerned about in this country is that the time it’s taken to consent major infrastructure has doubled in the last five years, and we now spend, as a country—

Hon David Parker: That’s not true. It’s not true.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: It is true.

Hon David Parker: Fast track sped it up.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I’m quoting a report from an entity set up by the last Government, the Infrastructure Commission. So the member might want to say it’s not true, but it’s a publicly available report from Sense Partners. What I am concerned about is that we spend $1.3 billion a year in this country consenting infrastructure—by most measures, some of the most expensive consenting processes in the developed world. I want more renewable energy in this country and I want to build roads for the future and public transport projects, but it is near impossible to do things expeditiously, efficiently, and in a cost-effective way because of the Resource Management Act. We’re going to fix it.

Hon James Shaw: Can he confirm that there are no fewer than 59 projects currently proposed for inclusion in the primary legislation?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I think it’s actually more than 59, to be honest, because we are looking at a vast array of projects, and the precise list and exactly how those processes work with the process we’re setting up will be a decision for Cabinet, and it’s not too far away.

Hon Shane Jones: Can the Minister confirm, during that brief period of enlightenment when the earlier bill was passed, that there were actual projects in the bill that were consented by Parliament?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yes, indeed, I can confirm that there were 17 listed projects in the COVID fast-track bill passed by the last Parliament: Te Ara Tupua, the Ngauranga to Petone shared path; the Wellington metro upgrade; Papakura to Pukekohe rail electrification, which I know the Hon Judith Collins is a big fan of; Britomart station eastern upgrade; Unitec Residential Development; Papakura to Drury South State Highway 1 improvements; a water storage reservoir in Kaikohe; the Queenstown Arterials Project; and a papa kāinga development in Kaitāia—more housing up Far North, which everyone supports. In fact, there are six papa kāinga developments on this list. A whole range of proposals were supported by the previous Government, and we are adopting a similar procedure with this fast-track legislation and going further and faster to make sure we can get stuff done in this country.

Hon James Shaw: Will he rule out including the Te Kuha coal mine in the list of projects to be approved in the primary legislation?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, decisions as to what projects will be included in the legislation are matters for Cabinet.

Hon James Shaw: So, given the extraordinary powers that have been granted to Ministers in this legislation, what measures is he taking to ensure that the list of projects that Ministers approve for inclusion in the legislation are not connected to people or organisations that are significant donors to coalition parties?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Hang on a minute. Wait on. Just reword the question because you can’t put an inference in a question like that.

Hon James Shaw: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I wasn’t inferring; I was asking the Minister who is responsible for drafting the legislation, given that this legislation grants extraordinary powers that we haven’t seen in four decades for Ministers to personally approve projects—I’m asking what measures he’s looking at to ensure that there is accountability. I mean, that—

SPEAKER: Well, the problem is, the Hon James Shaw, that the Minister started his answer by saying that the bill is not yet in a form that anything could be asserted against it.

Hon James Shaw: And that’s my point—that in the design stage of the legislation, surely it is incumbent upon the Minister, at that point rather than after the legislation has been drafted, to ensure that there are appropriate checks and balances.

SPEAKER: All I’m saying is have another crack at asking the question, in a slightly different way.

Hon James Shaw: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, can the Minister, given the extraordinary powers that are being granted to Ministers to approve projects in the primary legislation, without the ability of an expert consenting panel to decline those projects—what measures is he taking to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, there are a variety of hypotheses in that question, which may or may not turn out to be true. The member will have to wait for the final design of the fast-track procedure, but, as I’ve said twice now in response to previous questions, there are a variety of mechanisms through the Cabinet process and the parliamentary process and electoral law processes designed to make sure that the type of implications that the member is making are handled appropriately.

Question No. 12—Transport

12. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Yes, including my statement that Auckland light rail was an irresponsible project that would have cost taxpayers up to $29.2 billion, and which the last Government failed to deliver a single metre of track on despite spending $228 million on this project. We’ve already scrapped this wasteful project, which is starting to address the last Government’s $200 billion funding gap in the transport budget.

Tangi Utikere: How does he reconcile his statement that he will not tax Aucklanders an additional 11.5c per litre on fuel to fund “more cycle lanes, redlight cameras, speed [bumps,] and lowering speed limits across the city” when Auckland Council information shows that, of the total funding available for regional fuel tax projects, safety and active transport initiatives represented just 16 percent of the regional fuel tax project spending?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, it’s great to be talking about the regional fuel tax again in Parliament and how we’re going to lower the cost of living for Aucklanders, and I’d make the point to the member that there is a range of categories which we will not be funding, which includes bus priority improvements, bus infrastructure, the cycling and the speed bump category—which comes under road safety—and active transport, but we will be making sure that the remaining funding goes towards the projects which the mayor and I have discussed, which includes the Eastern Busway, the City Rail Link, and local roading improvements.

Tangi Utikere: Hmm. Why does the Minister consider it appropriate to rush through a bill under urgency to cancel the very revenue stream for a number of projects that Aucklanders are relying on—projects that Auckland Council have determined will meet the pressing needs that Auckland faces now and into the future—without any commitment to any additional new funding?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, this might sound really, really radical, but we went to the election with a campaign promise, Aucklanders overwhelmingly voted for the coalition Government, and we’re delivering it.

Tangi Utikere: Why won’t the Minister give any certainty around what additional Government funding he will give to meet the clear shortfall that he has now left to Auckland Council to deliver on the very projects that they need?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, we’ve said the other projects are not priorities for this Government, but we will ensure the remaining funding—over two years’ worth of regional fuel tax money taxed from Aucklanders, sitting in a bank account—will go towards delivering and completing the Eastern Busway, the City Rail Link trains and stabling, and local roading upgrades.

Shanan Halbert: Does the Minister accept that Aucklanders saving 11.5c per litre means very little to them if they then face significant thousands of dollars in rates increases to fund investment in vital transport and water infrastructure projects, or is he quite happy to continue to pull the rug out from under Mayor Wayne Brown?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the Aucklanders—as I said, they overwhelmingly voted for the coalition Government. We are delivering on our promises to provide cost of living relief for the motorists of Auckland, and I’m not going to be lectured from an Opposition over there which wants to spend 11.5c per litre on speed bumps.

Tangi Utikere: Will he guarantee, right here, right now, that all stages of the Eastern Busway and the Glenvar Road - East Coast Road adjustment projects will be completed, and, if not, why not?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: We are allocating the money—the remaining $340 million—plus the money that will be collected between now and 1 July to those projects to make sure they are being delivered.

Hon Chris Bishop: Does the Minister agree that it is unusual to see a Government—particularly in transport, in light of recent history—promise something and then actually deliver it?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, as I’ve said—

SPEAKER: No that’s—no, thank you.

Tangi Utikere: Point of order. I seek leave to table a not publicly available table from Auckland Council that shows that the total percentage of safety and active transport initiatives make up 16 percent of regional fuel tax - enabled project spending.

SPEAKER: Why is it not publicly available?

Tangi Utikere: I’m advised that it is not publicly available. It has been obtained—

SPEAKER: How did you—

Tangi Utikere: —from me—

SPEAKER: How did you get it?

Tangi Utikere: —obtained by Auckland Council. [Interruption] Well, the Minister, earlier last week, asked Auckland Council to get the information—so I did.

SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

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

SPEAKER: That concludes oral questions.

Standing Orders

Sessional

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House): I move, That the following rules relating to the Intelligence and Security Committee be adopted as a sessional order:

INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY COMMITTEE

1 Definitions

For the purposes of these rules,—

Intelligence and Security Committee means the Intelligence and Security Committee that is continued by the Intelligence and Security Act 2017

intelligence and security agency means—

(a) the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service:

(b) the Government Communications Security Bureau.

2 Conduct of committee’s proceedings

Subject to the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, the proceedings of the Intelligence and Security Committee are conducted in accordance with the rules and practice of the House.

3 Attendance

Standing Order 38 applies and is to be read as if the Intelligence and Security Committee were a select committee.

4 Referral of bill or other matter to committee

(1) The House may refer to the Intelligence and Security Committee any bill or other matter relating to an intelligence and security agency.

(2) Standing Orders 295 to 304, 306, 308, 326(3), 337(1), and 383 apply and are to be read as if the Intelligence and Security Committee were a subject select committee.

(3) When a paper has been presented under Standing Order 269(1) and (2) (concerning the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990) that relates to a bill that is before the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Clerk allocates that paper to the committee for consideration.

(4) A declaration of inconsistency may be allocated to the Intelligence and Security Committee under rule 4(2) of Appendix F of the Standing Orders, and Appendix F applies and is read accordingly.

5 Referral of petition to committee

Despite Standing Order 379, every petition relating to an intelligence and security agency stands referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee for consideration and report.

6 Estimates and Supplementary Estimates for intelligence and security agencies

(1) Despite Standing Orders 345(2) and 350(1), the Finance and Expenditure Committee must allocate to the Intelligence and Security Committee the Votes or appropriations contained in the Estimates and Supplementary Estimates for each intelligence and security agency.

(2) Standing Orders 338(1), 338A, 338C, 346, 348, 350(2), and 351(3)(b) apply and are to be read as if the Intelligence and Security Committee were a select committee.

7 Annual reviews of intelligence and security agencies

(1) Despite Standing Order 353, the Finance and Expenditure Committee must allocate to the Intelligence and Security Committee the annual review of each intelligence and security agency.

(2) Standing Orders 353A, 354(2), 356(1)(b) and (3), and 357 apply and are to be read as if the Intelligence and Security Committee were a select committee.

8 Examination of policy, administration, and expenditure of intelligence and security agency

In addition to its consideration of Estimates, Supplementary Estimates and annual reviews, the Intelligence and Security Committee may, at any time, examine the policy, administration, and expenditure of an intelligence and security agency, and may report to the House on such an examination.

9 Reports of Intelligence and Security Committee

(1) In addition to its reports on business considered under Rules 4 to 8, the Intelligence and Security Committee—

(a) presents an annual report to the House on the activities of the committee:

(b) may report at any time on a matter relating to intelligence and security that it wishes to draw to the attention of the House.

(2) Subject to the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, Standing Orders 247 to 256 apply to reports of the Intelligence and Security Committee and are to be read as if they were reports of a select committee.

10 Confidential proceedings of Intelligence and Security Committee

Standing Orders 115, 390(4) and 396(3), which relate to references to committee proceedings in debate, questions and replies, apply to proceedings of the Intelligence and Security Committee as if it were a select committee.

11 Restriction of select committee briefings and inquiries relating to intelligence and security matters

Despite Standing Order 191, no select committee may receive a briefing on, or initiate an inquiry into, matters related to an intelligence and security agency, unless the House approves that briefing or inquiry.

12 Copies of records of Intelligence and Security Committee

(1) Subject to paragraph (2), the Intelligence and Security Committee must provide to the House a copy of all records held by the committee in relation to the performance of its functions under section 193(1)(a) to (d) of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017.

(2) A copy of a record provided under paragraph (1) must be provided only after protected I information is removed in accordance with the Intelligence and Security Act 2017.

(3) A copy of a record provided under this rule is maintained in the custody of the Clerk as a record belonging to the House. Standing Orders 11 and 12 apply and are to be read accordingly.

SPEAKER: Can we just ask people to leave the House silently, without conversations on the way. There is no debate. It’s been a Business Committee decision.

Motion agreed to.

Intelligence and Security Committee

Membership

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Prime Minister: I move, That under section 196 of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, this House endorse the following as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee: Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan and Teanau Tuiono, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition under section 194(2)(c) of the Act; and Rt Hon Winston Peters, Hon Brooke van Velden, and Hon Judith Collins, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 194(2)(d) of the Act.

This is a standard motion at the start of the new Parliament. I’m moving it on behalf of the Prime Minister, obviously, to appoint the various members of the Intelligence and Security Committee pursuant to the Intelligence and Security Act 2017. In addition to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, the committee will consist of the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan and Teanau Tuiono, on behalf of the Opposition, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition under section 194(2)(c) of the Act; and also the Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister; the Hon Brooke van Velden, on behalf of the ACT Party; and the Hon Judith Collins, nominated by the Prime Minister under the relevant section of the Act. This is just a procedural motion to set up the committee for the new Parliament.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Madam Speaker and the House, I appreciate that sections of this bill were progressed under urgency last week, so I do want to put my thanks on record for the House’s consideration during this time. I would also like to put on record my thanks to the officials who have worked incredibly hard to ensure that we were able to deliver this legislation within time frames. The time frames are important because it means that the changes that we are legislating for today come into effect on 1 April 2024.

As I said, it is a simple bill that returns the indexation of main benefits to inflation, while making other required consequential amendments. This change prioritises fiscal sustainability, the real incomes of beneficiaries, and work incentives, reflecting this Government’s belief that a job is the best way for New Zealanders to get ahead. Employment enhances mental health, develops self-esteem, and strengthens communities. In turn, this bill will help to achieve these outcomes while also promoting the ongoing health of the income support system.

So, for those who have just been tuning in to this debate now, I wanted to go through what those changes are, to be clear, because, as a result of some of the debate in earlier stages, members of the public may have thought this was an isolated policy that had impacts that the Opposition would like you to propose. The reality is that this Government, the coalition Government, is very much focused on improving the lives of New Zealanders—those on welfare as well as those in work—and, more importantly, to reduce the number of children in benefit-dependent households.

So let me go through the changes. The bill amends the Social Security Act 2018 to ensure that income support responds to the increases in the cost of living by indexing main benefits to changes in the Consumers Price Index (CPI). This is the method that has been used for 31 of the last 35 years, so it is not a new change; it is returning to a method that Governments of both sides of the House have utilised in more years than not. This change will revert the amendment, made by the previous Government in 2019, to index main benefits to net average wage growth. In line with this change to the rate of indexation, the bill also amends the Income Tax Act 2007 to adjust the minimum family tax credit threshold to ensure that it remains aligned with changes to the rate of main benefit. This is done very deliberately to ensure that low-income working families remain better off financially in full-time work than they would on a main benefit.

The changes will protect the real incomes of benefit recipients and low-income working families in the years to come, while also ensuring the costs associated with the benefit system remain sustainable and manageable in the long term. As I’ve said in this House, it is important that we balance the needs of those who are working New Zealanders whose taxes are contributing to the welfare system, as well as those who are in receipt and supported by the benefit system. In the short term, New Zealanders who are enduring the cost of living crisis—and we do know that it is hardest hitting those on low incomes—can expect that their main benefit rates will remain broadly similar. Over the longer term, New Zealand will gain from savings in benefit expenditure, while benefit recipients retain a consistent level of real financial resources—a simple way to put this is that it protects their purchasing power.

Making this simple change forms part of our Government’s wider commitment to prudent financial management, and it’s been progressed, in part—not this part today—under urgency, to ensure that the rate of main benefits reflect inflation, as I said earlier, when the indexation occurs and takes effect from 1 April 2024.

Easing the cost of living crisis is also a priority for our Government, and we know, from many people that we speak to on a regular basis, that the cost of living is really hurting New Zealanders and that is why it is a number one priority of our Government. The lower than forecast CPI figure for the year ending December 2023 shows that inflation is slowing, but it still remains currently outside the Reserve Bank target range of 1 to 3 percent. It clearly shows that there is more work to do, and our Government is committed to returning within the target range and easing cost of living pressures for all New Zealanders.

Some of the measures our Government is committed to taking include providing income tax relief, increasing tax credits for working households, and introducing a new childcare tax credit, as well as reducing taxes on petrol. All of these measures will help to address the cost of living pressures. As I have said in previous contributions in this House and in this debate, it is not just one measure that we need to take, not just one policy, but a suite of many—many of which we are delivering in the first hundred days. That shows the New Zealand public that the coalition Government is delivering on its promises. We are delivering on the priority areas that they set and we campaigned on during the election period. So this simple bill that returns the indexation of main benefits to inflation is an important step in the suite of changes we are making as a Government, and, as such, I commend the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I was just reflecting on what the first hundred days of policy for any new Government should look like, and thinking back to our time when we first got in in 2017 and how aspirational and ambitious we were for New Zealand, and how our immediate priority was the lowest and middle income New Zealanders, compared to what we see now—and it is worth comparing. Back then, for our first hundred days, we had the Families Package introduced, we saw the winter energy payment and the Best Start payment introduced for the first time, we extended paid parental leave, we had the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill setting minimum standards for rentals. We did things like ban overseas speculators buying New Zealand houses, we stopped the sell-off of State housing, we lifted the minimum wage for our lowest-income workers. And what do we have here in the first hundred days? Sadly, we have a Government that is taking $670 million from the poorest New Zealanders to pay for their tax cuts. I said it a number of times in the House: they should be ashamed of themselves.

Over the course of our six years, we were very considered and deliberate when it came to welfare policy. We set up an expert welfare advisory group that traversed many of the sectors that should have an input into what a welfare system looks like. It had New Zealand businesses, it had unions, it had the social sector, it had beneficiary advocates, it had young people, it had Māori, it had Pacific. They gave the advice on what our welfare should look like, but the fundamental element of what the welfare system should look like is that anyone who accesses it should have their dignity upheld. Well, this bill does not uphold their dignity, and we’ve traversed all of the arguments for why that is the case. Any Government that can receive a supplementary analysis report on a bill where the report states very clearly that more children will be in poverty as a result of their actions should be ashamed of themselves.

It’s not just this bill. The Minister put on record that she believes the suite of measures that they are introducing are going to actually be conducive to reducing child poverty in this country. Well, where is the evidence to back that up? We’ve already seen the report on this bill. We already know that excessive sanctions drive families into poverty, not lift them out, and yet those are the two measures that we have heard from. But it is predictable. It’s predictable. It’s taken out of the playbook of every National Government that has come before this one. It’s déjà vu. It is the playbook of Jim Bolger. It is the playbook of John Key. It is the playbook of Robert Muldoon. It is the playbook of every National leader that has ever gone before.

Hon Member: Don’t forget Ruth Richardson.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Ruth Richardson—she wasn’t a leader, but she made some horrible changes that were detrimental. And I want to speak about Ruth Richardson’s changes, actually. We only just made moves in recent years, by significantly increasing benefits, to reverse the benefit cuts of the 1990s that the National Government and Ruth Richardson were responsible for then, and here we have a National Government that are taking us backwards again. And we will end up in the same situation. Ten years from now, if no change occurs to fix this indexation mistake, then what we’ll have are benefits falling further and further behind. We’ll have more children living in poverty. The scary thing is they were told that this was the case but they have made the decision, as a coalition Government, to go ahead with it anyway.

The rhetoric is predictable. We’ve heard, even just in the state of the nation speech, the priority given to focusing on being tougher on beneficiaries. Well, it’s not anything of use to New Zealand or anything that should be a priority to New Zealand. What it is is bullying. It is bullying from that side of the House and deliberate distraction tactics—move people’s attention away from what they should be focused on, put their attention on the poorest New Zealanders, as if they are to blame, they are the villain when it comes to any of the challenges that we are facing as a country, when, actually, in reality, we know that they are falling victim to the challenges more than anyone else in this country.

Over the course of the campaign and whilst this Government have been in office, we have heard them say, over and over again, it’s about the cost of living, focused on the cost of living for New Zealanders, but they seem to forget that our lowest-income New Zealanders, including, of course, our beneficiaries, are also New Zealanders. So, focused on the cost of living for their mates that are New Zealanders but not focused on the cost of living for the most vulnerable New Zealanders. For that, I say it again—and I can’t say it too many times—that side should be ashamed; ashamed, also, of the polarisation that we are seeing of people in our welfare system. Rather than putting the ladder out and assisting people with climbing up, rather than putting opportunities in place so that they can actually move up, get the skills that they need, they are taking the ladder away again and kicking people who are vulnerable while they’re down. Again, for that, they should be ashamed.

Beneficiaries, inevitably, because of this change, are going to end up with less money in their pockets. Initially when they did the analysis, they thought they might be marginally better off this year, but we’ve since heard the net average wage growth numbers and now we know that, actually, there’s not even any gain this year. Every year, over the forecast period, beneficiaries fall behind because of that Government’s decision to take $670 million off the poorest New Zealanders to pay for tax cuts. That is the reality of this particular change.

We’ve talked a lot in the House about child poverty and who will be impacted, but I also just want to touch on and dig a little bit deeper on who specifically lives in those houses. Disabled children and children with a disabled family member in their household are more likely to be living in benefit households. Women make up 55 percent of all beneficiaries; 80 percent of those on sole parent benefit are women. Māori and Pacific are going to be disproportionately impacted by this change, and yet the Government have no shame or no remorse about the fact that they have made this very conscious decision. We’ve stood here in the House and we have quoted all the experts, including former Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft, who said, a few years back, before we’d even made this change, that indexing benefits to wage growth instead of inflation is one of the single most significant things we could do to address child poverty in this country. They have ignored that particular expert and every other expert that has come out in favour of wage growth being the measure for adjustments, not inflation.

So when that side of the House stands up in any room and says that they want to be an evidence-based Government, that they will make decisions based on evidence, then I just say “Baloney.”, actually. It is not true, and every decision that they have made to date is questionable, because the evidence runs contrary to the arguments, the ideology, and the policies that they are putting forward.

We will continue to fight these types of legislation in the House. We will continue to take the information that the public deserves to see out to the public so that they understand the detrimental impacts of the policy that that Government is introducing. We of course are not going to be supporting this bill in the House, nor will we be supporting the beneficiary-bashing narrative that that side continues to run. They do not have New Zealand’s best interests at heart, because if they did, they would be making sure that child poverty reduction was a priority, not putting it on the back seat and not agreeing to policies that are only going to increase the number of children living in poverty in this country.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. If we cut through the waffle of what we heard from the Minister, and see through the advice and the evidence, this is a bill that will increase poverty. Our communities are served better than a Minister who doesn’t actually understand the welfare system she’s been put in charge of running, because she is completely ignoring the fact that this is a bill that will see lower increases to benefits over the medium term, that will see disabled people disproportionately affected. The cumulative losses will result in disabled people being over $2,000 worse off than they would have been if we kept things as they are in four years.

So when the Minister stands up and talks about the short-term impacts, that’s incredibly indicative of a Government that doesn’t think of future generations and only thinks about the short-term gains at the expense of rising poverty, of rising inequality, and rising hardship in our communities. The Minister, at no point, has been able to be up front and clear about the impacts that this bill will have in the medium term. She talks about the other—on the one hand, she says she’s going to increase poverty, and she admits that this will increase poverty; then she says she’s going to have other interventions in place to mitigate that.

But what are those interventions? So far, she keeps talking about tax relief that will disproportionately benefit those on the highest incomes. She’s taking away from the people who are doing it the toughest to put in place tax relief that will benefit those that are already living comfortably. This is a Government that will therefore increase inequality. She missed opportunities to actually support families into work. We put in place amendments that would have better supported families entering employment. The Minister was not interested. During the debate, when we tried to unpack what actions she was actually going to take to support people transitioning from a benefit into employment, there was nothing. So, sure, she talks about the other interventions she wishes to make to mitigate the reality that this bill will increase poverty, and there are none that she can actually back up with evidence, that will actually alleviate hardship. And even if she had other interventions in place, you don’t actually end poverty in the country by making it worse for some people and less worse for another, because we have to remember that the people who she’s choosing to scapegoat, the people who she’s choosing to dehumanise, are going to suffer as a result of this piece of legislation.

All at the same time, the savings that she claims she will make by reducing benefit increases will be passed on to more people needing hardship grants just to make ends meet. All that she is doing, actually, is that she will be passing the buck to front-line Work and Income staff members, who will then have to deliver more hardship grants because people will be worse off. Then, when she says the quiet part out loud, about what this bill is supposed to do, which is to actually widen the gap between what people earn on a benefit and those in unemployment, she ignores the fact that affects people who may be losing a job, and may be needing support to get by, because when you actually have a wider gap between benefit levels and employment, you, effectively, scar the wages of people who are put in a situation where they’re living below the poverty line, and then they are put in a desperate situation where they have to accept jobs in the short term that may pay less, that may have nothing to do with their qualifications. So this bill, effectively, by widening the gap between working people and those who are out of paid employment, is punishing people who want to go into work. It is, effectively, going to increase the wage gap—both the gender and ethnic wage gap—and it is going to contribute to low wages.

So let’s make it really clear. This bill will affect people—in a negative way—who are trying to get into paid employment. When she talks, in her absolutely ableist language, about “if people can work, they should”, she forgets the fact that some of the people who she is punishing the most in this bill are people who are not in a position to enter employment, because they have really serious medical conditions; people who are disabled and are not able to work, who they themselves—because, actually, we shouldn’t need medical certificates for people’s lived experiences to be taken seriously. But the people who have told us that they’re not in a position, because of their disability, or because they may be experiencing severe health conditions, those are the people who are going to be punished the most by this bill.

So let’s cut the BS from the Minister and actually accept that this is a bill that will punish disabled people the hardest. The people who she thinks can simply go to Work and Income and get a job, despite, for example, having a cancer diagnosis, and not being in a position to do so, those are the people she is punishing the most. When it comes to families with children who are going to be affected by lower benefit increases, what does she think will happen to the children when you put a household into further hardship? You’re condemning the children in those households to poor health and education outcomes, effectively creating long-term and possibly intergenerational harm; the harm that lower benefit increases cause as a result of this bill is long term. The harm that we do in the weeks that people may be experiencing—or months that people may be experiencing on those benefits—has profound year- and generational-long impacts, because if a family is not able to actually meet the cost of rent as a result of poverty levels that are set below the poverty lines, they have to move from the area that they’re in to another area, that creates transience for those children. Children cannot afford medication as a result of poverty levels that have been set by this Government. That affects the long-term health of the children impacted by this bill. So the Minister talks about the so-called short-term gains but fails to see the long-term harm that she is causing.

She can’t conjure high wages and people finding secure work just by demonising beneficiaries and simply talking about it. That’s her focus, as a part of this piece of legislation. Earlier in the House, she could not even substantiate whether those so-called initiatives were to support people into employment. So the goals that the Minister continuously talks about are not backed up by the lived experience of beneficiaries, and will only cause more harm.

I just really wish that the legacy parties understood what is happening right now, which is to actually turn benefit indexation into a political football. The previous Government had a chance to accept my recommendations and amendments to index benefits to wages, or inflation, whichever was higher, to ensure that we guarantee the best and highest possible benefit increases, so that a rising tide supports everyone. We put a similar amendment in this legislation that was not supported by National. There is no interest from the legacy parties to stop the political football on how we increase benefits annually, to just, actually, take into account that we could all rally together to support people having enough to live on, and turn these annual increases into a conversation on what else we need to do, rather than, for example, as the National Party and their coalition partners are doing is: how can we take the most from people on the benefit to fund tax cuts that will disproportionately support wealthy people?

So it should not be the case that we put a stake in the ground and say, “We told you so”, because we have a duty of care for our communities, and right now, we have a duty of care to do everything in our power to fight back against a Government that will increase poverty. But I’ll tell you right now: in four years’ time, what we will see is more families queuing up at Work and Income, needing hardship grants to make ends meet. We will see more families taking up debt, whether it is from loan companies or from advances from the Government, just to survive, as a result of those benefit increases being lower than they would have been otherwise. What the Minister, once again, fails to understand and acknowledge, which will result in these things, is that we’re talking about benefit increases to benefit levels that have already been set below the poverty line by successive Governments. These are not benefits that are livable levels; these are benefits that both sides of the House have decided to set below the poverty line, and then, this Government has decided that we should increase below-the-poverty-line benefits even more slowly—effectively, condemning generations to living below the poverty line.

The harm that this will cause will be seen by multiple and subsequent reports over the medium term by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). MSD will show it to the Minister, and the Minister, as she’s shown us through the debate, won’t care, because she didn’t show any consideration to the best available evidence during the bill going through Parliament, and she clearly doesn’t seem to care for the evidence going forward; meaning that the coalition papers around using best data and available evidence is nothing, nothing but lip service, because this is a Government that is running on how to make life hardest on those already struggling to get by. These are the politics of cruelness, and the Green Party won’t stand by them.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. On behalf of ACT, I’m taking this call to support this bill, the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill. We are supporting this bill because this bill is ultimately about affordability. I’ve listened to contributions from the Labour Party member and also the Green Party member, and I would say that they have been really interesting contributions.

Yes, we acknowledge that arguments can be made both ways. This is about the indexation of benefits to the Consumers Price Index (CPI) or net wage growth, and I want to acknowledge that, yes, it was the Labour Government that indexed benefits to net wage growth because it saw that the wage growth was actually historically growing faster than inflation. But very quickly they realised that inflation actually started growing faster than wages, so there is no silver bullet there. Things change, and inflation grew at a rate that was hurting people. And who was responsible for that kind of increase in inflation? It was the Labour Government. It was because of their irresponsible spending. It was because of the spend, spend, and spend policies.

Yes, I do acknowledge that there a lot of factors that we do need to take into consideration when we talk about inflation, but, definitely, the irresponsible spending of the previous Labour Government fuelled inflation. Today those members are standing up and talking as if they really care about people on benefits or on low incomes, but they need to realise that it was the increase in inflation that actually caused more suffering to people on benefits and low incomes. Why didn’t they control their spending at that point, to reduce inflation if they really cared about people—those on benefit and low incomes.

On this side of the House, we really care about bringing inflation down. If inflation comes down, that is a good thing, because in the last quarter, December 2023, we have seen that inflation has been 4.7 percent. Yes, it has slowed down; it’s not exactly where we want it to be. But we want to see that inflation come under control. And that is actually going to give that financial relief. It’s not about just putting more money in people’s pockets, which doesn’t have that real value that comes with having money in people’s pockets.

Now, coming to the Green Party member, it’s really interesting to see that the Green Party member thinks that somehow if people stay on benefit rather than going to a job that is a minimum wage job, it is actually a better thing. If people have not been in employment for a number of years, or if they don’t have the experience, if they start a job on minimum wage, what is wrong with that? I ask: what’s wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with that, because they are only going to grow from there. So that is the first step, and we really want people to take that first step—get into employment even if it is minimum wage, because they will only grow from there.

The other argument I heard from the Green member was that people will be worse off by $2,000-plus if they stay on benefit for four to five years. Why do we want to imagine that somebody will be sitting on benefit for four to five years? That is not the kind of ambition we bring to New Zealanders. We have better aspirations than the Green member, because we really want people to do well. We really want people to get into employment, and this bill is a very simple bill—it is about indexation of benefits to the CPI, which we support.

TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): Thank you. On behalf of New Zealand First, I’d like to rise and speak on this bill. I was listening last week to some of the contributions, and some of it painted us on this side as uncaring, saying, “I wonder if any of the people opposite have ever spoken to anyone who’s on a benefit or who has experienced hardship themselves.” Well, as we have heard from many of the maiden statements on this side, many of us have experienced poverty, have lived it, and we know what it tastes, smells, and feels like. So I would like to invite the members opposite to reflect on some of their words when accusing us of being uncaring.

One thing I know is that the coalition is a very caring coalition, and that is why we are going to support this bill. We are caring. We are mothers. We are fathers, sons, and daughters. There is no way that we would not want the people of New Zealand and our country to flourish, which is why we are rejecting many of the—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Evidence—the evidence; you’re rejecting the evidence.

TANYA UNKOVICH: —words spoken on the other side. Evidence, yes, evidence is great, and in many of the words spoken on the other side, I don’t hear evidence coming; I just hear accusations. Many of us on this side, we all want the same outcome as the members on the opposite side; however, we just have different paths to getting there. That is what we are committed to—we are committed to protecting the people.

Now, we are not slashing benefits; we’re protecting the benefits and we’re indexing them to inflation. It is about also addressing the culture of welfare dependency that we’ve got in this country, and it is something that seems to be increasing as the years go on and something that this coalition, this Government, is very concerned about. So we are not trying to slash the money coming in; we are protecting their purchasing power, which is why we are indexing to inflation—a policy that has been used for 31 of the previous 35 years, we note. It is, by no means, a polarisation of people. Where is that evidence saying that we are kicking people who are already down? Those are statements made with evidence.

So I have been in the helping profession, myself, and I have had many clients come to me, who really want help in getting out of poverty and being able to get back into the workforce. Not everyone wants to stay on a benefit; many want to get out of a repeating pattern and being in a family that is dependent on benefits all the time, which is why New Zealand First is very committed to helping this Government address other issues, such as the cost of living, reducing the tax on the petrol that is affecting the people who are on benefits, who have to get in their car, and who often drive cars which use significantly more amounts of petrol—they are being really hit at the pump there. We are addressing some of those issues, looking at the price of groceries—addressing some of those issues—so that they can, in fact, have more of their money in their pocket. We are not prepared to continue to encourage people to remain on benefit, but to help them with other areas. There are so many other things that people can be looking at. Self-esteem is a big issue here. It is about helping people to become more inclined to want to prosper and not continue to enable them to stay stuck, but helping them to get unstuck.

New Zealand First is very much a political party of common sense and taking a balanced approach. We would like to support this bill, and are very proud to be doing so. So thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This is a split call.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): If that previous New Zealand First member, Tanya Unkovich, would in fact have stopped reading her notes and instead read the evidence—and how about reading her own Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech right after she tried to say that we need to improve people’s self-esteem, and this very legislation that is going to deny those on the lowest incomes more income? This very legislation and the very state of the nation speech that we just heard over the weekend from her Prime Minister is doing the opposite of improving the self-esteem of people who are struggling the most, and is why we will not only be opposing, and are opposing, this legislation, which seeks to tag income support to inflation instead of wages because that ensures that they receive less money, we are opposing this legislation and the hateful rhetoric that comes with it.

We saw the Minister in charge of this legislation, the Hon Louise Upston, repeating again in the House today—we saw her talking and using the language of people “languishing” on a jobseeker benefit. Now, what is that supposed to say about people who are trying their very best; trying their very best to care for their children, their families, their community; who know that the best thing that they can do with very little is try their best? But this Government—including that speaker who just sat down from New Zealand First, the Prime Minister, and the Minister in charge of this legislation—are dehumanising and stigmatising all people who receive a benefit.

With all of their language, they continue to talk about welfare dependency. Guess who is dependent on the current economic status in this country! People like the 311 families who together mass $85 billion collectively without being fairly taxed. We want to talk about dependency and tough choices? How about making the tough choice to lift all families out of poverty instead of ensuring that those families with more than enough—more than enough; more than they could ever want or need—continue to be disproportionately impacted positively by this very legislation?

The Minister tried to say that, “Oh, yes, this legislation on its own will in fact create more children in poverty.” So even she admits that. Can I just direct that to that previous speaker? Even the Minister has said, “Yes, this legislation, on its own, will indeed cause more poverty.” And then she tries to say, “But with the tax cuts, that is what is going to help.” I would like to know exactly how many families who are struggling the most will be lifted out of poverty by those so-called tax cuts and how many families who are already dependent on the current unfair tax system are going to amass incredibly more wealth. That is the dependency that this House should be talking about.

In my previous speeches, I have highlighted that if this Government was serious about wanting to know how to ensure people can live decent lives, the aim alone isn’t just to remove people off a benefit—people who are receiving income support—the aim should be for people to live decent lives. There was a lot of work put into a report called the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. If that member who just sat down is concerned about evidence and research and work, the whole report for that member to read in her spare time, an entire report with the likes of—and I’ll repeat this again—Phil O’Reilly, previous chief executive of the Business New Zealand roundtable, who sat before people who are struggling, and who came to the conclusion that all of the research said they are not receiving enough; they are not receiving support to actually improve their lives.

So the Greens have always posed a way and a political decision that can and should be made to ensure all families are lifted out of poverty; that we can end poverty for all families by making sure they are receiving adequate income to live decent lives. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Te Pāti Māori oppose this bill. The reality is that this Government continues to push their kaupapa of poor policy on to our people—policy that will punish our whānau. No one wants to live on “Pōhara Street”. Māori have dreams and aspirations. Workers want fair pay. Whānau hauā want the right to live with dignity and respect. This Government continues to show they have no ngākau for our people. They are anti-Māori, anti - workers’ rights, anti-disability, and anti-beneficiaries. They are all our whānau. It’s a blitz on Māori. Māori will bear the brunt, and we know, though, that the impact will hit and hurt our mokopuna the most.

The state of our community is dire. The hustle is real for our whānau out on the streets, and I encourage, like I did in my last call, any members to come out into our communities to see firsthand what it is like and what it will continue to be like for front liners in our community.

This Government is continuing to give tax cuts to higher-income earners but taking income away from the lowest earners. It’s disgraceful, it’s shameful, and our people will continue to be hurt by this. So I want to mihi to all the iwi and Māori partners out in our communities, especially those in Tāmaki-makau-rau who are going to feel the brunt and face the frustration of our whānau all day, every day. There’s going to be increased whānau continuing to line up at our food banks, and increased whānau turning up at our marae requiring hardship grants. There is no way that they are not going to be turning up and wanting less support; it’s going to be the opposite. And it’s our whānau on the front line—those marae, those Māori partners, Whānau Ora providers—that are actually going to feel the brunt of this.

So to this Government, I encourage you to increase the funding to those providers and partners, because they have to deal with what you are taking away from our people. Kia ora.

PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn): The debate that we have this afternoon is not really a debate about people who have worked hard and done well, it’s not about people who may have had their forefathers work hard and do well; it is about people who are not doing too well right now. And what the Government wants to do is to make the main benefit more predictable, more transparent, more easily administered. It is to produce a long-term aim of a proper safety net for all New Zealanders, regardless of who you are or what your circumstances are—that the benefit will come at pace with the increase in cost of living and the cost of goods and services. So, with the increase in costs and services that we are experiencing at the moment, it is clearly a good idea to index the main benefit to inflation, which is what we are doing.

The bill has two objectives. It is really to provide Government with more control over its spending, which, unfortunately, we have seen over the past years that spending in a manner that is not sustainable over time—it’s not good for everybody. Secondly, we are also wanting to ensure that beneficiaries are able to see their way forward by understanding and counting on a predictable main benefit that they will be receiving.

We support the family tax credit also in such a way that low-income working families remain better off financially in full-time work than they would be if they were on the main benefit. It is a tried and tested, very known fact that when young people are trying to get ahead, instead of being provided everything that they might want at that point in time or might need at that point in time, it is good for them to be able to aspire and push themselves harder and get ahead. So that is what this side of the House wishes to do with this bill: to push people to achieve more and not have that balance of receiving a main benefit that is such that it disincentivises them from trying harder and getting up and putting their shoes on and getting out there and working harder.

Also, the members opposite raise that the benefits will eventually have the effect of dropping by 2028, four years later, and then the picture is painted about when that happens, but we would like for others to understand, especially the ones who watch this debate, that that would mean if the main benefit is indexed on cost of living, then the cost of living would have also gone down. I commend this bill to this House.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I wanted to start with a quote that’s often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members—the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members. Actually, as it turns out, although the great Mahatma Gandhi said that, it’s also attributed to Hubert Humphrey, who was Vice President of the United States from about 1965 to 1969; a Democratic Vice President and obviously with liberal—classic, small L liberal—thinking; lost a bit today. But coming out of the United States at around about the time when John Rawls was assembling and compiling his magnum opus, A Theory of Justice, published in 1971.

Dan Bidois: What does this have to do with the bill?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: And it’s a remarkable book. You should read it—go ahead and read it, Dan. It’s a remarkable book, because what it does—it became one of the seminal works of political philosophy in the 20th century, and it had a great deal to say about the type of society we want to live in. Rawls went through a rigorous process of working out how we might set up such a society and came up with a series of propositions. Central to his thinking was the thinking that in terms of the way we set up our society, we would set it up in such a way that we would ensure that our decisions benefited the least well off. That as we were making decisions, that was the yardstick: how would it affect the least well off?

Now, that particular book really did become the work of political philosophy in the 20th century, and most of the other works in the later part of the 20th century responded to it. But no one really turned that over—that proposition that as we set up our societies, our concern is for everyone. But when we are making our decisions, we must measure them by the impact on the least well off.

I do want to refer to another great thinker of the 20th century as well, and of the 21st century: Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998 and is still working in this space. Now, Amartya Sen is famous for what he calls the capabilities approach—the approach that we try to ensure that each citizen, each person, is able to live according to their capabilities. And that, as Governments, our obligation is to ensure that people are able to live according to their capabilities. Unsurprisingly, he did think about all sorts of issues to do with distributive justice. One of the things that he said and that he argued is that being poor in a rich society in itself is a capability handicap. That the gap between the rich and the poor has a negative effect on people’s capabilities because, as the society becomes richer, people who have less are less able to participate in that society.

What I have given here is a whole series of thinking about what we ought to be doing in order to enhance the lives of everyone in our communities—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): And it’s going to relate to the bill in some way soon.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —and I think it’s—indeed, it is relevant to the bill because it is about how we ensure that people in our society have enough to live on. It doesn’t come out of some sort of weird nowhere land; it comes out of some of the great thinking of the 20th and the 21st centuries that we must have an adequate welfare system.

Now, of course, in recent years, we have had a huge problem with inflation in New Zealand and worldwide—an inflation problem that has been caused by a global pandemic, that has been caused by the war in Ukraine, that is being affected now by the war in Gaza, that all these external events have affected inflation worldwide. In many respects, it doesn’t really matter what has caused the inflation; what matters is what Governments do to deal with it and to enable people to live through it. One of the decisions we took as a Government was to try to ensure that benefit levels were raised to a sufficient level to enable people to survive.

But there’s some really interesting wrinkles around inflation, because it impacts different groups in societies differently. And there’s some really clear economic research that shows that lower-income people are more affected by inflation. Now, this is absolutely standard research that the inflation that the members of this House experience is not as bad as the inflation that people on lower incomes experience. That while the average inflation rate in this country might be—I’m sorry, I can’t recall exactly what it is at the moment—

Dan Bidois: 4.7.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Thank you, Dan—4.7 percent. Lower-income households will be experiencing a higher rate of inflation because of the basket of goods and services that they actually purchase.

I’m going to quote here from MoneyHub, who’ve been assembling the research on this. Now, this is an organisation that sets out to enable people to learn how to deal with inflation. They say that inflation is particularly painful for low-income households where the percentage of post-tax disposable income spent on essentials like food and petrol continues to increase, while wages typically stay the same. As a result, higher essential costs mean less cash left over at the end of the month while continuing to try to buy the same groceries. Additionally, lower-income households have significantly fewer savings and investments than higher-income households, meaning that these households have less cushion against rising costs.

What this bill does is it means that people in benefit-dependant households will have less than they would overwise have had in order to deal with the cost of living. Now, when we were in Government, we worked hard to increase the level of benefits to ensure that people living in benefit-dependant households could participate in our society, could enhance their capabilities, could be part of our society. This bill works against that. This bill means that less money ends up in the pockets of the poorest New Zealanders. This bill positively goes against all the thinking behind why we have a welfare State in the first place, which is to ensure that every citizen—that every citizen—can participate in our society.

It gets even worse than that because, as is sitting in the impact analysis that was prepared by social welfare that was brought to the House by this Minister, the impact is going to be greater on disabled households where people are on benefit because they have disabilities. Now, these are not people who can go out and find a job. These are not people who can put on their shoes in the morning and go out and find a job. Now, of course, many people with disabilities can and do work, but part of the reason that many people are on benefit is because they have chronic illnesses or disabilities that mean they cannot work, and this bill will mean that they have less money in their pockets for reasons beyond their control. So there’s a really significant impact there on households with disabilities.

We have listened to many fine speeches in this House over the last few weeks as our new members have talked about their values, their beliefs, and why they have come to this House. Many of them have expressed values coming from the Christian faith they profess. I would like to see that faith expressed in action, not just words. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak this afternoon on the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill for its third reading, and it will soon become law. I’m going to make a short contribution because this is really fairly short in terms of the important points that are made here.

Part 1 of this bill reverses changes made by Labour to index benefits to wage growth and replace it with a standard practice—a standard practice—followed by successive Governments. In fact, for 31 of the last 35 years, this practice has been used to index benefits to CPI inflation changes. This is at a time of high inflation.

I have been hearing some interesting speeches from the opposite side of the House this afternoon, accusing the coalition Government of all sorts of things; ignoring the fact that past left-wing Governments have done exactly the same thing over the last 31 years. So if they are to say this is a reflection on the coalition Government, it’s a reflection on their own practice of the last 31 years.

Look, the reality is that we’re at a time of high inflation. This is to index benefits to CPI—so that is, to inflation. This is a fairer mechanism, we think, for those lower-income people. I heard the speech before that said lower-income people are more affected by inflation—absolutely—based on the vast amount of goods and services that they purchase. So that’s absolutely correct. We’re at a time of higher inflation, therefore those goods and services—particularly food, electricity, etc.—that people need, this inflation affects lower-income people more. So this is indexing these benefits to the CPI—to inflation. So this is going to assist, rather than what the Opposition is claiming.

The other part of this bill that I need to speak to is that it’s a relatively minor change but it increases the prescribed amount from $34,216 to $35,204. So that’s an increase and that is used in the formula that determines the minimum family tax credit that a person is entitled to. So the minimum family tax credit provides a financial incentive to ensure low-income working families remain better off financially in full-time work than they would be on a main benefit, and that’s important. We want to ensure that families who are working hard, trying to get ahead to provide for their families—and provide, I think, the mana that comes from work as well, for those who are able to do that. It does increase that sense of personal mana for those who are able to do it, and that’s something we want to encourage and also it’s something they can show to their children, who follow after them, a pathway forward, rather than being stuck on benefit dependency.

Look, benefits are there for those who need it. We totally support that, but we also want to make sure that people who can work are able to work, and we incentivise them to do that. So that is the ultimate way they could provide best for themselves and their families. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The Hon Barbara Edmonds—this is a split call.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on what is a very sad day for this House, with a bill that is going to be taking from the poorest New Zealanders to pay for tax cuts. That is morally reprehensible. Let me try and rephrase that: taking from the poorest New Zealanders to pay for tax cuts is morally reprehensible.

I’ve heard members on the other side of the House try to justify why they believe that changing this back means that people will be better off. I’ve just heard it with the other side saying, “They’ll get money.” The problem is that with this bill, they’re actually going to get less money in the long run. When the Children’s Commissioner says that this is the one thing that we could do to help child poverty, it is time for our Parliament to listen to it.

I have been brought up in a benefit-dependent household. It wasn’t my father’s fault that my mother got cancer at the age of 35 and that he was a widower at the age of 40 with four children under the age of 11. We were brought up on the unemployment benefit because of reasons totally outside of our control. Children brought up in poverty need support. Children brought up in poverty need to know that they are going to have food in their tummies. Children brought up in poverty need to be able to have a safe home.

These are the poorest New Zealanders—the poorest. And yet that side of the House absolutely finds it, I believe, heartless, and applauds this. Find some other way to pay for those large tax cuts and those promises that you’ve made. Find some other way. Find them through other mechanisms of revenue raising, but instead you want to take the money which may help our poorest New Zealanders. Listen to yourselves. This is what our country is coming to, where money is going to be taken from children who are already living in poverty in a cost of living crisis in order to pay for tax cuts. Find another way. Because you know what? These children that are going to bed tonight—the child that I was at four who lost her mother to cancer—deserve better. We deserve support. We deserve a chance to make it better in our lives, not for a Government to come and take away the crumbs, the absolute smallest things that can make a difference to our lives. So I implore that Government: find another way; if not, absolutely heartless. I do not commend this bill to the House.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on a bill that allows the benefits to increase by the Consumers Price Index (CPI) as opposed to wage growth. I have some comments for Barbara Edmonds, the new Opposition spokesperson on finance, around finance. The first is that it’s not beneficiaries’ tax money; it’s actually hard-working New Zealanders’ tax money and it is being given to beneficiaries.

The second thing that I’d like to say to the member is that there were 70,000 extra people on a jobseeker benefit under the last six years of that Government, and any person who is taking on the finance portfolio for Labour needs to know how much that costs the State: $1 billion extra a year. That is how much damage that that Government did in office, and that’s what we’ve got to turn around today.

I want to also pick up on another comment from the Green Party around the impact of this bill, which was that it will make the gap between beneficiaries and those in work even worse. I say to the member Ricardo Menéndez March that, in fact, the best way to reduce that gap is to get people who are on a benefit into work, and that is our challenge and that’s our opportunity.

But we have traversed this topic a lot in the House in the last few weeks. We’ve traversed this topic a lot in the last year, in the election campaign, which that side of the House lost overwhelmingly. They lost their seats to large majorities from this side of the House.

I do want to come to what I believe is the core matter for this bill, which is the type of country that we want to live in in the future. Now, we want a country where there is a social safety net—yes—and, actually, I think all sides of this House can agree on our having a social safety net. But I believe that the future we want for our country is a future where people live independently, live happy, healthy, productive lives, and they understand the value and the dignity of work.

That is the main way that people can get ahead for themselves for their families—and, actually, don’t trust me; trust the evidence, as Chlöe Swarbrick used to say. The evidence is that those in work have better mental health—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Yep.

DAN BIDOIS: —yes?—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Yep.

DAN BIDOIS: —have more productive capacity, and have better wellbeing, and so that’s exactly what we have in this bill. We want to have a case of actually improving benefits modestly by the inflation rate—which, by the way, I have to remind the other side of the House that it’s 4.7 percent. Maybe if they had known how much inflation was, they might have done better in the last election.

Our 100-day plan is to, in fact, start a journey to reverse the terrible trend that we’ve been on for the past six years, to restore the dignity of work, and to make sure we get those 70,000 extra people on a jobseeker benefit into work so that they can get ahead for themselves and their families. That is what I think we all want in this House, and that is the challenge before us as a Government.

Now, I do want to just touch on what a member said, which was that we were taking us back to Ruth Richardson’s cuts. Now, I’m no person of history, but Ruth Richardson actually cut the benefits, and we are not cutting. For those that are watching at home, we are increasing benefits by the CPI. That actually keeps the purchasing power for those who are on a benefit—it protects that, OK? So if you’re watching from home and you’re on a benefit, we are not cutting your benefit. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today is a shameful day, and I’m reminded of the reasons why I came to this House in the first place and why I’ve been a supporter of the Labour Party since the 1990s, and that “mother of all Budgets” that the previous member, Dan Bidois, referred to. I want to begin by telling a couple of stories that I think get to the heart of this matter.

Around 20 years ago, a friend of mine living in Auckland—his marriage ended. He was around 60 years of age. It was his second relationship. He had three young children; some of whom were primary school age. His wife left him for someone else. He worked in IT, and he lived out in West Auckland and had to travel long distances into Auckland City in order to get to his job. Now, he had young children, including one who was not at school. He had to leave his job and go on the benefit. It was under the fifth Labour Government. I remember him telling me what happened when he went into Work and Income. The Work and Income officer said, “Your job is to raise your children.”

The previous member talked about work. Childcare—raising children—is work. Changing nappies, doing washing, all of those things are work. And it’s particularly women and solo mums who do this kind of work. For those women to be discriminated against through some of these changes—and it’s their children who will suffer and it’s their families who will suffer—and I think for us to say that that isn’t work really undermines the contribution that single parents make to society.

The other story I want to talk about is my best friend in Nelson, who is a single parent. She left a violent relationship to, basically, save the lives of her small children. The police said to me that this particular person was number one on their watch-list for family violence offenders in Nelson—I have no doubt that her children’s lives were at risk. I remember—this was under the National Government when sanctions were introduced and it became tougher for people to access the benefit—she said to me that it was like leaving a violent relationship with her husband and entering a violent relationship with the State. There was a time when she took her smallest child into a Work and Income office and was told that the child wasn’t allowed to use the toilet, and the child wet her pants in the Work and Income office. Where is the dignity in that?

So I ask those on the other side of the House—some of whom have been smirking and laughing and interrupting my colleagues talking about when their parents passed away from cancer—those who profess to be Christian, as I am, who go to church services each week and, I hope, would pray for the poorest of our nation, to actually think about what they’re doing to our most vulnerable people.

Now, we’ve heard very, very confused arguments from the other side. Some have said this is just an administrative matter; others have actually admitted it is to reduce cost. We know, looking back over the last 20 years or so, that in most years—around nine out of 10 years—wage increases have been higher than inflation. That is why we made this change: because the Welfare Expert Advisory Group said that this was the most significant change that could be made to benefits to ensure that people had enough to live with dignity.

We’re talking about people who literally are spending their entire day raising three-year-olds and maybe a four-year-old as well; changing their nappies, feeding them, getting them to early childhood education, cooking for them. In some cases, those same people are also having to go to Family Court every week because they’ve got a vexatious ex-partner taking them to Family Court. So I just ask those of us who have lived these lives or who haven’t lived these lives to actually just for once walk in the shoes of other people.

I am the daughter of a solo mother. We were temporarily a solo parent household—again, through no fault of our own; my father left our household—and there were five of us under the age of 10, some of whom were still at primary school and at early childhood. My mother was able to go back to work. We were able to manage without a benefit. But if my mother hadn’t—and I see smirking again—been a registered teacher, she wouldn’t have been able to do that and actually get a job that worked around the hours of children. Even then, she was only part time. Even then, because my father was very well paid and was able to pay quite high child support—again, if we hadn’t had high child support payments, we would have had to go on a benefit. So think about the lives of these people for once, rather than posturing to people’s misunderstandings around what lives are like for those on benefit.

Just recently, I’ve had a lovely couple come into my office. It’s a heartbreaking case and I think it tells the picture about how much New Zealanders just don’t understand what life on a low income and on the benefit is really like. This couple—their children are grown up, they have a mortgage, and they’re both in full-time work. One of them has recently had a really serious set of injuries. He’s unable to work now, and at this stage—we are challenging it—has been denied ACC. So the working partner thought, “Well, we’ve paid our taxes all our lives. I’ll go to Work and Income. They’ll be able to help.” Of course, they were told—and I had to tell them that this was correct—that they earned too much to receive any support from Work and Income. Now, they’d always thought that if they came upon hardship, they could just turn up to Work and Income and get help. They’re possibly now going to have to sell their house and have to take out KiwiSaver.

So the reminder, I think, to people on the other side—and I see all their heads are down now, which is interesting—a reminder that tough times can fall on any of us. I think many people think that when we fall on those tough times that the State will be there for us. The reality is there are many, many times when we do fall on tough times and the State isn’t there.

Now, the view of the Labour Party is that when people are under tough times, when they don’t have—and come on, try living on the benefit and paying rent each week for goodness sake; it pretty much doesn’t leave much to live on after that. What we’re going to see now is that overall weekly benefit eroded over time. And as the Welfare Expert Advisory Group said, this was the single most important change that a Government could make to actually lift benefits over time, and that is what is now being wound down. As I say, it’s a shameful day—it’s a shameful day.

If this Government does manage to magic up some tax cuts—I’ve got no idea how they’re going to do that, but if they do—every single one of us in this room, those of us who are parliamentarians, will get a tax cut. Why the heck do I need a tax cut? I find it immoral. In fact, I’m so angry—I’m so angry—that I would receive a tax cut. Utterly immoral.

Laura Trask: Then donate your tax cut.

RACHEL BOYACK: Oh, I will be. I will be donating it to the NGOs that are closing in Nelson because there’s no funding from this Government—I will be donating it, I can assure you of that.

Hon Member: The tax cuts aren’t about funding NGOs.

RACHEL BOYACK: Because I don’t want it. I don’t want it. Why would we possibly give ourselves tax cuts? Oh, now they’re all heckling again. OK, so I think it’s a thing in the Bible we call “greed”. Yeah, that one. Just remember that one. Those of us earning over $160,000 a year, let’s just be fair, New Zealanders—all of us in this room earn over $160,000 a year—

Hon Member: Are we still on the bill?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, we are still on the bill. The member’s making her comparison.

RACHEL BOYACK: Yep. Well, you know what? Madam Speaker, some people have said this is to reduce cost to pay for tax cuts. So I’m just responding to previous—I know you weren’t in the Chair, but there were quite a few members making those types of references around reducing cost burden to the State, so I’m just discussing what that cost burden to the State—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, no, I’ve agreed with that. So keep going.

RACHEL BOYACK: So I don’t want a tax cut when I know that people, like my friend, who are raising children and are doing it on their own because they left a violent relationship, over the next few years will not have as much money in their pocket to pay rent. I haven’t come to this House for me; I’ve come to this House for them. This is a shameful day and I do not commend this bill to the House.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support of this bill. Just for the benefit of people listening outside of Parliament, at home or around the world—I used to love it when different MPs would explain what we’re doing, because someone outside of here just might lose track—we’re speaking to the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill.

Now, for people listening from home or anywhere else, they’d think—if they were listening to the last few speakers from the other side of the House—that this bill only does one thing, and that this bill only adjusts the way we’re indexing benefits. We’re saying we want to adjust that to index it on Consumers Price Index, which is inflation. So if you were listening in the last half an hour, I apologise if you think that this bill only does that one thing, because it doesn’t.

Now, I know that our members on the other side of the House—and I say this respectfully because I know that many of you are very lovely, beautiful people—seem to have ignored the fact that this bill also proposes another change. It’s a change where we adjust the minimum family tax credit bracket in a way that we ensure more lower-income families are better off if they remain in full-time work. I think it’s very important that we emphasise this. Yes, there’s one part of this bill that talks about adjusting benefits to inflation, taking it back to what it was for 31 out of 35 years under successive Governments, including Helen Clark’s Government—so we’re going back to that true and tried form where we’re adjusting benefits to inflation. But the second part that we’re doing with this bill, here, today, is we’re adjusting the minimum family tax credit. As I just mentioned, the result of this will be that more families will be better off if they choose to remain in full-time work.

Now, I know—like many of us in the House—we have a lot of friends, we have a lot of families that have spoken to us about the different circumstances they find themselves in. I remember doorknocking—because I love to go out doorknocking, you’ll hear this a lot throughout my years in Parliament. Throughout doorknocking, many times I came across people that are clearly very hard-working people and they say to me, this simple thing, that “We don’t apply. We don’t reach that minimum. We don’t fit under that bracket.” They say that about a number of different situations, including the family tax credit. So I’m very proud of the fact that we’re adjusting it with this bill, and I’m glad that we’ve got support across the Government parties, because it will ensure that many families are better off. There’s a lot of people that are juggling that beautiful juggle of having a family, having children, having mokopuna, wanting to work, and wanting to also spend time with them but also contribute to society—for society, for themselves—and this is one way that we’re ensuring people can go out and work and they will be better off with the family tax credit. We’re also adjusting the childcare credit.

Now, I’d like to also speak about a number of points that were raised today, and just some thoughts as a result. A member earlier spoke about déjà vu. The member earlier referred to their former—and this is the former Labour Government’s—Budgets and the aspiration behind these Budgets and the aspiration behind their 100 days, and then referred to what’s happening now, under this Government—our Government—as déjà vu. Well, what I’d like to respond is that it’s not déjà vu; it’s actually déjà true. It’s déjà true that under Labour Governments, as we’ve seen just recently, the number of young people under the age of 25 on the jobseeker benefit has risen by 66 percent. Déjà true. In the last six years, it’s now 40,000—déjà true. This is what happens under a Labour Government. Déjà true: under a Labour Government since 2017, New Zealanders on the jobseeker benefit have increased by 70,000. Déjà true. This is what happens when we’ve got a Labour-led Government. The latest forecast is that teenagers who become beneficiaries—so under the age of 20—can spend up to 24 years of their working life on welfare. Déjà true. This is what happens as a result of a Labour-led Government. Here, on this side of the House, the National Party, with our coalition partners, will not sit around and let the déjà true Labour legacy of dependency go unchecked. That’s why—that’s another reason why—this bill is before the House.

A mere few months ago, I was having some kai with a very lovely woman—she’s a woman that’s quite established now—and she spoke about how she used to be on the benefit, and she shared what that did to her soul. She spoke about how one’s life is not their own when they’re on the benefit. She spoke about how their calendar is not their own when one is on the benefit. She spoke about how you are literally dependent on someone else when you are on the benefit. And so when she found herself on the benefit, and was surviving with a benefit, but she ached—she ached to get back out into the workforce. And she’s a woman that has children and found herself in difficult times. The beauty of what we have here is that we acknowledge people do find themselves in difficult times, but we also acknowledge that if we allow ourselves to go too far, we’ll have a poverty of aspiration. We need to fight against the poverty of aspiration. This woman that I spoke about is the Hon Louise Upston. They’re the things that she said to me and they really resonated with me—what being on the benefit can do.

Our Government wants to support people out of the benefit. Our Government wants to support families that want to work—with the family tax credit, with the childcare credit. Our Government is not going to allow the poverty of aspiration to permeate any longer, and that’s the kaupapa behind what we’re doing here today. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 68

New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I move, That the Social Workers Registration—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you have some words around a legislative statement?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I don’t, but I seek to table the legislative statement for the Social Workers Registration—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You say, “I present a legislative statement on”, and the name of the bill.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I present a legislative statement on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill to the House.

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

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I first want to put on record my thanks to the members of the Social Services and Community Committee who examined this legislation. In the previous Parliament, I was a member of that committee, and I know how hard-working the members of that select committee are. I also want to acknowledge the officials from the Ministry of Social Development who worked incredibly hard to ensure that this legislation is before the Parliament. So, for those that are watching, it was a bill that was started in the previous Parliament and is being continued here today.

This bill seeks to amend the Social Workers Registration Legislation Act 2019 to delay the repeal of section 13 of the 2003 Act, which concerns the experience pathway for social worker registration, from 28 February 2024 to 28 February 2026. Delaying the repeal by two years will help to reduce workforce pressures in the social work sector by continuing to provide an alternative means of entering the profession while ensuring that the momentum continues towards a mandatory qualification environment, and there is widespread agreement this should happen.

This Government believes in investing in early interventions which will be the most effective for vulnerable New Zealanders. With this comes investing in those who provide invaluable assistance and help to our vulnerable community members. As we know and agree across the House, social workers continue to be a pillar of support across New Zealand for those in need. Recently, social workers have provided support services during extreme weather events, in addition to helping New Zealanders every day overcome challenges and pursue their aspirations.

The Social Workers Registration Act 2003 sets out occupational regulations for social workers that protect the safety of the public. These regulations ensure that social workers are competent to practise and enhance the professionalism of social workers. Under this Act, there are currently two pathways to registration for applicants who are within New Zealand. There is the qualification pathway, and there is an alternative—the experience pathway. Approximately 3 percent of the current social workers have registered through this experience pathway. So it is a very small number of those who become registered social workers. Registration provides the basis of determining the safety of social workers to practise, whether this is through the qualification or the experience pathway.

Both pathways require the Social Workers Registration Board to assess whether the applicant has demonstrable competence to practise as a social worker and, importantly, whether they meet the fit and proper person requirement. As part of registration, social workers are also required to undergo regular supervision and professional development. If they are practising, they also need to have an annual practising certificate. To be eligible for registration via the qualification pathway, applicants must hold a prescribed academic qualification that is recognised by the Social Workers Registration Board. Section 13 of the Act states that the Social Workers Registration Board may recognise practical experience, usually between 10 and 15 years, in lieu of a recognised qualification. In February of 2021, registration became mandatory for anyone wanting to use the title “social worker” and/or practise as a social worker.

In 2017, Cabinet agreed to repeal the experience pathway and had a delayed commencement date of 28 February 2024. This repeal would remove the ability for people without a prescribed qualification to apply for social worker registration on the basis of their practical experience. Social workers registered through the experience pathway prior to the repeal date will continue to have their registration recognised.

The experience pathway was always intended only as a temporary measure for social worker registration while the sector transitioned to a professional qualification environment. The delayed commencement date was intended to support the social work sector to transition from voluntary to mandatory by allowing unregistered practitioners more time either to complete a qualification or to apply to register under the experience pathway. The decision to repeal the experience pathway was made to enhance the professionalisation of the sector through the achievement of a qualification.

Academic achievement was not defined or constrained to being solely via attainment of a degree, but through the attainment of qualifications that have been prescribed by the Social Workers Registration Board. This decision was also underpinned by an assumption that there would be sufficient supply to meet future demand for social workers. There has been both political agreement as well as general support from the social worker representatives that social workers should be required to complete a qualification. However, several changes have meant that more time is needed to support the transition to a mandatory qualification environment.

Firstly, social worker shortages have continued to increase. Social workers are experiencing an increase in demand alongside a reduction in supply due to decreasing student enrolment in social work qualifications. That was exacerbated due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Cyclone Gabrielle. The Social Workers Registration Board currently estimates there are about 700 unfilled roles.

Secondly, delaying the repeal of the experience pathway will also enable the sector to maximise the opportunities presented by recent pay changes for social workers. These increases provide a financial incentive for eligible practitioners to become registered. Delaying the repeal of the experience pathway will ensure that an additional pathway for entry into the social worker workforce remains open temporarily, as it was always intended to only be temporary while steps continue to be taken to transition to a professional qualification environment as quickly as possible, and that is important for the public safety element.

Mandatory qualifications are part of the wider changes designed to enhance the professionalism of social workers and provide the public confidence in the services they provide. Addressing workforce shortages requires a multi-pronged approach, with support from the whole social work sector, including employers and industry bodies. It is important that the sector continues to take the lead in developing their workforce, working towards increasing the pipeline of social workers entering the profession.

Since becoming the Minister for Social Development and Employment, I have considered several options regarding the future of the bill, including whether the bill should be progressed, discarded, or amended. Last week, I tabled an Amendment Paper to amend the bill and shorten the time period for those applying through the experience pathway from four years to two years.

I have considered feedback from the sector, input from submissions received at the select committee, along with advice provided by officials. I have also received more recent correspondence from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, who, during the submission process, supported a two-year delay to the experience pathway. They have more recently expressed a preference for a four-year extension, together with the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association. I would like to acknowledge and thank these organisations for their contribution along with their ongoing dedication to the sector.

Based on a number of considerations, I believe that a two-year delay of the repeal from 28 February 2024 to 28 February 2026 will balance the need to support the supply of social workers in the short term while maintaining the emphasis on transitioning to a professional qualification environment as soon as possible. No one has disputed the need or justification to transition to a mandatory qualification environment, and it is important that the emphasis remains for people to start fulfilling this requirement as soon as they are able.

The Social Workers Registration Board have recently made changes to the experience pathway application process to make this more accessible for Māori. I anticipate this will support experienced Māori practitioners to register as social workers through the experience pathway over the next two years. All applications received by the board prior to the repeal date on 28 February 2026 will be considered and processed for registration, so experienced practitioners will have two years to lodge an application under this experience pathway. In addition, the two-year delay will provide an opportunity to consider alternative entry pathways into social worker registration, including reviewing recognition of prior learning requirements.

The work that social workers do is tireless and deserves much recognition. I’d like to also thank the former Minister for her contribution in the first parts of this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): Firstly, I just want to acknowledge that we do support this legislation, and I also acknowledge that making it mandatory for registration for social workers was actually something that was supported across the House. The history of it being: I did have a member’s bill, the Government at the time didn’t support it, then the National Government did their own bill, they didn’t get to see it through, we got to make social worker registration mandatory when we got in—the main gist of it being, though, we did all support that piece of legislation. We support what is here today, which is extending the pathway for experience so that social workers can become registered.

What we’ve found over the course of recent years, even after having made social worker registration mandatory, is that there’s still a lag. There are still some out there practising in jobs where, perhaps, they are partially through qualifications, perhaps they have finished their qualification, but they haven’t yet become registered. It’s important that we provide this experience pathway and extend that opportunity, because we still experience a shortage of social workers and we all recognise, in the House, how important our social workers are and how important it is that we have them in the roles where they are serving some of our most vulnerable children, families, and communities.

What we’ve seen in recent years have been some changes. We have seen the opportunity in terms of pay that social workers are able to earn actually increase, and so that is something that we are hoping serves as an incentive for our social workers or those working in roles where they could actually get the social worker qualification and become registered, for them to pursue that. However, because we still have that workforce shortage, it is necessary to provide this extended period of time for them to access that experience pathway, because, actually, that’s important for them but it’s important for us being able to meet the workforce shortage that we’re currently experiencing.

What was disappointing with this particular bill is the Government’s decision to reduce the extension or time frame for being able to get the experience pathway from four years to two years. Initially, the bill had laid out four years for people to be able to access that experience pathway, and then what happened was that this Government decided that it would reduce that to two years. Now, I can understand why initially they may have thought that was a good idea. They did receive at least one submission during the select committee process from a reputable professional body stating that it could be reduced from four years to two years.

However, it is important to note that we tabled the letter in the Chamber during the committee of the whole House stage, which went to the Minister for social development, also came to me, and now is information that every member in this House can access, where the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers (ANZASW) made clear that the submission that had been put in, requesting that the extension time frame be two years rather than four years, was not something that was supported by their professional body. I am going to put that letter and the words of that letter on record in the House because I think it’s important. The Minister decided that despite this last-minute plea from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers she would push ahead with the two years rather than the four years that had been originally set down in the bill.

The letter to the Minister stated, “Thank you for the phone call this morning.”—that was actually a phone call to me; they sometimes forget that I’m not a Minister anymore—“Here is an update on the ANZASW position on the s13 Experience Pathway to social work extension currently before the house. The ANZASW prides itself on being a leader in the social work sector, however occasionally we get it wrong, and it appears that this is one of those times when we have been ‘out of step’ with the sector. For this we apologise. Our previous CE”—I won’t name the previous chief executive—“prepared and presented a submission to the Select Committee arguing for a 2 year extension to the s13 Experience Pathway to social work rather than the 4 years, as agreed by our other sector partners. I did try to have our submission removed and adjusted from the select committee process, but the email did not get passed on to the appropriate people. I did not follow … up, which is unfortunate. I have been in touch with Miriama Scott from the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association to affirm our collective position of supporting the extension of 4 years to 27 February 2028. The ANZASW supports the sector position that an extension of 4 years provides time for the [Social Worker Registration Board], alongside MSD and the sector, to consider the longer-term options for [entering] into social work which is a crucial need. The ANZASW supports the training of more social workers which includes alternative pathways, … for more culturally appropriate training to occur. We are very concerned with the low numbers of Māori and Pasifika social workers in the sector and note that there are many working with whānau, hapū and iwi and in marae who would benefit from these alternative pathways to acknowledge their mahi and years of experience. We also acknowledge the skills and knowledge they bring to the sector and that many will in time engage in social work education programmes.”

That letter came from Sharyn Roberts from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Social Workers. It went to the Minister, and yet the Minister chose to ignore that last-minute plea to keep the legislation as was, at four years, rather than reducing it to two years. The implications for the social workers association have been laid out really clearly. It will reduce the opportunity for some of those social workers, particularly Māori and Pacific, to be able to get registered and to be able to continue practising. That is detrimental not just for their own careers but also particularly for the whānau that are going to want to and need to access their support.

The issue that I raised during committee stages that arises by the Minister ignoring this letter is, firstly, any defence that they were using to actually justify the reduction in time is null and void when the professional bodies then come back with a letter like this, saying, “Please excuse that submission. We tried to pull it. That is not our position at all.”

Secondly, I have to say, it does cause us all to question how nimble the Minister is able to be in these situations, because, actually, she should have been able to turn around, to see that the position was different from what she had first thought, and then been able to adjust accordingly. But, unfortunately, she was not able to.

It was concerning during the committee stage, too, to put on record, that the actual Minister of the bill was not the one who was presiding in the chair at the time. It’s very hard to have a constructive debate when the person who should be most informed about this bill was not the one who was participating in the committee stage.

I raised the point during committee stage, too, that if we find ourselves in a position 18 months from now where we still have the workforce shortages in the social work sector for qualified, registered social workers in 18 months’ time, there is a very strong chance, because of the urgent need to have social workers in these positions, that we’re going to end up back in this House, having to legislate, amend again for another extension when we could have just got it right the first time.

So we do support this bill with the utmost disappointment, though, that the experts have been ignored—not the first time by that Government, I have to say—that a plea to actually keep the bill as-is was undermined, and that the decision to reduce that time period to two years has continued, despite the evidence that has been put before the Minister. That is disappointing. That is disappointing particularly in light that this is one of those pieces of legislation that there is cross-party support for. We only wish that the Minister could have been more nimble, more willing to listen to the actual experts, and amenable to actually making a change and withdrawing that amendment at committee stage. However, in saying that, we will continue to advocate for social workers, from this side of the House, and we do support the bill despite the fact that we are clearly disappointed and do not agree with the two-year reduction in time for these social workers to be able to access the experience pathway.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The Green Party is also supporting the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. I’ll start by acknowledging the previous speaker, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, and her vast experience, insight, and sector relationships with social service workers, particularly over the past couple of terms in a ministerial role, which requires that insight and that knowledge to feed into what is best for social workers but also for our communities—what those needs are. We are supporting this legislation because we support the principle and the movement that acknowledges the importance of qualified and safe practice for social workers and for the people and the whānau and the communities who require social work support.

We were also very, very aware that extending the lead-in time to repeal back the experience pathway was—and this is the bit of the debate that I want to make quite clear. We’re supporting this legislation. Yes, there is still another—hang on, what’s the date?—two years, so it comes into force on 28 February 2026. We too would have preferred the experience pathway to be rolled back another two years—with another extra two years—to 28 February 2028. This Government has chopped a couple of years off, and we were very opposed to that amendment to the legislation. However, we will support the two-year extension.

I talked in the first reading about centring the absolute importance of safe and qualified practice, especially for the people who require those services and that support. I used the experience of being a prevention of violence Minister over the past three years and how I came face to face all around the motu on the experience of when practice is not safe, when practice is not informed, and when social work practice and care practice is not up to speed with understanding the dynamics of being able to identify violence and being able to safely respond and also understanding the element of healing that all social work must incorporate into its practice. So I’m making it very clear that I absolutely back the sector in wanting to make sure that we have safe practice.

What I also heard about around the country, again, in prevention of violence but also in the housing portfolio areas where many of the front-line workers—particularly in the homelessness space and the social housing provider space—have lived experience of homelessness, of social housing, of requiring specific housing support. Similarly, too, I always heard around the country about disabled workers and the incredible gap that we have, especially in the prevention of violence space, of services that are specific to sexual violence experienced by people who are disabled, by disabled people, the gap in the workforce for those particular areas of need and, as the former speaker, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, highlighted, the massive and decades-long gaps in the Māori and Pasifika cultural expertise practice space. Those require us to be thinking that the needs on those particular skills and lived experience are going to increase over the coming years and not decrease. Therefore, to try and balance, to make sure we are centring safe practice but also ensure that the experience and skill and value of lived experience is utilised in a way that can only benefit communities, this is why giving a little bit more lead-in to pulling back on the experience pathway, and as much lead-in as possible, is so important.

Now, the Minister has often stood to say where they’ve had enough of a heads-up, there’ve been some conversations going since 2017 and so on and so forth. Yes, there have. But what we have not done to meet that expectation is we haven’t made the structural change to remove the barriers to the very people with the very lived experience, skill, and knowledge to be able to ease into that pathway in a way that we require. We haven’t done that structural work.

One of the biggest factors behind the difficulties and the barriers to receiving and being able to train and qualify and study for social work registration is poverty. We haven’t removed that as a barrier. This Government is showing only signs of making that worse, and so this is another example of why we needed to extend that pathway as part of understanding that the barriers haven’t been removed. Whether we’ve given them a heads up since 2000 or 2017, the barriers haven’t been removed, and so I did want to acknowledge that that is also why we opposed the amendment for cutting down a couple of years off that heads-up.

Just the weekend just gone, at Big Gay Out, we the Greens made sure to prioritise visiting the health services along that lane of tents at the fantastic festival that I congratulate the organisers for, that range of services, NGOs, attending to a very diverse set of specific needs for rainbow takatāpui trans whānau. I met and spoke with young people with lived experience who have been impacted on by the discrimination and the very health issues that rainbow communities face. And the model that they are using also provides experience, counselling, and psychological services around these young people, because this is, of course, the principle that it is the lived experience, knowledge, and skills that often have the most impact in feeling relevant to the very people whose trust often has been hugely destroyed by ordinary avenues and support. So, again, the rainbow community and young people were speaking to us very clearly about the need to ensure that we can maintain those experience pathways while wrapping around the qualification and safe practice support for them to continue to become the social workers that that community desperately requires.

I wish the Minister had spent more time even talking to those very organisations. Ms Sepuloni herself outlined that the key stakeholder in this legislation who—yes, there was apparently a submission which may have been in favour of cutting off two years of lead-in, but that wasn’t actually a consensus thought from that association of social workers. I wish too that the Minister would have sought—see, this is the problem when we go into urgency and when a Government has got a bit of a rip and tear attitude. It’s so much easier to tear things down and destroy decades of hard work than it is to create enduring solutions. And when you have that attitude of rushing through things to tick some boxes, these are the voices that are missed out. This is how bad laws are made.

I completely agree with Ms Sepuloni that we may find ourselves back here when we discover—oh, oh!—we need more disabled community support, we need more Māori and Pasifika and rangatahi support, we need more rainbow workers support, and we haven’t got enough qualified social workers yet. We haven’t ended homelessness. We haven’t ended poverty, and so the structural barriers remain to those groups seeking to be workers in a field that this House is desperately going to rely on.

So the Greens are supporting the legislation overall. We wish that the Minister had the foresight and leadership to have been able to maintain a longer lead-in. That is disappointing. I truly hope we do not end up back here in the next years to try and remedy her lack of insight. Kia ora.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call to support this bill on behalf of ACT in its third reading. To start with, I would like to thank all social workers for the important work that they do, and the direct and indirect role they play in people’s lives. I would also like to acknowledge the select committee that worked on this legislation and each and every submitter for their contribution to this legislation.

As I said before, social workers play a very important role in people’s lives. But on the other hand, it’s really important for people—those who are receiving services from these social workers—to also be getting the assurance that the social worker who is working with them is professional and can be held accountable. So that is what this bill is about.

There is this component of registration which used to be voluntary, but the bill originally made it mandatory, and now we have experienced that there were two pathways to getting registration. One pathway is through qualification and the other pathway is through experience. Because there are so many positions—around 700 social worker positions—still unfilled, we realised that we need to keep the options open.

So just going with one option of qualifications may not be enough, though we know that the take-up through the experience pathway is quite small—around 3 percent. But still, when there are 700 unfilled positions, we want to make sure that there is every opportunity available to any person who is enrolled as a social worker to get registered to satisfy the Social Workers Registration Board’s requirements and to be officially called a social worker.

I have seen personally how hard social workers work, and we don’t want them to get exhausted because of the shortage of social workers in the field. I chaired an NGO that helped victims of domestic violence, and I would say this: I used to see social workers involved in that NGO and NGOs that this NGO worked with—these social workers used to work day and night. During the day, they used to get several calls, and during the night as well. There used to always be a social worker on duty at night, too, ready to take a phone call if the phone rang. Especially on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, it used to be really busy. It wasn’t just about taking that phone call; it was about, once the phone call has been received, responding to that incident, so these social workers would get in their car straight away and arrive wherever they were needed, according to the phone call.

What is really important in this kind of work, which I want to note, is that when a social worker is attending a case like that of domestic violence, victims share a lot of personal and sometimes a lot of sensitive information about their experience, their trauma, and what the situation has been. So they need to have that confidence that the social worker that they’re dealing with is fully professional, is competent, and they can be held accountable. That is why having this registration process is important. But on the other hand, we have to see that we have enough people in the workforce so that the social workers that are working in different fields of social work are not getting exhausted.

It’s really important to also emphasise that we need to see how the pipeline is working to ensure that we are able to fill these positions. As I said, the experience pathway was always going to be a temporary measure, and now it is also going to be a temporary measure, but this extension of allowing people to use the experience pathway for another two years will allow some last-minute social workers, those who are out there and are considering getting registered as social workers, to really seriously consider and come on board and get their registration done.

We know that there is a lot of demand out there, and people do consider different kinds of career pathways just because of the shortage of social workers. We don’t want social workers, those who are already working as social workers, to start thinking about other career pathways because of the pressure that they are going through, and that is why this extension is important.

I would also like to speak to the amendment which was put through during the committee of the whole House, and I acknowledge contributions from members from the other side and that they would have liked it to be four years. The extension is for two years, but it’s important to note that we have to find a cut-off time, and that cut-off time needs to be reasonable, and at this stage, we support that amendment which was put through during the committee of the whole House. So we support the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.

TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill in this third reading. I personally have quite a passion for this area, as many know—the area of mental health. It is something that is very close to New Zealand First as well. They have always been very much a supporter of the Mike King I Am Hope Foundation, which the coalition Government has now decided to support.

There is one thing that I know to be true—and that is not only from personal experience but from also the clients that I have helped in my time in the helping profession—and that is the need for human connection. When someone is having an urgent cry for help, they will listen to someone who understands; they’re not going to ask the question, “Hang on, before I share anything with you, what are your qualifications?” They are desperate—some people are desperate to be heard. This is where lived experience is key. I studied to be a therapist in my mid-30s. I didn’t start helping people in my mid-30s; I started helping people a lot sooner, in fact, as a teenager. But the person who helped me the most as a teenager was someone who had the same problem. They weren’t qualified at all; they too became qualified later in life. But it was their lived experience that enabled me to heal from inside and start speaking to someone. And often that is the first step: it is to actually open up and just start speaking to someone, because what often stops people from doing that is shame. And if anyone understands what shame is like, it is someone else who is going through the same problem.

So that’s why I’m very quick to stand up and put my hand up to speak on this bill, because I know how short the workforce is in this area. I know how many people are on waiting lists. I hear about young teenagers who are on waiting lists to have someone to speak to about their body dysmorphia issues and their eating issues, which seems to be accelerating at the moment. This is an area where someone can help who has been through the same issue. That is why I feel that it is so important that we, all together, in the House, support this bill, knowing that it is going to help someone we know and someone who we don’t know who is suffering right now but who needs to reach out.

One of the things that I learnt on my journey was that service to another person was what often made our own life feel fulfilled. If we can support people who have a lived experience, who are out there helping others, then this will also give them some sense of purpose themselves, and maybe ignite something in them to not only be qualified but to do more in their own lives. And by them doing more in their own lives, they’re going to then lead by example to others, maybe their own clients, family, friends. But it is about really encouraging people to try and thrive as much as they possibly can and step out of their own comfort zone. For many who are workers with lived experience, who are not yet qualified, this is their own pathway to their form of greatness in some way, and it can only help serve others who are suffering right now.

So I’ve spoken a bit about shame, and I’d like to talk a little bit more about that. Early intervention is preferable, but it’s sometimes not available, and it isn’t available because many do not want to reach out and shame is what is stopping them. So one of the areas, for example, where shame really affects people from reaching out is addictions. You tend to think that you’re the only one suffering. You tend to think you’re the only one who doesn’t know how to put down the drink. You tend to think you’re the only one who doesn’t know how to stop overeating or stop gambling. But when you hear another person say, “I know what it’s like because I’ve been there too.”, that is one of the first things that will ignite hope into someone who is suffering because that will then help them to feel, “Hey, it’s not just me.”, which is why I so want to speak as much as I can on this area in my 10 minutes that I’m allowed; I may run out of time.

The other area where this is so prevalent, I find, is in abusive relationships. People stay in abusive relationships because they are too ashamed to say that their world isn’t as they are making it out to be. They do not want to say that they are actually not living in the white picket fence that they are really telling everyone about, but inside the relationship it is quite abusive and they stay. But when they hear someone else who has been able to either speak up in an abusive relationship, create healthy boundaries, or, in extreme cases, get up and leave, then that has to be a good thing if a whole family unit is suffering. So to be able to speak to someone who has been able to move on or to somehow even heal a family unit, this has got to be a good thing. And this is why we need more people with lived experience in our community helping.

If you look at 12-step programmes that have been around for decades, they are just people all coming together who want to get help, and they get help within the fellowship there. No one asks, “What is your qualification?” before they get up to speak.

So I’m speaking about these things, which are coming from a bit of a different angle, but I just wanted to share because, having been in the helping profession myself and particularly seeing and hearing what I’ve had to hear over the last few years—especially during this time of the pandemic—is the loneliness that is out there.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Ms Unkovich, you’ve done some very good contexting for the bill, so you’ve probably got about three minutes now to talk about the bill itself.

TANYA UNKOVICH: The bill itself. Well, to cut it short, we really commend this bill to the House. We feel that it is the best way to alleviate the workforce shortage that we’ve got and to encourage people to get out there and help everyone else in the community. So we commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): This is a five-minute split call between Te Pāti Māori and the Greens. Takutai Tarsh Kemp.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Takutai.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Takutai, sorry.

TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare anō. I’m taking this call for the third reading on behalf of Te Pāti Māori. Te Pāti Māori acknowledge the mana of social workers and tautoko this bill. What we don’t support is the shortened time frame from four years to two years. We get it—there’s a workforce issue. There’s simply not enough registered social workers to meet the vacancy needs in our community—believe me, I know. As a CEO of Manurewa Marae, we were faced with this issue all the time. And it continues—it’s not a new issue.

The bill supports our mana ōrite policy, acknowledging pay equity for Māori social workers—pai tēnā. Protecting our whakapapa is everything to the survival of our culture, our tikanga, and our mokopuna.

I want to share with the members of this House my experience in my role as the CEO of Manurewa Marae, in which I faced firsthand the issues in front of us: (1) not able to recruit social workers due to the lack of workforce; (2) not being able to recruit Māori social workers—social workers who reflected our community. Government departments were paying $30,000 more and Māori partners could never compete with the pay equity. As an employer, I could never afford to employ or recruit qualified registered social workers. So, wherever this bill lands, Te Pāti Māori want culturally competent, safe practitioners.

I hear other members, on this side of the House, reiterating the word “safe”. Safety is key to the wellbeing and healing of our people. But not just any culturally competent, safe practitioners; we want practitioners that align to our mātauranga Māori frameworks and values. We have a way. I heard a member talk about an approach—we have an approach and a way. It’s in our Māori way. Whānau ora is the way, which incorporates our own values and tikanga to build hope and belief in the healing and trauma within our whānau. Practitioners who are Tiriti - centric, mana-enhancing, and make mokopuna decisions for our people. That’s what we’re looking for: culturally competent, safe practitioners. Our homes are tapu. Our whānau need a workforce who will believe in them, who will support whānau with their healing, but, mostly, our whānau want trusted, safe practitioners. We want a workforce that breaks cycles—breaks the intergenerational trauma our whānau have suffered. Whānau ora is our way of healing, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen the healing occur.

Yes, we want to support this bill. We want this Government to stop being taringa mārō, to the solutions that will improve the healing of our whānau, and Te Pāti Māori’s role is to hold this Government to account. Kia ora.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Point of order, please, Mr Speaker. I’d like to, please, implore to the Speaker that there’s effort and correction of pronunciation of our MPs’ names. We have experienced it for the last few months. I know that it can be difficult as a second language - learner, but there is a very different meaning from the name that Takutai was referred to as, and I do think that we need to implore that the House—and the Speaker specifically—get these correct.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Yeah, well, certainly that’s an effort we will make. I did correct my initial pronunciation, but I’ll take that on board.

FA’ANĀNĀ EFESO COLLINS (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to reiterate the words of our co-leader Marama Davidson—we will be supporting this bill—and I will speak to part of the disappointment that was expressed earlier in her words. We support this bill because we know that we need more social workers. We’ve got, as the Minister has already outlined, 700 social workers that we’re short of in the workforce and, as my parliamentary colleague here from Te Pāti Māori has mentioned, we’ve got to have a social worker workforce that’s culturally competent.

We talk more in the academy now about coming to workplaces culturally humble or with cultural humility, and that’s the understanding of the particular frameworks in which you’re dealing with certain people. I think that that’s the kind of cultural competence and cultural humility that we’re after, and we support this piece of legislation because we know that the writings, the words, and the letter that we have received from the Māori social work group said that we want to embed te ao Māori in the practice of our social workers. In order for this to happen, we’re going to need to encourage people who are coming and who are going to use the experience pathway to be able to use it. The disappointment that we have in the Greens is that we’ve gone from what could have been four years and have reduced it to two years and by rushing this process, but not just rushing this process but by rushing people through a process for this qualification.

It’s important that people are given the opportunity through the experience pathway—which is why we call it, I’m guessing, the experience pathway—because they are coming with these experiences, having worked in these communities for a long time, to be able to bring that knowledge and that expertise to be qualified for social work. That’s an important consideration we need to make, and so it is disappointing from this side of the House that we’ve gone from what could have been four years to what’s now two years.

I come from a social work family. In fact, in the old days, we used to call it Child, Youth and Family Service, and a lot of our social workers went through there. But I think, for Māori and Pasifika communities, in particular, and for migrant communities, the service ethos is in our DNA. We’re a people who want to serve and who want to give back to our communities, and this is what this is going to allow. It’s going to allow people who come with these experiences, having worked with these particular communities—whether it’s in churches, in schools, or in youth organisations—to bring that rich experience to what they are doing. So this pathway is really important. It’s important that we’ve got qualified social workers who are working out in our communities but also people who bring this rich diversity of experience, because they’re the ones who really know how to work with many of the communities that we’re dealing with.

I know that we’ve got social workers in school. As someone who’s worked in schools for a long time, I know the difference that having a social worker in a school makes, because they’re able to connect with them. They’re able to communicate with many of our young people in a way that perhaps some of us might not know the lingo or the language. In the Greens, I’m often told “What’s the vibe?”, and sometimes that gets me because I’m not sure what they mean by “What’s the vibe?” But it’s that kind of language and those words—that vernacular; that young person vernacular—that social workers understand really well, and I’ve made commentary before, I believe, that social workers are as important as police officers, because they’re the ones who are working and walking alongside our communities.

So we support this bill. What we would have supported even more, though, and with greater strength was if we pushed it out to the four years that was originally being spoken of in the beginning, because that’s only going to help this process so that we can fill or start to fill the unfilled number of social workers which is needed, which is 700.

So, yeah, we commend this to the House, and I did like the point that was raised earlier about it being that the lived experience is key. These people bring this lived experience to the profession, and it’s a profession that we desperately need. We need more social workers and we need to provide the necessary avenues for them to be qualified so that they can be in the community with these qualifications, serving our people. They play a really pivotal part in the healing and the restoration of so many families and so many people who need someone to stand alongside them. So I’m glad to support it; I think this is really important.

I just want to close by thanking the social workers that we have, because they’re doing such pivotal, meaningful work in the community today, and we need them. The Greens stand in favour of this bill. Thanks.

PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn): I am very pleased to follow after the other member’s speech, because his speech always has a very calming effect, and it’s much appreciated in this debating chamber.

I would like to go back to the beginnings of why we have the Social Workers Registration Act. From the time that the first social work courses were offered in Victoria University in the 1950s through to the passage of the Social Workers Registration Act in 2003, the object of the Act was to build and retain confidence in the profession of social work. At that time, it was considered a crucial step forward in the journey towards raising the status of social work as a profession in New Zealand.

The registration fostered uniformity across a very diverse expanse of a professional entity that social work provides. It was a clear pathway for enhancing the qualifications and the skills that were more and more being demanded of the many social workers that have come into the professional space over time.

I take this opportunity to say a word of praise for all of the social workers in New Zealand who do a lot of hard work and who impact on the society so much. I include in that word of appreciation also the very many Filipinos who do social work in New Zealand. Social workers work in very difficult and, oftentimes, confronting circumstances that demand a very high level of professionalism and skill. We want, therefore, to ensure this level of competence and this level of accountability for the work that social workers do, because they cater to a public that can be said to be extremely vulnerable, and they are the first line—the front-liners—who deal with a very, very vulnerable public.

An article from Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work highlights that the Social Workers Registration Board goes through the process that ensures that the registration of social workers confirms their demonstrated competencies and capabilities as they are enabled to hold themselves out in dealing with the general public and, more particularly, the very large and very diverse cultural and ethnic society that New Zealand is.

Now, by 2021, the Act made social workers’ registration mandatory. There are two avenues to become registered. It is actually such a big opportunity for many social workers who may not have possessed the recognised qualifications that the registration board required but had what was described to be extensive personal experience in doing social work over a period of time in New Zealand and that if they were able to demonstrate that, then they could be registered. So there is no better opportunity for social workers who are doing social work through experience to become registered. But going back to the 2003 Act, where the object was to enhance and ensure that the public that the social workers in New Zealand deal with understands and holds to a high degree of respect and accountability social workers, then it is incumbent upon social workers to take advantage of that opportunity to become registered, if not through qualifications but through their actual work experience done over many years.

Now, in 2017, this side of the House agreed to an extension of time for the opportunity to become registered under experience as a pathway to four years. Now we support this move with the amendment by the Minister to shorten that extension from four years to two. The object there is to hasten those who are already able and those who have been made aware of the pathway to become registered through work experience in New Zealand over time.

The opportunity has been there for quite some time, and there is really no opportunity to delay, and that’s part of the reason why a shortened extension is deemed appropriate. There remains two years to be able to do that, should this amendment pass, and two years also for the opportunity to become qualified, which is something that everyone should take advantage of. I have met and spoken, within our friends, with so many social workers who are Filipinos, and I keep telling them to take advantage of this opportunity to become registered. And there are very different reasons why they could be slow in taking that up: they are steeped in work; they are working very late hours over many days—not just the normal 40-hour work week. And so that’s one of the hurdles. They just ignore it because they’re working, working, working and they will just end up missing the opportunity. So a gentle push and a reminder that that extension is now proposed to be amended to two years will, hopefully, facilitate their improved uptake and serious focus on the opportunity. On this basis, we commend this bill to the House.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the third reading of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. As has been said by previous speakers from our side, we will be supporting the bill. However, I do want to take this opportunity to just outline some of my concerns about what happened in the committee of the whole House stage of this debate on the bill, because I agree with the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, who, actually, for the benefit of the House, read the entire correspondence sent to the Minister for Social Development and Employment by significant organisations regarding the reduction of the time from four years down to two years. I want to just take an opportunity to put on record what my unaddressed concerns were about that.

I asked questions in the committee stage about whether the Minister, in her consideration of her tabled amendment, had given any or sufficient consideration to Māori impacted by her proposed changes. Because we had a letter from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers and a message included in that from the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association, saying that their written submission was incorrect; they made an error. They tried to withdraw their submission. They tried to correct their position. The proposal to reduce it from four years down to two years was on the basis of the Social Services and Community Committee report which relied on these submissions, which the submitters said they tried to have removed, but due to some procedural errors at the select committee, that did not happen.

So they wrote to the Minister on 13 February to have her reconsider the tabled amendment of reducing the time frame from four years to two years. We interrogated that; there was some questioning and answering happening in that stage, but what I didn’t get answers on was any specific consideration given to Māori social workers—no answer; the debate closed.

The Minister today, in her third reading speech, talked about a very small number of social workers who apply under section 13 to the pathway to registration, but what I want to note is that there has been an increasing recognition of the value of indigenous, te ao Māori practice in social work where the experience pathway supports this. Around a quarter of social workers registered under the experience pathway over the past 13 years have identified as Māori; however, the proportion of Māori under the section 13 applicants is increasing. For example, between the years 2020 and 2022, 31 percent of social worker registrations under the experience pathway were people who identified as Māori. So the Minister said in her third reading speech that it’s a very small number that we’re talking about, and that she doesn’t, in her opinion, regardless of the letters that she received from those two organisations that I mentioned earlier—in her wisdom, she believes that it should, in fact, remain as she proposed, two years instead of the four.

So I’m standing to reluctantly support this bill this evening. I wanted to totally support it, as it was originally introduced by the Labour Government with a four-year extension. We fully supported it. When the Minister first picked it up, it still was four years. However, it’s been reduced to two years, and I have some serious concerns about that, and other speakers in the House tonight have said that we hope we are not back here in two years’ time taking up more of the House’s time to consider whether an additional extension is required or not.

So that’s all I wanted to add to the debate this afternoon, summing up our discussion, our questions and answers that we had last week in the committee of the whole House stage, our unsuccessful attempts to get the Minister to heed the request of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers and the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association to go once again to four years instead of two years. She is totally ignoring that, and, in her own wisdom, insisting that we stick with the two years, and today saying it will affect a very small number of people, yet the evidence that I have in front of me is that is an increasing number of Māori social workers. As we know, social workers provide a really important service to our most vulnerable, and, as we’ve heard in debates earlier in the House this afternoon, with 7,000 more children likely to be in poverty from one single action of this Government this afternoon, we know that Māori are impacted in many of the areas that require social work services, and so I am disappointed that the Minister did not heed the request and advice of these organisations and extended it out to the four years. So we are supporting the bill this evening, but are disappointed that the Minister did not take that advice.

GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie): Tōku tino pai ki te tū i tēnei Whare anō, me te tū me te tautoko i tēnei pire.

Ko te tuatahi e mihi ana ki ngā tauwhiro, ngā social workers, e tautoko, e manaaki i ngā tāngata katoa puta noa i te motu nei e pā ai te mate hōhā, mate mānukanuka, me te mate hinengaro hoki.

Ko te ingoa o “social worker” i te reo Māori, tēnei ingoa ataahua “tauwhiro”, e rua ngā wāhi o taua kupu. Mō te “whiro”, ko Whiro-te-tipua is a tama a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku, me te kupu “tau” is the verb for “settles”.

[I am very happy to stand again in this House, and to stand in support of this bill.

Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge the social workers that support and care for all people all across this country with respect to harassment, anxiety, and mental health also.

The name for “social worker” in the Māori language, this beautiful name “tauwhiro”, there are two parts to this word. For “whiro”, Whiro-te-tipua is a child of Ranginui and Papatūānuku, and the word “tau” is the verb for “settles”.]

Therefore, a tauwhiro is someone who literally settles the evil, the darkness, the death that is around. Nō reira kei te mihi ki ngā tāngata katoa e mahi i ēnei momo mahi. 

[So I acknowledge all of the people that are engaged in this type of work.]

Section 13 of the Social Workers Registration Act 2003, and it’s been well-covered in the various stages of this debate, was a pathway to provide an alternative registration process for those people who hadn’t gone through the formal qualifications but who did have extensive experience in this area of work. I had the pleasure in just my second week being a member of Parliament for Maungakiekie of meeting with a social worker who had come into the registration through this pathway. So she was a kuia, she was working specifically with Māori communities in the wider Tāmaki-makau-rau area for one of our local hospitals, and she had extensive mātauranga Māori. So she was the kind of person, the exemplar, for why this pathway was established, and it was a delight and an encouragement to hear of her ability to be able to stay in this workforce that otherwise could so easily have alienated her.

At the same time, my conversations with both her and with many friends of mine who both work for and, in a couple of cases, actually run major social work agencies. One of them is the largest private foster-care agency in the country—a long-term childhood friend of mine from the Wairarapa—right through to the work of the organisation in Māngere, Te Whare Ruruhau o Meri. These and others said to me that they supported section 13. They also supported it coming to an end for the very purpose that the registration process was set up in the first place. They and many others believed that certainly a two-year extension was sufficient.

So I acknowledge and hear the concerns from the Opposition, but I am well-convinced from other people, the experts within the sector, that two minutes—sorry, two years—ironic, two minutes is not enough, but two years is. Two years is sufficient for extending this piece of legislation.

Can I just also take the opportunity, though, to echo some of the suggestions that have been made in other parts of the House, as well, for us to look, as a Parliament, at providing other pathways to entering the social work agency. We have 700 vacancies at the moment, and the reality of it is that there are many, many people who would love to enter this workforce, but the current process—what will be the process in two years’ time of between three and four years of full-time qualification—is beyond them.

So I wonder if we might consider things such as a postgraduate diploma—that was the pathway through which my own wife entered the counselling profession recently, being able to build on her previous work, actually in the nutrition sector. Similarly, in terms of a number of my friends who are recently looking for a mid-life change and wanting to do something more meaningful in terms of their careers and decided to do no higher calling than to enter the teaching profession, and they, again, were able to do a postgraduate diploma of one year.

Can I also add to that a plea that we consider paid placements as well. That’s something that could work not only in the social work and the counselling agency but potentially also in the likes of nursing and others.

Finally, can I acknowledge the evolution of this legislation and this framework over successive Governments. This is something that has been in play now for nearly seven years—seven years where there has been magnificent progress made towards the professionalisation of the social work agency and recognising the incredible role of those tauwhiro, who support those individuals, those whānau, those hapū, and those hapori who are most struggling in our country. It is my great pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s a five-minute split call—the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe.

Rt Hon ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai, otirā ki a tātou katoa i whiriwhiri i ngā kōrero mō tēnei pire i tēnei wā. Nō reira tēnā rā tātou.

[Thank you to the Speaker, indeed to all of us who have discussed the statements about this bill at this time. And so greetings to all of us.]

I’d like to join with colleagues around the House, first of all, to acknowledge the importance of social workers in our everyday lives in Aotearoa. In particular, I think back on not even the last decade but even further, and, quite often, social workers have been used sometimes within politics, to often batter them around what’s happening in places like Oranga Tamariki and in other organisations. I think this Chamber should always take care not to do that. My thoughts around it, picking up on what a number of MPs—I think every single member that has spoken on this bill about the lived experiences of some social workers to be registered that do not have academic qualifications to do so but they have a whole lot of lived experiences and a whole lot of skills that ought to be valued.

I suppose my big question about this is trying to understand what the country gains by only having a two-year period as opposed to a four-year period, and what we potentially lose. We’re probably not going to know that until two years from now in 2026, whether those 700 places have been filled and whether or not they could have been filled by people who are currently practising but who have not got the relevant qualifications to be able to be registered on any other pathway. So that’s my basis for wanting to talk about this.

I was involved in Maatua Whāngai in the 1990s. I don’t even know if Maatua Whāngai still operates around the country, but they were certainly still operating in the 1990s. The organisations that I worked with were all either volunteers or they were paid employees that did not have academic qualifications. The interesting thing for me is that these people were quite often very well regarded within their communities. Of course, Maatua Whāngai, they were all Māori. I remember those young adults that were training to be social workers, a number of those institutes would send their students to those Maatua Whāngai to learn how to be a social worker and, more importantly, to learn how to work with Māori, because we all know—and we’ve all seen the statistics—that within that field of work, there are many, many shortcomings for social workers who work in mainstream who did not have the skills to be able to help Māori whānau.

Therefore, that’s the main thing that I want to say. An additional two years could well have made a big difference. We won’t know that until two years from now. Nō reira, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise to make a very short contribution on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill at its third reading, which will soon become law. Since 2021, the Social Workers Registration Act has required all social workers to register with the board, and to be eligible for registration, applicants must have a qualification recognised by that board. However, there is an exception in section 13 which allows an alternative pathway for people with extensive practical experience but without a prescribed qualification to become social workers.

This bill addresses a concern that we have on two hands. One is that we have serious shortage of social workers, and we have heard this afternoon from many contributions to this House the huge value that the country and that this House has with our social workers, who provide a very important function in our communities, often dealing with the most vulnerable people dealing with some of the most difficult moments in their lives. They help those people, and that’s something that we wish them to do, but we wish to make sure that people have the relevant experience and/or qualifications to do so.

Presently, we are wanting to ensure the public trust and confidence in the social work profession is there, which is the aim of that legislation I mentioned at the beginning, which is the purpose of having a change to mandatory qualifications. However, recognising that we are 700 social workers short as we speak, at least—that’s the understanding—we’re changing this to give a two-year buffer for this experience pathway to exist as it currently does, to balance that need to account for the current shortage of workers while promoting a timely transition to mandatory qualifications to enhance that public trust and confidence in the social work profession. Also, that two years will provide time for entry pathways into the social work sector to be considered and, potentially, broadened.

So this is a good amendment that takes into account the practical realities of our present time. I would, before I finally commend this to the House, just once again thank all those who work in this profession throughout the country. They really do contribute a huge amount to our communities, and I thank them on behalf of my community and our communities.

Hon JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to begin my contribution this evening by acknowledging two amazing wāhine toa, Sina Latu and Suliana Ika, who are involved in the mahi that we are discussing with this piece of legislation tonight. They work very hard for the community of South Canterbury, providing social worker services, and I just want to acknowledge them tonight. I’d also like to acknowledge all others involved in that work in the social worker sector, because what they do is work with such a diverse range of people—some of our most vulnerable people with some extremely complex issues. I can imagine it would not always be an easy sector or profession to work in.

I am pleased to speak in support of this legislation, but I too want to express my disappointment that the Minister—as was mentioned by Hon Willow-Jean Prime—in her wisdom, chose to change the extension to a two-year extension only. As my colleague Adrian Rurawhe said, what will the country be missing out on by not having a four-year extension in order for people to register as social workers?

We know that prior to 2021, registering as a social worker was voluntary. I think that this is the right thing to do to ensure that social workers are seen as a profession. When you study for such a long time to gain your qualification, it is important that all social workers are registered, just as it is important in the teaching profession that all teachers become registered in order to have that profession and the acknowledgment of their study recognised, but also so that the people that they work with have greater protections as well with the social workers that they are dealing with.

We’ve heard that there are the two pathways, obviously, to becoming a registered social worker: one through a registered training organisation and a recognised qualification, but also through the experience pathway. And I think the experience pathway is an extremely valuable way for people to become registered social workers because it gives an opportunity that perhaps may not otherwise have been available to them. If I look at people who, perhaps, maybe have been working in the sector for some time but are unable to go through that formal study because of the expense of it, this is an opportunity to allow people to gain their qualification and recognition and registration through this pathway.

We also know that with the pay equity extension out there, it looks to increase the pay of around 5,000 people. I think this is also an incentive for those who’ve been working within the sector to perhaps want to become a registered social worker when they can see that there is the pay incentive. They’ll have professional development paid for, their registration’s paid for annually, and things like that. So I think that that is a really great way of incentivising people to become a registered social worker.

The Hon Willow-Jean Prime mentioned about the increasing recognition of the value of indigenous te ao Māori practice in social work with the experience pathway supports. And the Minister, in her contribution, mentioned that it was only a small percentage of people that were using the pathway that identified as Māori, and quite rightly, as the Hon Willow-Jean Prime pointed out, that has increased quite significantly. And what we do know is, with the shortage of at least 700 social workers across the country, which was in 2022—which may well be more by now—that there is a large proportion that are needed that are Pasifika, that are Māori, that are disabled, etc. It’s important that these people have the opportunity to come through this experience pathway.

I also agree with words that have been spoken on this side of the House that I think it’s unfortunate that perhaps the Minister didn’t think a bit more longer term in that we may well find ourselves back here in a couple of years because we still haven’t been able to address that workforce issue in people registering to become social workers because the two years has been not enough time to enable them to do that.

So I am pleased to support this piece of legislation. It is really great when we have legislation that comes through the House that all parties across the House can support the kaupapa of, but it is very disappointing that it has been reduced to two years and not four years, as was in the initial piece of legislation. So I commend this bill to the House, but do express my disappointment. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): I rise to speak to this bill that we’ve been discussing, the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Bill. I would also like to start by acknowledging a few people that have done tremendous mahi in this milieu. I’d like to acknowledge Sharon Wilson-Davis from STRIVE Community Trust and her team there. Now, STRIVE Community Trust, for the benefit of anyone that hasn’t come across this organisation before, they are, essentially, a social wraparound service, and the backbone of this service is their social workers. I’ve come to experience what they do, STRIVE, and the excellent social workers they have, through my work at Te Mahia Community Village, which I’ve spoken about before, the emergency and transitional housing facility in Takanini that I’ve worked with. Now, truly, social workers are unsung heroes. The amount of care and compassion that they put into the delicate work a lot of them find themselves in is commendable. So I would like to acknowledge STRIVE. I would like to acknowledge the work you do, Sharon, and all your team.

I come from a family of workers in the mental health arena, including my sister, who’s a mental health nurse specialist, and my second sister, who’s a psychologist. I also see how beneficial work in the mental health space is. So what this bill is doing is that we are saying, yes, we agree—that is, the Government and most of us in the House—that there needs to be another pathway to being qualified as a social worker. Currently, there’s two pathways. There’s the traditional sense of becoming registered with a traditional form of qualification—that’s a prescribed form of qualification—and then there’s the alternative experience pathway, which we’ve been speaking about today. In 2017, the Government of the day agreed to remove this, but we’ve since said we need to delay this removal for a number of factors, two of them being COVID and, recently, the cyclones. This really exacerbated the need to have social workers available, and so therefore we said, “Look, we’ve got to delay scrapping this pathway until we kind of find that we fill up those gaps.”, because, as we’ve said, there’s currently a gap of about 700 social workers. Unfortunately, the supply continues to decrease—as I said, it’s been exacerbated by the recent events of the last few years—so delaying will ensure that this additional pathway to qualification is temporarily available.

Now, there’s kōrero going around about whether it should be two years more or four years more. The amendment that the Hon Louise Upston has put forward is that this be for two years. What I would like to highlight—something that hasn’t really been highlighted in the course of our conversations today—is that all applications submitted before the repeal date of 28 February 2026 will continue to be processed by the Social Workers Registration Board. So I think it’s really important to just highlight that fact. I know that there’s some concern from the other side of the House about the time frame going from four years to two years, and that’s why I would like to reiterate that we need to remember something that’s available, which is that applications submitted before the cut-off date will continue to be processed. That’s an important point to really make. I just feel that sometimes when we make arguments, we shouldn’t be omitting certain points.

We’ve recognised that the four years was just a little bit too long and it could impact on public trust and confidence in the social work profession. My colleague Greg Fleming, he’s a gentleman that really puts himself in a lot of these fields, and he said that he, as well, has had a number of conversations with professionals in this field who also told them that, look, two years is that good kind of Goldilocks balance in terms of what we’re dealing with here today. Two years balances the need to account for the current shortage of social workers while promoting a timely transition to mandatory qualifications.

What I also would like to raise today is that, yes, as I said earlier, the unsung heroes, social workers—something I feel needs to be said to anyone listening today, something that my sister says, and she’s, as I said, a psychologist, so it’s in that milieu of mental health work, is: don’t be afraid to go and seek help. Don’t be embarrassed and don’t be shy, because a lot can come out of seeking help. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Urgency

Urgency

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Minister for Regulation): I move, That urgency be accorded the introduction and first reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill, the introduction and the first and second readings of the Legal Services Amendment Bill, and the introduction and passing through all stages of the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill.

The purpose of moving urgency this evening is to further necessary actions within the coalition Government’s 100-day plan. These include the legislation beginning the sale of pseudoephedrine, the removal of funding for section 27 reports, and the repeal of the Auckland regional fuel tax.

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

Ayes 68

New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Introduction of Bills

Introduction of Bills

SPEAKER: I understand it’s the intention of the Government to introduce three bills.

CLERK:

Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill, introduction

Legal Services Amendment Bill, introduction

Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: The Legal Services Amendment Bill and the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill are set down for first reading presently. The Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill is set down for first reading immediately.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Minister for Regulation): Mr Speaker, point of order. I seek leave for the House to adjourn three minutes early before the dinner break.

SPEAKER: There is provision for that. Leave is sought. Is there any objection to that course? There appears to be none. The House is adjourned until 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Bills

Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac)): Mr Speaker, thank you very much, and if you’ll excuse me for one second, I was just reading some of the finer points of this beautiful bill before I found the part I need to read in order to ensure that it is correctly read. And that is: I present a legislative statement on the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 14 March 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

This is a very simple piece of legislation, but it also will have significant effects and benefits for New Zealanders, particularly in flu season. The purpose of this bill is to restore access to cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Prior to 2011, these medicines were available to purchase from New Zealand pharmacies. In 2011, however, pseudoephedrine was reclassified as a class B2 controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Effectively, this change meant that cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine could only be accessed with a prescription from a registered medical practitioner. As a result of these restrictions, pharmaceutical companies withdrew from the New Zealand market, and New Zealanders can no longer access these very effective medicines for very annoying ailments, particularly during the winter flu seasons.

The bill itself, as I’ve said, is straightforward. It changes the classification of pseudoephedrine from a class B2 drug, as it is currently listed in the Misuse of Drugs Act, to a class C3 controlled drug. This will allow cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine to be sold in New Zealand pharmacies without a prescription. Under the Act, drugs that pose a high risk of harm are classified as class B drugs, and drugs that pose a moderate risk of harm are classified as class C drugs. The classification of pseudoephedrine as a class C controlled drug simultaneously achieves the policy intention behind the bill while retaining the appropriate controls for illicit use. Under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations, class C3 controlled drugs are defined as partially exempted drugs. Partially exempted drugs are exempt from some of the requirements, such as storage requirements, in the regulations that would restrict access to these drugs for therapeutic purposes.

The bill also makes some consequential amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations to ensure consistency with the Act. The Government is also making a change to the Medicines Regulations to classify cold and flu products containing pseudoephedrine as restricted medicines. With this change, customers purchasing these medicines will need to do so by way of a face-to-face transaction with a pharmacist. The pharmacist must record information and can highlight advice as appropriate, including counselling patients who should not take pseudoephedrine for clinical reasons.

The previous ban on selling pseudoephedrine products without a prescription was brought in as pseudoephedrine was being used in the manufacture of methamphetamine, or P, a class A controlled drug. The change, unfortunately, had negligible effects on the overall methamphetamine market in New Zealand, as suppliers simply adapted to the law change, notably by importing more finished product. And, as has been reported in the New Zealand Herald, the networks that New Zealand gangs fostered as they created those new supply chains has arguably increased the sophistication of organised crime in New Zealand and had quite significant negative impacts on New Zealanders during that time.

The classification of pseudoephedrine as a class C3 controlled drug will ensure that customs and police retain the necessary powers to control its illicit use. You’ll need a licence to import or export products containing pseudoephedrine, so customs will be able to seize unlicensed importations. These border controls will also ensure that available products containing pseudoephedrine are of a high quality. Some groups have raised concerns that pharmacies will become targets for ram raid - style burglaries and aggravated robberies by those involved in the manufacture of methamphetamine. It should be noted that there is no requirement for pharmacists to stock these products and that there are measures available to pharmacists to prevent retail crime. And it’s worth noting that not only is it voluntary to stock these products but pharmacies presently stock other products that some people might like to steal. To buy into the logic that a legitimate business should not stock a product by choice because they are intimidated by criminals I think is a commentary on where New Zealand has got to in terms of retail crime rather than a pragmatic response. If people are going to commit crimes, the answer is to punish the people committing the crime, not every New Zealander with a cold and flu.

I further add that medicines containing pseudoephedrine are used worldwide for their effective relief of cold and flu symptoms. This bill strikes the balance between giving consumers access to a useful medicine and enabling law enforcement to curb the manufacture of methamphetamine, the two goals in balance under this new law. As a result, New Zealanders will be able to breathe easier—literally—knowing that they can effectively treat their cold and flu symptoms.

I want to just mention that I’ve had an interesting experience today dealing with media asking about all of the terrible things that could go wrong. I think, unfortunately, it is a sad commentary on some of the worst of New Zealand that we are so focused—we are a country that appears to be afraid of the implications of cough medicine, if you listen to some in the mainstream media. All we are doing is trying to make life easier and more comfortable for New Zealanders by removing restrictions on their freedoms. All we are doing is ensuring that the rules around cold and cough medicine in New Zealand will be nearly identical to Australia and nearly indistinguishable from those in other countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, countries where people can go into their pharmacy and buy some effective cold and cough medicine if they have the winter chills and the winter ills. That is what we are seeking to do, and I think it’s an important commentary on New Zealand, and particularly the state of our media and some commentators, that we actually weigh the costs and benefits of our decisions rather than constantly beating ourselves up with more rules, more restrictions, because of the “what-ifers”.

For those that are concerned, as I’ve said, pharmacies are not required to sell these pharmaceuticals. It is a choice, and if people make that choice, then it is the responsibility of the New Zealand State to protect people’s basic right to buy and sell legal products, whether they’re a dairy with tobacco, whether they are a pharmacy with metham—oh, sorry, with pseudoephedrine; we certainly would not be protecting them if they were selling that—or whether it is any other business, whether it is a timber yard selling building supplies. Our responsibility is to have a society and uphold the law in a society where people are able to get on with their lawful business and, when crimes are committed, ensure that we punish them.

So, without further ado and the risk of any further a gaffe, I will conclude this speech and look forward to hearing the debate and which of the other parties in Parliament are willing to support this small movement towards rational lawmaking, common sense, and making life easier for New Zealanders, balancing the risks and rewards of decisions, and allowing people to live on their own terms. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Mr Speaker, thank you. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this bill to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act to reclassify pseudoephedrine as a class C3 drug from a class B2 drug, thereby, along with the changes to how pseudoephedrine is regulated under the Medicines Act, making the medicine available over the counter.

I too have responded to media queries, like the Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac) has today, and it is interesting to me that after being involved in the COVID response, some journalists have taken a peculiar interest in my health and when I last had a case of the sniffles. It’s been over 10 years since I used pseudoephedrine for a cough and cold because, obviously, it wasn’t available after 2011, but I did, and I have to say I liked it. As a medicine for a common cough and cold, it is OK, it is good—studies bear that out. It has some side effects, like cardiac side effects, but it’s useful for the treatment of common coughs and colds. Sensible measures to make medicines that are convenient for common symptoms should be promoted.

As a Government, the Labour Party really led a number of initiatives to change that, to improve the ability of our pharmacies to give treatments for common conditions. This included the minor ailments scheme that we brought in over winter to make sure that common conditions, even as simple as nits or skin conditions, could be treated by pharmacies conveniently without having to go for a prescription to a doctor, thereby taking work away from overburdened general practitioners and making conditions be resolved more quickly. In addition, we brought in changes that meant a number of vaccines could be given in pharmacies where they weren’t before. We support these types of practical changes that make medicine more accessible to people.

But there is another dimension to pseudoephedrine and that is that one of the reasons why we like to take it for coughs and colds is actually in the heart of what its downside is: it also has stimulatory effects, it also peps us up when we’re feeling sick and run down and shivery, and that allows us to keep doing all the things we have to do in our busy life. It’s that characteristic, as well as its good effects as a decongestant, that giving you that little bit of pep, that is the same characteristic that means it’s also a drug of abuse and can be used to produce methamphetamine.

That was why, in 2009, John Key’s National Government brought in changes to the regulations that restricted the sale of meth—the ones we’re debating today and the Medicines Act changes. I want to share some of the quotes that John Key made at the time, and it gets back to this very issue of the dual properties of pseudoephedrine: “What seems like straightforward pain and symptom relief to you and me is gold to a drug cook. It’s just about all a first time P cook needs to get their drug enterprise started.” He went on to say “it’s a $1.5 billion problem, it’s wrecking lives and it’s wrecking families,... As a parent I can tell you … obviously you worry about your children.” And he made no apologies for how tough he was going to be: it’s “why [this Government] … come[s] at the problem from all directions. By cracking down on precursors, breaking supply chains, providing better routes into treatment,” and so on.

So my question in addressing this bill, and I think what the Parliament and the Health Committee needs to turn its mind to, is: what’s changed? Meth hasn’t gone away, are we giving up on this issue? How do we evaluate these very valid safety concerns that communities, and pharmacies in particular, have?

Now, the Minister has said that this will be unlikely to impact the supply of methamphetamine in New Zealand. Well, it will have an effect on pharmacies. For over a decade, they will have not been the targets of ram raids due to pseudoephedrine, and they could be once again. I haven’t heard compelling evidence that there are reasons why that won’t be the case. It’s very important for us to be able to go over that evidence at select committee. Pharmacists have raised the issue of whether or not they can access registers in order to make sure that we can pick up on instances of abuse if that happens. It’s not clear to me if the restricted classification of the medicines will lead to a register being in place. We need the chance also to hear from drug experts, addiction specialists, and pharmacologists. The Labour Party will be supporting this bill to the Health Committee. We think it has some merits, but we have many questions as well.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Drugs are winning the war on drugs. We know, if you look at the evidence—as this Government has promised us that we would—that at both ends of extremes, that being in criminal prohibition or in a complete legal free market, you have the maximisation of harms when it comes to substances. That’s because, whether you’re talking about a scenario where you have those who operate in criminal organisations who control the supply chains, or those who operate in commercial entities controlling the supply chains, you have the maximisation of harm because profit is the key motive. The way that you go about pulling back from those extremes of harms is through sensible regulation. I am proud to stand here as a member of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand who is the only party who have been consistent—whether it’s alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, pseudoephedrine, or otherwise—on substances. All of the arguments that we heard from the Minister just now with regard to cost-benefit analysis, with regard to people’s freedoms or otherwise, apply to the logic that we need to overhaul this Frankenstein law.

So let’s unpack precisely why this law is so Frankenstein and, actually, in fact, some of the self-perpetrating perverse mechanisms that exist within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. The first is the expert advisory committee which was established in the early 2000s with the intention to advise where substances should be classified within the Misuse of Drugs Act, and the penalties that should be associated to them. The only recommendations that the expert advisory committee can make about where substances should be classified is where they should be classified in reference to other substances that are currently already classified, and therefore we bind this expert advisory committee to, effectively, only make recommendation about what penalties these substances should carry—not about more meaningful harm intervention approaches.

Here I just offer to members of the Government who are interested or who may be interested in their decisions being based on data and evidence, as their coalition agreements say they will be—I’d refer them to the 2014 Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship, which said that we need to do away with alcohol advertising and sponsorship. I’d refer them to He Ara Oranga, the mental health and addiction inquiry, which said that we need to move to decriminalise substances so that we can enable a harm reduction approach. I point them to Turuki! Turuki!, the safe and effective justice review, which actually said that we need to go a step further and look to legalise the supply chain of certain substances, so to remove them from the hands of criminal organisations.

I would also just refer to something which is implicit within this legislation that we are debating at the first reading today, and that is when it comes to the process and the way that the Misuse of Drugs Act operates with regard to classification, in order to introduce a substance for classification, and therefore for associated penalties within the Misuse of Drugs Act, all you need to do is pass an Order in Council. For those who are following along at home, that process is incredibly quick. It can pass through in the blink of an eye in this place—although, the Greens do force a debate on it every second time, and, ironically, the last time that this went through, we actually got some time from the ACT Party to prosecute our case. But in order to down-classify or to declassify a substance, you need an entire amendment bill, and therefore the select committee process that comes with it, and that can take anywhere from a few months to a year-plus, and, obviously, all of the potential for fearmongering and moral panic that come with that.

So the point of unpacking this is to point out the ways that this law—this dog of a law—perpetuates injustices and anti-evidence outcomes for our community, much to the detriment, actually, of the public purse. For members of the National Party, in particular, let alone members of the ACT Party, who profess to be libertarians despite showcasing that it is relatively—

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I really hesitate to interrupt the member in the middle of a speech—

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: No, you don’t.

Hon Member: You do it all the time.

Hon David Seymour: —but, with the greatest of respect—and points of order have to be heard in silence, for those still learning the rules—many members, including me, have been pulled up by many Speakers many times for, effectively, giving a general debate speech that has nothing to do with the bill. Trying to tangentially link to the bill every few minutes while making a speech that in substance is about totally different policy questions that aren’t actually a question before the House has been pulled up by every other Speaker every time that it’s been tried. I hope that you’ll think about that in this instance.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I take the Minister’s point, but I do recognise that many of us, including myself, are not experts in pseudoephedrine or drugs at all. So I will give the member her remaining minutes.

Hon David Seymour: Fresh point of order. Mr Speaker, do you intend to make a new ruling that if the Speaker or the member have no expertise on a question, they can speak about anything else they like? That would be an extraordinary ruling for a Speaker to make.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker. What this bill seeks to do is to down-classify a substance. What I am doing in my speech is speaking to precisely that mechanism and the inconsistencies with the way that one might introduce a new substance for classification. It is specifically pertinent to the operation of the legislation.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That’s right.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you, Mr Speaker. So referring back to exactly what it is that I was unpacking here, which is data and evidence and many of the points that the Minister put forward in his very precious speech, it is the fact that there are inconsistencies in the way that we go about introducing substances for classification which require us just to pass an Order in Council through this House, which can occur in the blink of an eye. But in order for us to down-classify or to declassify a substance, we need an entire amendment bill. That fundamentally entrenches an anti-evidence approach to substances in this country. That leaves us, actually, with the conclusion, as raised by the Minister himself in his introductory remarks, that we are miles away from the jurisdictions which he himself compared us to—to Australia, to the United States, to Canada, and to otherwise, where they are moving light years ahead of us with a far more evidence-based approach to substances, and that’s something the Greens will continue to push for.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to support this bill. We know that prescriptions are currently required to access products containing pseudoephedrine, but manufacturers have allowed their product approvals to lapse, so there’s currently no pseudoephedrine products available in New Zealand. These tighter controls have not affected the overall supply of methamphetamine in New Zealand. So this bill reclassifies pseudoephedrine from a class B to a class C controlled drug, which allows for the sale of pseudoephedrine-based products for cold and flu without a prescription. It is an effective medicine, and allowing this will enable people who have a cold and a flu to improve their health and wellbeing. I support this bill.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of this bill and applaud the Minister for taking initiative to improve the lives of New Zealanders. As a family who suffers significantly from respiratory illnesses, having something that will alleviate this congestion in winter time will be excellent.

Unfortunately, the environment under which we currently live has changed significantly from when pseudoephedrine was re-classified. Unfortunately, there is a massive import of completed methamphetamine products into New Zealand, a rising crime trend that we need to combat. The pseudoephedrine is no longer the threat that it was at the time that it was re-classified. Therefore, I think it highly appropriate that we put New Zealanders, and the conditions that New Zealanders face during winter, at the forefront of our decision making. I support the bill.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m cautiously supportive of this bill, because I do think we need flexibility in relation to medicines and how people can access them, and I’m really mindful of the fact that as soon as there is a prescriptions regime or people need to see a doctor, that is automatically a barrier for our poorest, our most vulnerable, or people who are just having to make hard choices about where they spend their money. So if we don’t need to regulate it, then perhaps we shouldn’t.

But I do think there is a risk of organised crime exploiting this law change, and I think it will have impacts on two discrete groups really. One is pharmacists. It was good to hear the Minister say that pharmacists won’t be obliged to carry these medicines, although I think the fact they can opt in will have some perhaps unintended consequences about how people self-select and what that will mean for those that do and those that don’t but also for the most vulnerable communities, because despite the fact that there is evidence that there are these big drug cartels bringing methamphetamine in finished form into New Zealand, there will still be people in New Zealand who cannot afford to pay that premium and who would prefer to do the home-made option despite the difficulties with this.

So I think it is a bold claim for the Minister and the Government members to say that this problem is now in the past. One of the reasons the problem is in the past is because of the legislative change. So taking this to select committee, I think, will be a good way to explore what has caused the shift in the production and supply of methamphetamine and what the outcome will be of this law change. I do take note of the words of Ngāi Te Rangi chief executive Paora Stanley, who has said in the New Zealand Herald that the drug was taken off the shelves to keep gangs away from it and this will only exacerbate the impact on Māori. So it is a bold statement by the Government, and it’s interesting that the Government don’t seem to be that worried about potential crime and ram raids and other things that might happen to these opt-in pharmacies, because they are not going to limit the number of pharmacies who will be able to supply and, in fact, they’ve said that pharmacies can opt in. Will those pharmacies that opt in then become magnets for crime? I’m not sure.

That was the language that was used around the proposed repeal of—well, the repeal of the smoke-free legislation, so there seems to be a bit of an inconsistent application of rationale here, because, on one hand, with smoke-free, the Government is saying, “We are interested in crime; we’re interested in the impacts and the way gangs will use this, and therefore we’re not going to make particular shops magnets of crime.”; and then, on the other hand, they’ve had no regard to any kind of argument around that when it comes to pseudoephedrine.

One of the things that’s interesting to me is—well, one of the things I’ve learnt today, actually—is that pseudoephedrine, we know, treats colds and colds are viral but, actually, what it really treats are the symptoms of colds. Apparently, it also treats the symptoms of hangovers, which might make it immediately more popular, but it doesn’t treat the causes of colds, and so there are other mechanisms available, and my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall alluded to the fact that there is a kind of peppiness to the use of pseudoephedrine. So there are other things available that can be used.

I’m concerned about the groups of pharmacies that will opt into the scheme, because if there are too few of them, they will become identified really quickly, and they will be known as the pseudoephedrine pharmacies. And, therefore, will those pharmacists—like one of them who’s been in the media, Warren Flaunty; he’s mentioned that he’s been burgled at least a dozen times per year for pseudoephedrine—be targeted? Will they be identified? If there is a regime where people accessing the drug have to apply and write their name on a register and so on, will that put the pharmacist in a difficult position? How uncomfortable will that be? And will that mean that many pharmacies will just go, “This is not worth it. It’s too difficult for us.”?

So, in summary, I think, if there is a safe way to deregulate, of course we don’t want to regulate when there’s no need to. It’s a legitimate question to explore—what will the impacts be on methamphetamine? Will there be any impact at all if this medicine is available? I think we need to hear from experts. I think it’s a broader debate, and for that reason, cautiously, I think it’s good to take this bill to the select committee and to have that debate.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): I’d like to take the call, if that’s OK? Thank you. So, first of all, Minister Seymour has argued that the ban on pseudoephedrine—I’d better make sure I say that right, sorry—has failed, as gangs continue to produce P. Doctors have disputed the Minister’s claims that there are no effective alternatives. In fact, we’ve even had the Waikato GP Dr Jo Scott-Jones say it doesn’t really make sense that we want to increase the risk to society by making that change when an effective medication is already available. I really want to talk about what this change will do and impact on our communities—

Hon David Seymour: I’m sure the public will make up their mind on that.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER: And sorry for me speaking while you’re interrupting, David!

So Te Pāti Māori oppose this bill. Meth causes significant harm in communities in Aotearoa, so we have to be really clear on making an example of why we oppose it. It not only affects the individuals but it also causes social harm, including harm on all our whānau, all our mokopuna, all our communities. The argument and the rationale that this will make other people’s lives easier, we totally get, to be fair, but that’s assuming that all communities that are currently affected by meth are OK, and they’re not. In fact, probably our biggest worry and concern, again, is that this bill’s offering no alternative solution to approach the meth issue that we have in Aotearoa, predominantly in Māori communities. It assumes that, actually, there is no deficit position going on with meth in Aotearoa. And what’s worrying is that we ignore, once again, Māori communities that are hugely impacted by this drug.

It’s hypocritical that this bill is being prioritised today as the Government’s been taking a real hard approach on addressing crime, and the purpose of this legislation was actually introduced in the first place to tackle the crime and the production of P. It just makes no sense for ACT to be prioritising this when it inevitably leads to more crime.

Although our kaumātua and tamariki are often hit hardest by the cold and flu season and having more access to cold medications could make life easier, our issue, again, is that Māori communities are also those who bear the full brunt of the meth epidemic. So, again, we question why the bill is being put under urgency. Again, it seems to be for this Government that it’s not just about winter; it’s actually about taking on things that are attacking the vulnerable communities for us as Māori. Again, we had this whole rhetoric of justifying it, that it’s going to help people get well, but, actually, they’re ignoring the fact that my community and a lot of our communities are simply not well. So if there was a sincere intent from this Government and, indeed, this Minister to make people well, we would start by saying, “First and foremost, here’s our commitment to addressing the meth issues that we have in Aotearoa.”

We’re also concerned that the introduction of this legislation will retrigger the crime rates at pharmacies, as we saw in the late 2000s. Officials and pharmacies have warned and warned that allowing the sale will lead to a spike in meth-related crimes. We’ve got retired pharmacists who say that prior to the ban pharmacies were regularly targeted by ram raid - style robberies. So, again, if many pharmacists are saying this and cautioning—and this is their sector; it’s not the politicians’ sector—but there are not many politicians in this House who will sit there and get out on the ground and talk to those communities, as we saw with Paora, who are warning about the spike and what this will mean.

Again, what we’ve seen with this bill—and, I guess, some of the things that we’re concerned about is that it’s proposing to do good. We have the Minister here proposing that his interests are for all of Aotearoa, when, in fact, it’s for the privileged who don’t get to live, day in, day out, with the scab of this epidemic and how it is truly affecting our communities. So we caution, again, that we have a Government that turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to its communities that are most affected by these types of legislation. We will not be supporting this bill.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill): I rise to support the introduction of this bill to this House. This Government is committed to ensuring New Zealanders can access quality healthcare, in this case to access some of the most effective over-the-counter cold and flu medication without the need of a prescription. This bill strikes the balance between enabling New Zealanders to swiftly recover from cold and flu, and limiting public use of pseudoephedrine for the production of methamphetamine. Therefore, I support the bill. Thank you.

JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Last week was a great day for New Zealanders. Today’s a great day for sniffly New Zealanders, because what this bill does is it allows for the sale of effective cold medicines across the counter at pharmacies who choose to provide it across the country.

We used to be able to get pseudoephedrine across the counter. It was prohibited back in 2011 to slow the meth trade. It didn’t work, and so we’re going back to where we’ve come from. I’ll be interested, actually, in the views of the member Greg O’Connor, who knows a lot about this sector and has experience in this part of the world, as well. So I’ll be very interested in his views.

Now, members made some comments around crime. We did have the Commissioner of Police before the Justice Committee earlier—last week—and I’ll have to check the transcription, but my recollection was that he said there’d be very little impact on the crime trade. Most of the precursor comes through the border, and so the prime issues are not actually what they may seem. I commend the bill to the House and look forward to its passage.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): There’s a book Chasing the Scream, that should be required reading for every member in this House, by a man called Johann Hari. He talks about the evolution of the war on drugs, talks about all sorts of different drugs, and he talks about, of course, Reefer Madness and how so often when we start talking about illegal drugs, in particular, immediately we go to some sort of “reefer madness”. So what we need to do is actually examine some facts around this. In that book, one thing he does talk about is that in societies, countries, jurisdictions that have tried to liberalise drugs, there’s one drug where all the rules they apply really go out the window—and that’s methamphetamine or P. The opiates, generally, we can handle, and all those other drugs, but P is out there on its own.

It’s interesting that as we make a decision, we really understand the journey—relatively short journey—of this, that we have arrived at New Zealand. Our waste-water testing around New Zealand—big towns, small towns, cities—is showing up vast amounts of methamphetamine. My own hometown, Westport, the locals affectionately call “Methport”. And that’s not an unfamiliar story.

What actually happened in New Zealand? New Zealand had a heroin problem in the 1970s. The Mr Asia syndicate—some of you may have heard of it—was decimated, so was the heroin supply. So we didn’t have a white-powder problem in New Zealand till the early 1980s, or really late 1980s, early 1990s, when the biker gangs—Hells Angels in New Zealand—sat at the top table in the United States; they started bringing the expertise in for this P. I was an undercover police officer, and, in the early days, it was only really speed—it was the biker gangs that used these things; it wasn’t something that was widely used.

The difference with methamphetamine and P from every other drug is that it is made up of legal substances that ultimately become illegal when they’re put together. And the commodity was the expertise—the meth cooks, or the chemists, who could make the P. Of course, getting hold of those raw ingredients, the core products, the precursors of methamphetamine—or pseudoephedrine—was the most important factor.

Now, that brought about a big change in the crime scene in New Zealand because the people who were out doing the shopping for the pills, the pill shoppers, were largely Māori from the ethnic gangs, or from the Polynesian gangs—they then provided this to the biker gangs. So you then had an amalgam: our crime groups that previously had always been at odds—violent odds, often—then came together. So you actually had the basis of an industry based on pseudoephedrine and other legal substances, things like red phosphorus and acetone—again, all these things were legal.

So we then came into the mid-2000s, and I was president of the Police Association at the time—as Ms Costello will know, she was my deputy at the time—and actually police officers were coming to us and telling us there’s been a massive change in the crime scene. The dog handlers were saying, “All of a sudden, criminals are behaving very differently.” And that was where we had a bit of a policy failure by both parties, actually, because we were still looking at a problem we had with heroin that hadn’t been a problem for about 10 years.

Anyway, by the time we did actually make this substance illegal and it was difficult to get from the pharmacies, it was actually too late. And, yeah, the Minister was actually right in that, actually, we do now have a situation where most of our product does emanate either in Europe or in Mexico or in Asia. However, if we now legalise this substance, make it available again, we have to be very careful—we are playing with a very dangerous thing.

Now, I’m pleased to see it’s going to go through select committee, I think most parties are agreeing with that, but I just hope there’s some really informed debate there and we understand what we’re playing with with this, because it is potentially very dangerous—it is very dangerous. We could very well get back to the situation again where people who can’t afford P—and despite the fact we are awash with the stuff, it is actually relatively expensive still, and if it becomes a cheap option to go and get hold of your pseudoephedrine to make this product again locally, we will actually have the cycle starting again. So it’s good that it’s going to select committee, but be very, very wary of this product that we’re dealing with. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s good to see that this is going through select committee. But, I guess, a point of interest from the Hon Ayesha Verrall is where she talked about how it would be good to see what pharmacists think. I had the opportunity to talk to a pharmacist just today, saying, “Potentially, you’re going to have the opportunity to sell more pseudoephedrine-based products next year.”, and she said, “Finally something that works.” So that was an interesting point of phrase.

I don’t know about you, Mr Speaker, but when I think about something that I want to decongest nasal congestion, I often think, “Gosh, I wish I had a non-prescription, pseudoephedrine-based vasoconstrictive bronchodilator.”, and, potentially, with this good legislation, this will flow through, so I look forward to seeing that. Of course, this is about choice for New Zealanders. Some New Zealanders, when they’re cold and stuffy, they want a greater option than just Tixylix. So I recommend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 117

New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 6

Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill be considered by the Health Committee.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment in the name of the Hon Kieran McAnulty be agreed to.

Ayes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is, That the

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.

Instruction to Health Committee

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac)): I move, That the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 14 March 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day which on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

I would like to briefly comment on the intended timing of this return period. I’m aware, as I’m sure you are, Mr Speaker, that the scope of such a debate is extremely limited. It cannot traverse the content of this bill nor any other possible policy initiatives. It is simply a debate about the reporting date from the select committee. In this particular instance, I’m asking for the House to instruct the select committee to report back in four weeks’ time. The reason for that is to balance two competing objectives. One is that we hope that if the Government can put in place its regulations, if Medsafe can process approvals or provisional approvals for particular products, then all that stands in the way of the pseudoephedrine-based medication being available this winter will be the Parliament passing this law. A six-month select committee period as is normal would, of course, mean that we missed the winter for the use of pseudoephedrine-based products, so that is the public interest in having a shortened select committee process.

However, of course that also means that there will be less time for the public to submit and less time for the Health Committee to consider any submissions that they receive. Now, I’m very grateful, in advance, for their work on this, but I think it’s also important to be realistic. This piece of legislation is about two pages in its substance. It, basically, says that we are moving the word “pseudoephedrine” from the section of class B drugs to the section of class C drugs. I mean, that’s all we’re doing, and I think some people might argue that a month to debate whether or not it’s worthwhile to move a word from one page of a piece of law to another is perfectly adequate.

On the other hand, I think it’s important that people have the opportunity to come forward, because the purpose of a select committee hearing, in my humble opinion, is to inform the Parliament with information that parliamentarians might not have already had, despite the considerable consultation that’s already been done by the Ministry of Health. I’ve spoken to the Pharmacy Guild; a number of pharmaceutical companies; there’s been consultation with the police—there’s been a considerable consultation over the past several months already, but you just don’t know what might come to Parliament that didn’t come through the process of a Minister like me making the policy and getting the legislation drafted. So we are striking a balance between the best of all worlds.

It’s a very simple bill. The implications of it are not particularly wide. I remind you that we’ve had this law in the past; as recently as 2011, what we’re proposing was the law. It is the law in the four other Five Eyes countries, and many others around the world. So the complexity is not great. I think a month is a good length of time to give people the opportunity to come along and say, “Hey, we haven’t thought about this thing.” It could be very valuable. On the other hand, the simplicity of the bill does not justify a longer period; or the complexity of the bill, such as it is, does not justify a longer period.

We hope that if the pharmaceutical companies get their orders in and get their applications to Medsafe done in time, then New Zealanders may be able to enjoy the benefits of the legislation when they need it most this winter. There’s a public benefit on the shortening and I think there’s an adequate enough time for the consideration, and, on that basis, I ask that the House endorse a one-month report-back time for this piece of legislation.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): I thank the Minister for that contribution, and I hope it’s clear to the Minister, through our earlier contributions on the bill, that the Labour Party respects the effort that is being made here to improve access to a health treatment and the initiatives that the Minister has taken. However, it is our view that only four weeks at select committee is too short. There have been very valid concerns raised about the impact of pseudoephedrine as a potential source of meth on the community by some of my colleagues here in the preceding debate, and also that was obviously a concern to some of the members of the Government in the past.

That does matter, and it is a matter such that we should approach that judiciously and deliberate on that properly. Four weeks only leaves people who are expert in this, who work in communities, who work in pharmacy—it only leaves them a week or two to put in their submission, if that. I put it to you that that is too short.

I think it is incorrect to say it is a matter of debating a couple of pages on a bill for one month—that is not what the committee will be doing. The Health Committee is a very busy committee, with a big annual review of Te Whatu Ora kicking off tomorrow, but the issue is that the community will not have time to make the submissions they need to make.

I noted the Minister’s point about winter. That is a very valid concern, and, as it happens, my first contribution as a Minister in this House was the retrospective amendment to the Medicines Act required to approve the COVID vaccine, where we had to enable legislation to enable the COVID vaccine roll-out. We did that under urgency. I believe the justification for that was appropriate because we had an illness that would kill potentially thousands of people. We know the vaccination programme saved tens of thousands of lives. We had an imminent threat with COVID circulating all around the world.

In this situation, the measure that’s being proposed is to prevent a sniffle. These are vastly different in terms of the justification for using expedited processes. You cannot compare the need for vaccine access passed under urgency to something which is a treatment for a mild symptom. We respect what is trying to be done here, but there are serious consequences from changing this law and we think the public deserve a right to have their say.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Look, I hear the Minister’s desire, being really, really keen to limit the application of logic and evidence and consistency when it comes to this bill or to the Misuse of Drugs Act or drug policy as a whole. But perhaps my proposal to the Minister would be that if his intention is to pass this through as quickly as possible, given that it’s something that the ACT Party, for example, campaigned on, there is actually an opportunity to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act as a whole.

As I outlined intentionally in my first reading speech with regard to the mechanism that requires us to have an amendment bill here and not just an Order in Council, as is the case for an introduction of a new classification, there is the opportunity for the Minister to bring in a bill that, for example, amended that inconsistency, which would require that an Order in Council is all that would be required for that down-classification or that declassification. But, as the case stands, it is that we require an amendment bill in order to introduce a substance, or rather we require an amendment bill to down-classify or declassify a substance, whereas to increase penalties associated with any given substance, it simply requires the waving through of that Order in Council.

So my proposal to the Minister would be that if his intention is just simply to wave this through and to shorten the public scrutiny on that, then there’s an opportunity to amend the primary legislation such that we have that greater consistency between down-classification—

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m sorry, but the rules are so clear. Every Speaker has upheld them. Every member has followed them. It’s not a question of what the content of the bill should be. It is simply a question of: is the reporting date appropriate for the bill that the House has just agreed to? Can you please uphold that Standing Order.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker. My point is precisely about the reason that we are having this amendment bill, and the reason that we are having this truncated select committee process is because, ultimately, the point is that there are different processes that are afforded under the primary legislation, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, which says that in order to introduce a new classification and, therefore, penalties—criminal penalties; serious criminal penalties—we just need to wave an Order in Council through this House, whereas in order to down-classify or to declassify, we need an entire amendment bill. So, therefore, it is, in fact, entirely relevant. So if I may continue, Mr Speaker?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): You may continue.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: The Greens oppose this referral motion because, as I have just alluded to, we have deep logical inconsistency here. In fact, what we’d like to see, therefore, is far greater public scrutiny because there is a point about the need for logical and evidential consistency when it comes to the application of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. So, in summation, the Greens support the proposal from the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall for an extended select committee process of two months, which would still enable this legislation to go through before we get to winter.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Ā, tēnā koe. We’d like to speak to the referral as well and support our esteemed colleagues and refer to the fact that a month is going to be way too short. We respect the view that there does need to be consideration to the weather, but what we are concerned about is the scale of the communities who are affected by meth, the ability to mobilise and be able—and I am referring from stats, and if we look at it from the Māori community’s perspective, they do need to be able to have a good ability to talk, to be able to come and submit and to be able to make sure that they take the most of this opportunity for the Minister and the Government to hear their concerns.

Again, I reiterate, I understand the concerns about keeping people well during the cold season, winter season, but there is no imminent solution to address the outstanding problem that we have in our communities with meth. We do require that there is a longer period of time for the select committee to receive this and ensure that the public, particularly Māori communities, get the valuable time that they need to be able to prepare the information and to prepare the stats—also, the medical fraternity, those pharmacists who are concerned with this, as we’ve seen and we’ve all been lobbied for. So we don’t support the Minister’s referral to select committee. We would implore that there’s a longer period of time for select committee. Kia ora.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’ve tabled an amendment to the motion, to delay the report back to the House by one month, to 14 April. The reason is that it is a proposal to the Government from the Opposition to meet us halfway here. Obviously, if there was an instruction to the committee to report back within a certain period of time, it’s not a debatable motion, because it’s broadly accepted in the Standing Orders that that is a reasonable amount of time at select committee. One month, as has been heard from the contributions from my colleagues, is considered, on this side of the House, to be too short.

I will give the Minister credit: at least he is giving us the opportunity to have a debate at select committee; that is not what we have seen, often, from this Government so far. So credit where it’s due. But one month is too short.

When the House considers the reason why this was banned in the first place, there are genuine and reasonable concerns about what is being proposed. The Labour Party is willing to support the bill to select committee; we just want the select committee to be long enough to ensure that this House gets the opportunity to hear the views, pro and against, so that we can make an informed decision at the second reading.

Surely, the Minister and the Government parties would want to take the opportunity to have as broad a consensus as possible across this House. We’ve already had the vote at the first reading, and only one political party voted against it—as is their right. That actually doesn’t happen that often. So we have an opportunity to ensure that the best possible chance to have the broadest level of support for this bill—and all we’re proposing is we delay the referral date, as proposed by the Minister in his motion, by one month. It’s still, roughly, four months shorter than what a normal select committee length of time would be anyway. So it’s not like we’re asking for much.

I get it—I really do. This is the Minister’s big thing at the moment and he wants it in place by winter. I get that. It’s popular. He’ll be the king of the chemist. Great. Good on him. But let’s be realistic. He himself has conceded that the official advice says that it probably actually won’t be in place till next year anyway. So what is the point in rushing too much? It’s a month.

One month is what we’re proposing formally on the Table—that we amend the motion and that the House and our colleagues get the best possible opportunity to give everyone—not just those who are experts in the field but everyone who has an interest in this debate—the opportunity to be able to contribute at select committee. It might be that everyone’s in favour of it. Great. But how will we know for sure if, really, in practice, there’s probably only one or two weeks, as my colleague Dr Ayesha Verrall has mentioned, to get a submission in.

So I would encourage the House to consider this amendment. It’s put down in good faith. We want to do what we can to support the Minister’s bill. It would be a shame, I think, if that opportunity was dismissed.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 14 March 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day which on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Ayes 68

New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Legal Services Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Legal Services Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I move, That the Legal Services Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

The Government’s priority for this term includes restoring law and order, enforcing real consequences for committing crime, and improving the quality of Government spending. Under the previous Government’s approach, where the only clearly articulated target in the justice sector was a 30 percent reduction in the prison population—irrespective of what is happening in our communities and on our streets—we saw an alarming increase in violent crime. Offenders were often prioritised ahead of victims. Between 2018 and 2023, ram raids went up by 290 percent; robberies, 62 percent; victims of reported retail crime, 110 percent; family harm investigations, 34 percent; and acts intended to cause harm, 40 percent. Kiwis feel less safe than they did six years ago, and the message from the community has been clear: public safety needs to be at the heart of the criminal justice system. That means ensuring real consequences for crime.

The incoming Government also has inherited budget deficits, a substantially higher debt burden, and a subsequent need to ensure our limited resources, including in the justice sector, are used well. In line with these priorities, we’ve committed to defunding section 27 reports within our first 100 days of office. Section 27 of the Sentencing Act 2002 allows any offender to request that the court hear from someone chosen by the offender to speak about their background and related matters. The matters set out under section 27 include the offender’s personal, family, whānau, community, and cultural background, how support from the family final or community may help prevent further offending, and how the offender’s background, family, whānau, or community support may be relevant for possible sentences.

When this provision was introduced more than 20 years ago, it was intended that a person who knows the offender and their background would speak directly to the court. However, in recent years—noticeably since 2018—a cottage industry of section 27 report writers has evolved, funded by the legal aid scheme. Contrary to what was envisaged when 27 was introduced, these reports generally are prepared by a person not known to the offender or their background prior to the court proceedings. Some of these services are promoted with reference to the size of the sentencing discount that prospective clients can expect. The cost of all this to the taxpayer has grown from $40,000 in 2017 to approximately $7.5 million in the past financial year.

At a time when victims of crime have grown increasingly disenchanted with the justice system and its ability to prioritise their needs, this ever-increasing expenditure cannot be justified. Legislative change is needed to deliver on our commitment, because decisions about legal aid funding for specialist reports are made by an independent Legal Services Commissioner. A proposed minor amendment to the Legal Services Act 2011 will exempt section 27 reports from the range of legal aid disbursements that can be made, without in any way limiting the independence of the commissioner with regard to the wider legal aid scheme.

Let me be clear: this bill does not prevent background information about an offender that is relevant to sentencing from being provided to the court. This information will continue to be available from a range of sources, such as the offender calling on a person to address the court orally on section 27 matters; the offender’s lawyer’s submissions; pre-sentence reports prepared by Corrections; letters of support from family and friends; persons supporting the offender through a mentoring, rehabilitation, or counselling programme; and other reports that may be appropriate, such as alcohol and drug assessments. Just as importantly, judges will still need to adhere to the purposes and principles of sentencing, which require them to take into account an offender’s background in imposing a sentence.

The proposed law change will commence two weeks after receiving Royal assent. This will allow a reasonable time frame for the legal profession to transition to the change. During this period, legal aid claims for section 27 reports will only be paid if the lawyer making the claim has already obtained the commissioner’s approval to incur the cost.

As the bill makes discrete amendments to one Act and is relatively short in size, it will be progressed under urgency through the House to allow parliamentary time to be freed up for more complex legislation to come. The progression under urgency—if the House agrees—will allow savings within the legal aid funding to be realised sooner. The Government wants to see the savings made from ceasing legal aid funding for section 27 reports used to improve services for victims of crime over the next 12 months. The financial impacts of this law change will be closely monitored so that informed decisions can be made about how and when this will happen. Announcements will be made in due course.

The bill fulfils the Government’s commitment to defund section 27 reports, and it is the first of many planned changes to sentencing policy with the ultimate goal of improving public confidence in the justice system. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Labour opposes this bill for three main reasons. The first reason is that it will increase reoffending. The second reason is more offending will create more victims of crime. And, third, it creates a two-tiered justice system. It is just another example of a Government that is hooked on slogans, not solutions, and they have no interest in fixing the challenges that New Zealand now confronts.

Number one: increase offending. Section 27 reports look at reasons, not excuses. They look at what the offender’s behaviour is. They consider how someone’s background might have contributed to the offending; if any actions may have been taken to resolve the offending; and, most importantly, what support mechanisms might prevent further offending. The backgrounds of these offenders commonly include things like substance abuse, personality disorders, neurodivergence, learning difficulties, brain injuries, poverty, and trauma, including family violence—extraordinary rates of historic family, sexual, and violent victimisations. These are the drivers of crime. ACT and National are not interested in understanding the drivers of crime. Having this information allows judges to more deeply consider why someone has come before the court and how to prevent them from coming back again and reoffending. These drivers of crime, if they go unaddressed, the likelihood of further reoffending is high. If a judge doesn’t know what factors contributed to an offender’s behaviour, they cannot address those factors at sentencing.

We know through written parliamentary questions that the Minister of Justice has not asked for or received any analysis of the impact of section 27 reports on reoffending, and so he has no understanding of the impacts of taking these away on the victims of crime. So, for a Government that has set out to be intent on increasing victims’ rights and improving New Zealand for victims, this legislation does exactly the opposite of what they’ve set out to do.

This bill, sadly, will mean there are more victims of crime, because the drivers of crime are not addressed and offenders reoffend. I suspect that the Ministry of Justice may well have done some analysis on this, and maybe that is the reason why we are not proceeding through to the committee stage tonight. I can’t wait to take a good look at this regulatory impact statement and to understand exactly what’s gone on behind the scenes, but instead of facts tonight, we’ll be hearing the political reckons from those opposite. ACT claims that section 27 reports are being used to favour criminals and go soft on victims, and that scrapping them will make our country safer and ensure that sentencing is appropriate to the crime. These claims have no basis in evidence or reality; they just sound tough. The president of the New Zealand Bar Association has said, in relation to this bill, “There are significant risks that will make it harder for judges to impose appropriate sentences, [it will] undermine rehabilitation and adversely impact [the] reoffending [rate].” That means more victims.

Finally, what this bill does is create a two-tiered justice system, giving those people who can pay for a section 27 report an unfair advantage. Section 27 and its predecessor arose from a clear need, an urgent need, to address inequitable criminal justice outcomes for Māori, to recognise that prison sentences were failing to prevent recidivist offending, and also to prioritise options for rehabilitation and action on those fronts. With funding of written reports removed, section 27 provisions will only be available for those with private financial resources, wealthier groups that have a greater level of representation, and those in poverty go hard out. This will directly impact Māori and Pasifika communities in New Zealand. There are issues or problems with how these reports are doing, and let’s look into that. Let’s have a crack at fixing them. But this Government has no interest in solutions, only sound bites.

For a Government that funds tax cuts with more smoking and cutting benefits, there seems to be no limit on how low they will punch. This bill is just another ornament on the 100-day plan of nothing. If National and ACT genuinely cared about the victims of crime, they would turn around and stop this bill.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. There are so many avenues of—well, no surprise that this is the approach that this Government is taking to some serious issues that need grown up, enduring solutions and responses, not the dog-whistling approach; the dog-whistling to ill-informed emotion. What needs to be understood here is that for so long now we have had the evidence—we have had the evidence—screeds and screeds of it, in fact, over decades. The Government also has at its fingertips, it’s called Integrated Data Infrastructure, but what that actually means is the very data that we have been gathering around the background of people, including young people who offend—the very diverse, complex, often generational, deeply challenging hardships and structural discrimination; many, if not most, offenders can find themselves on a path that is not healthy for them or the community.

So the Government seeks—it’s not even low-hanging fruit; it’s actually dropped and rotting on the ground—the solution that they are grabbing in wanting to remove the funding for the cultural reports, is what they are called; the reports that give judges far more information to be able to make good judgments in the court. I thought that’s what this place could at least uphold: good information to inform decisions is what this Minister and this Government are choosing to remove—do I only get five minutes on this?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Yeah.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Oh, OK—what this Government is choosing to remove. Now, what that also creates is an inequity because those who—and, as if our justice system didn’t already have bias; now, that’s not even up for debate. That has been well traversed by many reports and research. As if the justice system didn’t already have that bias, this legislation actually still allows those with the means and the networks and the resources to still be able to pull on more information for judges in the courts, thereby entrenching already unjust inequities, that you can have a better chance at justice if you have got the means.

The particular sore point—but, again, not surprising, for the Green Party to sharply oppose this legislation—is the tangata whenua and Tiriti considerations. So noting again that there has already been clear evidence that the system discriminates. Who? I saw a lot of the National Party MPs at the Salvation Army breakfast last week, didn’t we, Celia? We saw a lot of you there. We saw a lot of the National Party MPs there, supposedly listening. One of the key things that they said was “tough on crime”. The system has already been tough on Māori—far more tough on Māori than anyone else. That was what was spoken to at that breakfast last week. Were those members listening? Were they listening at all to that incredible research? That’s just the latest in a long line of research that has said the very same thing. Māori are more likely to be apprehended, convicted, sentenced more harshly for doing the same thing—the same thing. That is incomprehensible discrimination in our justice system, racism, and the removing of the funding for these cultural reports, which were one small but significant way of trying to mitigate the systemic bias that far too much of our research has already affirmed.

I am quite appalled—quite appalled—that this Government would just blatantly, basically, put up its hand and go, “Yep, we know there is already bias in the system. We’re going to make it worse.” Not surprised, but we will be exposing the hypocrisy of this Government at every opportunity. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support of this bill, which, obviously, is amending the Legal Services Act. I’m very proud to be a part of a Government, made up of National, ACT, and New Zealand First, that actually has a cohesive plan to tackle crime in our community. We heard time and time again during the campaign that Kiwis feel that crime has got out of control in our communities, and also that the system has become unbalanced—where victims’ rights are taking second seat to offenders’ rights.

Now, we’re not seeking to remove section 27 from the Act, and the Minister made that very clear. That option will still be available to all offenders, and they can call people to speak on their behalf in court and actually have personal testimonies of things that may affect their sentencing and actually explain, potentially, their offending. What we are stopping is the taxpayer funding an industry which has sprung up as an unintended consequence of paying for these reports by the taxpayer.

Again, as was outlined by the Minister, under the last Labour Government, $25 million has been spent on these reports. If you google search “cultural reports”—and these are actually section 27 reports; let’s get the terminology right. But if you go and google cultural reports or section 27 reports, half a dozen websites will appear where you can just log on and ask for a report to be written. You don’t have to have any attachment to the offender. You don’t actually even need to know the person. You can just commission someone who has actually no connection to the offender or the case.

So we are not removing section 27—that will still be available to people—but we are removing the taxpayer funding. It’s just a small way of actually rebalancing our justice system. So I look forward to the continued debate, but ACT will be supporting this.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Minister of Customs): I rise to speak in support of the Legal Services Amendment Bill, and I commend my colleague for his clarification that this is not a bill proposing to remove the section 27 reports.

I rise somewhat astounded at the lack of faith in our judiciary and the way in which they have been discredited in their ability to understand the differential between an impassioned personal plea under a section 27 report from someone who actually has an association to the offender—whether it is whānau, iwi, hapū, friend, employer—and a pre-commissioned, rote report by someone who has absolutely no connection to the offender.

I think I stand in support of the judiciary and their ability to differentiate what is a useful and valuable report. I also stand in support of the victims, who I’m somewhat confused as to how they are adversely affected by this in a process that is part of the judiciary system—it’s part of the justice system. It will ensure that the offender has the opportunity to be heard and their circumstances voiced by someone who actually cares about them.

The victims will be afforded the respect of not being funded out of their voice by a system that has become a commercial enterprise and very little about the rights of victims and improving the justice system. So, on that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau): Madam Speaker, thank you. I rise to object to the bill, for these reasons. The bill amends the Legal Services Act to cut legal aid funding for section 27 reports. Funding matters. The previous speaker referred to taxpayers’ money as if Māori aren’t taxpayers. So I just wanted to note that and reject that idea. These reports provide sentencing judges with background information and insight into a person’s background, into their whānau, and into any historical trauma, and provide context to their lives that often can lead, when there’s trauma, to offending. Māori are not born offenders; we’re not born into it—just to make that clear.

These reports give judges a full picture of the person, and that statement cannot be made lightly. Why do I know that? It’s because I was part of a team that used to put these together, and the usefulness that the judges found, and the purpose of them for whānau—that they provided not only a well-written narrative but the cultural context, though these section 27 reports are not just cultural reports. To that point, it’s used as part of a narrative, unfortunately, again, as another exercise to make cultural/Māori wrong. That’s what the narrative creates—cultural puts “Hmm, those Māori are getting off lighter sentences.” This is how it’s discussed. How do I know? I used to work in that setting and these are the kinds of conversations that used to run regularly in court rooms, unfortunately. So those points I make in my speech tonight.

Crime in Aotearoa is the result of poverty and disconnection from your community and whakapapa. Whakapapa is genealogy; it is who you come from and who you are. Let’s say it’s this word: deculturation. I’m happy to discuss what that means with others if they don’t know what that word means. It is the result of colonisation—something that this Government seems to be good with, I think, given for Māori, on balance, I think that was one of the Minister’s statements recently.

You cannot call tough on crime when you are insistent on being soft to poverty and blind to poverty and ignorant on critical analysis—critical cultural analysis—and out of touch with reality and, worst of all, indifferent to Māori, indifferent to whānau, indifferent to hapū, indifferent to the reality. I know what whānau have to deal with, with the barriers they have to contend with on a day-to-day basis of which very few will really know in reality.

As part of their 100-day plan, this Government has pledged to end section 27 reports, which they’ve dubbed “cultural reports”—and I made comments to that earlier—but whatever language we’re using, words matter. Words like “cultural” often is slash for Māori, which is, I think I said before, made wrong. While these reports are available to people of all backgrounds, this Government’s fixation on the word “culture” has created a convenient narrative.

We know for a fact that when it comes to criminal justice systems, the case is that Māori are some of the worst over-incarcerated people on the planet. We are more likely to be pursued, arrested, and charged for crimes different to non-Māori. There’s a new charge in town, it’s called a DWB—driving while brown. The only time Māori receive any special treatment in the justice system is when we’re being profiled in stores, on the street, in car parks, in courts, and in corridors. Wāhine Māori make up 64 percent of the female prison population, and tāne make up 50 percent.

By removing funding for section 27 reports, these statistics will only be worse. Unilaterally, removing funding means a greater risk of unfair and ineffective sentences, a higher rate of sentence appeals, and will create a situation where those who can afford to privately pay for these reports will be more advantaged—and we Māori will be disadvantaged yet again.

Māori are over-represented as both victims and criminals in the system. To ignore the systemic deprivation results in colonisation in the sentencing process is just another breach of article 1 and 2.

JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Can I apologise to the member for Te Tai Tokerau for inadvertently interrupting before. I didn’t intend to do that; I just can’t read clearly it seems tonight—much like many of the members who also can’t read the text of this bill, because it’s quite clear what the bill does. It does not cancel section 27 reports; it removes the legal aid disbursement requirement. That’s it. That’s all it does.

Members also appear not to be able to read the bill correctly because nothing in the section 27 of the Sentencing Act actually requires paid reports. Now, we’ve got this intense cottage industry filled up with consultants and people feathering their nests, when actually all the intention of this section was was to allow accused the opportunity to bring their family, their background, their community, their whānau before the courts to give context and insight into their upbringing. I think that one thing members opposite should be most insulted about is that these are called cultural reports, and not for the reasons they say, but because it implies that an offenders offending is due to their culture, and that to me is one of the most insulting things that anyone in this House could ever imply.

Just one more thing on this. Members opposite speak a lot about Maōri overrepresentation in incarceration rates; not a single one has talked about Maōri overrepresentation as victims of crime. So let’s think about that a bit more clearly, a bit more carefully when we move forward on this bill. Thank you.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Given that we’ve only got five minutes for this first contribution, I want to start with the departmental disclosure statement, Part 3, “Testing of the Legislative Content: Consistency with New Zealand’s international obligations”. What steps have been taken to determine whether the policy to be given effect by the bill is consistent with New Zealand’s international obligations?

This says, from the Ministry of Justice, “it is unclear how the proposal fits with New Zealand’s international commitments, such as the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. Māori are over-represented in the criminal justice system, and the funding change may exacerbate this disparity, as a high proportion of Māori and Pacific peoples offenders receive a legally-aided section 27 report, compared with New Zealand European and others. Due to the time constraints, though, no steps have been taken to conclusively determine the effect of this bill.” Second: “Consistency with the Government’s Treaty of Waitangi obligations”. The ministry consulted with another ministry—Te Puni Kōkiri—and, it says, “who did not support the policy. But, due to the time constraints under the 100-day plan, no other consultation with Māori has taken place”.

Now, today we have heard them saying that we are saying on this side that we are getting rid of section 27 reports. I’ve listened to the debate. Not a single person said that. You’re all saying that on the other side of the House, as if we—no, the other side of the House, the Government is saying that the Opposition has been saying this. None of us have said that. We are very clear that your intentions through the amendment and in this section is to take the funding away. What is the effect of that? What are the implications of taking that away? It means that there is going to be access to justice issues. Now, Mr Meager, who is a lawyer—

Hon Members: Was, was, was. He’s gone up in the world.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —should I tell you that the New Zealand Law Society says they oppose it. They oppose it, right? Oh well, they had a law degree, right? So you know this, the New Zealand Law Society, not just the Opposition, they oppose it, because it significantly limits access to justice. Then Te Hunga Rōia Māori O Aotearoa also put out a press statement saying they “strongly oppose the Government’s plans to withdraw funding for section 27 reports”.

Then we’ve got comments from the president of the New Zealand Bar Association. These people, who work in the sector, are saying that this strikes at the rights of all to equal access to justice—that was the Law Society. Further, the Bar Association co-chair Rachael Reed says that the point of them is to consider the evidence about the impact of the reports since their use. This is what they are urging the Government to do. They are asking the Government, taihoa—don’t rush. You know, rush according to this, rush according to this; can’t do all of the things that you would usually do when you’re introducing new legislation in policy because rush, rush, rush. What they’re asking for is that the Government consider the evidence about the impact of the reports since their use to determine whether the cost benefit justifies their continuation, and when assessed against reoffending rates and rehabilitation gains made.

But, no. This Government doesn’t want to take any advice on this. They don’t want to do any analysis on this. They just want to punch down on those who use the section 27 reports. By dressing it up and saying, “We’re not taking them away, but, effectively, we’re removing the funding.”, which means that those who need to access them—who can get them? Those that can afford to. Who can’t access them? Those that can’t afford to. Who are those people disproportionately in the justice system? Māori. That’s who it is, Mr Meager: Māori. And so, without doing any analysis, without doing any consultation with anybody who knows anything about this, this Government has just decided to introduce this bill tonight. Cost savings. What for? Tax cuts. Again, are we going to have people serving longer and unfair sentences in prison because they didn’t have access to this, because they don’t have the funding for it, right? For a tax cut. That’s what you stand for. Kia ora. We do not support this bill.

CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): I rise in support of the Legal Services Amendment Bill, first reading. We just heard from the previous speaker, the Hon Willow-Jean Prime, that this Government has just decided to introduce this bill tonight: “This Government has just decided to introduce this bill tonight” was the direct quote, if my shorthand is right. Well, no, can I get on the record that this was something that was heavily consulted with and heavily debated during a long, long election campaign. Guess what! One and a half million New Zealanders said, “Go to work on our law and order policies.” As a result, we have 68 MPs on this side of the House, and they have 55. So this is not something that some are trying to give the TV audience that this was landed on the Order Paper tonight. This was well consulted on and well supported.

Just as scrapping Labour’s prison reduction policies—that’s also been ticked off, I think, in the 100-day plan. Is that gone? That’s already been. Capping sentencing discounts to 40 percent—I think that’s coming as well. Getting tough on gangs—that’s also coming as part of this 100-day plan. This was a well-coordinated, well-campaigned on, well-signalled part of the law and order policies and part of our coalition agreement with the ACT Party. Again, as other members have said, we are not getting rid of section 27—we’re not, despite their repeated claims. All we are doing is defunding it. When that was mentioned and that was suggested in town halls up and down New Zealand—small towns, big districts, big cities, wherever, all around New Zealand—it was met with applause.

So this is something that despite what the previous member said that it’s just landed here tonight, this has come as a suite of law and order policies. You’ll see a lot more coming at you, the Opposition. So I commend this and I look forward to further debate as to what New Zealanders actually want, and that is that they want to see these cultural reports defunded by the taxpayer. As the Minister of Justice, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, has said, this is an industry that went in 2017—that magical year; that was the last great year, wasn’t it, 2017—$40,000 spent. The previous Government then spent $25 million. So it’s out of control. And the New Zealand public will be sending in the cards of gratitude as we speak. Thank you.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise, of course, in support of my colleagues on this side of the House, to not commend this particular bill to the House. I’ve heard a number of catchcries or phrases from the other side of the House that they like to use when they’re out on the street, like “cottage industries”, making it sound like there was a rort being had. Well, let me remind that side of the House, when National were in power and they imposed meth testing on houses that set a standard that made sure that people had to test their houses for meth, it turned out to be bollocks—turned out to be an absolute farce. What happened was a cottage industry was created, worth far more than this, that imposed these kinds of regulations on house owners, and those who were looking to rent or those who were renting, and were prejudiced through that particular process. If that side of the House wants to talk about cottage industries, they need only look in the mirror at what they’ve done to support cottage industries around this country.

My colleagues on this side of the House have articulated our point really well on this particular bill. One point I want to raise to the House is, as I look through the regulatory impact statement (RIS), having been a Minister for six years, having seen my fair share of RIS papers delivered for bills, I find it quite interesting that there are redacted pieces in the RIS. That’s, from my experience, not a common practice, not something that I’ve ever seen in my decade in the House—especially on the RIS, where the analysis is required in order to inform the House, inform the debate. So the question must be asked: what is that side of the House hiding? What is the Government hiding on such an important bill, to make sure that this side of the House, those who are opposing their actions here—what are they hiding? That’s the question that we will continue to prosecute as this bill continues further through the House.

The other point I want to raise is, as we look towards this bill—and I’ve already talked about the cottage industry claims from the other side—that this sends a very clear intention. I’ve seen a few of the members on the other side of the House go to Youth Court or Rangatahi Courts around the country—a fantastic kaupapa, actually, that looks towards supporting our young people so that they don’t end up in the justice system. This sends a signal that the support that those young people have from their whānau, from their community, to make sure that the sentence they receive isn’t something that’ll continue to bind them into the justice and, indeed, into the corrections system—this sends a signal to our whānau who use the Rangatahi Court that this heavy-handed Government is there to create a further pipeline of our people. I say “our people” broadly, but, of course, we’ve already heard the statistics about Māori, about Pacific, and about low socio-economic communities creating a pipeline from the cradle to the prison system. That’s what this does.

The other side might say, “Well, we’re not taking away.” Well, what they’re doing is making it unattainable. It’s nothing new from this Government, because they do it on so many other things—they pull the ladder up when they’ve climbed it. Once many of the Ministers have climbed up a ladder, then they look back at everyone else and pull the ladder up. They’ve done it on benefits, they continue to do in the legal system, and they continue to do it in the justice system and in the corrections system.

Therefore, the Legal Services Amendment Bill that the Minister of Justice is pushing through will be heavily contested by this side of the House, and my colleagues, far more learned than me on these matters, will continue to prosecute our case to say that, actually, there was a better way to do this. If the Government was that well-intentioned with respect to this amendment bill, we could have sat down and worked with them, worked with the communities to say, “Actually, let’s come up with a way that we can do this and do this collaboratively and do this in a way that won’t create further harm in our communities.” Sadly, they didn’t take that opportunity. Sadly, they didn’t take the opportunity to consult widely on such an important matter.

I’m sure that as members of the House leave the Chamber and we go, and, every now and then, we fraternise and we talk and chat amongst ourselves—each and every one of us will know a whānau member who’s had to go through the justice system, and we’ve all got a case where we can say, “Geez, if only they knew more about that person, more about that person’s background.” I guarantee that every member in the House has a whānau member like that. That’s why, on this side of the House, we are opposing the actions of this Government, and we will continue to oppose this as this bill proceeds through the House.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to issue an apology to all the victims of rape, an apology to all the victims of violence, an apology to all the victims of aggravated robbery, for the $7.7 million of taxpayers’ money that was spent on those reports, trying to lessen the sentences of the perpetrators of those crimes against them. This is what we’re forgetting: we’re forgetting about the victims. What the other side doesn’t understand is that the victims are actually very important and should be the most important in this discussion. I have no shame about standing up for the rights of victims, and I’m sick and tired of people on the other side of the House making it out as if we don’t care. No, we care enough to care about the victims of rape, the victims of aggravated robbery, the victims of crime. 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 first time.

Ayes 68

New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Members, this bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Second Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Legal Services Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

I’d like to thank members for their views on this bill in their first reading speeches. I accept that there may not be unanimous support for this bill, but the Government remains convinced that bringing an end to taxpayer funding of the cottage industry of section 27 report writers is necessary to rebuild confidence in the justice system and public spending.

I’m surprised at the change in the Labour Party. I remember the former Minister of Justice Kiri Allan conceding, when we pushed her on the increase from $40,000 a year to over $7 million a year for these reports, that “Maybe this was something we need to look into in Government.” So a year ago, those members were prepared to look into it, but now they’re opposed to any changes, and, as the previous speaker said, this bill sends a signal. Well, it certainly does send a signal. It sends a signal that this Government is careful with its money; secondly, it is taxpayers’ money that we’re careful with; and, thirdly, we’re going to instil real consequences for crime.

Up and down the country as we campaigned last year and continued to talk to the population, the number one issue was the cost of living, and number two was restoring law and order, and people want to see that. So the proposed minor amendment to the Legal Services Act exempts section 27 reports from the range of legal aid disbursements that can be approved, without limiting the independence of the Legal Services Commissioner. This bill doesn’t change section 27 of the Sentencing Act in any way, nor does it place any limits on the background information that offenders can provide to the court. Offenders can continue to use section 27 to call anybody to speak on factors, either in court or in written form; the thing that is changed is the funding arrangements.

I think we’ve seen as the debate has rolled how it’s gone from $40,000 in 2017, to $7.5 million. I have no doubt that if the people on this side of the House weren’t raising this issue through last year and the year before and pointing out the massive increase in spending, it would have continued on a trajectory towards $10 million and further, and that is money that could be spent, we think, more wisely in the legal aid system. Information on the offenders’ background will continue to be presented to the court through other sources, such as their lawyer, the pre-sentence reports that the Department of Corrections prepares, or other reports that may be appropriate, such as alcohol and drug assessments or psychologists’ reports, and through letters of support from family and friends and letters from rehabilitation programme providers.

Progressing this bill under urgency allows Parliament’s time to be freed up for the more complex legislation to come in the justice sector. Of course, we’ve outlined in our 100-day plan the need to give police more powers to deal with the gangs in our community, and moving further on to wider changes within the sentencing regime. So we’ve got much to do in this Government. There’s a lot of work to be done to restore law and order and to give people confidence that the Government is on the side—

Hon Member: Will it be scrutinised?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —of ordinary citizens, law-abiding citizens, who want to feel safe in their communities, and our emphasis will be on the victims of crime—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Well, then a more appropriate sentence with a focus on rehabilitation would be a better thing for them.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —rather than necessarily the needs of the perpetrators of crime. I’m getting plenty of commentary from the other side, and I’m sure members of the public will be able to assess that. We will look closely at the financial impacts of the rules change to ensure that Government spending is allocated effectively and that savings can be used to improve services to deal more effectively with violent crime.

This bill delivers on a Government commitment to defund these reports, and I’d like to just remind people that what we’re seeing at the moment is what some people might regard as slightly unusual. A series of parties campaigned during an election campaign for a change, they get elected, and then, when they’re elected, they get into Government and do what they said they were going to do, and that’s what we’re doing on this side of the House. We said we were going to stop the funding for these cultural reports, we said we were going to end the cottage industry, and here we are, a couple of months after being in Government, and we’re doing it.

That, I hope, will give New Zealanders and the people of this country confidence that this is a Government that will do what it says it’s going to do, and one of the critical things that this Government is going to achieve for this country is we’re going to restore law and order. This bill is one step in that direction, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, where do I begin? Where do I begin? So I think the first thing to clear up is that, for the record, at no point in time did any party on the Opposition benches at any stage ever say that this was going to be taken away. We’ve always focused on the defunding. So if you want one of these reports professionally written and delivered in front of a judge, you have to pay for it. That absolutely rules out a large proportion of New Zealand society who cannot afford to pay. Once again, as with benefit cuts and as with increasing smoking, this is a Government that is focused on punching down, on finding those who are most vulnerable in our community and making sure that their lives are even worse than they are already. The sad part about that is the savings that are made for that punching down go in the pockets of those middle-income New Zealanders who are going to receive a tax cut at the Budget.

Now that we’ve cleared up that bit, the next bit I think I’d like to point out is in the regulatory impact statement. What’s really interesting in this regulatory impact statement is it says: “What is the problem?” I love it when they ask this. Officials are so honest; they just say, “What’s the problem we’re trying to solve here?” And the problem, it says, is “the Government’s 100-day commitment plan”. That’s the problem that we’re trying to solve. So, basically, these guys have promised them stuff, and we’ve got to go do it. So that’s the problem we’re trying to solve.

Then they go on to talking about “Who are the stakeholders in this issue, what is the nature of their interest, and how are they [going to be] affected?” They list out who the stakeholders are. So “the court”—that’s listed—is the first one. “The offender”, that’s the second one. The next one is “the legal aid provider”. The next one is the “section 27 report provider”. We haven’t seen any Māori so far, and we don’t ever. And last on the list are “victims”—last on the list. They get four lines—actually three and a half lines. In the entire regulatory impact statement, we get three and a half lines about the impact on victims. And let me read it: “The victims of crime have an interest in this issue,”—Wow, that’s good!—”including the impact of section 27 reports on sentencing. Victims will continue to have the ability to have their views heard by the court through victim impact statements.”—so, basically, victims lose their voice through section 27 reports; and the final sentence—“We do not have any information on the views of victims.” So don’t you lecture us on what we’re doing for victims, when your own regulatory impact statement—your own regulatory impact statement—states, “We do not have any information on the views of victims.” None. Not one consultation. So if, in this House, a member is going to stand and lecture on what’s right for victims, you might want to read your own regulatory impact statement, which clearly states that not one single victim has been involved or consulted on the impact of taking away legal funding for section 27 reports.

But it gets better—it gets better. It gets better because they put up some other options. And do you know what? I really like the other options. So option one: status quo. Option two is to remove the taxpayer funding for section 27 reports, which is clearly what’s going to be the outcome, because they’ve promised it in the 100-day plan. But the next one’s better. I like “impose a cap on the reports writers’ fees”. What about that one? Let’s talk about that one. What about option four? That’s quite good too—”Introduce an accreditation system for section 27 report writers.” That’s a good one. I wish I had thought of that. “The legal aid funding for section 27 report writers would continue, but changes could be [made or] introduced to restrict [the] funding to report writers who had been accepted under an accreditation scheme.”—that’s a great idea—”The scheme would ensure [that] writers met [an] agreed criteria, including qualities such as relevant experience and knowledge of the personal, family, whānau, community, and cultural background of the offender.” Why aren’t we doing that one? Because that would be better, and that wouldn’t have the impact of increasing reoffending, increasing the number of victims, and creating a two-tier justice system. So I like that one.

To wind up, I’d just like to point out the fact that if you’re going to have a 100-day plan, it would be great if there was some substance in it, but all of these things are simply window dressing. They look good. They’re a sound bite. They’re an ornament. They tick your box. You’re able to say, “We campaigned on this, and we did it.”, but if you can stand up, hand on heart—hand on heart—and actually say, “What is the solution? What is the solution to the problem we’ve identified?” No solutions are coming from those members opposite—not one single solution—because what this bill does is it actually makes the problem you’re trying to fix worse. It makes it worse, and all those who have commented publicly—whether it be the Chief Justice, or whether it’s the Bar Association or it’s the Law Society, the legal fraternity have come out and stated, “What this does is increase reoffending.” And when you increase reoffending, you increase victimisation, and what that does is make New Zealand society more fragmented, it increases crime, and it makes things worse. So, for all the tough talk we hear, there are no solutions for the problem that’s been identified, and the only problem that this bill fixes is addressing something in the 100-day plan, and that’s sad.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): I get 10 minutes this time? OK, I’ll just stretch a little bit. So the opposite members of the bench proclaim to be voicing concerns for victims. Well, we will hold them to that. I urge those members to go immediately and read the reports of the Chief Victims Adviser. I urge those members immediately to go and read Te Aorerekura, the violence prevention strategy. I urge those members to go and read the Human Rights Commission report on the discrimination in the justice system against Māori, Pasifika, young people, and brown people. I urge those members to highlight the evidence, very clearly, that will show that removing the funding—so here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. On the one hand, the Government members are trying to say, “We’re tough on crime. We’re about the victims.”, but, actually, the ability to maintain section 27 reports is still there. It’s still there. So they’re not concerned about “tough on crime”. They’re concerned about removing the ability to access what only the rich are left to be able to access. So how is that for some hypocritical action? It’s still there. It’s still there, but they’re removing the access for people who cannot afford it.

Now, I spent the last three years as a violence prevention Minister focused, finally, on the system centring victims—on the system centring victims. I also was the chief panellist on the Owen Glenn inquiry into domestic violence and child abuse. Does that Government want to know what is really in the way of victims receiving justice? Well, here is just a snippet. If those members really care about victims of sexual violence and abuse, here is what I have heard directly from members and advocates who have been working on victims’ access to justice for decades. Get ready for this. How about this: people who have been sexually offended and abused by people who already have standing in the community and have access to powerful lawyers and networks across the system. How about that? How about they stand up to be a voice against the powerful access to justice that women who might have been in a relationship with a school principal or a lawyer or a police officer or a businessman or people who are already leaders in the so-called justice system, and, therefore, have been gaslit because of the influence that their perpetrators and offenders hold and therefore get away with it.

If this Government actually cared about justice for victims, it would sit down with victims and survivors of rape, with victims and survivors of sexual offending—with, how about this, the many victims that the State institutions have ruined for generations with the violence that they have suffered, that they have had to confront. Many of those victims have also, unfortunately, yes, at times, ended up in the docks as offenders. Do we not think it is important to take into account the incredible harm, injury, and injustice that those offenders were subject to and did not receive justice for? Where were those voices then for the victims? If this Government is truly concerned with reducing crime and reoffending, removing the funding is actually the opposite.

Now, second reading is normally where we might ordinarily hear from the actual experts in the community who have been working at the front line of trying to reduce offending. Reducing offending on the front lines: social workers, youth workers, marae workers, many who have the expertise and lived experience. We would hear from them, their voices. They have written across social media and across media, and they have been very clear: all that removing the funding for cultural reports will do is entrench further discrimination in a justice system that already is trying to resolve its own discrimination. It already admits that the justice system has been tougher on Māori than it has been on, say, the non-Māori, very well-resourced businessman who has been causing pain and sexual abuse and violence to his partner but, because of the hook-ups, has got away with it. So do not sit in this House and yell at us about who cares for victims, because removing the funding for these reports is not caring about victims.

Now, there are solutions, and victims have been very clear about what is needed to overhaul to a system that actually does centre victims. Victims have been very clear. One of the things—again, the members can go and read in Chief Victims Adviser reports that this current adversarial justice approach actually ends up harming victims more, because, by its nature, it requires a winner and a loser. And guess who has been losing! Victims. And it has not been because of cultural reports—it has not been because of cultural reports. It has been because of wealth and privilege, privilege and wealth, and because of a system not understanding the dynamics of violence—because of a system not having the collective expertise of the dynamics of violence, and because of the inbuilt patriarchy that goes against women.

Hon Members: Oh!

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Oh, OK. “Oh!”, you say. I wish those members would roll their eyes in front of victims. I wish they had victims in front of them, to roll their eyes at any mention of this system being patriarchal and that that is what has offended victims and blocked them from justice. I can’t wait to take those offensive responses of those members back to the many stakeholder victims groups that I am closely working with and will stay connected to. I cannot wait. I cannot wait for them to expose themselves for outright denying the evidence and the voices of victims—their voices, their lived experiences, their solutions. Not once, in three years of sitting with victims, as a Minister, have I heard them ask to remove these cultural reports. Not once.

So shame on this Government. Shame on them for trying to exploit rape—because using this racist legislation is trying to exploit rape and sexual violence. Do not yell at us who have been working deeply with victims on improving a system that actually delivers justice for victims. Their voice isn’t in this. It never has been in this legislation, and I will maintain my anger and my connection with them. I will not drop their voice from these arguments. How dare this Government try and exploit victims in favour of some legislation that is just going to keep those privileged with the resources to be privileged. Shame on them.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you. I rise once again to speak in favour of this bill. I want to acknowledge the passion from other members of the House, but we do have a different response to how we want to deal with criminal justice in New Zealand, and we see this as a part of an overall plan that our parties have put together to deal with it. I’m sorry that the Hon Ginny Andersen isn’t still in the House, because I was able to point out what the problem is as we see it—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I just interrupt the member and remind him not to mention the absence of members in the House.

TODD STEPHENSON: Yep, sorry—I hope to be able to address some of the points she had raised. The problem as we see it is quite clear: in 2017, section 27 reports were costing $40,000; last financial year, $7.7 million. This has gone unchecked and it’s time to rein it in, and that is what we are doing. The ability to put information before the court, as has been well discussed tonight, will still be available. Offenders can have people come and speak to them. I know the power, in my very short time at the criminal bar, of actually having an employer turn up and speak on behalf of an offender and actually talk about how they can help that person actually stop their reoffending. That’s what was envisaged by section 27, actually having people with a personal connection, whether it’s whānau, an employer, other people in the community actually coming along, speaking on that person’s behalf at no cost and actually demonstrating to the court how they could help that offender. This is a sensible change to stop this taxpayer funding, and we commend it to the House.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Minister of Customs): I also rise again to speak in support of the Legal Services Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the passion and concern that was expressed with regard to victims.

I can assure the House that I have held the victims after being raped, I have nursed the children who have been beaten, I have looked into the victim’s eyes, and I have retained a faith in the judiciary and the justice system to act appropriately. As was raised across the House, we have all been involved in those circumstances where we have had to advocate for people we know, for whānau, for those we are connected with, and for those who we don’t know but feel a compassion to represent. That is still available and will continue to be available.

I have enormous faith in iwi and hapū for being able to stand up for even those who they have no direct connection to, without cost, to advocate for those who are vulnerable, those who need intervention, and that will also continue to exist under this legislation amendment. It is the judiciary who will weigh up the value of the information presented to them and they will know the difference between a well-coiled-up report written by professionals using special-speak and those impassioned pleas that are given by those who have genuine concern and connection to the offenders and want to see the very best outcomes.

It is for that reason that we do not need taxpayer funding to milk the system, as has been occurring, but we do need the recognition of true, concerned community members to advocate for those who need it at the time of sentencing to represent their concerns. For that reason, I fully support this bill.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau): Kia ora, tēnā koe. I stand to tautoko my sister here, partly, to—oh, not partly that I support her, but partly to discuss this in this way. What you just witnessed, it’s not passion, so don’t dismiss it as such. It is not passion; it is experience, it is knowledge, and without it, we’re not as well off as we could be. To dismiss it in such a way, particularly by some of the expressions I saw on the faces of members across the House, I don’t quite understand that—it’s offensive and probably needs some work, I would suggest. To suggest that this side of House—and the Māori Party, for instance—ignore pain of victims is also false and mischievous. To suggest that we take a line on this bill as if we don’t understand what the pain is for victims is false and you need to rethink that—sorry, that side of the House needs to rethink that.

At Tūrangawaewae, at least 20,000 people turned up to say what the Government was doing was just out the gate and needs some attention. Sixty thousand turned up at Waitangi and addressed Government across the paepae and said very clearly, in seven different ways—but in the language that only the Government can understand, which is the monolingual thing, English—so they could understand that they are letting whānau down. So when one of the previous speakers suggested that “We went to lots of community halls.”, it has to be a joke, really, because I didn’t hear him say “marae”; I didn’t hear him say “rūnanga”; I didn’t hear him say “whānau settings”. I heard him say “community halls”, which is, probably, essentially, Pākehā settings, just saying. This concerns me as well, given that the Minister on record has said, “On balance, colonisation is good for Māori.”—and he said it, so I’m not making that up. But the point I’m making is it is embedded in the discussion, and therefore is embedded in his thinking, which is a huge concern. When any Minister says, “Colonisation was good for Māori, on balance.”, that is atrocious, disgusting, and needs to be challenged in every single way, and 60,000 people did—60,000 people did in Waitangi.

To take funding away—that’s the point. To suggest that taking funding away, but, you know, “You can still have friendly Māori people and whānau come along and stand up.”, that’s just ridiculous. It’s ridiculous—I know, because I used to do this work for many years in the Ngāti Hine Health Trust. I used to run programmes in prisons, for goodness’ sake, in Rangipō, so I know—I know—what this takes, Minister, despite what’s less known across the House. I can tell you this with assurance: taking funding away—taking funding away—lessens opportunity; it lessens the access to fair and just decisions. This is what I would call robbing Pita—robbing Pita—to pay Paul or Paula. That’s what this is—this is robbing Pita to pay Paul or Paula. This is a poor way of showing any real, genuine interest. Again, I said it earlier: it’s indifferent to Māori, and I’m saying that and I expect that it’s understood across the House. Trust me when I say this: I know this work—I know this—I know what it takes, and this piece of legislation, it undoes it all. So if 60,000 people can show up in Waitangi, they’ll continue to show up, and that’s why this absolutely needs to be rejected by this party. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): I stand with you today to recognise that the Government is continuing to push forward the agenda of mass incarceration, a colonial agenda that has just resulted in more violence, more indigenous people being incarcerated, and one that is, unfortunately, a global colonial product. What this bill aims to do, in terms of removing legal aid for the creation of cultural reports—

Todd Stephenson: They’re not cultural reports; they’re section 27 reports.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —will cause—section 27 reports—harm to communities who have been failed by successive Governments in a broken justice system.

Tom Rutherford: You were in the last Government.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Indeed, and we were very critical in the last Government around the failure to address issues around mass incarceration. It’s interesting that the member opposite to me, jeering about the past Government, fails to recognise their own complicity, while in Opposition, in actually just calling for more harm for the communities that actually are served by these reports.

So it’s really important that we contextualise, actually, what these reports were for. I’d like to quote Dean of Law at Auckland University of Technology Professor Khylee Quince, who talked about how cultural reports are not just about reducing sentences but also about providing relevant contextual information about offenders, including how they came to be the person before the decision maker, what they’ve done to address the harm, and this report that they have available to them that may provide the basis of the disposition. That process is part of the standard practice of sentencing that has largely left out Māori before the courts for many reasons. Most importantly, she talks about rather than providing an opportunity for a lesser sentence, as commonly touted in the media by people opposite to me, it gives space for Māori whānau, hapū, and iwi, and hapori solutions to be part of the way forward. This is such an important context, because this is about building a justice system that isn’t just about locking people up and throwing out the key and assuming that the problem will go away but actually being able to provide a much greater contextual basis for the justice system to operate. She also recognised that the benefits of these reports extend beyond benefiting Māori.

In fact, for migrant and former refugee communities, these reports are critical—and were critical, actually—in being able to provide that broader context in terms of migrants’ and former refugees’ experiences with the justice system to understand that certain behaviours are caused by the trauma that people may be experiencing from fleeing war and persecution, and that is really important context that needs to be provided.

The people who produce these reports are a lifeline into those people being able to be understood by the justice system and for the involvement of the broader community. We cannot underestimate the ability for these reports to bring about and shed light to context that would enable healing and restoration for Māori, for migrants, and for former refugees.

By recognising that what this Government aims to do is increase sentencing times and, effectively, put more people into prison, what they are doing is creating a life of hardship and inequality for those same people. As somebody who had the pleasure to work with formerly incarcerated people, it was really clear that, actually, our prison system does more harm than good as it is and that we don’t even provide adequate support for people who leave prisons to then reintegrate into our communities. If anything, we have an outdated income support system, and the bill that the ACT Party member talks about will actually only make things worse, and forcing people, as the ACT Party member wants to do, to complete their rehabilitation processes before being able to properly reintegrate actually is not the way forward.

But going back to the bill. This bill will only increase incarceration rates and will increase poverty and will increase violence by not being able to have in place systems that allow for healing and the involvement of the broader community within the operations of our justice system.

JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): I’m glad that members opposite have finally woken up to the idea of the fact that things cost. They talk about cost, and they’ve finally woken up to the impact of costs on our most vulnerable. If they were really, really concerned about the costs of these reports, why haven’t they gone out and asked Harry Tam for his template and offered to do it for free? Because that’s what they’re actually saying here. They’re saying that when you remove legal aid funding that no one will be able to access this unless they are super-rich and super-powerful. Well, where is the members opposite’s compassion and advocacy for those vulnerable if they’re requiring them to pay for the reports and they have no system at all to pay for it?

Now, I noted with interest that, in the previous contributions, the former Minister Peeni Henare lifted up the regulatory impact statement (RIS). And I’m not sure whether he said it was unprecedented or whether it was unusual, but he said that RISs don’t come redacted and it’s very, very unusual to see those come to the House redacted. So I got on the Google machine and I took some advice from young Tom Rutherford and I did some googling. And the very first thing that came up was a document called interim regulatory impact statement establishing the Inspector-General of Defence. And towards the end of the page—I just want to hold up this sheet for everyone—was quite a large, redacted document. The document is dated 2021 and, of course, the Minister of Defence at the time was the Hon Peeni Henare.

So this is a good bill by a good Minister—I commend it to the House.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Oh, Mr Meager—you’ve got the future of Māori in your hands.

Madam Speaker, tuatahi e mihi ana ki a koe, e te whanaunga, Marama, mō tō kaha ki te kōkiri i tēnei kaupapa. E kore mātou e wareware tō kaha ki te whawhai mō tātou, te iwi Māori. E kore mātou e wareware. Tēnei te mihi ki a koe e te whanaunga, e te tuahine.

[Madam Speaker, firstly I would like to acknowledge you, my relative, Marama, for your strength in progressing this initiative. We will not forget your strength to fight for us, the Māori people. We will not forget. I acknowledge you; my relative, my sister.]

I had the privilege of working with Minister Marama Davidson last year when she was in this area. It was a privilege to work with her in this area, because her and I come from—we live in the South Auckland area. We launched her kaupapa at my marae, at Ngā Whare Waatea Marae. I mihi to you, whanaunga, for your passion in terms of this is a thankless, thankless job. I just say to that previous speaker, James Meager, who seemed very casual about this—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Condescending.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Condescending—yes, condescending. I know there’s great hopes for him in terms of te ao Māori. This is one of the most taumaha—heavy—kaupapa that we as a people have engaged in in our lives. It’s been part of my life, too, as a former chief executive for the Manukau Urban Māori Authority, former national chairman of all our urban Māori authorities. This has been one of the issues that we have traversed. Rather than insult the Opposition, as I normally do, I’ll give that a rest—as tempting as it is to insult some of them, and particularly with some of their nonsensical contributions.

My mother, as Marama knows, was the longest-serving Parole Board member in this country—20 years, national Parole Board member. My mother, who was appointed by the National Government and given a damehood by the National Government, Jim Bolger, did all this type of mahi. My mother was as tough as they come. She was furious with some of the offenders who used to come through. There’s no light touches with my mother—no light touches—and she would say, Madam Speaker, and to the House, “I’m embarrassed by what you have done and how you have offended—I’m embarrassed by it.”, and the judges could not hold her back. She was very clear—I just want to be serious here for a while, because I think this concerns all of us. She used to say to me 98 percent of people can be redeemed and only 1 or 2 percent are evil—only 1 or 2 percent are evil. So we followed her, she used to bring the—I have seen the worst of the worst of the worst come to our marae: murderers, paedophiles, rapists. We used to be in shock, and Mum always used to say, “If we don’t deal with them, who deals with them? They have shamed us, they have embarrassed us, but we still have to work with our people.” So we learnt so much from my mum.

These reports that you’re talking about, where Mum touched us—and I think the other side will be interested—is while we would be appalled at the behaviour, disgusted with the behaviour of some of these offenders, she would say, “You know how that murderer was brought up? Under a house, for 10 to 15 years.” She used to say, “What sort of person would that person be after being brought up and tortured under a house for 10 or 15 years?” That’s what Mum used to say. So, you know, there are these types of kōrero that happen in these cultural reports that are so important.

I was listening to Minister Costello over there. When we set up the marae justice courts, Minister Costello, we used to have all our kaumātua come—and I appreciate your kōrero too. We used to have our kaumātua who for years used to do this type of mahi for nothing—for nothing. They did, because our people just—you know this—come to the marae and they do this sort of work for nothing, and when we set up the marae justice courts, we demanded that the taxpayer should pay something for our kaumātua. We demanded that. Why shouldn’t kaumātua be paid in terms of giving all their time and their energy? Why should they have to do all of this and everybody else gets paid except for them?

So what I’m saying to the House tonight is there’s two sides to this—there’s two sides to this. Of course I’m appalled by what happens to victims. I have dealt with the victims, and we have brought these victims in with us, as we’ve proceeded with our restorative justice programmes. We have told our people how they have abused and violated these people’s lives—our aroha is with them, absolutely—but we don’t give up on our people who have inflicted the damage. It goes both ways. National, whether the other side like it or not, have played a major part in that too, and have been part of the strategies in terms of trying to redeem people. Bill English and others have played a part in terms of seeing both sides. It cannot just be a “put them in jail and throw the key away” strategy. It cannot be. It has to work on both sides—it has to be work on both sides. And you cannot, I’ll say tonight, you cannot keep ignoring—why are we ignoring people like Justice Joe Williams? I asked Tama Potaka that. We’re talking about some of the best legal people in the business. Justice Joe Williams is the pride of te ao Māori. He’s saying this type of strategy should not be put in place because, in the end, Māori will be affected hugely by this type of strategy.

Willow-Jean Prime talked about the New Zealand Law Society, Māori Law Society, New Zealand Bar Association—all of them are saying that we need to tread carefully here. I ask the Opposition to consider this, because, rather than us getting into this level of insults—which we’ll probably get into anyway, eventually, we’ll probably get into—let’s try and look at this seriously and maturely. We’ve got communities who are suffering. We’ve got our experts—like Joe Williams, like Kim Workman, like my mother, who was honoured by the National Government—who have said this is not just about our people, people who have been the victims, the victims are on both sides. The victims are on both sides. And the easy way out—the easy way out—is just to go, “We’ll have a hard and fast ACT-type policy.” That hard and fast ACT-type policy was never the National Party policy, but it has become now. It was not—never. You can look back on your own books. Simon Power was holding gang conferences here, for goodness sake. I attended gang conferences here, run by the former justice Minister—they weren’t called gang conferences, I’m going overboard a bit there.

Hon Member: That’s not like you!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That doesn’t sound like me! You had people like Simon Power, you had people like Bill English, who was our man from Whanganui?

Hon Marama Davidson: Chester.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Chester Burrows. These are good people. You know, you lot are a disgrace to their name—I knew I’d get to that. I mean, they would hang their heads in shame, looking at you lot over there. These are good National people who believe in a strategy, and you lot have been duped by this useless right-wing fascist group over here: the ACT Party. You lot have been duped by them.

I say tonight, Mr Meager, you showed so much promise in that maiden speech, but you’re going to the pack every other time you stand up. You’re disappointing us. The journalists might have to have a rethink in terms of your future because, clearly, you’re on the wrong track. So I say tonight—I say tonight—wake up. Wake up. There are two sides to this, and it’s not about just locking people up and throwing the key away.

Hon Member: We’re not talking about that.

Hon Member: What are you talking about, Willie?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: It’s not about—no, that is what you want to do. That’s what’s going to happen when you take the funding away. I want to honour and mihi to Marama Davidson, who set up the framework, who set up the strategy. And I’ve got to say to these Māori members—in particular, James, over there, and my good friend Tama Potaka—wake up and start standing up for your people, because, at the moment, you’re disappointing us.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Members, the Government has indicated to me that it does not wish to continue in urgency and therefore this debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m.