Tuesday, 5 March 2024

TUESDAY, 5 MARCH 2024

TUESDAY, 5 MARCH 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.

Speaker’s Rulings

Points of Order—Appropriate Use

SPEAKER: Members—this may be helpful for the member—a number of members have raised with me the issue of too frequent a use of the point of order process to raise trivial points of order. In future, when a member raises a point of order, I expect them to indicate the rule or practice of the House that they think has been breached. Raising a point of order without doing so will be considered disorderly. Of course, members may continue to use points of order to draw my attention to their wish to exercise a right given by Standing Orders, such as to seek leave, to make a personal explanation, or to move a motion.

Personal Explanations

Unparliamentary Language—Apology

TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

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

TIM COSTLEY: Last Thursday, in debate, towards the end of the day, I made an unparliamentary remark, which I know some members took offence at. I’d like to apologise unreservedly for this; I did not mean to cause offence.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

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

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

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

CLERK:

Petition of Chris Hickson requesting that the House ensure that the Treaty principles bill does not go further than the select committee

petition of Christopher MacDonald requesting that the House pass legislation requiring all buses older than 10 years to have an additional compliance process between each certificate of fitness

petition of Rasy Sao requesting that the House urge the Government to support the restoration of human rights in Cambodia in the context of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review.

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

CLERK:

Report on unappropriated expenses in capital expenditure for the financial year ended 30 June 2023

Government responses to the:

report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the inquiry into the future nature, impact, and risks of cryptocurrencies

report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the briefing on banks’ processes and consumer protections for scams

report of the Petitions Committee on temporary post-earthquake visas; and

report of the Standing Orders Committee on the Review of Standing Orders 2023.

SPEAKER: I present the annual report of the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards for the year ending 31 December 2023. Those papers are published under the authority of the House. A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK: Report of the Regulations Review Committee on the Complaint about the Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Freshwater) Regulations 2020.

SPEAKER: That report is set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of bills.

CLERK:

Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill, introduction

Appropriation (2022/23 Confirmation and Validation) Bill, introduction

Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Acting Prime Minister): Yes, in the context in which they were given.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why has he broken his promise of no new taxes and no increases in fuel tax, given yesterday he announced a driver’s tax through hiking registration fees, plus a 22c per litre increase in fuel taxes, albeit on a delayed timetable?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: As the Acting Prime Minister, I made no such announcements yesterday.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why isn’t he willing to defend the Government’s decision to break the promises the Prime Minister made before the election?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Again, as the Acting Prime Minister, I stand by the things that I say, and I’m very happy to begin by giving that group a lesson in constitutional law in this country, about how this Parliament is properly run under the Standing Orders.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Who is correct: Nicola Willis, who said, “We’re not increasing taxes. We’re making an adjustment to a fee.”, or Nicola Willis, who said, “If it looks like a tax and it quacks like a tax, it’s a tax.”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, obviously, the first statement she was making was on behalf of this Government, and the second statement she was making was on behalf of the last one.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Speaking of statements made by the last Government, who is correct: Christopher Luxon, who said, “they’ve got a culture of entitlement at the heart of this Government, right? They think they’re entitled to your money. They think they’re entitled to waste it.”, or Christopher Luxon, who said, “I’m entitled to the entitlements that everybody else has [at the moment].”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The first statement that he was making was on his behalf, but I do support that statement. With the second one, he was pointing to what happens when you have 30 years of managerial neglect when it comes to Government properties—much of which was the responsibility of that Government over there—that sees millions and millions of dollars of assets wasted because of ideology, and I can recite all of the circumstances of that, which have now cost the taxpayer so much more money than looking after Ministers. But it began with the ideology of a man called Roger Douglas.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: What is the total cost of retrospectively restoring mortgage interest deductibility for rental properties, and how many school lunches would that pay for?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: First of all, that will be itemised with particularity by the Minister of Finance, and on the second question, of course we have always been supportive of the programme for school lunches, but we have to evaluate—which that Government sought a report on—to see whether it was money being well spent, and in July of 2023, they received a very damning report from Treasury saying the converse.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Which best sums up his Government’s priorities: tax breaks for landlords at the expense of kids’ school lunches, attacking beneficiary entitlements whilst claiming a $1,000-a-week housing allowance he doesn’t need, or abolishing an initiative to improve Māori health outcomes in the same week his Government passed a law change that will increase smoking?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, first of all, I’ll deal with the last one. The last statement is demonstrably untrue. The law written in—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Oh, here comes the tobacco lobby talking points.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, not at all—here comes the truth. The law was fixed up in 2018-19, which led to the biggest fall in cigarette smoking in this country’s history. We are now a world leader, and that’s because the law—that they didn’t write; we wrote it. In fact, when they were doing their amendments in 2022, people like Chlöe Swarbrick were saying that it was bound to fail because it was never focused on actual circumstances. Now, let’s deal with that one there. On the second issue of calling the Prime Minister of this country squanderous, the Prime Minister on that score would be an amateur compared with what he inherited: hundreds of billions of dollars unaccounted for, over and over again.

Hon Grant Robertson: What—“hundreds of billions”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Going forward, we’ll be paying for that, Mr Robertson. We’ll be paying for that over the next 10 years—a cost occasioned by that Minister, who threw money around like an eight-armed octopus.

SPEAKER: I’d just make the point that that last question was seeking an answer on opinions, which is—you know, you got away with it, but it’s not to be a habit. Question No. 2, in the name of Dr Vanessa Weenink.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Yeah.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Are you suggesting that the member’s right to ask a question is now being narrowed that we can no longer ask Ministers for opinions?

SPEAKER: No. The point, which I should have made more clear, was that the question itself was asking Ministers to comment on what, essentially, are other people’s opinions. Now, that might be useful in most circumstances, but I thought it was just a little bit—given that you outlined some stark choices, it might be going just a bit too far.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Well, point of order, Mr Speaker. Referencing the ruling that you made at the beginning of question time, can you clarify which rule or which Standing Order you believe I breached in my question?

SPEAKER: I think it’s 371, and you’ll find it’s either (a), (b), or (c). It’s the—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Actually, I’ll look it up.

SPEAKER: There’s three parts to it. [Interruption] Well, I think—can we come back to that, because it’s a fair point. But we’ll move on to question No. 2.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on the Crown accounts?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, this morning, Treasury released the Government’s financial statements for the seven months ending 31 January 2024. These show that core Crown tax revenue was $800 million below what was forecast in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) in December. Core Crown expenses were also lower than forecast in the HYEFU by a billion dollars. The OBEGAL deficit—the operating balance before gains and losses—was $400 million higher than forecast.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: Why did tax revenue come in below forecast?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Lower than expected tax revenue is consistent with the economy being weaker than forecast in the half-year update. Since the half-year update, GDP results indicate that New Zealand’s economic slow-down occurred earlier and more deeply than previously thought. As a result, the economy will almost certainly be in a weaker position this year than was anticipated before Christmas, and this has a direct flow-on to tax revenue.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: What explains the lower OBEGAL result?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The fact that the OBEGAL deficit was $400 million worse than forecast was driven by two factors: one is the core Crown results I’ve just mentioned, and the other is due to State-owned enterprises (SOE) which are outside the core Crown. The SOE results include a write-down of the Cook Strait ferry project. This follows the Government’s decision to decline KiwiRail’s request for significant additional funding to address cost escalations in that blow-out project.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: How has core Crown expenditure changed over time?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Core Crown expenditure is forecast to be $140 billion over this financial year. That’s a lot of money, so I went back and I looked at what Government spending was in previous years, and to my horror I found that since 2018 Government spending has increased by a total of 73 percent. That is a 73 percent increase over only six years. Once again, this shows the financial mismanagement of the previous Government.

SPEAKER: I’ll just come back to the member the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: it’s Standing Order 390(1) or (2) that I’d be relying on. I was thinking of the Standing Orders from 2017. I’m just perhaps a little behind the times from the latest publication but, none the less, the point was right.

Question No. 3—Transport

3. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister of Transport: How does the Government intend to fully fund the more than $20 billion of proposed National Land Transport Fund spending across the next three years as outlined in the draft Government Policy Statement on land transport 2024-34?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): The member has answered his own question in his primary, but to help the member, page 29 of the draft Government policy statement (GPS) on land transport 2024 to 2034 outlines the answer to his question.

Tangi Utikere: Will all projects in the Government policy statement on land transport be fully funded for the entirety of the project, and, if not, why not?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The GPS which was released yesterday outlines the projects that we are prioritising as a Government, including the roads of national significance and major public transport projects. We’ve also outlined a range of funding and financing tools to be able to deliver this infrastructure, and we expect that those new tools will be used.

Tangi Utikere: Why is he and his Government determined to make it more difficult for hard-working Kiwis by introducing a new drivers’ tax by increasing motor vehicle licensing fees by an extra $50, when he and his Government promised no new taxes?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: We said we were not going to increase the fuel excise duty (FED) and road-user charge (RUC), and that is what we have delivered in this GPS. We have not increased FED and RUC during this term of Government, but the reality is—the reality is—that we need to ensure that we set out the funding parameters to be able to deliver the infrastructure New Zealanders need, and that is why we have outlined FED and RUC increases from 2027.

Tangi Utikere: Does the Minister stand by his statement that registration fees are just a “one off fee that people pay”, and, if so, does he expect people to only register their car once in the vehicle’s lifetime, or would he like them to pay the additional $50 drivers’ tax every 12 months?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, people register their vehicle once every 12 months, and as part of that they pay a contribution. It’s a payment they make once a year, and, as part of that, there is a contribution to the National Land Transport Fund, and, on this side of the House, this Government will ensure that that money is going to building and maintaining the roading network, not cycle bridges across the Auckland harbour. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just wait—[Interruption] Just wait. All right.

Tangi Utikere: Is the Minister actually committed to addressing the cost of living pressures when he cancelled the proposed 12c increase to fuel excise duties, only to nearly double it with a 22c increase?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, we are committed to the cost of living by making sure that we axe the Auckland regional fuel tax, by making sure we have no fuel excise and road-user charges in 2024, 2025, or 2026, but we are outlining how we will sustainably fund transport investment going into the future. That’s what this GPS is all about.

Tangi Utikere: How will an 18 percent decrease in funding to council subsidies to public transport services, a 34 percent decrease in funding for public transport infrastructure, and a 49 percent decrease in funding for walking and cycling improvements have a positive impact on meeting New Zealand’s climate change commitments?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, on this side of the House, we are focusing the National Land Transport Fund on its core purpose, which is to build and maintain the roading network, and people who fill up their cars with petrol, who pay road-user charges, want to ensure that the money they’re paying is going back into building and maintaining the roading network, less potholes, and making sure we have the roads for the future to unlock economic growth and productivity across New Zealand.

Question No. 4—Prime Minister

4. Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Acting Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements about educational achievement in schools?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Acting Prime Minister): Yes, in the context in which they were delivered.

Hon Marama Davidson: Has he seen evidence from the recent Programme for International Student Assessment study which shows dropping achievement can be explained by the number of students coming to school hungry?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Most certainly we’re aware of that report. It is a misnomer. The reasons why there is so much massive failure at school is to do with truancy and a whole lot of other reasons—for an education system that began, in 1877, making school attendance compulsory. If you start there, you might start getting the education system fixed up.

Hon Marama Davidson: What is his response to findings that achievement for students in food poverty is up to four years behind their peers who never miss a meal?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Again, the report that that member would have been aware of, commissioned by that former Government and reported on in 2023, under sections 24 and 25, does not find any such outcome in the way that member mistakenly is implying.

Hon Marama Davidson: Does he accept findings in the recent independent evaluation of the school lunches programme that it contributes to happier and healthier students, which is likely to result in better school outcomes?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It was a report that also said that there was “improving [nutrition] intake, particularly for those 7.3 percent of ākonga with least access to sufficient food at home”. It went on to say, “However, the evaluations have found no impact on attendance”, and with respect to Māori, “who make up around 48 percent of students receiving the programme, [they] have not benefited on most metrics, such as school functioning (e.g., paying attention in class), health, and mental wellbeing (with mental wellbeing worse off for those in the programme).” Now, those are the screaming facts that Māori want to know about.

Hon Marama Davidson: Will he commit to improving student wellbeing and school achievement by keeping the healthy school lunches programme beyond 2025 and expanding it in the future to more learners struggling with food poverty?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, that member will be aware that the very programme itself had a finality about it, and that’s the issue we’re talking about right now that Mr Seymour is addressing. Mr Seymour is addressing whether we’re getting value for money or, as we’re told by so many teachers at our schools, there is such massive waste. And our job is to ensure that when we make available programmes like that, they do work. So a very sensible, rational evaluation needs to be done now rather than a screaming reaction that says that every cent spent is spent well. And it’s not the case at all. Go and ask the teachers, go and ask real Māori, who know down in the schools what’s going on. Ask somebody who’s been in a classroom, not somebody who’s forgotten what it’s like.

Question No. 5—Children

5. Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT) to the Minister for Children: What recent announcements, if any, has she made regarding the Government’s commitment to crack down on serious youth offending?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This morning I announced that we intend to have a pilot for a military-style academy for youth offenders operating from the middle of this year. The approach to serious and persistent youth offending over the past six years has clearly not been working, and something needs to change in how we respond to this group of young people to help them turn their lives around and break the cycle of offending. That is why I’m proud to work with this Government in delivering on its promise to create youth offender military academies.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How will these academies differ from previous approaches to address youth offending?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: The Military-style Activity Camp Programme, or the MAC Programme, was run between 2010 and 2016 in partnership between Child, Youth and Family Service and the New Zealand Defence Force. An evaluation of this programme showed positive results, with improvements in the attitude and motivation of the young people to address their offending. However, it also found that a lack of robust support once each young person left the programme meant improved outcomes were not realised to the extent they might have been. That is why this pilot is going to have a focus on rehabilitation and take a trauma-informed approach alongside the military-style component to ensure these young people receive the full wraparound support they need to turn their lives around and reduce the risk of reoffending.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How will the military-style academies operate in practice?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: Oranga Tamariki will lead and deliver the programme, working alongside other Government departments to ensure a multi-agency approach and a well-rounded programme that is not just focused on discipline and structure but works to address the underlying cause of offending. We will also work with community providers where they have the expertise and experience in working with young people who often have multiple and complex needs. While on the programme, young people will receive the counselling, drug and alcohol treatment, mentoring, and cultural support that they require.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What other actions is the Government taking to address serious and persistent youth offending?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: Alongside this pilot programme, the Government is looking at legislative changes to enable stronger consequences for young people who are committing crimes. These changes include looking at establishing the military academy programme as a stand-alone sentencing option for judges, and a new young serious offender category to enable stronger sentencing powers and monitoring requirements. As I’ve said before, we cannot continue with the previous approach. We owe it to these young people to do everything that we can to help them. This is not just about having consequences for their actions but actually showing them that they have it within themselves to turn their lives around and giving them the tools that they need to encourage them.

Question No. 6—Transport

6. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) to the Minister of Transport: Will his draft Government Policy Statement on land transport contribute to emissions reduction targets and reduce transport costs for people; if so, how?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Yes. As the member knows, the emissions trading scheme (ETS) is the Government’s key tool to reduce emissions. As the member well knows, the transport sector is covered by the ETS and the ETS caps emissions. The Government policy statement (GPS) 2024 is about delivering transport infrastructure so Kiwis can get where they need to go quickly and safely without being stuck in congestion. This Government has delivered on its commitment to not raise fuel excise duties (FED) or road-user charges (RUC) in this term.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: How can people choose to avoid paying ETS prices and higher prices to use cars when his draft GPS cuts funding to public transport services, public transport infrastructure, walking, and cycling—basically every alternative to using a car?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, there’s significant investment in public transport in this GPS. There’s over $4.4 billion going into public transport services and public transport infrastructure. We’ve got a range of major public transport projects that we’re going to invest in: completing the City Rail Link, for instance: a project started under the last National Government—we’re going to complete it during this term of Government; the Eastern Busway, which we’re going to ensure the regional fuel tax money continues to invest in; we electrified the Auckland rail network. This is a Government which backs public transport, and this GPS continues to support public transport in New Zealand.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does his draft GPS provide lower or higher targets for funding for public transport services and infrastructure than the previous Government’s draft GPS?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: In terms of the draft GPS, if we’re comparing it to the last Government’s draft GPS in 2023, this is a much better document because what it will do is it will focus on value for money from our public transport sector. Now, the actual targets are slightly lower but we will get better outcomes because we’ll be focusing on making sure our public transport services are operating reliably.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Under this draft GPS, can local councils put in bus lanes on local roads as part of an upgrade or regular maintenance and renewal of a local road?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, as the member will know as a former Associate Minister of Transport, following the draft GPS, councils will be putting forward their regional land transport programmes. That will then feed into the national land transport programme (NLTP), which will be outlined later this year, which will clarify those issues. I encourage the councils around the country to read the document and put forward their regional land transport plans, which feed into the NLTP.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is he denying that, in the draft GPS, there is a specific provision that says local road funding, maintenance, and renewal cannot be used for multimodal improvements, and that includes bus lanes?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, when it comes to maintenance and renewal funding, we are focusing that on exactly what it says it will do: about fixing potholes and renewing our roads. That’s why we are ring-fencing the pothole prevention funds to make sure we are actually achieving the long-term rates of renewal needed on our roads. The last Government left the current state of our roads in a declining state. This GPS is about actually improving the quality of our roads so people can get around where they need to go, quickly and safely. In relation to the member’s specific question, the local roading improvement activity class is an activity class available to councils to invest in their local roading infrastructure.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: How can people in New Zealand expect to have frequent, reliable bus and train services to give them an alternative to driving a car when he is cutting funding for public transport and making it harder for local councils to make public transport reliable and on time?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, that side of the House thinks throwing more money is the solution to every single problem. Well, they had six years and they spent $228 million on “Auckland Light Fail”. Aucklanders didn’t get anything, but taxpayers spent hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Point of order.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: On this side of the House, we’re about delivery and delivering the infrastructure, public transport infrastructure, and services needed.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Mr Speaker, I just ask you to reflect on the Minister’s answers because I have asked quite specific questions and each time—

SPEAKER: Yeah. This is the sort of thing that is—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: —this is deflected by attacking the previous Government, which I was not part of.

SPEAKER: Yeah, this is the sort of point of order that’s winding people up a bit. The Minister had not finished an answer, and I think, while you may not be satisfied with the direction of his answer, I would like to hear it before any judgment is made.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, Mr Speaker, on this side of the House, it’s not just about how much money is thrown at a problem; it’s actually about making sure we get the outcomes that New Zealanders expect. And that’s why we’re proud of the record: when we started the City Rail Link, we’re going to complete it. That side of the House spent hundreds of millions of dollars on “Auckland Light Fail” and didn’t actually get anything started—not 1 metre of track delivered. We’re focused on getting the outcomes New Zealanders need.

Helen White: Point of order. The Minister has now had a long period of time where he has not addressed the question, and in fact it is quite obvious that he is attacking the previous Government and not answering the question. If it is possible for him to simply sandwich his answer with one end of it—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: When a point of order is being taken, regardless of what the rest of the House might think of it, I want to hear it in silence. Start again, and make it a point of order.

Helen White: Mr Speaker, my concern is that the question is not actually being answered and there is a long period of time where the answer is irrelevant and is out of order, where the Speaker is not intervening. So, in fact, crime is paying, sir.

SPEAKER: Well, those are your opinions; they are not mine. He very clearly said that this Government sees outcomes as more important than money spent. In other words, getting value for the dollar. It’s not for me to explain that. That’s how I heard it; that’s how I judge it.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Can I just ask for some clarification?

SPEAKER: Clarification? It had better be a clarification, because that was not—with all due respect—a point of order.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: The Minister has repeatedly referred, using a pejorative term, to the previous Labour Government’s project and I just wonder if the Speaker could reflect on whether that is part of answering the question in good faith, to refer to a project in a pejorative way without—he’s calling it “Auckland Light Fail”, so it just doesn’t even seem like that’s a good-faith answer from a Minister, to be honest.

SPEAKER: I’m sorry, I think the member should really stop there. The member was asking about why funding had been cut. What the Minister suggested is that past funding perhaps hadn’t been as well used as it could be. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

Hon Chris Bishop: What reports has the Minister seen, if any, in relation to advocacy by the former member of Parliament for Mt Albert—and, indeed, the current member of Parliament for Mt Albert—about Auckland light rail, and how did that project stack up against that advocacy?

SPEAKER: Simeon Brown—as long as he can do it within the bounds of ministerial responsibility.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, I have seen reports of a former member for Mt Albert advocating for the Auckland light rail project prior to the 2017 election, saying it would be completed by 2021. Despite six years in Government, nothing happened.

SPEAKER: That’s interesting but not particularly helpful to the order of the House.

Question No. 7—Agriculture

7. JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First) to the Associate Minister of Agriculture: What update, if any, can he provide on the coalition Government’s commitment to wool?

Hon MARK PATTERSON (Associate Minister of Agriculture): Let me be very clear: this Government is committed to bringing back New Zealand wool. New Zealand was quite literally built off the sheep’s back. New Zealand is still a world leader in quality wool. We’re the largest exporter of strong wool, accounting for 20 percent of strong wool traded globally. However, the value of New Zealand wool exports has shrunk from $750 million in 2004 to an estimated $390 million in 2024—a dire situation where it literally costs more to shear a sheep than the income received. We acknowledge the need for revival for both the prosperity of our rural communities and our farmers and to achieve the wider Government objective of doubling the value of our exports.

Jamie Arbuckle: What policies has the Government committed to?

Hon MARK PATTERSON: As part of the New Zealand First - National coalition agreement, we have committed that we will back our farmers, our primary sector, and regional New Zealand. We will direct Government agencies to preference the use of woollen fibres over artificial fibres in Government buildings. Where practical and appropriate, we’ll back the sustainable, natural product. No longer will rural schools be forced against their will to put in synthetic carpets. This initiative has garnered widespread support, notably Greg Smith, CEO of Bremworth carpets, who says—and I quote—“This has the potential to be one of the most significant changes in the wool industry since synthetic fibres were introduced two decades ago.”

Jamie Arbuckle: What other incentives can the wool industry look forward to?

Hon MARK PATTERSON: Other initiatives that the wool industry can look forward to is that we are absolutely committed to working with farmers at the farm gate in their rural communities, not, like the last Government, from Wellington ivory towers—

SPEAKER: No, that’s not—no, no, talk about your Government and your programme.

Hon MARK PATTERSON: Not from Wellington ivory towers. The Minister of Agriculture has announced a woolshed tour, commencing in April, where we’ll be engaging with farmers from Northland to Southland to outline the opportunities and to seek their feedback. I’ve been travelling across New Zealand engaging with industry, and I’m incredibly excited at some of the innovation that’s going on within the manufacturing sector. I’m aware that, to date, farmers have not been well informed. Since the disestablishment of the Wool Board, the sector has lacked cohesive leadership. A national roadshow will be occurring across the next three months that will help to shape our thinking of how we revitalise this critical rural industry.

Question No. 8—Media and Communications

8. Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) to the Minister for Media and Communications: Does she stand by all her statements?

Hon MELISSA LEE (Minister for Media and Communications): Yes.

Hon Willie Jackson: Why does she refuse to back the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, a bill that is supported by the whole broadcasting industry?

Hon MELISSA LEE: The Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill is currently being considered by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. I said in Parliament last week I’m waiting for the select committee to report back. The Government will consider these latest developments in terms of the wider media landscape. It is inappropriate for the Minister to intervene or interfere.

Hon Willie Jackson: Why does the Minister refuse to take a position when the advice from her own officials suggests that the media is under pressure, revenue is declining, and, without intervention, the Government will be under pressure to fund public news content?

Hon MELISSA LEE: I could ask that member the same question. In relation to the Warner Bros. Discovery announcement last week that came as a bit of a shock, the industry is actually facing difficult issues. However, I am very passionate about supporting a thriving media sector in New Zealand, and I have been talking to my Cabinet

colleagues and I will be taking a paper to Cabinet in coming weeks. The honourable member’s Government had six years to solve these problems—

SPEAKER: That’s enough. No—that’s fine.

Hon Willie Jackson: Oh, that’s good that the Minister is—

SPEAKER: The Hon Willie Jackson will start again—without the extra comment.

Hon Willie Jackson: Apologies. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I ask the Minister, given—

SPEAKER: No—“given” is not a word. Try a question word.

Hon Willie Jackson: Yep. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: That’s all right. We’ll get there in the end.

Hon Willie Jackson: Thank you—thanks very much. Can I ask the Minister: what are her proposals to support the media sector, to support Newshub; is there a strategy, is there anything, given every proposal the previous Government put up, she opposed, including the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill?

SPEAKER: Well, how on earth can that question be answered without some political content? I just warn you that your question creates a degree of lenience on my listening to the answer.

Hon MELISSA LEE: As the member knows and I have just answered, I am passionate about supporting a thriving media sector. The honourable member, actually, and his Government had six years to solve the problem, including passing the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill that the member says the whole of media supports. He could have passed it. He failed to do it. It is still at select committee. I will have to wait for that to come back. Having said that, the previous Government wasted $20 million on the failed merger of TVNZ and RNZ, which achieved fat zero.

Hon Willie Jackson: Why, at some of the darkest times in New Zealand media history, has this Minister disappeared from the media, refusing to be interviewed by National Radio, refusing to be interviewed by the Television New Zealand Breakfast show, refusing to be interviewed by the AM Show—why has this Minister disappeared from the national media? Why hasn’t she—

SPEAKER: Good—that was a question. That was a question.

Hon MELISSA LEE: Obviously, that honourable member isn’t reading the news or watching the news or reading The Spinoff. I have been available, doing interviews, and I have made public comments and answered questions when I head through the House before question time and also on the way to caucus, like every other Minister is available for media. However, I have also received questions or requests for interviews in relation to the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, and I felt that it was inappropriate for me to intervene, and I will wait until that is reported back to the House from the select committee.

Question No. 9—Transport

9. Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill) to the Minister of Transport: What recent announcements has he made about transport investment in New Zealand?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Yesterday the Prime Minister and I released the draft Government policy statement (GPS) on land transport, announcing that we’re delivering on our campaign and coalition commitments to reintroduce the successful roads of national significance programme with 15 projects across the country to enable people and freight to move around quickly and safely.

Grant McCallum: What does the Government policy statement mean for Northlanders?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The draft GPS brings great news for the people of Northland, who have been faced with cancelled projects and a growing infrastructure deficit. Our coalition Government prioritises a range of priority roads of national significance, including an alternative to the Brynderwyns as part of our coalition agreement with New Zealand First, the Whangārei to Port Marsden Highway, and Warkworth to Wellsford.

Tom Rutherford: What does the Government policy statement mean for the people of the Bay of Plenty?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The roads of national significance are some of New Zealand’s most essential State highway corridors. They boost productivity and improve safety. We’ve listed two significant priorities in the Bay of Plenty, including Tauriko West State Highway 29 and Takitimu Northern Link stage 2, which was scaled back and delayed by the prior Government.

Katie Nimon: What does the Government policy statement mean for the people of Napier?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The Government has also listed the Hawke’s Bay Expressway as another road of national significance, increasing resilience in the Hawke’s Bay. This critical priority was especially highlighted during the recent cyclone, where the two-lane road was one of the only roads available for people to use. Four-laning it will make a huge difference for the people of the Hawke’s Bay.

Hon Chris Bishop: What does this announcement mean for the good people of Wellington and the Hutt Valley?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Great news for the good people of Wellington and the Hutt Valley. After years of delay, we are prioritising the second Mount Vic tunnel, and, as the member will be very pleased, Pētone to Grenada is on track.

James Meager: What does the Government policy statement mean for Cantabrians?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Great news for Cantabrians: we’ve listed the Woodend bypass. I acknowledge Mr Doocey, the local member of Parliament, who’s advocated for that road, targeting one of the most dangerous stretches of road in New Zealand. We’ve also prioritised the second Ashburton bridge as a road of regional significance. While the previous Government talked a big game about transport, we’re actually going to get on and deliver.

Question No. 10—RMA Reform

10. Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: Does he agree with the statement made by the President of the Resource Management Law Association, who said about the Government’s proposed approach to fast-track consenting that “There are likely to be high risks of judicial review if a decision-making process lacks transparency and results in poor environmental outcomes”; if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Broadly, yes. But the statement presupposes that the decision-making process will lack transparency, when our intention is that it be very transparent, and also presupposes that it will result in poor environmental outcomes, when our intention is that it result in good environmental outcomes.

Hon James Shaw: What advice has he requested or received on any potential litigation risk from the proposed settings, including judicial review risk in Waitangi Tribunal claims?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, legal advice that Ministers receive is, as the member knows, privileged.

Hon James Shaw: How does he justify the proposal to have ministerial decision-making over complex environmental matters rather than having final decisions sitting with independent hearing panels who are able to robustly consider all the evidence?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The bill hasn’t been presented to Parliament yet. As the member will well know, it’s part of the Government’s 100-day plan of action, and I think we’re up to day 97, so the member does not have long to wait.

Hon James Shaw: Did that address the question?

SPEAKER: Well, I think in so much as it can. He said the bill is not introduced to Parliament yet.

Hon James Shaw: Will the proposed new legislation override the environmental protections contained in many of New Zealand’s key pieces of environmental legislation, including the Conservation Act, the Wildlife Act, the Reserves Act, and the exclusive economic zone Act?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The fast-tracked consenting regime will allow Ministers to refer projects to panels to make conditions upon which those projects will take place, in accordance with the variety of statutes that the member has mentioned.

Hon James Shaw: Will the approximately 100 projects included in the listed pathway include projects for which consents have previously been declined or referred for reconsideration due to environmental risk, including the Te Kūhā coal mine and the Trans-Tasman Resources seabed mining project?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, maybe. The member will just have to wait until he sees the bill.

Question No. 11—Corrections

11. MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Corrections: What recent announcements has he made about access to rehabilitation programmes?

Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Corrections): On Sunday, I announced that the coalition Government has taken the first steps to ensure prisoners on remand can access the rehabilitation and reintegration support they need to turn their lives around. As part of the 100-day plan, we’re taking steps to make it explicit in the Corrections Act 2004 that prisoners who are on remand and convicted of a crime will be provided with the rehabilitation that helps address the causes of their offending.

Mike Butterick: How many more people are there on remand now than there were 10 years ago?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: The number of people on remand has increased by 146 percent over the last 10 years, and remand now represents almost 45 percent of the entire prison population. This announcement will ensure that these people are receiving access to vital rehabilitation.

Mike Butterick: Who will benefit from these changes and how many prisoners are likely to benefit?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Remand-convicted prisoners will benefit from the provision of offence-based rehabilitation, including rehabilitation related to violent and sexual offending. The advice that I’ve received indicates that at any one time, nearly 1,400 prisoners may benefit from this rehabilitation. The biggest benefit, though, will be for the public in that more violent offenders will be receiving rehabilitation while inside, with an aim to improve public safety.

Mike Butterick: What other changes will the Government make to strengthen rehab access?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: As part of the Amendment Paper which I’ve sent to the Justice Committee for consideration alongside the Corrections Amendment Bill, the proposed amendment sets out a clear expectation that remand-accused prisoners will be provided with reintegration and other non - offence-focused support while in prison. This includes alcohol and drug treatment, as well as educational or behavioural skills programmes.

Dr Tracey McLellan: Is the Minister confident that Corrections is currently resourced to meet its existing obligations to provide rehabilitative services, as set out in the sentenced prisoners management plan, as provided in section 51 of the Corrections Act?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: It’s well known that Corrections, for the last six years, has suffered with a lack of front-line corrections officers, who, by the way, do an outstanding job in keeping the public safe. But the good news is that Corrections has received 2,108 applications since the new recruitment ad started on 4 February 2024 to 21 February 2024. This is a huge increase—almost four times—compared with the 550 applications when the previous Government campaigned in February 2023. Two weeks ago, 156 new staff began their training as corrections officers—I believe the largest cohort that has been seen in recent years.

Dr Tracey McLellan: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That was all very interesting, but the question clearly said about funding—is he confident that it is funded to provide all of these services? It’s not about personnel.

SPEAKER: I think you’ll find it started with the word “yes”. Is that correct? Well, I misunderstood. Do you want to add more?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes.

Question No. 12—Education (Partnership Schools)

12. Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Education (Partnership Schools): Does he stand by his statement that the previous Government had committed to the school lunches spending programme “without commissioning any robust empirical study to evaluate its effectiveness”; if so, how does he reconcile this with the New Zealand Healthy School Lunches pilot/Ka Ora, Ka Ako interim evaluation on the Ministry of Education website?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education (Partnership Schools)): Yes, I certainly stand by that statement, and I can very easily reconcile it with this interim evaluation, which itself says a larger group of schools is needed to assess whether there has been any improvement in attendance patterns over the longer term. So I think, when a study itself says that it couldn’t reach the conclusion asked, that is almost by definition not robust.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Does he, then, acknowledge the other reports—the many other reports—that have been done on the Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme have increased the numbers of schools, have had the voices of 10,694 secondary learners brought into the research, and the final report—or the most recent report—which shows that, thus, in specific schools and kura, we found the programme contributed to increased attendance?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: There have been five studies in total commissioned by the Ministry of Education. None of them has done a robust, statistically significant comparison that has been able to find that the programme has increased attendance at school—those are the basic facts. I know that the former Minister probably thinks that she commissioned reports that are good enough for the taxpayer, but this Government is in favour of actually doing robust analysis when we go out and spend their money. But, unfortunately, I read again from the Treasury: “However, the evaluations have found no impact on attendance, and ākonga Māori, who make up around 48% of students receiving the programme, have not benefited on most metrics, such as school functioning … health, and mental wellbeing”. Unfortunately, the former Minister went out and spent nearly 350 million bucks, and she can’t say whether it worked.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Does he stand by his statement on Checkpoint: “The Treasury got on to that and also pointed out that they were wasting around 25 percent of the food that they had.”; and is he aware that it was never 25 percent, and that the Ministry of Education told the Education and Workforce Committee that food wastage had halved from 12 percent in the beginning to 6 percent?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Unfortunately, there’s a wide range of ways that the food is being wasted. For example, an email received just today from a high school says, “We have a volunteer group in town who picks up all unopened lunch packs to distribute amongst the elderly and needy in town. The quality of lunches has dropped off to such an extent that the elderly people no longer want them. A lot of food is being wasted—money as well.” Unfortunately, in many places, 25 percent wastage would be an improvement.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Does he stand by his statement, also on Checkpoint, that “Cuts of 30 to 50 percent are in the ballpark.”; and, if so, what does he say to Christopher Luxon, who said in the election campaign, “We are supporters of the programme and it will continue to improve each and every year under our National Government”?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I absolutely stand by my statement and what I’d say to Christopher Luxon—and the Prime Minister, for that matter—is that we are going to keep improving it: first of all, by wasting less money, and, second of all, by making sure that it’s going to the students most in need in a way that we can demonstrate a difference.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: You’re cutting it.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: And I just heard Megan Woods say, “You’re cutting it.”, and that’s why she didn’t get the finance job, because, you see, when we say we’re cutting it, we mean we’re going to spend less money to get more results. That’s what this Government needs to do—that’s what anyone in finance needs to do—and that’s why Megan Woods didn’t get the job.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Why does he think—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Wait a minute—OK.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Why does he think it is appropriate to prioritise tax breaks for landlords and property speculators above providing healthy and nutritious lunches to children in our poorest community?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I actually don’t have responsibility, as Associate Minister of Education, for the Budget process. But I’m a helpful sort of a guy, so let me just lean into this one for the member’s benefit. The Government is not making such a decision—the Government is having to make the most it possibly can in a range of policy areas because, after six years of this lot doing less and less with more and more taxpayers’ money, this Government now has to do more and more with less taxpayers’ money and try and pay down the debt besides. If only that Government had been a bit more fiscally responsible, this Government would be having an easier time. Thankfully, we’re up to it.

Hon Nicola Willis: Can the Minister confirm that the outgoing Government provided precisely zero dollars in funding for the next financial year for the school lunch programme, an enormous fiscal cliff; and can he also advise whether he has considered an approach to that problem, like that suggested by the member Tinetti, that he simply appropriate it because New Zealand doesn’t have a debt problem, as she told Mike Hosking.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes, I can—[Interruption] Yes, I can confirm—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just wait.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes, I can confirm that there is a major fiscal cliff in the funding of pharmaceuticals that this Government must now—oh, wait, sorry, Mr Speaker, that’s my other portfolio. You see, they’re leaving so many fiscal cliffs around that sometimes even I can’t keep up! Back to education: the fiscal cliff around school lunches is such that this Government has to actually find money to continue something that the Opposition said we were trying to cut, and that’s why we’ve got to do it better and smarter in a more targeted way that benefits the kids who really need it, where these guys failed.

Hon James Shaw: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to draw your attention to Speaker’s ruling 205/4, which says, “Ministers should not bring another political party, which has not been involved in the questioning, into an answer.”, as a longstanding rule that you shouldn’t be using patsy questions to attack the Opposition.

SPEAKER: That is true. But the question from the first question, the primary question, strayed quite a way along the track. As I’ve said before, and other Speakers have said before me, when there is a political aspect to a question, that’s where the answers are likely to go and that’s where there is slightly more lenience. But we are not then using the question time to directly attack a previous Government. The Rt Hon Winston Peters—this will be interesting.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister, could he, in the interests of education, find a copy of the Andy Williams song “Lonely Street” and send a copy to that party over there so they can feel a bit more happy about life?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I have no responsibility—that would be my good friend and colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith, the Minister of arts and heritage, who, I am sure, can give him a hand. However, what I will say, as Associate Minister of Education, is that our job is an education system where people feel they can go to school and be equipped to make a difference in their own lives—that’s what makes people happier.

Urgency

Urgency

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Deputy Leader of the House): I move, That urgency be accorded the first reading and referral to select committee of the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, the remaining stages of the Legal Services Amendment Bill, the introduction and passing through all stages of the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill, the remaining stages of the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill, and the first reading and referral to select committee of the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill. The Government is moving urgency today to progress some of the final pieces of legislation that are part of our 100-day plan.

SPEAKER: Would the member give slightly more reason for the urgency? Could I ask that when members leave the House, they do so without conversations on the way through.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Deputy Leader of the House): These bills are part of completing our 100-day plan and progressing some legislation also to select committee, as a number of these bills are required to be passed by 1 April this year. Hence we are according urgency to them through the House today.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour): Point of order. Mr Speaker. I thank you for asking the Minister to give a little bit more information. The Speakers’ rulings do require a level of particularity about the individual bills themselves. The statements Mr Brown’s made just simply don’t go anywhere near meeting the Speakers’ rulings requirement.

SPEAKER: Well, that would be your assessment. I will ask him to add some more to meet that particularity requirement.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Deputy Leader of the House): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill is required to be put into legislation by 1 April. This is an issue that wasn’t dealt with by the prior Government, and so we’re having to deal with that at pace. The remaining stages of the Legal Services Amendment Bill—that bill is part of our 100-day plan and is a commitment within our coalition arrangements. The introduction and passing through all stages of the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill: the legislation that is repealing needs to be repealed prior to that Act coming into force. I believe that is in late April. The remaining stages of the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment bill: that is part of our 100-day plan. And the first reading and referral to a select committee of the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill is part of our 100-day plan.

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 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill

Introduction

SPEAKER: I understand the Government has the intention of introducing a bill.

CLERK: Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: This bill is set down for first reading presently.

Bills

Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I move that the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

SPEAKER: I think you need to present a legislative statement.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Sorry. I present a legislative statement on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon SIMEON BROWN: I move, That the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider the bill.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Oh, those are some words we haven’t heard much of!

Hon SIMEON BROWN: At the appropriate time, I intend to move the bill be reported to the House by 14 March 2024. 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 piece of legislation is being brought to the House as a part of the Government’s commitment to ensure that all vehicles that use our roads are paying their fair share and contributing towards the upkeep of our roads. In 2009, the previous National Government exempted electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles from paying road-user charges (RUC), to encourage their uptake. This exemption was always planned to end when electric vehicles hit around 2 percent of the light vehicle fleet. We’ve now passed the 2 percent mark for electric vehicles in the light vehicle fleet and it is only fair that those vehicles now start paying their fair share to contribute towards maintaining our roads and the upkeep of our roads. Transitioning electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids to road-user charges is also the first step as part of the National Party and ACT Party coalition agreements to bring all vehicles into the road-user charges system.

This transition is about fairness and equity, ensuring that all road users are contributing to the upkeep and maintenance of our roads, irrespective of the types of vehicles that they choose to drive. With the increasing uptake of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids being brought into the road-user charges system, this transition to road-user charges means that these vehicles will now be contributing towards the maintenance of our roading system, like all other road users. This supports the coalition Government’s commitment and priority of building and maintaining our roading network and we’ve also outlined those priorities in the draft Government policy statement on transport which we released yesterday.

This bill smooths the way for the entry of light vehicles into the road-user charges system when the current exemption expires at the end of March. It brings light electric vehicles into the road-user charges system, as it was going to be a large and complex task for the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA). To ensure that this integration proceeds smoothly I’m proposing a set of legislative amendments to the Road User Charges Act 2012 and a range of regulations that sit under it: the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004 and Land Transport Management Act (Apportionment and Refund of Excise Duty and Excise-Equivalent Duty) Regulations 2004. These amendments will also ensure that all light electric vehicle owners are paying a fair and comparable amount for the use of our roads.

When electric vehicles are brought into the road-user charge system, owners of plug-in hybrids could potentially be taxed twice if we didn’t make this change, and that’s why we’re making sure that there’s also a lower rate for plug-in hybrids than the full RUC rate which will apply to electric vehicles. Whether you drive a plug-in hybrid or are an electric vehicle owner, at the moment you’re currently exempted from paying road-user charges, and this means that there’s a fair transition for those vehicles. So for light electric vehicles, they’ll be paying a cost of $76 per 1,000 kilometres, but there will be a lower rate for plug-in hybrids, acknowledging the fact that they also use petrol or diesel as they travel on our roads. This is to ensure that we compensate for that difference, to ensure that they’re not paying twice as part of the system.

This bill addresses this issue by creating the ability to set a reduced road-user charge rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A reduced rate, as I said, reflects that they already contribute towards the National Land Transport Fund through fuel taxes on petrol. The Government has decided that the reduced rate should be set at $53 per 1,000 kilometres. The rate offers plug-in hybrid EV owners a 30 percent discount on the standard light vehicle rate of $76 per 1,000 kilometres, to account for the petrol consumption that they use.

The last Government consulted, back in 2022, with the public on a rate for plug-in hybrid EVs. They proposed as part of their consultation a 20 percent reduction of the full rate for EVs. We think it’s fair and equitable to increase that to 30 percent, acknowledging that the 20 percent was based on the average of those vehicles—on what the manufacturers estimate their fuel consumption to be. But when you look at what they actually use, we’ve taken a more conservative approach, and that is why we’ve increased that to a 30 percent reduction based on the light road-user charge rate. Setting the reduced rate at this level may incentivise some plug-in hybrid owners to change the way that they use those vehicles—operate more based on the battery, less based on petrol—and those will be decisions that users of those vehicles will make.

The reason we needed to also put in place this reduced rate was, if we hadn’t, the reality for plug-in hybrid EV owners is that they would have to go and seek a refund from the New Zealand Transport Agency for any petrol excise that they used. So they’d have to pay because they, effectively, use two fuels motoring those cars—they have a plug-in battery which fuels that vehicle and they’re considered an electric vehicle so would be required to pay a road-user charge under the legislation; they also pay for petrol. So if we hadn’t made this change, they would have to pay the full road-user charge and then they would be able to recover their petrol excise by putting a claim in to the New Zealand Transport Agency.

This process of applying for and obtaining a refund would be time consuming, there would be risks in terms of how accurate it would be, and there would be a huge amount of time and additional resource required at the New Zealand Transport Agency by effectively doubling the number of refunds that NZTA would have to process per year. Therefore, the Government believes it is a fairer way to reduce the required RUC rate for those vehicles to 30 percent of the full RUC rate.

The bill also exempts very light electric vehicles from road-user charges. Those are vehicles under 1,000 kilograms. There are only a few of these vehicles on the roads. We don’t think that it’s necessary to put a road-user charge on those vehicles but, at the same time, the Government has outlined our intention to move all vehicles to a road-user charge over time. One of the things that this debate has highlighted is the variance in terms of what different types of vehicles pay, based on the type of fuel that they use. If you drive an electric vehicle, a plug-in hybrid, a diesel car, a petrol vehicle, or hybrid, the system is based, currently, on the type of fuel that motors the vehicle rather than how many kilometres that vehicle operates on our roads.

So, at the same time as progressing this bill through the House, we acknowledge that there are variances and that we need to move all vehicles to a road-user charge where they are paying the same amount based on the kilometres they travel and the weight of those vehicles rather than the type of fuel that they use. We see this as a temporary measure that we’re bringing in now while we also undertake the significant piece of work necessary in order to move all vehicles to a road-user charge.

This bill will go to a select committee and whilst I acknowledge it will be a short select committee, I think it is important that the particular issue around whether or not the plug-in hybrid rate has been set at the right rate is examined by that select committee and whether the additional discount over and above what the last Government proposed is the right place for that to sit. So I look forward to seeing what the select committee advises us based on that.

To support the transition, the Government is also giving those owners of light electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid owners a two-month transition period by which they will have to buy their first RUC licence, and that period begins on 1 April 2024.

So this is an example of a piece of legislation that we’re bringing to the House due to the fact that the last Government did not deal with this problem. Prior to the election, we said all vehicles should be paying for the use of the roads. The last Government acknowledged it but did not make any preparations for this transition. So here we are in this House putting this legislation to Parliament. We believe it’s a fair way to deal with this challenge but also we believe that there is further reform that is needed to make sure that there is a fair and equitable way for all vehicles to be paying their fair share. I commend the bill to the House.

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

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take the first call for the Labour Party on this bill. I thought the Minister was generally doing OK up until the last sort of minute of his contribution, where he decided to take a swing at the former Government. I really feel the need to respond to that because the new Government has had opportunity to place on its legislative agenda this particular bill. It has, effectively, waited for the clock to run down at the expense of members of the public and the community to be able to have an adequate say on the provisions contained within this bill, and so that is rather unfortunate in terms of the use of urgency.

I heard a colleague mention, when the Minister said that this was going to be referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, that “Well, finally we actually have a Government that is prepared to refer something to a select committee.” So I look forward to hearing submissions as part of that particular select committee, albeit for what is a relatively short period of time—and we’ll come back to that in a moment.

This is a bill that will seek to make some changes that will align with, effectively, the road-user charge (RUC) exemptions scheme for some vehicles that will come to an end on 31 March—so not too far down the track. It does, as the Minister has indicated, set a set rate, which is a differential rate, for plug-in hybrid vehicles alongside those that might be defined as light electric vehicles (EVs) as well. It’s pleasing to see that the bill in its current form does also provide an exemption for what are very light electric vehicles and the payments that would be, effectively, attached to those in the form of RUCs wouldn’t be applicable.

I’ll put the Minister out of his misery and say that we are prepared, on this side of the House, to support this through to select committee—albeit a very, very short process indeed. The concern that I have with the truncated select committee process is that I’ve already—and I’m sure members around the House will have—received some feedback from constituents around this. The Minister has talked about the consultation that was undertaken by the previous Government. What we have in front of us is a copy of the departmental disclosure statement, which identifies at 3.6 that there was that consultation; that there were a range of matters, actually, that stakeholders and others were consulted on.

But it also identifies that the submissions on this bill were rather mixed. I think that’s even more of a reason as to why a select committee process should allow for the full range of individuals and collectives to submit in and feed in to that process. I get the point, Minister, in that the date that you’re aiming for here is 1 April. While that might lead to some sense of urgency, I do think it is unfortunate that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, if the House does agree to a truncated select committee process, will have to turn its mind to that rather quickly.

Because I have one of my constituents who said not actually just—look, he has no problem, actually, with moving to a RUC approach for his vehicle, but he has some concerns about the weight variance and perhaps there should be a different rate when it comes to those that weigh less than one tonne. The threshold in this bill is setting it at 3½ tonnes. Sure, that will mean quite a quite a lot to many people, but when we’re looking at incentivising use of EVs and plug-in EVs around urban areas and the like—I think of Palmerston North—actually, it’s perfectly suitable for someone to use a motor vehicle that weighs much less than the 3½-tonne threshold that’s there. So it’s unfortunate that members of the community won’t be able to necessarily easily feed into this process.

I’ll end my contribution by just touching on the fact that what would be helpful is an undertaking from the Government that there is going to be some incentivisation in terms of the uptake for electric vehicles. Yes, we’ve heard from the Minister about the 2 percent of fleet being the particular target, or threshold, and that that has been achieved. But I really do start to question the motives of the Government when they, effectively, remove the Clean Car Discount, when they effectively remove other rebates, when they are not seeming to incentivise the uptake. Just because it’s 2 percent doesn’t mean that we should stop there and not go any further—far from it.

So, on this side of the House, we will support this through to the next stage, which will be a truncated select committee process, for which that is rather unfortunate. But I’m sure we’ll have a few more things to say about that.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I heard the Minister say in his speech that the previous Government had done no work on this, and I have to say that is patently untrue because, obviously, they’d all gone out and done some consultation on it, firstly. Secondly, I think it’s really important for this House to consider the outcome of bringing in this particular legislation at this time.

Now, obviously, it was a previous National Government who removed road-user charges for electric vehicles (EVs) as a kind of incentive tool. It didn’t really have the desired effect; our uptake of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids was very, very low. Back in the day when Simon Bridges was the transport Minister who brought in that incentive at the time, I, as transport spokesperson for the Greens, brought up the fact that Treasury had given advice that if you are to provide a financial incentive to increase the number of electric and low-emissions vehicles coming into the country that it would make more sense for that incentive to be at the point of purchase or registration of the vehicle. Which is why, later on, we developed the policy—alongside best practice international evidence about what works—of the Clean Car Discount and Clean Car Standard.

And the reasons for this are really kind of clear and obvious, right? Once people have the sunk cost of the car, they have an incentive to use it as much as possible. And what really makes the difference is the upfront purchase price of the car. So if we can provide a rebate at the point of purchase, then that has a much bigger impact not only on what consumers choose but on what is on the market here in New Zealand. We saw a huge transformation when the Clean Car Discount was brought in, massive increase in import registrations and use of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, and that has a positive consequence for our overall emissions as a country and the amount of oil we rely on to get around.

Now, obviously, this Government had campaigned on ending that policy. They don’t, and still do not have—they did not at the time have an alternative policy to support the increase of electric vehicles into the country, and on top of that, now they’re bringing in road-user charges for electric vehicles. Now, the Minister’s statement claimed this was fair and balanced and people paying their fair share, yet in answers to written questions to me he makes it very clear that what is proposed in this bill is not electric vehicles paying their fair share, it’s electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids paying significantly more—more than double a comparable car—for the use of the roads.

So in answers to written questions—and members opposite can look up the New Zealand Herald article reporting on this which links to the answers to the questions—I asked: if you were driving a pure electric vehicle on a return trip between Wellington and Auckland, how much would they pay in road-user charges under this proposal? It’s $98.80. How much would a plug-in hybrid Prius pay? So that’s a plug-in electric vehicle, one that also uses fossil fuels when the electric battery runs out. That vehicle on the same exact trip would pay $94.78. The proportion of road-user charges would be $72.80, and $21.98 in petrol tax. So they’re paying both petrol tax and road-user charges because they’d be using petrol as well as paying the road-user charges.

So we have a pure EV and a plug-in hybrid Prius paying $98.80 for a trip, $94.78—nearly $100—and a conventional fossil fuel Prius would pay, in fuel excise duty, $42.92 for the exact same trip. So that is less than half the price. So there’s clearly problems with the current road-user charges categories that they don’t take into account that light vehicles—light diesel vehicles and light pure electric hybrid vehicles—should be paying the same as a comparable petrol car and yet they’ll be paying more than twice that.

So the combination of this Government’s policies and actions—to get rid of the Clean Car Discount, to probably water down the Clean Car Standard, they’ve indicated they will do that, and to now overcharge electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles—will be that we will get fewer low-emissions and zero-emissions vehicles into the country—

SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This was a well-signalled policy. As the previous speaker, Julie Anne Genter, has just said, this was signalled by the previous Minister of Transport Simon Bridges, when he was in that role, that at 2 percent of the fleet this exemption would be removed, and that time has come. It is fair that everybody pays their fair share, including a reduced rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

A two-month transition is also a good time for people to get prepped for this. As someone who’s a diesel vehicle driver myself, I understand how streamlined the process is when you’re actually purchasing road-user charges, so I do not believe this will be a huge imposition on people who have previously not needed to deal with this because of the type of vehicle that they drive.

I look forward to hearing more submissions at the select committee about this and finding ways that people in the public think we can improve the income stream to pay for our roads, because there is no free lunch, and particularly when it comes to roading, which has been underfunded by no small amount in the last six years—but I am glad to hear that Labour is supporting this bill. The coalition agreement also provides an investigation mechanism into electric road-user charging, and when that is worked through, I look forward to hearing about that, but for the time being I support this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): I was actually going to start with exactly the same words that my colleague Cameron Luxton has, which is to say that this has been well signalled, it’s been well expected, and we’ve heard from the Labour Party member Tangi Utikere as well that in fact they were working on exactly this thing.

Why has it been so well signalled? Well, because—and we actually have to do something here—the existing rebate arrangement expires on 31 March. So if you actually want to continue that in some way, as seems to be the suggestion that the member from the Green Party, the Hon Julie Anne Genter has said, you’d actually need to pass some form of legislation anyway. So to me, this is very much about something that has been anticipated for some considerable period of time. It is about fairness; this is about contribution. We’ve known that there was an arrangement for electric vehicles (EVs) to not be liable for paying anything at all towards the roads for a considerable period of time. That was always going to come to an end, and now is the time that that will come to an end, when the current exemption expires on 31 March.

I think there might be some debate around the level of discount. I think the Minister, the Hon Simeon Brown, has suggested that—around the level of discount for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and whether it’s 20 percent or 30 percent or whatever—and we will look forward to hearing people’s views on that, and also, as the member Julie Anne Genter has pointed out, on actually what the level of charge ought to be and what is fair and what works.

There is a very sensible exclusion around very light EVs. I took the opportunity to have a look at what the weight of EVs is, and even relatively small vehicles like a Fiat 500 electric vehicle are 1,400-plus kilograms. So that kind of vehicle would still be caught. You’ve got to have a very, very small vehicle not to be caught by the 1,000 kilograms. Also, there is an exclusion, which I don’t think we’ve heard about, for electric off-road all-terrain vehicles, so they are not being penalised.

I think we will need, as a select committee—and I will speak on behalf of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, as the chair of the committee—to look at the recent consultation and see what sort of advice we had through that. We will need to call for submissions immediately because the time frame that we’ve been given is to report back by 14 March—i.e., by next week. And so members of that committee can expect a very, very truncated submissions process and a very quick approach to getting those submissions in front of us and hearing from people.

We also heard from the member opposite about EVs and incentives and he questioned the motive around that. Now, I don’t see that as being a fair question, because on this side of the House there is clearly an intention to roll out EV infrastructure right around the country. So that clearly says we want to see more people using EVs. It’s a matter of what the price arrangement is so that they’re paying a fair price.

Julie Anne Genter asked why we are doing it at pace. Well, it’s always been around 31 March. That’s the time the exemption expires. It’s got to be done by then. Look, maybe it could have been done earlier in the legislative programme of this incoming Government; maybe it could have been done by the past Government. It hasn’t been, it needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed now, and that is exactly what we are going to do. She also questioned, again, the incentives for the use of EVs, and, as I said, I think the Government has said we are going to be supporting the roll-out of EV infrastructure, and I am going to be interested in the exploration of the costing around an EV trip versus a PHEV trip versus a petrol car trip. So I am very happy to support this and to commend this bill to the House.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou katoa. If I may, Mr Speaker, just to acknowledge this is the first time back to the House since the tangi for Efeso: anana, tēnā tātou katoa.

Ka tū au, just to speak to this pakē road-user charges. Te Pāti Māori do not support this Government’s transport agenda. Our policy would see the use of both accessible and efficient free public transport: free for tamariki, free for students, free for community service cardholders, and made free for everyone within five years. Our policy also ensures that urban planning and infrastructure allows for safe cycling and walking paths; cheap, accessible public and active transport; and prioritising regional and rural Aotearoa.

We know that cars and private transport will always be a reality. We know that most of us rely on petrol and diesel vehicles to get around to support our whānau. This is why it’s necessary to bring down the costs of electric hybrid cars. We must make electric hybrid cars an affordable option for our whānau. In reality right now, for many in Tai Tokerau and for many Māori across the motu, it’s just a bit of a pipe dream, to be honest. This bill works directly against that. That is where this bill comes in and the whakaaro behind our position today.

We understand that the road-user charges exemption is set to end in April. We also understand that this bill is setting a transition phase for that. However, we also understand the bigger picture behind not extending this exemption. For example, this Government has campaigned to build 15 new roads and are pledging $500 million to fix potholes. The one pothole they cannot fix, however, is the $24 billion pothole in their budget. Road users will end up paying for their reckless policies—regos are to be put up by $50. This money will go towards funding 50,000 roadside drug tests, which they will be making back by increasing fines—how does that work?

The cancelation of cycleway and walkway projects will contribute to road congestion, and, by extension, the increase of congestion charges at peak hour traffic. This Government is taking the option away from people to use reliable public transport, forcing them to sit in traffic and then for them to pay for it because the Government cannot plan more than three years ahead. By disincentivising electric vehicles while at the same time cutting public transport, this Government is fuelling climate change.

The Government has put sustainable transport options out of reach, making it harder for our people on lower incomes who already spend their income on transport to pay more to catch the bus. It makes no sense to justify more road-user charges to maintain roads and fix potholes with a policy platform that will lead to more congestion and creating more potholes. So I’m looking forward to seeing this go to select committee. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Tēnā tātou.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As I’ve been driving around the roads of Northland, observing the state of those roads and observing the number of electric vehicles and hybrids, along with all the other users on the road, it’s become apparent to me that all people using the road should pay their fair share. It’s important that we have a fair transition to eventually go to a situation where we have a road-user charge applicable to everybody. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I’m happy to take a call on this bill and signal not only Labour’s support, as my colleague the Labour spokesperson for transport Tangi Utikere did, but also set out some of the questions that we think are really important to explore as we go through that. I would like to signal that, given the importance and the complexity of this, I do think that four weeks at the select committee is a very light period of time in order to get the expertise to come to bear on what are important questions.

We heard the Minister who introduced this bill making wild claims that no work has been done on this in the previous Government and then in the next breath talking about the work the previous Government had been doing around road-user charges (RUCs) come 1 March 2024. So this is a long-term piece of work, and indeed there was a piece of consultation that went out, I think, two years ago around what the future of the road-user charge would be

So we have before us today a piece of legislation which really deals with that gnarly issue of the definition of what it is. So the primary piece of legislation that we’re looking in has hard-wired into it definitions of what electric vehicles are, and this was legislation, of course, that was put in place before some of the technology that we have today—before we had purely electric and plug-in hybrids and had the plethora of technological options that we have today in the fact that we do have decarbonising transport.

What I really want to stress is that when Labour was doing this work, we saw this very much as a suite of policies, extending this exemption out for the light vehicles through to 1 March 2024 being part of how we did drive that massive uptake of electric vehicles in New Zealand that is going to be needed to meet our emissions budgets, to reduce our carbon, our greenhouse gas emissions.

We saw it as sitting alongside things like the Clean Car Discount so that we could ensure that more New Zealanders could have access to not only lower emissions but lower-cost forms of transport. That was really important. Also, that sat alongside the work that we were doing around electric vehicle charging and the massive boost that we gave to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority in terms of how it rolled out our charging infrastructure around New Zealand. These all need to be seen as an interrelated package that needs to go together, and when this bill goes to the select committee, our members will be asking questions—what will removing this now do to the uptake of electric vehicles? How will that sit alongside the targets that sit inside emissions budget 1 but also the work that’s been done around the second emissions reduction? How are we going to achieve those targets, which the Government is saying it is committed to achieving? What are policy implications from a greenhouse gas emission perspective of this piece of legislation?

The other thing that I’d like the Government to consider as this bill goes to the select committee is that this is a piece of legislation that is looking at definitions, which, as I said, is one of the gnarly pieces in the policy work in this area. We know that 44 percent of our energy-related emissions in New Zealand comes from the transport sector and 20 percent of all of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions come from transport, and the bulk of vehicle fleet, light-duty passenger vehicles are the vast majority. Heavy vehicles only make up 4 percent, and this piece of legislation is only looking at heavy vehicles and light vehicles. But we know that 4 percent of heavy vehicles make up 25 percent of transport’s total emissions.

And there was work done by the previous Government—in fact, in the consultation that went out on that issue of definitions about the fact that we now have new fuels that were never envisioned when the legislation was written in terms of fuel-cell technology, hydrogen, when it comes to heavy-fleet vehicles. I think we are missing a vital opportunity to think more broadly about how it is. Do we now say we’re going to bring in the RUC for the light-vehicle fleet? That time has come. But we should be putting in place, to decarbonise that much more difficult part of our transport sector—the heavy-vehicle fleet—hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. What do we need to do and what is the future policy work we need to do to achieve what we have all signed up to in emissions budgets 1, 2, and 3.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Mr Speaker—really pleased to stand in support of the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill in the name of the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown. Quickly, in 2009, the previous National Government exempted electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles from paying road-user charges to encourage their uptake. This exemption was always planned to end when EVs hit around 2 percent of the light vehicle fleet, and, right now, New Zealand has reached that target. This transition is about fairness and equity, ensuring that all road users are contributing to the upkeep and maintenance of the roads irrespective of the type of vehicle they drive. I commend the bill to the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill.

I will begin my contribution with a brief comment about the select committee referral. This is something that my colleagues and I will be seeking to debate, and it’s something that the chair of the committee—a hard-working committee and a hard-working chair—has brought to the attention of the House, given that he has commented that he will need to open submissions almost immediately, because it has been proposed in this House by the Minister that the committee would be reporting back on the 14th. It is Labour’s position that that is not enough time to delve into some of the issues which need to immediately be addressed within this bill. So I will come to the reasons for that in my speech, and then I’ll be asking for a call on the motion when the Minister moves it.

So just to quickly recap about what this bill seeks to do, as the Hon Dr Megan Woods has said, it redefines and checks in with the definitions of things like electric vehicles (EVs). This is meaty policy work. In an environment where the technology around this is changing constantly, it is for the committee to give itself an assurance that the definition that we create today in the legislation is fit for purpose not only now but in the future.

What is drafted currently is backwards-looking. It deals with the problems that we have had now, and the Government work on this—which the Minister has had the benefit of speaking to today—was done broadly since 2021, but we need to ensure that the advances in technology are captured within the definitions here.

It also sets a differential rate for plug-in hybrids and an exemption for very light EVs. But one of the things that the committee will be asked to deal with is whether those weight ratings are appropriate, given the kind of policy problems that the House is being asked to solve here about everyone paying their fair share, when large vehicles only make up a very small proportion of New Zealand’s transport fleet.

So what needs to happen next? Well, the questions that the Labour members have addressed in our speeches on this side of the debate have not had an opportunity to be addressed. They are about what the impact of this policy will be on New Zealand’s transport fleet as a whole. That’s something that the select committee needs time to delve into and understand, because the impact of this policy decision will take us away from, essentially, what was a subsidy of users of electric vehicles in order to incentivise their uptake and their use. That was a decision to expand the number of electric vehicles which were being imported into New Zealand, alongside other policy decisions like the Clean Car Discount.

Those were incredibly effective. They meant that New Zealand had one of the highest rates of increase of uptake in electric vehicles in our fleet in the world, and when we take away those options for people, it means that we will see an ongoing effect over several decades in terms of what is available not only in the primary vehicle purchasing market but also for the secondary vehicle purchases, which is most New Zealanders. Many New Zealanders will not then have the opportunity, if newer vehicles aren’t coming into the country through things like corporate fleets, to be able to buy them in the secondary market, and it will have an ongoing effect on the emissions of our vehicle fleet as a whole when people hang on to their older vehicles that do not use EV technology.

So we need to give ourselves some assurance, as this House, that this isn’t having a long-run effect on our emissions profile over time, and those numbers aren’t available for the House today. They are unlikely to be made available to the select committee in a four-week process. We need the time to be able to delve into the impact of this decision on coming generations.

There’s also some work to be done on what the Government members have presented to the House as the 2 percent of the vehicle fleet being sort of a goal of the EVs represented within that. That certainly doesn’t represent the number of EVs in the vehicle fleet. That would be a good idea. We still, I think, have a general agreement in this House that it is good for our transport fleet to reduce in its emissions profile and also to become less dependent on foreign offshore oil. Those are good things, and so we need some assurances at the select committee level about how we continue to incentivise the uptake of ordinary people buying primary or second-hand cars to purchase EV vehicles. Those are the sorts of things we will need to delve into. We will also need to understand the implications for, say, those hard-working taxi drivers in Manurewa, in my electorate, for whom this will completely change their business profile. For those reasons, we’ll be seeking calls on the motion to refer this to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth): I’m very pleased to stand and talk to this particular bill. I think it’s very pleasing, as a country, to think that we’ve got up to 2 percent of these types of vehicles at the level here that are traveling upon our roads. But it’s also of no surprise to any of us that we think it’s only fair and reasonable that they actually now start to contribute to the cost of our roading itself. The fact that we’re looking at moving this to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—it’s absolutely appropriate that they do take calls of submissions from the public about the rate at which those particular vehicles pay—whether it be the $53 for the hybrids or the $73 per thousand kilometres for the electric vehicles. So I’m very supportive of this bill moving to the next stage.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 102

New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 20

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

That the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill be considered by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Motion agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The question is,

Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Instruction to Transport and Infrastructure Committee

Instruction to Transport and Infrastructure Committee

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) 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 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 of the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

It is worth noting that the need for this bill before 1 April has been known since 2021, when the previous Government extended its previous expiry date. The previous Government also consulted on the changes that we are making, at the start of 2022. However, they left us with responsibility for making the policy decisions and drafting the legislation, which we have done at pace to allow for maximum possible time for the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider it. On that basis, I ask that the House endorse a report-back date of 14 March 2024 for this piece of legislation.

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

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to that motion. Labour opposes this motion because the appropriate amount of time for the select committee to consider this bill is the ordinary length of time, which is six months. The reason for our opposition to the 14 March report-back date is that this bill contains a number of technical changes to the definitions which would apply to the vehicles in question. It also contains some ratings about weights, which the committee should be hearing from experts in order to balance the policy decisions which are being set out by the Government.

On this side of the House, the Labour members do not oppose the work that the Government is undertaking on this and we appreciate the need for pace. However, six months is the appropriate time for the select committee to come to what could very well be a consensus-based position on the appropriate way to take this forward. Because Labour members also see the need for an appropriate way for road-user charges to be levied on light electric vehicles and heavy electric vehicles, but what is in the bill currently may very well need the House to revisit it and use House time again to consider what has been set out in the bill.

The only other opportunity to do that would be in committee of the whole House stage. At this point, it would be inappropriate to do that because Government members do not have the benefit of the advice to take to that committee stage in order to propose amendments to some of those technical changes like the definitions and like the weight ratings. There is no ability for Government members to do that currently. We need the select committee process to be able to do that, and four weeks is not a reasonable amount of time to get the information that we need to be able to do that technical work from the officials or from the public, who should be able to be involved.

There is also some opposition to, then, the need to be sitting without regard to Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196. If there was an appropriate amount of time given to these changes, then there would be no need to disregard those long-held Standing Orders, which allow members to conduct their electorate work—their important constituency work—alongside the work that they are expected to do in this House. Essentially, you have Opposition members who are technical experts in this—and I tip my hat to the Hon Julie Anne Genter, who will be asked in the select committee stages to weigh in on a number of technical matters which she knows about. But she is being asked, as are my colleagues in the Labour Party, to give up what would otherwise be spent representing the constituency work when that is purely because the Government has not allowed enough time in its legislative agenda to progress these changes in the normal, democratic way.

The Labour Party is proposing that the Minister reconsider the motion and put a six-month report-back date in it. Then we will be happy to vote for it through to select committee and to participate in a completely bipartisan way. It is impossible for us to do that on the current motion, and so on the current motion we will have to oppose it.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Firstly, I just want to clarify: I’m pretty sure that I heard the Minister, the Hon Simeon Brown, recommend a report-back date of 14 March. That’s only nine days from now. It’s 5 March today. So that’s not a four-week select committee period; that’s less than a week. And it’s really difficult to see how the public who will be affected by these changes and also other technical experts will be able to develop a submission and submit to the select committee, and for the select committee to have enough time to deliberate and report back. I don’t see how it’s physically possible. So the Green Party would be opposing that motion. And, while I fully support the Labour member Arena Williams’ suggestion for a normal select committee report back date, which would be six months, at the very least four weeks would give the public and the select committee more time—some time—to be able to properly consider what has been put forward. And, again, this is because the bill deals with highly technical matters that have to do with specific vehicle weight classes, and it is really important to get this right—this change is going to have far-reaching implications.

I understand the Government may have set some time frames of its own that it wants to keep to but, given that the bill has only had its first reading today, to recommend a report-back date of next week seems completely farcical and unreasonable, and even though we didn’t support the bill at first reading, if it is going to go to a select committee, at the very least we should have four weeks to report it back. I think nine days is simply way too short to consider everything that needs to be considered from the public. One of the issues that I raised in my first reading speech was the significant discrepancy between what electric vehicle users and plug-in electric vehicle users will be paying on the same trip as a comparable car—that is, a fossil fuel car like a conventional Prius hybrid. According to the Minister’s data that he has given us, they’ll be paying more than twice as much. I think that there is an opportunity through the select committee to ensure that the rates that are set and the bands of vehicle they apply to are more fair. But I don’t see how that can happen if the select committee has to report back in just nine days.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I signalled in my substantive contribution on this legislation some of my questions that I would like answered. As my colleague Arena Williams has pointed to, Labour is supporting this bill. This is policy work that we started, but there are still really important questions that need to be considered, and nine days simply is not long enough to consider those.

One of the things that I am going to point the House’s attention to is in the departmental disclosure statement wherein it talks about the external consultation that happened on the policy document that underlies the legislation we’re examining today. There were over 3,000 submissions; they were far from unified. In terms of what a nine-day select committee period will do to the number of people that we already know have an interest in this policy area, they will expect, and rightfully expect, that there will be a legislative process that they can feed into. It is not an unfounded expectation of people who take the time to lend their expertise into a ministry-led consultation on a particular policy area to understand they’re also going to get a chance at the select committee stage. The pressure and unrealistic expectation that this nine-day time frame puts on those submitters is not something that Labour can support. The people that have expertise in this area that we need to hear from need longer, and it’s just undoable and not realistic.

The second area that I’m concerned about is the kind of advice we need to get to make proper, informed decisions about whether the balance is right between the various technologies. Other speakers have talked about the modelling around—what we need to do is see the modelling and talk to officials about the modelling that is settled on the relative rates for battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The fact that we have the seeming anomaly that has been released from the Minister of Transport that you could, by driving a plug-in electric vehicle—a hybrid—end up paying more than if you were driving a petrol car or a diesel car, a vehicle that ran on fossil fuels. It seems counterintuitive, and members of this House, as good legislators, need the time with officials to understand that modelling, to understand the thinking that lies behind it, and to look at whether there have to be changes made.

We get there needs to be a balance. No one is saying this is easy policy work, and that is precisely why nine days at select committee is simply not acceptable, not doable, and not going to achieve the best outcome that we need for New Zealand. We know we’re here having to alter definitions in the primary legislation because we have hard-wired in technology definitions into our road-user charge (RUC) legislation. This is a rapidly moving field. Are we capturing everything? Are we setting ourselves up for the conversation we also need to have about heavy vehicles that I signalled in my first contribution on this legislation? Do we need to make this more fit for purpose so that we can come to think about what we have to do to incentivise the kind of technologies that we’re going to need to address 25 percent of transport emissions that we have in this country?

The other thing that I simply do not believe that we’re going to have enough time for over nine days is to see the necessary modelling, either from the Ministry of Transport or from the climate commission, around the impact that this change, given that this is happening in a different policy context than the previous Labour Government went out and consulted in, is going to have on emissions, and, in particular, emissions budget 1 and emissions budget 2. There is modelling that needs to be done.

When the Labour Government went out and consulted on the 1 March phase-out of RUC exemptions, we had a Clean Car Discount. We had other measures in place that were driving the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) and, arguably—well, actually, demonstrably; not arguably—were driving the uptake of EVs at a far greater rate than RUC exemption ever had. I, as a legislator, need to know what impact this is going to have on emissions budget 1, what impact it is going to have on Emissions Budget 2, because this matters. This is why Cabinet requires climate impact statements on Cabinet papers. We have to understand that. The Government that is leading this, the National Party part of that Government that is leading it, signed up to the Zero Carbon Act. The National Party that is leading this say that they’re on target to meet emissions budget 1 and emissions budget 2. If we’re going to make those claims, we have to hear from the experts. As responsible legislators, we need more time than nine days so that we can receive that modelling. That modelling is wholly dependent on various variables—there we go, various variables—that will come in in terms of what that modelling will look like, what will the fleet be in 2030, what will the fleet be in 2035 as a result of this policy action.

This matters. We are talking about a big chunk of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. We are talking, in our light vehicle fleet, about something we simply have to decarbonise, but I don’t know how we’re going to achieve that. As someone whose vote is being cast in favour of or against legislation, I want the opportunity to hear from the experts and to know what those implications are, and nine days is simply not acceptable.

It’s not just about us as the politicians that will have to sit there and hear it. This is about the submitters. This is about those people who, rightly, think that they’re coming back to have a place in a legislative programme. They gave their expertise in terms of the first initial consultation document that came out. I think it is, frankly, rude of this House to say, “We’ll take your expertise at that policy consultation stage, but, look, we’re on a bit of a rush for a 100-day plan because we’ve got a marketing gimmick as a new Government and we want to get it through, so we’re not interested in your expertise coming to bear on the legislation.” So let’s respect those people that give their expertise freely, and let’s remember that our legislation in New Zealand is better because we do have robust consultation and that we have consultation that happens at a policy level and then we have it that happens at a legislative level. That is what is being denied, and it is also not giving the officials, I would put forward, the opportunity to do the modelling, to prepare the evidence that members need to see to understand what it is they’re voting for.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s not really a pleasure to take a call on this move, but I appreciate the opportunity to outline my opposition to the motion put up by the Minister in relation to this bill.

I wanted to cover a few procedural aspects of this bill which I don’t think have been covered by previous speakers.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): I will just note there’s been some speakers on this—we’re not debating the substantive bill. I think the previous speaker, Megan Woods, very skilfully ensured it was about timing, and I’ll be looking for the same skill set by subsequent speakers.

CAMILLA BELICH: I don’t pretend to have the same skill set as the previous speaker, but I’ll do my best to raise some valid points in relation to this incredibly short nine-day select committee process that has been proposed by the Minister.

Now, select committee processes are something that I think the entire Parliament is proud of. It’s something that is notable when people visit other jurisdictions or, when they come and visit our Parliament, they often come and visit select committees. The reason for that is because of how important the select committee is in taking and listening to the views of everyday New Zealanders and providing those views to decision makers, to legislators, and then seeing those changes and issues either adopted or addressed or reflected in the subsequent pieces of legislation. So I don’t think this is a trifling matter. It is fundamentally important to the design of our democracy to have a meaningful select committee process and that is even more important because of the fact that we do have a single House; we don’t have an Upper House which is taking the opportunity to scrutinise the legislation once it’s passed and that gives, in my view, more constitutional significance and importance to the select committee process.

This nine-day proposal that has been put forward by the Minister would mean that the report back was on a Thursday which was a non-sitting day. I think this should be mentioned because this also provides issues for not only members who will be on the select committee and doing their due diligence to consider any submissions that may be made during that very short period of time but also my colleague Megan Woods spoke about the officials, and it’s also important to remember that parliamentary staff, who are part of our select committee, do the majority of the work to report back the committee’s views. It is an incredibly short period of time, nine days, and I don’t think sufficient to consider what is really taking into account new technology and new pieces of technology within the road-user charges system and trying to adopt those.

Often we have changes that are made to legislation—I haven’t gone back and done a calculation of it, but it is something that I may ask the Parliamentary Library to look into, which is the length of time spent at select committee and the shorter select committee processes and the likelihood of amendments coming up in the future, and I surmise that if you were to look into that, you would undoubtedly find that when legislation is not given its full process, then often there will need to be amendments and further House time taken up by fixing errors that are in legislation. So I think that is actually a really significant point to raise.

The other point I wanted to raise is on the structure of the legislation and what indeed it seeks to change. Now, this is not a simple one-line, one-clause bill. It actually has amendments to a primary Act—which is the Road User Charges Act 2012—and then it looks to change secondary legislation, and then my reading of this piece of legislation is that it inserts brand new schedules which would require scrutiny. So it’s concerning when there are—I don’t think there’s necessarily a justification when it’s a simple repeal bill or if it is on a simple one line that’s maybe, you know, a very easy concept for people to consider. This is a complex piece of legislation that looks at primary legislation, secondary legislation, and it also inserts new schedules. So those are all important reasons for having a longer select committee process.

I note in the Minister’s motion he refers to: “despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.” The main Standing Order, as I understand, in relation to report back, which isn’t mentioned, which I appreciate it’s not necessarily required by the motion, but the Minister, in a way, I feel should mention the Standing Order 303, which is the time for a report back. That is set at six months. Now, that is obviously a substantially longer time than nine days and would give the committee a significantly longer period of time to look at the legislation. And we know what happens when select committees don’t meet the report back times. There’s a very, very serious process that they have to go through which involves writing to the Business Committee, which is the committee that is in charge of this House, and putting forward clear reasons as to why they are not likely to meet the report-back date. So that is a very serious procedure that they have to go through, and I think that the fact that has to go through the Business Committee justifies our attention at this stage and I’m glad members are taking the opportunity to debate this particular motion because the converse should also be true: if you want a shorter select committee process, you should be able to back it up with reasons.

I did listen to the Minister’s reasons and, to be fair, I wasn’t convinced at the need for this incredibly short report-back time, because we’re not talking about a report-back time which is half as long, three months. As previous members have talked about, we’re not talking about a month, we’re not talking about two weeks; we’re talking about nine days, including non-sitting days. So that is very, very significant, I think.

I’m also aware that other members have ideas about how this might be improved and I haven’t had a look at it yet, but I do understand my colleague Duncan Webb has tabled an amendment to this motion which he’ll be seeking to speak to, which undoubtedly will increase the amount of time—I’m looking to my colleague to confirm that: that is correct, he’s confirmed—that the select committee would be able to look at that.

So I think that nine days is too short. We’ve talked about the staff that it would impact, and I wanted to note that we are in a situation, an environment, where the Government has been looking for cost-cutting measures. We haven’t heard that Parliamentary Services is exempt to that. So placing extreme requirements by this House on staff members in that type of environment I think is very concerning. We don’t want to be in a position where the report is not of the standard that we would expect, and we don’t want to be blaming staff members retrospectively for missing a submission or not reporting something as eloquently as we would like when the reality is that this House is placing them in a situation which is untenable for them to be able to complete their job with that incredibly short report-back time.

So I think those are all of the procedural elements that I wish to raise on this bill, but I would just reiterate that I would urge the Government and Ministers to reconsider a longer report-back time. As members have said, we do actually support the content of this bill but we’re in a situation where we’ve had urgency—there is a select committee process here, but it’s not long enough. I don’t think we should start with no select committee and then think, “Oh, aren’t we so happy, we’ve got nine days.” We actually should start by looking at the procedure as it’s outlined in Standing Orders and the Standing Orders that we always usually look to like Standing Order 303 and working back from there, not starting on the basis of no select committee.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): I move, That the motion be amended by adding the words “but not on Saturdays, despite any Standing Order to the contrary.”

I move this amendment because I am aware that good legislative practice requires the full attention of members, and this Government has been pressing us rather hard. It’s under Standing Orders: committees can in fact meet at any time, other than when the House is sitting, and under Standing Order 48, which talks about the House—I’m assuming that extends to committees not meeting on a Sunday. So what we have, by this instruction, is the ability for the chair of this committee, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, to call a meeting at any time, including a Friday after the House has sat, which, under the select committee Standing Orders, is set aside, essentially, as a day of pause, perhaps for constituency work. But not only that, it could also, under the general Standing Orders, call a meeting for the Saturday. Whilst you might still set Sunday aside for a day of rest, it is my contention that given the fact that, for example, we’ll more likely than not be sitting to midnight on Wednesday night and sitting extensively on Thursday, the committee will then also quite likely be sitting on Friday, notwithstanding that it is a sitting week, and then quite possibly Saturday. That’s just not good legislative practice—not only that but it’s actually not good for the health and wellbeing of parliamentarians.

So I have moved this amendment—and I won’t speak to it for a great deal longer—for, essentially, both those bases: so that the quality of scrutiny given to this piece of legislation is up to the standard that the New Zealand public can deserve, so that members of Parliament can have some respite from their legislative duties and come back to it fresh, at the appropriate time.

Now, I gave a nod when perhaps I shouldn’t have, because this motion as tabled does not in fact extend the time, but I would suggest that if the House is happy with this amendment—and I hope it is. I have never been to a select committee that met on a Saturday, but, then again, I’ve never been through a period of urgency such as this Government has imposed upon us.

As my colleague Megan Woods said, this bill is substantive and important. It’s closely linked to our climate goals—emissions deserve the full scrutiny of the select committee. How are we going to truncate that into the period of time—nine days, I believe—that we have without sitting in truly extraordinary circumstances such as sitting on a Saturday, I don’t know.

So my amendment is a very brief one. I would suggest that when the leader of the House, or Ministers in charge of legislation come to these select committee instructions, it would be appropriate not only to say, “We can include this” but also to rule out days such as Saturday, to rule out meeting after 6 p.m. on a non-sitting week, when people are in their constituencies, perhaps, and try and have some family time. Show that we can achieve both those objectives: the objective of good quality legislative scrutiny, not scrutiny by exhaustion, and also looking after our members so that they can return to their important legislative tasks and their important constituency tasks with the appropriate degree of energy and attention.

So I won’t trouble the House any longer with debate on that amendment, but I do hope that the Minister will seriously consider it. It would be extraordinary to sit on a Saturday, and it’s not really much of an ask for the Minister and the Government to rule that out on that amendment.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do want to take a call on this referral motion.

Can I thank my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb for tabling an amendment. What I take from his contribution is that he has done so within the context of the House currently sitting under urgency—something that members of this House are becoming very familiar with, unfortunately—but also that the ability for the select committee perhaps to fully scrutinise in a way that is appropriate would be better served by, effectively, this House issuing, as part of an instruction of the referral, a requirement for the select committee to not sit on a Saturday. Whilst that might improve the referral motion, I still have some fundamental concerns about the very short time frame that this bill is seeking to have in front of a select committee. I did touch on that in my contribution earlier and did indicate that I would be seeking a call to speak to that later.

The House is in a circumstance at the moment where it will, as we understand it, sit in urgency. It’ll sit through till midnight tomorrow after commencing at 9 a.m. in the morning, with the possibility of Thursday and, who knows, possibly into Friday. Now, my colleague Dr Webb talks about the wellbeing of parliamentarians, and I think that is a very salient point: that there would be members of this Parliament who would then potentially roll into a Saturday to hear submissions in a rather discrete period of time. So I’m supportive of Dr Webb’s tabled amendment because it basically will allow for a committee, if it is a nine-day period still, to still use its time more effectively. I think, actually, members of the public would think that’s the same view.

I also make the point that the House is in urgency. Part of the urgency motion that the Minister moved is the repeal of the Auckland regional fuel tax. Members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee no doubt will be involved with that particular item. So, again, it’s not simply about members re-diverting their attention from being in the House or being in select committee, but the nature of items that have formed part of the urgency motion are such that there are dual responsibilities to members on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. Certainly, while members may be subbed off, as a member of that committee myself, I would like to hear the submissions that are presented; those who will avail themselves of even a truncated period of time to speak to the submissions, to raise the issues and the concerns.

So while I am supportive of Dr Webb’s tabled amendment, I still think that the nine days in total is still completely inadequate and unsatisfactory. So, on the one hand, certainly support the amendment, but the substantive motion still is significantly deficient. Because we are talking about a piece of potential legislation, as my colleague Camilla Belich touched on, involves primary legislation. Not only that, it includes secondary legislation, and that it also inserts some new schedules as well. And that happens from time to time: members opposite; members on this side of the House will know that.

But by allowing a simple nine-day window for these matters to be addressed and actually for people to get organised and to submit to the process, I think, is shutting the door on these individuals. Let’s remember that this is a bill that, yes, the Minister earlier talked about had been signalled by the former Government. This is a Government that has decided to leave it very, very late in the piece towards its 100th day—that’s what the Minister indicated in terms of his explanation earlier this afternoon.

But this is also something that has only recently come to the attention of the House that it’s going to be on the Order Paper in terms of being dealt with under urgency. Now, that means there are people out in the community who will not have known that this was actually something that is going to be scrutinised by the Parliament. Yes, there’s an argument for saying, “Well, you know, things were due to expire at the end of March.”, but there are people out in the community who undoubtedly will not know. Actually, even with a nine-day period of select committee—where usually it’s months, as we know—this will probably go through that process of “the House is of that view” and still there will be people who would have liked to have submitted on this bill who will not have even known that it’s actually made its way through the House or to a select committee.

So to say that we’re going to refer this for nine days is completely inadequate. The only explanation that we have heard in this House as to why the nine days is related to the 100-day plan for this Government. That is the only reason.

Camilla Belich: Arbitrary.

TANGI UTIKERE: Now—it is arbitrary. So surely there are opportunities that need to be made available.

I want to just note that the departmental disclosure statement that I have touched on previously—there is a lot, I think, being relied on the fact that there was public consultation back in 2022. A lot has happened since 2022, and there might be individuals outside of some of these particular freight and trucking sectors where this is what it said: most submissions were received from the freight and trucking sectors. Now, there will be people like my constituent who sent an email through to me recently, who indicated that, actually, he doesn’t mind having to pay a road-user charge for his electric vehicle but he has real concerns about the weight variance. And this is the absolute mechanism by which those concerns would be aired. Now, my concern is that by, effectively, truncating that period, you are shutting off the opportunity for many to want to be able to contribute.

So I won’t go on any longer except to say that I think Dr Webb’s tabled amendment is a sensible one in the circumstances. But that certainly, in my view, does not override the unfortunate circumstance that the substantive motion of nine days’ referral to the select committee is currently before the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): In the absence of any other speakers, I will go to the question. The question is that the motion be amended by adding the words “but not on Saturdays, despite any Standing Order to the contrary.”

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) 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 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 of 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 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Legal Services Amendment Bill.

Bills

Legal Services Amendment Bill

In Committee

Clause 1 Title

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the House is in committee on the Legal Services Amendment Bill. We start with clause 1; this is the debate on the title. The question is that clause 1 stand part.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): You know, it’s traditional, in amendment bills, to be a little more descriptive than the “Legal Services Amendment Bill”. In fact, I know there are a couple of Amendment Papers which suggest descriptions that might be more apposite. It may well be that simply removing funding for section 27 reports would be one of those, because, of course, that’s what it does, and it would be good just for the legislative record for that.

But if you want to have something a little more descriptive, you would say what this bill really does. Of course, it does a number of things, but one of the things it really does—and I’m hoping to have perhaps a more substantive discussion with the Minister later—is it makes sentencing harder for judges. So my tabled amendment, which is marked “B”, actually identifies that by inserting it in brackets: “this legal Act is the Legal Services (Making Sentences Harder for Judges) Amendment Act”.

I say that because these section 27 reports—and in another speech in this House, I pointed out that Justice Joe Williams of the Supreme Court said that context is essential. You can call these “cultural reports” if you like, but what they actually are is just contextual reports, placing the offending in the context of family, of community, of culture, and, importantly—and I’ll come to this a bit later—of victims. If judges don’t have that information, it makes sentencing harder. Actually, judges will still try and do their best. They will still try and glean the information that they can from wherever they can, and that’s going to be a challenge.

The regulatory impact statement points out that, in fact, the likelihood is that this bill will have the exact opposite effect of the Government’s intention, in terms of sentencing being more effective and more efficient and more cost-effective. That’s just another way this is making sentencing harder for judges.

So my suggestion is that we just call it what it is. I’m hopeful. I’m not confident, but I’m hopeful that sentences won’t inappropriately increase, but it’s hard to say what will happen. I’ll tell you what will happen is that sentences will bear less relationship with the identity of the offender and the offending, because the judges won’t know, because it’s going to be harder for them to get that information.

So this is a situation in which the title of the bill, the “Legal Services Amendment Bill”, it’s just not really good, and I’m surprised the Parliamentary Counsel Office has it there. I’m loath to criticise them, but it would be nice to have had something a little more descriptive.

Now, the Minister may want to table his own amendment, which doesn’t have quite such a pejorative suggested addition, but nevertheless gives the reader—someone flipping through the statute book, as we all do—a much better indication of exactly what’s going on. But I do think that my proposed amendment, the “Legal Services (Making Sentences Harder for Judges) Amendment Act 2024”, is an accurate description of what’s going on now.

Now, I won’t use my full time, because I’ll come back to a number of other amendments I have and questions I have for the Minister in the wider debate.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’d like the opportunity of speaking in support of the tabled amendment made in the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s name. I do agree with the honourable member that the Minister of Justice might want to consider some alternative wording, but it’s important that he responds to the premise in the proposed change, which is the fact that this bill should reflect what it does, and that is: making the work of judges more difficult when they are weighing up how to deal with someone who has offended.

I think it’s really important to note that there have been some good comments made publicly in relation to this bill making it a lot harder for judges. One, in particular, is justice advocate Sir Kim Workman. He specifies that when a judge reads the report—this is the section 27 report—that they actually realise that this person is not only an offender but a victim, and that the circumstances that they’ve been brought up in and have not been always within their control. The other aspect of it is that if you put a person in prison for an extended period of time, you can almost guarantee they will emerge as more dangerous and more of a risk to public safety than they were beforehand.

So those were the words of Sir Kim Workman, specifically in relation to what the job of a judge is and the ability of that judge to have all of the information available to them when they make that decision. The problem that we are addressing with this amendment is that if we take away some of that information that is made available to judges, then you narrow the scope of how the judge can weigh up what’s the best way to not only prevent this person from reoffending but also prevent more victims from being created within New Zealand.

So I think it’s only right that we should hear from the Minister to understand his rationale for the fact that this bill narrows the scope, narrows the availability of information that is laid before judges when they are making those very important decisions for our community.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Well, I thank the two members for their suggestions about names for this legislation. The Government has named it the “Legal Services Amendment Bill” because it amends the Legal Services Act, and we think that’s appropriate.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): I invite the Minister to perhaps use his creative instincts—I know that he holds a related portfolio. I know there’s another tabled amendment in the name of my friend Ginny Andersen, because this tabled amendment actually also goes to the heart of the purpose of this bill. This is about legal aid, and legal aid is for poor people, and this is removing access to funding for reports from poor people. So rich people can have them because they can pay; poor people can’t. Now, that sentence is perhaps a bit lengthy. I think no good drafter would be quite that verbose, so that’s why the proposal in this tabled amendment “A” is to call the Act the “Legal Services (Removing Access to Reports for Poor People) Amendment Act 2024”.

In a nutshell, that’s what this Minister is doing. I’ll be quite frank, I find it a repugnant thing to do. But let’s call it what it is. People who can’t pay for these don’t get them but people who can do. “Access” is a good word to use here because it ties in with the concept of access to justice, a concept that doesn’t seem to be one with which this particular Minister of Justice is particularly familiar with.

The suggestion that this isn’t about access to justice because it’s an evidential report of some sort makes no sense. This is as much a legal service as anything else, and so let’s just call it out. This amendment bill removes access to these important sentencing reports for poor people. So, Minister, I would challenge you. Unless you can be a little bit more poetic in there perhaps, let’s call it what it is: stuff the poor people; they can’t have these reports. This bill should be called the “Removing Access to Reports for Poor People Amendment Bill”.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to take a call in support of the tabled amendment to the title of this bill. I was going to suggest that it be the “Non-legal Services Amendment Bill” because, by taking away access to section 27 cultural reports, there is a large group within our society who are not going to be able to access section 27 cultural reports.

I want to support and endorse the comments of my colleague who has spoken previously to me because, as I highlighted in my contributions in the earlier readings of this legislation, I pointed to the fact that affordability is a particular issue for many in the justice system. I pointed to the fact that who will this disproportionately impact, and what we know from the regulatory impact statement and what we know from commentary regarding this is that this will disproportionately impact Māori, who are, sadly, disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system.

To support that, I want to refer to an article where the Law Society said that the withdrawal of funding “will significantly limit access to justice”. So I’m speaking to my point that this might be the “Non-legal Services”—the Minister is just yawning there. I’m sorry if I’m boring you, but this is important for us to discuss and debate this afternoon. What I was saying was that the New Zealand Law Society Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa said that the withdrawal of funding “will significantly limit access to justice. … With funding for these reports removed, the only way a person facing sentencing will be able to access them is by paying privately. Those who can afford this would then have a greater level of representation in the Court than those receiving Legal Aid. That is a significant breach of fundamental rights.”

So I support the tabled amendment—sorry, if the honourable member can just point me to; oh, there it is—where the proposal is that it be called the “Legal Services (Removing Access to the Reports for Poor People) Amendment Bill”. Can the Minister please speak to the points that we have raised about how he believes that this change will not impact on those who cannot afford to pay for section 27 reports?

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thought I’d better take a call on this amendment, given it’s in my name. I’d just like the record to reflect also that we really didn’t get any answers back from the Minister in relation to our first suggestion to the fact that giving judges less information—I still think it’s an important point if this bill is proceeding through all stages under urgency and there’s no opportunity for members of the public to be able to submit, I think the very least the Minister could potentially do is to have a go at answering some of the questions that we’re putting forward, or at least explaining as to why these ideas aren’t being taken up. It’s pretty tough for members of the public to watch legislation being made at pace without any open, democratic access to submit or have a view put forward on these ideas. So, from this side of the House, we would heartily encourage the Minister to engage on these questions, because the general public do want to have some answers because it directly affects them.

To the point of my proposed amendment, which is that this Act replace clause 1 with “This Act is the Legal Services (Removing Access to Reports for Poor People) Amendment Act 2024”. This goes to the point that if you want one of these section 27 reports going forward after this legislation has passed, then you have to pay for it. So it is a fiscal barrier to people accessing justice. If there are key factors that need to be brought to the judge’s attention, the most effective way of doing this is through those section 27 reports. And by putting a fiscal barrier in here and requiring anybody who wishes to have one of these to go and privately fund them, that is not fair. It is not fair to New Zealanders, and it is not fair in order for the full ability to understand how this person’s rehabilitation—understand how this person can stop offending, that is prevented from even happening because if they are unable to pay for this, then they are, effectively, being denied justice. As a Government, to deny people access to justice is pretty fundamental. So I believe that the Minister does need to explain why he is placing a fiscal barrier to those New Zealanders who are unable to pay for these reports, and therefore preventing them from receiving fair access to justice.

I think it’s also important to note the implications of this bill for certain demographics within New Zealand. As we do know, there is a disproportionate representation of Māori within the criminal justice system. These reports do provide a real opportunity for people to be able to have a range of factors brought to the courtroom and brought in front of the judge, and you are disproportionately affecting one demographic within New Zealand, and that is also unfair. We know for a fact that it is already difficult for Māori to access justice—we have many reports demonstrating that. And it is my view that this piece of legislation adds to that weight against iwi Māori and weighs against their ability to access justice and get fairness in front of our courts.

I understand that there’s some political posturing going on in terms of saying you’re going to be able to save taxpayers a bunch of money, but, at the same time, if you’re chucking up their petrol taxes a whole heap, why don’t you just give Māori fair access to justice?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Ms Andersen, narrower, please.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Members are raising the policy issues of this bill, and I’m very happy, and the Government is very happy, to debate the policy merits of this bill, which will be appropriate in the clause 4 debate that we have.

What we’re doing at the moment, for those tuning in to listen to Parliament, is simply a very brief debate on the title of the bill. The title that the Government has given the bill is the “Legal Services Amendment Bill”, and that is because it is a bill that amends the Legal Services Act, and that makes perfectly good sense. We can use up an hour or two of time coming up with silly names on the other side of things, but if we want to debate the substance of the bill, we can move to clause 4, and I’m very happy to answer any questions on the bill at that point.

But, in terms of the title, we’ve got an obvious title. It says what it does, and I don’t think I need to engage in a long exercise of creativity, such as Duncan Webb suggests.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Well, before we do move on—I mean, it was a little dismissive of the Minister, which is disappointing. But in terms of the tabled amendment by the Hon Ginny Andersen, I do want to make it clear—and, look, it’s kind of circular: “This amends the Legal Services Act so let’s call it the Legal Services Amendment Bill.” It’s still not descriptive. We know that there’s many amendments to that Act, and they’re indistinguishable from each other. But this is about poor people, because this is about payment for reports, and these reports cost between about $1,800 and $2,500 each. As I said in an earlier debate—

Joseph Mooney: Used to be 800 bucks—they’ve gone up a bit.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: As I said in an earlier debate, your children are fine if they get into a bit strife because you can, no doubt, afford on your MP salary—as can I—these reports. But here, this is saying what it really is: this is saying that poor people don’t get access to justice and they don’t have access to these reports, because whether it’s $800 or $1,800 or $2,200, that’s too much for a lot of people out there who are on very low incomes indeed. So I’m pressing on this one because I think it’s a really important point. I do want to put on record that these reports, you know, they’re not $10,000 reports—they’re not some forensic scientist’s report; they’re a report about family context, victim context, cultural context. They have been recognised as really useful and they’ve been recognised not as making for lower sentences, but making for better sentences—these are sentences that are a better match for the offender, for the whānau, for the offending, and for the community. So let’s call it what it is: it’s the “No Access for Reports for Poor People Bill”.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The Hon Ginny Andersen’s tabled amendment to clause 1 is ruled out of order as not being a serious amendment.

The Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 1 is ruled out of order as not being a serious amendment.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 Commencement

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): We come now to clause 2. This is the debate on clause 2, “Commencement”. The question is that clause 2 stand part.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Well, I must firstly—but briefly—express surprise and dismay that those two tabled amendments were ruled out of order, because they were very descriptive and very apposite. They might have been firmly worded, but they were not joke amendments; they were serious. So I’m actually very surprised and disappointed about that.

But I have also suggested an amendment because—I’m assuming the Minister believes in access to justice for all.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Well, I’d hope so, being the Minister of Justice!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: You’d hope so—that’s right, Willow-Jean Prime. I’m sure he knows his Magna Carta and the clause that’s still in force in New Zealand: that the courts will do right by all, rich and poor alike. So I’m assuming that he’d be happy for this little amendment bill of his to be deferred from coming into force until we have finally reached that goal of doing right by all, regardless of whether you’re rich or poor. He is smiling at me. I do believe he’s nodding, and that is, at last we are at one!

My proposed amendment, which I think has been marked by the Clerk as “C”, says, “Let’s defer this for Order in Council, and once this Minister, who has such lofty goals of equal access to justice for all, can certify that there is equal access to justice in New Zealand for all, regardless of means, that’s a great date on which to bring this into force, because this bill, this funding, won’t be needed.” In fact, you could probably put a Legal Services Repeal Act in and, if we got to that lofty goal, we’d probably vote in favour of it. It’s a wee way off, to be fair, but we’re happy to wait.

So my proposal is that we don’t set a fixed commencement date. It’s a little unusual to have a deferred commencement date. I’m familiar with the caution that the Clerk and the Parliamentary Counsel Office have around executive powers being able to wait. But, if the objective here is to get rid of something that’s not needed, let’s wait until that day arrives, when everyone, if they do find themselves in a bit of strife and are needing one of these reports, can in fact get it. I’m sure the Minister can’t want a world in which some people who have wealth will get a better justice outcome than those that don’t have wealth. And, if that’s the case, I’m sure he doesn’t want this in just now.

I must say—putting it in within 14 days—I am a little concerned that this is just a little bit of posturing around getting stuff done and being able to say, “Look what I’ve delivered to you.”—a kick in the guts for the poor, because that’s what it is. And, if that’s the kind of delivery this new Government wants, it’s really disappointing, because rushing it through and having a 14-day commencement clause is just really unseemly haste. It reflects very poorly on the Government. And, of course, I do want to say this because this hasn’t gone to select committee. I’m saying what a lot of other people would say: taihoa; just hold your horses; there is no massive urgency here. And certainly the papers that I’ve read from the department give that sense: let’s just slow this down a bit, because there are other options; there’s a whole lot of administrative abilities that the Minister and the Legal Services Commissioner have which could equally easily be used to ensure that quality reports are given by qualified people at reasonable prices, when they’re required. You don’t need legislation for that. That’s one of the first rules.

So let’s not get this coming into force in 14 days from, essentially, today, if the Minister has his way with the legislation as it appears on the Order Paper. Let’s just wait a little. Let’s wait for the day when we reach the goal that he and I agree on: that we have equal access for all, whether rich or poor, regardless of means. So I hope he will support that amendment.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’d just like to make a brief comment in relation to clause 2, on the commencement. The point I’d like to make is the fact that 14 days is just not enough. It’s a sweeping change to access to justice, and that period of time after Royal assent for this to become law in New Zealand is just undemocratic. There is simply no opportunity for the people directly impacted by this bill to be able to have their voices heard. So my suggestion to the Minister is not only to take a look at the amendment that has been tabled in the name of the Hon Duncan Webb but also to think about what additional consultation should be undertaken as a Treaty partner and also as the Government doing right by the people of New Zealand.

In particular, I’d like to point out that we know, through written parliamentary questions, that the Ministry of Justice has not undertaken, commissioned, or received any research about the impact of section 27 reports on reoffending. So, given the fact that there has been no evidence base to demonstrate that what is being done through this passage, surely that warrants a slowing up of the passage of this legislation. Surely, as part of a fair, democratic process and as good lawmakers, we should have some understanding about the impacts that this law will make in our community. How can we even possibly understand what that impact is when the very ministry responsible for doing this work has come back and publicly stated, through the written parliamentary questions system, that there has been no research done to demonstrate what the impacts of section 27 reports are on reoffending.

So, for that reason, I think it is really important that we hear from the Minister what the pressure is here, what the huge rush is to make this bill law immediately, to bypass public submissions, to bypass any kind of thorough or rigorous assessment as to what it’s going to do. It kind of looks like it’s just a tick box for the 100-day plan. It kind of just looks like this Government wants to look tough and say they’re doing some stuff. But, really, when you go to that next level and say, “Why are we bypassing a public submissions process? Why has the ministry not had the ability to do any rigorous research or assessment of the impact of this law change?”, it does kind of look like window dressing to me. So, really, for the Minister to speak to the point as to why this bill is being pushed through so quickly under urgency—why is it being enacted 14 days after the Royal assent? And what is the rush to bypass some of the fundamental facets of our democracy?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Mr Chair, and for the contributions of the two former Ministers. We’re debating the clause about when this Act would come into force, which will be 14 days after the bill is passed. That is to give people some notice and to have a process for applications or requests for approval for funding for these reports to be approved by the commissioner before the two weeks, so that people have some time to get the applications in, if they are currently under way, and they can be approved up until two weeks from when this bill is passed. So that’s the two-week period.

In terms of people being prepared, well, I’m sure all members of the House are conscious of the fact, when we talk about democracy, that this was something that was very well flagged during the election last year and throughout the year—widespread concern about the increase in money being spent on this, going from $40,000 to $7.5 million in a short period of time. Mr Webb suggests that we should never bring in the commencement of this legislation—and that doesn’t surprise me, in terms of a Government that was prepared just to sit on their hands while all this money was spent, and other legal aid meantime struggled.

In terms of the debate, it isn’t about the urgency in the House, or the select committee process, but I would make the point that the cultural reports were introduced in the early 2000s, about 20 years ago. They were supposed to be oral reports. At some point, around six years ago, a change occurred and they started to be funded out of legal aid. There was no select committee process or Government decision around that change—it just occurred—and the funding went up very, very substantially. So that is why we are keen to make that change in a timely fashion in order to deal with the issues that we are concerned about in this bill.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to make a contribution. My colleague the Hon Ginny Andersen talked about the next layer, which, thankfully, the Minister actually touched on, which was the sorts of practicalities of it starting within two weeks—sorry, making sure that the Royal assent is 14 days, or two weeks after. He said for those people to get their application in in that time, before that period ends. My question to the Minister, with respect to that, is: is there flexibility, or is the Minister and the department of a mind, where there are unforeseen circumstances within those two weeks, or, where there is a known backlog in a District Court, whether or not those who are affected by that backlog have some grace here to make sure that they get their application in in respect of the time line that the Minister has just described?

I think that’s important. We know that in many of our courts around the country, there are significant challenges there. There have been backlogs, and we just want to make sure, for absolute clarity from the Minister, given the fact that this hasn’t gone to a select committee and we need an opportunity to flesh out a number of the matters—and I pick up on the words that the Minister has just used in his contribution, saying that those people can get their applications in within the two weeks and that the commencement date is 14 days after the Royal assent. Given that he said that people can get their applications in before then, we’re seeking clarity here—just a bit more clarity—about whether or not that impacts on those who, for whatever unforeseen circumstances, can’t get it in in that time or, through a court process, it’s delayed, and whether or not there will be any flexibility given to the consideration of their application within what would have normally been the 14 days before the Act comes into force.

Then, of course, without crystal-ball gazing, there are challenges that happen in certain places. We’ve had a bad bout of weather here in Wellington yesterday, which I thought was going to shut the city down.

But there are these kinds of occasions, and the second part to my question for the Minister is whether or not there’s any flexibility here, because, obviously, once this goes through, that’s that—that’s 14 days. That’s where I agree with my colleague the Hon Dr  Duncan Webb about whether or not we can come up with an agreement to buy some time here for those who are currently in the system and—what I expect, and as the Minister said—for those to put their applications through. I suspect there’s going to be a flood of them. I suspect there’s going to be plenty of them, and will there be enough time to process them, with the strict 14 days that we are debating here in this particular clause? That’s my question to the Minister.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to endorse all the other contributions that members on this side of the Chamber have made in this section of the debate, and I want to talk to a few new points. I see that the Minister is taking some advice there, so I just do want to make sure that he picks up on the points that I want to make around the commencement date.

I fully endorse the comments that have already been made about reasons and concerns and questions that they have about the commencement date. What I want to focus on, in particular around the commencement date, is that this legislation is being rushed through under urgency; it hasn’t had the benefit of a select committee process. I know from reading numerous reports that there are many organisations who are opposed to this proposal by the Minister, who have not been consulted, and who have not been given an opportunity to participate in this debate on the proposals that are being put forward here. This is not good lawmaking, and I would just point out that the New Zealand Law Society, the Māori Law Society, the Bar Association, and several defence lawyers are all seriously criticising this move by the Government and the Minister.

Now, what I want to identify, in terms of commencement, is how ready the justice system is for what are going to be the, perhaps, unintended consequences, although I think that the Minister should be aware of the potential consequences of this, because I’m reading from the Newsroom article about this proposed change. Now, why I’m saying that we need to consider a delay in the commencement of this legislation is because, I ask: are our prisons ready for the number of people who could potentially have longer sentences, with more going into prisons in the first place and for longer? Because we simply do not have the information; the departmental disclosure report and the regulatory impact statement are bereft of this information.

However, what I want to point to in the Newsroom report is that officials carried out data analysis in December to estimate the added costs of incarceration. I don’t want to focus on costs; I want to focus on the number of beds. We know that our prison system is already stretched. It said, for example: “For those currently serving a sentence of over two years’ imprisonment, an additional 136 beds would be required. For those serving a sentence of two years’ imprisonment or less, an additional 120 beds would be required. And for those currently serving a sentence of home detention, 124 beds would be required.”

My questions to the Minister are: is he confident that our prison system has the capacity and the resources to be able to deal with an increase, which is the likely effect of this decision that he is making today, and which this clause proposes is ready to go—up and running—in 14 days? So can the Minister please stand and explain to us that he is confident that the corrections system, the prison system, and the justice system are going to be able to deal with these types of projected numbers? Can he confidently say that to the committee this afternoon?

I have a further contribution, but it is different to this issue, and I would like to have a response from the Minister on this particular issue before I move on to my next point on the commencement date and the ability of the judiciary to do their job in such a short time when he is fundamentally changing their processes. So I would like to take a call on that, once I’ve had answers to those questions.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): I’m happy to tell the member that, yes, I am confident that the corrections system will be able to handle this change.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m glad the Minister of Justice was able to stand here and say he is confident that they are going to be able to provide these additional prison beds for those who are likely to have different sentencing outcomes in the absence of this report.

The second point I want to make, and question I want to ask, is: is the Minister confident that the judiciary is prepared for these changes, which are proposed in this section to be implemented, to commence in just 14 days? Now, the reason I ask that is that what we have heard from several who have commented on these proposed changes is that the lawyers and the judges still have an obligation to have this information but they would have to get it in more painstaking ways. They anticipate the filing of Oranga Tamariki, medical, school, police, national intelligence application records to detail a defendant’s deprivation, harm, and disadvantage, and so they’ll have to engage cultural experts, psychologists, alcohol and drug therapists, as well as engage with whānau and family who may have literacy deficits and are intimidated by the courtroom. Counsel will need to spend more time obtaining data, and the courts may be given raw data which is voluminous and time-consuming to review. My question to the Minister is: is the judiciary prepared for this change to take effect in just 14 days’ time? Retired District Court Judge David Harvey agreed, saying, “judges had an obligation under the principles of the Sentencing Act to consider relevant background factors, so would have to source information previously found in [the] section 27 report[s] in different ways.”

My question to the Minister is: what consideration has he given to those judges who are required under the legislation to give consideration to these things, without the very tool that provided that to them in a more efficient, effective, and fair way? That is what we are debating this afternoon. Can he stand up and please give us, the committee, the confidence that he has given consideration to that, that he believes that the judiciary are going to be able to efficiently and effectively, and in a way that upholds justice for all, deliver on their responsibilities under the legislation. What retired Judge Harvey is saying is it leaves the “question mark over the quality of rehabilitation, given that [this is] a large focus of the section 27 report. The fact of the matter is … as a result of all of this, the courts are going to be deprived of information which they could rely on in the past that would assist in a proper rehabilitative [and a] proper sentence that fulfils the purposes and principles of the Sentencing Act.”

So, I repeat again, my questions are: do you believe, can you tell us that you have confidence, that in just 14 days’ time, the judiciary and our justice system are going to be able to provide fair access to justice for all and proper sentencing in accordance with the principles in the Sentencing Act? I mean, the whole driver behind this Government’s push for the removal of section 27 cultural reports is costs and funding—I’ll get to that when we debate that in another section. This is about whether the system is ready for this change to take effect in just 14 days, given it’s being passed under urgency, that there’s been no consultation with major organisations and bodies that have known opposition to what is being proposed. We have those who have served in the judiciary, saying it’s particularly unworkable, going to be more time-consuming, and cost more. So can the Minister please answer those questions?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Very happy to answer the question. I am confident that in the 14 days after this bill is passed and before the Act comes into force, the—I cannot speak on behalf of the judiciary, of course, but what I can say is that they will continue to have many tools available to them to understand the background of offenders, and within 14 days. That is sufficient time for this change to be made.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Just in relation to the commencement of this bill, I note that in the very brief legislative statement that we have received, it specifies that this bill supports the Government’s priorities to restore law and order. I was just wondering if the Minister of Justice would like to say: is he relying on this bill alone to be able to restore law and order to New Zealand, or are there some other things that he’s doing? In particular—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Can I ask the member to relate this to the commencement date, please.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Yes. Yes. So is he expecting law and order to be restored to New Zealand 14 days after the commencement of this bill?

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice about the practical implications for those involved in these cases, because you’ve not only got the judiciary but you’ve also got lawyers involved in the cases, who, if you’re bringing this in in 14 days, have already been well on the way down a case. So what they will have done is made decisions about how they’re going to run that defence or that case or that plea. This presents a situation, from what I can see, where the information’s still relevant to the court finding, but the written report, that they would usually use as the way of achieving this, won’t be something that is available to them unless they’re willing to pay or their client is willing to pay for that. So they will have to look at other means and they will have to structure that. What I would expect the Law Commission, the Law Society, and the various law societies to do is to actually talk about the role that the judges and the lawyers would play and the way they would do this in a structured and fair way to everyone. So everybody needs this time to adjust to a different system because they still need to take into account these factors.

Now, one of the concerns I have is that it seems like we’re replacing a report, which is seen as expensive, with oral evidence. Oral evidence is not cheap. It is often something that is going to require costs on behalf of the witness—it may be an expert witness, which is going to really blow out the costs. You also have to consider the cost of the judge themselves and the staff around that, because they’re going to have to consider it in the way that the case is being heard, and they’re going to have to decide how involved they get. So, in many of the jurisdictions, the courts will take a more active role if, in fact, that isn’t being done by anyone else.

So has there been any consideration of running a trial in this, where you could just do this in one place and set it up against the other system and look at the consequences, so there weren’t unintended consequences. What I’m concerned about is the blowout of cost, the delay, the impact on the various players—including, actually, the victims of this. Because what we have, very clearly, in the provision itself, is an issue over really looking at that rehabilitative nature—what is the situation like for that individual? It’s not just about culture in the narrow sense; it’s about community, it’s about the placement of those people, it’s about the chances of reoffending in those alternatives.

So, if, in fact, we’re going down this pathway, has the Minister considered doing a trial—which I’d be in favour of a lot of legislation doing—extending out this for a little while, while that trial took place? I’m sure you could get more cooperation across the committee to look at that kind of scenario. So, like, do a trial of this—don’t do the whole thing—and measure those consequences, but also give a chance for the lawyers themselves, and the psychologists perhaps, who are involved in this work, and the judiciary to make plans as to how to provide justice in the situation where these reports are no longer relied upon. Thank you.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to ask a question about the commencement date to the Minister of Justice—and I thank him for his engagement on this clause with my colleagues. But this is a significant clause of the bill because it is so swift to make a change which will have a deep impact on people’s access to justice, particularly access to justice for Māori, who are most impacted by the section 27 changes that the Minister is proposing.

My question about the date is: has the Minister considered transitional and savings provisions in this bill that relate directly to this very fast commencement date? The Hon Peeni Henare touched on this earlier: there is no provision in this bill that the Minister has proposed, and so it relates to the commencement clause because it would be inserted, usually, after a commencement clause, and that is when an amendment would be relevant there. For example, with changes to the extent to which the disbursements are incurred in relation to a report or a statement, whether they are written or oral statements presented in court, of a person called by an offender under section 27 of the Sentencing Act—if there are those in train now, can the Minister give the committee some assurance that those will remain in train and that those will be funded? How many of those are in train now? How many witnesses or expert witnesses do we have appearing at the moment who will be affected in the next 14 days? And is it relevant to create a transitional provision to save those processes which are before the courts now, that are sub judice, that are being considered now and should therefore be saved?

Also, has the Minister considered extending the commencement date specifically for those situations which are already in train now, where reports are being written, given that those are something which a judge has overseen, has had an involvement in asking for, that counsel have also been involved in asking for, that Parliament should respect the convention of not interfering in? And given that those have already potentially been ordered, does the Minister know how many there are that are in train, and will he make a provision for those that exist now, so that Parliament isn’t unduly interfering in business before the courts that exist currently?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): No, I haven’t considered extending the period beyond 14 days. But what will happen is the two-week time frame is to allow for legal aid providers to be advised of the change. Requests up until commencement could still be approved by the commissioner. Requests approved before the date will then be paid in the date. So requests that have been approved by the commissioner within the 14 days will be paid. Requests can be considered up until the 14 days.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Just for members’ awareness, we are starting to drift into debates which could be better placed in other clauses. So I’ll take another call, but I’d just remind members to stick to this particular clause.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Chair. I do hope, in terms of notifying legal aid providers within 14 days, the Minister’s not using New Zealand Post, because that might not quite work. That’s probably for the Minister for State Owned Enterprises.

I do want to talk about commencement and that 14-day period because, as the Minister has just pointed out in terms of that, within that period the legal services agency will have to formulate the notice and what it means for various providers and send it out. This is the point I want to make about the commencement date: providers will have to adjust their practice accordingly, and, in particular, legal aid providers are generally very busy criminal practitioners, and they will want to do right by their clients, and this will create an enormous bulge of work. The reason for that is that what, essentially, legal aid providers—lawyers—have been doing is subcontracting this bit of evidence, saying, “We need cultural report evidence; I’m really busy, it’s not really my area of expertise. Please can you find out about the family circumstances, the cultural background, the victim’s circumstance and what the relationships are, and get back to me and I can present it to the court.”

Now, these practitioners with 150 criminal files on their desk will have to do that themselves. That’s not something they’re geared up to do within 14 days. These are cases where the reports haven’t been commissioned yet and won’t be commissioned yet. These are cases that are in train; might not yet have gone to trial so a sentencing report isn’t appropriate yet. What will happen is that the burden of this work which will fall upon them will mean they can’t possibly satisfy all of their clients and do right by them. So, Minister, in fact, the kind of impact of this, the ripple effects of this will be felt in the legal profession in terms of how they properly serve their clients for six, nine, 12 months, depending on how quickly you can sort out the court backlog. The lawyers can’t just say, “Oh look, I’m too busy, I can’t possibly do your sentencing report. You know, I can’t possibly talk to your mum, talk to your brothers and sisters, talk to your kaumātua about what your cultural background is.”, and do all of that work, and then get all of those bits of evidence in a presentable form—

Helen White: Call the witness.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: “Call the witness,” as my friend Helen White said; call the witnesses orally, if necessary, perhaps get letters from them to present to the court because informality is generally OK in those situations. That’s all work that this commencement provision doesn’t allow for. This is going to be a bomb of work that lands on these practitioners because there’s no phasing out. It’s just a guillotine where the funding for these reports is stopped but the need for them doesn’t and these hard-working criminal practitioners, and I must say the Crown as well—no Crown solicitor I have spoken to thinks this is a good idea because they also want to see this done; they want to see this evidence. So it may well have an impact on the Crown’s work as well.

I know the Minister came to the Justice Committee and said you want to work on the backlog. This is going to exacerbate it because we don’t have a transitional phasing in; it doesn’t commence in a period of time for practitioners and judges, prosecutors, and defence lawyers to have time to adjust their frameworks to it. So I’m interested as to whether you’ve talked or thought about that bottleneck of work that will hit the legal profession as a result of the quick commencement.

JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The Hon Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 2 is ruled out of order as referring to an indeterminate in length and not providing sufficient certainty.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 Principal Act

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): We now come to clause 3. This is the debate on clause 3, the “Principal Act”. The question is that clause 3 stand part. No one’s going to take a call?

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Clause 3 agreed to.

New clause 3A

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): We now come to new clause 3A. This is a debate on the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 3A, replacing the definition of “legal services”. The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment, inserting new clause 3A, be agreed to.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this, although I will just note that I’m surprised that my commencement amendment order was ruled out. I thought I drafted that very carefully. I clearly need to lean on the Clerks a bit more!

Hon Paul Goldsmith: You’ll have to work harder.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Oh, I will, Mr Goldsmith, I will. In terms of this tabled amendment, look, I just want to make sure that the Minister’s objective is achieved, because he seems to be saying, “No legal aid money for sentencing reports.” But, as I said earlier in the House, lawyers will now be completing these reports. What a professional person was doing for $1,200, probably at $80 an hour, lawyers will now start doing for—you know, legal aid rates are pretty abysmal, but for $120 an hour, because it’s part of the work of a lawyer to advocate at sentencing, to gather the evidence, and to present it in as compelling way as they can.

Now, if the Minister doesn’t want that to happen, then he’s going to need this proposed clause 3A, which says that lawyers aren’t to do that work. Now, this is really about me saying that if you’re going to do this amendment, get it right, because that’s what’s needed here.

So, ultimately, what do you want, Minister? Do you want the lawyers to do this work? Do you want them to spend hours at the highest rate doing this work, or do you want these reports not to be put before the judge for poor people at all? Because that’s certainly the narrative that I’ve heard from you. So I’d invite you to consider this amendment and respond whether your policy is achieved by lawyers doing the work rather than experts, or by the work not being done at all.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’d just like an opportunity to speak to the proposed amendment, and I’d like to commend my colleague on taking some initiative to strengthen the bill—a very short bill, really. So having a clearer description of legal services and also what’s covered in there would actually make it a lot clearer for those who are able to access these services.

It’s really important that people understand what they are entitled to in terms of access to justice. I think that, on this side of the Chamber, you know, there is a real concern that there has not been adequate consideration given to the reduction of available legal services that this bill inevitably will create.

So what we really need to be clear on—and the Minister is able to speak to this—is that this bill, effectively, removes legal aid funding for a report or a statement, whether it be oral or written, for a person, and that section stops that information from being heard from not just someone who’s an expert but also potentially from family, whānau, or community, that might help that further offending.

So we really want to see a clearer definition in that space, and the proposed amendment provides some very clear language in that space that enables you to spell that out. Also it spells it out in relation to anything other than legal aid, including legal advice and representation, and that type of assistance that would enable people to be able to have some confidence when going through the judicial system that they have that expert advice and have been given a way of understanding what can be, for some, a really confusing, foreign, and quite a difficult process to go through, whether victim or offender.

So, in terms of making access to justice paramount, in terms of removing barriers to people accessing justice, I’d be really interested to hear the Minister’s views on including this new clause 3A within the Legal Services Amendment Bill.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Mr Chair, thank you. I want to just take the point a little bit further from my friends who’ve talked about the concerns they’ve got about what this will lead to. One of the concerns I raised is because I saw what happened when there were closing-down actions by this legislature of the role of various people in the Family Court. So, in that situation, what we saw when we closed down those avenues was others spring up that were way less efficient for the system. So what we ended up with was a whole lot of people told they shouldn’t have lawyers in the process and the process got clogged up by a much less focused approach

So these reports, while not necessarily your cup of tea, Minister, need to be replaced with something because of the nature of the objectives. What I am concerned about is that if this is going to happen, that there is sufficient direction in the legislation so that that happens in a way that is efficient. So what I’ve heard the Minister say outside of this Chamber, and, I think, in the Chamber in question time, “People just do oral reports.” I’d like to know from the Minister—I really would like to know—what does he think that looks like? If somebody does an oral report, does that mean they’re bringing in a professional to do it, or does it mean they’re bringing in a whānau member to do it? And how is it going to be constrained so that it’s focused in the right way, and not just become a complete mess of a long amount of time in front of a judge who’s trying to get information out of someone who may or may not be articulate or focused on the issues that the judge needs them to focus on? So I’d like to know about that—how is this practically going to work as far as the Minister’s concerned?

Has he talked to lawyers about how this will work in that area and what it will look like? And whether, in fact, there will be an issue with equity in that case—whether if you’re paying for someone who’s going to be focused in that way and know what to do, versus you’re not paying for someone and it’s a whānau member who turns out best of motives but might not have been through this process a lot of times, might not be using any kind of checklist that it may actually be an issue. So I’d like the Minister to tell me, has he talked to people about this? Because there’s no ordinary process for this legislation. Who has he talked to? How does he see the system working in replacement? Does he see the judges taking control of it; the lawyers taking control of it?

And what is the place of the oral participation? Who does he expect to participate and how does he expect to do it? And if that is a member of the public—so a whānau member, for example, or a community leader—then isn’t the cost that’s being borne by the party for that actually quite a significant cost? Does he know how much it will be in comparison to the cost being borne at the present time by the taxpayer of what has become a very standardised, focused written report? Thank you.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Mr. Chair. Look, this is clause 4 of the bill, which is the substantial piece in relation to changing the legislation. So it will be worthwhile just outlining what the Government is seeking to achieve. So the broad issue, if I could cast people’s minds to a website that is a company led by Harry Tam, a former gang-member, which is touting for business in these cultural reports and saying, “Come to us, get a cultural report.”, and, “We’ve managed to get discounts off sentences of up to 35 percent.”—I think was the figure that they referred to. That sort of touting for business for these reports was something that has led over the last six years to a very steady and substantial increase in the outlays for these reports: starting off about 40,000 in 2017 and stepping up to a million and then to 2 million and then to 3 million, and by the time we got to 7.5 million last year and the graph was going up like that [gestures a steep incline]. So the trajectory was clear: if we didn’t do something about it, we’d be heading for 10 million and then 15 million as the industry, the cottage industry, developed.

A member asked me who had we talked—well, one of the people that I talked about was the previous Minister of Justice, Kiri Allan, who accepted that there was a problem with this cottage industry developing and that we’d have to do something about it. Now, in the previous Labour Government, that would have meant not doing very much, and maybe getting a report and thinking about it, and in 10 years’ time maybe considering it. This Government is much more focused and determined to deliver change in a timely fashion, and so we indicated through the campaign that we were going to change that for two reasons. One, because we were concerned about the continued growth of money being spent on these reports, and given that there are many other opportunities for the background of offenders to be considered in such as pre-sentencing reports and many other factors that have been around for a long time; and secondly, we’re also concerned about the broader context of very significant discounts being given to sentences over the year.

Now, of course everybody in this Chamber will recognise that we should take into account the background of an offender and the challenges that they’ve had in their upbringing. There’s obviously a very strong connection between a deprived background—being a ward of the State, for example, coming from a gang family, and many, many other elements that are very much to be considered in the understanding of and the sentencing of prisoners. But, of course, at the same time, no society can function effectively if people aren’t held personally responsible for their actions, and, in particular, for serious crimes. So there is always an interplay between a background understanding and characteristics of an offender, and also the reality that no society can function if people aren’t held responsible for criminal acts. So that balance between the extent of discounts being offered in this category is an area that we as a Government are concerned about, and there will be further legislation down the line restricting the ability of judges to have a combined total set of discounts more than 40 percent—and that’s for future legislation. But the purpose of this legislation is to deal with that rapidly increasing amount of money being spent on what has been described on both sides of the House over the past as a cottage industry. And that is what we’re trying to achieve.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Point of order. Mr Chair, just for clarity: the Minister suggests we were looking at clause 4, I had understood we were looking at—supposed to have been—new clause 3A.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): That’s correct. This is the debate on your tabled amendment inserting new clause 3A.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you. That was really for clarity. That is my point of order.

Minister, I have a question, and the question is: how many reports did Harry Tam provide under this legislation?

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): While I believe that my colleague is probably wanting to have a backwards and forwards with the Minister, which is the purpose of these committee stages—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Do you want to do that?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Well, I can answer the question only to say, I don’t have that figure right in front of me at the moment. There were some and there is an amount of money that’s been referred to in the past. The website, in particular, that I was referring to said that they’ve conducted “many, many” reports.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): In respect of that, I would challenge the Minister, because either he has not got good advice on the floor of the Chamber, or his written parliamentary answers perhaps need revisiting. Because I asked him that exact question and it was framed as “Please identify the names of the providers and the amounts that were provided to them in the preceding 12 months”, and his response was, “We do not keep figures of who gets this money in what amount. All we know about”—all he knows about—“is the amount, the global amount given for these reports across the Legal Aid Budget.”

So, Minister, I would ask you to either revisit that and be clear to the committee, because I put it to you that you have no idea how many reports Harry Tam has provided or how much. And it’s just your reckon, and it’s the kind of laziness with the facts, especially around these important reports that the National Party uses to attack other good practitioners who do prepare these reports, and you slew them by calling them a cottage industry on the back of someone who you don’t know has provided a single report; all you know is that he’s touting for business. So I would put it to you that you either revisit your written answer or you clarify on the floor of this Chamber that you don’t know.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I was listening to the Minister’s answers and I have some further questions for the Minister, particularly regarding this. We heard this cottage industry. We heard about some of the report writers that the Minister named and is taking particular exception to. He talked about some of the effects of the reports that have been written and the effect of that on sentences given, and questioning, you know, whether that was appropriate, and also hinting that they intend to bring in further legislation around that.

My question to the Minister is: did he give any real consideration to other options in the regulatory impact statement provided by officials that could have addressed some of those concerns that the Minister had without just wholesale removing—completely scrapping—the report funding for section 27 reports? Because to quote one of these articles, “To scrap the report funding completely is a retrograde step and if the information that was usually in those reports is presented to the courts, it would blow out sentencing times and judge times.” The options I refer to are: did he consider imposing a cap on the amount of legal aid funding available for section 27 reports? And option four: did he consider introducing an accreditation system for section 27 report writers? Also, did he consider option five: amend the Sentencing Act 2002 to introduce a threshold for provision of section 27 reports based on the seriousness of the offence?

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Can I bring the member back to proposed new clause 3A.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Yes, and I am asking the Minister questions based on the answers that he gave to an earlier contribution. It just raises further questions for me because what the Minister was, I believe, using to justify what they are doing, and opposing the suggested amendment, in fact speaks to some of the options that were put in the paper. So my question is: did he give those options? He talked about cottage industry. He talked about Harry Tam. He talked about the quality of the reports. He talked about the outcomes on the sentences. I’m asking the Minister: did he give due consideration to any of the other options? And can he tell us why he thought none of those were relevant to the issues that he was raising?

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Hon Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment, inserting new clause 3A, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

Clause 4 Section 99 amended (Secretary to refer claim to Commissioner for decision)

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): We come now to clause 4. Clause 4 is the debate on clause 4, amendment to section 99 of the principal Act. The question is that clause 4 stand part.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): This may be the bit where the Minister stands up and gives a soliloquy.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I can do it again.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well, I didn’t understand it the first time, so perhaps I would the second time, Minister. Who knows?

Look, Minister, I do know that you have the interests of the justice system at heart. I guess I really would like to understand from you how you think this will impact the wider justice system. Of course, we’re all grown-ups here. We’ve all read the regulatory impact statement and the disclosure, and we know that you’ve received advice which is contrary to the course of action that you’ve adopted: that the status quo was, in fact, as good as what you’re doing now, and other options were presented to you.

Look, this is essentially an introductory contribution in the sense that I would invite you to do more than say “It’s in our 100-day plan.”, because New Zealanders are not naive. They know that when you come to a question like this, it’s tough. You’ve mentioned the work of Kiri Allan before you and the fact that there was inconsistent quality and value in these reports. We agree that we need to make sure that the best possible advice is delivered to judges and that the best possible value for money is given to the Legal Services Agency for its legal aid spend. We agree.

But what we know is that what you’re doing here is a very blunt tool. I accept that you went to the hustings and you won—and you went to the hustings with a whole lot of proposals. But I put to you that you would satisfy your election promises by addressing the flaws which perhaps exist in the current system and not simply cutting out the entire liver of the legal system and not just the little cancer that was touching on it. Because that’s what you’ve done: you’ve taken out a fundamental part of our criminal justice system—just thrown it away—and it’s going to really affect people.

So I would invite you—I know there’s a little joke that you spoke a little earlier in a general sense when perhaps it was inappropriate. But I’d invite you now to just respond to that: why you feel the need simply to do exactly what you promised, where a more nuanced and kind of grown-up approach would actually be better for everyone, Minister.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Mr Webb, for the opportunity. The broader context of this, of course, is in the election last year with—all members across the House were out talking to many, many New Zealanders; knocking on doors. The very clear message we got on the doorstep was the number one issue of concern was the cost of living.

Number two—consistently—around most parts of New Zealand was a concern around law and order, and that is why there has been a commitment in this Government to restore law and order as one of our key priorities. This bill forms one very small part of that broader agenda, and so there are many other pieces of legislation and Government decisions that are being made in that broader context. Such as changing the focus to reduce the prison population by 30 percent—which the previous Government focused on regardless of what was going on into the community—and switching our focus to reducing the number of victims of crime. A second one is the gang legislation that we’ll be discussing later, and there are many more to come.

This bill is a very focused one which is dealing with a small area of the legal aid spending and the judicial process where, through the sentencing part of the legislation, there are a whole lot of things that judges need to consider—and the background of the offender is very much part of that in a number of elements of the sentencing law. There is one particular clause, clause 27, which is talked about in the context of cultural reports. This was introduced in the early 2000s, and, for a very long period of time, it was supposed to be an oral report to give some background—generally from family members—on the background of the offender to be considered.

Then, about six years ago, it became available for legal aid funding and there has been a very steady increase. Just so people understand: in 2016-17, there was $38,000 spent on these reports, and then if I go every second year it just went continually upwards. So 2019-20, it was $1.5 million; 2021-22, it had gone up to $5.6 million; and it kept on accelerating. So 2023, it was up to $7.2 million and it was just taking off steadily. This last year, it’s dropped a fraction, and that is clearly a reaction to the public pressure that National and our coalition partners who were also concerned about this were raising. So what we were concerned about was an industry was developing whereby all these reports were being written.

Now, previous members have said, “Well, did you consider doing other things?” Yes, we did. You could consider regulating the industry, and that would be a very Labour Government thing to do: to regulate the industry and get some regulator in to decide whether these reports were good reports or bad reports, and probably requiring an MA in history or criminology or something for the report writers, and you could set up a system to regulate it and we didn’t think that that was a very clever thing to do.

Another thing you could have done was to repeal section 27, full stop. Some people were advocating for that and we decided not to do that. We have left the section on the book, but we have decided that our focus is not to allow this industry to keep on growing and growing and growing. Because of the fundamental cost—and $7.5 million might not seem like a lot to members on the other side of the House, but in the context of legal spending it’s quite significant and we think that money could be better spent elsewhere in the system. So that was the purpose that we’re trying to achieve.

TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Kia ora. My questions refer back to the Minister’s answers that he provided on clause 3A but were supposed to be for clause 4. I wanted to ask, firstly, whether the Minister could tell us more about who he understands to be preparing cultural reports? Because I didn’t get an answer to that. The Minister spoke specifically about Harry Tam preparing cultural reports, so my question is around understanding why that’s a problem. Why is it a problem that somebody who understands the cultural backgrounds that a lot of people who are being sentenced have experienced—whether they’re born into gang whānau. I would remind the Minister, you don’t get to choose which family you’re born into. If you’re born into a gang whānau, well, there’s nothing you can do about that. So I want to understand why is it a problem that Harry Tam is trying to make sure that people have more reasonable and more effective sentences that actually address the cause of the crime, as opposed to somebody creating these reports who has no concept, no reality, of what a majority of people who are incarcerated go through and what their backgrounds and upbringings look like. So what’s the problem with that?

The reason I want to know that too is because I’ve heard senior members of this Government talking a lot about Harry Tam, and it seems to me like there’s a real beef with him as an individual. To me, this bill is consistent with this Government’s approach to cracking down on gangs, but not actually speaking to the people who have mana in that area. You can talk to people who are leaders in that space who have been helpful in achieving the goals of this House. You look at the influential gang leaders who supported the Government in making sure that more members of their community were vaccinated during the COVID-19 lockdown. You can look at the woman chapter of the Mongrel Mob, who are working to address violence that has happened through the State system and addressing those. There’s a whole lot of good stuff that is also happening, and you could talk to them and ask them whether they think that some of these rules will actually be effective. Because you can’t make rules about people and expect them to follow those rules without actually talking to them in the first place.

My third question was just repeating the question that Willow-Jean asked around the accreditation system and whether you considered whether there could be a system whereby particular people were able to prepare these section 27 reports, as opposed to just throwing the baby out with the bathwater altogether.

Something else that you mentioned in one of your answers was that section 27 cultural reports are a very small part of the legal aid distribution. I wanted to understand a bit more why it’s being targeted under urgency. Is it because those reports are ones which support minority communities? Because it seems like this Government’s got legislation going through this week that targets gang members, again. That’s 8,000 in our country—8,000 people out of 5 million people. Again, this is a bill that targets a very small portion of the legal aid fund, and what I’m trying to understand is what is the rationale behind your approach to law and order when it affects such a small number of people? Particularly when the small number of people that are impacted are minority communities—communities that are already overrepresented in our justice system: Māori, Pacific people, poor people, and people who are born into gangs or are in gangs. Those are the people who are being targeted by these law and order moves. So those are my questions and I hope that you’ll be able to address them. Thank you.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Look, the only thing I’d say to that member is, of course, Māori are disproportionately victims of crime as well, and they have as much interest as anybody else in society of ensuring that we restore law and order and that there are consequences for serious crime, and that people are held to account for their actions, because everybody in New Zealand has an equal interest in ensuring that we are able to live in a peaceful and safe community. So I don’t accept that different groups in society don’t have an interest in ensuring that we live safely and peacefully in our communities. In so far as this bill has an impact on any particular group of New Zealanders, it certainly is aimed to benefit all New Zealanders. So that is our focus there.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the House is suspended for dinner and will resume at 7.30.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, the committee is resumed. We are resuming debate on clause 4, the amendment to section 99 of the principal Act.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I must say it’s a real privilege to be spokesperson for justice in the Labour Party and be able to speak on this. I saw my friends on the other side of the Chamber leap up, and I do hope they’ll have substantive contributions to make on this, because I’d be interested in the views of some of the backbenchers, who probably are struggling with some of the policies of this Government.

But I hope for an extended debate, because this bill, which is an important bill, has not been to select committee, and so the committee hasn’t had the opportunity to fully hear and consider the views of the many interest groups that would submit on it. One of those interest groups is the New Zealand Law Society. I would invite the Minister of Justice to consider what the New Zealand Law Society had to say on this bill and to respond directly to the point that it made. I won’t take long for this call, because I think it’s entirely appropriate for the Minister—because his officials can’t do what they would usually do in the select committee and go through a submission, analyse it, capture its essence, give options, respond to it, let the select committee decide which way to go and then present it back to this House. That all has to happen in the course of the next two or three hours here today.

So the New Zealand Law Society—the president, Frazer Barton, was very clear in their submission that they saw this as restricting access to justice for people who couldn’t afford these reports. And in the statement—because they issued a statement—that was made, he was very clear that this fundamentally undermined human rights in terms of equal treatment before the law. So, Minister, I say to you that the submission of the Law Society is that this results in unequal treatment before the law, it’s a breach of human rights, and it impedes access to justice for those who cannot afford these section 27 reports. What do you say to the Law Society?

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Was that a bluff attempt to stand up, Minister, was it? Or are you actually going to engage in answering the questions? Because you were about to let it go to a closure motion. Yet, in earlier contributions, the Minister had disregarded points and questions that we were asking, saying that he would address them when we got to the substantive section, which, in case he isn’t aware, is this one. So now is the time for you to answer all of those questions that we asked earlier, which you didn’t address in the title clause, and it was deemed to be frivolous—the title or whatever.

I did jump to my feet because I could see that the Minister did a fake attempt to stand up and answer and actually invited a closure motion from the other side. Now I’ll get on to my actual contribution and the point that I wanted to make.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Got that off your chest?

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Oh, would you like to answer the questions, and then I could quite happily carry on from that? No? OK. You know, that is the point of the committee stage—just checking—

Tim van de Molen: Get to the bill.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Excuse me?

Tim van de Molen: I said, “Get to the bill.”

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Get to the bill? Did you think that that was not a fair comment about what just happened there? Hmm. Anyway, Madam Chair, we do look forward to some engagement with the Minister on the details around what this bill is proposing to do, and I hope that we are going to get some of that engagement tonight.

I want to start with what we have heard the Minister describe as just a small change, just a small area within the legal aid system. The Minister said that in an earlier contribution, but I think that it is important that the committee understands the profound impact of this so-called small change of defunding section 27 cultural reports. My question to the Minister is—this is my first question of many—can he tell me how this bill, this amendment, is meeting our international obligations? I have read the regulatory impact statement and the disclosure statement, and in there it says they cannot see how this bill is actually meeting our international obligations. Has the Minister read the advice? Does he understand that? And can he, please, tell us how his change is meeting our international obligations and whether or not he’s concerned that we may be in breach of those and not meeting those.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Thank you. Thank you, and I can assure the member, Willow-Jean Prime, I have read the documents. Secondly, the previous member asked around how this bill affects access to justice and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues. Now, the difficulty is, of course, that we had a period of 15 or so—maybe 13 or 14—years when the legislation was passed and people didn’t have access to legal aid for writing these reports. I don’t think people said there was no access to justice or that we were failing the Bill of Rights. People had every opportunity to get a lawyer through the legal aid system if they needed to, and have access to a lawyer conducting their defence. None of that is being taken away by this legislation. What is being dealt with by this legislation is an additional cottage industry that had developed since 2017 and was gathering great momentum and speed with each passing year and costing more and more.

Now, it’s quite right and appropriate for the Law Society to make some observations on that. With respect to them, I don’t agree with their conclusions, and so the Government has made it clear that we were going to cease funding for this particular element of the defence spending, and it was well signalled. I think most New Zealanders would appreciate this focus on making sure that money in the legal aid system, which is under pressure generally—as every element of Government spending is under pressure given the deficits that we’ve faced for a long period of time and the very big increase in debt that this country has taken on in the last six years. I think everybody appreciates the need for careful spending, and this is one element of that.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is my first opportunity to speak on this issue in the House and, certainly, I look across at our colleagues opposite and I do wonder about your past and your past misdeeds, perhaps, and your misspent youth. I can tell that some of you had fun, and perhaps—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The member’s not referring to the Chairperson, is he?

SCOTT WILLIS: Sorry. To the Minister of Justice: some of your colleagues, perhaps, Minister, did have a bit of a misspent youth. I’m wondering about the need for tailored sentencing. Because, essentially, if we take everyone as simply a facsimile of everyone else, we cannot help people adjust to a life out of crime, or a life where they may become a parliamentarian—a life where they may live a good life and pass good legislation. Isn’t tailored sentencing to prevent reoffending good for victims of crime because of the reduced likelihood of reoffending? If we think how people have been able to turn their lives around, why would we not give them a chance? Why would we not look at the challenges that they’ve faced and start tailoring something to meet the requirement to reintegrate them into society? Why would we not do better than what is proposed here today?

So, for the Minister, I would like an answer, please: isn’t tailored sentencing to prevent reoffending good for victims of crime because of the reduced likelihood of reoffending? If the Minister could respond to that, please, and give us some insight into his thinking on this matter, I’d really appreciate it, because it really does matter that we keep people out of prison, that we don’t increase the prison population. It really does matter that we have people who are contributing members of society and are able to fix things that they may have done in their past. They might have—I don’t know; I don’t know what the Minister’s colleagues may have done. I don’t need to know, because they’ve made good, and we want everyone to make good. Kia ora.

Very happy to answer the member Scott Willis’ question, and thoughtful question. The first point I’d make, of course, is that this bill does not do away with the ability of the justice system and judges in sentencing to take into accountHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): the background of offenders; there are many opportunities—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: For those that can afford it.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —in the Sentencing Act—no, not just for those who can afford it—and throughout the justice system for people to take into account the background of the offenders, and that is appropriate.

We also, of course, share the desire of everybody in this House to improve the chances of people rehabilitating themselves and getting back into a productive life. For example, that is one of the reasons why my colleague the Hon Mark Mitchell this week announced the fact that this Government will be ensuring that prisoners on remand will have access to rehabilitation programmes, so there are many ways in which society and Government encourages people to rehabilitate.

What the issue is in this legislation is not taking any of that away, not removing any focus on the need for the sentencing judge to have access to the background of offenders, or the desire to rehabilitate; it is dealing with a particular little cottage industry that has developed in relation to these section 27 reports that we needed to deal with, and that’s what was set out to do.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you to the Minister for explaining that, because it goes right to the point that I’d like to make, and maybe he could enlighten us. The bit that puzzles me is that in—it’s not called the regulatory impact statement now; oh, it is—the regulatory impact statement on this bill, the officials from the Ministry of Justice have identified five options, and what they consider is that they recommend option four, which is to introduce an accreditation system for section 27 report writers, to be the preferred option. So that was seen, when they weighed all of those options up, to meet the Government’s requirement to curtail cost but also to maintain the access to justice, which is also important, as identified by the analysis undertaken for the regulatory impact statement. The advice under option four says that “Whilst implementation costs would be greater, this option best satisfies the criteria of producing consistent and fair outcomes for regulated parties and of consistency with existing regulatory frameworks. A system of accredited report writers would improve the quality of reports. This, in turn, would be of greater benefit to judges using the reports, and would be fairer to offenders who rely on the reports to present their circumstances to the court.”

I’m interested, I say to the Minister, as to why—as in paragraph 48 of the regulatory impact statement—the Government directed officials to option two. The Government directed officials to ignore their own advice on removing the ability to fund the cost of section 27 reports from the Legal Services Act 2011 and to go ahead and remove the discretion of the commissioner to improve funding for this purpose. So my question, really, is that I wanted to understand from the Minister the rationale of pushing this through in urgency, without anybody affected having the opportunity to make comment and without paying attention to any of the detailed analysis provided by the regulatory impact statement, and to simply direct an outcome without what appears to be any consultation at all.

If the Minister just replies with “It’s in our 100-day plan.”, I’m sorry, but that’s actually not good enough. I want to know what the reason is. I don’t want to know that “We went and knocked on some doors during the election, and everybody said ‘cost of living’ and ‘We want to restore law and order to New Zealand.’ ”—that’s great; we’ve heard that. We want to know, and I think New Zealanders deserve to know, that if this is being pushed through under urgency, if the advice of the officials who know quite a bit about this area is being completely ignored, and if the Government is directing an outcome and ignoring that advice—I would love to know what the rationale is, what the thinking is, and what the reasons are for this direction to take away the legal rights of people to have their backgrounds heard as part of their sentencing.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): The member is very smart and has worked out that the officials didn’t agree with this policy—and that happens from time to time—and the difference is that the Ministry of Justice officials were not the ones who were elected in this Government. So the primary reason why the Government has pressed ahead with this policy is that we campaigned on it, and the people expect us to do what we said we’re going to do. That is a pretty basic democratic principle: you go and campaign on something, you say you’re going to do it, and when you get elected, you actually do it. So that’s what we’ve set out to do.

It’s not a question of ignoring the advice of officials—we’ve read the advice and we considered it—but we didn’t decide that we wanted to go down the route of regulating the report writers and having a little team of officials running around and working out who is qualified to write such things. Should they be a sociologist, for example, opining on these matters, or do you need a history degree to do it, and how long you should be doing it for and what you should be covering—all that just seemed to us to be a fraught and unnecessarily complicated and expensive business. So that’s why we stuck with our intention, which is to take the funding away from these particular reports, recognising—recognising—that there are many opportunities for people’s backgrounds to be considered in the sentencing context. The original intention of this piece of legislation was for people to give brief oral accounts in the court—generally, family members—and for that to be considered, and there is nothing stopping that from happening.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): I have a very short point, and I’m hoping the Minister will respond to it directly, because he has said there are other avenues in which this kind of information can come before the courts. We know that when a prisoner is put into the corrections system that reports are prepared by the Department of Corrections. I understand that the Department of Corrections has resolved that it will not provide its reports for sentencing in substitution of these section 27 reports. Is it the case that corrections reports, prepared when people are convicted but before sentenced—is it the case that corrections is no longer going to provide those reports to the court as, essentially, section 27 reports? Is the Minister prepared to respond to that now, otherwise I’ll proceed. Nope? Well, perhaps you could take some advice on that because it’s an important point. Because one of the very arguments you’ve made is that there is other information through other avenues, such as corrections reports, which will fill the void for poor people who can’t have these reports.

The other point is, I just do want to say there’s a number of Amendment Papers, and I will get to those, but, still, I’m kind of standing in the shoes of submitters who would submit to the select committee. The New Zealand Bar Association—so that is the association of litigation lawyers and barristers—has been very clear here that they are of the view that because this will lead to less informed sentencing decisions, the quality of sentences will be lower. And the knock-on effect of that is higher rates of reoffending. So that’s the first thing: how does the Minister address the fact that our preeminent association of litigation lawyers is saying that this will lead to higher rates of reoffending.

The other point—and this is not about the quantity of the sentence but the quality of the sentence. Because, with these reports, the judge can look at, for example, family circumstances—whether the home or mum’s home or uncle’s home is a suitable house for home detention. Whether it’s a kind of safe place or whether it’s not safe and is likely to have unsavoury influence. Of course, we know that if someone doesn’t go into prison and they go into a good residence for home detention, they’re much more likely not to reoffend and more able to effectively engage in rehabilitation as part of that sentence because they don’t have to use the prison system; they can use, essentially, the civilian system of psychologists, alcohol and drug treatment, all of those kinds of things. So rehabilitation without these reports becomes more challenging. So I’m essentially the mouthpiece for the Bar Association—that’s the view of the Bar Association.

If this was a select committee, and you’re standing in the shoes of your officials, Minister, what do you say to that? How do we fix this piece of legislation? Ultimately, the sum total of the Bar Association’s statement on this is that we’re making the life of judges harder. That it’s more difficult for them to do the job they want to do, which is to impose an appropriate sentence—what that Minister clearly wants—which is to mark out the offence appropriately as beyond the realms of what is socially and legally acceptable in society and striking the right balance with rehabilitation and reintegration. Now, that’s the job of a judge. It’s a hard job. It’s a job that they need every tool at their disposal. And the Bar Association is saying to you, Minister, “You’re taking away—in some of these cases, for poor people—one of the most important tools.” So what do you say to that?

And seeing as you didn’t stand up before, I will preface that what I want to talk about next is the role of the information about victims in here. And if the Minister wants to stand up and respond to what I’ve said already—I’ll pause there, but the Minister doesn’t seem to want to do that.

So I do want to then move on and, with some further time, talk about my Amendment Paper H, which is on the Table, if anyone wants to read it. I’m sure the Minister’s looked at it, but it does talk about the function of victims or information about victims in this context, because this is at the heart of what the Government is talking about: making the criminal justice approach victim-centric. So what my Amendment Paper does is it suggests that reports about the victim in the context of the offending should be put before the court and should be funded by legal aid—so a report about the victim context.

Can I just say, we often think in terms of crime as stranger crime. The idea that we’re burgled by someone we don’t know, or a sexual offender is a stranger who prowls in the park. Well, we know—and I was, in fact, at Rolleston Prison at their sexual offending programme, visiting recently, and it was really interesting to hear that that—

Tim van de Molen: Getting off track here. Get to the bill.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I’m sorry, Mr van de Molen?

Tim van de Molen: Get to the bill.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: It was very interesting to hear that, in fact, stranger crime is extremely rare. The relationship between the victim and the offender is an important part of the sentencing process, and knowing what’s happened subsequent to the offending, knowing whether the offender has recognised the magnitude of their wrongdoing, whether, if appropriate, they have made some amends or sought to have some kind of reconciliation.

Of course, one of our most serious plagues is domestic violence. And we know there that someone who recognises the harm they’re causing and wants to work on stopping that kind of behaviour and healing the wounds that it’s causing in a family is really important. Now, if a section 27 report can say not only just what is the offending but what is the network of relationships between the actual victim—that is to say, the person who, perhaps, has been assaulted in a domestic violence situation—and the offender and the network of harm: the children, the wider family, all of those things, that information is of critical importance. So what my Amendment Paper H says is, “Look, OK, you’ve taken a point of view in respect of these reports, but let’s carve out this most valuable information which gives victims a greater voice and makes the sentencing process more victim-centric.” Now, this is utterly consistent with the Government’s position in respect of shifting the needle towards victims, and I endorse that. I think we do need to always have a clear eye on the impact on victims, the voice of victims, the right of victims to be properly heard.

It’s counterintuitive that the bill before the House is removing one part of a victim’s voice. I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t exist, because there’s such a thing as a victim impact statement, but you’ve got to remember what a victim impact is—the prosecution, essentially, taking from the victim what effect it had on them. It’s quite different to say, “What is the network of relationships? What has the offender done since the offending? What does the future look like in terms of your relationship with the offender?” And we love to think in black and white—we default to black and white—but I think we need to recognise that in much criminal offending, there is a very large world of grey where the offender and the victim are often in an intimate relationship, or even if they’re not there, they’re in some kind of family relationship, they’re members of the same whānau and they’re going to have to learn to live together, at least at some time in the future.

So, Minister, I’d ask you to carefully consider that Amendment Paper. It’s not trivial. It was carefully thought out. It’s about victims, and I hope you will support it.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is my first opportunity to take a call on this bill, on what is the substantive clause—clause 4. So I have a few questions for the Minister in relation to this bill, and I also want to propose an amendment in clause 4; a new clause 4. I haven’t tabled it yet but intend to, and I want to get the Minister’s view on that as well.

Firstly, just some questions for the Minister. For anyone who’s ever had anything to do with the criminal justice system through going to the District Court or engaging with people who have been imprisoned, I think one of the most surprising things for people can be—and I’d be interested in the Minister’s thoughts on this—is the fact that when you go into a court, often you are confronted not with justice but in fact with the injustice that most members of our community suffer, and the reason that they’ve actually arrived there is to do with a great number of things which have gone wrong in their lives.

The reasoning for the removal of this particular funding, through legal aid, seems—from what the Minister has said in answer to his previous questions—to be based on because there was an industry surrounding these cultural reports and, therefore, we’re going to remove that. Well, I would ask the Minister to take that logic to its conclusion. I imagine when the first courts of justice were first held and when barristers were paid through little pockets in the backs of their gowns, that people thought of that as a cottage industry or an industry that has sprung up in order to represent—so that those charged with crimes can be represented in areas where they may not be able to articulate that for themselves.

Now, I haven’t had a long involvement in criminal law, but I did work as a duty solicitor for a short time, and I did that training in the District Court. From my experience, many offenders can’t even read their own name, let alone create anything like the type of articulate report which would lead to fairer sentencing or more thoughtful sentencing for them. So, in that sense, I would like to know from the Minister who is this—apart from saving money, which we can agree is important, apart from that, for what reason would the Minister take away the ability for people who can’t afford cultural reports to be able to have their case made out in court? What is the justification for the substantive part of clause 4 which takes away the ability of people who have less to articulate what their background does and what they truly need? Because in my experience, that is the very thing that is most lacking in our courts: the ability for those who have little to speak up and be treated equally with those who have the ability to pay for and articulate and get the type of legal representation that they really need. So I’d like the Minister to answer that question.

I did indicate in the beginning of my call that I have an amendment to make. The amendment is a review clause. We’ve heard from a number of eminent organisations, who are not politically motivated, that there are serious concerns around access to justice in this bill. I ask the Minister: does he take that opposition seriously? If so, how does he respond to those organisations? If he is certain that this bill will not impact access to justice, why doesn’t he agree with my proposed clause to include a review clause in this bill so that after six months the Government reviews, through the Ministry of Justice, the access to justice impact of the passage of this bill, and the Ministry of Justice reports to the Justice Committee who then reports back to the House on the impacts of it.

If it is correct that there aren’t going to be grave injustices, as we fear, caused by this bill then I’m sure that review in six months’ time will indicate that. If the Minister does not agree with the review clause, how can he be so confident—when he hasn’t received the advice he would normally receive, when this is going through under urgency, when there’s been no select committee process—that in fact there won’t be greater injustice caused by this bill?

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): I move, That debate on this question now close.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m really pleased that you have given me this call, because I have sat and waited and waited and waited for about four or five contributions for the Minister of Justice to answer my question, which he never did. He never answered my question, so I will just refresh his memory and give him an opportunity, while I’m making this contribution, to answer my question, which was around how this proposal fits with New Zealand’s international commitments, such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In the departmental disclosure statement, it says, “Māori are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and the funding change may exacerbate this disparity, as a higher proportion of Māori (and Pacific Peoples) offenders receive a legally aided section 27 report, compared [to] others.” So what steps have been taken to determine whether this policy meets our international obligations under that convention? That was my question; that has not been answered.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Do you want me to answer it?

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: No, I’m not going to sit down; I’m going to do my next contribution in case it doesn’t come back to me again.

The Minister talked about a cottage industry, and what I want to put to the Minister is, in terms of the cottage industry, there were other options put in the advice to him that could address some of the concerns that he has outlined with the creation of this cottage industry. The Defence Lawyers Association are imploring the Minister to consider other alternatives to what he is proposing, to defund section 27 reports. The Defence Lawyers Association said that “If there is any concern about the cost or the quality of the reports then we don’t use those report writers, she said. Putting in place standards for [a report writer] was discussed as an alternative to cutting the funding” entirely, and that this would be preferable if report writers were actually the concern—and I’ve heard the Minister say this—but “To scrap the report funding completely is a retrograde step and if the information that was usually in those reports is presented to the courts it will blow out sentencing times and judge time[s]”. So this is the Defence Lawyers Association saying that she does not think that the Government has “anticipated the built-in costs associated with scrapping the funding.”

Now, the second point that I want to make on that one is that the Bar Association wants the Government “to consider the evidence about the impact of [the] reports since their use, [and] to determine whether the cost / benefit justifies their continuation, when assessed against reoffending rates and rehabilitation gains made.” Will the Minister give due consideration to the submissions, to the points that the Defence Lawyers Association and the Bar Association are making about what could be a better way to address his concerns that this has created a cottage industry? The Government’s proposal to simply defund this, as we have heard in the debate tonight, is creating access-to-justice issues, serious ones—serious ones that disproportionately affect Māori in the criminal justice system. So my question to the Minister is: will you consider what the Bar Association has requested and what the Defence Lawyers Association has requested?

I want to make a different contribution about costs, because the Minister is saying that this is all about a cost-saving exercise. Now, in an earlier contribution, which the Minister said he would not address until he got to the substantive section—which is now this substantive section—I talked about the cost-benefit analysis of this report. Putting justice aside, which I think should be the primary consideration, this is a cost-saving exercise by this Government within the justice system, but what the evidence suggests to us is that there will be more costs to the justice system from this section 27 defunding proposal that we are debating tonight—and they are significant costs. Is the Minister aware of the costs that he is creating for the justice system, and are they going to be more than the costs that you think that you are saving, let alone the impact that you are having on people? So what we have here is that the cost of funding section 27—[Time expired]

STEVE ABEL (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a follow up, in the sense, to what the honourable member Willow-Jean Prime has been saying, further to the points made on the nature of circumstance into which people come. There but by the grace of God we go, in a sense; we don’t choose the house or the circumstance we’re born into or raised in—the deprivation, the poverty, the potential violence and the trauma that is suffered.

My question for the Minister of Justice relates to the opinion of judges on the matter of the value of the cultural reports, and I’m hoping that he will take it into account. But, for context, we know that often the perpetrators of crime have been themselves the victims of crime. There’s the beautiful Auden poem that goes,

I and the public know

What all school children learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.

Now, being a victim of crime doesn’t make you entitled to commit crime, any more than being the historic victim of genocide makes you entitled to commit genocide now. But is it right that we should understand the circumstances which have led people to where they are? Absolutely it is right. And if we want a right justice system, one that brings justice to victims as well as to those who in their history may have been victims, surely we need to know that history. Surely we need to know the context of that circumstance. And surely, for a judge to be able to rely on the basis of an expert report made by somebody who is a sociologist, perhaps, who knows the nature of how a person’s circumstances impact the way they behave, who knows the cultural context and the familial context of a family—surely it is more useful for a judge to have the confidence of the expertise in the author of that report, for them to be able to then take that into account in their application of sentencing, and appropriate sentencing, that can better enable appropriate application of rehabilitation. That rehabilitation is what is going to enable us to have a justice system that protects the victims, that minimises the number of victims in our society, which is surely the goal of our justice system, Minister.

So when judges say that they are concerned—sentencing judges have expressed that those cultural reports are helpful for them. Those sentencing judges say those cultural reports are helpful for them. Why is it the Minister does not take that into account?

Getting simply a family member, which is absolutely valuable to hear from, but a family member, alone, who may not have the ability to articulate in a language or in means that are meaningful to a sentencing judge, the nature of the background of the person who has been sentenced—then this is exactly why we do need expertise. This is exactly why, when any witness in a crime is called, the expertise of that witness is a major factor in the ability of the judge or the jury to take into account what has been presented in that information. And surely, on the same basis, the expertise of the author of that report is an important factor.

Here the judges are, telling us that those cultural reports are helpful for them. So how does the Minister take into account the importance of that cultural report? Because surely, if it is true that we want a society that is authentically trying to reduce the number of victims, we would want to break that cycle and we would want to understand that cycle. And surely understanding the cycle is the means to breaking it. That’s my question to the Minister. Thank you.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Chair. The question was raised tonight, how does it fit within our international agreements? My answer is that it fits very comfortably with our international agreements and our focus on ensuring that all New Zealanders get to live in a peaceful and safe society. As we’ve outlined a number of times, Māori are more likely to be the victims of crime than other members of society, and so they benefit also from the wise use of limited legal aid resources and, you know, some discipline around the extent of discounts in sentencing, which is a broader issue that the Government is concerned about in order to have real consequences for crime.

Now, the issue that many of people have raised is the implication that the passing of this law will mean that, somehow, judges can no longer have any information around the background of offenders, which is complete nonsense. There are many opportunities for it, and—apart from the last five years, where all this money has been spent on these cultural reports under the previous Government—before, it didn’t happen like that and the justice system didn’t grind to a halt and people didn’t have no access to justice for decades.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Yes, they did. Listen to the inquiry on this.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: They did? I just got correspondence from a former probation officer, who had retired before these section 27 reports came in, and he said, “As part of my work, I wrote numerous reports, including victim impact reports, emotional harm reports, reparation reports, pre-sentence reports. These reports were concise and comprehensive, including cultural aspects, family life, employment status, lifestyle, physical and mental health factors surrounding offending, expressions of remorse, and suitability for rehabilitation,” and then went on to say, “I fail to see what more could be achieved by these very expensive, questionably credible, section 27 reports.”

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: So this is one probation officer emailing you, versus the Law Society, Māori Law Society, Bar Association, Defence Lawyers Association?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes—but the point is that there are many avenues in the legislation at the moment, through pre-sentencing reports and other reports, where people can understand the background of offenders. What we don’t need is this little industry developing what I think the previous Minister in the other Government referred to as “mini theses” being written about all sorts of detailed backgrounds, which is all very nice with the report writers but not helpful to the overall effectiveness of the regime.

We listened to the many comments from many commentators on this topic, and we treat them all with the respect that they deserve. But the Government has determined that we will stick with our promise and we will deliver this legislation, because we think it’s the right thing to do.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): I move, That debate on this question now close.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Being a nice person goes a long way! Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you very much for this opportunity. A couple of questions for the Minister, and I think it’s important, especially given his most recent contribution about the advice that he’s taking. The first question I have with respect to this particular clause—because I’ve had a read of section 99, and it does give actually quite wide-ranging powers—

Tom Rutherford: Point of order. Sorry to interrupt the member, but the clock hasn’t been started.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve read section 99, had a read, and it’s got some quite wide, sweeping powers. From my initial assessment, I question whether or not this particular amendment was actually required, in that there is quite a lot of discretion for the commissioner to be able to make denials for those who claim for reimbursement. There’s quite a lot of power there for the commissioner to be able to, like I say, decline, deny—and there was another word; it will come to me very shortly! So my question to the Minister is, then, why exactly this particular one seems to be giving an overreach of power for the commissioner. I think it’s already got enough in there, and I question whether or not—just a little bit of an understanding from the Minister about why he feels new subsection (ca) is needed, given that there’s already lots of powers there.

The next part is an extension of the Minister’s contribution about the kind of advice that he has sought on these matters. It was raised in particular through urgency last week, but I want to put the same question to this Minister. In the consideration of this particular bill, can the Minister share with us the conversations that he’s had with his Māori Cabinet colleagues? He’s talked about how he’s discussed it with a number of people. It’s important just to understand who’s representing the views of the Māori community to the Minister. So that one’s a pretty straightforward question, and I’m pretty confident the Minister will be able to come and stand to his feet and be able to answer that.

The second part is, given that the Minister has just read to us in the committee here an email from a former probation officer, if I recall the words correctly, this is where I’d like to express my support for the proposed amendment by my colleague here, giving it a bit of time. Good policy allows for a chance to review. And so, with respect to the kind of feedback that we’re looking for, I’m sure the Waitangi Tribunal, who’ve had challenges with the urgency and the legislation that has been passed through this House, would appreciate the opportunity to be able to look through and hear submissions from Māori communities on these matters, to continue to assist the Minister and this Government in making sure that we have good legislation moving forward.

Those questions to the Minister—they’re not overly difficult, but I’d really be keen to hear, given this seems to be a running theme across a number of bills and a number of Ministers who have been in his position. If he can answer those questions, that would be much appreciated.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Very happy to answer the questions of the member. In terms of why legislate for this change, it is that the commissioner, who’s responsible for the legal aid decisions, is statutorily independent. So for the Government to just send a message to him or her that we no longer want them to fund those reports would be to impinge upon that independence. So it’s appropriate for legislation to state that as the will of the Parliament. That retains the commissioner’s independence on everything else, apart from there’s a list of exclusions and this has been added to the list of exclusions. That’s why the legislation is required. In terms of the second question, what was the second question?

Hon Peeni Henare: Consultation.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Consultation—well, yes, we had wide-ranging consultation with many Māori over this, and of course, as you would fully expect, like in every section of society, there’s a wide divergence of views within many—

Hon Willie Jackson: Name one organisation.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Winston Peters, for one, has a very strong view on these matters, and I’ve had long conversations with him and many others. So there’s a wide variety of opinions across many communities.

Hon Willie Jackson: Tell Winston to come down here!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: You asked a question, and I gave you an answer.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair—thank you Madam, Chair. It’s off the back of what the Minister just said, because, as we all know, the Minister’s been very committed to partnership for some time—he actually said that to me on a TV interview, and he a person who is fixed, in terms of partnership going forward.

So the consultation—I come back to this consultation question because I want to ask this Minister: apart from Winston Peters, good man that he is, which iwi has this Minister consulted with? Because it’s really important—we always thought he was from Ngati Porou, and I think the National Party thought he was from Ngati Porou too, also, for a while. It’s really important that we bring, first of all, iwi into this because, at ground level, they are working with rangatahi, working with our young people. And this is incredibly important, and we’ve seen the relationships they had with Oranga Tamariki—they were exhibited in the last couple of years. We’ve seen major partnerships with Tainui that’ve happened, and our urban organisations. And I respect what the Minister’s saying about Winston Peters, I absolutely do, but I really would like to know, given the Treaty of Waitangi obligations in this, that when the Minister spoke with our agency—and I do say “our agency” even though we’re not in Government any more. Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK) is a Government agency for all of us, for all Māori across the spectrum. National happen to be leading that at the moment and that’s fine, but it’s an agency that I trust—it’s an agency that I trust—having overseen the agency for the previous three years and the officials in there. Now, they gave clear advice that they did not support this type of rushed legislation.

So given the fact that we’re here, that TPK did not support the policy due to the constraints within the 100-day plan, I ask the Minister sincerely: which iwi did you consult, which organisations in the pan-tribal area did you consult? Given that I still chair our marae at Nga Whare Waatea in Māngere and I’ve been the chairman there for a number of years—I never ever stopped being the chair, because it’s not anything I get paid for; it’s just something that I oversee because it’s been a lifelong job for me, working at ground level with our people and with our communities. So was there any consultation with our marae, Nga Whare Waatea Marae? Which, incidentally, bars gang patches—I just thought I’d add that in just so everyone knows that we know how to manage those types of problems. So was there consultation with Nga Whare Waatea Marae? Has there been consultation with the Waipareira Trust, which is the biggest, as the Minister will know, Māori provider in the country?

James Meager: Who runs that trust?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Well, we all know who runs that trust. I can’t—you know, we know on this side, I wouldn’t imagine anyone on that side knows, because they don’t know many Māoris and they don’t consult Māoris, but they do consult Winston Peters. So I’m bringing up the Waipareira Trust, a huge provider for us, that oversees Whānau Ora contracts, our Manukau Urban Māori Authority—we’ve had major restorative justice panels that are in place—Manurewa Marae, that is there, Papakura Marae. Any marae, Minister—any marae. Please, put on the table tonight—just name one marae or one iwi grouping who you’ve consulted with, because that would then fulfil some of the Treaty of Waitangi obligations that, surely, any Government has to go through. What was the Treaty critique here? Surely it wasn’t just talking with David Seymour and Winston Peters? Surely there must have been some grouping, some people with people—and I’m serious here. So I would like the Minister to stand and tell us, rather than this sort of casual response: “Oh, we spoke with Winston.” Please, Minister, you’re better than that. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell us so that we can feel comfortable, because we know all the Māoris out there—the groupings—on this side. So if you could give us an example, we would be comfortable. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): I’d like to thank the member the Hon Willie Jackson for his lifelong service that he’s referred to. And I do note that that member, of course, is famous for his comment that “democracy has changed” in this country. Nobody was quite sure when they voted for the referendum where the democracy had changed, but, nevertheless, he stated that it had. As far as I know, the basic principle of a Government standing for an election and saying they’re going to do something and then doing it still remains part of the democracy that I understand. Given the urgency with which we’ve moved on this, there has not been formal consultation with different groups—with the legal community or with iwi—but it is something that we’ve flagged very carefully and clearly in our election campaign. We said we’re going to do it, and, lo and behold, we are going to do it.

JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): I move, That debate on this question now close.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity. I’ve got a couple of amendments that I would like to speak to.

First of all, I’d like to speak in support of the amendment in the name of the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, and that’s specific to enabling the victim’s voice to still be carried through. So we appreciate that the Minister has made election promises to get rid of section 27 reports, but in those same election promises there was a real commitment made—and it is on record—that there needs to be a greater focus on victims. That was carried quite strongly and it’s something that we agree on, on this side of the House. So it’s a good point in common: that there’s been some very specific words stated by key Ministers of this Government that there needs to be a focus away from offenders and on to the victims of crime.

In fact, there’s even been statements made that the funding cuts made in areas like these section 27 reports will be transferred into funding more services for victims and more responsiveness for victims. So while I don’t tend to agree with that transfer, we do support it. So we would be very interested to hear if the Minister is prepared to support the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment that enables just those reports that include a victim’s voice to be funded through legal aid in the section 27 reports.

That goes to the heart of the whole idea of trying to stop people reoffending and to stop more victims being created in New Zealand. So it’s really difficult to try and really comprehend, if you’re focused on increasing victim voice—if you’re focused on reducing the numbers of victims in New Zealand—why would you not agree to an amendment that enables the voice of the victim to be taken into consideration from all of those aspects and put before the court when the sentencing of that offender is being considered. So I would really encourage the Minister to take a good think about how we can do that, because we want to see better outcomes for victims as well.

The second amendment that I would like to speak to is in my name, and it’s for a new clause that would enable—in certain circumstances, when the judge thinks it necessary—the court to order a section 27 report. So this hasn’t been taken into consideration. It would provide it to be at the discretion of the judge, so if there are certain aspects of the case that is being heard before the courts; if the judge felt that a section 27 report would provide additional information that is necessary; and if that presiding officer can see that there is real financial obstacles to the person accused before the court, then the judge would be able to make an order for there to be legal aid funding for that.

This may go some way towards curtailing the Minister’s concerns around a cottage industry springing up and there being unnecessary use of section 27 reports. So it would strike that balance of being able to have all of the information available to a judge at sentencing, yet while still having some curtailing of the level of public spending happening in this area. If the judge had that discretion, then in those instances where the judge has information that the accused—there are particular factors that haven’t come to light and the judge considers that those factors are essential to enable the judge to be able to make an appropriate sentence that stops that person from reoffending; that stops more victims from being created in New Zealand.

That, to me, sounds like a really sensible pathway forward, and I’d be really interested to hear from the Minister if he’s prepared to consider my amendment that would enable, at the discretion of a judge, a court order for the section 27 reports to be able to be funded.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Chair. I see the friends on the other side of the Chamber are jumping up, but obviously there’s a number of Amendment Papers that haven’t yet been discussed. To date, we’ve been discussing some of the general points. I do want to ask directly—and I’m happy to sit down if the Minister indicates he will answer this question, but it’s the question about Corrections documents which have been prepared within the corrections system being used. The Minister has suggested that these wider documents can kind of be funnelled into the sentencing process, and my question was a very precise one: is it the case that Corrections have stopped preparing documents that can be used? Not as—yes, thank you.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I have no information on that.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: OK. Thank you for that, Minister. If I may just continue, Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mm-hmm.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I thank the Minister for being so responsive on that. And that is the purpose of my Amendment Paper entitled “E” to make it absolutely clear that documents prepared for another purpose, including in the Department of Corrections, can be put in front of a judge for the purposes of section 27 so that you can get, you know, kind of double duty from those documents. But the Minister doesn’t have any information on that so I’m hopeful he’ll support that.

The other Amendment Paper that I’d like to then talk about is my Amendment Paper—and I think it’s “I”, although the Clerk’s handwriting is sometimes worse than mine!—that’s just to address the issues that the Minister has identified. It essentially says that these reports can’t be legal-aid funded unless they have met a couple of criteria. One is they’re less than $2,000, or such other sum as the commissioner sets, and it’s provided by a person approved by the commissioner. This isn’t some big regulation, this is pretty straightforward stuff. Legal-aid providers are approved by the commissioner, and there’s absolutely no reason why the legal-aid commissioner can’t simply—on the basis of evidence—you know, historical reports, the quality of the reports that they provided to date—say, “You know what you’re doing, and you don’t.” Or on the basis of perhaps a little bit of consultation with the Bar and judges: “These reports have been helpful to the court; those ones haven’t.” So that would be a very, very easy way to address much of the ill that the Minister has identified in these reports—that they’re too expensive and that they’re not value for money.

Now that number in there—$2,000—well, it might be too much, who knows. The Minister, or the Legal Services Commissioner, who’s independent from the Minister, as he rightly notes—I see he’s texting him now, so good on you. See what he thinks—I’m pretty sure he’ll be happy with this. So perhaps that’s a really useful—unless he was tweeting, of course, because it’s such a good idea he wants a bit of feedback! That’ll be the most consultation the Minister’s done so far on this bill, would be a good tweet. But anyway, so it’s a very simple proposal but it does address the ills. And I know that sometimes in this House we get a bit positional and if the Labour Party puts it up, the National Party votes against it. Now look, it’s not the approach we in the Labour Party take, we—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Ha!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No, no, no. That’s simply not true. You know we’ve supported legislation that you have introduced into this House, and we would hope that there would be a little bit of reciprocity there, that you would look at these Amendment Papers—we only saw this bill goodness knows when. So we have worked hard to come up with—all of these are constructive, you know. Admittedly, the title ones, I didn’t think I was going to get those through calling it the, you know, the “Bash the Poor”—I didn’t call it that, but, you know, the “Legal Services (Removing Access to Reports for Poor People) Amendment Act”. It was a fair point, but these are serious amendments that—and you’ve got your official behind you, and I can see why they might not be too keen on this bill. But this is something that they can no doubt assist you with in saying, “That’s a goodie; go with that. That Duncan Webb, he knows what he’s talking about.” So this one here is a good one, Amendment Paper I: cost of the report is less than $2,000, excluding GST, or such other sum as may be set by the commissioner from time to time; and the report is provided by a person or entity who was approved by the commissioner for that purpose. I recommend that one to the Minister. I’d be interested to hear what he says.

STEVE ABEL (Green): I have a quite simple and specific question for the Minister. There’s a repeated pattern in the House that we find from the Government, and we heard it from the Minister this evening, which uses the argument that, because they won an election on it, therefore the legislation is good and solid. Now, I do not believe that the Minister seriously thinks that is a legitimate justice argument for this piece of legislation, because it utterly speaks to the tyranny of the majority. When we know, as the Minister has articulated, that Māori are more likely to be the victims of crime, and when we know that there are shameful statistics about the disproportionate and the unjust treatment of Māori in our justice system, such that we have prisons that have disproportionate representation of Māori, it would be very concerning that decisions that impacted the rightful justice applied to citizens that were not in the majority would be made simply by the dictate of the majority.

So I just wanted to get clear from the Minister that when he makes that argument he is not seriously suggesting that this House should accept that as a credible argument for a piece of justice legislation. Justice, by definition, must be outside the rule of the majority; that’s why we have a bill of rights. That’s why we have a justice system that says all of us are entitled to basic precepts of care and a right to a voice and a right to be heard—habeas corpus, the likes, he knows well.

I’m sure the Minister would welcome the opportunity to correct the misperception that may have been created by the suggestion that the majority can dictate how our justice system works, and particularly in a context of a Government that is so willing to articulate the overriding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi; so willing to say that it is prepared to take, potentially to a referendum, the question of whether we should uphold a constitutional commitment made in the founding of our country in 1840. That surely is something that the Minister would be concerned to clarify for the purpose of the House and the public, that they are not suggesting that the majority can decide this.

I’m concerned to hear the response to Hon Willie Jackson when he said there was no consultation with iwi and there was none with justice experts. So you have not consulted with iwi; you have not consulted with justice experts. Are you saying that only by dint of the fact you campaigned and won an election, you are going to change this law to make it less just, in the opinion of this side of the House, certainly?

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): I move, That debate on this question now close.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Oh, come on. No.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I do apologise for my mouth having said what my brain was thinking there. It was probably not appropriate to preface your own decision.

But I do want to talk about my Amendment Paper G, which is about youth offending, because this is—and the Minister for Children was talking about her initiatives today in the House, and it is a focus of this Government. There’s nowhere where it’s more important, because we know that the earlier the intervention and the highest quality intervention, the highest likelihood of there being a change of direction. So there are real concerns that when you get someone who’s being sentenced for serious offending who is under the age of 18 years, that you’ve really got to use every effort to make sure that all of the information is in front of the judge.

Of course, we know for a fact that a young person, a person under the age of 18 years, isn’t going to have their own means. It’s unlikely that they’re going to be employed in any high-paying role or that they’ve got savings tucked away or anything of that nature. So my suggestion is that we make it clear that whilst this Government is going to defund these reports by and large, there’s a carve-out, and there’s a carve-out for kids, because anyone under the age of 18 years at law is a child. They can’t vote; no change there. So this is what this proposal would do.

We know that those kind of whānau connections are particularly important, and putting a child into a custodial setting, even though—and I have been out to, on a different occasion, Christchurch Men’s Prison, which has a youth wing, but it’s still a prison, right? Call it what you like, but those 16- and 17-year-olds are in concrete cells, and they’re in concrete cells with other young people who are serious offenders. It’s not a great place to put yourself on a track towards building a meaningful life outside of crime.

So really good information about family, about context, about background, if you can remember what it’s for, it’s not just—and this is the really important thing. It’s not just interesting background; it’s about the triggers for the offending and how we can address that on the way forward. That nexus—and Justice Whata has been very clear about the usefulness of these reports, that if they don’t tie the offending to the context, they’re not useful.

But for a young person, that family context and the context of their wider network, their cultural background, what’s happened to them in a family or other upbringing setting—that is a critical importance as having a nexus with the offending. So if we just carve it out just for young people, so that where these things are the most valuable, they’re preserved; where they’re most deserved, they’re preserved; and where they’re most needed, they’re preserved.

So, Minister, your Government’s got a programme around youth offending—serious youth offending in particular. You know that the previous Government put some good initiatives in place around youth offending with significant interventions. You’ve got a Minister for Children who’s talking about military academies, as well as, at the same time, today I see on the Beehive website, seeking further advice on serious youth offending. So here’s an idea: let’s keep one of the tools in the toolbox for judges so that we can help young people who do find themselves offending to mend their ways.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Thank you. Just wanted to respond to the questions around urgency. Of course, most of the legislation in the justice space that the Government’s going to be introducing will be going through the full select committee process, such as the gangs legislation coming up and the firearms changes, and that’s appropriate that they should be considered.

But ultimately, it is the majority of the Parliament that passes the legislation, and that member is part of a party that was part of the Government in the previous term with a clear majority that passed a whole lot of things against the wishes of a whole lot of people. That’s just how the system works, and if you do it to the extent that the majority of New Zealanders aren’t happy with the direction that you’ve taken, you get thrown out. That’s how our system works, and so that’s called democratic accountability.

So in terms of getting this legislation through, it’s worth noting that the change whereby legal aid was used to fund these reports was not the subject of consultation or legislation or any democratic process—it just happened through a change of process. We are unwinding that, and we think it’s a straightforward change that should be made swiftly, and that is why we’re doing it in this way.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity. I would like to ask the Minister a few questions, and it’s really in relation to the lack of analysis that’s been undertaken in terms of why this bill is taking place. We’ve already heard those arguments around the regulatory impact statement and the fact that officials have provided some advice; that was ignored and they were directed to take an option. But Newsroom wrote an incredibly good article, and it’s worth taking note of.

Emma Hatton has put together a great article which asks some additional questions on that. And it was a very thorough report. It points out quite rightly—and the Minister might want to speak to the advice that they refer to, because it was in December last year that this report said there are going to be additional costs. So, overall, when we look at this, this will cost the taxpayer more than actually scrapping section 27 reports. When you look at the forecast—and that’s what’s done in this article very well; they’ve broken it right down—for those currently serving a sentence of over two years, an additional 136 prison beds will be required; for those currently serving a sentence of two years in prison or less, an additional 120 beds will be required; and for those currently serving a sentence of home detention, 124 beds will be required. So the average cost of imprisonment being $193,000 a year—it can be as high as nearly $5,000 a day for those super maximum extreme risk units—that’s about $1.8 million a year.

I’m interested to know: has the Minister taken this into account on top of the 6.5 percent budget cut that Corrections, Justice, and Courts are all having to find in their baseline? With promises such as these kinds of window dressing - type promises that the Government’s doing, there clearly hasn’t been adequate time to do that level of analysis, to say how much this is actually going to cost the taxpayer at the end of the day. And furthermore, how will these additional costs you’re putting on the taxpayer be funded given the fact that all those departments that are now required to do this work—how are they going to be able to do this with a 6.5 percent budget cut? I mean, some of that funding for Courts alone will mean that some of the administrative work just can’t even be done.

It’s in a cost of living crisis, and the Minister himself has said that the two key issues that he heard back at the election, when talking to people, was the cost of living and also law and order. So if the number one issue that came back after the election—and that same argument that, when you’re elected to do something, you need to do it. If it is the cost of living, why are we passing a bill under urgency that is going to increase the costs on taxpayers, that is going to increase the financial burden on taxpayers? What is the rationale for doing that in a cost of living crisis, if that was the number one issue that people wanted to know about? If New Zealanders don’t get the opportunity to comment on this, if they don’t have the right to submit at select committee or have their voices heard, how is it fair that they have to pay for something that looks flash in a sound bite, that gets a great tweet, that ticks a box on your 100-day plan? They’re the ones who have to stump up and pay when you can’t pay the bills, when your Budget doesn’t meet the requirements. Because the long-term forecast of what this is going to cost the justice sector cluster is actually an increase to the amount that’s already allocated.

It’s not rocket science that you can’t reduce the budget of the justice cluster, increase the costs that are required to the justice sector, and then champion yourselves as heroes of the cost of living crisis. Something has got to give, and there needs to be some serious analysis done at some point. No doubt they’re doing this now in the lead up to the Budget. But the Minister needs to come clean with New Zealanders and tell us what the real cost of this bill is to taxpayers. What is the actual cost that we’re going to have to stump up? While a tweet looks good for a few seconds, and while it might be good to tick your box, the actual outcome for us as New Zealanders is increased costs to the justice sector. I’ll be very interested to hear how he plans to account for that.

DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 4, to not limit the court from using any document prepared for another purpose for the purposes of section 27, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 4, creating an exception for reports costing less than $2,000 and prepared by approved persons, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 4, creating an exception where the offender was under the age of 18 years, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 4, excluding where the report provides information relating to the relationship between the victim of the offending and the offender, be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 4 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Clause 4 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The Hon Ginny Andersen’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 4B, proposing an amendment to the Sentencing Act 2002, is ruled out of order as proposing a substantive amendment to another Act, which would change the bill into an omnibus bill.

The Hon Ginny Andersen’s tabled amendment inserting new clause 4B, inserting a new section 116A into the principal Act, is ruled out of order as being inconsistent with the principles and objects of this bill.

Clause 5 Schedule 1AA amended

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, we now come to our final debate on clause 5. This is the debate on clause 5, amendment to Schedule 1AA of the principal Act, including the Schedule. The question is that clause 5 stand part.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): This may be largely mechanical in many ways, because what it appears to do is make sure that the rush that everyone’s going to have in the next 14 days to get their legal aid applications in for these reports is managed in accordance with the rules, and that the commissioner, essentially, doesn’t turn down applications which were made in good faith, not knowing that this was in place.

As we come to the final breaths of this part of the debate, I do want to say that it’s disappointing that we didn’t really get a chance to talk about all of the different submissions that would have been made. Certainly, today I have received messages from the disabled community, including the neurodiverse community, for whom these reports are very important. And it may well be that there will be cases where people who have disabilities, including what are, in essence, invisible disabilities, will now be making applications and trying to squeeze them in to this small 14-day window to make sure that their providers can, in fact, get paid for the work that they’re going to do.

Whilst we talked about commencement, in fact, it may well be that we need a little more flexibility in this new Part 3 which is inserted into Schedule 1AA, because there is going to be a considerable bottleneck of work for the commissioner—or what, in fact, if you know how the organisation works, there’s grants officers that will, in fact, be doing this work under delegated authority.

So even though the clause applies simply before commencement, it may well be, and I wonder if the Minister would consider this, that a little more discretion is needed, because there may be people—and I’m looking at Willow-Jean Prime, who, obviously, is from Northland, where there are some more remote communities who, perhaps, the news doesn’t travel quite so fast, where there might be a sole practitioner in some of these smaller towns. Of course, we all know what it’s like to miss an email, and they may be merrily commissioning these reports or making arrangements for it, and it would be appropriate in those kinds of situations for the Legal Services Commissioner to say, “Well, look, in all of the circumstances, it doesn’t quite perhaps meet the exceptional threshold, but it’s a reasonable excuse for not quite appreciating that.” Because this is not the centrepiece of legal aid—this is off to one side. Despite the Minister’s protestations, this isn’t kind of the main grist to the mill for a legal aid lawyer. And missing an email from the Legal Services Agency with an update on these reports is quite easily missed.

So there’s a really good argument that, in fact, what we need in new Part 3 of the Schedule is to say, “The commissioner can appropriately consider an application as if this wasn’t passed where the conduct of the practitioner has been reasonable in all the circumstances.” Or perhaps where the oversight or the commissioning of this report is excusable in the circumstances. It might be that you want a higher threshold—I’d suggest against it. Exceptional circumstances is always a kind of tricky phrase. A kind of negligent but not outrageous omission would strike me as something which would be perfectly reasonable.

But, as I’ve said, I’m disappointed that we haven’t had a chance to go over some of the other people who have come to me and said, “I’d like my voice heard on this bill.” I do want to again mention the disabled community and the fact that the neurodiverse community often find themselves in the court. And we know that neurodiverse people are overrepresented in our prisons, and these reports are really important.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Dr Webb, this is simply about transition.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Yes, well, these people also will be affected by the transition.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I accept that, but please keep your message regarding them to the transition itself.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well, thank you for your guidance, Madam Chair, but given that this has been rushed through the House without select committee process, I’m simply trying to make sure that my constituents and the constituents of all New Zealand’s voices are heard, both in respect of this new Part 3, which is important, but the transition is relevant and I suggest that a greater discretion is needed in respect of it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Well, when I read this through, this clause 5 of the bill, it seemed to me that officials hadn’t been listened to right throughout the process. This was kind of like the ameliorating last hope of trying to have some kind of a transition from where these were funded through legal aid and then, suddenly, they’re not. There’s going to be a whole lot of different stages of legal process, of people undertaking work, and you’ve got a very short period of time. And I do think that this is going to cause some real hiccups in the justice system over the next couple of months, and we will see those reports, we will receive letters. I hope they take the time to write to the Minister of Justice, because just simply having—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Hon Andersen, the questions in this part are to the Minister, not to the officials, so please don’t—

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Sorry. I said “to the Minister” you may want to ask it, so—the Minister may want to be very clear on the fact that if those people who have undertaken work, who have had that promise of work to be done—they will be at varying stages of that through the process. And so how that impacts upon someone who’s accused, how that impacts upon the victim, is going to be very interesting. It really concerns me that there has not been sufficient time for such a significant change to enable that transition to take place.

There is really a key part here, that there is one part in the Schedule that’s providing for the transition. It clearly states in clause 7(1) of the Schedule that “if, before commencement,—(a) the lead provider has obtained the Commissioner’s approval to incur a disbursement as part of a … legal aid;”. But if it’s not been approved or declined, a payment claim for respective legal aid services—my advice is that includes disbursement. I think in this particular area, the Minister should give consideration to a longer transitional period, because that short period of time to have that transition is insufficient for the legal profession.

No doubt there will be much more heard about this over the coming weeks, when the bill comes into force, when it receives the Royal assent, when a whole lot of people figure out this has happened—because they haven’t been notified and there’s no communications provided to lawyers, to victims, to offenders. They will have to find out through simply turning up at court and finding out that this is no longer occurring. To me, that’s not fair. That’s not fair to New Zealanders who have gone into a process thinking that this was a clear pathway, and that pathway has been cut off without clear communication.

So if the Minister would like to enlighten us—and my question to him is: what communications, whether through his own office or through the Ministry of Justice, have been undertaken in order to communicate that section 27 reports will no longer be funded? Where is this, how is this being communicated to the legal fraternity, to victims, to those people who are defence lawyers, to those people who are working in the courtrooms? What is the communications plan that has been put in is under way presently—to make sure that when you stop this, when it suddenly ceases to exist in 14 days’ time from the date of Royal assent—how can we be reassured that there has been some sort of a communications effort, so that all those people affected by this law change have in fact had the opportunity to turn their minds to it and prepare?

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a short contribution to make on what is quite a technical part of the bill; these last transitional provisions in this new schedule inserted as a result of clause 5. So my questions are to the Minister of Justice: this bill is obviously passing through under urgency and we’re early in the year, and there’s a specific drafting mechanism, which is included in new Part 3 inserted into Schedule 1AA, which bolds the year “2024”. That is only, as far as I’m aware, used in bills in the House; it’s not something that appears in legislation once it’s passed. If the Minister could enlighten us as to why it’s bolded when it’s obviously—because of the Minister’s decision—going to be passed this year? Does the Minister, in fact, think that there could be some delay at some stage or introduce further amendments?

Hon Rachel Brooking: It sounds like Tim van de Molen wants a call.

CAMILLA BELICH: It does sound like it.

Tim van de Molen: Is the member happy with the size of the font?

CAMILLA BELICH: Yeah, it’s quite interesting Mr van de Molen seems to have quite a lot to say on this bill but hasn’t managed to take a call.

Tim van de Molen: I did.

CAMILLA BELICH: Well, not in the hour and a half since I’ve been in the Chamber. As you’ll be aware, the relevance to the question is a job for the Chair, which we have a very competent one in place, Mr van de Molen.

Anyway, my second question, which is also on technical matter, is: in new Part 3 inserted into Schedule 1AA, in clause 7, which has two subclauses (1) and (2)—in subclause (2) of clause 7, there is a provision for, essentially, claims that have been put before the commissioner but they haven’t yet been approved or deferred or declined, so it’s only relevant for a very short period of time, as I understand it as I read it. I’m happy to be corrected by the Minister, and I hope he does have the opportunity to respond to these questions. In that small two-week period—because there is a two-week period prior to commencement but after the Act receives its Royal assent—subclause (2) of clause 7 of this provision allows the commissioner to approve and decline, which I understand. So, obviously, if the law is not yet enacted, the spending can still be approved—that’s totally logical. It can also be declined—that is within the Commissioner’s discretion. But what does happen when it’s deferred? Surely it cannot, in good faith and good conscience, be deferred, because if it is deferred and the Act does then commence during that period of deferral, then the claim would automatically not be able to be fulfilled because the law would have come into place. So why is “defer” there? And if “defer” is there, is there some requirement for that deferral to be resolved prior to the commencement of this bill? So I would like an answer for that, please, if the Minister wouldn’t mind.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Just in terms of the question around the use of 2024, I don’t understand the point the member is making. So perhaps—it is 2024; that is the year we’re in and so that’s the year that we’re referring to.

Hon Rachel Brooking: It’s in bold.

Camilla Belich: Why’s it in bold?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Why is it in bold? That is a mystery to which there is no clear answer.

In terms of the second point that the member was making, the point is that there’s two steps in the process in the 14-day period: first, the commissioner gives approval to incur a disbursement. So if that happens, then after the 14 days, when the bill comes in, the commissioner can approve, defer, or decline the payment. So the payments could continue past the 14 days if, in this period, the grant for disbursement is approved, and that is the transitional period.

The other question was raised about the communications plan. The Ministry of Justice, of course, has a very comprehensive communications plan in place that will roll out the moment this bill is passed so that lawyers are made aware—everybody’s made aware—at the earliest possibility that it has passed and that there is a 14-day period in which they can seek to have a grant for disbursement if they’re currently in the system.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 5 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I will now come to the vote on the Schedule, where there is no debate. The question is that the Schedule stand part.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Legal Services Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): I move that the Legal Services Amendment Bill—sorry. Firstly, I present a legislative statement on the Legal Services Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): That 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 third time.

In line with the Government’s commitment to restoring law and order and improving the quality of Government spending, this bill puts an end to the Government funding of section 27 reports. It’s clear that in recent years, the use of section 27 reports has evolved beyond what was intended when the legislation was first introduced. The result is a report-writing industry funded by taxpayers. The legal aid funding for section 27 reports has increased from approximately $40,000 in 2017 to more than $7 million in the past financial year, and this cannot be justified.

The bill amends the Legal Services Act to prevent the commissioner from being able to approve claims for payment or costs relating to reports or statements made by a person called on under section 27 of the Sentencing Act. However, importantly, the bill does not change any other aspect of the Legal Services Act. Offenders will still be able to call a person they choose to provide background information to the court under section 27. This information can, for example, be provided by a family member or a friend, in person or in writing, without any cost. The court will still be able to take such information provided under section 27 into account at sentencing.

Putting an end to the current funding arrangement for section 27 reports will mean that savings can be used to improve support for the victims of crime. We will monitor the impacts of the law change closely to inform decisions in that regard. The Government is focused on delivering on our wider law and order policies with the ultimate goal of improving public confidence in the justice system. This short bill is being progressed under urgency through all stages so that we can deliver on the commitments we were elected to do. I would like to thank MPs for their support of this important bill. Thank you.

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

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Minister of Justice spent two minutes talking about this significant change to our justice system, so it’s a sad day when a Minister really just doesn’t address or come back to the House after the committee of the whole House stage to give us a fair summation of what’s happened there, which is his function, and takes such a dismissive approach.

The guts of it is this: the National Party and its coalition partners have a view of equal treatment before the law which is one-dimensional. It takes no account for the distinctions of people, where they come from, their circumstances, and their financial and wider ability to wrestle with the justice system. Only last week, we had the Minister and the Ministry of Justice in to talk to us about the ministry’s programme to ensure better outcomes and experiences for Māori when they engage with the justice system. This makes a mockery of that; there’s utter mockery of any suggestion that parties on the other side of the House have any interest whatsoever in addressing the gross inequities in our justice system and the fact that the statistics show that outcomes for Māori are worse, that the system is tilted, the playing field isn’t even.

These reports, which had quality issues, you know, might have had budget issues, but, by and large, played a very important role in giving information to the courts. On the other side of the House—and I know there’s members over there who are wincing and I get it, right? I understand that; they don’t like what their Minister’s doing and yet they’ve got to suck it up because the Minister is running the show, and their coalition partners—the likes of the ACT Party—are taking a “hard on crime” approach and they’re not willing to listen to officials. They’re willing to dog-whistle to their fringe elements which just want to bash down on the most vulnerable in our society.

But the Minister did say one thing I want to latch on to and he said that the savings to be made here—we know it’s about $7 million a year—now, in the National Party’s Real Consequences for Crime election document, it said that every penny of that money would go to victims. So I want to hold you to account on that. I want you to make sure—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not “you”.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I want to hold that party and that Government to account on that because they’ve made a promise to the electorate, and the Minister was very clear when he was challenged time and again as to why he wasn’t listening to his officials. He said, “We’ve gone to the electorate with a promise, we won, now we’re delivering.” You won; you made more than one promise, and I want to make sure that that Minister delivers on his promise to victims to take every penny of that funding, the $7 million a year, to put it directly into victims—not into the back pocket of landlords, not to offset the roads they want to build, but to victims in the criminal justice system.

It’s very frustrating to see the very good advice of officials utterly ignored. Officials do a great job of saying, “Look, we’ve given you the view of the direction of travel. You’ve stuck with the direction of travel. But if you’re going to go down that road, here’s what we think you should do to make it the best outcome possible, to achieve the policy objectives.”, because the policy objectives we probably agree on: safer communities, lower reoffending, better reintegration, better outcomes for victims. We all agree on that and, as an aside—secondary, I would hope, but perhaps primary for this Minister—a cost-effective approach, one which is good value for money.

Now, the fact of the matter is the ministry gave great advice as to how that might be achieved with a number of different tools, whether it be regulating the way in which these were provided, accrediting providers, placing caps on the amount that could be spent, having them provided only on request—a raft of really useful tools to say, “We can get your policy objectives across the line and still retain the valuable benefits of these reports.” And what did the Minister say? “No, nah, we’re not going to do it, because we’re not interested in good policy outcomes; we’re just interested in a really dogmatic approach without nuance.”

You know, I can see Mr Meager there is looking down, and I would too, because you know as well as I do that these reports are useful. You’re a man who’s of the law. You know these reports are useful. You know that judges rely on advocates to present the best evidence before them, whether it’s in deciding the case or making a sentence, and this is depriving a judge of evidence.

I was really frustrated with the dog-whistling in terms of the “cottage industry” comments—time and again, cottage industry. Cottage industry this; cottage industry that. The Minister was not being fulsome with the House, because, as I said in the committee stage, I asked him: who was receiving this money? What was the identity of the people to whom he was objecting and calling part of a cottage industry? The response is there in parliamentary questions for anyone to read—under the written questions part of the webpage. He did not know; he was actually making that up. I asked him in this House, “How many reports has Harry Tam or his companies written?” He did not know. It’s utterly inappropriate for someone of the stature of a Minister of the Crown to come to this House and cast spurious, groundless allegations around to someone who isn’t in this House, can’t come and defend themselves, and to then just have a blanket “cottage industry” is utterly, utterly wrong.

James Meager: How dare he sully the name of Harry Tam!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No, I’m not a defender of that person at all, but what I am a defender of is of the dignity of the office of a Minister, who should have a foundation for a statement before he comes to this House and makes it, and that Minister knew that his statement made to this House was utterly, utterly groundless. He should be ashamed of himself.

So what’ve we got? What’ve we ended up with? Well, time will tell, but it’s pretty clear from the advice that costs will rise, the length of trials will rise, incarceration rates will rise, and—I think it’s important to say this—needlessly rise; rise not because people belong in prison, but because judges don’t have the information to provide a more appropriate sentence which is better and safer for the community and more likely to lead to less offending. So what we’ve got is a Government that’s so committed to dog-whistling politics that it’s actually having the opposite effect. This “hard on crime” approach—yes, you’re going to make life worse for these criminals, and you might be happy with that. I get that. But the real tragedy is you’re going to make life worse for their victims and, quite possibly and most tragically, future victims. You’re going to make their life worse for their families, because you’re going to be taking people out of the family home needlessly.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Government or the Minister; not me, Mr Webb.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: That’s what they’re going to be doing, Madam Speaker—thank you for pointing out that those members, that Government is going to be needlessly taking parents out of the family home. We know that children of prisoners are much more likely to be prisoners themselves. That’s what you’re doing. That’s what this is doing.

We came to this House with genuine suggestions about how this bill might be improved, and, you know, I believe that the Minister does want good outcomes and he’s been somehow led down the garden path and thinks this is the only way to do it. But he wasn’t prepared to listen to us. He wasn’t prepared to make an amendment so that young people—at least someone under 18 years old—could be funded to get a report about what led to this offending and therefore inform the judge as to what the most appropriate measures might be, what the best reintegration framework might be, how to keep them best connected with whānau and community connections. That’s the kind of material that a judge needs, but no.

So, ultimately, what we have here is a two-track justice system: those that can afford it and those that can’t. The Government on the other side has reinforced inequities that already exist, made it easier for the wealthy to get a good outcome in the justice system and harder for those without means. It’s shameful, it’s sad, but that’s where we are today with this Government.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Tamatha Paul—ha, ha, that was close! Just a warning to members that if that pause happens again, I could actually take a vote. So please be quick on your feet and call out. Thank you.

TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. During the committee of the whole House phase, I was going to suggest, when we were talking about the title of this bill, that we could consider this the “Legal Disservice Amendment Bill” because this bill is a disservice to our communities, it is a disservice to our society, and it is a disservice to victims of harm and serious crime. But I was too slow. But I know now!

Everything has a whakapapa. Every thing and every person has an origin story, and all of us here in this House have a whakapapa that describes and explains how we came to be the people that we are and why we do the things that we do. We know that because, when we first stand in this House, we craft our maiden speeches, in which we honour that whakapapa and we talk about our lives and the trials and tribulations that we’ve overcome that have allowed us to come here.

In the same way, those cultural reports are about whakapapa; they’re about understanding what kind of an upbringing somebody had, what kinds of challenges they face in their everyday lives, whether they have health disabilities, whether they struggle with addiction, whether they have experienced abuse in their upbringings or in their lives, whether they have experienced abuse at the hands of the State. Understanding this allows us to understand what the rehabilitative pathway forward is for that individual, and that’s something that we need to understand in order to stamp any issues out at their root cause.

Moana Jackson said that a justice system does not exist in isolation from the society it serves, and that’s exactly what these cultural reports aimed to address and what they sought to understand. What are the parts of our society that we all enable that are contributing to the reasons why people are causing harm? And, similarly, an individual and their actions do not exist in isolation from the society in which they live and were raised. And, as I just said, without those cultural reports, we won’t ever fully grasp the extent to which our society is responsible for the harm that is experienced in our communities. I wonder whether that’s because some of us and some of the rules that we’ve made in this House are culpable for creating the conditions in which crime happens and harm happens in our communities in the first place.

I wanted to raise a point that my Te Pāti Māori colleague Tākuta raised in the Justice Committee when we were able to question the Ministry of Justice, Corrections, and Police on a whole range of matters, but specifically on these cultural reports. Tākuta raised the point that when Moana Jackson wrote his magnum opus He whaipaanga hou and when he exposed the racism that is baked into our justice system and the way that our justice system disproportionately incarcerates and impacts Māori, at the time of that being published, Māori women made up a very small percentage of the women’s prison population.

Hon Member: 67 percent now.

TAMATHA PAUL: Yeah, exactly—over the span of just a few decades, we’ve seen the representation of Māori women in prisons balloon to the point where Māori women are the most incarcerated indigenous group of people in the world. And that is not because there is something inherent within our whakapapa that makes us criminal; it is because our criminal justice system has racism baked into it, and this bill bakes it in even further. It’s also because of the wealth inequality that our country has enabled to grow since the 1980s. We know that poverty is a driver of crime as well, but the thing is that we’re not going to understand those drivers of crime, because we’re taking out that important mechanism by which we can understand that more.

I wanted to talk, too, about the way that this House and in this debate today that we have talked about, written about, scrutinised, and, ultimately, objectified Māori and Pacific people as criminals. I think that in itself is criminal. There have been mountains of research that have pointed to the many ways that colonisation has contributed to a justice system that disproportionately incarcerates Māori, Pacific Island people, and poor people, and those are the communities that will be most deeply impacted by the removal of cultural reports.

When you turn on your TV, and when you grow up in a place like I did, like Tokoroa, and you switch on your TV, all you see is the representation of Māori as criminals—whether that’s on the TV, whether that’s in films, whether that’s in television shows, we are represented as criminals. That’s something that we have to understand because you can only be what you see, and if all we’re seeing on TV is ourselves being represented as criminals, then of course there’s going to be an element of living up to that. But we’re never going to understand that, because we’re removing the element that helps us to understand the cultural influences on why people commit crime.

So it seems that we only search for the causes of outcomes in every other area in life except for crime, the prime area that will impact the trajectory of somebody’s life the most. It is time for a new way to approach the justice system, and that is by incorporating humanity and empathy into our processes and to allow for us to honour each person’s right to seek justice in our system. In order to do that, we have to understand where somebody comes from, who they are, and what has driven them to do what they have done, because we have to. Our justice system is at breaking point. Our prisons are overpopulated. Corrections are struggling to recruit staff to even service the enormous prison populations we have—both the remand population and the sentenced population.

So this is just kind of funnelling more people into the justice system for longer periods of time and doesn’t get to the root cause of why that crime was committed in the first place. I’m sure that there are also many victims of crime that may be able to move towards a space of healing by understanding why the person committed that crime towards them, as opposed to never knowing, never having that closure of understanding why that was committed in the first place. And that’s not to justify their actions, but it is to acknowledge that these cultural reports do help in the healing process for somebody to understand that background as well.

The Minister said today in the House that his mandate for rushing this bill through urgency was based on their election win, and that people on the doors were saying they just want to feel safe in their community and they wanted some law and order, and I think that’s perfectly reasonable. It’s perfectly reasonable that everybody should be able to live free from harm and free from assault and harassment and discrimination—I absolutely accept that. But what I don’t understand from today’s debate is why the Minister saw this bill, in particular, as the key thing that would make communities feel safer. Because we know, based on evidence and the lack of evidence underpinning this particular bill that this is not going to make our communities any safer. In fact, like the Hon Duncan Webb was saying, it actually creates more future victims of crime and of harm. So, yeah, that’s all I’ve got to say on that. Thank you.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support of this bill. Let me be clear—I’ve heard a lot of discussion tonight; let me be clear one more time: this makes no changes to section 27 of the Sentencing Act. Those provisions are still available for offenders to make submissions to the court. That was what it was intended to do. What we are simply removing is the funding for reports, often written by people with no connection to those offenders. I commend this bill to the House.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Look, in a sense, I’m surprised we even have to legislate for something, essentially, as small as this. This is a very simple bill. What I’m hearing from the Opposition is that it’s as though these reports will not exist anymore. Of course they’ll exist—it is simply who is going to present the reports. Actually, I would say that it is much more valuable for the judge to get a report from people—the whānau, the friends; the people who know the offender rather than somebody who needs to be paid for it. Remember, these paid-for reports did not exist until 2017, and then only barely. So we are still going to have access to those reports; it is merely that they are not going to be paid for. I commend this bill to the House.

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā tātou. Moumou te pango. Koinā te kupu kōrero a te iwi Māori mō tēnei momo mahi, tētahi mahi kāore ōna tino take, tētahi tangata kāore ōna tino take. Moumou te pango. He moumou anō hoki te kōrero, i te mea ahakoa te nui, te whānui, te whārahi, te hohonu rānei o te kupu whakamārama kia mārakerake te kite atu, kei te taka ki te hunga taringa turi. Te taringa turi o te Kāwanatanga hou kua ara ake mai nei, e mea nei ahau he aupēhitanga. He aupēhitanga i runga i te iwi Māori, e kore te iwi Māori e whiti ki te ora, te oranga nuitanga i whakaarohia, i wawatahia, i ōhākīngia e ō rātou mātua tīpuna i roto i te Tiriti o Waitangi. Moumou te pango.

Ara ake nei au ki te waha i ngā ōhākī me te tū a te Pāti Māori mō tēnei o ngā pire e tuku nei i te iwi Māori kia mauherehia i roto i ō rātou whenua ake o Aotearoa.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker, indeed greetings to all of us. Waste of black. That is the phrase of the Māori people about this type of action, an action that has no real purpose, a person that has no real purpose. Waste of black. It is also a waste of a phrase, because despite the magnitude, the breadth, the length, or the depth of the words of explanation so that it can be clearly seen, it is falling on people with deaf ears. The deaf ear of the new Government that has risen, that I am saying is an oppression. An oppression of the Māori people, the Māori people will never make the transition to good health, the magnificent health that was considered, that was aspired to, that was bequeathed by their forebears and ancestors in the Treaty of Waitangi. Waste of black.

I rise to give voice to the parting with and the position of the Māori Party with respect to this bill that allows the Māori people to be incarcerated in their own land of Aotearoa.]

Indigenous incarceration is well understood right around the world. In post-settler colonial societies, the indigenous people of those nations are overrepresented in incarceration, in discrimination in justice, in police and corrections—in every possible place you can be exercising authority. This is well understood. If people in this House don’t understand that, you need to catch up quick. Because what you are doing today, what you are doing in this bill, is extending—extending—that history. You are doing nothing to address it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we refrain from the word “you”, please. Don’t bring the Speaker into the debate; talk to the Government.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Kia ora. Well, they are doing nothing to find any solutions. As my tuahine has said, the work of Moana Jackson was dedicated to understanding the nature of the justice system—not only in Aotearoa but across the world—and the profound impacts that these types of justice systems established in post-settler colonialist societies have on the indigenous population. It is unequivocal—it’s unequivocal—and I see, hear, feel none of it in what’s been presented.

Young Māori men, young Māori, rangatahi Māori, who arrive in courtrooms around this country, they come largely unsupported, feeling a sense of whakamā—whakamā, for they have strayed from where the ethos and the heart and the kaupapa of their culture for ever hoped that they would be. So they often arrive under-supported, they often arrive with no economic backing, and they are fodder into a minefield that sees them sent to jail five times faster than anyone else. These are not things that are up for contest; these are not things that need to be researched. And here we are, taking away one of the remaining available supports for those young Māori, for their families, as they come into the justice system in our country.

I can speak to this firsthand, and it’s a real shame that the Minister of Justice isn’t here just to listen—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just one of the things in this House: we don’t refer to members who aren’t in the House. So a lot of learnings going on tonight.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Well, i runga i ō mātou marae, ka tū atu me te kōrero mō te hunga nā rātou ēnei kōrero i taka. Nā ki te kore e tae ā-tinana mai ki te hua me te whakarongo ki ngā kupu whakahoki, ērā o ngā kōrero, e mea nei he kupu mana-kore. Engari kei te pai, tēnā rā koe.

[Well, on our marae, one stands and speaks about those who made these statements. Now, if they do not appear in person to consider and to hear the words of reply, those types of statements, it is considered words with no authority. But that’s OK, thank you.]

But I can speak to this from firsthand experience that a young person in our whānau found themselves, unfortunately, before the justice system and at the behest of, obviously, legal aid—the minimum requirements to get them through the court procedure. Had we not been there to support that through, this young person would have been straight to jail. The information that was able to be gleaned from the whānau members and presented in a manner that’s acceptable to the court and made available to a judge—to provide context for that young person—had an impact on the ruling. That is now gone with this decision. You might say it’s still there, but it’s not, because these whānau can’t afford to pay for it.

So I reflect again—for the person that I’m not supposed to talk about—and his view that, on the whole, colonisation was a good thing for Māori. And here he is, extending the reach and the impact of colonisation into the next generation of young Māori, who will arrive in justice, in courts around the country, under-supported, under-resourced, and at the mercy of a court that, by its very nature, over decades of time, has incarcerated those people.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. The speaker’s time has expired. I let the member run over because I rang the bell a little late.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker, I appreciate the call. So the Government MPs have been at pains to clarify that this Government is only removing the legal aid funding for cultural reports. That is exactly the point, though. In actual fact, we have looked at commentary that saw the relevant Ministers actually seeing value in the cultural reports, in their own words, understanding the value of the wider context, that whakapapa that is brought to the courtroom to be able to service and meet other needs that have happened in the pathway of harm being caused. And the Ministers themselves have vocalised how they see the value in that, and then have quickly said, “All we’re doing is removing the funding.”

So what they are, essentially, saying, then, is some victims are being focused on and others are not. Some privileged offenders are going to be able to have broader context and the rest are not. So that is the point that this side has been proving for the entirety of the passage of this bill through this House. And I’m glad that we’ve made that clear, because there were some earlier futile attempts to try and pin this legislation to being tough on crime. And that quickly got removed, I see. I see that they’re no longer going down that road because, actually, they’re still available, but just for those who can afford it. So this cannot be called “tough on crime”, because it’s only tough for some—only tough for some—and for those who do not have privilege already, it’s not. So I can see why the Government members wisely chose to zip that narrative right up.

So then we are left with: what does actual accountability to victims look like? And a holistic, whānau-centred accountability to the harm that has happened is exactly what this removal of funding does not do. So the real enduring solutions for authentic accountability, an accountability to harm caused that often is not met by a jail cell—how is an offender supposed to feel direct accountability for the harm they have caused when it is in a place that means nothing to them, from a person and an institution that means nothing to them? So there too these cultural report funding removals are not even about victim-centred accountability processes. So we’ve put that to the moenga, to the bed, as well—we’ll put that to rest also.

So what we are left then with is simply just shallow election promises that have no basis or grounding in enduring justice solutions, especially for victims. And anybody who has spent any time looking into what happens to victims, including family violence and sexual violence victims who have been harmed by people who use violence—anybody who has spent any time looking into that knows that funding cultural reports is not what is the problem.

So then we are left with simply just shallow, dog-whistling legislation that will not benefit victims and will continue to perpetuate the inequities and the privileges of some people in the justice process. Now that has been happening for far too long. The funded cultural reports were actually an attempt to try and allow for a voice from marginalised and oppressed groups of peoples without the privilege. That’s what the cultural reports were actually doing: trying to bring a voice in for people who have none, instead of just privileging people who have access to power and resources and networks. And that, unfortunately, is this justice system that we still currently have, that people can get away with harm and crime, depending on if you have privilege. That is why I strongly oppose the shallowness of this legislation. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. The implication from members opposite is that if they were approached by an offender who asked them for help, they’d say, “Yes, but only for a fee.” That is shameful. Reports remain; use them well; do it for free.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon Ginny Andersen—[Interruption] Just a moment—I’m calling the Hon Ginny Andersen, thank you.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, and thank you to that member James Meager for that wonderful contribution to the debate tonight! In fact, the quality of this debate reflects which side of the argument has the stronger case, because when I think about what is the best way of characterising what we are seeing, just this bill is a really good example of the overall theme that this Government has been carrying over the past couple of months. The word that resonates the most with me is “hypocritical”, because when we look at what “hypocritical” actually means, it means—

Hon Member: Hey, you can’t use the “H” word.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you can’t call someone a hypocrite, but you can call a policy—

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Hypocritical—I can say it is.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: It is behaving in a way that suggests one has higher standards or has more noble beliefs than is the case, and I think this is a good example, because to talk tough on crime but to actually have a bill that makes more victims and more offenders is hypocritical. Also, to talk big about the cost of living crisis that all New Zealanders are currently going through but to bring here a bill to this House under urgency that will increase the costs on the taxpayer—that is hypocritical. So this bill is a wonderful example of the overall demeanour that this Government is bringing to New Zealand, and my prediction is that that demeanour will continue for the next three years.

The first point I’d like to make is access to justice. We hear that access to justice is important, but the reality is that this bill removes access to justice. It stops people having access to reports that will enable judges to make better decisions, and that is a real loss to our justice system.

The two areas that it really affects the most, and that concerns me, are the victims of crime. So we have a Government that has spoken about how important it is to put victims at the centre of our justice system, but we have a bill now that is passing under urgency where no victim’s voice is being heard, where there’s been no victim adviser involved, and where there’s been no advocacy groups able to have their voices heard. So if there is a view that the victims’ voices should be heard and put front and centre of our justice system, would you not give them the ability to speak on a bill that directly affects them? But still we are told that this Government puts victims at the centre of our justice system. When victims do not get a voice, we will have judges making decisions that do not take account of the impact on the victims because the funding for section 27 reports has been removed.

The other point that is important to make is to reduce reoffending. This is where it gets really hypocritical, because, only in the last few days, we’ve heard this great news that the corrections system is going to have increased rehabilitation—there’s going to be, hopefully, more funding to go along with the increased rehabilitation—and heard how that’s going to help there be fewer victims of crime and less reoffending. But in the same breath, they’re passing a bill that actually stops judges having the type of information before them at sentencing that will prevent reoffending, and that is exactly what Waikato University research published in 2020 actually said.

So there’s not been very much research going on in this bill. We’ve heard that the advice already provided by officials to the Minister was ignored and that they were directed to go for option two—we know that from the debate earlier today—but the research that we have got from Waikato University that was published in 2020 found that lawyers who used section 27 reports had experienced positive results, including better sentencing outcomes. It was a way to give the offender a clearer picture of the patterns involved in their offending and was reconnecting them with whānau and community, it was educating the judiciary and court practitioners on cultures such as tikanga Māori, and it reduced reoffending. So we do have some evidence there, but that evidence clearly wasn’t taken into account by this Government when passing a bill which they’re claiming is going to be helping victims and also getting tough on crime.

It’s really important that we go to the costs of this bill, and we’ve discussed this at the committee stage. There’s been some excellent work—Newsroom, one of them that’s picked up on this; there’s been some other really good reporting on this space: that back in December, the Minister received very clear advice that the long-term outcome of passing this legislation would, in fact, have a heavier burden on the taxpayer. So, in the long run, we as taxpayers are paying more for a system that is broken. That is why this is hypocritical, because to say that cost of living is number one; to say that we need to be assisting New Zealanders with the cost of living crisis, yet passing a bill that is unable to be funded under current budget—given there’s also a 6.5 percent budget cut—that is quite clearly hypocritical.

The Legal Services Amendment Bill will remove legal-aid funding for a report or a statement. What strikes me the most is just the sheer entitlement that we can hear members from the other side popping up and saying, “Well, they’re still there; we’ve still got them. Just whip out your Visa. Haven’t you got one?” So it is actually quite shocking to hear that we must have a justice system—if you want access to justice, you need to pay for those, and if a person cannot afford to pay for that, then tough luck; that’s tough. Maybe that’s where tough on crime comes in: it’s tough on those who can’t afford to pay. That’s the tough on crime that this Government has.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: A war on the poor.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: It is a war on the poor, that if you can afford your good lawyer, if you can afford a section 27 report, that will help the sentencing outcome for your case.

It saddens me—it deeply saddens me—that the bills this House is passing under this Government just create a further divided New Zealand society; a two-tiered society where if someone can pay, if they have access to funding, they get better access to legal services, they get better access to a pathway in life. But if somebody cannot afford, then that’s tough luck; that’s tough on crime. That is a real concern for the future generations of New Zealand. Because let’s be honest: this disproportionately affects Māori, and it is Māori who will see the real detriment from this bill when those factors are not able to be taken into account at sentencing.

It’s a common theme of this Government to have disregard to those obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi to have consultation with a Treaty partner when there is a clear obligation and there’s a direct impact on te Iwi Māori, there is an absolute disregard for those obligations that are underpinned within the partnership of the Treaty of Waitangi. Maybe one of those principles will be reviewed when we see the next bill come through the House on that one.

I would like to conclude by saying that the real sadness going forward in this bill is: where does it set up our justice system? What is the future of our justice system if this is one of the first bills out of the gate for law and order that there will be a simple striking of the pen and the only justification, the only rationale, the only evidence, the only info that we got through the whole debate was that this was an election promise, this is in the 100-day plan, “This is in our coalition agreement, and therefore we’re just going to go ahead and do it.”?

There is no requirement to consult te Iwi Māori; there’s no requirement to consult victims of crime; there’s no need to consult anyone in in the legal profession because, going back to it, that is what hypocritical really is: it’s behaving in a way that suggests one has higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case. That is the problem with this Government. There is a holier-than-thou approach that proclaims to make law on behalf of others that directly impacts the wellbeing and the outcomes of other people in New Zealand without any regard to those.

So I congratulate the members opposite on ticking the 100-day box of the 100-day plan and I look forward to all the commentary that comes in the weeks and months that pass as this Government once again hypocritically rides roughshod over the rights of New Zealanders and democracy; of people having a voice and being able to say that this bill is just damn wrong.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, the time has come for me to vacate the Chair. The House is suspended until 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 9.58 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)

TUESDAY, 5 MARCH 2024

(continued on Wednesday, 6 March 2024)

Bills

Legal Services Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Good morning. The House is resumed. We’re on the third reading of the Legal Services Amendment Bill.

SUZE REDMAYNE (National—Rangitīkei): Let’s be really clear here. Amending the Legal Services Act 2011 to exclude section 27 reports from the legal aid scheme doesn’t stop offenders from being able to get someone to speak directly to the court on their behalf. It doesn’t stop someone from being able to provide a written statement regarding their background. But it does stop the cottage industry that writing section 27 reports has become, costing the taxpayer millions—over $7.5 million last year, up from $40,000 in 2017—while doing nothing for the victims of crime. I commend the Legal Services Amendment Bill to the House.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): A five-minute call.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE: Thank you, sir. Labour opposes this bill. We heard yesterday and last night the Minister outline—which actually wasn’t much in terms of community engagement. Māori and Pasifika communities, Māori and Pasifika whānau, Māori and Pasifika offenders are not going to get the benefit of the section 27 legal funding when it is removed by this mean-spirited Government, who does not care about victims who require support. Of course we know that.

In terms of the judicial system and the sentencing judges of the judiciary, this report is not an excuse but it helps explain some of the offenders. And we know, in Pasifika whānau, in Pasifika families, the grief when some of our young people, who have gone down the judicial system—admittedly, for some of them, it is their own choice; however, many of our Pasifika families struggle in understanding the language and the culture that the prison system has.

Another thing is that Pasifika offenders require support from their whānau. They may end up in the judicial system and have caused some grief. However, what the report does do is it provides the sentencing judge with further explanations of mitigating factors, and the reason and the cause for that. The sentencing judge will appreciate that the section 27 report that is put forward by counsel is an extra explanation.

Let’s be very clear: this is putting funding and money over people’s lives. We heard some great contributions last night in terms of the system. We also heard the angst in the community with regards to the trauma. However, I want to just add in my contribution that Māori have specific tikanga that they follow, and so do Pasifika. We have far too many young Pasifika people—once they enter the judicial system, they spend a lifetime trying to get out of it. And also, some of the offending behaviour requires a better explanation to be put forward and considered by that specific sentencing judge.

In terms of the section 27 cultural report, some of the specific offenders have ended up in the judicial system due to petty crime and just poor decision-making; however, the section 27 report that they cannot afford to pay for, or their families, to provide the extra evidence before that sentencing judge is a lever that could be considered further.

For some of the young Pasifika offenders, they have had a life of crime, and, admittedly, they have made poor decisions. But the section 27 report is for those who require the legal funding to assist that specific sentencing judge to take in those factors of poverty, of not being able to have good English, of not being able to understand the reason why they’ve ended up being incarcerated. I know section 27 will still be there. We’ve heard a number of contributions that it is still in the system and is able to be put forward to the sentencing judge. But it’s only there for those who can afford it. So, in fact, for our Māori and our Pasifika and our poorer families in this society, it is a travesty that the legal funding will not be there to help and assist these families, particularly for those offenders who have ended up in the judicial system and need that extra help.

Labour opposes this bill, Labour does not agree with what the Government members have said in this decision of theirs—$7 million, that’s what has been outlined in the numbers that we’ve received—and it is a travesty that we are unable to help these offenders, for the sentencing judge to consider further and have it explained further. Thank you.

PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn): We must acknowledge the challenges that face offenders and many young offenders especially. There is a lot of help needed for them long before they get to the space of being in a position to offend. But what the Legal Services Amendment Bill wishes to do is simply to bring back section 27 reports to what they were originally intended to do, which was to allow family members and friends, people who knew the offenders, to speak to the report and give them support. It was never envisioned for authors to be paid a whole lot of money which is raised from taxpayers—to be provided—even with no direct connection to the families or the offenders. So we commend this bill to the House.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call for the third and final reading of this bill, the Legal Services Amendment Bill, this morning. I want to start by highlighting for the House that this bill is being rushed through under urgency, and that the impact of this bill is going to be severe for those who are in the justice system. Why we know this is because numerous, numerous organisations have provided comments to the media, outlining their concerns about the proposal to scrap the legal aid funding for section 27 reports. That comes from the New Zealand Law Society, the Māori Law Society, the New Zealand Bar Association, the defence lawyers, former judges, and even a Supreme Court judge.

To quote the president to the Law Society: “Access to justice will be seriously limited with the proposed defunding of cultural reports”, with one report calling it a “racial weapon”. The Law Society went on to say, “With funding for these reports removed, the only way a person facing sentencing will be able to access them is by paying privately. Those who can afford this would then have a greater level of representation in the Court than those receiving Legal Aid.” The New Zealand Law Society said that “this is a significant breach of fundamental rights”. So I want to start my contribution by outlining this.

Don’t allow the Government to downplay what they claim is a small change. As I spoke in the committee of the whole House yesterday, a small change, yes, but it has profound impact on the justice system. And this Minister of Justice should hang his head in shame. The reason Government are doing it is to save money. They don’t care about access to justice. They don’t care about a fair justice system. They don’t care about the tools that we have given to judges to perform their jobs. What they care about is saving money, and I think that that is abhorrent.

In another report, what we saw is that, in fact, defence lawyers are saying that this will increase court sentencing times and it will undermine judges’ ability to pass fair, accurate, and humane sentences. That is what the impact of this Government’s decision to scrap the legal aid funding of section 27 reports will have.

I want to talk to the issue about this being rushed through Parliament under urgency to deliver on the Government’s 100-day commitment. Fair access to equal justice and a fairer justice system—completely pushed to the side in their determination to deliver on an election promise. In this own Government’s regulatory impact statement, it says, regarding these time frames, that the proposals in this paper have been assessed in a significantly truncated time frame, that it has had limited ability to test the assumptions underpinning the problem definition and proposed response, to investigate and understand the intended or unintended consequences, to undertake consultation with Māori and stakeholders, and to consider a broad range of options. A shortened time frame to undertake this policy analysis means that none of that has been able to be done, and the scope of options has also been significantly limited. And the conclusion of the officials is that the Government’s 100-day commitment to end taxpayer funding for section 27 reports significantly limits detailed consideration of alternative options to limit or otherwise improve section 27 reports.

Now, in the debate last night, the Hon Willie Jackson asked questions around consultation. In the departmental disclosure statement, it points out that there has been no consultation with Māori. We know from the evidence in the Government’s departmental—oh, sorry—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: It’s called an election.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: I’ll tell you what they say about an election, Mr Goldsmith.

Hon Member: The process is called democracy.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: If I did go to one of these reports, it says here—

Shanan Halbert: Oh, that old line: democracy. Is urgency democracy?

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Yeah, democracy—“even where policy promises have been made during an election, the Law Society expects to see robust policy work supporting their development and consideration of alternatives, alongside consideration of the wider implications. There may be other means of addressing what appear to be largely financial concerns and concerns related to the perceived impact of these reports on sentencing outcomes.” The Law Society said an election result does not provide the robust process that they would expect to see when you are making fundamental changes to something in the justice system.

Now, to quote the Minister last night, he said, “Given the urgency with which we’ve moved on this, there has not been formal consultation with different groups—with the legal community or with iwi—but it is something that we’ve flagged very carefully and clearly in our election campaign. We said we’re going to do it, and, lo and behold, we are going to do it.” So my concern is that the Government is rushing this under urgency. They have no respect for parliamentary process. They have no respect—only in the most significant of cases. They have no respect for the parliamentary process. They have no respect for the legal profession—no respect for victims, because, in your own statement, it says you haven’t been able to consult them. You haven’t consulted Māori, who we know from the evidence are disproportionately impacted on this. The Government’s own department, Te Puni Kōkiri, said it does not support these proposals.

We had a lot of—well, could I say a lot of discussion last night and questions and answers on the committee stage of this. The Minister, basically, came back to just defending the Government’s rushing of this through in urgency to “100 days; we must complete it within the 100 days”—totally disregarding whether we’re meeting any of our international obligations. And particularly, I discussed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination—no consideration for that. No consideration for Te Tiriti o Waitangi, no consideration for the unintended consequences and costs that this would impose on the justice system.

So to those that may be tuning in to this debate this morning, I would say this Government is saying that it’s tough on crime, that it’s saving money, that it’s shutting down a cottage industry, but their own analysis provided by officials in December says that this is likely to increase the costs on the justice system. We tried to explore that last night—the Minister didn’t even engage on that—to increase the cost on the justice system.

So do not buy into their argument that this is a cost-saving exercise, that this has been unfair use of taxpayer money, when the evidence and the commentary provided from the legal profession—the experts, actually, in this field: the New Zealand Law Society, Māori Law Society, Bar Association, defence lawyers, former judges, and a Supreme Court judge—all say that they have grave concerns about the impact that this Government’s rushed policy to remove funding for section 27 reports will have on access to justice and on fair and appropriate sentences. That’s what this Government is doing; that’s what they are prioritising.

This is just politicking. This is just them and their arrogance, being absolutely determined to implement something within 100 days, with not even taking it through a proper process and inviting submissions from the experts from this. No. They know best—they know best. They don’t want to hear from anybody. Apparently, the new standard is if you campaigned on it and you won the election—I was just going to say, “Stuff all the parliamentary processes, we’re just going to do it.” I do not commend this bill to the House.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): I’m pretty sure many of us in the House, as we know, have studied law. When I went through the practice part of the law component, I remember our lecturer saying that when it comes to sentencing, as a lawyer, you’ve got to put together a list of mitigating factors for the judge to consider when he or she is making a determination on sentence. So I don’t think it’s such a big ask for us to say, for our lawyers, let’s get back to the basics. Let’s put together that list of mitigating factors for our magistrates, for our judges to make their decisions. What the last day of kōrero has shown me is the extent to which some people in this House will go to defend criminals. It’s been astounding. So what we say here today is we commend—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 third time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill

First Reading

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): I present a legislative statement on the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House, and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: I move, That the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill be now read a first time.

The Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill repeals the Business Payment Practices Act 2023, associated regulations and amendments in other Acts, and revokes all associated regulations. The Business Payment Practices Act is not yet in force. It comes into force at the end of May. However, the Act is not a solution to the very real problem with late payments and long payment terms by large market players. The Government is repealing this Act because we opposed it when it was debated in Parliament and because we believe it will impose unnecessary compliance costs on 3,000-plus businesses without speeding up payment times.

The reason we are repealing this Act under urgency is that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is about to commit between $2 million to $3 million to develop an IT system to meet the requirements of the Act. If it was just $2 million to $3 million, that may have been some concern, but many in the industry suggest that the amount that MBIE will have to incur to put in place the system will be at a much higher cost. In addition, there are many thousands of firms also poised to make IT spending to amend their systems to be able to record when invoices are received and when payment occurs. Of course, that is a huge cost when you think about many large companies who have significant enterprise resource planning systems which are not easily modified quickly.

The Act relies on small businesses also using data on an MBIE website. However, many small businesses, particularly when you think about ones in Porirua or West Auckland or in parts of Tauranga, won’t even know who MBIE is. And the thought that they would go and search on an MBIE website—would know where to look on that MBIE website—to find the specific data is something that is not actually a very strong argument. This undermines the utility of the Act as the information disclosed is highly unlikely to be used by small businesses in their decision making as to who they should do business with.

The other aspect with the proposal in the Act was that the businesses, the large businesses, would be required to submit a return every six months, but they would then have four months after that to file their return. In essence, the information could at different periods of time be up to 10 months old when the small-business owner was actually trying to find out what is the current state of payment cycle for the large business. In essence, it’s an out-of-date information system that comes at high cost.

The other thing which we argued strongly with the Government at the time, as they railroaded this through the select committee, was that anyone, any small business, even an individual, and some of the members from across the way, if they so chose, could get on their phone, dial into a website, and go to one of the credit agencies—and there are four, but just to name one, such as Centrix—and they would be able to get that information on payment times in real time, not 10 months’ old, in real time, and actually much more comprehensively, and on the payment cycles of a particular firm for a mere sum of $35. That is one of the main reasons why we want to repeal this legislation.

Small businesses won’t be impacted by this repeal, because the Act hasn’t come into effect yet. However, they will get real benefit from other avenues that I am pursuing, including, firstly, working with the ministry of finance to reinforce the requirement that Government agencies are to pay ordinary creditors within 10 working days. This should have been the start point for the last Government’s response.

Katie Nimon: That’s right; lead from the top.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Start leading from the top—start leading from where Government sits rather than imposing costs on businesses, which is always the approach of the Labour Government when they thought about solutions. However, if the Government wants to show leadership in this process, we need to sort this out, and that’s what we will be doing.

Secondly, we are very keen—and personally, in my responsibility as Minister for small business—to encourage e-invoicing. So we will be asking Government agencies to make sure that they prioritise e-invoicing and faster payments. That means the first emphasis for Government agencies is that they need to be send/receive capable—and I just note that e-invoicing is not doing an invoice and PDF’ing it and then sending it by e-mail. What that means is setting your systems up so you can transfer the data; there is no need to create invoices as such. That’s the second requirement.

The third thing is that we want to incentivise small to medium sized enterprises to also adopt e-invoicing when they are interacting with the Government. And I would remind the House that the Government spends about $51 billion a year on services, and by incentivising businesses and small businesses that adopt e-invoicing—we will achieve this by reducing the payment time by Government agencies down to a five working-day time line, thereby increasing the cash flow of small businesses.

The fourth thing is we will be proactively publishing the Government payment times and making sure the Government adheres to its rules. And the next thing is we’ll be expanding these arrangements to other Crown entities. We need to go through a period of consultation with them, but we do not see or envisage any reasons why they cannot also meet the same requirements.

The sixth element of the reforms is that I have announced, alongside Kirk Hope from Business New Zealand, that we will be working with it on an industry-led voluntary code, similar to the Business Council of Australia’s, to put in place a supplier payment code to make sure large businesses across New Zealand are paying small businesses on a much more timely basis. And finally, through my role as commerce Minister, we will be raising awareness of existing redress options under the Fair Trading Act 1986, which is administered by the Commerce Commission, who do a relatively good job.

I would note that the Australian Government implemented a similar piece of legislation in 2020. There’s been a recent review of that. It’s found to be actually not working and, in some cases, has led to even worse outcomes for small businesses. There’s a number of reasons why that has taken place. First of all, there’s an unrealistic assumption that small businesses can choose their customers based on payment performance information. The complexity and burden of reporting requirements of large businesses, poor quality and utility of reported data, the low awareness and usage of the register, which was my earlier point, and the dashboard by small businesses and other stakeholders and the lack of enforcement and compliance culture of the regulator—which is why we’re going to address it by publishing the results of Government agencies.

There is widespread support for making this change. People regard it as a practical approach to an issue that does need to be addressed. We don’t want small businesses being burdened with slow-paying large companies. That’s why we’re putting in a much more comprehensive package around it. We want to see this go through. We want to make sure that we remove some of the unnecessary regulations. The economy is being strangled by a spaghetti of regulations requirements that are tying businesses in knots. We’re committed to reducing regulation, and repealing this unnecessary Act is a good first start in this. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

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

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in opposition to this repeal bill, and I want to talk about why. I have a great deal of time for Mr Bayly as a person—as he knows, we’ve sat on committees together, and I know him well—and I don’t intend to do anything but absolutely speak genuinely to the Government and to the Speaker about what I think about what is going on today.

I was an employment lawyer for 25 years, and I came across this problem quite frequently. And I came across it from people I never really expected to. Often they were quite powerful in their own right—they might be the HR manager at a company—but they were contractors, and they were in situations where they worked for our biggest businesses. And our biggest businesses had a practice which they thought they couldn’t walk away from, because it made sense to them financially, and that was to delay payment. So a business like Fonterra delayed payment to its staff for three months. They were sole traders—three months regularly.

Carl Bates: Staff or suppliers?

HELEN WHITE: Absolutely. Sole traders. Sole traders. So I am talking about people who were contracted into the business, and I am hearing the Government say differently, but that’s not right. Those people I know. I can stand on the experience I had. Those sole traders were in no position to argue with our biggest companies; they were dependent on them. So, basically, our biggest companies, our companies with over $100 million of capital, were the companies that were withholding from these small players, these people who were sometimes their suppliers too, who were often small businesses which were dependent on the only capital they had, which in New Zealand actually turns out to be their house. Usually it’s the equity in their house. They were the people waiting. From our biggest companies, they were waiting for payment, because the big companies were using their money, their hard-earned money, their money that they’d earned three months earlier, just to get the interest on it. They were cynically using that money.

And this emerged as an issue, and it got picked up, and it got picked up by The Spinoff in 2017, by one of the journalists, Cormack, who talked about it. And it got picked up by practitioners like me who saw what was going on and thought it was really unfair. So we got to pick it up, but nothing was being done about it. This obviously had happened in Australia too, and they went after it with a law where they did something quite similar, but they had a threshold of $100 million. We went after it in perhaps what I would say is a softer way than I would have liked. I would have liked to see a prohibition on this kind of clause. The reason for doing it in this way was to collaborate with people to really target those big, big businesses against our small ones.

Our small ones are 97 percent of New Zealand businesses, and those people need a champion in this Government, and they haven’t got one. What they’ve got is a Minister who comes from the experience of being a fund manager, and that is all about financial markets. That’s big business. That’s very, very different from the small businesses I’m talking about. I’m talking about the tradies. I’m talking about the people out there who are our contractors who are basically, often, just trying not to work for the man, right? They’re trying to run these businesses, and those are the people that you will hear me, in these speeches, stick up for, because this was nudge legislation which had already started to change the habits of our big companies because it shamed them. It said it shamed them.

So I’m going to put out some amendments today, and I hope that the Minister will listen to them. They are amendments that are all about doing stuff that gives this more teeth, doing stuff that takes this seriously, because I want to see our small businesses thrive in this country, and we should be targeting those big businesses and holding them to account. Instead, what this legislation does is repeal and then repeal that repeal so we don’t even know it ever existed. We’ve never even put our toe in the water to standing up to big businesses who act in a way that I consider immoral. I consider it a form of theft from our hard-working New Zealand businesses. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): I just encourage members to keep an eye on the speaking list.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thought I was number three, but thank you for the opportunity to talk on the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill. We have become used to the coalition Government’s desire to seek some fabled idyll where the lowly classes know their place. Oliver Twist asked for a second helping of gruel and he was deemed not only impertinent but considered unworthy, a criminal and a sinner. What impertinence our small-business owners have to expect to be paid on time for work completed and product supplied!

The coalition Government seems to want our small-business owners, our innovators, our risk takers, to doff their hats and to scrape and bow to big business. Our small businesses are grappling with challenging economic conditions and this repeal will simply harm them further. Again, like so much that is undemocratic, this repeal is being pushed through under urgency which denies the voices of small businesses to be heard through the select committee process.

What is it that the Minister fears so much from small businesses? What is it that the Minister fears so much from public scrutiny? Does the coalition really think that urgency is required to pass legislation on business payments? What purpose does urgency serve other than to deny small businesses a voice? It seems the Government’s so enamoured with urgency that every little thing is going to proceed through this way.

The Minister claims the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is concerned, but, really, he just loves urgency? doesn’t he. Personally I would like to hear from those small businesses who are the backbone of our economy and are currently facing the harsh realities of high interest rates and soaring inflation that is being fuelled by this Government. Whether it’s plant-based soap or candles or cleaning products or engineering services or intellectual property innovators, our risk takers are the ones that are doing it tough and our small-business owners deserve to be paid on time and in full.

The Business Payments Practices Act was to provide a lifeline in difficult times to alleviate the bullying by big business that we’ve just heard. We need to foster an environment that encourages timely payments, and this is going to leave small businesses with less information, less transparency in a period of economic turmoil. When I ran my own consultancy, I had a good contract with a significant company who did not pay on time, and when that payment was missed it took months for the payment to come through. I had to cover not only overheads but subcontractor costs, and I carried the risk, the stress, the hit on income, despite completing the work.

The examples of small businesses carrying the big boys are so, so many. I know of an energy start-up that won a contract with a big company, and that enabled it to expand. But when the contract payments didn’t come through, the founders of the energy start-up had to forgo their income to cover overheads just to keep the company afloat, to cover wages. Small businesses who have a modest number of clients take on a huge risk when they take on a contract with these irresponsible, bullying big companies, and it becomes a serious problem—like the Dunedin engineering firm having to cover $100,000 of debt from Macraes mines. They struggle, they struggle incredibly, and this Government is arguing that the Business Payments Practices Act imposes compliance costs on New Zealand businesses.

Good businesses are willing and able to honour contracts and be active and responsive. A good business will pay attention to their obligations each and every day. This is not hurting good businesses. The Business Payments Practices Act was designed to rectify a power imbalance between large corps, and small and medium enterprises, to help those who want to do better; to do a culture change. And there’s a staggering cost to our economy and our small businesses due to late payments. Research from the Institute of Economic Research has shed light on the problem and suggests it’s $456 million annually—annually. National has talked big about getting Aotearoa back on track—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The member’s time has come to an end.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in support of this bill. I’m proud to be in a party where the majority of our MPs have actually worked in small business. We actually do represent small business on this side of the House because we’ve been there. We understand what it’s like and we know what the challenges they face are, day to day.

This bill that we’re putting in place does repeal some unnecessary compliance costs—and in a relationship we don’t actually need to be interfering in. We’re very supportive of small business, but this is not the way to do it, and it’s also not the way to impose additional costs on other businesses. We are very supportive of this bill, and it’s good to get the Act repealed before it comes into force and all of these reporting requirements are put in place.

Darleen Tana: Cheap debt-servicing for big business.

TODD STEPHENSON: I’m hearing a lot of interjections from across the House. We support all business, and, as I’ve already stated, we actually have worked in small business, so we actually know all of the pressures that they face.

Hon Members: So have we.

TODD STEPHENSON: Great! So you’ll know that this is totally unnecessary and, yet again, it’s having the Government interfere in the relationship between enterprises working together. I commend this bill to the House.

TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): Thank you. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of repealing this previous Act that was put in.

Now, one of the things that businesses need is data. They need data in real time in order to make good decisions on how to run the business. So whether it’s a small business or a big business, data is vital.

Now, if there is a six-month reporting period and then another four months after that, that is 10 months; whereas now there is information available. If you want to pay the fee, it is a minor fee to pay. But good business owners don’t make decisions based on 10 months of lapsed data. So this is why New Zealand First commends this bill to the House.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): If anyone needed more proof that this Government has corporations in its pocket, they should look no further than this bill, the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill. The legislation this bill is repealing was designed to help ensure that small businesses are paid on time when supplying goods and services to large firms. It did this by establishing a disclosure regime to create transparency around businesses’ payment practices across the economy.

Let’s take, for example, the supermarket duopoly. The Commerce Commission concluded in 2020 that major supermarkets made a profit of $430 million, but now they can delay payment to those who are providing the goods and services to those particular organisations, without them being paid over a four-month period. Nobody wants to pay another extra small fee to go and see whether those big businesses pay that money or not, because they haven’t even been paid for the goods and services that they’ve provided for those particular companies. Apparently, expecting wealthy corporations to pay their suppliers on time is too big an ask for this Government. They’ve taken away whatever negotiating power small businesses have, as a matter of urgency.

This bill is just another example of who this Government represents and who they are willing to sacrifice. Over 97 percent of all businesses in Aotearoa are small businesses. We have always known that this Government represents the 3 percent. We are currently seeing the largest transfer of wealth in a generation, from ordinary people to banks, landlords, and corporations. The richest 10 percent now control 50 percent of the country’s wealth. The poorest half owns a mere 2 percent. On top of that, average people of Aotearoa are paying 20.2 percent in tax while the wealthy are only paying 9.4 percent. Our tax system is doing exactly what it was designed to do—take from the poor and give to the rich. Before anyone accuses me of getting off track, this is all connected to the Government’s economic agenda that inspired this bill. This is part of an economic agenda that values the profits of the tobacco industry over Māori lives. So far, their approach to poverty and wealth inequity has been to give $3 billion in tax cuts to their wealthy mates while passing legislation under urgency to make workers, beneficiaries, Māori, and now small business pay for those tax cuts.

Most Māori businesses are small business. Repealing the business practice legislation will mean that if a local fruit grower enters a contract to supply a large company like New World, New World has all the negotiating power in that arrangement—New World, which is currently seeing record profits with record food prices will be allowed to put off paying invoices upward to 120 days. That’s four months. That’s a long time for a small business to go without payment, and it’s long enough to put them out of business. They don’t have the luxury or the entitlement of a thousand dollars for a living allowance that calculates up to 52K a year.

In fact, extending payment terms is a tactic that big companies have used since 2008, after the global financial crisis, which led to a lot of small businesses failing. Making business payments for firms earning over $33 million per year transparent and publicly available was such a small change that made all the difference for small, family-run businesses. Requiring big businesses to publicly report on their own payment practices, particularly late payment, not only helped small businesses make decisions on who to do business with but encouraged larger firms to do better at the risk of their reputation. It was a small step to empower small businesses and bring some balance to their negotiations. It was a small step to prevent big businesses from exploiting and ripping people off, so of course this Government is repealing the legislation. We will not be supporting this bill.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Actually, this debate so far underlines what some people are not approaching as a debate. If they had listened to the speech from the Minister Andrew Bayly—clearly the Green member Scott Willis had not heard that or had chosen not to listen. The Minister pointed out that there will be a bill, which I predict will be called the “Bayly Bill”, which will actually address a lot of the issues that they raised, in a much more comprehensive way, in a much more cost-effective way, and bring all of the stories of woe that were brought before us under control.

No one is suggesting that we don’t enforce people paying their bills on time. That is exactly what the Minister said he was going to do, and for those newer members, just have a listen to the people that are speaking before you. Helen White did actually do that, and I give her credit for that. We have different views, but at least debate. That’s what this is; it’s a debate. I commend this bill to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the spirit of debate, I’d just like to ask the Government what they are afraid of when it comes to transparency on business payment practices.

I’m disappointed, actually, because Mr Bayly and I sat on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee when this went through, and we worked quite closely together to make some changes to the original bill that I thought had satisfied the issues that he had raised. One of them was around the $33 million cap; I think, originally, it was around $10 million. There were a few other things that we worked on together. So it’s really disappointing today to see that he wants to sweep this out.

I take heart in the fact that there is apparently going to be a new bill. It sounds like there might be a plan. We haven’t seen a lot of plans from this new Government. But if there is a plan and if it truly does put public payments—in particular, Government payments—and shed some light on them, then I really look forward to that because I think that leading from the front is a great example and a great thing to do.

But Mr Bayly mentioned that the Australian equivalent, the payment times reporting scheme, had some deep flaws in it and a report was done and it showed that this didn’t work and that was a reason to go ahead with the New Zealand repeal. But, actually, that report did not say to repeal the system; it suggested some fundamental improvements that could make it work. What it really said was “Let’s make sure that the legislation is pinned firmly on reputational risk.” This is all about sending a signal to big business.

I know, having worked as a small-business owner who employed up to 25 contractors at some points in time, the importance of cash flow. I also know, having worked in a large multinational organisation—the British Council—that it makes sense for big business to extend payment terms as long as possible because the incremental amount of interest that they get on holding on to those payments when they are aggregated upwards can amount to millions of dollars of profit for them. Now, I’m not saying that that is an evil or despicable thing to do; it is the signal that the market sends, and it is allowed to do that within the rules. The Government might call that entitlement, actually, but it’s not the right thing to do. What this intervention would do is simply tweak that to make sure that there were reasonable payment terms. I know, when I worked for the British Council, I worked really hard and it was quite difficult to get payment terms of seven days over the line for our contractors, rather than the month or so that it took. I do know there were some times when it took four to five months for contractors to get paid. As a small-business owner, I also understand the impact of that on cash flow. Cash flow is king; not just cash. So it’s really, really important to have things in place that send a signal to the big players that they have reputational risk if they do not conform to a scheme and if they have sloppy payment practices.

The other thing the Australian report said was to make the register more accessible to users: so simplify the register, make it more easily available. I’m sure that’s something that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had noted and is probably work on right now. It also sought to improve or streamline the quality of the data. These are valuable lessons learnt from our Australian counterparts that could mean a really good bespoke system for New Zealand.

Finally, it wanted to improve the power of the regulator. I’m sure Mr Bayly won’t have any issue with that. We sat together on select committee—on a couple of select committees, actually, including the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. There was a lot of work around the Commerce Commission. My sense—and I don’t want to speak for the Minister—was that he would like to see regulators have considerable powers so that we can get rid of some of these market-dominant situations that we find ourselves in with supermarkets, and so on. So I don’t see why the Minister wouldn’t want to look at these really valuable lessons learnt from Australia; see that we have already sunk some costs into what could be a really good, workable scheme; that it will provide a signal to the market and be a tweak to the market that will make it a more level playing field; and not undo all the good work that not only MBIE has done around creating these regulations that would have come into force but also the work that we did together on the select committee.

We had the mitigation of increasing the cap from $10 million in revenue to $33 million. We made sure that the data that would be available would not be commercially sensitive. We made sure that there would be no prescriptive time frames for business, so we weren’t telling them what the time frames had to be; merely saying that they had to follow the rules that they set out for themselves. We just really had something that I thought was good, and it’s such a shame that we’re going to repeal that under urgency and come up with something that we haven’t seen what the plan is.

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I’d like to speak in support of this bill, and I’d just like to allude to the member that has just spoken, Ingrid Leary, who said that this Government has no plans that she’s seen. Well, in the first 100 days, we’ve got 49 actions, and our plans are very much focused on getting this economy back on track. And that’s being aspirational for business—driving productivity, creating jobs and opportunities, not strangling business with six years of red tape, regulation, compliance, and cost. This is not the way to get this economy ahead. As my colleague has already pointed out, we’re all about innovation and using innovative ways for small business—that’s e-invoicing. On that side of the House, they’d know nothing about innovation, productivity, aspiration for business, and that is why I commend this bill to the House.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak against the repeal of the Business Payment Practices Act 2023. Aotearoa New Zealand is a nation of small businesses. Many of us in this House, on both sides, will have worked and maybe even owned our own small businesses. Many of the people we are elected to represent will own or work in small businesses.

Now, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment tells us—and other members of this House have been good enough to point this out—that there are more than half a million small businesses in New Zealand. That’s classed as a business with fewer than 20 employees—so that’s 97 percent of the businesses in New Zealand. So, in its simplest form, this is a bill that makes sure 3 percent of businesses provide information to make it easier for the other 97 percent to do business and, importantly, to stay in business. It sounds good to me.

Another thing we know for sure is that late payments cripple cash flow and that that can and does kill small business. So, members, you don’t have to take my word for it, because in the heart of our electorate of Christchurch East is Kai Connoisseurs, proudly at home amongst the local businesses of Aranui, in Hampshire Street. It’s a real small business, and I can recommend Frybread Frydays. If you’re ever down there, get on in—the best fry bread in the east—and don’t even get me started on their dumplings. We are so lucky to have this small business in Aranui.

Now, owner Sachiko Shimamoto recently shared her experience of the impacts of being made to wait for payment, and I will share some of her words here: “A little snippet of my journey in business titled: You’re late. I sat and stared at the screen in disbelief. It was Monday the 22nd January and they still hadn’t paid. I clicked into gmail and typed the first few letters of their name and found the last email I’d sent. 15 was the number in the little circle that counted how many times we’d communicated back and forth; but that wasn’t all. Right under that was the three other threads of comms regarding that particular event. Deep breath, it’s ok they’re probably still on holiday. I clicked into the banking app to cross check the payments again, nope definitely not there. My heart began to pound as frustration tickled my eyeballs and made my hands sweat. The same hands that picked out the yummiest grapes, that buttered the bread just right and rostered the staff that came to help chop, dice and slice all the kai they happily consumed; all those months ago. The worst part is, they are not the only ones. Over the years others have done the same. Currently, 3 is the number of ghosts I’m chasing. Ouch, the pounding turned to aching as I clicked back into xero and began to process the pay run. Carrying these debts is heavy. … Could I of spent more time communicating our terms and conditions, should I of asked for payment prior, should I of spent so much time accommodating their multiple requests, changes and enquiries … Running a business is hard. Being an employer is hard. Paying for kai, staff, rent and the rest; is hard; and spending my time asking to be paid, over and over for mahi we’ve already done well that’s ho-hard! …This is a letter to organisations and corporates using small local business to provide services that support your kaupapa then, forget to support them back. Please prioritise paying your bills. … Signed: A tired, hard working solo Māmā, business owner, employer and hoha human who’s had about enough of asking politely for what we are owed.”

If those words don’t have an impact, I suggest members should check out the full post on Facebook and see the photo of an exhausted business owner sitting on the floor of her kitchen, waiting to be paid.

Small businesses need the support of legislation like this. As members of Parliament, as representatives of our communities, I want to be able to walk in and enjoy Frybread Fryday at Kai Connoisseurs, knowing I’ve done all in this House to help businesses like this. They need to know that they can do business and be paid so that they can pay their people and their bills so that they can stay in business, and this repeal makes that harder.

NANCY LU (National): I rise to support the repeal of the Business Payment Practices Act, because businesses in New Zealand are desperate to move forward in this very challenging economy, and they’re desperate to move forward with the modern world. What they don’t need is excessive regulation in their areas that will just ask them to do additional administrative work and disclosures. What businesses don’t need is for the Government to tell them to keep disclosing. What businesses need is smarter and more modern processes, so people can actually go on and pay faster. This will benefit the entire economy. So, therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Second Reading

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): I move, That the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill be now read a second time.

It was very good listening to the speeches from the Opposition, in particular—although I acknowledge the members from this side of the House—but I think there’s a fundamental discrepancy in the understanding of what we’re trying to achieve. No one in this House wants to see late payment, particularly for small businesses. No one wants to see that, across the House. The issue at hand is: how do you put in place some mechanisms to ensure that payments do occur, particularly from large businesses to small businesses, on a timely basis? Quite simply, the proposition that was put forward by the previous Government is not the solution. They borrowed a solution from Australia without thinking, and, I think, without the practical acumen to be able to work out whether, in fact, it was going to be a good scheme.

It’s interesting looking at the recent review of that scheme in Australia by the Minister, the Hon Dr Craig Emerson. He writes in the covering note—and I quote here—“A well-functioning reporting scheme that reveals the payment performance of large businesses has obvious merit.”—that’s my point; everyone in the House would agree with that—“It would increase Government and community awareness of the payment performance of large businesses.” But immediately following that, he goes on to say, “I find that one of the objects of the Act—to make payment times information publicly available in order to ‘enable small businesses to make more informed decisions about potential customers’—has not been met and is fundamentally unrealistic. I have made this finding for two main reasons. First, awareness of the [scheme] by small businesses is extremely low.”, and he quotes that, accompanying the dashboard, “less than 1 percent of Australia’s 2.5 million small businesses.” are aware of the scheme. The second thing he says is, “Second, and more fundamentally, the object is based on the flawed assumption that small businesses are in a position of market strength to pick and choose among prospective large-business customers. The object fails to recognise the inherent power imbalance between large and small businesses.”

So I quoted that because we are all of a view that we want to see more timely payments. That’s why I said at the start of this bill that when I’ve been looking at what we could do to make sure that we do get more timely payments, the specific measures I’ve put in place, or intend to put in place, are much more effective and will be much more effective, and, in my view, are more practical—namely, making sure and reinforcing that Government agencies should and will pay within 10 working days. That’s $51 billion of expenditure, which is, roughly, about a third of the economy, and we will report their outcomes in a transparent way. Secondly, we want to extend that to other Crown entities, but we do need to go through a consultation process, and, of course, I’m working with the Minister of Finance on it. So that’s what we can do for Government in terms of existing payment times.

But the much more fundamental thing that I am particularly concerned about and want to encourage as much as possible—particularly with small businesses—is the use and uptake of e-invoicing. That’s why we’ll be asking Government agencies to put in place e-invoicing - capable systems—and some of them have, but many of them don’t—and, secondly, encouraging and incentivising, rather than requiring, small businesses to adopt e-invoicing, which is probably one of the biggest digital enhancements that we can achieve in New Zealand and it will drive some of the biggest productivity gains, and that is by making sure that if you use e-invoicing, particularly with the Government, you’ll get paid in an even shorter period of time of five working days.

Then, the second aspect of it outside of Government is working with large businesses. When you are talking about big businesses, the group that Kirk Hope is talking about at Business New Zealand represents about 65 percent of GDP in New Zealand—180 businesses—and making sure that they have clear code around when they do pay small businesses. I take on board the Opposition’s comments about large businesses not paying and the impact on cash flow—I understand that—but that is probably the biggest start we can make in terms of being clear with them about what are the payment times.

So that is the purpose of the bill. It’s not necessarily saying that we want to make it easier or that there’s no obligations on large businesses. It’s actually quite the reverse, and this is what the package of elements that have been proposed for this bill are actually about.

It’s about improving those payment times, and the simple fact is that you can go and get this information at any one point in time for a mere cost of approximately $35. That is why we think this is a waste of time, and the reason this is being done in urgency—just to remind the House yet again for those who weren’t here for the first reading speech—is that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment are about to commit at least $2 million to $3 million or possibly more on putting in a system that will mean that results are often 10 months out of date, and of course many large businesses are going to incur huge amounts of time putting in a system that at the end of the day, according to the Australian situation, will deliver no discernible benefits.

That is why we’re proposing to repeal this as soon as possible. It’s to save the Government money and to save businesses money but also to put in a much more effective system.

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

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I will absolutely try and engage here in a way that is a genuine debate with the Minister with regard to this issue, but I am yet to be convinced that what he is doing is what he thinks he’s doing, because what he is talking about is a purpose of a bill which is not the purpose of this bill, plainly, if you read the bill. The bill is a repeal. It simply takes away the one thing that is there now and replaces it with zero. There is nothing in replacement.

It is a situation where the Minister accepts there is a problem. In fact, he accepts there is a problem and has said so openly, and yet what he is doing is he’s letting big business off the hook. He’s saying, “Government can do this.” Well, Government actually has been doing this—Government has been on a pathway to making sure that they do comply. This isn’t about Government; this is about our biggest businesses holding it over our little businesses, and it is a distraction to talk about Government. Government should do its bit—absolutely—but so should our big businesses when faced with the stories like Reuben Davidson told of his constituent.

It’s not good enough—absolutely not good enough—and what the Australian legislation review did was, actually, not talk about getting rid of a law like this, and, in fact, their threshold was higher. It talked about adding and improving, and I am up for that conversation today. So you will see amendments on the Table, Minister, which talk about adding to this the very tools that the Australians are talking about, because, yes, we’re all up for a conversation about prohibiting this behaviour, for example.

The IT system point I want to respond to, because while the IT system has been talked about as a waste of time for these big businesses, I’d like New Zealanders to think about what that would mean. It means our big businesses will be keeping a record of what they are doing out there, whom they’re paying, whom they’re not paying, and how long it’s taking them. That to me seems a really good use of money by a big company, because what it’s doing is it’s holding itself to account.

So when the Minister talks about how he’s been in discussions about how we might get a voluntary code for these big $100 million operations, he is talking about a voluntary code based on—what? No IT system and no reporting in this area? That’s what I suspect. It will be in a vacuum of information.

So I take the point from the New Zealand First speaker today that data is important—I agree. Data is important. Data is important, and it’s important that our big businesses keep this kind of data. They’re big businesses; they’re not little ones. They’re absolutely capable of keeping this information, and if they turn a blind eye to it, it’s because it’s in their interests. It is in their interests at the moment to not pay people, because they keep the interest, as my friend Ingrid Leary talked about.

So we have to change the dial, and we shouldn’t be dialling down and taking away the one tool that we’ve got here. We should be dialling up in this area. We should be thinking, “What can we do more to add to this legislation?”

So I say to the Minister that this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you don’t think this is strong enough, Minister, then it is time to add to this legislation, and you can do that cooperatively with the Labour Party and the Green Party because the Green Party and the Labour Party and the Māori Party are all absolutely keen on seeing our small businesses not suffer in the way that Mr Davidson talked about. We would like to see more, not less, in this area. We would like to see these big businesses play their part in New Zealand society, and not just skim off the top the interest rates by delaying payment.

That has been going on, and it still is going on, but, actually, this legislation did make a change to the mentality of New Zealanders, because I think New Zealanders decided that wasn’t OK, and I think even the National Party’s statements on this, which say, “This is a problem we’ve got to fix.”—they’re influenced by this legislation and this discussion, which said that it was not OK.

We are halfway there, and we will go the whole way. There will be amendments on the Table today, Minister, which I would urge you to consider. Those are amendments that are about improving this legislation, not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Now I wanted to make a comment about the earlier speech that the Minister made, because he said that the last piece of legislation—this piece of legislation that has been repealed today—was rammed through the select committee. Oh, if only we were so lucky to have had this legislation rammed through a select committee—I’d quite like to do that. I would quite like to have it rammed through a select committee so that the small businesses in New Zealand can have a say on what they think this is about and what they think the impact is, because that is the process that they’re missing out on here. It is possible for the parties in the Opposition to put up amendments and talk to the constituents they’ve got—and they’ve done a good job of doing that today, and you will see the results—but that is not the same as our small businesses and our contractors coming to a select committee and talking about this stuff.

Now, one of the comments that I got from one of the Government members today was to correct me over what I was saying when I said that contractors were affected by this, and talking about how it was just suppliers. That is exactly the kind of myth that I would love to see busted, not by me, but by the individuals who would come to a select committee and say, “Oi! This happened to me. This happened to me for years, and I lost a lot of money over it. I lost my house over it. This happened to me because I was tied in to one of our big, very wealthy companies and they deliberately did not pay me.”

I take the goodwill that I hear from Andrew Bayly about recognising there is a power differential here and that perhaps just shaming the companies and reporting the figures isn’t enough. Maybe we need to go a bit further, and maybe it is time—maybe this is our opportunity to do it. So I invite the Government to think right now about the amendments on the Table that would add to this legislation, would add teeth to it, perhaps, that weren’t there, and would recognise, perhaps, further the power differential between the parties which means that someone who is dealing with one of our big companies—and it is often a sole supplier or a trader or a contractor; all those people—isn’t in a position to say no to these terms. In fact, they are absolutely broken, often, by it, and it is totally reprehensible behaviour.

So I ask the Government to consider those amendments, because these 100 days just seem to have been about tearing everything down, and the focus has all been on supporting those big, big companies. We’ve had things like the trial periods for employees go out to our big companies, not our little ones. Our little ones were already in a different situation, but it’s our big companies that have been focused on.

I’m worried about things like Labour’s retention money provision in the building supply industry being pulled back as well, because it’s very similar. It’s part of a raft of seeing a problem. What happened in that situation is so similar. Our big companies were holding retention money from our builders—our small businesses—and they were actually holding that money and using it and abusing it when the work had been done. That kind of rip-off is a parallel to this one. We changed that law, and I was really proud of it.

I would hate to see that as part of the next wave of changes because this Government is so focused on the big players and has some sort of myth that keeping the big players flush with the money from the small players is, somehow, good for our productivity. I say it is not. What is good for our productivity is getting small businesses like this paid on time, paid when they’ve done the work, and not waiting, waiting, cap in hand, to be perhaps paid, maybe, when somebody wants to, knowing full well—as the big businesses do—that the small companies can’t take this matter to the court because it’s too expensive. They can’t afford to offend the person that they rely upon for their income.

So I say let’s make this a positive change today. Let’s look at the amendments that we’ve made, and, instead of tearing down the house and burning everything that anyone’s ever done that’s constructive in this country, let’s make one of the actions in these 100 days be to build a better law, to build more protection around our small businesses, and to favour them for once over our big companies and actually change the dial in this country.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): I want to commend Helen White’s call for the Government to pay attention to what we can do, because it is quite apparent that the Government is mostly concerned with breaking, not creating, and we have an opportunity to do so much better. Previous National Governments haven’t been so destructive. Perhaps it’s the major party’s partnerships that are pushing them in this direction, because it is clear that the Business Payment Practices Act was not perfect—that’s true—but does it need to simply be repealed and we’re being left with nothing because you haven’t got the ability to create something, to make something, to improve and to amend?

We can see the value, certainly, in ensuring Government agencies pay on time. That can be amended and that could be part of the Act. How do we incentivise small and medium sized enterprises to use e-invoicing? Now, that’s something that I would like to know more about, because it’s not simple to ask people who are dependent on rural broadband—because our rural communities are suffering; those who are working in our national space—to invoice without good connectivity. What are we going to do to ensure that e-invoicing is available to everyone? Are we going to also improve rural broadband? Are we going to deal with the infrastructure crisis?

We seem to chop and change with this new Government. What we have, clearly, is an upside down approach, because the Government is claiming they’re simply going to repeal and then, at some point, replace. Again, we’ve heard about the step backwards. We’ve been taking a leap backwards over the last 100 days—it’s simply “Repeal, repeal, repeal.”—and a clear code for big business is needed.

We’ve heard the Government say that they want to save businesses money, but which businesses do you want to save money, really? Is it the businesses who might donate, because this is a real concern for us? If the Government is simply wanting to ensure that big businesses don’t meet their obligations and are not required to and it is not really concerned about the culture change we need in big business, then you would certainly not want to be repealing this legislation right now, or the Government would be concerned with making amendments to ensuring it serves its purpose.

I think there is good reason to be concerned with the Australian scheme. It’s an opportunity to learn from it; not an opportunity to say that because it’s not perfect, we need to reject it. The perfect is the enemy of good in this. We need change. We need change for our small and medium enterprises.

We need change for our businesses so that people don’t have to forgo their homes, so that they don’t have to have to fail, so that our innovators, our risk takers, can thrive, can build a thriving economy, can build community enterprise, can pay their wages, can pay overheads, and can ensure regional development. What we’re seeing with this backward approach is simply more of the same: simply supporting big business—the big corps—rather than the 97 percent of businesses in New Zealand.

The Government isn’t looking after business; the Government is looking after corporates. That’s what this repeal is all about. It is not looking after those who are the backbone of our economy. It’s not looking after those who have families, who work, who employ people; it’s looking after the corporates. That is what is so disappointing about this bill, because the Government has claimed in the past that they are the Government for business—clearly not. Clearly, this Government is a Government for corporates; not for business, not for the majority of New Zealanders. That is a real concern.

We care. We care about our community, we care about our small businesses, we care about our small and medium enterprises, and we want to ensure that there is legislation and there is a cultural shift so that we support the good corporates who do right by our small businesses and we encourage the bad ones to do so much better. This was a small step that this Government wants to take away, repeal with nothing else, and not put anything in its place. The Government says that there’s something nice coming, but hasn’t provided the option for us to look at it.

Hon Andrew Bayly: I’ve told you the seven different things we’re going to do.

SCOTT WILLIS: The member told us the seven different things—that’s right—and has simply placed a repeal of an Act in front of us. So that’s the problem. The problem is that the member doesn’t seem to have a clear idea about how we are going to support our small and medium enterprises in any meaningful way.

There is clear evidence that there’s a lack of understanding of the challenges they face, and we have heard evidence from across the bench. From our Labour colleagues, we have heard evidence of how they are struggling—how our small and medium enterprises are doing it so hard. We have so many examples of people who are going to the wall because the payments do not come in on time, and this is why it is so disappointing that we can’t hear from them. We can’t have an opportunity to listen to them in select committee and make good decisions. We are rushing this through under urgency for no good reason, except that the member seems enamoured with urgency to make the changes that the member requests and requires.

I don’t buy the argument that at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, there’s going to be a blowout of costs. We do need IT and we do need data collection. There is no waste in ensuring we’re doing something better; there is a waste in the loss of income to our small and medium enterprises that continues with the repeal of this Act. So I would urge the member to look at the amendments that are being put forward and to make some changes that will ensure that we’ve got some teeth to ensure that we’re not forgetting our small and medium enterprises, which are the backbone of our economy.

Simply, I think—and I appeal to the member—we have a responsibility to foster an economy that uplifts everyone, not just the privileged few, and that means looking after small and medium enterprises, not simply the corporate donors to the National Party coffers. So I would just like to reiterate that we hear again and again and again that the National Party wants to get us back on track, and yet all we’ve seen is back on baccy—back on baccy—with the repeal of the smoke-free Act. There is so much more you can do, and repealing this Act is not going to get us there. Kia ora.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. New Zealand businesses are in a thicket of regulation: compliance, the different laws we have to go through—I mean, as a small-business owner, I think we all know how hard it is to keep track of all the different things that Government forces us to do. This sort of regulatory burden adds to the thicket of red tape. It adds to the cost of running businesses. It means that if we can do anything to relieve another burden on any type of business—small, large, medium—it’s all important so that we can pass benefits on to customers by not spending extra.

I think the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has it at $26 for a paper invoice, instead of encouraging people into e-invoicing for $10. These sorts of things can improve this life for all New Zealanders when the costs to actually supply goods and services are relieved.

I have heard from on the other side of the House that this means that we are going to be mistreating our medium and small businesses. I think medium and small businesses need to be looking at who they’re doing business with. It is something that everyone has to take responsibility for, and it doesn’t mean that you can’t already access information from your networks and from people you interact with about the business practices of the people whom you interact with. I commend this bill to the House.

TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First, and having been, well, a solopreneur for most of my working life, in a coaching and consulting small businesses, I can assure people on the other side that no one on this side wants to see small businesses fail. No one on this side wants to see late payment for small businesses or other solopreneurs out there who struggle with this. It is known—we know about it.

What we want for small business and for solopreneurs is to have the ability to have a more informed decision-making process when they are thinking about their potential customers. I know that smaller businesses will have access to data through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), but the reality is: will they use it? I know from speaking with many of my clients that what stresses them is compliance—things they don’t understand. They wouldn’t know how to interpret the data that is held by MBIE. So these are some factors that we are taking into account, because they are specialists in a certain field but they’re not specialists in business and in interpreting data. So that is why things like this stress them. What does stress them is having more compliance costs, and that is why New Zealand First is commending this bill to the House.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise for a second time in this debate. I just want to acknowledge Mr Bayly, who is still here. Not often does the Minister stay to listen to the debate, so I want to just make mention of that, and for giving us the opportunity to eyeball you in this debate and have our points accepted by the Minister. I’m sure you’re here to ensure that you take all of the information that’s provided from this side of the House and make the changes that need to be made to ensure that this is an awesome bill.

Anyway, I feel for our small businesses at this time because, unfortunately, this particular bill favours corporations over small business. Like I’ve said, 97 percent of small businesses here in Aotearoa are small businesses. That’s 546,000 small businesses that are affected by this particular piece of legislation. The majority of Māori businesses are small to medium sized enterprises and so this will really affect our Māori small businesses, who we know firsthand have problems with ensuring that those people that they provide services and goods for pay their part of the bill.

This is not about online invoicing and manual invoicing; this is about paying on time. This piece of new legislation allows big businesses a four-month period to pay those bills. Small businesses don’t have four months—they don’t have 120 days—but they need to have those bills paid on time. If you’ve got a company that has 20 people or less, they need to ensure that they can pay those whānau, because the trickle-down effect and the impact of not paying those bills means that people cannot pay the rent.

Look, we’re in a cost of living crisis, as we speak. It means that people cannot pay their bills, cannot put food on the table, cannot get those kids to school, and now they’re having to pay for their lunches because they’re taking lunches away from those particular tamariki.

This is the trickle-down effect. It’s not just the impact on the small businesses but those who work for those small businesses. So we need to make sure that we put belts and braces around legislation so that it ensures that the safety of all of those people who live in Aotearoa that work for those 546,000 small businesses here in Aotearoa is not impacted. But they will be impacted because that side of the House—the Government—want to ensure that they look after their corporate and rich mates. That’s just the way it is. The between 2 percent to 10 percent that control 50 percent of this country’s wealth—that’s who they’re protecting in this particular legislation. They don’t give a damn about those small-business owners. They don’t give a damn about those people who work for those small businesses—this is what the issue is.

We’ve got, in 2023—according to Centrix figures—35 percent of companies having filed for liquidation, year on year, with construction among the worst. Māori make up most of the construction businesses in terms of being labourers and workers in that particular field—Māori and our Pacific brothers and sisters. This is where the issues are, and so we need to make sure that those companies are being paid at the right time.

This is not about invoicing. This is not about a data matrix. This is about ensuring that people can pay the bills, that people can feed their tamariki, and that people have the dignity of a living wage. This is what this issue is about. Let’s not tinker around the sides, let’s not decorate this Christmas tree with a whole lot of lights and glittery balls—this is not about that. This is about ensuring that small businesses have the mana and the dignity to be able to survive but also to be able to pay those who work for them. We do not commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): I wonder if this Government ever gets tired of simping for the big corporates and the 1 percent, because assuming that getting rid of a disclosure regime on late payments will actually do anything but simply benefit those who are already creaming it at the top is an illusion. Let’s just be clear that what this Government is doing is simply making it easier for the big corporates to get away with and not be held accountable for late payments to those smaller business.

It’s interesting, because in practice, with what the Government’s been doing throughout the term, this has been a Government of just moving us backwards, repealing pieces of legislation, and offering no substantive alternatives. If I go back to the Business Payment Practices Bill’s second reading, the debate on the Act that we’re now repealing, the Minister at that time talked about—and I quote—“We recognise that businesses need to have prompt payments”, but he also said he didn’t think this was a solution. Fine! If he thinks that big businesses need to have prompt payments and then all he is presenting to us is repealing the disclosure regime that we have and not offering alternatives, he needs to be upfront to the community that all he actually wants to do is make it easier for those big businesses.

There are real economic costs to our communities and to small businesses as a result of these late payments. Let’s make it clear that, actually, all that the status quo has enabled is accumulation of wealth at the top at the expense of everybody else, and, yes, this includes the petite bourgeoisie that, in theory, capitalism is supposed to support. But, in practice, all that we are seeing is a continuous accumulation of resources, and this Government is enabling it.

So the Green Party won’t be supporting this bill, simply by nature of the fact that it is just repealing a disclosure regime that could have been improved when the Government is offering no alternative and, at the same time, for a Minister that during the previous bill was complaining and calling on the previous Minister to get out and talk to people on the street, he seems really afraid of actually getting feedback around the repeal that he is putting forward. He’s actually afraid of going through a select committee process and getting feedback from the smaller businesses and the workers, because if we look at the departmental disclosure statement, it’s so clear that there was no adequate stakeholder consultation as part of the creation of this repeal.

So he’s just going off vibes. He’s going off vibes and an ideology that will benefit those at the top. It’s interesting that the speakers on the Government side talk about how they really worry about all the additional costs and compliance mechanisms that they have to go through, but then they have to caveat it with all businesses, including big corporates, because, actually, this bill only added a disclosure regime to those at the very top. Let’s make it clear that, actually, this is not about supporting all businesses; it’s about supporting those businesses that already have the resources and that benefit from withholding prompt payments.

At the time of the second reading debate on the previous bill, the Minister also talked about what he thought the biggest issue at the time for him was: “The biggest issue is its focus on large companies.”—so he said it himself. The focus isn’t broad compliance mechanisms; it’s the fact that big businesses were being targeted by this legislation. These are the Minister’s own words, and then he tried to deflect at the time. He said that, actually, in his view, Government departments were some of the biggest culprits in late payments—OK, fine. If he thinks that more work needs to be done in ensuring that Government departments are prompt with their payments, he could be initiating work to actually address that.

Hon Andrew Bayly: I have—I have.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: But he could be presenting a bill rather than wasting our time in this place, simply simping for big businesses. If the Minister is so confident that he is doing the work on this, he could actually be introducing bills and having us do bills around this. So let’s make it really clear: all this Government wants to do in this bill is repeal a disclosure regime that would have actually created accountability mechanisms, and, at the same time, I want to peg it back to the fact that he had an opportunity to improve the regime rather than scrapping it and benefiting those at the top.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s quite incredible what we just heard. Clearly, the member Ricardo Menéndez March did not hear what the Minister said in his first reading speech, and indeed in his second reading speech. He is going to bring forward seven initiatives that will go much further than this current bill does and in a much more efficient way that doesn’t add a whole lot of costs to businesses. We heard that it’s going to cost $2 million to $3 million for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s own IT system, let alone the costs that the businesses would have to implement to get compliance up with this particular legislation.

Some of the speeches seem to assume that the current legislation is saving all of the businesses from being not paid on time and that that is being forced by this legislation. That’s not the case. It’s a reporting Act—that’s all it is. That information is actually available from four other entities, plus Centrix—which the Minister alluded to in his first reading speech—for a cost of $35.

So it’s all there. This is just going to add costs and create a whole lot of inefficiencies. Therefore, I commend this wonderful bill to the House.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think if we look at this bill, the legislation that we’re repealing could have been the “Look Before You Leap Bill”, it could be called the “Know Before You Go Bill”, and it could be called the “Knowledge is Power Bill”, and that would be good for small business. What this repeal could be called is the “Think Big Bill” or the “Love Big Bill”, because this is really the “Save Big Business Money Bill”—that is what it is.

I want to start by coming back to one of the pieces of text that I shared in my first speech on this bill, just in case some members missed the message in it the first time, because I think it’s a really important message. It’s a message direct from a small business, and it’s a reminder that our small businesses are all about people. So this is a message: “Running a business is hard. Being an employer is hard. Paying for kai, staff, rent and the rest; is hard; and spending my time asking to be paid, over and over for mahi we’ve already done … that’s … hard!”

The message is pretty clear in that transcript from Sachiko, who owns Kai Connoisseurs, a pretty impressive small business that punches above its weight. It’s based in Hampshire Street in the heart of Aranui and it provides not just amazing fry bread, although I will go on once again to put it on record that I absolutely recommend that, but also jobs—amazing jobs—for the local community and a really, really good strong business in that community. The message is really simple: being a small business is hard, and please prioritise paying your bills.

Now, I’d also like to pick up on something that another member said just now in one of their speeches. I’ll start by going back to the policy statement on the repeal: “The Act was put in place to address long business-to-business payment times by requiring large entities to disclose their payment practices on a public register.”—and this is the bit that I find insulting—“However, the Government’s view is that most small businesses will not have time to search for payment data on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Internet site and that, even if they can find it”—even if they can find it—“and interpret it correctly, it would be unlikely to impact their decisions about who to do business with.”

The implication here, in my opinion, is that we’re suggesting—and one member reiterated this in their speech just now—that the people who own and run and are at the heart of our small businesses are somehow not smart enough or clever enough to be able to go online and look at a guide that tells them whether they’re going to be paid and whether their business will survive. Now, what are they supposed to do instead with that time that they apparently don’t have to go online and find that information? They’re expected instead to just spend that time waiting for payment—just waiting for payment. I think that’s absolutely insulting, and I think it really disrespects the tenacity, the cleverness, the smartness, the intellect, the passion, the commitment, and the drive that our small-business owners have. I find that really insulting—really insulting—to our small businesses.

Now, the other part here, which it goes on to say, is that “The repeal of the Act will remove compliance costs that would have applied to large entities.”, and that comes back to the “Love Big Bill”. So it makes sure that big business doesn’t have to pay any more money to be in business, and all of the pressure goes on our small businesses to do whatever they can to survive, and “Good luck to them.” is the message this bill sends—“Good luck, good luck.”

So, coming back to a point that I made earlier and that other members on this side of the House have reiterated, ultimately, this repeal is of legislation that makes sure 3 percent of businesses provide information to make it easier, to make it more viable, and to make it sustainable for the 97 percent of small businesses to stay in business, and that’s in all of our interests. I don’t think there’d be a member in this House who would be prepared to suggest it’s a good idea for small businesses to fail.

Now, the Minister also spoke to there being seven other steps that are being taken to support small businesses. Well, why not take eight steps? Why not keep this in place and add your seven? If you really believe in backing small business, why limit yourself to seven steps? I say take eight. Now—

Stuart Smith: What about nine?

REUBEN DAVIDSON: The member has suggested nine. He’s seen the eight and raised me nine—I’m not going to argue against that. I’d love to know what the suggestion for the ninth is—I would love to—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Gambling in the House!

REUBEN DAVIDSON: —know what the suggestion for the ninth is.

Now, I’m going to read this one more time because I think this is a really, really important message to have on record that supports the argument to not repeal this bill: “Running a business is hard. Being an employer is hard. Paying for kai, staff, rent and the rest; is hard;”—

Hon Members: We know.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: I’ll pause because there are members on that side of the House who holler back and say, “We know.” They don’t say, “We know.” in the all-inclusive “All members in this House know.” They say, “We know.” in the exclusive “We are the only members of this House who’ve run or owned or had small businesses”—who’ve been employers.

If there was a show of hands, I think that we would see that there are small-business owners and employers in every part of this House, and the argument constantly pushed from that side of the House that it’s some exclusive little club that only members of those parties in Government have ever been a part of is absolutely a hollow argument. The fact that some of those members have been in small business and want to not do everything—to not take eight steps or nine steps but only seven steps—to support small businesses is, I think, pretty embarrassing. I would be embarrassed myself to be in this House and be pulling back on legislation like this that sets out to support the small businesses and to support the people, because let’s not forget that it’s easy to talk about small business and it’s easy to take the people out of small business, but small business and small businesses are people, and that’s ultimately who we’re here to represent and who we are here to support.

Now, I didn’t finish the quote that I was re-reading, so I’m going to go back to it. I’m going to pick up from the second line, which says, “spending my time asking to be paid,”—

Hon Andrew Bayly: It’s going to be a long Friday, isn’t it?

REUBEN DAVIDSON: —“over and over for mahi we’ve already done well that’s … hard!” The fact that members don’t even want to hear it—don’t even want to hear it. Members just want to holler back, rather than hearing the very real testimony of a small-business owner in this House. They want to repeal a bill that sets out to give small business better service and better protection, and then they don’t even want to hear what those small-business owners have to say. I think that’s a concern. I would be a concerned if I was part of a Government that didn’t want to hear from small and local businesses. I would be very concerned.

With the last 45 seconds that I have—the last 45 seconds that I have—I would like to say that, essentially, what’s happening here is in the David and Goliath battle between small business and big business, this repeal takes the slingshot away from David. It says, “Go out there and take on Goliath. We won’t do anything to help you, but good luck. Good luck—good luck.” It’s the “Good Luck, Think Big, Love Big Business Repeal Bill”, and I think those members should think twice about what they’re doing to serve and represent the people who are in small businesses in their community.

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I’d just like to get us back on track in this debate here today, because we seem to have moved off the issues. We totally agree with that side of the House that we are the “Government of Small Business”. We are aspirational for small business, and we want our economy to get ahead, but that is not with regulation, red tape, and compliance.

Coming back to the issues, we agree that businesses need to pay on time, and we’re not refuting that. But that is not done with more regulation and red tape being inflicted on business, which costs more and takes more time.

I’d just like to read out some of the things that our Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing has already said in his speech—which, obviously, on that side of the House, you aren’t listening to—that we will be doing, and that’s reinforcing the requirement for Government agencies to pay ordinary creditors and ramping up the adoption of e-invoicing. That’s innovation. That’s innovation, which we understand and which, obviously, on that side of the House, you don’t understand. There are many things—there are actually seven things—that we’re going to implement. We’ve got a plan, and it’s not done through having more regulation. So I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I do want to acknowledge the enthusiasm in this House—maybe some members need morning tea—but if there are going to be discussions, there are a lot of places out in the hallways for you to have that.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): I’d like to just take a moment to talk about the use of urgency, and I raise this because the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing himself raised it in his contribution. I think, for the benefit of those watching from home, it’s good to pause and look at what is happening and has happened over the last 97 or 98 days in terms of the use of urgency and what that means. We’ve got a little bit of time to do that, and this bill, again, is being passed under urgency, but there’s not a lot of knowledge out there about what urgency involves. What it does, Mr Speaker, as you well know, is it extends the hours in which we can sit, but it is also something that is passed by a simple majority. So there are no real checks and balances to the use of urgency, apart from, perhaps, the media—the fourth estate—picking up and questioning it, or apart from people at home questioning why a Government would want to put things through urgency, which diminishes the checks and balances through the democratic process.

Urgency enables a block of work to be finished. We’ve heard that the Government is wanting to finish its block of work under its 100-day plan—its coalition agreement—but that is no justification to be using urgency to move bills that do not speak to what was campaigned on in the election. To contextualise this, that includes really significant pieces of legislation like the Resource Management Act reforms, like the smoke-free reform, like Te Aka Whai Ora. We’ve just heard announced at an event today that there is going to be fast-track consenting bill introduced to the House tomorrow.

This bill that we are looking at now sits in that suite of bills that have been where urgency has been used, and what that does mean is, obviously, there won’t be a select committee process. That means also that today, over the next few hours, we will see this repeal bill go through; normally, that would take a minimum of four days. So the reason I’m raising this is because we are not going to have a select committee stage here for this. It means we are not going to hear from the voices of small business, which is why so many people on this side of the House have been bringing that voice into the House, because, once again, we don’t have the opportunity to hear directly from those businesses that would have supported this.

I can say that as somebody who has owned a small business, and as somebody who knew what it was like to lose sleep at night, not knowing if I could pay contractors because somebody in the video industry supply chain that I worked in when I made TV shows had been late in paying me and had not put me on notice of that, I would lie awake at night thinking, “How am I going to pay my contractors? Are they going to want to never come and work for me again if I’m late? Am I going to need to get some bridging finance?” I had no certainty as a small-business owner, and that is really what we are talking about today.

We can take out all the window dressing, as Rawiri Waititi has said, but at the end of the day, this is really about paying people on time and giving them certainty, and nobody needs certainty more in the business environment than small business. Cash flow is absolutely critical. When we applied for funds from Creative New Zealand, there had to be a cash-flow template, and that was worked out really carefully so that we as small-business owners could manage the cash flow and could meet those payments. That was all very fine in theory, but if somebody in that supply chain was late in their payment, it had a knock-on effect right through the whole system, all of whom were really small players, apart from the big TV networks. So it was a really perilous, perilous industry to work in, and my heart goes out to those who do run small businesses and do have to deal with that uncertainty on an ongoing basis.

I question the Minister: when he talks about a voluntary code, I’m deeply suspicious of that code, because, as Helen White pointed out, we don’t have the infrastructure in place yet for it to be implemented. There is no certainty that the code will attach the reputational risk to big business that is available to them in the current Act, and when we speak about big business, we are speaking here about big tobacco, big pharmacy, big fast-food business, and those who want to pay their employees just the minimum wage.

So, in my final moments, I also just want to say to the Minister that we had both agreed about proportional approaches to regulation. That’s what I believe the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment was doing in this situation. It’s a shame he’s not giving them the opportunity to do that, and I cannot support this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The member’s time has expired.

NANCY LU (National): I am glad that I’m able to stand for a second time to commend this bill to the House, because I joined this Parliament, this House, because I see so much more aspiration for New Zealand and for many, many of our small, medium, and large businesses and employers because they have the aspiration to grow New Zealand so that we have a bigger economy, so that every individual in New Zealand gets better outcomes at the end of the day. I came to this House to support faster innovations and to support creative innovations that small, medium, and large businesses can actually go out, grow their business, and bring more for everyday New Zealanders. So, therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to acknowledge Minister Andrew Bayly, one of the more thoughtful and amusing and entertaining members on that side of the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That’s a compliment.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I had the pleasure of serving alongside him on the Finance and Expenditure Committee last term, and we did a lot of good work together.

This is an interesting debate, because on the face of it, if you take the rhetoric at face value, there’s some level of agreement across the House, and the Minister, when he spoke, was at pains to make the point that he agreed with the problem definition. Of course everybody wants to see small businesses paid on time, and I would submit that there is a lot of agreement that small businesses play a critical part in the economy. They account for 97 percent of all of our enterprises, they employ vast numbers of New Zealanders, there’s half a million or more small businesses, and I would say everybody in this House recognises that the people who start and run small businesses work incredibly hard. They are workers as well as owners and entrepreneurs, and they take enormous risks often with their family assets in order to start small businesses. So they deserve all of the support that our Parliament and Governments can give them.

The Minister also recognised, if I heard it correctly, that big businesses have routinely been late payers and so there is a problem that needs to be solved, and what I heard him argue was that he just has a different way of solving this problem. Now, Ingrid Leary, my colleague, made the point that for small businesses, security of cash flow is one of the most important things, and I think everybody can see that. When people don’t pay on time, it puts on huge stress and puts those businesses at risk. One way to think about it is that you’ve got some of the largest, most powerful corporations in the land routinely late paying small businesses because they know they can get away with it, and they’re either doing it deliberately to look after their own cash flow, using small businesses, effectively, as a bank, taking advantage of no-interest loans from struggling small-business owners.

The Minister says he has a different way of doing it, so what’s his plan? He told us that he’s working on getting Government departments to step up and do their bit and pay on time. He is pledging to consult with Crown entities—we don’t know how long that will take—he’s talking about a voluntary code of conduct for large corporations, and he’s talking about incentivising e-invoicing. But is that a credible plan to deal with this problem?

Hon Member: Yes.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Is it? I don’t see it. We’re talking about an entrenched behaviour by large private corporations systematically late paying to the detriment and disadvantage of struggling small-business owners from one end of this country to the other, and a voluntary code of conduct? These companies are getting massive financial benefit from this errant behaviour, and a voluntary code of conduct is intended to change that behaviour!

There’s a word for where you profess sincere concern for a problem, but, actually, your actions don’t reflect that. There’s a word for it, and it’s gaslighting. I can’t help but conclude that that is what is going on here. There’s a professing of concern or feeling that these small-business owners are being ripped off, but, actually, what does this bill do? It takes away a public disclosure regime that would name and shame the large corporations that are ripping off small businesses. It takes that away and replaces it with a voluntary code of conduct.

We’ve heard a lot from members on the other side about compliance costs and red tape, and how terrible compliance costs and red tape are. Yes, it’s true that the legislation that’s being repealed will remove compliance costs for our large private corporations—it will—because they will no longer have to comply with a public disclosure regime. But if there wasn’t a problem to be solved in the first place, we wouldn’t need to ask them to comply with a disclosure regime.

I’m afraid to say it, but this is an example that we see so often with the National Party, and that is a deference to powerful, vested interests. The National Party loves to say it’s the party of small business, but, time and time again, they actually line up and defend the interests of large private corporations, of big business, and that is transparently what is happening here. They don’t want to impose a cost on the largest and most powerful corporations in New Zealand in order to create a more level playing field and a fairer and more competitive environment for our country’s small businesses, and that reveals something about this National Party that is in their DNA.

It always amuses me that the self-styled party of free enterprise is very, very rarely ever willing to use the levers of Government to actually make the economic environment more competitive. Late payments by big companies are anti-competitive. They are taking money out of the till of small businesses: the garages, the barbers, the suburban accountants, the shop owners, and the small entrepreneurs. It is anti-competitive. It makes it harder for small businesses to become medium-sized enterprises.

It is inherently anti-competitive, and yet the party in Government—the National Party—don’t seem to care about that. They don’t. Let’s judge them by their actions, not by their words. They are not willing to use the powers of Government to make a more competitive economy, and it gives the lie to the idea that they are truly the party of free enterprise. If they looked to their ideological inspiration in the true advocates of free-enterprise capitalism in the United States, they would see in the United States a much more full-throated commitment, by even parties of the right, to use law, to use policy, and to use the institutions of Government to drive good competition policy to make markets work for everybody. Instead, what we see is this deference to self-interest.

The choice here is very clear: is this House willing to impose a cost on the largest corporations in New Zealand in order to create a more competitive market and give struggling small-business owners a break? That’s the choice, and my colleague Reuben Davidson was right when he bridled against the suggestion from the other side of the House that small-business owners somehow didn’t have it in them to look up on the web a public database that showed data on whether companies are good payers or not—a name and shame database. Somehow, they are not capable of using a search engine and looking at a public database. That is kind of insulting, and it disrespects the people whom the legislation that’s being repealed today was designed to protect and support.

My colleagues are also right that this is yet another example of this Government using urgency and using the time of this House to repeal legislation without any clear or credible plan to replace it. It is the theatre of the politics of revenge—that’s all it is—and I’m afraid to say that it actually doesn’t do justice to a party that claims to be a Government for all of New Zealand.

DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I don’t think there’s any argument throughout the whole House, from anything that I’ve heard today, that we don’t want big corporations to pay their bills in a timely fashion. We don’t want small and medium sized enterprises to be banks. In fact, you can’t even call them a bank, because it’s interest-free. Banks charge interest with regard to things like that.

What we do want, though, is legislation that is efficient and is effective in delivering on the purpose that it serves, and we’ve already got evidence being presented by the Minister that across the Tasman Sea, that is not the case. So we need to be outcomes-focused. We are trying to make sure that there is good behaviour by all businesses with the methods with which they’re actually paying.

The Minister has also presented what he plans to do with the seven initiatives, the seven focus areas, subsequent to the repealing of the particular piece of legislation. This is not big businesses versus small to medium sized enterprises; this is about attacking the core issue that we’re talking about. For that reason, I’m happy to commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of that bill.

In Committee

Part 1 Repeal of Business Payment Practices Act 2023 and related matters

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, the House is in committee on the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill. We come first to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 6—“Repeal of Business Payment Practices Act 2023 and related matters”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s great to see that the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing has engaged with the debate, and I know how passionately he feels about competition law, having sat on a couple of select committees with him.

I do have some questions around the general policy statement at the beginning of the bill, in Part 1, which talks about what the purpose of this repeal is, because there’s a really interesting statement where it has been asserted that small businesses will not have time to search for payment data on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website and that, even if they do find it and interpret it correctly, it’s unlikely to impact their decisions about who to do business with. Now, I find that quite an astounding explanation of what the purpose of this repeal is.

There’s an assertion that small businesses don’t have time to do their due diligence. In fact, small businesses, in my experience, are more likely to do due diligence on anything to do with their business because it is such a vulnerable place for them to be in a market awash with big players. So it behoves small business to make sure that they are dealing with reliable, trusted business associates in their supply chain, and, certainly, in my time when I had a TV production company, I made sure I did my due diligence to find out as much data as I could about those that I was transacting with.

There’s also an assertion that even if they can find it and interpret it correctly—now, this seems very patronising language to be putting into the explanation of why you would be repealing an Act. It is suggesting, as one of my colleagues quite rightly said in the debate, that small-business owners somehow do not have the capacity to interpret data in a way that maybe big business does. I’m not sure what the comparator is here. Perhaps it’s that they may not be able to interpret it sufficiently compared with the public sector or compared with those people who are employed in high-paying jobs. I’d really like to know the assumption that the Minister made that led to these assertions that small-business owners do not know how to interpret data in a way that others perhaps may be able to.

Then it goes on even more to say that it’s unlikely to impact their decisions about who to do business with. Now, that seems to me to be a real admission that there is a David and Goliath situation in the market, and certainly the report that the Minister alluded to that came from Australia and the review of their legislation also acknowledged that there are market-dominant players and that it’s difficult for small business sometimes to have as many choices.

So this here seems to be an admission by the Minister in this repeal bill that there isn’t a fair and competitive landscape that small business can compete in. Now, that seems to me to go against the purposes of the bill and to show that, actually, what the Act does is it does have that mechanism to try and level the playing field. So I’d really like the Minister to provide some answers about that. It’s simply not good enough, in my assertion, to say “Oh well, businesses won’t be able to do much about that anyway, so too bad.” when we have an Act in place—and we have an Act in place until later today, I suspect—that does the very thing that the Minister, I would have thought, wanted to do, as I said at the start of my contribution, which is to make the landscape more competitive, fairer, and better for all business.

The other thing is that the Minister, in his contribution, has alluded to a plan. I just want to put on the record that this is a smart Minister who knows that, in 100 days, we haven’t seen many plans from this Government, if any.

So he’s saying he has a plan, but, as I raised in the second reading, there is proportionality available through the regulation mechanisms. The Minister knows that very well. He and I have worked together on proportionality in terms of other frameworks to do with the Reserve Bank, and that seemed to satisfy him. So I’d like to understand why, in this particular case, the Minister isn’t able to apply that proportionality principle. Is this just politicking, as has been asserted by the Hon Phil Twyford, or has he got some real reservations about that?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to address a couple of those issues, and thank you for the contribution. I have already acknowledged and said that there is an issue with businesses, particularly smaller businesses, paying late, so there is no disagreement across the House. The issue, as I’ve continuously said, is that it is an issue of how do you address this. And the proposed approach that the Government put forward in the previous bill, which we’re going to repeal, was not a viable solution—that is the essence of it. And what I’ve put up is a number of initiatives—seven of them—to try and deal with the issue of late payment. Now, I don’t need to go through a process of requiring a new bill to do those; most of those can be done without requiring new legislation. That’s the first point.

The second point that she raises around the explanatory note is this issue about small-business owners knowing where to get this data. And the first issue is whether they know that this data is available. Now, I think there’s an issue of understanding where we sit. We sit in this grand House here, and we’re very aware of Government agencies, but, actually, when you get out and you talk to small businesses—and I quoted the three locations in my earlier speech: Porirua, West Auckland, or Tauranga—many of them do not know and wouldn’t be able to quote you the full name of what we would colloquially refer to as MBIE—Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—and wouldn’t even know where to find this type of information. Even if you ran a very expensive process to try and make them aware of the data, many would not know it, because simply they do not understand Government entities, unlike members of the House. And I back up that statement by saying that in the review in Australia, where they’ve had this arrangement in place since 2020, the Minister, in his summary of the scheme, noted only 1 percent of Australian entities knew where to find this information. That’s a crucial part of it.

But the third element that she raises, even if you can find the data and you’re smart enough to find it, is, as I said in my opening speech, that data could be 10 months out of date. So, then, the business owner’s got to sit there and work out—interpret, calculate, whatever you want to call it—whether that data is still appropriate. And I’d put it to you that 10-month-old data about payment systems, about when they paid the money, is actually quite unreasonable and actually not that effective and useful for a small-business owner. As I’ve said on countless occasions, and as I kept saying during the select committee process, why doesn’t the Government recognise that they can go to four credit agencies—and I gave the cost—for a mere sum of $35, get up-to-date information on payment systems and times, and actually get a lot more information that’s absolutely relevant to due diligence considerations, rather than spend at least many millions for the Government, but multiple millions across industry coming up with an out-of-date system?

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’d like to ask you, Minister, to consider the statements that you’ve just made about how you want to really improve things. I’d like you to read and listen to the submissions that are made to you in this exchange that are proposed amendments that would do what it seems to be your intention to strengthen rather than soften the approach in this situation. So I won’t talk to all those amendments now, because I want to have a meaningful exchange.

But I, first of all, want to talk about the issue of whether there is any red tape in the one that you’ve just raised about people actually seeing this information that you’re talking about. So my understanding of this situation is that the reporting that would be done is on key issues, and, every six months, a big corporation—a very big one—would have to actually gather and report that information about if they are actually delaying payments, etc., and then they would give it to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), who are our biggest agency. So it’s not the same as Australia, because we have MBIE; it’s a little bit different. The companies that are involved are not the same as Australia either; it’s also a different group of companies, so the negotiation was down to $33 million, and $10 million of suppliers. So they’ve got 10 million bucks out there that they’re owed at any one time and they’re not paying that group of suppliers—that’s the mischief that we’re getting at. So I’d love your comments on this.

So my understanding is that’s the data we’re gathering and we’re getting it to be reported at MBIE, which is the body in New Zealand that does things like—for small businesses, it’s the place you go if you want a builder for an employment agreement. So I would dispute that people don’t know, and I wondered whether you would have information that is about whether people use the builder, for example, which is a product that MBIE has put out for small businesses. I, for one, have used that builder, I know lots of small businesses that have, and I wonder if you’ve got any data about something that’s an established product used by small businesses and whether it’s used in this country, because it’s not really the same when we’re talking about Australia with a different threshold of amount, etc., and a different entity involved. So I’d like to know whether you gathered that data at all.

I note that when this Act that you are repealing was going through last time, you actually suggested a trial. You did it by a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), you suggested a trial—I’m sorry, Madam Chair—the Minister, in his other capacity, as a member of the Opposition at that time, put up an SOP which was to suggest a trial. One of the Amendment Papers you’ll see is about a proposal which does just that in this situation: it extends the time so we can see what the effect is. So I would like the Minister to consider that and I’d like to come back and discuss that with him at a later time.

But I’d like to go through the recommendations from the Australian report, which the Minister is relying on, and talk about that. The Minister, as I understand it, has said today that what he wants to do is strengthen this, that we have a problem, we need to strengthen it, and the Australian report has given some concern to him and that he has a lot of faith in the Australian report. So one of the things the Australian report, for example, does is that it suggests a prohibition on this kind of behaviour. That’s actually what it does. It says, “Don’t get rid of this; add to it. Look at a prohibition.” I’d like the Minister just to think about that one issue at the moment, and I will come back and talk about the others, but I don’t want to flood him, and I would love an exchange. So would he consider a prohibition on this kind of behaviour, where we say that it’s not OK for businesses? There’s no red tape involved in that. None. Absolutely no red tape if we say, “It is not acceptable for you to not pay your creditors.”

So I would point him to the amendment on this point that talks about a prohibition, and it says that there’s a prohibition, so we wouldn’t just repeal; we would replace and we would do a prohibition on the late payments of over three months. Now, that’s quite a generous time frame, so I haven’t gone for something that’s the sun, the moon, and the stars here. Why aren’t we today, rather than taking away the one thing we’ve got, looking at this and saying, “Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater; let’s improve it, let’s put a prohibition in.”? If we’re relying on the Australian report, it’s right at number one of the bullet points: prohibit unfair payment practices; do that.

So I won’t put all of them. I’ve got other amendments. I’d like the chance to talk to them, and my colleagues would like the chance to talk to their amendments. But I’d really like you to address why we are not prohibiting behaviour that we all agree, in this House, as far as I understand it, is actually really despicable behaviour. Why aren’t we prohibiting it?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Thanks, Madam Chair. The issue around payment terms—there is a difference between suppliers and contractors contracting with a business and agreeing payment terms and whether in fact the entity that should be paying meets the contractual arrangements. If that occurs and they do not fulfil the bargain of the agreement, then that’s subject to rules around that.

One of the initiatives I’ve noted is making sure of, and raising the awareness of, existing redress options under the Fair Trading Act. So I’ve already noted that that is one of the specific things as part of the package of things I’d like to do to make sure that people are aware that there are redress options under the Fair Trading Act.

But your wider issue about payment times and mandating it—it’s interesting that you’re looking at the Australian response. I read the Australian response very carefully because it’s a very similar scheme. You made some points that it was different, organisationally different, entities involved, but, actually, largely, in the main, it’s very similar. But the Minister states very carefully and specifically, “Several stakeholders propose mandating maximum payment times for small businesses.” On the face of it—and I think all of us think, well, maybe that could be an option, although people could contract out of it.

Initially, I considered mandating payment times might be an effective approach, but following deeper analysis, including considering those in comparable jurisdictions overseas, I found mandating would create problems that would overwhelm its usefulness and do more harm than good for small business. These problems include complexity in trying to identify critical payment times, creating perverse incentives for existing fast paths to slow their payments to avoid the mandated time, unwillingness of most small businesses to actually identify problems, and large businesses reducing their procurement from small businesses in favour of others. So I don’t accept the idea. I think conceptually it would be great to do it, but, in practice, I don’t think it’s actually a viable option.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing has mentioned his opening speech several times, and there are a number of issues from that speech that I think we will want to discuss during this stage of the bill, and, in particular, the seven or so steps he proposes we should be taking. But I want to talk about something else the Minister said in his opening speech, which suggests that we do have the space to go through each of those options and have a thorough discussion of them.

He described the process for the original Business Payment Practices Bill, and he said—and this is almost exactly the right words; I couldn’t find the actual written transcript, the Hansard, but I did listen to the speech twice—that that bill was ram-roaded through the select committee. That’s pretty much an exact quote—ram-roaded through select committee. So I went and looked at the select committee process for the original bill. It was referred to the select committee on 8 November 2022. It was reported back on 26 April 2023, so it spent 169 days at select committee, and reading the select committee report, we can see a number of amendments and changes that were made in order to make the particular model work better, because, obviously, that’s what select committees do. There is the National Party’s minority view in there, of course. Then there’s the committee membership, so you can see the people who participated in the discussion, including Andrew Bayly, who is now the Minister. So it was quite an extensive process, which was responsive to what other people suggested with respect to that bill. Yet the Minister has described it as being ram-roaded through select committee.

Here we are in urgency, and this particular bill is being rushed through—a first reading, a second reading, the committee of the whole House stage, and a third reading—bang, bang, bang—following after each other. I suppose there are two thoughts here. One says we are entitled to a very generous committee stage on this bill. The Minister has mentioned in his opening speech seven other measures that he wants to take, and I would like to examine those in the committee of the whole House. I think we’ve got plenty of time—I hope—available to discuss that, but, more importantly, the Minister has described a process of 169 days as being ram-roading a bill through select committee. Yet here we are in urgency debating this amendment bill—bang, bang, bang, bang.

So I just wonder if the Minister could contrast the two processes—given that we don’t have the luxury, because we haven’t been afforded it, of discussing his bill fully at select committee—and tell us how he feels that this discussion should go. In particular, I would like to note for the benefit of the committee those seven measures. I am going to ask the Minister to go through them at various stages, because he has talked about them already in his speeches and, I think, he has opened up discussion on them. So, if you could, Minister, just tell us a little bit about what the difference is between ram-roading something—it was 169 days—and this urgency process.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you, Madam Chair, I wanted to ask you about one of those things that you’ve raised—oh sorry, Madam Chair; I wanted to ask the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing about one of the things that he’s raised as an alternative to this, because there’s been a lot made about e-invoicing.

Now, I’ve actually got no problem with e-invoicing—fill your boots. I’m thrilled to see e-invoicing promoted, and I’m also thrilled to see Government invoices paid on time. Those are good measures. But what is the problem with doing both? I mean, this is a situation where we could build on this bill some more teeth. I’d be thrilled to see that too. And we could have e-invoicing. Why is the Minister saying we have to pick one or the other? Because what I’m worried about is the signal that this sends. It goes to my friend the Hon Phil Twyford’s point about gaslighting—right? He talked about that this is fundamentally behaviour that is anti-competitive, it’s mean-spirited, it’s undermining the productivity of our small businesses, it’s hurting real, live people, and yet it’s being described as somehow helping them, to take away this one tool. Why aren’t we adding tools rather than taking them away? I’d like an answer to that before I go on. So I’m happy to sit down and have that exchange.

But if the Minister’s not ready to talk, I’d like to also respond to the comments made about using the fair pay system, or the fair-trade agreement. The Minister has suggested that he thought about prohibiting this behaviour, and the report clearly recommends prohibiting the behaviour from Australia. He thought about that, but he decided against it because it would be better, as far as I’m hearing it, to point these businesses towards the legislative ability to look at this. That’s what they could do.

Well, they could also do it by contract. Often, these payments aren’t being paid even in a contractual time frame; they are often a breach of contracts which say, “invoice will be paid within seven days” or “invoice will be paid within a month”, and they are being breached. They are breaches of contract. Those tools of actually suing on that are not working because they’re expensive. So prohibiting and allowing a specific focus on it is quite different from that. It’s the Government taking the lead in these situations, saying, “That’s not OK. That’s just not OK.”, versus a civil reaction. There’s a lot of things that would breach our law that people can’t do a lot about, and it’s that Government lead.

I also wondered if he could talk about the nudge effect of the legislation. So when Government does something—like it prohibits smoking or it actually does something like this, it says, “It’s not OK; you will report.”—it’s a process of public scrutiny, and it’s, basically, changing the norms and values of your society. It’s saying that this is not OK. This nudge effect has clearly had a place here, because I told a story earlier in one of my speeches about somebody at Fonterra, and my understanding is Fonterra no longer don’t pay people months in. So there is a nudge effect of this legislation. It says, “It’s not OK; you’re going to have to report on it.”, and you get a change in behaviour. If you take away the Government’s saying, “It’s not OK.”, and you say, “It is OK.”—because, effectively, that’s what we’re doing today: we’re saying it’s OK not to pay your people until we come up with, perhaps, some scheme where you may volunteer a different approach under your code, or we will work in a different way. Until then, we’re saying it’s OK now not to pay people.

What has the Minister been advised with regard to the nudge effect of this behaviour, whether in fact it’ll now send a signal out saying, “It’s OK”? Because that is of great concern to me, that this 3 percent of businesses, or it’s actually even less, that are in charge—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m particularly interested in Part 1. In the general policy statement, it says, “However, the Government’s view is that most small businesses will not have time to search for payment data on the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment’s internet site and that, even if they can find it and interpret it correctly, it would be unlikely to impact their decisions about who to do business with.” Can the Minister please talk through, or point the committee to, the evidence behind this statement, and can the Minister inform us which small businesses, if any, were consulted with to come to the view? Because we are, effectively, being ram-roaded through legislation to repeal something. We’re getting used to it, but it is a very poor way to make legislation. So I’m very interested in seeing what the Minister’s instructed the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to do to create a more user-friendly internet page for the register of information and about business practices so that small businesses and small and medium enterprises can quickly access information and intercept it without undue delay.

I’m really interested in, in particular: what were the stakeholder consultations that were conducted to proposing the repeal of the Business Payment Practices Act to Cabinet? What consultations were done prior to proposing this repeal to Cabinet? How were the concerns and feedback, if there were any, from those discussions, from those consultations, from businesses and other relevant parties taken into account? So I’m assuming that the Minister has done due diligence and the Minister, not wanting to take 160-plus days to get some legislation done, has gone out and has consulted widely with businesses, the small and medium enterprises, before doing such a ludicrous act as repealing something without having consulted anyone. I’m sure the Minister wouldn’t have done something like that, so I’d really like to hear from the Minister about all of the work that’s gone in to creating or to building this repeal and who has participated and what their input has been into it.

This would be helpful so we can understand that the Minister’s not simply breaking stuff because the Minister likes breaking stuff but is intent on actually engaging with the community, engaging with small and medium enterprises, and engaging with our business communities to ensure that there is good legislation, because, without that, we can’t have faith that this Government knows anything about business. Without that, we can’t have faith that this Government cares about our community. Without that, we can’t have faith that this Government wants to see thriving communities with innovative, risk-taking businesses and individuals who are willing to engage and make this place a better country.

So if the Minister could come back to that: what stakeholder consultations were conducted prior to proposing the repeal of the Business Payment Practices Act to Cabinet, and how were those concerns and feedback, if there were any, from businesses and other relevant parties taken into account? And I’ll come back to those other earlier questions if the Minister would like to respond, but I’ll leave it there for now and, hopefully, hear a response.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve got a few points there. It’s funny, the issue about interpretation of the ram-raiding, when I used the word “ram-raiding”. Obviously, the previous Government chose to use its majority to push through the changes; I acknowledge that there were amendments made, but it was driven through even though National was very clear, and, I think, ACT were very clear, to put a dissenting report in the select committee’s report back to the House. But the issue around ram-raiding was one of the Government choosing to use its majority.

Now, the issue around the urgency and why we’re doing this today, and why this particular piece of legislation is going through today, is the issue of: if we do not do this quickly, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is required under legislation set down by the previous Parliament to actually start incurring costs, and that is why we need to do this as soon as practicable. That’s why this issue is being pushed through and is being done under urgency, for that very reason. Also, many, many businesses are also asking—the 3,000-plus businesses that this will affect—me the same thing: please provide clarity around whether we need to incur significant amounts of money to upgrade our IT systems to be able to reflect these changes. As I’ve said before, many of those larger businesses have enterprise resource planning systems that are quite difficult to upgrade. That’s why we’re giving them the clarity to do it now quickly so people can stop work, because the simple fact is, as I keep saying, this is not about letting people off the hook; the system simply does not work. As the Australian Government’s review of their own system has shown, on the recent report on it, it is not a practical way of getting a better outcome, and that’s why I have proposed a whole range of additional measures, because I do want to make sure that both businesses and the Government make sure they are paying on time.

Now, you talked about the nudge effect, which was raised before. The simple fact: if the Government starts paying on time in 10 working days—and we hit a target of five working days for payment times if people use e-invoicing—that will be the greatest nudge, because, as members across the way will know, the Government accounts for about a third of the economy, and that’s where the Government in the last term should’ve first of all directed its own focus. It’s actually wrong to be able to say, “Look, business, you go and spend tens of millions of dollars and not worry about our own House.” That’s what I’m doing. I’m going to be working with the Minister of Finance. We don’t need to do legislation; we can do it by the Minister issuing a directive. We do need to consult with the Crown entities; it will take approximately two to three months to do that, and we can bring about that change very, very quickly. So that is why we’re doing it.

In terms of the code, I’ve spoken to, and I’ve made a public announcement—Business New Zealand has also publicly acknowledged that they’ll bring in a code. We’re going to be working on that as a matter of priority, but, hopefully, they are going to take the lead—and, of course, I’ll be involved in that process—following the Government’s processes to pay people very promptly, and particularly if they use e-invoicing.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you, Madam Chair—excellent choice. I’m sure that the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing didn’t agree with my characterisation of this bill as sort of venal kind of deference to vested interests—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Gaslighting.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: And gaslighting. Thank you for putting that on the record. But I want to give the Minister an opportunity to convince the committee that that characterisation wasn’t fair. And I think that the way that he can do that is by providing us with the data, the analysis, the modelling, the projections that informed his decision. I want to be assured that it’s not just reckons and ideology and political shortcutting.

A Green colleague earlier asked what data the Minister had or what consultation was done to inform his assertion that small and medium enterprise (SME) owners will not use the public disclosure database. And I too would like to know what that’s based on. Is it just reckons or is there actually some information, some facts, that underpin that?

At the heart of this argument is a trade-off—a trade-off between imposing a compliance cost on the country’s largest corporations in order to deliver a benefit to SMEs and to create a more competitive environment for our small and medium sized enterprises. I’d like to know what cost-benefit analysis has been done to inform where the Government has come down on that trade-off. Has the Minister been able to have the benefit of some kind of quantifying of the compliance costs to big business? Surely that modelling shouldn’t be too difficult to obtain. What’s the likely cost, what’s the incidence of it, the number of corporations that would be affected, the frequency, and so on?

Thirdly, what makes him think that a voluntary code of conduct will change behaviour, when we’re talking about an entrenched pattern of behaviour that confers substantial financial benefit on the late-paying corporations, at the expense of small businesses? What are the facts on this? What is the data that the Minister has drawn on to justify his assertion that a voluntary code of conduct is a credible or serious alternative to the law that is being repealed today?

I would suggest that Helen White’s Amendment Paper that would, essentially, retain the current law but give it a trial period would be a much more thoughtful and responsible approach. If the Minister, in fact, does agree that this is a serious problem affecting small businesses, as he says, unless he’s got a watertight case, based on the modelling, based on the facts, then surely a more responsible approach would be to allow the legislation to continue and, effectively, a trial period and do an evaluation after four or five years. Why not take the Australian approach, which is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but to see how the approach, the legislation, can be strengthened or improved or streamlined?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Look, this “reckon” thing—I’d just say to the member the Hon Phil Twyford: how can you get a qualification on a system that hasn’t actually taken place? No one could answer that question. That question cannot be answered. The only place where it has taken place is in Australia, and it’s been in place for two years, and so they’re the best people to look at what the impact is.

I’ve quoted the statistics before, particularly around the take-up of the scheme over there and the usage of the scheme, and the recommendations of the Minister who actually did the review are interesting. What he said, was—and, again, I just quote—“I recommend: better protecting the rights of small businesses regarding unfair trading practices and unfair contract terms”. We’re not talking reckons here; we’re talking about a Minister who has actually reviewed the scheme that’s been in place, which the Labour Government just obviously picked up and carried over here without much further thought. I’ve just noted previously that one of the seven initiatives is raising awareness of existing redress options under the Fair Trading Act.

The second point is increasing the adoption of e-invoicing. I’ve already said countless times in the House that one of the greatest drivers of productivity—and if you just pick up or google Xero’s report, they talk about an $8.5 billion uplift for the New Zealand economy if small businesses, in particular, pick up and do one more app. If that one more app happened to be e-invoicing, the productivity gains to New Zealand, they estimate, are $8.5 billion, right? I am very keen, as the small-business Minister, and this Government is very keen, to promote e-invoicing, because of the productivity gains.

So what we’ve said is we’re going to require Government agencies and entities, in time, to be capable of e-invoicing, both to be able to receive and to send, and to incentivise businesses to do it, because they’re going to have even quicker payment times. That is not about regulation; that is just smart thinking about how you try and make things happen in the economy without resorting to regulation, which the Labour Government loved to do.

The third thing: elevating the importance of prompt payment of suppliers and of procurement practices. Guess what! What are the one of the other seven initiatives I noted? The other one is that we are going to ask the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to publicly disclose the payment times for Government agencies. We are going to do that. That is the biggest nudge you will see, because that will drive CEOs of our large Government agencies, and, in time, the Crown entities—nearly 100 entities spending over $50 billion a year—to promptly pay. All these things are actually recommended by the Australian Government, and that is what we’re proposing to do with the reforms that I’ve set out many times, that I’ve spoken about in the House.

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I move, That debate on this question now close.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Madam Chair, thank you. Look, I’m really appreciating the responses from the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing. They are genuine responses to the questions and so I do think that’s really useful. I’m hoping that we can have a little bit of the exchange that we were promised when we brought in the new way of doing committee of the whole House stages. I do have just a few questions for the Minister, which I’m hoping he can answer fairly promptly, so I’m not going to spin out the time I’ll take; I am going to get to the question.

It is to do with one of the seven measures that the Minister talked about in his first speech and again in his second speech. I took notes from both speeches and it was talked about again now. And that is the fact that small businesses can go to some credit ratings entities and get a report on a business for the sum of $35. I just wonder if the Minister—OK, he asserted there’s four or five of them readily available in New Zealand. Could he please name those agencies? It would be useful to know who they are.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Madam Chair. I too wish to thank the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing for his genuine engagement. I think, over the last 98 days or so, we haven’t seen a great level of engagement at the committee of the whole House stage, and for the Minister to listen to the speeches and then engaging meaningfully at this point is very useful. He has referred to a number of his speeches and some of his thinking around what he plans to do in this space, as Dr Deborah Russell has said, and so that does open up the conversation in our questions in a back and forth exchange, I think, to really get a sense of why he has brought those into the debate.

So, on that note, the Minister has just mentioned in his previous answer about the public sector and requiring the public sector to be prompt with their payments. I couldn’t agree more. I think leading from the front is a very good idea. Government procurement, we know in the social enterprise space, can make a huge difference to the NGO sector and to social equity. I’m wanting to know why the Minister wouldn’t consider just including that requirement of the public sector in the existing framework that has been set up by the primary bill. Because, as the Minister has quite rightly said, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is just about to start to create those regulations and therefore it wouldn’t be that problematic, in my view, to simply tweak this current system to require that public sector requirement. That’s my first thing.

The second one, picking up on what he said, was about the fact that there wouldn’t be a need to legislate, because the Minister of Finance would be able to give a directive. I’m really keen to know what that entails because, as has been pointed out, we are doing this under urgency. There’s been a lot of use of urgency from the Government, and using a ministerial directive is quite a strong and unusual point of action that can be taken but in quite limited circumstances. I want to know if the Minister has considered whether there could be a judicial review of that ministerial directive, what advice has he received about the use of the ministerial directive, and can he assure us that there wouldn’t be some kind of “Henry VIII” element to it, given that he is planning to put in some fundamental changes without going through the normal parliamentary process.

My third question is to just pick up some new points on the voluntary code that were raised by the Hon Phil Twyford, because voluntary codes—there is some cynicism from our side of the House in terms of thinking: is this just a PR exercise? The late payment practices that are currently being endured by small business have been around for ever and so we we’re deeply cynical about the offer of big business to suddenly say that it wants to set in place a voluntary code. That could sound like a PR stunt. So I’m wanting to know what advice has he had from officials about the efficacy of a voluntary code. I’d like to know, in that voluntary code, which he himself has raised in the debate, how many violations of the code would it take for there to be some kind of ramification? Would big business be able to violate it as a trend? Or would there be a capped number of how many times they would have late payment practices before that code would kick into effect? And what kind of consultation would go into that code? Because I’m sure that big business would have an opinion about that. Were small businesses consulted or will they be consulted in the formulation of that code to work out what those violations would be?

The other question is sanctions. If there’s a voluntary code, what are the sanctions? Will there be sanctions and will it hinge on reputational risk? Because that is what the existing Act does. And, Madam Chair, before I come to the end of my time, I’d just like to advise you, I do have an amendment I’d like to put to the Minister before I have to leave, which I think might actually help him out. So these are just my questions on the voluntary code. And also, would the code be made in a public kind of forum? Would it be done behind closed doors? Again, what official advice has he had?

Turning now to my amendment, that I think I’d really like the Minister to consider very seriously, because when we look at what we’re trying to do today, and I think there is agreement across the House that paying bills late is bad practice—I think that’s one thing we can agree on, but we have very different views about it. So what could perhaps help the Minister is, instead of under clause 3, repealing the Act to simply replace the purpose section 3(b) of the Business Payment Practices Act with a new subsection (b) “Require large entities to advise contractors on written notice of any late payment”. This is an amendment under my name.

Now, of course, we need the definition of “late payment”. So I would insert in section 5 of the Act that “Late payment means any payment that falls outside a large entity’s own payment terms and conditions.” This speaks to the fact that we are not advocating a prescriptive regime that says a big business has to pay within 10 days or within one month. What we are saying is: by all means retain your self-governance, retain your payment practices, but make sure you stick to your own rules, because, then, small business will be on notice of what the payment terms are, will have the certainty it requires to be able to plan its cash flow, and will know that if, for example, the payment terms are three weeks, that the cash flow has to meet that. And there will be certainty that at the end of that three weeks, payment will be made, cash flow will be happening, and it will be able to then pay its own contractors and suppliers.

So the other element to this, then, is a new clause 5A. This is a part that technically would enable the legislation to do exactly what the new purpose would say. And if I dissect it—so I’ll read it to you. It’s new clause 60A “Large entities must advise contractors by written notice of any late payment as soon as is practicable, once it is aware that such payment will be late.” Now, “large entities”, we know that that is the entities that have the cap of $33 million of revenue or $10 million owing to third parties, which I had thought the Minister was comfortable with when we had amended that in the primary legislation at select committee. So we know what large entities are. This is not going to affect smaller business. So all the talk from the other side of the House about compliance costs, simply, for most business in New Zealand does not apply.

Then we’ve got “Advise contractors by written notice”—now, this is really important. I’m not suggesting it be by letter, but it could be by e-mail, text, or any form of evidence-based communication, because if there are disputes, obviously there needs to be a record of the communication—“of any late payments”—we’ve talked about that. That means late according to its own payment practices, and then “as soon as practicable”. That’s a very reasonable kind of test. We see that in a lot of legislation. It’s not requiring big business to go through hoops. It is saying that is what is reasonably practicable to do in the circumstances.

The really interesting bit for me here is that this is once it is aware that such payment will be late. So I’ve even added a mens rea element to this that there needs to be awareness by the big business. Now, that could be, if the Minister was minded to and wanted to be really generous to big business—it could actually require evidence that there was true awareness by somebody—an employee, a manager, somebody who was part of that business or it could be deemed, and that would be my preference, Minister, through you, Madam Chair. I would like to see that deemed, so that where there was some kind of trail of communication, or perhaps there was an invoice in the system, there would be a deemed awareness that that payment would be late if it was not made according to the practices of that business at the time.

So, Minister, I’d really—through you, Madam Chair—like you to consider my amendment, because I think it’s a nimble way to achieve all the things that you would like to achieve while making sure that we don’t dismantle something that did go through a select committee, that did have this voice of small business, that can be tweaked to have the public sector element that the Minister would so like to see and that I support. So, Minister, I’m very keen for you to show the generosity in your answers that you have previously and to continue this back and forth, because I know that my colleague Dr Deborah Russell has got a number of questions on the seven elements of the new regime. And given that you’ve brought them into the debate—through you, Madam Chair—we would really like to interrogate your thinking on that. I look forward to your answers, Minister.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): I’m sensing it’s going to be a long Friday, because the questions are—

Hon Scott Simpson: Or Saturday, maybe.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Or Saturday, because I’m sensing the questions are becoming not as direct and rather on a different tangent, if I can put it that way. To be asked, “Who are the four credit agencies?”, well, I think there’s Centrix, Equifax, and illion, and I can’t remember the fourth, but I’m sure if the member pulls out her phone, she might be able to find the fourth.

Now, in terms of the issue around the issuing of a directive, as I made clear in my opening speech—in my initial speech—I’ll be working with the Minister of Finance, and also in her capacity as Minister for the Public Service. There are three options, actually, for how we might bring about the changes in terms of payment times. In respect of Government agencies and after consultation with Government entities, that could either be by way of a directive, it could be by way of a Cabinet decision, or it could actually be through the procurement rules, but probably most likely by way of directive, and the Minister can do that pretty easily.

In terms of the amendments to the bill—and I note there’s quite a few Amendment Papers being put up by members of the Opposition—one thing I’d say to them is that if we repeal the bill, which is the Government’s intent, then obviously you cannot attach the amendments to a bill that no longer exists. And I would suggest that some of the suggestions from the last member, who was obviously trying to be helpful, those are the type of things I would expect to be taken up in the industry code which will be developed and, hopefully, in place by the end of this year, which I would expect, because that will pick up some of those elements. But, in terms of the amendments that have been put forward, unfortunately they cannot apply to a bill that no longer exists.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Oh, fine choice. Thank you very much. I rise for the first time in the committee of the whole House stage. I just also acknowledge the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing for his attention, I think, during the speeches and also during this committee stage. Ngā mihi nui, ki a koe.

What we do know, Minister, is that this bill would adversely impact Māori, Pasifika, and vulnerable Pākehā communities. So a question is: which small Māori businesses has he consulted? There are 21,000 Māori-run businesses here in Aotearoa, and I’d just like to know if you’ve consulted one around this particular issue.

I think that it’s insulting to say that small businesses wouldn’t know how to navigate through a particular process. I think that’s insulting, when, you know, these are intelligent professionals who are able to start a business and contribute. You said the Government contributes to 33 percent of this country’s economy; 29 percent—over a quarter of New Zealand’s GDP—is contributed by small businesses. So we’ve got to ask the question, because that is a huge amount: over a quarter of the country’s GDP is actually contributed by small business.

So I just want to know which of these small businesses—and, in particular, Māori and Pasifika small businesses—has the Minister consulted to ensure that this bill helps those particular businesses to survive. Unfortunately, 35 percent of companies, year on year, are filing for liquidation. Why? It’s because they’re not paid on time. Four months is a long time for any small business to wait. Like I said in one of my speeches, it impacts on those who have to pay the bills, on those who have to feed their whānau, and on those who have to fill their vehicles.

So the other question I have for the Minister is: how can he give assurance or security to those vulnerable communities, and especially those firms that employ Māori, Pasifika, and vulnerable Pākehā people, that they’ll be able to pay their bills on time? That’s what the impact is of this bill: it’s not just small businesses but the impact of those who work for those small businesses. If there is no mechanism to hold big corporations to pay on time, how does the Government ensure that those corporations pay on time? This gives them a back door out—it actually gives them a back door out. So I want to know: you’ve taken this mechanism out, what is the mechanism that this Government is going to use to ensure that those companies pay those small businesses and those whānau who are working for those businesses on time, and those who own those businesses are able to pay those who work for those businesses, but also that those who are working for those small businesses are able to pay the bills, feed the whānau, put petrol in their car, pay their medical bills?

We’re in a financial crisis at the moment, in terms of it’s really, really difficult for our whānau out there at this particular time. This bill puts more pressure on those whānau. It’s going to put more pressure on small businesses.

So those are some of the questions that I ask the Minister. I respect the Minister. I look forward to the answers to those questions.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the member Rawiri Waititi for those kind words. Just on the issue of failure of companies, there are many reasons why nine out of 10 businesses fail over 10 years, and a lot of it is due to undercapitalised businesses simply not having enough capital. A lot of it is to do with the fact of poor management and the way they market their companies. The reasons are varied. So to attribute it always to late payment is not actually correct. But I take your point. Late payment can affect businesses, and cash flow is the lifeblood of any business, and so I acknowledge that. That’s why I’m very conscious of dealing with that specific issue. I think what we’re proposing is actually a much more practical approach to actually getting a better outcome.

In terms of Māori businesses, I recently had dinner with some Pacific and Māori business leaders, and the member might be interested to know that I have reestablished the ministerial small-business advisory group. I’ve had 40 people to a meeting three weeks ago and I’ve got another meeting with them, I think, the week after next, where I’m actually seeking the view of many people from across the small-business sector, whether they’re in tourism, whatever sector they are, they are being represented, and I’m asking these sorts of questions of them because I want to make sure that when we’re responding, as the Government, to the issues, we’re responding to the needs that small businesses have identified, not some Minister sitting in the chair opining on it and coming up with a view and imposing $3 billion worth of additional regulatory cost, which we saw over the last six years.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to go back to the question I asked earlier when I asked the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing which were the four or so credit ratings agencies, and it’s for a practical reason. I took myself to have a quick look at those websites to have a look at the sort of information that is available from those credit ratings agencies, and there are, in fact, a variety of credit reports available. But—to the Minister, respectfully—the information that is available from those credit agencies does not seem to be the same sort of information that is available in this Business Payment Practices Bill that would have been made available by that.

So the particular information that’s made available in the Business Payment Practices Bill is not the creditworthiness of a supplier of an entity, it’s not their credit record, and so on. What the Business Payment Practices Bill supplies us with is information about how long an entity takes to pay.

I’ve actually had a longstanding interest in this. Back in the Parliament of 2017 to 2020, I had a member’s bill in the ballot looking at requiring companies to disclose information about their payment practices time. I was alerted to that by David Cormack, who I know will be known to many of you. He came and talked to me about some of the difficulties around businesses getting paid, and so we looked at having at least a disclosure regime so that businesses would have to disclose how long they took to pay invoices. Now, that information is available. Businesses do have creditors’ ledgers which record where they owe money to and how long it is since they were paid, and, actually, sometimes that’s not related to their creditworthiness—famously, Fonterra was taking a very long time to pay its bills, for no good reason.

My concern here, Minister, and I would like to hear your thoughts on it, is the extent to which the information that is sitting in the Business Payment Practices Bill can be obtained—sorry, it’s not in the bill; if it was, this wouldn’t have been brought in—by small businesses who want to know how long it is going to take for them to get paid. So it’s a different set of information, and I couldn’t find it, and certainly not at that low price you’ve quoted of $35, on the various credit ratings agencies.

So there are a couple of things there that I guess you could address. One is the extent to which businesses can get that information, or that length of payment time, but also whether—you know, perhaps they could get it one way or another, but is that available at what you have suggested is the low cost of $35, or would they, in fact, have to pay a higher fee to those various credit ratings agencies in order to get that kind of information?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m going to take a call from Hūhana Lyndon. I’m looking for any particularly new questions. It’s a very narrow bill, and, as the Minister said before, it’s very hard to amend an Act that’s about to be repealed. So very specific questions for the Minister from here on in, thank you.

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just really wanting to go to the heart of the matter, I guess, and our fundamental principles and relationships of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Consultation is one thing—and having a dinner recently is awesome with Māori business—but, ultimately, what, in the lead-up to introducing this legislation under urgency, did the Minister undertake to engage with te Iwi Māori—te Iwi Māori and the relationship with the Government through Te Tiriti.

I haven’t heard an answer for my colleague Scott Willis in terms of stakeholder engagement, and then we’ve heard the response to my learned colleague Rawiri Waititi. But in terms of the Te Tiriti relationship, what guidance or offers of advice did you receive from iwi Māori, and did you receive any advice from Crown officials in terms of how compliant this legislation is with Te Tiriti? Kia ora.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you, it’s really a pleasure to take a call on this bill. It was a bill that I was responsible for when I was the Minister for Small Business, and it is a real concern to see that it’s being repealed without any real active programme in place.

So the first point I’d like to ask the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing is in relation to the information provided to support the repeal bill. I do understand that there is no regulatory impact statement provided with this legislation. I would just like to ask the Minister if he’s considered still doing some sort of analysis, because, while he is repealing the bill, it still requires some level of analysis to understand what the impacts are on small business by not implementing this regime.

So the problem that the initial bill was attempting to address was access to finance for small businesses. And we know—we all, I think, agree—that that would be the number one issue that small businesses struggle with: accessing finance. New Zealand is right up there in the world as being one of the poorest countries to provide small-business owners with some way of accessing finance. No doubt, the Minister will have heard stories, as I did, of small-business owners who mortgage their own home, who go into debt simply to be able to make the next wage round. So what this bill was attempting to do was to free up regular payments—from those large companies that wait to the last minute in order to accrue interest on that that that income, that money—to enable small businesses. So that’s my question to the Minister in relation to what analysis on the regulatory impact statement might be done.

Secondly, my question is: what are his plans in order to enable small businesses in New Zealand to have greater access to finance? Because that is the outstanding question that is not addressed when you simply repeal this legislation. Just having a voluntary code, or just ensuring that Government pays, does not address the heart of that problem. What I put to the Minister—and I’d be really interested to hear his feedback—is that while this Government has come in claiming to get a lid on inflation, to bring inflation down, which we all want to see, what we are actually seeing is some unintended causes in the economy, as a result of cost cutting, of reducing spending. There’s been some really interesting reports—Bernard Hickey, one of these—that are saying that inflation is actually being pushed out and up into the economy. We’re seeing this through increased rates, through increased compliance costs on small businesses, through new fees, through user-pays—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Can we come back to questions for the Minister, please.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: So what these additional costs that are pushing up inflation and putting an additional burden on small businesses—what is the Minister’s plan? Maybe it’s in the eight points that he’s mentioned that we haven’t heard what they all are. What is the answer to enabling small businesses in New Zealand to have access to finance, so that we don’t have mum and dad businesses with their home getting a second mortgage in order just to make payments. Because that is the fundamental problem that we still—I don’t see—have an answer for, and I’d be very keen for the Minister to speak to that.

I’d just like to raise one issue in relation to the legislative statement that’s been presented to the House. In particular, the Government’s views that most small businesses won’t have the time to search for payment data and so we’ll just throw it out. I just think I’d like to hear a little bit more from the Minister. That can’t be the whole reason: they don’t have time to do it, so we should just throw the baby out with the bath water. I don’t see that as a sufficient justifying reason to scrap this bill that would help small businesses.

The other point I would just like the Minister to speak on is that it states in the explanatory note that “information on late payers is already available from credit agencies.” My point to the Minister is: that’s different, that whether someone’s got a bad credit rating, it is not the same as actually being able to pay on time or being a good payer. So I’d just like some more information about what other information is available, whether it be Government or small businesses. If we’re going to scrap this register and it’s going to be voluntary, what else can small businesses have as tools? Someone can have a great credit rating but can be a lousy payer of their bills, but do it on the last day or, like, the day after—that’s still not fair on small businesses.

NANCY LU (National): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The tabled amendments to Part 1 in the name of Arena Williams, Helen White, and Ingrid Leary are ruled out of order as being inconsistent with the principles and objects of the bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Repeal of this Act

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clause 7, “Repeal of this Act”, and if we can keep the questions to the Minister around repeal of this Act. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you. My question for the Minister is this has become a practice, it seems, in this particular period of your Government, to repeal Acts that they have just put in, and I would like the Minister to tell me why we would do that. Why would we take away the very record of the fact that we have repealed? So this is a repeal of this Act, as I understand it, not a repeal of the Act before it. That’s done elsewhere; this is a repeal of this Act. So could you just talk to me about why this wording is in this bill? It’s a new practice, as I understand it—we didn’t used to do that.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): My question does follow on from my colleague Helen White’s question, and the first time I came across one of those clauses was in another bill which was being taken through under urgency, actually. But it’s a self-repeal clause, and it would be good to get some explanation as to why we have self-repeal clauses, as Helen White asked for.

But the particular issue I wanted to focus on is that it’s the 28th day after the date on which it comes into force—fine; 28 days after this bill comes into force it gets repealed—but I’ve seen other lengths of time on other bills that have been put up by the Government. I think some of the other self-repeal clauses have gone out to a year out—that was another one that I was interested in. So it’s a genuine question. I’m looking for some consistency around these self-repeal clauses. They are a little new to us. They have been used before, but they’re being used increasingly frequently. Knowing this Minister, I’m sure there’s a good reason for it, but I’d like to hear, as Helen White said, the reason for the repeal bill, but also why it’s 28 days, as opposed to a year in some other cases. If we’re going to have these consistent self-repeal bills, it would be nice to have a little bit of consistency around that too.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Well, thank you. They were good technical questions. First of all, why do a repeal of the repeal bill? Well, some members won’t be aware of it, but this has been a practice for 10 years now. I’ve just asked for some specific notes on it. Parliamentary Counsel Office practice is that repeal bills that mainly just repeal an Act should include a clause that provides for self-repeal after a suitable time—i.e., after its work’s done—or to remove clutter on the legislation website. Now, examples of where this has taken place recently are the Taxation Principles Reporting Act Repeal Bill, fair pay agreements, the New Zealand Productivity Commission—a whole raft of them, right?

This is sort of standard practice. So you have to bring in the Act to repeal it, because otherwise that doesn’t work within a legislative sense. The bill is brought in and the 28 days is a standard repeal period, actually. The reason why we are doing this so quickly—as I’ve said in our opening speech in the debate—is that we are very conscious that unless we repeal the Act, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment have a statutory requirement to go ahead and spend the $2 million to $3 million, to maybe $5 million, but also we want to be clear with industry, who are probably going to be spending tens of millions of dollars to actually do that. So we want to give absolute clarity, and that’s why the bill will come in and then be immediately repealed within 28 days.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Just a couple of responses to that contribution from the Minister. It was, in fact, the Taxation Principles Reporting Act Repeal Bill which had a self-repeal clause on it of one year, and so the Minister has said that 28 days is the standard. I appreciate that he doesn’t have the tax officials here in the Chamber, but I’m hoping that perhaps the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials can prompt us with just a wee explanation as to why one bill merited a year and one bill merited 28 days. But—

Hon Andrew Bayly: I’ve just answered that.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Well, but the difference between the periods—they may not have that explanation to hand as to why the Taxation Principles Reporting Act Repeal Bill self-repealed a year later, whereas this bill repeals 28 days later. But if they have, that would be great to know.

The other thing, and the Minister brought it up in his speech just now, as to why we needed to have this particular bill—keeping those words straight is getting challenging—going through urgency now. I can see the repeal clause with 28 days, but then he mentioned the bill going through now, so I am going to respond to that as well. He said that the reason that we need to get this through under urgency now is because otherwise MBIE would have to spend $2 million or $3 million, or whatever it is, in order to put this—

Hon Andrew Bayly: And industry.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yes, and industry would have to spend money too, in order to get this practice into place. I am somewhat sorry to ask this of this Minister, because I know he is diligent, but this Government, famously, has come into Government saying it had a 100-day plan. Now, the fact that most of the 100-day plan seems to have consisted of “stop, repeal, replace, remove” is neither here nor there—let’s see the positive stuff. The Minister has seen this coming for a long time, so why leave it till the last minute?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we’re having a constitutional debate here which is not really relevant to the bill, but none the less you asked about the 28-day repeal. Where bills or Acts have transitional arrangements, that’s why you have a longer period of time, and that’s why the tax—I see the member; she’s probably the only one in the House that probably understands it. But that’s why the taxation—

Hon Matt Doocey: Oh, that’s outrageous!

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Well, I’m sure many of you are very interested in these constitutional aspects, but I know—

Hon Matt Doocey: I was up all night understanding it.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: I apologise to you—there are some very diligent people. But that’s why the taxation one had a longer period of time, and this is why we only have 28 days. It’s perfectly relevant.

I just also want to pick up on Helen White’s Amendment Paper on this part of the bill, suggesting that it is delayed for 24 months. Look, the whole purpose of doing it now, under urgency, is so that we stop people incurring lots of money. We’re conscious about the Government wasting even more money on a scheme that will not bring much benefit to it. That’s why we would not agree to the 24 months, because that, in effect, allows the money to be spent.

In terms of urgency, look, there have already been 49 pieces of legislation, or there will be by Friday, or maybe Saturday—and I’m looking at the chief whip there. But the fact is that this one was deemed, because of the urgency around people actually incurring money—that’s why we’re pushing it through now under urgency. Otherwise, we could have had a longer period to do it, but we are very conscious about giving clarity. Industry has asked for that clarity, and we’re delivering that clarity.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, so we haven’t moved to the title and commencement debate yet. This is strictly about repeal, so if someone’s got a question strictly about repeal, I’ll take it.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the Minister for that clarification. What I’m interested to know from the Minister about the repeal process is this. I’m aware that a lot of communication was undertaken with small businesses and with industry, as well, in terms of how to get this bill right, and I would like some reassurance from the Minister. On the 28th day after the date in which it comes into force, when it is repealed, is there a sufficient plan in place so that all of those entities that may have undertaken some form of work and that may have changed their database and their pay systems and may have gone in to undertaking some sort of changes to how they make their payment so that it’s self-reporting and, potentially, undergone some expense to do that work—are there sufficient notifications and communications in place?

We know that not everybody tunes in to watch Parliament, so they might not all be watching this right now. So what reassurances can he provide the business community that there is a plan in place where all of those who are affected by this legislation being repealed are informed in enough time to be able to make those quite potentially technical IT changes to their systems to make sure that they’re not incurring costs unnecessarily?

The other point I would like to make, and I acknowledge—I still have not heard the access to finance. That’s the big elephant in the room that hasn’t been addressed. Access to finance for small businesses under a cost of living crisis—that question has still not been addressed. I think that if you’re going to repeal this Act, then it is incumbent upon this Government to address the question of what the plan is for access to finance for small businesses going forward in New Zealand.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Point of order. I just want to seek clarification. The Minister has started to talk about issues which are really about clause 2 and the amendment there where it is proposed to have a trial period and not repeal. I don’t want to lose my opportunity, so my understanding is that this particular part of the debate is about the repeal of the repeal bill, not the extension of time that might be present, and I just want to make sure that I’ve got the agreement of the Chair—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yes, the member is correct.

HELEN WHITE: Thank you.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Part 2 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, we now come to our final debate, on clauses 1 and 2. This is the debate on the title and commencement—so we were straying a bit into that territory before. If we can have not a repeat of the questions that the Minister has already answered: title and commencement.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to really take some time on this part, because, in fact, it’s at the heart of this bill, really. We have a situation where, as I understand it, Minister, you’ve got concerns that are based on the Australian research, and when you were going through the process, Minister, of participating in the select committee of the Act that is going to be repealed today, as is your proposal, it was stated by you that you considered it might be better—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): “The Minister” rather than the word “you”.

HELEN WHITE: —stated by the Minister in his capacity as a member of that select committee and in this House by way of a Supplementary Order Paper that a preferable approach would be to trial this process, which is just about to get under way, for two years. So there’s a Supplementary Order Paper to that effect. I can see that that would allow the process to be actually trialled to start it—up and running and get it going—but it would also allow a window in which some of the amendments, which members on this side of the Chamber have not actually had an opportunity to speak to, could be trialled, in addition. So there could be a window of opportunity there to put the best foot forward in this situation, to learn from the Australian research, and to add to it. So I would like to ask the Minister about that.

For example, one of the amendments, which wasn’t spoken about, is adding a clause which is about allowing interest for a default so that when payments are not made by a big entity, there is an automatic interest rate that would apply. So it’s giving teeth to the Act that is about to be repealed.

I can see the trial period amendment working. So extending out the period before this bill is repealed—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Can I just point out to the member that it has already been mentioned that it’s hard to add amendments to an Act that’s going to be repealed, because it won’t exist, and that the debate, really, around here is around the title and commencement?

HELEN WHITE: Yes. So—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): So if the questions could be around that, thank you.

HELEN WHITE: Thank you, Madam Chair. So the suggestion is not that—obviously, the amendments belong to another section, but the ideas are free for everyone. So extending the bill—having that is absolutely in scope of this point, Madam Chair, because we’re talking about extending the time period before the Act is repealed. So extending it—it’s about enforcement. Allowing that window of opportunity of two years, which is actually the very window proposed by the Minister in the earlier Act—so it’s exactly in line with that. It’s also exactly in line with what the Australians did in terms of reviewing their own legislation. Then, in that period, you would still have the Business Payment Practices Act in force. It would still be in force because we would extend the period out.

Now, we’re absolutely up for time frame differences, but two years seems the minimum for doing that. So, for 24 months, we would try this, and we could add to it some of the things that are lessons learnt so we could give it the best possible opportunity of working. We could add things like actually having a sting in the tail if the people hadn’t paid, because one of the things that’s been happening is that there’s been a calculation of this behaviour by big businesses, and it actually is worth money to them not to give over the money that is paid to small businesses and not to pay those invoices.

So we could trial that in that period, that big amount of time—two years. We’re almost up and running already. We could do that. We could give it a go, and if the Minister was not satisfied with the results at the end of that two years, he could pull the trigger, because it would already be happening. So we wouldn’t be wasting any time; it would already be there that this bill was about to be repealed.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The member’s time has expired.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, I do want to acknowledge the Minister for the engagement that he has shown, particularly to the constructive discussion we’ve had. Despite it being railroaded through urgency, I think there has been some very, very constructive and productive discussion at the moment.

So I would like to address the title and the commencement and I seek some response from the Minister about clause 1. As the title suggests, the clause states that “This Act is the Business Payment Practices Repeal Act”. What advice, if any, did the Minister receive about clause 1—that is, the title clause—which states that “This Act is the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Act 2024.” What was the advice that the Minister received, and what alternative titles were considered to create more clarity for the public and for the small businesses about the impact of repealing this Act compared to if it had been left in place?

So that’s my first question for the Minister. What was the advice, and what consideration was there given to a more accurate title for the repeal Act, because we do need to make sure that our small businesses can thrive and have an understanding of what happens in the House? Some of it can seem very, very opaque. I think clarity is really, really important, and a title can give us that.

On commencement, my question concerns clause 2, and I’m interested very much—as Helen White mentioned—to know from the Minister whether he considered a commencement date after the register had been allowed to be established. Perhaps, as has been suggested, it could be after two years in order to determine whether the regime would be useful for small businesses. So that’s, effectively, a test period, and then, if not repealing it at all at that point, replacing it with a more effective regime.

We’ve heard that the Minister has seven points, and perhaps Stuart Smith upped it to nine. That’s really good—we’re in a bargaining position. But if we can make something happen here that is positive, instead of breaking, that would be a really, really good outcome, and I think we do need to know if there’s an opportunity to have a bit of a test period. Yes, we’ve certainly heard about the cost to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for doing this, but we know that there’s a $425 million cost to small businesses in the status quo. So the cost of doing it and of having a trial period is actually minimal compared to the cost of having a test period and giving something a go.

We have heard that there are amendments that could be incredibly helpful. Were this to be a trial that we held for two years, we could really make something work here, because what I’ve heard from this side has been some really productive, constructive elements that could inform how we can do so much better than the Australians, how we could make something work for our small and medium enterprises, and how we can have a thriving business community, but we need to give it a go. We need to be not afraid and not tribal about this. We need to give up this tribalism and simply opposing for the sake of opposing, and work on solutions together. That’s, effectively, what has been proposed from members on this side of the Chamber, and I beseech you to think about how we can do something better rather than simply rejecting, stopping. That’s, effectively, what we’re doing.

So the questions I’ve put to you, Minister, are about the title. If I could come back to the two questions that I’ve asked: what advice, if any, did the Minister receive about clause 1—that is, the title clause—which states that “This Act is the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Act 2024.”, and what alternative titles were considered to create more clarity for the public and for small businesses, in particular, about the impact of repealing this Act, compared to if it had been left in place?

So what would have been a clearer title, and then will the Minister consider a later commencement date to give a trial period that would be useful for small businesses and enable some of the innovations that we’ve been hearing about? Those are my two questions to the Minister, and I would really appreciate an engagement. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m going to take a call from the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, but I think the Minister, in the course of this debate, has made it very clear why a trial period wasn’t tenable for the reason that he is actually undertaking this repeal. So I would like questions for the Minister outside of that concept, thank you.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I do appreciate the opportunity to speak to one of my proposed amendments. I have two proposed amendments for the title and commencement date, and I want to speak to one which I think the Clerk might well suggest is frivolous, but, to me, it actually gets to the heart of something that the Minister has talked about, and it gets to the heart of what the Minister is proposing to put in place for this particular Business Payment Practices Act. It’s the amendment in my name that suggests that in clause 1, we should delete the words “Act Repeal” and we should insert the words “(Asking Big Business to Play Nicely)”. So I think we should call this the “Business Payment Practices (Asking Big Business to Play Nicely) Bill”.

That sounds frivolous, but it points up a very, very serious issue in this bill, and it goes to the heart of this bill. Now, part of our problem for small businesses is that they don’t know when they’re going to get paid. They struggle to get paid on time, and there’s research from Xero which shows that—I’d have to dig it out. This is going back for a long time now, but—oh no, 2023. So research from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research shows that it costs small businesses when they get paid late.

So what is the solution? Well, it’s to get paid on time, and part of what the Business Payment Practices Act did was it required big business to disclose how long it was taking them to pay bills. It was a—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Could we come back to the title and commencement, please.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —name and shame strategy. Yes, I will, thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister has mentioned many times in the course of this debate his solutions. We’re taking this Business Payment Practices Act away, and he’s got some solutions, and one of the solutions he has proposed is a voluntary code of practice—exactly—from big business. He’s going to get together with Business New Zealand and draw up a voluntary code of practice for big business. In other words, he’s going to ask big business to play nicely when it comes to paying their bills on time. I don’t think it’s what’s going on with this bill.

Now, of course it is, I think, not a very suitable strategy. We know that when times are tough, one of the easiest ways for a business to get low-cost financing is to stretch out the payment of its bills. It’s a long-known strategy. If a business just stretches out that payment, it reduces its need for working capital and it reduces its financing costs, and all at the expense of small businesses. The Minister has proposed a solution to that. He said, “Let’s have a voluntary code of practice.” Now, I think that is—well, we’ll see; it sounds pretty toothless to me. What we could have done with is, in fact, what this original bill did: provide access to information about how long businesses take to pay their bills. That’s critical information for a small firm. They need to know it.

This Minister, who says—I do believe him, because he’s a decent guy. He says that he is concerned for small business, he does care about what happens to them, and he does care about them. But the solution he’s proposed isn’t going to work, because it’s one that requires people to play nicely. With respect, business—

Carl Bates: You guys know all about what doesn’t work.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Oh, it’s great to have this engagement from the member across the other side, but, sir, take a call—take a call. We have seen on the record that big businesses in this country do not always play nicely—all right—and, famously, Fonterra a few years ago just didn’t play nicely.

Now, I appreciate that the Minister wants a solution in place and that the Minister is going to try to get a set-up where the big businesses do pay their bills on time, but I put it to you that a voluntary code is not it. Nevertheless, that’s what he is proposing, and that’s why I have put up this amendment. It does look like it’s just frivolous—

Carl Bates: Because it is.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —take a call, take a call—but it goes to the heart of this bill. It says that we’re asking big business to play nicely.

TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Helen White’s tabled amendment to clause 1 is ruled out of order as being inconsistent with the principles and objects of the bill.

The question is that the Hon Dr Deborah Russell’s tabled amendment to clause 1, replacing the words “Act Repeal” with “(Non-Reporting)” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Hon Dr Deborah Russell’s remaining amendment to clause 1 is ruled out of order as not being a serious amendment.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Clause 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Helen White’s tabled amendment to clause 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This bill is set down for third reading immediately. Members, the time has come to break for the lunch break. The House will resume after question time.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Member Vacancy

Green Party, List—Fa’anānā Efeso Collins

SPEAKER: The House has resumed. Members, I wish to advise the House that, following the death of Faʻanānā Efeso Collins, I have given notice that the list seat in the House becomes vacant.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Foreign Affairs

1. on behalf of Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green)Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Does he agree with Associate Professor of Law Treasa Dunworth, who said about the International Court of Justice ruling in the case against Israel under the Genocide Convention that New Zealand “has a legal obligation to do what it can to ensure that Israel complies with the court’s orders”; if so, what action is the Government taking to fulfil its legal obligation?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs): It’s important to make clear that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has not made any determination of genocide in this case and, indeed, has not released any final ruling on the matter. What has happened so far is that the ICJ has released a provisional ruling and has taken the substantive issues under advisement. That said, of course, all countries have a general obligation to prevent and punish genocide. New Zealand has consistently called on Israel to comply with the binding interim measures—that is, take all reasonable steps not to commit genocide—as issued by the International Court on 26 January 2024.

Hon James Shaw: Will he unequivocally condemn Israel’s use of—

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I refer to Standing Order 394(2), which says that a member may ask a question on behalf of another member who is absent. But the member in whose name the question is has just emerged and is now present in the Chamber, and I just wonder if it’s possible for another member to keep asking the question when that member is here?

SPEAKER: That’s a very good point, absolutely right. The member, in whose name the question was, was not present when the question was called. We’re now into supplementary questions and, as the member knows, any member from the House can ask supplementary questions. So the point is right; circumstances have changed.

Hon David Seymour: What about the first supplementary; shouldn’t that go to the member?

SPEAKER: No, no, are you calling that, or—I can’t hear you from here.

Hon James Shaw: Will he unequivocally condemn Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 10 children, so far, by starvation?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: New Zealand is meeting its obligations under the genocide convention, including by clearly and consistently stating its position publicly. Since the start of the conflict, New Zealand has consistently called on all parties to comply with international law in national statements and in statements alongside Australia. Since the ICJ provisional ruling, I have engaged with representatives of around 50 countries, and developments in Gaza have been a regular topic of discussion and none of those 50 countries are left in any doubt as to what New Zealand’s position is. For the member’s benefit, New Zealand has been clear from the outset that the protection of civilians is paramount. The price of defeating Hamas cannot be continued at the suffering of Palestinian people.

Hon James Shaw: Will the Government intervene as a third party in the case against Israel under the genocide convention, now that Israel has failed to comply with the court orders including by obstructing basic aid into Gaza and deliberately opening fire on civilians who are seeking aid?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: This is what happens when one goes to academia for an expert opinion, and academia has never been in a court of law. That is not what the ICJ ruled, and that’s still in abeyance in terms of the final decision, as we speak.

Teanau Tuiono: Will he guarantee the continuation of New Zealand’s annual funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) as the main provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I want to thank that member for that question. The reality is that, as the previous Government had said, the next tranche is not due until the middle of this year, which gives us time to observe the full-scale inquiry be conducted by the United Nations at this point in time. But that said, we have gone and supported other agencies doing the same kind of work, bearing in mind that the UNRWA is a serious component, and to operate it properly is essential because there’s no other possible replacement right here right now for that organisation.

Teanau Tuiono: Does he think it is appropriate for the Government to continue diplomatic relations with Israel, including hosting the Israeli ambassador, while Israel fails to abide by its obligations under the ICJ decision and international humanitarian law?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Again, when the ICJ brings out a ruling, I suggest people read it carefully and maybe take legal advice as to what it means. Because the inference in that question is that the findings were not as the international community has recognised them where Israel is concerned.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Will he consider introducing an Israel sanctions bill to Parliament to send a clear message that Aotearoa will not tolerate war crimes and genocide, just as we did in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: With respect to that question, a previous Labour Government looked at that as an overall political change in our law and decided against it; and all of a sudden, that has changed now. Those matters are under consideration, but, at this point in time, this Government has made no such decision.

Question No. 2—Climate Change

2. Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) to the Minister of Climate Change: Has he sought or received advice on the transport-related emission reduction impacts of the draft Government Policy Statement on land transport; if not, why not?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change): Matters relating to climate change and emissions reduction issues are being worked through and addressed during the development of the second emissions reduction plan (ERP). This will include deciding the cross-sector policy mix to ensure emissions budgets are met. As such, while I have received advice, I haven’t received specific advice on transport-related emissions reduction impacts of that draft Government policy statement (GPS), as this will be part of preparing ERP 2.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Will the cutting of funding for measures in his Government’s draft GPS that were recommended by the climate commission as being required to meet the first emissions reduction target, such as substantially increasing the share of central government funding dedicated to active and public transport infrastructure and reducing public transport fares to encourage greater use of public transport, put meeting—

SPEAKER: I’ll tell you what we’re going to do—sorry to interrupt the member, but questions are heard in silence. If people want to have conversations, go out to the lobbies. Please start the question again.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Thank you. Will the cutting of funding for measures in his Government’s draft GPS that were recommended by the climate commission as being required to meet the first emissions reduction target, such as substantially increasing the share of central government funding dedicated to active and public transport infrastructure and reducing public transport fares to encourage greater use of public transport, put meeting emissions budget 1 in jeopardy?

Hon SIMON WATTS: Look, I have advice that the estimated impact of removing some of the initiatives which this coalition Government have signalled will have an inconsequential impact in regards to the impacts around those budgets.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: What advice has he received on the impacts of the measures in the GPS, given the answer to that supplementary question?

Hon SIMON WATTS: As I’ve advised to the Minister, there is a range of advice that I have received, but I have not received specific advice in regards to the emissions reduction impacts in that draft GPS. That will be part of the emissions reduction 2 process, of which I will welcome the Minister’s input into that process, and we start consultation in May.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Does the Minister of Climate Change think he should have asked for advice on what the impacts are of removing measures that were recommended by the climate commission for meeting emissions budget 1? [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Hang on a minute, we’ve got to get this right. When people are asking a question, if you don’t like the question, just suck it up and listen. Please ask the question again.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Thank you. Does the Minister of Climate Change think he should have asked for advice on what the specific impacts of cuts through the GPS on transport would be, and their potential of not meeting emissions budget 1?

Hon SIMON WATTS: I appreciate that the former Minister may not have been particularly listening to my answer to the question, but, as I have stated—and I will state again for the purposes of repetition—that aspect of that process will form part of the ERP 2 process. While I have received advice, I haven’t received specific advice that the Minister had asked in her primary question.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked a very specific question of the member about whether or not he thought he should have asked for that specific advice. He has told us in several of his answers that he hasn’t received specific advice, but I asked him if he thought he should.

SPEAKER: Yeah, look, lots of these points of order relating to that sort of thing in recent days—I’ve done quite a bit of reading to find out what other Speakers have said in the past. The question was addressed, and I think we will now move on.

Hon Chris Bishop: Has the Minister received advice on the $30 billion Lake Onslow scheme and how much money was spent by the previous Government developing the scheme?

SPEAKER: The primary question relates to transport-related emission reduction. Lake Onslow, as you know, is a proposed electricity scheme.

Hon Nicola Willis: Has the Minister received any advice on the doomed light rail project and how much was wasted on that before it was cancelled?

SPEAKER: If we’re going to go down this track, we’re going to get into a pretty murky place. The primary—

Hon Member: It’s transport.

SPEAKER: Well, OK, I’ll get called on that; it is a transport-related question. It’s very thin. It’s quite—

Hon SIMON WATTS: Sorry, Mr Speaker, I didn’t hear that question. Could the Minister repeat that.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I simply refer you to the Standing Order that you quoted to me yesterday. The question that Nicola Willis asked falls foul of that Standing Order and, therefore, must be ruled out of order on the same basis that you pulled me up yesterday.

SPEAKER: Well, I pulled you up yesterday on the basis—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker, can I help out here?

SPEAKER: No. No.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I can really help out here.

SPEAKER: Well, it had better be helpful.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: It’s a matter of chronology. This issue was decided when this Government came into office. Therefore, it’s in our bailiwick.

Hon James Shaw: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: That is a fair point. I’ll just make the point that I pulled you up yesterday—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Speaking to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Hang on. I pulled you up yesterday on the skilfully put question that, essentially, asked for an opinion on your opinion, and that is the subtle difference that we’ve got here. This is on a specific matter.

Hon James Shaw: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think part of the issue here, actually, is that the Minister of Climate Change is not responsible for the Auckland light rail project or for the financial matters relating to that. The primary question was around emissions budgets, not fiscal budgets, and so, therefore, the supplementary question about the fiscal cost of the light rail project is not relevant to the primary question.

SPEAKER: That is a reasonable point. I’ll accept that. Are you speaking to this point of order?

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: It’s a further point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Well, hang on. Let me deal with this one. Is that all right?

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: All right, then. Fair enough.

Simon Court: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Just in response to the former climate Minister’s—

SPEAKER: No, it’s not your job to respond to him. If you’ve got something new to add, tell me.

Simon Court: Well, it’s quite clear that Auckland light rail was proposed to reduce emissions but not to reach net zero until 2060.

SPEAKER: With all due respect, the only one who’s going to judge about the suitability of a question here today is me, so I’m ruling it out, and we’ll move on from here.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker. The Standing Order that I was referring to was 390(1)(b), which you quoted yesterday in suggesting that my question was out of order. In fact, Nicola Willis’ question falls foul of the same rule.

SPEAKER: Well, OK, but my point yesterday was that 390(1)(b) does not allow opinion, and that’s the difference.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: And her question did?

SPEAKER: No, her question was specific, but that question’s now ruled out, so it’s no longer a problem for you.

Dan Bidois: Can the Minister confirm that electric vehicles need roads to drive on?

SPEAKER: No. No. No. Don’t do that sort of thing. That’s not going to help.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Supplementary question.

SPEAKER: When we’re all quiet—when we’re all quiet.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Thank you, Mr Speaker. How much more will Kiwis be paying per litre at the pump as a consequence of his Government’s policy of relying almost solely on the emissions trading scheme (ETS) pricing scheme to achieve transport emissions reductions to align with the Climate Commission’s projections that economic modelling has shown needs a carbon price of $235 per tonne by 2030?

SPEAKER: The problem is here, if I let that question through, I’d be disagreeing with the position taken by the Hon James Shaw, which I did agree with. So it’s either a question about emissions or it is a fiscal question. That was a fiscal question.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister of Climate Change has ministerial responsibility for the ETS, and that was a question about the emissions trading scheme and what the price would need to be.

SPEAKER: All right. Fair enough. I’m sure he can answer it.

Hon SIMON WATTS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. As Minister of Climate Change, I don’t comment on the price of the ETS, nor in regards to what it does, but what I can say to the former Minister is that the way in which this Government will take actions around the reduction of emissions will be different from the prior Government, and we’ll be working through the emissions reduction plan 2, of which I welcome the former Minister’s input into in order to make sure we’ve got a credible plan to deliver those targets.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Does he think it is fair that Kiwis will be hit with a petrol price hike of between 40c and 50c a litre, based on that carbon price of $235 a tonne, because of his Government’s plan of cutting transport projects and programmes that will reduce emissions?

Hon SIMON WATTS: What I can say is unfair to New Zealanders is the fact that this coalition Government has inherited a situation where there isn’t a clear pathway in order to meet some of our reductions, because of the inaction by the prior Government and that former Minister. We are going to address that issue through the progress we do around the emissions reduction 2 programme, and I look forward to being able to tell you more about that in due course.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. SUZE REDMAYNE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Finance: How much will the Government spend this year on financing its debt?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): In the current financial year, Treasury is forecasting that the cost of financing Government debt—which is almost entirely interest payments—will be $8.8 billion, and according to forecasts in the half-year update, which assume the previous Government policies are continued, this is expected to rise to $9.7 billion in the next financial year, and $10.4 billion in the year after that.

Suze Redmayne: How have the Government’s finance costs changed over time?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Finance costs are expected to be $8.8 billion this year. By comparison, finance costs in 2017-18 were $3.5 billion, so they have more than doubled, or grown more than 150 percent, since that time. In fact, yes—

Hon Grant Robertson: Was the interest rate the same?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The member opposite is concerned that interest rates are very high after six years of his economic mismanagement. Now, finance costs were relatively moderate even two years ago, but have skyrocketed since then because of higher interest rates and greater debt issuance.

Hon David Seymour: So can the Minister of Finance confirm that—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That wasn’t a question word that he started with.

SPEAKER: Well, I know that you’re a Doctor of Law; I didn’t know grammar was one of your strong points. However, I’m sure he’ll have another go.

Hon David Seymour: Maybe they should have a “Grammar” in Christchurch. To the Minister—

SPEAKER: No, no. Hang on—I did pick up people yesterday. No comments before you ask a question. Just ask the question.

Hon David Seymour: Oh, fair enough. Can she confirm what she is saying is that pretty soon, on the fiscal track we’ve inherited, the Government will be paying $10 billion a year, $200-plus per citizen, or $1,000 a year for a family of five just on the interest on the debt these guys left?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The Minister makes real an issue that the last Government left to us, and to further his analysis, I would put it this way: the finance costs alone of meeting our debt this year will equate to $1,666 for every person in New Zealand.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Giving it a geographic inflection, does that mean, for example, that Otago University will be paying $10 million a year just to pay off the interest on their debt?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, I don’t take responsibility—

SPEAKER: No.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: —for the finances of—

SPEAKER: And no further comment. If you’ve got a—[Interruption] Look, sometimes those questions might appear to be fun, but they’re not helpful and they’re not in order.

Suze Redmayne: How do finance costs compare with other areas of Government spending?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: At $8.8 billion, finance costs are forecast to be higher this year than spending on primary and secondary schools combined, or, putting it another way, finance costs are forecast to be higher this year than Government spending on the Defence Force, the Police, Corrections, and Customs combined. In fact, they are around $1 billion higher than that—$1 billion higher than spending on the Defence Force, the Police, Corrections, and Customs combined.

Suze Redmayne: How much are the Government’s finance costs per New Zealander?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Finance costs of $8.8 billion this year equate to $1,666 for every person in New Zealand. Government debt in New Zealand is too high, thanks to the financial mismanagement of the previous Government.

Hon Grant Robertson: What percentage of GDP is the cost of borrowing at the moment, and how does this compare with the past?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The cost of borrowing at the moment relates to the official cash rate as it sits very high, at 5.5 percent, and the cost of servicing our debt as a proportion of GDP has risen to 43 percent by the old measure we used to measure debt before that member changed the measure to make it look lower.

Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to give the member the benefit of the doubt. That wasn’t the question I asked. The question I asked was what the cost of borrowing, the subject of this question—what that is as a percentage of GDP, and not New Zealand’s overall debt, which is what she answered about. So I’ll offer her the chance to answer now, rather than have to come back and correct.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, Mr Speaker, is that a supplementary question or is it a point of order, or something in between?

SPEAKER: No, it was—you started speaking before I got a chance to comment, but it is a reasonable clarification of the answer. I just want to make it very clear that points of order are not methods to be able to ask the question again, but there was a seeking of clarification, and I accept that the answer probably missed the percentage of GDP point.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, as a proportion of GDP, those finance costs are high.

Question No. 4—Transport

4. TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister of Transport: Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Yes, I stand by all my statements and actions, particularly when I said that investments in the draft Government policy statement (GPS) 2024 will ensure key connections are provided so that Kiwis can get to where they need to go quickly and safely. These investments will also reduce congestion on our roads, provide low-emission transport options in our main cities, and create a more productive and resilient transport network, driving economic growth and unlocking land for thousands of new houses.

Tangi Utikere: When he said yesterday, “but the reality is—the reality is—that we need to ensure that we set out the funding parameters to be able to deliver the infrastructure New Zealanders need”, how can New Zealanders have any confidence that he won’t be introducing other taxes, fees, or levies to cover the fiscal holes that his transport plan clearly has?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Because the reality is—the reality is—that the GPS outlines exactly how we’re going to fund—I think it’s on page 27, for the member’s benefit, or 29; I can’t quite remember right now—the projects and the outcomes in our draft GPS document.

Tangi Utikere: Who is correct, National MP—

SPEAKER: Hang on—hang on. Just wait. Your own colleagues are sort of a bit animated at the moment.

Tangi Utikere: It’s great support. Who is correct, National MP Simeon Brown, who said, “National’s fully-costed transport plan will deliver 13 new Roads of National Significance and four major public transport projects – and does not require increases to petrol tax.”, or the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), who estimate that there is a fiscal hole in his transport plan of up to $24.4 billion, or 110 percent more than he had originally estimated?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, Simeon Brown is correct, because this GPS is not increasing fuel excise duty and road-user charges in the three years of this Government’s term.

Tangi Utikere: How can the Government deliver reliable, effective, and efficient public transport as a priority for Kiwi households when it intends to scrap free and half-price fares for under-25s, and when its draft GPS takes over $1.5 billion from public transport, which also cuts the ability of local councils to provide additional transport fare subsidies?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, if the member read the draft GPS document, it outlines the fact that under the last Government, farebox recovery fell from 40 percent of running public transport services to 13 percent, and so the reality is that we need to ensure that people who use public transport are helping support it. But I’d also point out to the members opposite, they had six years in Government, they spent $228 million on “Auckland Light Fail” and failed to deliver it. We started the City Rail Link and we’re going to complete it. We have a proud track record on public transport.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: No one believes that.

Tangi Utikere: What is the total value—

SPEAKER: Hang on. Even an affirmation of someone’s question is a breach of the convention that the question gets asked with the House listening in silence.

Tangi Utikere: What is the total value of the proposed roads of national significance in the South Island compared with the overall value of all 15 roads of national significance, and what does that level of investment say to mainlanders about the importance this Government places on South Island projects?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, there’s a range of estimates around the projects. But what I’d point out is there are a number of key projects in the South Island that we’ll be prioritising: the Woodend Bypass—advocated by the member Matt Doocey—the Ashburton bridge, the Hope Bypass, and better road maintenance. That last Government cancelled, cancelled, cancelled, cancelled. We’re going to deliver.

Tangi Utikere: Point of order. Mr Speaker, that question was very specific. It—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Points of order are heard in silence, so don’t interfere or don’t make a noise when people are making them.

Tangi Utikere: Mr Speaker, that question was very specific about the value rather than the numbers, and I suggest to you that the Minister has not addressed the specific point in the question.

SPEAKER: I think the Minister more than addressed the question. He talked about the proposals. If the Minister wants to add a link he can, but I think the question was addressed.

Hon Scott Simpson: What feedback has he received on the draft Government policy statement on land transport?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, I’ve received a range of correspondence over the past few days since we released the draft GPS. Let me read two of them: “Dear Simeon, congratulations on your excellent draft GPS.” And another one: “Well done. New Zealand needs these 15 roads of national significance ASAP.” [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just wait. Are we ready?

Tangi Utikere: What advice has he received regarding plans to scrap up to $20 million of funding for coastal shipping, and what impact would this have on New Zealand’s resilience against major events such as the Kaikōura earthquake?

Hon Chris Bishop: Nothing; it’s the land transport fund.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, as my colleague the Hon Chris Bishop says, it is the National Land Transport Fund. Last time I saw, our ships run on water, and cars and trucks run on the land. This is about the land, not the sea. We’re not continuing the coastal fund under the last Government. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just hang on. OK.

Rachel Boyack: Can the Minister confirm that constituents in my electorate of Nelson will be paying more with a 22c fuel tax hike and a $50 jump in vehicle registration fees but getting less after the Nelson Mail reported this morning that he’s dropped one of our two major transport projects from the Government policy statement on transport?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the good news for the good people of Nelson and Tasman is that they will be getting the Hope Bypass under this GPS. I encourage the regional land transport plan to put forward its proposals, and the national land transport programme will be developed by the NZTA over the coming six months.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Minister think that the confusion behind that penultimate question relates to the fact that Waka Kotahi is actually a boat on the road, and while the potholes were building up in their tens of thousands of kilometres, they went ahead with that sort of behaviour?

SPEAKER: That’s a—no. We’ll move now to question No. 5.

Question No. 5—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Acting Prime Minister): Yes, within the context in which they were delivered, and, unlike some, we won’t be double-crossing that bridge when we come to it.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How is it appropriate for this Government to put a Minister in charge of the Ka Ora, Ka Ako free school lunch programme who described it as “wasteful”, “unaffordable”, and a “marketing stunt” while in Opposition, without any evidence?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, the reality is that what was said in Opposition is not accountable in this Parliament for the Government. But it’s understandable when you see the Treasury commissioned a report when they were in Government—they made a report in July of last year, talking about how the whole thing was a massive failure, and, worse than that, massive losses were occasioned by wasted food or food being sent home. It was meant to be food in schools, not food in homes. This was careless spending which was never budgeted to go forward into the year we’re talking about, and that’s why Mr Seymour’s having to handle this problem.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How many schools and tamariki would be impacted by a 30 percent to 50 percent cut to the free school lunches?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: At the moment, the Minister is doing work on that, going through school after school. But the reality is that there are some very, very disturbing reports about the amount of waste. There is surely no one who believes in this programme, which was supported across this Parliament, who thinks that that sort of waste should remain unaccountable. I know some people in this country, because they know nothing about poverty, think that sort of waste is good. But out there in the real Māori world and Polynesian world, they want the food delivered to schools to be used by those children, and not by everybody else who’s not entitled to it.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Which schools or kura have been consulted regarding potential cuts to the free lunches programme?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, the reality is that the Government has put its programme out there, it’s gone public on it, and it’s working its way through it. But it is a result of a July 2023 evaluation that came from Treasury to that Government about which they did precisely nothing.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he believe that hunger impacts a child’s ability to learn, and, if so, will he commit to preserving the school lunch programme, given that poverty is not a choice for tamariki?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The reality is that if some people have a memory, they’ll realise that for decades and decades and decades, free lunches have been available at school, made by the local community, and I’m not being chauvinist here but usually made by the senior girls, because they could be trusted. Many of us remember it.

Hon Shane Jones: Māori Women’s Welfare League.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The Māori Women’s Welfare League—all involved. But we will ensure that every cent we spend for the purpose gets to the purpose and does not amount to waste.

Rawiri Waititi: What evidence has he seen that military boot camps will work to reduce youth crime?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The evidence is to be found in a very insightful piece of work that began in 2017 with the Limited Service Volunteers, which was so successful under Ron Mark, an enlightened Minister of Defence at the time, that they decided to enlarge it. The evidence is all there. Ask people like punanga, ask people who actually were the head of the military of this country of their understanding. It has transformed Māori lives, in particular.

Rawiri Waititi: How can he be confident that these boot camps will work when the last time a National Government introduced them in 2008, 85 to 87 percent of those in the programme went on to reoffend within two years?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, obviously, the present Government has learnt from the past experience, learnt from the mistakes, has got the record of the Limited Service Volunteers success story, and, more importantly, in the Māori world, where so many people are so disconnected, this is one utility that will connect them to the rest of the country and make their lives real. We believe, as punanga and all those great Māori leaders believe, that the military can transform and change people’s lives and make them law abiding at the same time.

Question No. 6—Resources

6. TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First) to the Minister for Resources: What announcements has he made regarding petroleum exploration?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Resources): Today, I’ve announced one petroleum exploration permit has been granted to Greymouth Gas Turangi Ltd. I have also announced that I’ll be introducing a bill later this year that will overturn the previous regime’s ban on new permits for petroleum exploration beyond the onshore Taranaki region. Important steps in the journey of New Zealand’s resilience.

Tanya Unkovich: Why do we need oil and gas?

Hon SHANE JONES: The former ban, soon to disappear, created inordinate sovereign risk for investment in New Zealand. Advice and modelling show that the supply of gas is uncertain and may not match future demand. We need gas to keep the lights on in the electricity system, and, as the responsible Minister, on a cold and chilly night, I don’t want to see the men and women of New Zealand reduced to jiggling to keep warm.

Tanya Unkovich: What else is he working on?

Hon SHANE JONES: I will be introducing, as I said, a bill to overturn the crippling and ghastly announcement that led to a cessation of new permits for petroleum exploration. As an act of penance, I am going to visit investors overseas, talk to New Zealand current investors, and convince them that was a minor negative blip in the recent trajectory of New Zealand history.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Further to the answer on his behalf in the House on 29 February, when it was stated that he had written to those people for their views and ideas in regard to the taxpayer-funded underwrite for the oil and gas industry, who were those people?

Hon SHANE JONES: I have spoken to lobbyists, representatives of all of the members of the peak body. I have shared what I heard from them publicly, and I bet the majority of the English-speaking world have heard my views.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I am seeking your guidance because I was asking in regard to an answer that had been given on behalf of the Minister in this House: that he had written to those people for their views and ideas. It was an answer in the House—

SPEAKER: Yeah, yeah—get to the point.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: —and the Minister did not tell us who he had written to. He was very specific: he said he had spoken. I asked who he had written to.

SPEAKER: OK. Well, we can get pedantic if we like, but he just has to address your question. He did, and he said that he had spoken to all members of the peak body that represents the extractive industries. Now, interpretation of that is not for me; it’s for the House.

Steve Abel: What is the Minister’s response to the International Energy Agency executive director, Fatih Birol, who said three years ago in 2021, “If Governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas, and coal, from now—from this year [2021].”?

Hon SHANE JONES: I am aware of those remarks. I am also aware of the feelings and the concerns amongst the New Zealand voting public who want the lights on. Gas exploration, gas development, gas delivery will be an integral feature of our ongoing electricity system until such time the clean, green dream comes true.

Tanya Unkovich: What does the lack of interest from industry in Block Offer 2020 mean for the new Government’s plans for reinstating offshore petroleum exploration?

Hon SHANE JONES: Our Government is committed to rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand as an attractive and secure destination. They have raised the question: what about if the Government changes? To wit my response has been: wait 12 years.

Question No. 7—Public Service

7. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Minister for the Public Service: Does she stand by her answer, “I make that promise”, said in response to the question, “Will you promise no cuts to any front-line services”; if so, why has Fire and Emergency New Zealand been told their front-line services are “not necessarily immune” from Public Service cuts?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister for the Public Service): Well, yes, I do. With respect to the second part of the question about Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), the member is referring to an email written by somebody at FENZ, an extract of which I’ve seen for the first time today. I am not responsible for that email, although I can’t see why the member is so offended by an email that says “front-line services are to be protected” and “unless clearly obvious that efficiencies can be gained without affecting services”. Perhaps if members opposite had had a thought about efficiency over the past six years, we wouldn’t have 80 percent increases in spending without better public services delivered.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Weren’t New Zealanders entitled to know before the election that cuts to the 111 emergency call centre and vital supports for firefighters were part of her plan, and that her promise of no front-line cuts was worthless?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The member opposite has made a series of factually wrong assertions, which I was always advised as an upcoming member that you should be very careful in your questions to ensure that any statements you made were correct and defendable. The statements that member has made are incorrect and indefensible.

SPEAKER: That would also be a reasonable answer to what was a borderline question. So perhaps if the Minister would like to address those same points as an answer to that question.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, how wrong she is—let me count the ways. Fire and Emergency New Zealand has not been set a savings target. As a Crown entity, it has been asked by its monitoring agency, the Department of Internal Affairs, to look for savings and to operate efficiently. I would also note for the member that the vast majority of the funding that Fire and Emergency New Zealand receives is received by way of levy, not by Crown funding. So the question from the member is confused. It is wrong. Firefighters can be assured, under this coalition Government, they can get on and fight fire.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Does she stand by the Government’s commitment to 6.5 percent savings in Police, when they have advised their Minister that the cuts they would need to make would undermine their ability to recruit an additional 500 front-line police officers?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: As I have said on a number of occasions, our Government will ensure that front-line services are protected in the Budget 2024 savings exercise. We have asked agencies to put forward their proposals for delivering more efficiency; for eliminating back-room waste; for ensuring that they’re not spending too much on consultants and contractors, low-value programmes, and ineffective programmes. Agencies have been asked to put forward proposals. We will then, as Ministers, evaluate those proposals before making any decisions.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: So, in that case, can she guarantee that the 6.5 percent savings she has asked for from Police will be reinvested in the Police budget?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Yes.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Why did she conduct her line-by-line analysis of wasteful spending in a way that puts public servants out of work but didn’t manage to uncover that the Prime Minister was claiming an accommodation allowance for a mortgage-free home he owns while being able to stay at Premier House?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, it may be the view of that member that every single extra public servant her Government employed was the best use of a Government dollar. But, on this side of the House, we know that the needs in our schools, the needs in our hospitals, and the need to fight law and order are such that we must ensure that every dollar of taxpayer money goes to its best use in our front-line services, and we make no apologies for driving more value from the enormous amount of Government spending that goes on.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: How can she justify the Government prioritising an unnecessary sixth investigation into the benefits of giving poor kids lunch, when the Prime Minister’s claiming of an accommodation allowance for a mortgage-free home went unnoticed?

SPEAKER: No, hang on. Have a go at bringing that question into line. There was a use of a term in there that’s not appropriate.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: How can she justify the Government’s prioritisation of a sixth investigation into the benefits of giving poor kids lunch, when the Prime Minister’s claiming of an accommodation allowance for a mortgage-free home went unnoticed?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, as the member should know, the outgoing Government left an enormous fiscal cliff for the school lunch programme. What that meant was there wasn’t funding provided for that programme into the future. Now, our good, responsible Government has decided that we will safeguard funding so that programme can continue. And in doing so, in line with our values, we will ensure that we’re delivering it in a cost-effective, high-value manner, because unlike that member, we don’t think it’s a good use of taxpayers’ funds to have uneaten lunches stacked a tower high. That’s wasteful, and we’re going to make sure the programme’s more efficient.

Question No. 8—Housing

8. NANCY LU (National) to the Minister of Housing: What recent announcements has he made on the Government’s housing priorities?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): This afternoon, alongside the Minister for Social Development and Employment and the Associate Minister of Housing, I announced a series of first steps the Government has taken to end the large-scale use of emergency housing. It will be fair to say this is one of the biggest public policy failures in New Zealand history. Under the last Government’s watch, thousands of children were just consigned to growing up in motels. As part of our 100-day plan, we established a Priority One category for families with children in emergency housing, helping them move into social housing faster. One of this Government’s priorities is to end the large-scale use of emergency housing motels. This is no solution to our housing crisis.

Nancy Lu: What actions is the Government taking to implement this new Priority One category?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Between now and August, we’ll be working to strengthen emergency housing verification processes, review eligibility settings, limit discretion, and clarify an applicant’s responsibilities while in emergency housing. This will help make sure that it is only accessed where absolutely necessary, and, in the meantime, Ministry of Social Development (MSD) staff will be assessing anyone applying for emergency housing to increase their scrutiny of whether or not they’ve unreasonably contributed to their immediate housing needs, whether they’ve taken reasonable efforts to access other housing options, and whether they’ve previously paid their emergency housing contribution.

Nancy Lu: What are the next steps the Government will be taking when it comes to ending the large-scale use of motels for emergency housing?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: This Government is committed to ending the large-scale use of emergency housing motels and returning them to a rarely and briefly needed last resort. I want to be clear with the House that solving emergency housing will not be easy and it will not happen immediately. I also want to be clear that we are considering bold and radical steps. We’ll be exploring a range of options, including better support to prevent the need for emergency housing in the first place, as well as for those who exit, and we’ll be applying a social investment lens to this problem, targeting support where people need it and looking at innovative options like social bonds.

Nancy Lu: What actions have been taken to streamline accountability within Government, regarding emergency housing?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: One of the things that came up a lot in the last term of the Parliament was the confusing lines of accountability in this area, where it was never really clear who was actually responsible for emergency housing. The Prime Minister has agreed that between Ministers Upston, Potaka, and myself, the housing-related functions of MSD, including emergency housing, will sit within the housing portfolio, and that will be delegated to Minister Potaka as Associate Minister of Housing. Without clear lines of responsibility, there can’t be accountability—this Government is not scared of either. Solving emergency housing won’t be easy and it won’t happen immediately. We will take those bold and radical steps to end the scourge and blight on our landscape of thousands of kids growing up in motels.

Question No. 9—Transport

9. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) to the Minister of Transport: Will it be possible for the New Zealand Transport Agency and councils to deliver integrated transport projects that include other improvements, such as busways, bus lanes, public transport stops, and footpaths as part of larger road or highway projects, under his draft Government Policy Statement on transport?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Yes.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Has he received any advice on whether the statement on page 25 of the Government policy statement (GPS) regarding State highway improvements—and I quote—“The Government expects that funding in this activity class will not be used to make multimodal improvements, i.e., cycleways and busways”—what impact that statement will have on the cost-effectiveness and delivery of integrated transport projects?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, there is also another activity class called public transport improvements and if the New Zealand Transport Agency or a council would like to make an investment which includes improvements to the roads, they would apply for funding under the State highway improvements. If they also want to make investments around public transport improvements, they’d apply for funding under the public transport investment activity class.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is it his expectation that the New Zealand Transport Agency will futureproof for public transport and safe walking and cycling access when building the new priority urban highways that his Government has promised?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: It’s my expectation that the New Zealand Transport Agency and road controlling authorities will give effect to the Government policy statement on transport, and that outlines the activity classes, what they will be used to fund, and our expectations around what the priority projects are.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is he aware that no previous Government policy statement, including under the last National Government, ever treated transport funding and delivery in this way—there was no comparable statement in previous GPSs that excluded multimodal funding from State highway projects?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, this is a very new Government and a very focused Government, and we’re focused on outcomes. So when we say that the State highway improvement activity class should be about focusing on building roads, we don’t expect that that money will be spent on then building a cycleway. The last Government, in their last draft GPS, wanted to use the road maintenance budget to build cycleways. Well, that’s not what this Government’s priorities are. It’s to fix potholes. So we have a very focused draft GPS and I just say to the member: submissions are open until 2 April; I encourage her to make a submission.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does his expectation for the transport agency and road controlling authorities, set out on page 25 and 26 of the GPS, to prioritise reliable travel times and investment decisions, apply to users of public transport or does it only apply to motor vehicles?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, our expectation is that the New Zealand Transport Agency and road controlling authorities would focus on reducing travel times, reliable travel times, so that people can get where they need to go quickly and safely. Under the last Government, there was no consideration for people’s time. We want to make sure the transport system is working to reduce travel times so that people get where they need to go quickly and safely, regardless of what mode they choose to take.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Point of order. Mr Speaker, my question was very specific about whether prioritising reliable travel times applied to all users of the transport system or whether it only applies to travel times for motor vehicles, private motor vehicles.

SPEAKER: The answer was pretty clear that the expectation is that people will be able to travel as quickly and speedily as possible. I don’t think you could take anything else out of that answer.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: So—

SPEAKER: I’m not arguing with you, and you shouldn’t argue with me. Any further questions? Then we’ll move now to question No. 10 in the name of Tom Rutherford.

Question No. 10—Transport

10. TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Transport: What recent announcements has he made about transport investment in New Zealand?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Well, earlier this week, the Prime Minister and I released the draft Government policy statement (GPS) on land transport, announcing that we’re establishing a $500 million pothole prevention fund to tackle the record number of potholes on our roads. There were over 62,000 potholes needing repair on the State highway network last year—a new record made by that last Government—causing damage to vehicles and travel disruptions for Kiwis around the country. We will address it.

Ryan Hamilton: What does the Government policy statement mean for the mighty Waikato?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Great news for the mighty Waikato—great news. We’ve listed State Highway 1 Cambridge to Piarere, which was, in fact, cancelled by the previous Government. It will be a road of national significance.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. I doubt I have to say it, but that was a patsy question and a swipe at the previous Government’s policies—entirely inappropriate.

SPEAKER: It’s a fair enough point of order. Supplementary questions cannot be used to mount an attack on a previous Government. That’s always been the case. So I’m going to ask Ryan Hamilton if he’d like to ask a question again. Same question, but we’ll get a different answer, I hope.

Ryan Hamilton: What does the Government policy statement mean for the mighty Waikato?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, great news for the mighty Waikato—great news. We’ve listed State Highway 1 Cambridge to Piarere as a road of national significance, to improve economic growth and boost productivity. Reports show that this project is expected to contribute up to $500 million a year to New Zealand’s GDP, benefiting all New Zealanders.

Suze Redmayne: What does the Government policy statement mean for New Zealand’s rural communities?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, very good news for our rural communities. The draft GPS ensures the maintenance funds are ring-fenced to fix potholes and to prevent potholes by ensuring that State highways, local and rural roads, are maintained to a safe and reliable standard. Our rural communities are fed up with the number of potholes peppering our roads. And unlike the previous Government—oh no, I won’t say that.

Miles Anderson: What does the Government policy statement mean for the South Island?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Very good news—very good news. In addition to the Woodend bypass and second Ashburton bridge, the draft GPS prioritises investment in a number of critically important bridge replacements, which is very important to the South Island. Our $500 million Pothole Prevention Fund will also strengthen the South Island’s roading network. Road maintenance levels are down by 27 percent in the last five years. Our Government is fixing this issue for all New Zealanders, including those in the South Island.

Question No. 11—Small Business and Manufacturing

11. HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) to the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing: Does he stand by his statement that “There is a problem with late payments and long payment terms by large market players”?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Yes. However, I went on to say that the Business Payment Practices Act is not an effective solution, and that’s why we’ve proposed a number of initiatives to try and speed up payment times.

Helen White: What, if anything, in his voluntary code would stop a large business taking advantage of a small or medium business or a sole trader by withholding or delaying payments?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: That is the purpose of the code, which is to make sure that there are good measures in place to make sure the large companies in New Zealand—and the proposed code is going to cover the top 180 businesses—do adhere to good policy around payments.

Helen White: Why should a hard-working sole trader have to wait three months or more for payment to come through from a large company after completing the work?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Well, they shouldn’t.

Helen White: Would he be open to considering an alternative to the Business Payment—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Hang on—hang on. Wait. Start again.

Helen White: Sorry, sir. Would the Minister be open to considering an alternative to the Business Payment Practices Act 2023 that would make late payers liable for a fair interest rate if they haven’t made their payment within 30 days?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: One of the initiatives that I’ve proposed is to make sure that people are aware of their rights under the Fair Trading Act. That is, obviously, administered by the Commerce Commission, and I think that’s the best place where that issue should be dealt with.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Oh rubbish—what a load of rubbish.

Helen White: Why is he imposing additional costs—

SPEAKER: Hang on. Just wait for your colleague here to finish. [Interruption] Yeah, they’re all getting a go now.

Helen White: Thank you. Why is he imposing additional costs on every small business in New Zealand?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Well, I could ask the member why did the last Government impose $3.2 billion of additional compliance costs on small business—

SPEAKER: Yeah, but you won’t. But hang on, Mr Bayly.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: —but I wouldn’t do that. What I would say is that we are improving payment times, particularly through the initiative around e-invoicing. One of the biggest productivity gains that we can incur in New Zealand is to help small businesses to move to e-invoicing. The way that we’re proposing to incentivise them to do that is to ensure that Government agencies pay in even quicker time. I’m working towards a payment of five working days. That is the best thing we can do for small businesses.

Helen White: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: No, all done.

Helen White: All done?

SPEAKER: Yeah.

Question No. 12—Justice

12. CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour) to the Minister of Justice: What progress has the Government made in relation to restoring law and order?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): The coalition Government is making excellent progress in fulfilling its hundred-day plan commitments in justice that are the first steps in our plan to rebuild confidence in the justice system and to restore law and order. Just this morning, the Legal Services Amendment Bill passed its third reading; it will stop taxpayer funding for section 27 cultural reports that proliferated out of control under the former regime, consuming more than $7 million out of the legal aid budget. When this Government says it will do something, it does.

Cameron Brewer: What other commitments within the 100-day plan to restore law and order is the Government delivering on?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, we’ve abolished the previous Government’s prison reduction target that bore no relationship to the level of crime in our community. Tomorrow, we’ll introduce legislation to give police extra powers to deal with gangs. We’re making gang membership an aggravating factor in sentencing, we’re giving police greater powers to search for firearms, and, as you heard from my colleague Minister Chhour yesterday, we’re giving the justice system extra tools to deal with the repeat serious youth offenders.

Cameron Brewer: Why is restoring law and order so important?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, indeed, that’s a good question. New Zealanders deserve to feel safe in their homes and in their communities. Gang membership has increased by 51 percent in the previous six years, violent crime up by 33 percent, ram raids went up by 290 percent, and victims of retail crime by 110 percent. These are not statistics that anyone in this House should be proud of, and that is why we need to act.

Hon Nicole McKee: What changes is this Government making to the firearms prohibition orders regime to better prevent gang members and violent offenders from accessing firearms?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: A very good question. The Associate Minister of Justice has announced new measures to give police greater powers to search gang members for firearms, and for gang members or associates that have been convicted of significant offences to be issued with firearms prohibition orders. These orders will keep firearms out of their hands and help keep the public safe. I thank the Minister for her excellent work.

Hon Nicole McKee: What message does this Government’s inclusion of gang membership as an aggravating factor during sentencing send to the gangs?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, it’s quite simple. Gangs, for too long, have been allowed to behave as if they are above the law—they are not. The Government is serious about restoring law and order, and if you’re a member or an associate of a gang, expect serious consequences, because the tolerance you once enjoyed has ended.

Cameron Brewer: What feedback, if any, has the Minister received on recent policy announcements relating to restoring law and order?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, I do note one commentator, who said, in response to the Government plans to address harm caused by gangs, “If police have probable cause and know someone’s a gang member they should be able to go after them with the full force of the law knowing that Parliament, politicians and the community has their back.” That commentator was one Stuart Nash.

Cameron Brewer: What will the Government do after the 100-day plan commitments are delivered?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, throughout the next three years, this Government will be relentlessly focused on restoring law and order. After the hundred-day plan commitments are delivered, we will progress work including the reinstatement of the three-strikes legislation and limiting excessive sentencing discounts. New Zealanders want to see real consequences for crime.

SPEAKER: Can I ask that when members leave the House, they do so without having conversations all the way out the door.

Bills

Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill

Third Reading

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): I move, That the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill be now read a third time.

We’re closing in on the final bit of this piece of legislation. The reason why we’re putting through the repeal bill is that, simply, the proposals that were put forward by the previous Government will not work, will not derive any tangible benefit. This was borne out by the Australian example where this similar arrangement was put in place in 2020, and the independent review of it late last year concluded that, basically, it wasn’t working. Only 1 percent of small businesses were even aware of the scheme, and, in many cases, they weren’t making use of the information. The issue of this is that even if we were to put this process in place in New Zealand, the information is only up to date if made up to date every six months, and companies have four months to then work out what the response is. So, at any point in time, the information is 10 months old. The alternative, of course, was that many, and virtually anyone, can go to an independent credit agency, get the same information, and, in fact, a lot more financial information on payment arrangements and history, and pay a mere fee of $35 per application. That is the principal issue.

We’ve traversed this a lot this morning in the debates. I’ve got to reiterate that this Government is concerned about late payments. There is no issue or argument across the House—it is important that small businesses get access to payments on a timely basis because cash is the lifeblood of small businesses. But, simply, the proposal put forward by the previous Government would not work, did not work in Australia, and so I’ve put forward, on behalf of the coalition Government, a number of initiatives.

First of all, I’m working with the Minister of Finance to ensure that Government agencies meet their payment time of 10 working days, and we will be proactively publishing the results on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website.

Secondly, we are expected to ask Crown entities to also enter a similar arrangement, but it is appropriate that we go through a period of consultation. It’s expected to take a couple of months, but, assuming that all works to plan, those entities will also be captured. That should be Government entities numbering more than a hundred. And it should be worthwhile just bearing in mind that the Government accounts for about a third of the economy and spends about $50 billion to $55 billion a year on procurement of goods and services.

The other aspect we’re doing is that we really want to encourage e-invoicing. As I said before in question time, e-invoicing offers one of the greatest productivity gains for small businesses. Xero are quoted every year saying that if small businesses were to adopt one new application, such as e-invoicing, then they estimate a benefit to the economy of $8.5 billion. It wouldn’t quite pay off the interest rate that we’re having to pay everywhere because of the huge amount of debt we’ve assumed over the last six years, but it would go some way towards growing the economy. So we want to make sure that Crown agencies and organisations are e-invoicing capable, which means they can receive and send such data. If they do so, then they would be required to pay within a target of five working days.

I think it’s very important to understand what e-invoicing is—some people misinterpret it. That is not working out an invoice for a Government agency and then putting it on an e-mail and sending it to someone; e-invoicing is the direct transfer of data between both entities. It does not involve any invoicing function at all; that is already automatically calculated as part of the e-invoicing arrangement. To further incentivise small businesses, that is why we’re proposing a target of five working days, because that means they get paid even more rapidly from Government agencies.

The third element is that I’m working with Kirk Hope from BusinessNZ. We’re going to work on an industry-led payment code to make sure that large players, large companies in New Zealand, do have good rules around paying small businesses in a timely basis, and there are, obviously, rules and conditions that should go around that.

The last thing is just making people aware—small-business owners, in particular—of the issues of redress options under the Fair Trading Act 1986.

So those are some of the specific things that we will be doing. We can do all of those, virtually without any legislation—I’m not sure we’re going to need any legislation, in fact. But we will be putting those in place as soon as we can because it is very important that our small businesses do have access to the cash when they render goods and services. That is the intent of this bill, because what we don’t want people doing is spending a lot of money on a useless system that will not derive any substantive, discernible benefit for small businesses. That’s why I commend the bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I want to draw this House’s attention to a couple of articles that have been published in the last 24 hours. They’re about the UK and they address this very issue. So one is in The Times, and I’ve got one here that I’m going to quote from. They’re, essentially, based on the same issue. The Xero company that the Minister referred to as in support of e-invoices—and he sees this as very much the solution—is the very group that did the research into the problem in the UK of late payment of unimproved debt. It said that in the UK, small businesses face a $1.6 billion deficit. That’s how much it’s costing them—it’s costing them $1.6 billion. That’s because big companies aren’t paying them, and then it means that those small companies are in the credit system and they’re paying higher interest rates. So it’s a very cumulative effect and it’s hurting small businesses.

What Xero said about that—and it was a man called, by the looks of things, Alex von Schirmeister, who’s Xero’s UK managing director: “His call to action is clear—it’s time to hold larger corporations accountable for their payment practices. By ensuring that small[er] suppliers are paid on time, the economic ecosystem can foster a healthier, more sustainable environment for growth. [His] stance is a rallying cry for change, urging stakeholders to reevaluate their payment ethics in … face of this crisis.” That’s what he calls it; he calls it a crisis. He talks about it being a systemic issue where the very fabric of economic reliability and trust is undermined. And so it is hurting our small businesses, and those big businesses are absolutely doing something reprehensible when they withhold payment in this way.

Now, the Minister tells me that the answers to this are some things that aren’t part of this bill; they’re apparently promised to come. One is the encouragement of e-invoices. I have suggested to the Minister that there is no problem with support for encouraging e-invoices, but it sits alongside this bill; it doesn’t sit as a replacement to it. E-invoices are all very well, but, obviously, the person from Xero, who is involved in e-invoicing, knows that and still thinks there is a problem. So we need more than that tool in the tool box. Again, we are burning the things that have been done that are steps to support small businesses, before replacing them with anything comprehensive.

Now, another thing that has been suggested and was suggested in the questions in the House today is: what’s wrong with something that adds to this situation, gives it teeth? Why aren’t we looking at accounting for the profits that are made by big businesses when they withhold payments like this for, often, months on end? Why aren’t they paying the cost? Why are we shoving that on to our small businesses? That’s a shame. That is a shame that we’re doing that. These are the small businesses in New Zealand that make up 97 percent of our workforce—97 percent of our businesses are small and they’re struggling. Our productivity is a problem in New Zealand because those small businesses are undercapitalised. They need this money much more than the big businesses that are withholding, and yet we are taking away that tool.

The Minister’s also told me that his alternative to this is a voluntary code. Well, the secret’s in the name: “a voluntary code”. It’s going to be a voluntary code where people may or may not hold this part of a bargain. I hope that, in my speech today, I have pointed out that what is going on here is not OK. It’s never OK. It’s not a case of volunteering; this is someone else’s hard work. The small business has invoiced the big business, it has done the work, and to suggest that it’s OK for a big business to profit off that and to shove all the costs, have free credit, treat the small businesses as a bank—that is a reprehensible action. That is very much what Government should be doing: they should be getting involved in this.

Now, this is exactly a difference between the Labour Party and the current Government. The Labour Party actually believes in small business. They don’t just pipe it up, wrap it up, see it all as one thing; it is an actual belief in small business. I know that the small businesses in this country are often on the bones—they’re working on the bones of the situation; they are not well-heeled, they do not have enough money for that kind of carry on. I know that because they have walked in my door; as a lawyer, I have seen what has happened to them. I know all about those sole traders. It is of concern to me that we are having a law go through where these kinds of real crises, paid by small businesses, are not at the forefront of the priority of our Minister for small business, or his colleagues in the Government, because there is an underlying ideology and there is an ideological difference.

The belief seems to be that if big businesses do well, if profits boom, even at the price of these small businesses, that’s good for the economy because it will all trickle down. Well, that has never worked. It’s a beautiful dream. It doesn’t work. We have not seen it trickle down. If we look at our productivity stats, we will see that there is a real problem in this country. If I run a small business, when I don’t get paid for three or four months, it’s a pretty big deal. If I’m a sole trader and I am just working for that one entity, which is true of so many people in this country now, it is absolutely back-breaking when that happens. It means that people lose their houses. It means they can’t feed their kids.

This commitment that I have to a dignified work situation isn’t a game. I believe that people in this country should be able to run small businesses and they should be able to make some money in this country, and big business should not be allowed off the hook when, in fact, the work has been done.

The committee heard my friend Reuben Davidson read from a constituent today, and it’s a very good letter from a constituent. It is a letter that talks about the real harm done when someone just refuses to pay. Now, small businesses do that to each other—I appreciate that people do that to each other. But why wouldn’t we have the standard set when we are dealing with our biggest businesses? We are talking the top 3 percent of businesses. We are talking about businesses where they are contracting for services for over $10 million a year. They are businesses worth $33 million per annum. Those are our big businesses. Why wouldn’t we set the standard for those people? Why wouldn’t we expect them to report that information—to collect it, to be mindful of it, and to report it? Why wouldn’t we do that? Is that such a burden?

We hear about red tape. We’ve heard about it today. This is the cover for this stuff: “It’s going to cause red tape.” This doesn’t cause red tape for small businesses; what actually ignoring the situation is is actually ignoring the harm and the red tape caused for small businesses as they seek credit somewhere else, as they try and deal with a situation. I think the woman in the story from Reuben Davidson today had written to the default payer 16 times and had received excuses and hadn’t been paid. That’s red tape. That is our concern.

We need standards in this country and we need to recognise that big businesses are very powerful. They’re more powerful than they’ve been for a long time, for more than one generation. They are more powerful now. Our job in this House is to hold steady and to advocate for the people in this country who are not big businesses. That is the wonderful thing about democracy. We have to hold them to account. Our job as Government is to step in when necessary, not step in lightly. But that isn’t stepping in lightly now, is it? This is something that we should have done. I cannot commend this bill to the House.

SPEAKER: I should have said earlier that the question is that the motion be agreed to.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was talking with my nephew earlier today, who’s a partner in a small business called SpicyBoys. They make some fantastic chilli sauce in Christchurch, and I recommend that to the other members of the House; it really gets you going. And I would like the members opposite to get going on something that will save small business, on something that will help small business thrive, something that will help our small to medium sized enterprises to function well and continue to be productive and ensure that they get paid on time, because the repeal of this bill does not improve productivity.

The Government has no plan to help small business thrive in challenging economic times. We’ve heard that there’s seven or maybe nine points coming, but, as usual, the Government is ignoring those who are doing it hard now—and those who take risks, those who are the innovators, those who are really trying hard—and it is rewarding the slackers, the big businesses who simply want to screw their customers. I can’t comprehend why you would want to do that. Why, as my colleague Helen White mentioned, you would want to favour the corporates, the very, very wealthy, the big businesses who can afford so easily to do right by their customers. Some of them do, but many of them don’t and that makes it extremely hard for small to medium sized enterprises to function.

So we’ve heard that e-invoicing is going to be one of the solutions. E-invoicing is not an innovation; it’s been around for 20 years. And what’s more, it’s not a solution. Why has it not been implemented? Independent research by Kordia, today, gives us some reasons as to why: more than two-thirds of people using e-invoicing experienced an impact from a cyber incident, with nearly half, 46 percent, finding it took more than a month to resolve the incident, including 9 percent saying it took more than five months. E-invoicing is not a solution. Moreover, 70 percent of business leaders say they would consider paying a ransom to a cyber-criminal. But the Government’s telling us that they could not deal with a business payments programme. I mean, what’s wrong here?

We have heard so many good ideas. We’ve heard a willingness to discuss, to ensure that we can have something better, and all we’ve heard is a tribal retrenchment into an urgent debate over something that is not that consequential but is going to make such a big difference to small business. And this, to me, just seems ridiculous. Why would you want to hold the line on this through urgency, when you could reach across the aisle and start to talk, put it into select committee, let us hear from those small businesses, document at least who you’ve spoken to, and let us engage on this rather than simply being tribal about it? There’s so much more you could do, and yet you seem unwilling.

Isn’t the Government tired of simply rejecting things? Isn’t it time to invest in some solutions? Don’t you get tired of saying no? Don’t you get tired of breaking stuff? It is so hard to make things. It’s so hard, but much more valuable and much more rewarding to create, to bring joy to people, to give security to small businesses and small to medium sized enterprises. You could do this if are willing, if you had the political will.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mr Willis, when you say “you”, you’re addressing the Chair. You probably mean “members across the other side” or terms to that effect.

SCOTT WILLIS: Indeed I do, Mr Speaker, and thank you for that reminder. I’m still getting used to the process in the House and, every so often, I get carried away. However, we do have an opportunity, and I do hope that this is not the end, that there is something better that comes out of the process. But given the quality of the argument that I’ve heard from the Government, I think, as an optimist, I will yet again be disappointed.

I do think that we have heard a lot in a short time, but we haven’t heard a lot of common sense from the opposite side and that is really disappointing. I simply would like the Government to consider what the Government and the party opposite has heard from this side of the House: the willingness to engage, the desire to find a solution for our small to medium sized enterprises, for those people who are doing it hard, those people who are the backbone of business in New Zealand, those people we care about, but clearly you don’t. But we would like you to care—we would like you to care. We would like you to care about business.

Hon Marama Davidson: We would like “them” to care.

SCOTT WILLIS: We would like the members opposite to care. And thank you for the reminder from my colleagues over there; we’re getting used to it. And if they do care, we can work together through a select committee process. We can work together, and we can hear from small business who would love to contribute to something better than this dog’s breakfast of a repeal. Kia ora.

LAURA TRASK (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m absolutely honoured to stand here in support of this, and, actually, as a small-business owner, I think we might have a bit of consultation, actually, on this side of the House. Actually, represented across—there are a quite a few members that have owned a small business or worked as a small business.

Now, the reason that this is under urgency—there are a couple of reasons, but the main one is that 3,000-plus businesses would have to upgrade their technology, and then the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment would have to spend an enormous amount of money to get the system up and ready to go. So I understand that need for urgency, and we need to move quickly on this.

There are better ways that we can encourage big business to pay than this. I 100 percent acknowledge, as a small-business owner, it’s really hard when you’re not getting paid by the bigger clients, and you need that incoming cash flow, but the previous Government’s bill would not have actually achieved that. We only have to look to Australia to see the results of their inquiry after the 2020 bill that went in there to see that it’s actually not the right way about this.

There are already, actually, protections under the Fair Trading Act, the Construction Contracts Act, and the Contract and Commercial Law Act to protect small businesses. So there actually are some provisions in place already, and I do believe that this Government has some good solutions going forward so that we can actually get some real progress for small businesses. I commend this bill to the House.

TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to commend this bill to the House. We are a party of common sense, and we see that supporting this bill is common sense. As the financial year comes to a close, businesses need some certainty, and these businesses who are now feeling a little bit concerned about the additional compliance costs will now have certainty that that will not happen. Also, we will be saving money with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and that is just a fact of what this Government has to do. We have to look at how we can save money. There is no easy way to say that. So that is why I commend this bill to the House.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise for the third reading of this bill. Like I said in the other readings, this Government continues to prioritise corporations, who actually have a different tax rate to many others. These big corporations have a different tax rate; again, benefiting off the backs of small-business owners.

Ignoring small-business owners is at this Government’s peril. They make up a quarter of the country’s GDP. We’ve got 21,000 Māori business owners out there. And I heard the Minister say that he had a dinner with them—I doubt very much that he actually talked to them about this specific bill—and say that he’s got another dinner with them this weekend. By then, it will be too late; it would have passed in the next hour. So, again, the consultation with Māori businesses around this particular issue and the impact that it has on them to be able to pay their staff, to be able to keep the business going—it is going to have huge impact on those small businesses and on the whānau that work in those businesses.

We’ve all been small-business owners ourselves—grew up on a dairy farm. We’ve also been into horticulture, agriculture, and also consultancy. If I don’t have the ability to be able to pay my bills on time, that could mean huge impacts on the particular company that I have. I understand this intimately. So this bill, once again, diminishes the mana of small-business owners, who play a huge part in this country’s GDP.

Whānau who own businesses, and whānau who employ people in those businesses have now got to tell them that there is no security that the people they’re providing services and goods to are going to be paying on time. There’s no security for that. This is the impact. And this is not about having e-invoices, because e-invoices have been around for a long time. A lot of people already have e-invoices. I was doing e-invoices before I came to Parliament. This is not about e-invoices; this is about tying up the ability for small businesses and taking the power away from them to ensure that they can pay their employees and the bills on time.

I can’t see how this House and this Government can support this type of bill, because it makes absolutely no sense to me. And then to insult small-business owners to say that they cannot navigate their way through the current system I think is an insult to those small-business owners. You wouldn’t have a small business if you couldn’t run a small business, if you didn’t know how to navigate those particular processes to ensure that you had your bills paid on time.

Let’s just take the supermarkets, for example, and the duopoly. Those farmers—and I know; I’ve been a provider of those. I come from a farm. If we cannot get our bills paid on time when we provide—whether it’s avocados, whether it’s sweet corn, whether it’s watermelons, whether it’s courgettes, whether it’s beans, whether it’s maize, any of those things. If I can’t ensure that the goods and services I provide to those big companies, those companies that have a hold on the duopoly here in Aotearoa, especially the supermarkets who made over $400 million in one year, there’s an issue there—there’s an issue there. They get a four-month reprieve from paying that particular bill. For many small-business owners, that is unaffordable. We cannot afford that and it would mean many of those small businesses will fold—they will fold.

You imagine if the dairy farmers—I grew up on a dairy farm, so I know this intimately—weren’t paid over a four-month period by Fonterra. That would mean huge impacts. It would have huge impacts on their particular farm and especially small dairy platforms like we have on the coast. These are the issues that our people are facing. These are the issues that I put to the Minister during the committee of the whole House stage to answer: who are the Māori organisations, the small-business owners, you have consulted?

And there’s been no alignment to ensure that the Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles have been upheld here—because te Iwi Māori haven’t been consulted on this particular issue—to ensure that if we’re going to enter into contributing to a quarter of this country’s GDP, what is the security for starting that up. What we’re going to do is put other small-business owners or even those who have the initiative, the innovation, the creativity to create those—I look at them all online, our people selling kākahu, our people selling art, our people selling taonga and things like that. It’s going to have huge issues, and we will not be supporting this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have to say this is just absolutely classic from a National - ACT - New Zealand First right-wing Government. This is a classic playbook. They go out and position themselves as the champions of small business, but when they get into power, we see whose interests they really represent. What is happening under urgency right now is that the Government is repealing a bit of legislation that was correcting the power imbalance between large corporates and small business. It wasn’t even really penalising those large corporates; it was just asking them to be transparent and allowing them to be accountable for late payments, which is seriously affecting many small-business owners. Of course, in the case of those small businesses, late payments have a much more consequential impact on their functioning, because they’re running on the smell of an oily rag, usually, right? They are working as hard as they can to deliver goods and services to the people of New Zealand. The fact that this is being repealed under urgency shows that the Government is more interested in protecting the power of big corporates.

Now, I understand there’s a huge conflation on that side of the House between what is genuine economic productivity, what genuinely is good for people and planet, and what makes a lot of money for a small group of people. Those two things are different. Generating genuinely productive goods and services, circulating money through the economy—like, you know, you can see that is different than extracting profit and becoming rich. So, like, those are two different things, actually generating the value and then skimming off the surplus.

That’s why, like, in the 20th century, there was always a real big focus on maintaining a check on the growth of corporate power, the growth of monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies, because those are actually not good for the economy. It’s not good for the people of our country. What it is good for is the small group of people who are invested in those big corporates or the people who are on the really exorbitant salaries of those large corporates. So when organisations get really, really large and profitable, they have more power than other people in the economy and they tend to grow more and more and more, and that is actually not good for the economy. If you actually study the economics, people on the other side of the House, and not just, like, Econ 101 in the 1990s or, you know, as part of their commerce degree or their MBA, they might understand what actually makes an economy work, and it’s not letting huge amounts of money get hoarded by small groups of people or organisations.

So that is the interest represented by this Government, and, under urgency, they’re getting rid of a perfectly reasonable tool that actually would’ve helped. I have to say, this is really important, because in the Cabinet paper they say, “Oh, small businesses don’t really need this because they can obtain information on which companies have payments in arrears through a credit agency.” Oh, a private, for-profit credit agency such as Centrix, which charges $35 to provide this information—$35. Well, it so happens that one of my colleagues has been—in fact, several of them have been small-business owners, and they’re able to let us know that if you go get a Centrix report, it doesn’t actually cost $35; it costs $49 plus GST per company. So the Government and the people providing the advice are out of touch, and while they say they’re reducing cost and red tape, what they’re really doing is shifting the burden of it on to small businesses who don’t have the power to go chase up their late payments from the big corporates.

So, very, very transparent, through their actions, who National, ACT, New Zealand First represent: it is the 1 percent, who keep getting richer through making the economy fundamentally imbalanced and not functioning. Like, the purpose of an economy is simply to facilitate people to trade goods and services and get what they need to have a good life and live a good life. What is happening right now is the extremely rich people and large corporates are extracting profit out of the economy while ordinary people, hard-working people, are seeing their cost of living rise, and, at the same time, we’re seeing the planet face an existential crisis. This bill will not be supported by the Green Party.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well, can I bring us back to reality. We heard from the excellent Minister—clearly the others weren’t listening—that he is going to address all of these issues through regulation. I thought it was going to be in the “Bayly Bill”, but it’s not; it’s going to be via regulation. And what’s more, it’ll be a much more efficient and cost-effective way. He is actually doing this to save businesses who had ahead of them, if this Act wasn’t repealed, quite a significant cost to upgrade their own systems to meet the requirements of that Act, and also $2 million to $3 million at least of cost to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to develop and put in place a computer system to actually deal with it. So we’re about making things easier for business—small business, in particular. This repeal bill is the start of that and I commend it, with great pride, to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): One of the lasting images of this debate for me is the image of Minister Andrew Bayly sitting down to dinner with a bunch of small-business owners a couple of weeks ago. I would love to have been a fly on the wall and heard the dinner-table conversation, which I think would have gone something like this: “Here, have some more dessert, because I’m just about to completely shaft you by repealing the law that gives you a break and prevents and discourages big business from late paying and having interest-free loans at your expense.” I’d really love to have heard that, and I hope that Andrew Bayly paid for that dinner, because he’s really making small businesses pay with this legislation.

The Minister claimed in his third reading speech—and, actually, throughout the bill’s progress through the House—that we all agree: we all agree on the problem, we all agree that something should be done about it; it’s just that we have a different way of going about it. But he’s asking for a very big leap of faith. He’s repealing a mechanism that was put in place that requires transparency and public disclosure from large firms in order to make it clear and transparent to the public and to small businesses their record on payment times. He’s true in that I think we all agree, at least in principle, on the problem definition, but the trouble is that this Minister and this Government are pretending to be concerned about this. They are gaslighting the New Zealand public and the small-business sector: half a million small and medium sized enterprises around this country, who employ vast numbers of New Zealanders and generate a very large share of this country’s wealth.

The Minister has itemised for us what he is intending to do about this problem in lieu of having this legislation on the books. He’s going to be having Cabinet require that Government agencies must pay their bills within 10 working days—OK. He’s going to be consulting with Crown entities about them doing the same thing.

He’s going to encourage e-invoicing, something that—I don’t know—a dozen times in this debate, members of this House have pointed out is already happening. E-invoicing is not a new thing, it’s not an innovation, and it actually doesn’t address the problem that the legislation that’s being repealed today was designed to fix. It’s a red herring. It’s a distraction. It’s irrelevant to this debate, which is about: how do we fix the problem of large companies taking advantage, abusing their market position, not paying on time, and getting free money at the expense of small businesses?

The Minister has offered up a voluntary code of conduct. Why would he think that large companies with a significant financial benefit from not paying their bills on time would voluntarily change their practice when there’s no transparency? There’s no public disclosure. Well, why would they change? Because it feels good? Because the Government is asking them to, through having a voluntary code of conduct? It’s completely implausible. It lacks credibility.

Then, the fifth thing that the Minister offered up was making small-business owners aware of the redress that they have under the Fair Trading Act and other legislation. Well, the case has been made very persuasively through this debate that that is not a real solution—that is, the remedies are not clear, they’re not accessible, it takes time, and it takes money. It’s simply not a realistic option for small businesses.

So this agenda—so-called agenda—has been cobbled together by the Minister as a kind of fig leaf for what he is doing here, which is repealing a mechanism that was put in place. It may not be perfect, but at least it offered a genuine prospect of changing the behaviour of large companies, who are the culprits here. We know that they are rorting the system and ripping off small businesses by not paying on time. The Minister is repealing that, he’s getting rid of it, and he’s not putting anything credible in its place.

We’ve had to listen to hours of infantile rhetoric from the Government benches about red tape as if all regulation was somehow bad, when the law that is being repealed here would have imposed an obligation for public disclosure on New Zealand’s largest companies, and, no doubt, there would have been some cost associated with that. But it offered the benefit for small businesses that they would be able to know who of their suppliers had a decent record of paying their bills on time. So, as Julie Anne Genter rightly pointed out, the Government is simply shifting the burden and shifting the cost from big business to small business. This is the party that styles itself as the party of small business and as the great champions of free enterprise. National’s lack of interest in actually doing anything that would create a more competitive market gives the lie to their claim to be the party of small business.

One of the things that actually distinguishes or characterises the New Zealand economy is its tendency towards the concentration of market power. We’re a small economy, and, in almost every industry in every sector, there is a tendency for the concentration of market power in two, three, or four different companies, and you see it everywhere you look. One of the achievements of the last Labour Government was its giving teeth to the Commerce Commission to allow it to do market studies where it could, basically, require companies to open their books. It gave to the Commerce Commission the legal power to do in-depth studies to get the facts, and then to set out what a pro-competition reform agenda would look like. We’ve seen that in the building supplies industry, we’ve seen it in the fuel industry, and we’ve seen it in relation to the supermarket duopoly, and those reports, indeed, laid out a pro-competition reform agenda that our Government went some way towards implementing. But what we’ve seen today from the Government, with the repeal of this legislation, doesn’t give me any optimism that the Government has the political will to actually make changes and make reforms to make our economy more competitive.

There are two reasons why you would want to have the kind of legislation that’s being repealed today. One of them is just basic fairness. Half a million New Zealand small businesses experience insecurity and precariousness because they are completely dependent on their customers paying their bills on time to ensure that they have decent cash flow. We know how hard small businesses work; the risks they take, often investing the family the home, to get businesses started; and the long days and long nights trying to get businesses off the ground. They work incredibly hard, and they deserve a Government that will go in to bat for them. It’s a basic question of fairness.

The second reason is what’s good for the whole economy and what’s good for this country. We need good competition policy. We need competitive markets that make our firms more successful, tougher, more innovative, and more fleet of foot, but we also need competitive markets that allow small firms to grow into medium-sized firms and into large firms. The larger firms generally have higher levels of productivity. They’re able to invest more in technology and they’re able to specialise, and if we don’t make it easier for that upward mobility of small firms, then we are dragging down the New Zealand economy and making it less productive, and making us less wealthy as a country. This seems to have completely escaped this Government.

This issue, I would have thought, was an opportunity for the current Government to demonstrate its commitment to small business and to competitive markets and productivity. Instead, they have sided with big firms with vested interests against the interests of hard-working small-business owners. At the very least, they would have had the courage to send this bill to select committee and invite small-business owners to come along and have a say and express their view on this issue. But, instead, we get a mixture of reckons and political ideology.

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): Well, I’d just like to support the third reading of this bill, and I’d like to just pick up on a word that a member on the other side of the House used—optimism—because optimism is what we are going to be pumping back into our economy and into small business, because we believe in less regulation, less red tape, and less compliance. I think, in this debate today, we’ve all noted that we all want businesses to pay on time, but we don’t achieve it through more regulation and more red tape. There’s no point creating rules for the sake of creating rules. It’s about making it easier for business to do business so we can create more jobs and opportunity and get this economy back on track. So I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): This is a split call. Five minutes—Reuben Davidson.

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to start with a couple of statements. The first is that this Act addresses a real problem, and the second is a little bit longer. When large organisations take a long time to pay their bills, small businesses with limited working capital are the ones who suffer. Sometimes it is because large players unfairly use their market power. And I’m expecting a breeze to drift across the House from all the nodding heads from the other side, because those words come from the Minister’s own document and paper with the rationale and the reasons for what this bill, now being repealed, addresses.

Now, I think it’s also good for us to get a little bit of context here, because we had two debates about this earlier today, and we’ve all gone out and had some lunch and left the House and had some question time, and it would be good to bring the focus back to who this bill serves, and that’s small businesses. Small businesses are about real people. I’m going to share, as I did earlier, some notes from a local business in my electorate of Christchurch East, because what we don’t want to do is lose sight of the people who are affected by repeals like this. So the first passage I’m going to share is from Sachiko from Kai Connoisseurs, and she says, “Running a business is hard. Being an employer is hard. Paying for kai, staff, rent, and the rest is hard; and spending my time asking to be paid, over and over for mahi we’ve already done well that’s hard.” Her Facebook post is a letter to organisations and corporates using small, local business to provide services that support your kaupapa then forget to support them back. The message is really simple: “Please prioritise paying your bills.” And it’s signed by “A tired, hard working solo Māmā, business owner, employer and hoha human who’s had about enough of asking politely for what we are owed.” And this a polite debate about what we all owe to small business.

Now, I think it’s also worth making a distinction here, because the dynamic in a business relationship is a different power dynamic to the one in a political relationship. In a political relationship, sometimes the smaller parties in the relationship can have a lot of sway over the terms of the negotiation and over the things that are included in the transaction. Sometimes, the smaller parties can have unreasonable bottom lines that the larger party bows to. That doesn’t happen in business. Small business can’t make claims for all sorts of strange, unusual, unexplainable, unreasonable demands and have them included into the business arrangement or a business relationship. That is a power dynamic that I would suggest is exclusive to recent politics.

So what I thought I would also do is close with some language that members on the other side will probably find very familiar. So I’ll speak to you in your language. What I’m saying really clearly is—I think that’s a phrase you’re quite accustomed to—we need to aerate the issues; we need to zoom out. This repeal does what I’m doing to you to small business—it condescends. This is a condescending repeal. I hear the Minister’s priorities—seven of them—to support small business. My challenge is: do eight. Walk and chew gum. It can be done. Small businesses do all they can. The least they deserve is for us to do the same for them. I cannot commend repealing this bill.

NANCY LU (National): I’d like to address the member on the Opposition Reuben Davidson that we speak one language in this country, which is for the betterment of New Zealand. So if I can bring everyone in this House back to the intention of this bill, which is to improve payment times, ramping up the use of e-invoicing; incentivising small and medium enterprises to adopt e-invoicing; expanding payment targets to Crown entities—all of these will contribute to business efficiency. So faster payment between and across businesses in New Zealand is the intention that we have for this bill, and with great intention, it comes with great delivery, and the speed of delivery for this National-led Government. So with this, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Now, I understand this is a split call between two Labour members. Ingrid Leary—five minutes.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you. I’d like to start my contribution by just acknowledging the small businesses that are out there, the 97 percent of businesses in New Zealand operated mainly by families, by small groups of people who are doing the hard yards for our economy—and many of them come from migrant families—I really want to acknowledge them. I also want to acknowledge those in my electorate, people like the hot yoga studio run by the fabulous Donna. People like Abdal’s Gourmet Foods, an amazing small business that is growing and was started by a former Syrian refugee who is really making a difference in our community, both in terms of the business he provides but also just the rich and interesting new palate that he is bringing to the electorate. And many of those small businesses, of course, took the wage subsidy which helped keep them afloat, because, as I’ve maintained through this debate, cash and cash flow is king for small business. I know that as a small-business owner; I know what it was like to have sleepless nights thinking how am I going to pay people when some of my suppliers were late in their payments, and that’s what this is all about.

But, having listened to the debate, I cannot help but think that the Act, the current system is being repealed as a vanity project by the new Minister. The reason for that is there is no need for the repeal and there has been no use of process and, by the looks of it, not much process going forward. So although the Minister was generous in the committee of the whole House stage with his contributions, my sense is that he is a Minister who’s very hands on, he thinks he knows better than the officials, he thinks he knows better than the public consultation. He’s got some good ideas, it’s great that he realises that e-invoicing is around—something that has been around for 20 years. But there’s been very little process, and unsatisfactory answers to the questions that we put to him in the committee stage about that.

The Minister could have just left the current system intact. He has tried to say that there’s no point in doing that because the Australians don’t like their system. But the very report that he quoted from, he cherry-picked out the things that he wanted to say and left out the most important point, which is that the report recommended that Australia maintain its payment practice system and hinge it more firmly around reputational risk. And it had a number of ways that it said that could be done. That was through making the register more accessible for small-business owners, streamlining the data, and improving the power of the regulator, which I would be surprised if the Minister, knowing how he loves competition law, would have had an issue with.

Instead, though, what we have is this repeal bill that has a really patronising general policy statement that assumes that small-business owners do not know how to access data, that they do not know how to interpret the data, and that even if they did, “Oh well, they’re not going to have much choice anyway because they’re only small-business owners. They don’t really have a way to strategise, to choose their own suppliers in the market.” Now, I do not know where that general policy statement came from. We asked questions in the committee stage about the underlying assumptions and the advice from officials. There was no regard to that and certainly it hasn’t come from any select committee process, because I would remind this House that, once again, we are doing this under urgency.

So that takes me to my second point: just the lack of process around this; the use of urgency, the lack of a select committee process, and then what appears to be quite a lack of process going forward, if I’m hearing the Minister correctly, because he’s talking about a voluntary code that has suddenly come out of the middle of nowhere, suddenly big business wants to introduce this, even though bad payment practices have been going on for decades. He wants us to believe that this code is going to work for small business. Well, where is the process? I asked these questions in the committee stage. I asked where the consultation would be. I asked what the sanctions would be and how this would be linked to reputational risk, because, as was pointed out by one of the previous speakers, if there’s no link to reputational risk then the system simply won’t work. He did not answer any of those questions. Instead, he insisted on talking about his e-invoicing and the fact that the Fair Trading Act could be used. Now, he also said that it would be difficult for small business to access information under the current system that the Labour Government introduced. Well, he can’t have it both ways; either we know how to use data, or we don’t. This is a terrible repeal bill and I do not commend it.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Mr Speaker, thank you very much, and I acknowledge my colleague who’s provided me with some time. Like every member of Parliament here, we represent an economy based on half a million small businesses. This is an important piece of legislation and I’ve been asking myself: why are we doing this? Because last year, once again, since 2003, the World Bank has been conducting a survey across 190 economies: which country is the easiest to do business in? New Zealand. Consistent. I have been proud to say that around the world, as I’ve promoted our country to exporters, to importers, to investors. We are the easiest country in the world in which to do business, and that is something we should be proud of. After the Labour Government—last year, this judgment, and once again.

So all the rhetoric, all the ranting we hear over there about the Labour Government imposing costs and difficulties on small businesses, it’s simply not true. We are the easiest country in the world. The reality is there are greater expectations, in part because of lawyers, because of international trade, because of food safety, because of a whole lot of other expectations from discerning customers around the world. There are more requests.

This is the easiest country in the world in which to run a business. But over that side of the House, you’ve got some naive people—very, very naive. They, on the one hand, say, “Oh, the market will determine how things roll through.” Well, listen to market signals. Well, the reality is that an emerging and evolving market ends up with some dominant players. It might be in road contracting, it could be in dairy industry or meat industry, it could be in areas of health, it could be in banking. In fact, you know, four big players. There have been many people who’ve come to the House. If they’d had the chance to come to the select committee and say, “It’s pretty unfair. We’re a small business and we get beaten up by the big business”—because that’s human nature and that’s normal commercial evolution.

If you’re a small business, you want to be a big business and you do your best. In fact, there’s a good member over the other side of the House—he’s a new member: David MacLeod—who was part of an organisation that actually moved forward in exactly the normal way of commercial evolution. If you’re big, you exert your dominance. Fonterra said, “We’re going to pay 90 days, not 30 days. We’re going to pay in 90 days.” Outrageous—outrageous. Why did they do it? Because they could. To be fair to him—and I think he is a good member and I know he looks very uncomfortable with the passage of some of the Government’s legislation and changes, so I know he’s a good member. I’m not sure whether he’s on the board—I think he was. Fonterra did a U-turn. They realised that in spite of their ability to pay in 90 days, they said there was backlash, there was outrage, and, in fact, they changed it—and good on them and I acknowledge that.

But there are other big, dominant players across this economy that won’t do a U-turn, because they don’t have to. Fonterra’s a cooperative and they had many farmer members who had friends who were small-business people and they said, “This is unfair. You pay the farmers on the 20th of the month, but you don’t pay us until the 20th of the third month.” So we brought in legislation to ensure that small businesses had a fair go, and this coalition Government—ACT, National, and New Zealand First—is removing the protection for half a million small businesses across this country. Not all of them will be affected because they may have a good relationship with a supplier or customer or whatever, but there will be some who will be unfairly affected.

We are in this Parliament to protect those who can’t stand up for themselves. The Minister says, “Oh, you know, you can go for the fair trade Act. There’s other pieces of legislation.” A small business at a time of global inflation, when the economy’s being squeezed by the Reserve Bank, doesn’t have the spare cash to get the data and to go to court.

So this is a ridiculous piece of legislation being passed through urgency that will undermine the rights of half a million small businesses across our economy. It is outrageous, and how any one of those members over there can stand up and say that they are here for enterprise, when, under a Labour Government, this economy was the best for doing business across the globe—across the globe; across the globe—by the World Bank standings. This will reverse that position.

DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth): Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I thank the member the Hon Damien O’Connor for bringing up a part of my career, as a director of Fonterra. Indeed, he is correct that that organisation did bring in what I consider were some very challenging times for suppliers to that entity. You know, I may enlighten people—without trying to sort of explain my whole CV—I was one of the contractors myself, with an electrical contracting business, that was in that spot. I, as a director of Fonterra, was part of the drive to get the change that we saw to correct that behaviour, which stopped the hurt of so many different entities that were serving that very, very big company which is called Fonterra. My point being that there are many businesses that are hurt by the fact that their working capital is stressed, by the fact that other entities use them as banks.

I’d like to say that there are—was it 3,500 entities that were identified as part of this particular Act that’s being repealed, the Business Payment Practices Act? But it’s actually more than those 3,500 entities as well, there are other businesses that actually cause a huge amount of stress on other companies as well. So this wasn’t the silver bullet to solve the whole problem. But the fact is that the problem is agreed upon. Every member of the House—I haven’t heard anybody talk cross-purposes of what the issue is; we agree with what the issue is. Dare I say it, we’ve just got a different method of actually delivering a solution for this, on this side of the House. So, with that, I commend the bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

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

First Reading

Debate resumed from 27 February.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the call. We will be opposing this bill under urgency. This is a bill that seeks to, essentially, repeal a scheme that is targeted to a part of the country that is in need of transportation as an area of focus. This is a regional fuel tax (RFT) that has a purpose: it has provision for the funding of roads, it has a provision for the funding of buses, it has the provision for the funding of the very things that communities of interest all around Aotearoa New Zealand expect. That should not be the reason as to why Auckland, as our biggest city, should be penalised for that.

Many of the vital transport projects that are listed as beneficiaries of this scheme will now be at risk. This is an example of the coalition Government that is seeking to do nothing but force Auckland into a corner. This will result in cuts to critical transport projects that will make a huge difference. What it will mean for that community is that they will have to turn their mind to either not proceed with many of these transport projects or to look at alternative funding mechanisms such as an increase to rates. When Auckland is faced with increases to rates alongside water issues and the like, it is far from ideal.

This is an example of a Government that clearly has no eye towards the future. This is an example of a Government that has no new ideas, and the only aspect of new funding that is coming Auckland’s way is a 22c increase to the fuel excise duty and a 50 buck increase in the form of a drivers tax that will be placed on registrations when folks go to register their licence for their vehicle.

What’s really interesting is that this is a bill, a proposal, that had no regulatory impact statement. What we hear from the coalition Government is that anything that’s subject to their 100-day plan is not subject to a regulatory impact statement, and that’s very, very unfortunate indeed. But what there is, in front of this House, is a departmental disclosure statement. For the benefit of those who are tuning in at home, what that is, is it, effectively, is an independent assessment or analysis in the absence of a regulatory impact statement, that focuses on many things. One, it is very important because one of the things that it touches on are the potential costs and potential risks of this proposed change. When we have a look at it, we see that it was prepared towards the end of January 2024. So Minister Simeon Brown knew about all of this stuff at that time, and he’s been sitting on it for a wee while. But it’s also been prepared by the independent Ministry of Transport.

When we have a look at this particular disclosure statement, what it identifies there is that removing the RFT will result in modest savings for households and businesses in Auckland, and that that figure comes out to around $1.85 for each motorist that’s going to use it—$1.85. When this is a Government that is focusing on measures to apparently address cost of living pressures—$1.85. I can tell members opposite, I had a look at what you could get for $1.85 in Auckland—

Hon Member: You tell us.

TANGI UTIKERE: —and I’ll tell the House. What they could get is a 227g of Dole crushed pineapple. That is what this tax is about. Actually, well, the repeal of this tax is going to provide cost of living support in the form of a 225g—that’s a small can. And people like pineapple, but we are talking about a small amount there. If this is a Government that is serious about addressing cost of living pressures, this is not the way to go for Auckland.

So this is from the independent departmental disclosure statement that identifies that—it also says that “Removing the RFT is unlikely to have a substantive impact on households and this change would need to be made alongside other interventions in order to reduce [that pressure].”

Shanan Halbert: What’s the point?

TANGI UTIKERE: My colleague Shanan Halbert says, “What is the point?” Well, that is a very good question because we are still waiting for the answer. This is a stupid piece of legislation, which is becoming, actually, in the vein of this coalition Government—they like to do things that are stupid in nature. So we will look through these individual projects as we progress through the committee of the whole House stage and others, but, on this side of the House, we are not prepared to support something that will bring no cost relief to the people of Auckland.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party will not be supporting this bill, the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. I think it is worth considering what our options are to raise revenue to pay for infrastructure. While it will be great to have perfect time-of-use pricing for every user, that’s not the situation we’re in now, and fuel tax has been a very low-cost, relatively administratively easy way to raise revenue. And it’s a good proxy because generally the people using the roads are generating the need for the infrastructure.

One of the things this coalition Government doesn’t seem to understand—and it’s a real shame, because I feel like they’re almost there; they could almost understand this—is that you don’t need to use something directly to benefit from it. Road users are the greatest beneficiaries of projects that move more people with fewer cars, especially in an urban area like Auckland. We know this because back in early 2000s, the National Party in Opposition opposed, with many other doubters, the Northern Busway. They said it would be a white elephant. Now, that Northern Busway was funded from State highway funding. It was the State highway agency—at the time Transit New Zealand, the predecessor to the New Zealand Transport Agency—who saw the opportunity. They said, “We can acquire a corridor, and we can either use it for one lane of traffic or we can use it for a busway.” And by using it for a busway, they spent a mere $200 million—incredibly effective investment—and now, $200 million, they were able to build the Northern Busway, which now carries as many people as all the lanes of traffic on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

So let’s compare $200 million to the cost of the next additional Waitematā Harbour crossing, which is going to be somewhere between $20 billion and $50 billion. OK, I know numbers aren’t their strong suit, but let’s picture this. So I know 200 sounds bigger than 20, but, in fact, 200 million is a much, much smaller number than 20 billion, because 20 billion is 20 thousand million, OK? So with the Northern Busway, we had an incredibly effective investment that not only benefited all the people of Auckland because it enabled twice as many people now to travel around at peak time without having to build another bridge or a tunnel, and without all the additional costs that are needed when you build a road.

Obviously, the people using the road have to pay for the car and there has to be the land for parking their cars somewhere, and they’ve got to run the car. So there’s all these costs that they’re missing, and that’s why this shouldn’t be a political football. People on the right-wing end of the political spectrum should not be opposed to sensible, economically efficient investments in transport that benefit everyone. Mr Speaker, you don’t need to take the bus to benefit from more people being able to take the bus or the train. And, Mr Speaker, you don’t need—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Don’t bring the Speaker into this.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: You personally—I mean, oh, OK. Well, you and anyone else—you in the general sense—don’t need to ride a bike to benefit from infrastructure that means more people make short urban trips by bike instead of a car because the bike takes less room than the car—significantly less room; less parking; and, guess what, bikes don’t cause potholes. So the more people who use bikes for short urban trips, the better off the people who are driving the cars, the better the quality of the roads, the less the congestion, the lower the transport costs.

So, unfortunately, we have a Government that is mostly innumerate, incapable of accurately forecasting the costs of the projects they campaigned on, extremely, extremely irresponsible in Opposition, and just opposed things for the sake of it, like the regional fuel tax. The money that is needed to build the infrastructure that is needed in Auckland has to come from somewhere. So instead of it being spread in a very efficient way at a very low cost over a large number of people who are driving around Auckland to get that infrastructure, the infrastructure—

Hon Member: How did your bike bridge go?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: That was not my project, by the way. The infrastructure will now have to be funded by rates rises or won’t happen at all. And everybody in Auckland loses because those projects won’t be funded. That’s been signalled by the mayor. And, by the way, the coalition Government is happy to fund the Eastern Busway from the regional fuel tax revenue, so they do kind of understand that road users should contribute to public transport.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As we heard in question time from one of the honourable Ministers, the blip of the last six years is over. This regressive tax, which goes on everybody who fuels up their car no matter how they transport themselves around, is going. What the regional fuel tax did not do was improve the efficiencies of the road. There was no accounting for time shifting or trying to make your workday fit around the use of the road, so it wasn’t improving congestion, which is one of the bigger problems that the Auckland City motorists face.

As I say, this was a regressive tax and it ended up with an unspent $341 million. As the previous speaker, Julie Anne Genter, has mentioned, one of those projects which will be saved is the Eastern Busway, but the $341 million will also go on electric trains and stabling and road corridor improvements. So this money is being ring-fenced for these projects and is not to be spent on frivolous activities that end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars more than can be justified, such as speed bumps. There are better ways of funding roads, and we as a coalition Government are looking at tolling and electronic road-use charging along with city and regional infrastructure deals and time-of-use charging. This money, which will be paid by road users, will be spent on roads and, as I mentioned, those three projects are going to be finished.

I will also just say that the rest of New Zealand will be able to sleep easy, knowing that a regional fuel tax will not be coming to them thanks to this repeal bill. Thank you.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): This legislation should come as absolutely no surprise to anybody because our National Party colleagues and partners campaigned explicitly on it, and we have joined in a coalition agreement with them to deliver this, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are keeping the promises that we collectively have made.

Look, let’s also be clear: this legislation was always finite. It was set up. It had four years to go. We’re just bringing that date forward a little bit. I think this is a very sensible cost of living approach for the good people of Auckland.

We’ve already heard from my colleague Cameron Luxton that the tax is regressive and certainly effects people who have to move around Auckland, particularly those people living in the outskirts of Auckland, who will more likely be those who are less well off. So it’s going to benefit them.

Let’s also look at some numbers here: $780 million has been raised to date, $341 million of that is still left in the kitty at the moment. So even if you didn’t raise a cent from now until the 10 years of this scheme coming to its conclusion, in the last six years $73 million a year has been spent. But in the next four years, you would have to spend at $85 million a year to spend all that money—in other words, $12 million more than the Auckland authorities have managed to spend in the last six years.

Look, I’m sure that our friends in the Opposition would say that the tax should be kept going, but the reality is: if you look at what’s in here, and the purposes for which the tax was intended, you could just about put anything into it—just about put anything into it—and it makes it, effectively, almost just an extra slush fund, if you like—it’s a bit of a pejorative word, but a “slush fund”—for the Auckland authorities.

I also note that that $341 million—I can see why the Auckland Council is so enthusiastic about it. We had a question earlier today about the cost of borrowing. Well, the Auckland Council with $341 million in the bank is earning, say, 6 percent—they’re earning something like $20 million a year in money that they are getting from having that money in the bank. If I might say, the question which was asked about the cost of borrowing, for us as a nation, it is over 2 percent—so more than $2 in every hundred dollars is spent in debt servicing just for our debt that we’ve run up, and we’ve run up particularly under that Government.

I’ve also noted that Mayor Brown has said that removing the scheme would cost something like $1.2 billion in possible revenue. What he didn’t say is that $600 million of that, roughly speaking, will come from the fuel tax, and he assumed that the other $600 million would come from the National Land Transport Fund. Of course, that’s not free money; that means that is money which is not available to anyone else anywhere else in the country. Look, while we know that the good people of Auckland need investment, so does the rest of New Zealand. So it is not free money that was going to come from nowhere.

We’ve also heard from the Hon Julie Anne Genter just now about all the other wonderful projects that will benefit motorists. But I think one of the issues we’re having here—and I don’t think that motorists are buying into this—is that so much of the fuel tax dollar is now going on to non-roading projects. There is a balance—public transport benefits motorists—but there is also out of balance, and I think that under the last Government, we got out of balance. Too much of the money which was taken from motorists was spent on things which did not benefit the motorists. I think we lost that sense of balance, and I think we need to get that sense of balance back.

Just to finish off, it looks like almost anything could be fitted into the set of things that were under the scheme as it was originally set up. There were 14 different areas of spending which were enunciated here, and the three biggest projects there: one of them, the Eastern Busway, is under way; Penlink, I understand, has been reduced in its scale; and Mill Road was cancelled by that last Government, and it is this Government which is going to bring it back again as part of the roads of national significance. So, in actual fact, while they are decrying the removal of the scheme, they actually took one of the major flagship projects of the scheme and cancelled it, and that is very unfortunate.

I’m just going to finish off by saying that when I was in local government, I was never keen on these sort of blanket fuel taxes, but what I was keen on was congestion pricing which sends a clear message to people what they can avoid by changing behaviour, by changing the time that they travel. I think that that is appropriate. What we also know, on that side of the House and on this side of the House, is that road-user charges are coming and that is going to be the way of the future in terms of charging, rather than petrol taxes. I commend this bill to the House.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Ka tū au ki te kōrero ki tēnei take, ka kōrero ka tangi ki tēnei whakaaro nui e te Pīka e te katoa.

[I stand to address this issue, I speak and convey my sympathies towards this immense matter, Mr Speaker and the House.]

So let’s talk about our mokopuna in this bill; based on the fact that that’s certainly been my previous job to this job, I can speak with confidence but endurance about what this implication will be. So what message does this bill send to our mokopuna? Does it assure our tamariki that we, as the leaders of this country, are doing our best by them? Right now, the answer is a big, fat kāore—or a no—no, we cannot reassure them. The message that this Government sends to our mokopuna and to our tamariki is that their future in this country does not matter, and that a short-term profit or the short-term pacification of a small demographic will be prioritised over mokopuna. Business as usual, it seems.

So why can I say that the future of our mokopuna is not currently being prioritised? Well, this Government has prioritised their 100-day plan over whānau, over mokopuna, over people. This Government has failed to carefully plan and to consider the applications of the promises that they have set to the public. This ultimately fails mokopuna. Whether the other side of the House actually knows that and can comprehend what this actually means, in either language—I’m happy to share, when I’ve got patience for it.

This work that has been done to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and to reduce the pressure of living cost crisis is undone with this very repeal. This Government has ridiculed the projects aimed to improve cycle lanes—why do I know? Because I hear them scoffing every few minutes—railway infrastructure, and further improvements to public transport. These projects moved towards transitioning Tāmaki—that’s Auckland—from an unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels and instead towards sustainable transport options, which in turn decongest roads, support the longevity of our already existing transport infrastructure, and relieve the pressure we as consumers place on our environment.

All right, let me see where I’m going: not only this, we need to also ensure that our people can get from one destination to another safely. Safety upgrades, including the installation of speed bumps, red-light cameras, and lower speed limits in Tāmaki—that’s Auckland—all funded by the regional fuel tax, were done in an effort, in fact, surely, done as response to the 50 lives that Auckland roads take each year. That’s 50 lives; that’s 50 whānau who don’t have their loved ones returning home. This Government has labelled these safety projects as wasteful spending. Is it wasteful to invest into the oranga of our people?

Speaking to the oranga of our people, how can the Government claim that this bill will aid our people during living cost crisis when the funding for infrastructure that is currently sourced from the regional fuel tax will only be sourced elsewhere? It is now the responsibility of ratepayers and all of those who pay road-user charges to cover the revenue lost to this bill.

To conclude, as mentioned by the Minister Simeon Brown himself during the first reading of this bill, 57.8 percent of voters in Auckland voted for the current coalition Government, later in this reading stating, “I don’t think that was what Aucklanders thought they were signing up for when the Auckland regional fuel tax was put in place.” In response to this, I say: I don’t think that was what the 57.8 percent of voters in Auckland were signing up for when the Government’s current coalition was put in place. Tēnā tātou katoa.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): At the last election, we campaigned on reducing the cost of living for Aucklanders, and one of the ways to do it was to remove this regional fuel tax. Guess what! They listened to us, they voted for us, and a number of the people on the other side of the House lost their seats. There’s your message. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): As this bill goes through its first reading, and before we’ve heard what might have been submissions from people who live in Auckland, we need to consider why we had the regional fuel tax in the first place.

As someone on the other side pointed out, it could apply to any council in New Zealand who applied for the capacity to charge a regional fuel tax. So what the regional fuel tax did was set up a mechanism whereby Auckland, in this instance, and other councils could apply to charge a regional fuel tax, and that money was to be used for projects in that region.

Now, as it turned out, Auckland was the only regional authority that was able to take advantage of this mechanism, but other city councils were interested in it too. And why were they interested? Because the cost of congestion, the cost of getting us around our cities and towns, the cost of our transport network is increasing in many ways.

Now, talk to any Aucklander and they’ll be able to tell you and other people in this House what the traffic in Auckland is like. It’s particularly appalling at the moment in the midst of March madness, but the congestion on the roads is intense. We have many, many people living and working in Auckland and they end up spending hours in traffic. The reason why that happens is because there aren’t other alternatives, it’s because we do not have the critical roads we need, and the regional fuel tax was put in place in order to enable Auckland Transport to get under way with getting some of those critical projects built.

So what is the problem with removing it? Well, the problem with removing it is not just that it removes the funding that Auckland Transport could have used but it removes the capacity to borrow more money, because it changes the council’s debt ceilings. Now, I’ve heard members on the other side complain that there’s some money left in the kitty at the moment. That’s left there precisely because these big projects take time to deliver and payments get delivered as various stages in a contract are reached. It’s quite straightforward. It’s not that no one wanted to spend the money. The money was allocated but it was sitting there, waiting to be spent on the projects as set out in time.

Yet we have this critical need for transport funding in Auckland. We have the Mayor of Auckland saying that he wanted the regional fuel tax to continue, and yet on the other side they are removing the capacity for Auckland to have a regional fuel tax and justifying it on the grounds of the cost of living. But it’s going to save—at the most, it will save a household $2.70 a week. Well, that’s a big contribution to the cost of living! Where’s the substantial change that the other side was promising?

Not only that, but a few years down the track, they’re going to whack the fuel tax back up again by another 22c a litre, and, on top of this, something that just simply cannot be justified by reference to the cost of living, the other side is increasing vehicle registration fees, so another $50 a year—whack!—out of people’s back pockets.

So whatever the other side thinks might be saved by repealing the regional fuel tax, whatever they think it might save households, well, they’re giving it with one hand but taking it away with the other, and taking away not just the short-term monetary savings but the savings that would have been made by having better transport infrastructure in our biggest city.

Hon Simeon Brown: Speed bumps.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: And I hear the other side complaining about cycleways. Now, one of the projects that has been lost because this side has taken away the Auckland regional fuel tax is the Great North Road cycleway. See, what the other side fails to do is to recognise that every cyclist on the road is one less car on the road. That is a person who has chosen transport which imposes less costs on other people. So taking this decision in isolation, taking away the Auckland regional fuel tax, pretending it’s a cost of living measure, it is bereft of sense.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It gives me great pride to stand in support of the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill in the name of the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown. This bill legislates that the remaining unspent revenue from the Auckland regional fuel tax is ring-fenced to fund the Eastern Busway, electric trains, stabilising for the City Rail Link, and road-corridor improvements. Introducing legislation to remove this regional fuel tax was part of our 100-day action plan, and, unlike Governments previous, this is actually a Government of delivery. We’re delivering on what we campaigned on, and I’m pleased to commend this bill to the House.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Government speaker after Government speaker has stood up from Wellington and from the regions and told Aucklanders on this side of the House that we should be grateful for cuts to our public transport and our roading budget; that Aucklanders should be so grateful that Wellington is telling them that they are having cuts to the long-term kind of investment that we need to be the city of the future that we can be.

Because I love Auckland and I hear the Hamiltonian member, Tom Rutherford, who has resumed his seat asking me whether Auckland is the city of the future. He was the closest they could get to standing a speaker near to Auckland. So I have listened to his contribution.

Tom Rutherford: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Point of order, Tom Rutherford.

Tom Rutherford: That’s a misrepresentation. I’m not from Hamilton.

Hon Simeon Brown: Speaking to the point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Point of order, the Hon Simeon Brown.

Hon Simeon Brown: Well, speaking to the point of order, I actually gave the first speech on this bill and I am an Aucklander.

Hon James Shaw: Speaking to the point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The Hon James Shaw.

Hon James Shaw: Yeah, the Rt Hon Gerry Brownlee the other day requested that when giving points of order, that we refer to which clause—which specific Standing Order—the interjection related to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I haven’t called “Point of order”, so we’ll just leave it there. Thank you, Arena Williams.

ARENA WILLIAMS: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Those debating points were well made. They were points about how Auckland is represented in this debate, making points over and over again about how Auckland needs this investment; how Auckland—to be the best city that it can be, to be the kind of city that we want to live in as Aucklanders, that we want for our kids who are growing up in Auckland to be—we need long-term investment. This cannot be treated as something of a political football. We need to grow up and resource our biggest city to be a city that is somewhere where everyone wants to live.

Because Auckland is awesome. There are some parts of Auckland that I’m so incredibly proud of. South Auckland is a creative place. Some people see it as “the hood”, but that’s where all of the good creative juices come from. The worst thing about living in South Auckland is the amount of time that it takes us to get around. That is time between getting up in the morning and going to work where we are not with our kids and our families; that is time in the evening when we are tired and coming home from our jobs that we could otherwise be spending in our homes with the people we love.

Transport and its investment isn’t something that’s esoteric; it’s not something that is high-minded and difficult to understand. These transport investments being cut mean that more Aucklanders will spend longer in their cars. It means that kids will have to wait another half an hour before dinner with their mum or dad. It means that the kind of quality of life we enjoy as Aucklanders will be diminished. And for what? For $1.80 a week in savings for most Auckland households. That’s the advice that was prepared in the departmental disclosure statement: that this, that has been done in the name of cost of living relief for Aucklanders, will have such a minute effect compared to the long-term investment that our city needs in order for us to live better lives.

In fact, it’s not even that: that we’re also being faced with a 22c increase on fuel, straightforwardly, almost in a very quick amount of time, and $50 increases on vehicle registrations. Those things combined mean that, essentially, this is giving with one hand and taking away with the other. You’d see the regional fuel tax saving Aucklanders perhaps $600 million in revenue that would otherwise go to these specific transport projects, but the $50 increase would then net the Government another $660 million—almost conveniently, the same amount of money—that will then be going into a general pot for general transport projects.

This is a real disappointment for the people of Auckland, who needed a ring-fence around those projects. We’ve also heard from the other side of the House that the remaining funds in that pot of money will be spent on projects. Here’s where we get back to my point about Wellington telling Auckland that we should be grateful for this, because those are projects which have been ring-fenced not by Aucklanders, but they have been saved because of the choices of this Government. Those are not necessarily the priorities of Auckland; they do not necessarily reflect the greatest need in Auckland. They are things like the Eastern Busway, which benefit certain communities.

So I think it’s a disappointment that we are dealing with this bill in this way, that we won’t have time to really drill down into what it means. But I will be using the committee stage to speak specifically to those things which this bill seeks to change in South Auckland, in the region that I call home, and those projects which we need which will be gotten rid of because of these changes—changes which also allow for the prioritisation of Mill Road but also go alongside major cuts to the way that South Aucklanders get around and ultimately lead to South Aucklanders spending more time in their cars and not having transport choices to get out of their cars if they so wanted to. So I do not support this bill, and look forward to discussion at the committee stage.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure to rise as an Aucklander to support the repeal of the Auckland regional fuel tax today. During the election campaign, I door-knocked 80 percent of the streets in my community of Northcote—I actually door-knocked Camilla Belich’s home. And the number one issue that came up time and time again—and I suspect she might be the Labour candidate for Northcote at the next election—was the cost of living, and I’m really happy to support this because this bill addresses the cost of living of those in Northcote, it addresses the cost of living of those in Pakuranga, those in Takanini, those in Mount Roskill, those in Upper Harbour, and I really support this bill. I commend this bill to the House, and, since it is a brief call, I abide by the general principle: one who talks too much makes the most mistakes. So I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

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

Second Reading

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I move, That the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This is a great day for Aucklanders. We’re repealing the Auckland regional fuel tax, a tax which the last Government put in place, promising that this tax would transform Auckland, promising that Mill Road in Takanini would be built, and promising the major infrastructure and congestion issues, which I’ve heard members from across the House talking about—but what has this tax actually done?

I see my good colleague from Upper Harbour there. The big red zero is coming out—the big red zero which featured with the last Government; a big fat zero. Well, the reality is that it has helped pay for $500,000 speed bumps—slowing people down. They talk about congestion on the other side of this House. Well, what do $500,000 speed bumps, riddled across Auckland—what are they doing to congestion in Auckland? That’s what they are doing, and that’s what this money was being spent on. Red-light cameras—red-light cameras. That’s what the regional fuel tax money was being spent on.

What about speed management plans? Well, whenever you hear about a speed management plan, you actually know what a speed management actually means. It means slowing everyone down, and the last Government’s plans, of course, were to make us crawl around in our cars with people walking in front with red flags to tell us how fast we could go. That’s what the regional fuel tax revenue was being spent on.

So when the members on this side of the House say that Aucklanders voted for this, it’s true: Aucklanders voted in overwhelming numbers to repeal the Auckland regional fuel tax. They were doing it not only because it was a cost of living issue but they knew—they knew—that the money was going to waste. When they drive around the roads, they see the congestion and they feel the potholes, but they see $500,000 speed bumps being built, and Aucklanders are wondering “Why is there always enough money to build $500,000 speed bumps, but not enough asphalt to fill the potholes?” Well, it’s because the regional fuel tax was putting the money into the wrong areas. So the National Party, the ACT Party, and the New Zealand First Party are proud to be here, putting this bill through to repeal the Auckland regional fuel tax.

This bill does not just—as I outlined—stop the fuel tax but it is about priorities. It is about making sure that the revenues that are collected from people who use our roads are prioritised into what is important to them. So this bill will ring-fence the remaining money, because—I mean, lo and behold, over $340 million of money was unspent. So, for six years, Aucklanders have been taxed over $340 million—that is, over two years’ worth of the revenues collected from Aucklanders has not even been spent; it’s sitting in a bank account, collecting interest. So this bill will require that that remaining funding is put—

Tom Rutherford: That’s 680 speed bumps.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, it scares me, I say to the member for Bay of Plenty. It scares me to think about how many speed bumps that could build. My view is actually just to stop the speed bumps, which is what we’re doing through the Government policy statement, rather than continuing to spend money on something which isn’t a priority.

So this will stop the regional fuel tax. It will require the remaining funding to go towards our priority project, which is the City Rail Link, trains and stabling for the City Rail Link—and, by the way, the last Government talked big about public transport, but we started the City Rail Link and we will complete it—the Eastern Busway, which will ensure more transport choices for those in East Auckland, including the Reeves Road flyover; and there are some local roading improvement projects, which are important to Auckland.

Also, importantly for the rest of the country—and I heard members opposite saying, “Oh well, why is it that all of these people from outside of Auckland speaking on this bill?” Well, the reality is that we’re all elected as members of this House and we take a national interest to the issues facing this country. I put it to members opposite that by repealing this legislation, it means there will not be regional fuel taxes being able to be put in place in other regions around our country as well, which is of course good news for all New Zealanders. This bill is progressing through the House, and I commend it to the House.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m going to begin this contribution by putting to bed the ridiculous notion of $500,000 speed bumps. I think it’s important to do so because it’s indicative of the way that that Government over there has approached this whole issue. It seized on one or two issues and then, frankly, pursued a misleading approach to what is going on. Now, those $500,000 speed bumps, alleged, were a blaring headline in the New Zealand Herald—“$500,000 speed bumps”, they said, blaring up. The Minister of Transport over there seized upon that number and has repeated it with glee. But the New Zealand Herald had to retract that number. Radio New Zealand, who had repeated it, had to retract that number.

There was one speed bump—or one raised crossing, I think—that had to be rebuilt because it encountered serious stormwater problems, and that led to increased costs because of those serious stormwater problems; it incurred those costs. But the speed bumps, and the like, along Meola Road, and the like, cost around about $19,000—cost a much, much smaller amount than has been recited with glee by that side of the House. So the estimated cost of crossings is between $19,000 and $31,000. So I’m going to ask the Minister to treat this with a bit of integrity, to treat this with a bit of being straightforward, and to treat this going with what the real numbers are. So instead of reciting a headline that had to be withdrawn, to go to the actual real numbers in this case.

Let me go on to another issue. There has been no select committee process here, yet again—yet again, no select committee process. This Government has barrelled through bill after bill after bill after bill with no select committee process, in some kind of frenzied attempt to meet an artificially imposed deadline of 100 days, so that they can trotter around saying, “Oh, we’ve achieved a whole lot of ‘stop, repeal, replace’ in a hundred days.” Well, good on them! That does mean we haven’t had a select committee process for this bill.

So what I have chosen to do with the time I have available here is to actually get some evidence from what is happening in our largest city. So in the New Zealand Herald—what’s the date today?—well, yesterday, the day before yesterday, Monday: “Extra Buses for March Madness as Auckland’s worst choke points revealed”. It happens every year in Auckland. In March, the roads are just beyond congested—extraordinary choke points on the road. Now, it happens as the universities go back and the polytechnics go back and as schools go back, so, suddenly, there is just a whole lot more people on the roads.

The choke points are reasonably well known. We know it’s East Tāmaki to Greenlane in the morning. It’s Royal to St Lukes. We know it’s Greville Road to Esmonde Road on the Northern Motorway. We know it’s Manukau to Māngere northbound on State Highway 20. We know where the choke points are and we know what the problems are. We have some of the same issues, going home in the evenings. Any Aucklander who is trying to get through the city at sort of between 8 and 10 in the morning, or maybe 7 and 10 morning, and trying to get home between, say, 3 and 6 in the evening, we don’t have to tell you this. It’s northbound on the Southern Motorway from Princess Street to Greenlane. It’s State Highway 20 and State Highway 1 merging in the evening—that’s a really choked-up point. You know, we might as well call State Highway 20 “a parking lot” at that time of the day. And on it goes, just the known choke points.

Now, part of what we are trying to do in Auckland is to get people to change to public transport, to change to active modes of transport so that we have fewer cars on the road. What some of the regional fuel tax was going to do was to help with that, with providing those projects, which would enable people to access other modes of transport so that they didn’t have to be on the roads, in their cars. Gone, and the March madness will persist. So that’s one story coming from Auckland.

I thought this one was fascinating, coming from Devonport. So this was on Radio New Zealand, on 22 February. One of the local ward councillors on the Devonport Takapuna Local Board was really, really worried when she heard the news that the regional fuel tax was going to be removed. Why? It was because the Lake Road project has gone. Now, that’s the road that runs down into the peninsula, so from Takapuna down to Devonport, and it is hopelessly crowded.

Hon Member: Always blocked.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: It is always blocked. It makes life quite difficult for people living on that peninsula. You know, Devonport is a really beautiful suburb, and I can understand why people want to live there, but they cannot get in and they cannot get out. Why? It’s because Lake Road is choked up.

Now, one of the potential improvements that actually hasn’t just been put on hold but has been stopped was the improvements to Lake Road that were going to help with the congestion along there. So taking out the regional fuel tax has left people in Devonport stuck with their deeply congested road. Now, I know that people in Devonport, quite overwhelmingly, voted for that Government; I’m beginning to wonder if they regret their choices.

And here again, another piece of information, and this is in lieu of the submissions that we might have received, is from Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown. Now, Mr Brown can be fairly cantankerous at times, but he’s a pretty straight-dealing sort of man. It’s one of the interesting things about dealing with him: he might be grumpy, but, by goodness, you get a straight answer from him. You get some pretty straight language, and it makes him quite easy to deal with, because at least you know where he stands on stuff. He has warned, he says, that, actually, stopping the Auckland fuel tax is going to create huge problems for Auckland. He has been quite outspoken about how he actually wanted that regional fuel tax to continue. He has had to call for a stop on all sorts of transport projects because the regional fuel tax is no longer in place.

It’s not just Mr Brown; it’s other city councillors who have said that this is a real problem. The transport committee chair, John Watson, said that a number of significant projects have been left up in the air. Councillor Richard Hills said that the projects that were being funded through the regional fuel tax were needed. So, by removing the regional fuel tax, that Government has created real, ongoing problems for Auckland. The Auckland Mayor, who said, you know, “We needed that funding up in Auckland.”, has put a stop to projects that were needed. Well, thank you very much, you know, we’re one of the people who are stuck in that.

But I want to talk a little bit further, because some of the other submissions that might have come in—had there only been submissions—might have got to some of the information that was revealed in this disclosure statement. We’ve already traversed a little bit of the information that was there about the actual impact on people’s back pockets, which we know is going to be about $2.70 a week per household—big deal! But there are going to be a couple of problems. One is that, in theory, the price of fuel is going to drop by 10c a litre. Now, no matter that it varies by more than that across the city a lot, even on a single day, but driving from the Gull station in Titirangi down to the Mobil station in New Lynn can see a 10c increase in the price of petrol just because of the way that pricing operates. But one of the things about the way those prices fluctuate means it is going to be very hard to be sure that that 10c a litre is actually going to be passed on to consumers.

I haven’t heard a word yet from the other side of the House as to how they are going to ensure that the actual benefit of that cut is going to be passed on to the consumers, instead of just quietly absorbed by the fuel companies. So I’d like to hear about that, and I’ll be asking the Minister about it later on in the committee of the whole House stage of the bill.

But let me just read the last paragraph of the disclosure statement that was prepared by the Minister’s own officials—the last paragraph. It says: “Removing the Regional Fuel Tax is unlikely to have a substantive impact on households and this change would need to be made alongside other interventions in order to help reduce the cost of living on Aucklanders.” What are the other interventions that they put in place in this space? Well, they’re going to whack up the cost of registration by $50. An own goal, Minister; you are making the wrong decision.

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

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): As I said in my first contribution on this bill, I think that it’s really a shame that the current coalition Government took such an antagonistic approach to being in Opposition and developed such knee-jerk policies and didn’t really do the work to figure out how they would raise enough revenue to pay for the projects they’re promising.

While, on the one hand, it’s clear they did campaign on cancelling the regional fuel tax, what was never clear was how the additional revenue was going to be found to pay for the projects that need to be built. And, clearly, the regional fuel tax was a tool given to Auckland so that it didn’t have to entirely rely on rates to pay for transport infrastructure. And it’s a smart, low-administrative-cost way of raising revenue that, frankly, consumers don’t really notice, because of the competitive nature of the market of petrol stations in Auckland. Despite the regional fuel tax existing in Auckland, the cheapest petrol in the country can be found in Auckland regularly. So it’s not the case that this was imposing some big additional cost that consumers are going to notice when it’s gone. But what people are going to notice is that projects they were expecting to be built—like the Lake Road upgrade in Devonport and a whole lot of other ones—are no longer going to happen. And if they are going to make a contribution to transport infrastructure, it’s going to have to come from rates. And Wayne Brown, the mayor, has been very clear about this. Cutting the regional fuel tax at this time means either a rates rise or a cut in projects.

Now, the Minister of Transport has just released a Government policy statement on transport in which he has sort of claimed that the decisions made by this Government are going to lead to a more efficient and effective transport system and that they’re concerned with productivity and economic growth. But every action they’re taking is doing the exact opposite. I think, fundamentally, there’s a real confusion—specifically for the Minister, the Hon Simeon Brown—about why everyone drives everywhere in Auckland. He seems to think people are driving cars all over Auckland because they want to and are being stuck in traffic because they want to, and what he doesn’t realise is that decades of Government and local government decisions have made it impossible for them to get anywhere without a car. Actually, those Government decisions have forced huge costs on to households, because it’s very costly to own and run a car, and then lots of land is needed to park the car—everywhere you need to go. And, now, New Zealand has actually just surpassed the US for highest car-ownership rate in the world. That’s not a success story for New Zealand, because we import all of our cars and all of the fuel to run them. So all of our dairy exports do not cover the cost of the private vehicles that we import and the fuel that we need to use to run them. Those capital assets—they are barely used. The average private vehicle is sitting parked 96 percent of the day, taking up valuable urban land in our cities.

Now, when I say all of this, the Minister and the people opposite come back with “Julie Anne Genter just hates cars. She just hates roads. She just hates cars.” Guys, that’s not what I’m saying. Cars can be very practical, useful tools, but it’s not practical for every person in New Zealand to have to have their own car, which they use four hours a day or less and that they have to keep parked somewhere and they all try to use at the same time of day in the morning and the night in urban areas. That doesn’t work. Do you understand—Madam Speaker, not you, but do they understand? Why do they say this? Why do they say this when I say, “This is not the most cost-effective way to solve our country’s transport problems, and there are better ways that get better outcomes.”? Why do they say, “Why do you hate roads?” Why do they say that?

I think that must be projection, and on the part of the Minister, he actually does hate people who walk and ride bikes, because why else would he have such a policy that is trying to stop every safe, evidence-based pedestrian crossing in front of every school that might have been proposed? Why is he doing that? I mean, that’s shocking. Why is he saying that no money from the State highway activity class could ever be used for a multimodal transport—

Cameron Luxton: Point of order. This is my first time raising a point of order, and taking note of what the previous Speaker had said—that we must quote one—I would just say Standing Order 121: “Personal reflections. A member may not [impute improper motives] against a member”, and I feel like we just heard that. So, as much as I’m enjoying listening to the speaker, I would hope that she’d keep her comments to not reflections.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I will just get some advice on that. Yes, the member did refer to an opinion about the Minister’s point of view on something. It was borderline, but I don’t believe it did breach the Standing Orders.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: To be honest, I would never say that, except that people consistently say it about me when I say this is not the most cost-effective way to solve your problem. And so I said, “If they’re saying that about me, what does it say about their thoughts and their attitudes and beliefs?”, because there is not—

Todd Stephenson: You said the Minister hates people.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well, maybe it was projection, because, yeah—maybe it’s projection on their part.

But the point is that there is an opportunity that New Zealand has to get much better outcomes from transport spending, and if we took a logical, evidence-based approach, then we would be investing in things that move more people and goods at lower cost—and that is things like multimodal integrated transport projects, that is busways and public transport to new greenfields housing areas on the outskirts of Auckland, that is making it possible for people to get from one neighbourhood on one side of a State highway and the other side of the State highway walking and cycling, because some people live on one side of a State highway, and the school that their kids go to is on the other side. If they aren’t able to take an overbridge or have a walking and cycling path, then they have to get in their car and drive the kilometre or whatever to get there. And if they have to get in their car and drive at peak time, that’s adding more congestion to the network.

So the whole rationale of spending money on public transport and walking and cycling from the transport budget is because it benefits everyone. It benefits everyone, and that includes the people who are driving the cars on the road. For whatever reason that they have to do that, that’s fine, but the point is that they benefit more from the busway or from the pedestrian connection than they do from a few kilometres of extra lane of motorway, because that is very quickly filled up with more cars when people have no choice but to drive.

And, in some ways, the fact that the Minister recognises the value of public transport to road users is reflected in this bill, because, in this bill, the Government is stipulating that the remaining funds that exist from the Auckland regional fuel tax should go towards the Eastern Busway. It is a project that that Government, the National Party, campaigned on. I think it’s quite specifically beneficial to the Minister’s electorate. He’s brought up, over and over again, that his constituents will benefit from the Eastern Busway. And, in this case, he’s saying it’s OK to use revenue from the regional fuel tax—revenue from Aucklanders who’ve paid it from driving their cars—on a busway when it’s of significance to the party who campaigned on it.

So there’s no actual rule here that says road users shouldn’t pay for busways and bike lanes, because we know they benefit from it. It’s just that the Government will use whatever argument supports the things they want to do for the reasons they want to do it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be because it’s going to benefit all New Zealanders and all of Auckland, because people in some parts of Auckland are going to be seriously disadvantaged by this repeal of the regional fuel tax, because it means that there won’t be the money there to build the projects that they were relying on, whether they were public transport or walking and cycling or roading projects. The revenue won’t be there to pay for it, other than through rates. And we know local government needs more revenue tools, and congestion pricing and direct road-user charging is going to take years to get up. So, in the interim, there’s this gap, there’s this absence that has to be made up with other revenue. So that’s why the Green Party’s not supporting this.

But, as ever, what I would really love—and I will continue to do this; I’ve been doing this for 12½ years in this House, and I was doing it for three years before that—is to try to make the case that, actually, transport should not be a political football. It’s not a tribal battle between people who happen to use a bike some days and people who happen to use a car. The choices that people have to them, that they’re able to make about how to get around, are fundamentally shaped by decisions made in this House by the executive in their Government policy statement and by local government. But the executive significantly influences what local government can do. So let’s not pretend that we’re giving people choice simply by building more roads. I mean, that’s not what’s happening. Successive Governments have underfunded public transport. They’ve pushed development out to the fringes where there’s no other alternatives. In order to give people effective choices, we need to significantly invest much, much more in public transport, walking, and cycling. To mend the severance that’s been caused by urban motorways, we need to allow more density in our cities, and that, ironically, is the thing that’s going to deliver the most for the people who are trying to use private vehicles on the roads we currently have.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand here in support of this repeal bill for many reasons and just to name a couple: I feel like the good people of Tauranga are already living with two toll roads. Now, there’s three toll roads in New Zealand, two of which are paid for in Tauranga, and we are enjoying these very much. They’re a user-pays situation in which—

Tom Rutherford: “Toll-ranga”.

CAMERON LUXTON: Tauranga!

Tom Rutherford: “Toll-ranga”.

CAMERON LUXTON: Oh, well, Tauranga—I don’t actually know how to pronounce it the way you did there. Oh, “Toll-ranga”! Nice work, “Tom-ranga”.

So what we have got is a user-pays system which works. I would love to see more people being able to access the central city. A lot of people from the Matapihi, Pāpāmoa, Arataki area already cycle over to the Strand, and when that option’s available people can take it. But for the vast majority of New Zealanders who choose to live where they want to live—and that might be in a suburb for their kids, it might be close to a lifestyle opportunity like a beach—they need to be able to get to town. A regressive thing such as a regional fuel tax sets a precedent for the rest of the country that we do not want.

I stand here glad to be repealing Auckland’s fuel tax so that we don’t end up with one in the Bay of Plenty. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): My turn. I’m pleased again to support this bill. Look, I’m going to start off by responding to a couple of comments that were made by the Hon Julie Anne Genter. She said that transport shouldn’t be a political football. I would agree with her, because I would say that the more things that we can get long-term consensus on in the community and across the political divide, the better, especially on things like transport, which, often, you’re putting in transport infrastructure and it will be there for 100, 200, 300 years, and will have an effect across that long period of time. The reality is, though, we are having a vigorous debate about this.

I’m just going to pick up on some of the issues which have been raised, just to show that I’ve been listening to what the Opposition has been saying. The Hon Deborah Russell talked about any council being able to apply for a fuel tax, and, of course, that is going to go under this legislation. However, my recollection was that Jacinda Ardern, as Prime Minister, actually ruled out any more regional fuel taxes, and she did, indeed, do that. I’ve got a quote from a news article here: “Jacinda Ardern has ruled out any more regional fuel taxes under her leadership,” I accept that she’s obviously not the leader anymore, but it was clear and emphatic, ruling that out. “I can give [a] guarantee to this House and consumers [that] there will be no other regional fuel taxes while I’m Prime Minister.” She also said—which was interesting because of this concept of saying, “Well, actually, there could be other parts of the country which would like to have a regional fuel tax.” She also said, “Well, some regions are desperate for investment,” said Ms Ardern, “but we’ve ruled it out.”—but we’ve ruled it out.

So these other parts of the country which were going to benefit from the thing which had gone in in Auckland—and I can remember, because I was mayor at the time, and, actually, my predecessor also came and asked the Hon Phil Twyford, who I see over here, and he’s nodding. He said, “Well, on the basis of that ruling out”—I presume that’s what it was—“no, Wellington, you cannot have a regional fuel tax either.” In fact, what I wanted was to say, “I would like you to at least say, ‘Can we get the congestion price legislation under way.’ ”—nodding over there again. The answer was no. But after you got through the 2020 election, the answer was “Yeah, well, maybe, maybe, maybe.” So we felt like we were making some progress.

But I think the reality was that, from our perspective, there was value in getting the right mechanism there. I accept that the congestion pricing is going to take a fair bit of time to get to, but that is the right mechanism, because it changes people’s behaviour as well. It is not simply a blunt tool which affects everybody.

We’ve heard that issue about being regressive. The reality is that many people are going to need to use their car. Auckland’s issue is not just about the transport system; it’s about its form. It’s such a big city that to get around it, for many people, the car is the only option. Public transport is not going to be viable for many, many people to use, and so the car is going to be necessary. For those people, what this is is regressive and it affects them significantly, and that’s why we’re pleased to stand to repeal this.

We also heard that there’s going to be a whole lot of projects which will now be cancelled. They won’t be cancelled; Auckland can still put them up into the National Land Transport Programme, and if they are good projects, they will get through that process. Now, sometimes we over-embellish things in this House, but the reality is we’re talking about something like—

Grant McCallum: Really?

ANDY FOSTER: Really? Yes, sometimes things get over-embellished. But we’re talking here about $130 million - odd a year. The National Land Transport Fund from fuel taxes, etc., $4.5 billion a year. Auckland would usually get roughly a third of that—$1.5 billion a year. So we’re talking about 8 percent or so of the money which would be, effectively, going to Auckland. So, yes, it will have an impact; the issue is: how much impact.

Then, of course, the issue is: does that put that little bit of extra pressure on, saying that you’ve got to get better-quality projects? And, look, we’ve heard about $500,000 speed humps and pedestrian crossings. That’s not great. We’ve heard about the cost of putting those sort of things in, and we’ve got to have a look at that, the cost of all the health and safety issues around those. But if we can try and make sure that we get better-quality investment, I think that that will be a very, very good thing.

We’ve also heard some accusations about this Government whacking up the fuel tax. What we haven’t heard from the other side of the House is that it’s three years before any of that happens at all. We also haven’t heard the recognition that—in fact, I think it was both under a National- and a Labour-led Government that 4c a litre regularly went on the petrol tax. So, in fact, if you said 4c a litre over six years, you’d be 24c a litre anyway, so there’s probably not a lot between the two sides there.

We’ve also heard an accusation about giving with one hand and taking away with the other, about registration rising. I don’t think that the cost of registering a vehicle has gone up since 1994—

Tom Rutherford: Before I was born.

ANDY FOSTER: Before Tom was born. What I would say to people right around the Chamber is that so often a price is set and it’s not adjusted—

Hon Member: Oh, one-off.

ANDY FOSTER: —yeah, these one-off prices—and Labour-led Governments are equally guilty of that. I know that, because, having been in local government, we would regularly come to Government and say, “Hey, you haven’t allowed this price to go up for 20, 30 years. It’s now completely out of whack. Can you do that?” We should never be put in that position. We should never be imposing that. A little bit of trust between central government and other people will go a very, very long way.

So I think those are most of the things that I wish to say, other than to say a really, really important thing: putting cycleways in, putting busways and public transport improvements in, can benefit motorists, but we have to get the balance right, and, so often, we are not taking motorists with us—we are not taking motorists with us. In fact, some of those projects have a significant negative impact on motorists. I look around the city that I live in, and I know that people have not been taken on that journey at all, and that they see a real, negative impact on people who want to get about and do their business and they just happen to want to be able to use a car and they are not happy with that. I am delighted to commend this bill to the House.

TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Te Pāti Māori do not support the Government’s transport agenda. Let’s start, firstly, by saying that this is not about the cost of living. We’ve already heard from this Government about their anti-beneficiary, anti - wage earner policies, where they want to sanction beneficiaries and cut the yearly increase for minimum wage. So let’s not have a cost of living discussion with this policy.

Our policy is for free public transport that is accessible and efficient. This could be implemented immediately with tamariki, students, and community services card holders, and be made free for everyone within five years. Our policy is to ensure that urban planning and infrastructure allows for safe cycling and walking paths, and that cheap and accessible public and active transport is also prioritised in regional and rural Aotearoa and not just in our major cities. That is the whakaaro behind our position today.

This Government campaigned to build 15 new roads and has pledged $500 million to fix potholes. The one pothole they cannot fix, however, is the $24 billion pothole in their Budget. It’s the road users that are going to have to be paying for their reckless policies.

On top of road-user charges, they are putting up regos by $50. That money will go towards funding 50,000 roadside drug-tests, which they will be making back by increasing fines. They are cutting cycleway and walkway projects, creating more congestion on the roads, and then increasing congestion charges at peak-hour traffic. How many people here have sat in peak-hour traffic in Tāmaki-makau-rau? It’s a nightmare.

This Government is taking the option away from people to use reliable public transport, forcing them to sit in traffic and then pay for it, because they cannot plan more than three years ahead. By disincentivising electric vehicles while at the same time cutting public transport, this Government is fuelling climate change.

We’re in urgency, so just a message from some of our community members across Tāmaki-makau-rau who want to be able to share their thinking. The first message I got today was, “Takutai, Aucklanders don’t feel confident in this Government.”

Shanan Halbert: They’re confused.

TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP: They are confused, exactly—they are confused. But they don’t feel confident with this Government. Here’s the thing: this Government wants to cancel projects. However, these projects are already under way. They’ve still got to go ahead. We’ve still got to find the money for them. They can’t just stop. One of the projects that was mentioned was: what’s going to happen to the safety for our school kids that are needing the flashing lights, the traffic lights, to keep those tamariki safe when they’re going to school? That’s one of those projects. The community are asking: what happens? Does that mean it doesn’t go ahead now, and then our kids are unsafe on the roads when they go to school, where they should be at their safest? Have you seen the roads down Mahia Road in Manurewa? My gosh, they are dangerous. Our kids need safe roads to cross when they’re going to school. Even outside Manurewa Marae, it’s a main road along there. Reducing the speed of traffic along that main road of Finlayson doesn’t help; it needs the flashing lights to get people safe across the roads.

This bill also creates another debate: it’s not just about transport; who’s going to be responsible for the drainage after the flooding? Who’s going to be responsible for the cesspits caused in Parnell? It’s all interrelated: infrastructure and transport. This is what Aucklanders are asking. So I’m here to say that Te Pāti Māori, on behalf of our whānau in Tāmaki-makau-rau, do not support this bill.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Everybody should have the right to fully participate in their communities, and transport options play a huge part of that. In order to ensure that people can actually get around their towns and cities, they need to have options around how they do that, not just being locked into cars being one of the options that they have, and, on top of that, with infrastructure that doesn’t allow for things like walking and cycling and for our kids to safely be able to go to things like school.

What we’re seeing right now is a repeal that will cut the revenue-gathering tool that the Government had to be able to fund transport projects, and the Government not proposing an alternative. For all the talk around the Government still being committed to public transport, the reality is that what we’re experiencing is, effectively, a cut in real funding when it comes to public transport projects, effectively locking people, particularly in big urban centres, to only being able to get around with cars.

What is worse is that by cutting revenue streams—that would have enabled greater investment in public transport—and locking in polluting infrastructure, carbon-intensive infrastructure, and locking people into cars, what we are also doing is leaving our communities more prone to severe weather events, like the ones that Auckland experienced last year, effectively putting more of our communities at risk of climate change.

This repeal needs to be put in the broader context of the Government’s infrastructure plans. It’s been portrayed as a cost of living measure. It’s interesting, because if I take the words of another Minister in a different debate, who, when we talked about benefits, talked, at the time, about how no single bill can be taken in isolation—she was talking about a bill that would increase child poverty. And then we see this bill that is being pitched as a cost of living measure when, actually, the cost of living benefits for our communities of this specific repeal are minimal in the broader context of a Government that is lowering benefit increases, attacking workers’ wages, and doing nothing to genuinely alleviate the high costs of housing. At the same time, this bill therefore has to be put into the context of a Government that is doing nothing to alleviate the pressures that people face when it comes to the cost of taking public transport.

So all that this bill is doing is cutting a key revenue-gathering tool for infrastructure projects—ideally there should be public transport infrastructure projects—and this Government is proposing no alternatives. We could be looking at general taxation policy to gather revenue for transport infrastructure projects, we could be looking at congestion pricing, and yet this Government isn’t brave enough to put progressive alternatives to commit funding for public transport infrastructure.

Anyone who lives in places like Auckland will know how far behind we are when it comes to investing in public transport infrastructure. Rather than playing political football around how slow successive Governments have been at delivering public transport infrastructure, we should have a Government that is brave enough to look at the evidence, the science, and, actually, the feedback from our communities who are very clear that they want options to get around.

People in our schools, and kids, have been proactive at galvanising and running campaigns around safe walking and cycling infrastructure so they can get to school. The repeal of the regional fuel tax leaves a gap when it comes to the ability to resource those projects, on top of a Minister of Transport that has actually waged a war on that safe infrastructure that would have enabled people to have those options.

So the Green Party does not support the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill for those reasons. The Minister could have been clear about what alternative revenue-gathering tools he was going to propose when he introduced that bill. We don’t have that. We just have a bill that has been led by a rhetoric that wasn’t grounded on evidence, that was pushed through the campaign, and also a bill that doesn’t allow for the people who are going to be most affected by infrastructure decisions to actually give feedback on this bill. So, by having this bill in urgency, we’re preventing the campaigners—the young people who’ve been pushing for safe walking and cycling and infrastructure, on top of better public transport—from giving their thoughts on, actually, what should therefore replace this repeal if we’re going to have this being taken away from the Government’s ability to resource transport projects. We call on the Government to genuinely commit to public transport infrastructure rather than to lock us into climate change policies.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): One of the other important aspects of this bill is the removal of the opportunity for other regional fuel taxes. The people of Northland certainly do not want one. I commend this bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): I want to start by talking about some of the things that my colleagues have talked about today, about the fear they have of the war that’s being waged in this situation: I would have thought that the issue of transport and proper funding of transport was almost apolitical because it affects our entire community.

I picked up an email recently from one of the principals in a school in my area, and it’s a school that’s been subject to quite a lot of noise about what the Minister of Transport calls “speed bumps”, but they’re actually raised crossings. So they stand above the road and they are crossings that go—

Hon Simeon Brown: They’re speed bumps.

HELEN WHITE: The Minister’s laughing at this point, but I’m not sure he’ll be laughing once he’s heard the email that came in. It came in about the concern of the principal about the safety of children at his school, and he starts talking about speeds in the area, and how necessary they are because the children are walking to school. But he also talks about the impact of a lack of safety, and he says, “I’m not sure if anyone in this email list”—and he sent it to Melissa Lee and he sent it to myself and he sent it to Auckland Transport—“has attended the funeral of a child who has died as a result of being hit by a car. I have. It was in my time in”—and I’m going to leave the suburb out so it doesn’t affect people—“and the student was hit by a car on a 50-kilometre road while riding a bike. The car wasn’t speeding, but it killed him. I vividly remember the call from my principal. I remember the immense grief of knowing that we would not see his joyous, smiling face at school again. I remember the funeral. I remember the sobbing. I remember consoling his teacher as we stood at the open casket. I do not want to attend another funeral like this.”

Now, I don’t usually consider myself in this House to be a person who talks melodrama. But I think it’s worth remembering that when taxes like this are cut and there is a shortfall and the mayor has much pressure on him to keep down the rates, the results are likely to be that things go; things that need to be there go. When the Minister talks about speed bumps costing $500,000—knowing that that was retracted, because it’s been in the media that it wasn’t correct—there is a politicisation of an issue and a clouding of an issue that we surely have to see with much clearer vision than that. If the life of a child is at stake, we are going to have to slow down the cars, and we’re going to have to do it by raised crossings. On the road that this principal’s talking about—I know that area—it’s an area with very, very high walking and cycling as it is, so it’s even more necessary because of the vulnerability of those people. It’s absolutely necessary. We take that seriously.

I take the point that’s been made that there are other tools—there are things like congestion charging—all for looking at those things. I was on that select committee, I looked at that, I was concerned and sceptical about it because it does depend on what the impact is on people who are living a long way away, who tend to be the poorer people, and they have to come to their jobs. But I can see the point in exploring those tools and doing it together.

But what I don’t like is when the Minister politicises an issue that should never have been political. What we have here is something that affects the very hearts of our communities. We must—must—keep funding for these kinds of projects. Instead, the Minister has ring-fenced certain projects. It has been pointed out he’s ring-fenced a project in his area that affects the people in his area. He has noticed the impact of busways in that area. But he has not ring-fenced the area of mine; he has not said that, in the Mt Albert area, we’re going to give the same sort of priority to busways and—

Hon Simeon Brown: Does the train go through?

HELEN WHITE: Actually, the trains that are here—there are bits that are cut out of the new train services, Minister. So the comment that he’s just made across the House about whether it affects the trains is, yes, we get some of that early stuff, but we don’t get a lot of the enhancement in the trains, and I’ll be asking about that in the committee stage, so we better get ready.

So what I am saying here is that these are priorities, but it’s not all I want to say here. It is not just about safety; it’s also about the cost to Auckland in terms of its wealth. I have the portfolio of small business and I have manufacturing, and have sat in the traffic and waited and wondered how much it’s costing Auckland to be this congested. It is actually costing a lot, and we know now that if we can get people out of their cars—particularly in the inner city suburbs, because they can walk and they can cycle, and e-bikes make that possible—if we can encourage them out, and if we can have good busways, then it frees up the capacity for the roads to be used in a productive way. So I am concerned about the price that Aucklanders will pay in terms of productivity because of this retroactive step of taking this away.

I actually share the concerns of the mayor. This is money that was ring-fenced for Auckland, and it is an alternative to rate rises, and, instead, the Minister has taken away the specific ring-fenced tax to Auckland where Aucklanders pay for Auckland infrastructure, and instead he’s bringing in another tax which is actually through the driver’s licence system, and that goes to the whole of the country. How fair is that? Auckland loses its specific commitment and its specific build when it is so necessary, and it loses it to the whole country.

I note that we’ve had a lot of people jump up on the other side and speak for their whole 30 seconds and they haven’t been from Auckland; we’ve had very few Aucklanders stand up on this one because it affects their constituents. It affects the constituents in Devonport and it affects my constituents—it affects them. This is not a future-forward piece of legislation for Auckland. is going to hurt Aucklanders, and they’re going to pay in another way through the driver’s licence, a different form of tax, and they’re not going to pay for things that they know are building a better Auckland for them. That’s not going to happen, and so I am very concerned to see that.

I also just want to tell them something that’s a bit of bad news, which is that if they expect to see the fuel come down 10c a litre every time they go to the pump, unfortunately that’s very unlikely to happen. When I look at the fuel prices that have been in the North and I compare them to the fuel prices once you’ve hit the area where the tax applies, you can’t see that that’s going to be a transparent drop in the price. It’s very unlikely. It’s extremely difficult to see where that’s coming from, because Auckland often has lower fuel prices. So there is no correlation. It’s been pointed out by a few members, and, again, we’ll be asking in the committee stage about this: what is the mechanism that means we’re going to see that flow through to the ordinary Aucklander? When this law comes in, how are we going to make sure that it actually gets passed on to Aucklanders? I have some serious concerns about that.

I’d like to just talk finally about this issue—about seeing this as a cost of living issue—because I live in the suburb, and I think about what would cost more for the people in that suburb of Mount Albert. I think about the issue of things like bus fares and how those affect our poorest people. So when we move away from things like half-price bus fares and cheaper bus fares and streamlined bus services, who do we hurt? Which Aucklanders are most affected by that? It’s a simple question. The people who are most affected are the ones who’ve got lots of kids or they live a long way out. They’re the ones who miss out here, and those are the Aucklanders that, I believe, we all want to see get a step up. It’s not the people with the Range Rovers—it’s not the people with the Range Rovers living in Freemans Bay. It drives me nuts that I can’t ever find a park because I can’t squeeze past the car without being very frightened of actually scratching it—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): It surely has. Thank you, Madam Speaker. As the MP for Bay of Plenty, anything we can do to support our colleagues across the country—and, in this case, in Auckland—with the cost of living, I am happy to support. Removing the Auckland regional fuel tax will provide cost of living support, saving the driver of a Toyota Hilux around $9.20 every time they fill up in Auckland, while a Toyota Corolla driver will save around $5.75. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The next call is a split call. I call the Hon Damien O’Connor.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Miles Anderson looked very, very uncomfortable when that was spoken of from that side of the House, because the reality is that he’s a regional MP from the South Island, and his constituents are going to suffer from this stupid piece of legislation. We have a bunch of transport geniuses on the other side of the House here!

When they last came into Government in 2008-09, one of the first things they did in 2010, they increased the weight of trucks from 44 to 53 tonnes. Oh, this was going to bring efficiency, we were told. And then the next thing they did in 2014 was change the system of funding; it was, effectively, called “sweat the assets”. This was designed to drive efficiency in the way that we funded our roading maintenance and upgrades. The combination of that, quite frankly, as every regional and rural MP knows, has been the destruction of our roads since then. We have, as a country, seen the deficiencies in Auckland, because they can’t help themselves, can’t look after themselves through many, many years of local government incompetency—I’ll say that. They have not invested properly in their infrastructure. And we as the taxpayers across the country have invested billions of dollars in Auckland’s infrastructure.

And we, when last in Government, said, “We’ll put a little bit of tax on petrol, and you can invest in that transport infrastructure that’s clearly deficient.” And the last National Government took it off, and we put it back on. And now this coalition Government’s going to take it off. And the billions of dollars of deficits that this will leave will come from regional and provincial road funding, absolutely. It will come from safety investments that save lives across our country: $5 million is the estimated cost of every single fatal accident in our country, $900,000 for every serious accident in our country. Wouldn’t we be better to put that money up front, and, if so, where should it come from? Well, I know that in my home town of Westport, actually, until we intervened to bring in Gull and Nelson NPD—Nelson Petroleum Distributors—into the South Island, we were paying a huge amount; a lot. It was about 30c or 40c more per litre than people in Auckland. So, even with the regional fuel tax, people were paying less for fuel in Auckland than many parts of our country.

Grant McCallum: What other parts?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Many parts. Well, let’s go and have a look, as I did just before. So they vary between $2.80, roughly, in Auckland; $2.90 in the West Coast; in Waikato, $2.70. There’s about a 20c to 25c variation across the country.

So the question is: what’s the harm in investing in your future through a regional fuel tax? What’s the harm in investing in safety and saving lives in your community? What is the harm? Can’t answer it.

Shanan Halbert: Don’t care.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Don’t care. What I’m saying is that what we did with the implementation of this tax was actually enable Auckland to invest in its future and its future infrastructure. I think, for the most part, people didn’t notice. Saving cost of living—what a joke. It’s been pointed out by my colleagues that it’s insignificant across the scheme of things. In the end, the accidents, the congestion, and all of the other chaos that will come from the lack of investment will cost a whole lot more than being upfront, raising some revenue, and investing it in the things that Auckland desperately needs.

This is one more of those stupid pieces of legislation being passed through this House in urgency, where people don’t get a chance to scrutinise it, don’t get a chance to put up the counterargument and, indeed, I’d say to you, will be reversed in the future—will be reversed. Do you know why? Because Auckland and most Aucklanders—not the Remuera crew, not the crew that sit over there, the privileged, the people who think they’re entitled to a tax cut, entitled to pay less for their fuel. Well, do you know what I suggest to you, and Mr Anderson will know: the hard-working people in Southland and Waikato and in Northland, who generate the revenue for our country, they’re entitled to a fair go as well. This regional fuel tax was an investment by Aucklanders in Auckland. It’s been taken away, and that investment will come from the regional and provincial areas of our country that earn the money and that should have the same price and the same investment as Auckland.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a privilege to rise as just another fabulous Aucklander to support the repeal of the Auckland regional fuel tax. The people of Northcote want a Government that will truly ease cost of living pressures; the people of Northcote want a Government that will actually end wasteful spending. This bill does both of these, and therefore I commend this bill to the House.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is an important discussion this evening for people that live in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, because what we all know is, as our city grows to a population of 2 million people by 2030—2 million people by 2030—the way we feel now in congestion compared to the way we’ll feel in 2030, when we’re still in congestion, we’re not moving as a city, and our GDP and contribution to our economy is severely impacted by the decision that we make today. When we talk to Aucklanders, when we talk to any family that is suffering under the cost of living challenges that we experience at the moment, and we talk about tax—and, today, we’re talking about the regional fuel tax—and we say, “Do you want to pay a tax?”, everyone says, “No.”, right? We don’t want to pay a tax if we don’t have to. At the same time, Aucklanders feel frustrated at the deep congestion that our city faces.

We have discussed this and debated this as a Transport and Infrastructure Committee in the last term. We talked about—agreed on some of—the tools that actually will change the way we get around New Zealand’s largest city of Tāmaki-makau-rau, what could be used. But while National did campaign on repealing the regional fuel tax, the truth is that under the now National-led Government, Aucklanders will be paying more, and they have had the promise of cost of living relief pulled out from under them. That is the reality. If Aucklanders tonight feel confused—because if I thought about this last week compared to this week, I’m quite confused, because, actually, they have absolutely hoodwinked Aucklanders. They’ve pulled the rug out from under them. They’ve made them believe, in an election, that they’re going to save, on average, $2 more a week or $100 a year.

But this Minister of Transport is one of the most cynical Ministers ever, who is trying to be seen to be giving with one hand but, at the same time, is actually taking with the other. He is adding costs to Aucklanders when he promised cost of living relief. Every member of Parliament from Auckland that sits across that side of the House tonight, you should hang your head in shame, because while you campaigned on one thing, actually, this week, you have done another. Because of them, Aucklanders are facing a drivers’ tax, adding a cost of $50 to Auckland families to register their car per year. Do the maths yourself: where is the cost of living relief? In addition to that, they’re adding 12c a litre to petrol. So when I talk about that they’ve hoodwinked Aucklanders, that is the actual case. They are giving with one hand and they’re taking—ripping off Aucklanders—with the other.

That’s on top of the proposed 23 percent increase to Auckland water rates, because they repealed the one thing that was the game-changer for Aucklanders when it comes to water infrastructure. National’s transport projects are estimated to cost twice the amount that they initially said. That’s a fiscal hole of $24 billion—$24 billion.

The reality of people living in Auckland, actually, is when you see the plans, they aren’t there. What the Minister has done with this piece of legislation is pulled the rug out from under Mayor Wayne Brown and his ability to deal with critical transport infrastructure for our city. Where we look for a progressive relationship between central government and local government, this particular bill obstructs that relationship from working. What it says, actually—what it does—is it takes away the localism that our city needs, that, actually, the National Government campaigned on. Auckland Council needs to be fit for purpose, and, yes, I agree there is work to be done around the future of Auckland Transport, but what we can’t do is have a big, three-headed taniwha Government making decisions in isolation. We need a view across Auckland that doesn’t have one single view about investing in roads; it needs to invest in our public transport—another thing that has been taken away from Aucklanders.

What I’ve heard this evening, I’m quite saddened by and disappointed. When people take the mickey out of the cost to pedestrian crossings, and put figures out there that they know aren’t accurate, and in our local community—and the member of Northcote talked about pedestrian crossings. The question for him is: which pedestrian crossing or transport project would he take away, because this regional fuel tax has invested in our community, and if he doesn’t know that, then he probably needs to do his research. But the important part is that we actually want to acknowledge we want people to get around efficiently, we want to get out of congestion, we want them to be safe, we want a progressive city that is as productive as it possibly can be. While, actually, we talk about what Aucklanders want, they are struggling with the cost of living, but what they said when Auckland Council commissioned a poll: 44 percent of Aucklanders actually, based on this discussion, wanted to keep the regional fuel tax; 26 percent were in favour of cancelling the regional fuel tax projects—that’s actually not that many. So we know a global city that has a transport infrastructure deficit decades in the making needs investment.

But I come back to the point: what this Government campaigned on and what they’re delivering this week does not provide the cost of living relief that Aucklanders were promised. It simply tries to give with one hand, it takes with the other, and it actually doesn’t address the issue at hand. It doesn’t invest in critical transport infrastructure projects. It doesn’t build the relationship with Auckland Council. And there’s a really good question: what is the relationship between Minister Simeon Brown and the Mayor of Auckland, Wayne Brown?

Hon Simeon Brown: Very positive.

SHANAN HALBERT: Where does that leave things? I wouldn’t be so confident, Minister.

But this Government will ram through this House, as it has done with 16 out of 17 bills in the last few weeks. It’s made decisions. It’s bypassed the parliamentary process. They cry “democracy”, but when they’re in power, actually, it doesn’t mean nothing. They’ve impacted on Māori, they’ve taken away health sovereignty, and here, today, they’ve taken the rights of Aucklanders to have better transport infrastructure that they damn well deserve.

Hon Member: Stick to the bill.

SHANAN HALBERT: Every member of Parliament—this is absolutely in the bill—in this House should be reading this bill, thinking “I’m going to turn back up to my community and I need to front up and explain how we’re resolving congestion.”, because the plan that the Minister presented this week doesn’t provide a solution to addressing Auckland’s critical problem, which is congestion. Actually, Auckland is the region that simply misses out in that plan. It says to Auckland Council, “I’m going to put you on the side. You find your own funding that’s going to increase rates to Aucklanders.”—just like it has done with water rates.

So it comes back to this Government and their absolutely false promise in the election. You haven’t provided cost of living relief to Aucklanders. This piece of legislation, I absolutely do not support.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill): I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the bill. Members, the time has come for the dinner break. We will suspend the House until 7 p.m.

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

In Committee

Part 1 Abolition of regional fuel tax

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the House is in committee on the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. We come first to Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to 8, “Abolition of regional fuel tax”, and Schedule 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. We are now in the committee stage of the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. This bill has two parts. Part 1 deals with the purpose of the bill; the repeal of the statutory framework for establishing and operating the regional fuel tax; and it has some transitionary provisions, in particular clauses 6 and 7, which amend the current Auckland regional fuel tax order and reduce the list of capital projects in which revenue from the regional fuel tax scheme can be sent from 14 to three.

As has been raised in earlier debates on this bill, it reduces the number of those particular capital projects down to the three that are being prioritised, following discussions with the Mayor of Auckland, which are the Eastern Busway and the Reeves Road Flyover, the Auckland City Rail Link trains and stabling, and local roading improvements.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana, Madam Chair. Can I thank the Minister for Transport for those opening comments. I have a number of questions that I will be work through and would appreciate the Minister’s attention in terms of addressing those. I take his point around what’s currently proposed in clauses 6 and 7, which relate to a number of projects, and I am aware there’s certainly a few that I would like to ask some questions of the Minister about. I know that many on this side of the Chamber also have some questions around that. I think it’s largely related because of their local knowledge—I’m sure it’s largely related because of their local knowledge in the Auckland area.

But if I could start in terms of what is proposed under clause 4 of the bill, which seeks to repeal the framework that is in place that allows for a regional fuel tax (RFT) to be in place. I look at what is currently within Subpart 3 of Part 2 of the Land Transport Management Act 2003, and the proposal under clause 4 is, effectively, to repeal Subpart 3 in its entirety. Within the existing legislation under Subpart 3, there is section 65C, and that relates to the requirements relating to a regional fuel tax scheme. When one looks at subsection (2) of that, there is a time frame of a maximum of 10 years, which is fine. But there is also, under subsection (3), the direction that the maximum rate of regional fuel tax is 10c per litre. My question to the Minister in relation to that is whether or not there was any thinking around whether a lower rate, and potentially a rate of zero, could have been applied, and, if so, why that, perhaps, was not an option that has been explored so that there is a framework for some point in the future.

The other question that I have relates to the same Subpart, and it is section 65J, which relates to the ability of the Minister of Finance and the responsible Minister—in this case, the Minister of Transport—concerning a proposed RFT scheme. But, within that section, there is, obviously, an opportunity to establish or to replace a scheme, but there is also an option to vary an existing regional fuel tax scheme. So my question to the Minister is whether or not—well, there is an option around varying the scheme, so why, perhaps, wasn’t that the particular course of action or avenue that the Minister sought to take?

If I can just now turn to clause 5 of the bill and particularly paragraph (b). This relates to Schedule 1AA of the Land Transport Management Act 2003 and that there would be a new Schedule 1 of the Act, which would be the last part of the Act, and whether or not the necessary consequential amendments have been fully identified, and, if so, where one might find them. I know that there are a number of proposed amendments that followed that are further on in Schedule 3, so we will get to that when we come to that particular point in time. But I did wonder whether there was a particular place where all the other necessary consequential amendments that one assumes falls outside of this Act and might fall in other pieces of legislation, whether they be primary or secondary—whether or not that could be captured.

I’ve got a number of other questions which I’m happy to continue to work through in terms of my time. The next one is around clause 7, and that relates to Schedule 2 of the Land Transport Management Act 2003. Now, I think it would be helpful for the Minister to outline for the committee what the rationale is in terms of maintaining three of those projects within the bill, and what is the rationale for, effectively, dispensing with all the remaining projects that are outlined in the order. I think that would be helpful because it would set some sort of tone or scene around some of the questions that, certainly, I have about a number of the projects in the order—and the order is the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax Scheme—Auckland) Order 2018. It does identify a range of projects, and they are quite specific, which I will come to. But, I think, for a start, that might be a good place for the Minister to perhaps consider some of those questions.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow on from those questions, but I would have actually quite liked the answers to those before I ask these questions, because they may have clarified and it would have deepened the dialogue. However, one of the questions I want to know, and I think most New Zealanders—most Aucklanders, definitely, and definitely most people from Mount Albert—want to know, is why: why are these ones picked; why not others?

So I would like to know what the process was that you went through to select projects, and you’ve said it was in consultation with the mayor, but one of those projects is obviously really important to the people that live in your area. So there’s an issue of perceived conflict there, and I want to know what was the process that you went through for deciding that those were the projects that were important, and how did you deal with the fact—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): You ask the Minister because Auckland’s not in my patch and he will have the knowledge.

HELEN WHITE: Sorry, Madam Chair. Yes, you are quite right. What was the process that the Minister went through in deciding how to deal with an issue where, in fact, he works and he is the elected MP in a particular area, and one of those projects is favoured in this situation? A related question is: what was the cost-benefit analysis that was gone through, because my understanding from my previous interaction with the Minister is that that is something that he prides himself on? What was the cost-benefit analysis in deciding that these projects would happen and not others?

There’s also a question which won’t surprise him that I am asking about the issue over safety. So one of the big holes in funding is the one that will affect the issues over what he calls speed bumps and I often call raised pedestrian crossings. There was another speech given today in the House which talked about the cost of each death, because as horrible as it feels, there are numbers, often, that people use when they talk about the cost of those deaths in terms of what it does to our society, and obviously I want to acknowledge there’s a much greater loss than any cost when we’re talking about the loss of life or the injury of somebody. But what work was done on that when the decision was made to decide on several different projects and disband with others?

I have a patch which has put a lot of projects that are in the list that won’t be getting funding, and I’ve already raised with the Minister in my speech earlier that I’m concerned about some of the impacts on my local patch that will affect people. So I’m concerned about the impacts around schooling, I’m concerned about the impacts over congestion in those areas, and I’m also concerned—I’ll just note one at this present time: the Carrington Road development. So I can see that that has been suspended, that work around that area. Now, Carrington Road is going to take thousands of houses, and so if you don’t work in that area any more, if the projects are not completed in that area, or the funding is under threat, then that area is one of the areas where intensification can happen without a lot of consequence as long as you make sure that the roads are good and the infrastructure’s good.

So what happens with that area, for example, and why would that not be given priority by a Government that says it wants intensification, and, in fact, has scrapped a whole lot of rules that meant there’d be more spread of intensification? This is a project that takes so many people, and it’s going to be really important that they feel safe and that the whole area isn’t just totally clogged up. So I know that my constituents will be asking me on Tuesday night at the Mt Albert Residents’ Association meeting what the impact of this is on them in terms of the development. So I would like an answer to those questions and I’d appreciate them—the sooner the better—so I can ask proper follow-up questions of the Minister and this can be a real informative debate.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Look, thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the members for their questions. Tangi Utikere, he asked about the question of whether any thinking was done about reducing the rate or keeping the framework for the future. The answer to that was: we campaigned on removing the regional fuel tax, and we were elected with a mandate to do that, and this legislation is delivering on that mandate, so we did not consider any other change other than to remove the legislation in its entirety—which is what this is doing.

In regards to the question around different projects, the Eastern Busway is under construction, the City Rail Link trains are already under order, and the priority for the Government is to improve our roading network. So those are the three priorities which have been identified for the remaining funding.

In terms of the issue in regards to clause 5(b), it’s a standard Parliamentary Counsel Office wording. It’s there to enable renumbering, should any other bill insert a new part into the transitional provision Schedule at around the same time as this bill. That is the answer to that specific question.

CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t think I can table my HOP card, but I’d like to come close, as somebody who has caught the bus and the train, has cycled, and has driven in Auckland over the last few months.

Hon Simeon Brown: I’ve got mine too. There it is.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: So just because I come from this area doesn’t mean I don’t—oh, we can table another one. Jolly good!

I’ve got a number of questions for the Minister about the projects in Auckland that will be cancelled because of the decision to remove the regional fuel tax. [Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Just a little bit of quiet on this side, please.

Hon Scott Simpson: Well, we’re just hearing moral high ground speeches. They get responses.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yeah, but I’m struggling to hear the member. Interjections are fine, but not so much condensed interjection all at once.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, does the Minister believe that vehicles running red lights cause injuries to people driving cars, passengers in cars, people on bikes, and people crossing roads? Following on from that, does he believe that red-light cameras reduce the likelihood of drivers playing roulette through a red light? Thirdly, do speeds in residential areas—do higher speeds—increase the severity of injuries, and, if so, how does reducing speed humps address the health and safety of New Zealanders and Aucklanders in particular?

The next question is: I believe this Government is bringing in congestion charging at some point; why not wait until the congestion charging is ready before removing the regional fuel tax? I accept that congestion charging may be a fairer way of doing it.

Then, finally, what consultation on the projects that should be dropped was there with health, ambulance, Cycle Auckland, Living Streets Aotearoa, or any of the other knowledgeable organisations? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to begin my contribution, given that we are discussing Part 1 of the bill, which basically dismantles the structure for the Auckland regional fuel tax—I do want to focus on the fact that our largest city in New Zealand has needed for quite some time now an integrated, multimodal rapid transit network, an integrated network. That’s really what this particular fuel tax, in terms of what it was going to be contributing to, the projects that it would be contributing to—that is what it was feeding into.

So, in this part, when we’re talking about dismantling the structure that would contribute to what we believe, on this side of the Chamber, our largest city needs, it is incredibly disappointing, firstly that it’s being dismantled at all given that what we really need is for us to be able to get around in a way that is easier, for us to be able to provide greater access to businesses across Auckland by improving the public transport and other modes of transport across Auckland. We absolutely need to focus on reducing congestion, and we need to lower carbon emissions. Unfortunately, what this bill does is dismantle a structure that was contributing towards progress on all of those fronts. So it is disappointing, firstly, that this is even going through; and, secondly, it is even more disappointing that it’s going through in the way that it is, under urgency, which means that we are here speaking on behalf of people—Aucklanders and others, I would argue—who would be impacted by the changes made in this bill who don’t have a say because all stages are going through under urgency.

I know, also, that there have been arguments made over years based on, for example, an OECD report which was back in 2015 that showed that in lost productivity, just due to congestion in Auckland, we have lost productivity to the tune of $1.3 billion. That is an issue. That is a massive issue for us in Auckland but, I would argue, for the entire country as well. That report—again, nine years ago—showed that Auckland and Wellington are the second and third most congested cities in Australasia, following Sydney. So what we really need, again, I would argue, is an integrated, multimodal rapid transit transport network, and this bill flies in the face of that.

Looking just at the Order in Council, I mean, we know that this will lead to the fact that 14 projects that would have been funded through the Auckland regional fuel tax will now be reduced to three projects. So I, like other colleagues on this side of the Chamber, would like to ask the Minister specific questions, because a number of those—whether it comes to walking and cycling routes—fall into the area that I live in, in Auckland. I’d like some answers about what will replace that, because that’s the other point that I want to make through this. Dismantling the structure actually means that this is yet another step that this Government takes to repeal something with absolutely nothing to replace it with.

So we’ve got, if you look at the number of projects that will be potentially cancelled—because we know that the Auckland mayor has already asked for a number of these projects to stop. We know, as I mentioned—actually, no, I didn’t mention previously—the cancellation of this tax will leave a shortfall in transport funding for Auckland of $1.2 billion over the next four years. We know, also, that dismantling this structure and therefore scrapping this tax will mean that Auckland Council’s ability to borrow will be significantly reduced. It will be reduced by $810 million a year. So the mayor has already said that a number of these projects are already put on hold, likely to be scrapped. All we know, given that one of the reasons behind this particular move, according to this Government, was to reduce the cost of living—we know that the other option is to put up rates for Aucklanders, which means an increase in cost of living for Auckland as well.

So I’d really like to know: what is the Minister going to replace a number of these projects with, whether it’s in safety measures or walking and cycling routes? What will replace the dismantling of this particular tax? Because, again, given that the regulatory impact statement has been dispensed with because this is in the Government’s 100-day plan, we don’t actually have an independent analysis of the impact that this will have on the people who will be most affected by the lack of those projects. There’s 11 projects that will be scrapped as a result of this dismantling of this bill.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is an important topic for Aucklanders. I stated in my speech my concern of the Minister’s decision today to ram this through in urgency. I believe that it does require consultation with Aucklanders over and beyond an election, because the greater question in front of us is actually: how do we invest in a modern transport infrastructure for a global city that will have a population of 2 million people come 2030? So I suspect that this might be one of a number of questions that I have this evening.

My first line of questioning is actually around our relationship with Auckland Council. So part of the original establishment of this was looking collectively with Auckland Council: how we are going to invest in transport infrastructure for Auckland, Tāmaki-makau-rau? We, of course, have had two mayors over that time that expect different things from Government, and our most recent mayor is very keen not to have Wellington involved in decision making of Auckland. Personally, I believe there’s an in-between there that this piece of legislation actually achieved, which is some sense of partnership.

So one of my questions for the Minister this evening is about what consultation did he have with Mayor Wayne Brown in regards to this piece of legislation and some of the decisions or decisions of those impacted projects? But, particularly around moving forward, what might be his intention or how he sees that partnership working moving forward, where the impact of this legislation means that there is a significant shortfall for Auckland Council to fund for their future transport infrastructure?

So, from a relationship perspective, what is the current relationship status with Mayor Wayne Brown and Auckland Council as a result? Has he had discussions with key councillors over this particular piece of legislation? What were their views that informed his decision, both on repealing the regional fuel tax but also the impacted projects and how there became a priority list of the ones that were supported and the ones that weren’t? Have there been recent conversations with the mayor up until today that help guide that particular way forward for the Minister? Because the projects, as I understand, still need to continue, as well as a number of others across the city.

Because I go back to quite a short and sharp media statement from Mayor Wayne Brown, which was straight to the thick of the cut and thrust of this piece of legislation, which is to put on hold 12 transport projects that were believed to be going ahead; that had tagged funding against them; that there was a means to an end to achieve a better transport system and infrastructure across walking and cycling, across active transport, across all modes of transport in Auckland; that created more options available for Aucklanders in that.

So coming back to my original question, I think it is important that there is a good working relationship between central and local government. I’m concerned in this discussion that that has impacted on this relationship when it comes to achieving the common goal. No matter which party that we’re within, we know that we need to achieve certainty in the infrastructure sector and start to build a pipeline of at least 10 years, if not more.

I have been with the Minister at many a conference and a panel where collectively we have talked about how we achieve, politics aside, the certainty for the sector. But uncertainty is created for Auckland Council as a result. It’s Auckland Council that is impacted by what will be the dissatisfaction of Aucklanders. I’d like the Minister to explain how he will be supporting Auckland Council with that fallout as a result of the cancelled projects as per Mayor Wayne Brown’s media statement.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank members for their questions. There were a number of questions from Celia Wade-Brown in relation to speed bumps, red-light cameras, and consultation. I mean, ultimately, this bill focuses on the cost of living for New Zealanders, and we are reducing the regional fuel tax to address that issue.

In terms of the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan, she asked how we would replace the dollars. I mean, ultimately, for the rest of those projects which we are not continuing funding for, of course, Auckland Council is able to progress those. If they’re on local roading corridors, they are able to progress those. They just won’t have regional fuel tax funding to support them, and that’s a conversation that the council can have with Auckland ratepayers.

The issue in terms of what consultation was had with other organisations—I think that was Celia Wade-Brown again—ultimately, New Zealanders voted for this Government, and we are delivering on our campaign promises.

Shanan Halbert asked about consultation with Auckland Council. I spoke to the mayor on a couple of occasions. These are projects that are of joint priority, and so we are ensuring that the remaining funds, of which there are over $300 million, go towards those three priority projects.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I firstly thank the Minister for answering a couple of my questions. I am disappointed to hear that the rationale for not looking at sections 65C and 65J is because of the campaign approach, whereas it appears—unless the Minister advises the committee otherwise—that the same outcome for Aucklanders could none the less have been achieved by engaging those two sections of the Land Transport Management Act. But I note his response here.

I do think there is still actually an outstanding question that my colleague Helen White referred to, and it does relate to the inclusion of Project 4 in the order. This relates to the Minister’s own electorate, and I do think that the committee does deserve a response around the perception of conflicts of interest, given that the Minister is the member for Pakuranga and this is a project that would obviously be of huge benefit at the expense of other Aucklanders if this was to proceed.

I invite the—well, I’m interested in the Minister’s response, and my question to the Minister is whether he still stands by the cost of living argument when the departmental disclosure statement very clearly indicates that in some cases, motorists will be around $1.87 better off a week, and the real difference that that would actually make to entertain the cost of living pressures. Now, in my earlier contribution today, I’d indicated that I’d had a look at what one could get for $1.87 at a supermarket in Auckland, and what you could get is a 227-gram tin of chunky pineapple. Now, is that really addressing the cost of living pressures, as this Minister and his Government actually think? So I invite the Minister to reflect on whether or not that still rings true—that $1.87 a week is going to offset the cost of living pressures that households are facing.

There are 14 projects that are suggested to be either retained or dispensed with under this bill, and each in their own right is going to have a huge impact either way on the communities in Auckland. So it’s certainly our intention on this side of the Chamber to be exploring and asking questions about each and every one of those projects, because that is what we need to do, given this is a bill that is being progressed under urgency. I do think it’s important to make sure that—and the whole point of the committee of the whole House stage; that aside—we look at the clauses as they come, and so I do have a number of questions, which I’ll return to now.

So the first is in relation to clause 18 within Schedule 1, and it relates to the agency advice. There’s a time frame there that, basically, indicates that the agency would continue to provide the Minister of Finance and the responsible Minister with advice, and that advice is on request. My question for the Minister would be two things: one is the anticipated frequency of that advice that’s being sought and whether the provision in clause 18 is sufficient, and the second is that there are two components as to what that advice must be about. One is in relation to Subpart 3, which I referred to earlier, and there are a number of different sections there that start with definition and that go right through to sort of tax implications, and the other is in relation to—I guess that’s quite broad in the sense of its relation to this scheme as it relates to the Auckland regional fuel tax itself. So my question for the Minister, or the second part of that question, is whether he is able to foreshadow the type of advice that might be sought—if this bill is successful—to transition across from a functioning regional fuel tax to a transitional period.

My second question relates to clause 19, and this is something that I’ve raised in the House previously this year. It relates to what the expectation is around the information that is to be retained. I raised this question when the House was considering changes to Te Aka Whai Ora, and my question is relevant to this situation as well because it’s about the requirement for records to be kept and for returns to be made. So my question in relation to clause 19 is about whether there’s an expectation as to what happens to that information once this particular bill is passed.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Could the member please be specific about clause 19? We’re just trying to locate it.

TANGI UTIKERE: Yes, certainly. So I am referring to—

Joseph Mooney: Madam Chair—Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): And I’m taking Tangi Utikere’s call, thank you.

TANGI UTIKERE: Madam Chair, thank you. This is relation to Schedule 1, and this is the Minister’s proposed new insertion of new Part 5 in Schedule 1AA. It’s headed “Part 5”, and I’m referring to what was originally clause 18, now clause 19. Is that OK?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yep—thank you.

TANGI UTIKERE: So in relation to the nature of the information, obviously there’s archival use, but what’s happening there—and whether there’s actually a requirement, once that information is filed, that that can be disposed of, or whether there is a requirement for that to be retained, as in other parts of the parent Act, where there is a requirement to retain some information for, I think, four years, or thereabouts. So I’m interested in what the obligation is on those who are filing the returns and whether there is an expectation there.

My other question is in relation to clause 20, and this is about whether or not there are provisions, or any either flexibility or proposed leeway in the Minister’s mind in approaching this clause, or whether the provision provides for some flexibility around that, particularly around the payment of tax that might be required post-disbursal. So if this bill is successful and this scheme comes to an end, what are the requirements in terms of time frames? I know that they’re listed there, but if there are some extenuating circumstances that might exist from time to time, what provisions exist—or whether the Minister has thought about this and has decided that there doesn’t need to be a provision around flexibility or leeway. I’ve got a number of other questions, but for now I’ll leave it there.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s a number of good questions there from the member in relation to Schedule 1—clauses 18, 19, and 20. All of this in new Part 5 is about the transition provisions in terms of ensuring that when the regional fuel tax comes to an end, Auckland Council is effectively paid out for all of the revenues that are collected prior to that date and ensuring that there is good reporting on that, and making sure they receive the accurate amount.

In terms of the agency’s advice, in clause 18, all the advice that the New Zealand Transport Agency is required to provide the Minister currently, continues to be provided as the scheme is wound down. That relates to collection, auditing, administrating rebates, transferring net revenue, and monitoring revenue, cost, fuel prices, and volumes. That’s, effectively, what that’s all about. Then, as I said, clause 19 is about making sure the fuel companies are paying the correct amount.

So these are transitional provisions. It’s all very sensible—when you’re changing the law and you’re transitioning to a new system, this is all about making sure that there is accuracy in terms of the amounts which have been received, making sure that they are dispersed, and making sure that any people who are entitled to rebates are still able to receive them. Of course, you might have fuelled up on 29 June but you might not process that application until a little bit later, and so you’ll notice that there is also provision there in relation to the rebate scheme as well. So it’s all very sensible stuff, which I’m sure the Opposition is very happy to support.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this is a brand-new line of questions and I’ve taken some guidance from Speaker Tolley’s ruling encouraging me and speakers like me to keep my contributions focused. So this will be a very focused set of six questions in which I am asking the Minister to engage with me in a series of questions and answers between members and Ministers, following the changes in standing orders which came into effect in 2020 when Speaker Tolley made the ruling at 79/4 of the Speakers’ rulings.

The first question is: currently, wholesale fuel distributors pay this portion of tax to NZTA, who recover collection costs and then distribute the revenue to agencies responsible for the projects to be funded by the tax, specifically Auckland Council. Now that the Minister is proposing these changes, how will he make sure that the savings that the bill seeks to provide to Aucklanders are passed on to drivers who would otherwise have been paying 10c extra that would have been collected by wholesale fuel distributors?

Just to give the Minister a minute to consider my question, I will ask the second one, which is: who will benefit from those savings the most? And that should be read in the context of replacing some of the costs that were raised by the Government from the Auckland fuel tax with the $50 fee increase in drivers’ registrations of their vehicles.

My question here is: have we got this right about who pays for the benefit that people are receiving? Is the benefit being passed on mostly to people who drive great distances and then borne by people who register their car every year? Are we, in fact, passing on costs that would otherwise not have been borne by people like my 90-year-old father who drives his car very little but needs to register it every year, and subsidising those people like me who drive great distances because of their work and to get around Auckland? Those are the first two questions of six.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I thank the member for the questions. In terms of the question around passing on costs, there is a range of regulatory powers that MBIE have in terms of making sure that happens, and it’s very similar to what happened when the last Government reduced the fuel excise—those expectations remain. In terms of who will receive the benefits—people who drive their cars. There will be 10c plus the corresponding 1.5c a litre in GST that will be reduced from people’s fuel bills; they’ll benefit through this saving.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you so much, Madam Chair. The third question, then, is: what information about pricing will be collected and where will it be collected? Is this an expectation that the Minister has of the wholesale fuel distributors, or is that information that will be collected by the New Zealand Transport Agency? The question here is about how the Minister intends to ensure that those cost savings are, in fact, passed on to consumers.

I will ask the fourth question as well, which is in relation to his answer about this benefiting all drivers. Has he had any advice about the impact of the regulation he’s proposing, given that it would seem that it would incentivise drivers to behave in different ways? It passes costs on from drivers who would be driving long distances to drivers who are simply registering the car every year but are not driving those long distances.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m going to begin with a story. It should only take a moment or so, but I am going to ask your indulgence for it, Madam Chair, because I then do want to get into a very specific question—

Grant McCallum: Is it a funny story?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Well, who knows what you will think? So it will take me about a minute thirty, then I will get to the actual particular point of it.

This goes back a long time, when Trevor Mallard was Minister of Education—so I’m afraid, Minister, this might have been before you were born, or perhaps not; it’s hard to tell.

Hon Simeon Brown: No, no. He was—

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Not quite, not quite. OK, but when Trevor Mallard was Minister of Education—

Hon Simeon Brown: I remember he shut down a lot of schools.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No interjections from here, thank you.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Ha, ha!

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Don’t bait the Minister, because he’s not allowed to come back at you at that.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: There was a process where a lot of country schools were being closed down—small schools with very small roles—and, of course, there was a lot of trouble around that from communities. Communities were concerned about it. But one of the things that Trevor Mallard did—or one of his key staffers did—was they went and drove the routes around every single one of the schools that was proposed for closure. So there were some schools which, even though the role had fallen a long way and there was another school perhaps within a few kilometres, were kept open because it was simply too far to ask a small child to travel on a bus or there was a road that was too dangerous to cross over to drop us in a car.

Now, the point of that is not—well, it was a great thing for Trevor Mallard to do, but he acquired the local knowledge for each change he was making so that he could justify it. He really engaged with the changes that he was making. Now, that leads me to the question I want to ask, because a lot of the changes that are being made—the projects that are being discontinued—are very local, and they might matter only to the local people but they matter a great deal to those local people. There are a number here on this list of projects that I want to ask about. I’m going to start with in Project 8, which is being discontinued, and I want to understand why the Minister felt that this was suitable for discontinuing.

The particular intersection that concerns me on these safety concerns—it was some safety improvements to the intersection of Blockhouse Bay Road and Chalmers Street. Now, Minister, if you drive up along Blockhouse Bay Road—I have a difficult sense of direction sometimes, but Blockhouse Bay Road does run more or less North-South—you’re running, actually, from the Waitematā to the Mānukau in a particular place. As you’re driving towards the Mānukau, up towards the intersection with Chalmers Street, it’s a very narrow intersection; it carries a lot of traffic. The road engineers have managed to squeeze a turn-right lane in, as well as a straight-through lane, but it’s a four-way intersection. It goes one street at a time, because it is so narrow and so dangerous. As you turn left off Blockhouse Bay Road, it goes into New Windsor Road, where there is a retirement village—actually, it’s a Kāinga Ora one—just up on New Windsor Road. Carrying on down through Blockhouse Bay Road, it is quite densely populated. From Chalmers Street, as you turn right into Chalmers Street, it’s down the hill across the train line. So you can see why it’s an intersection that concerns the locals a great deal.

What I want to understand is why we’ve lost that safety improvement out of the area in which I live and to what extent, Minister, you took it upon yourself to familiarise yourself with the details of the projects that were being lost and the impacts on the local communities. Now, that is the first of the projects I want to ask about—that intersection of Blockhouse Bay Road and Chalmers Street—and I would appreciate some insight as to why people in my community have lost that safety improvement.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just want to make some general comments about the bill, and then some specific questions about this part. I guess one of the overall questions I have for the Minister is whether, in repealing the regional fuel tax, he asked for any advice on the relative compliance costs associated with collecting it as a revenue collection tool, compared to other tools. I know the Government has indicated that they are interested in providing other funding tools to councils, and, specifically for transport projects, tools like congestion pricing. But in the short term, there’s going to be a gap in revenue and then, in order for projects that were on the books in Auckland to continue being funded with a share from the council, it would have to come from some other source—probably rates or those projects simply won’t go ahead. But given that fuel tax is already being collected and the mechanism was in place to collect the regional fuel tax, did the Government give any consideration to the relative value of having something that is administratively simple and already in place to carry on with revenue so that infrastructure can carry on being funded until we have the congestion pricing or other mechanisms in place?

Then my second question relates to, in Part 1, clause 7, which talks about the amendments to the Schedule of the projects. What I’m particularly interested in is why the Minister decided to carry on allowing the funding that was sitting there, had been collected from the Auckland regional fuel tax—why is he allowing that to be used on the Eastern Busway, when the money from the regional fuel tax has come from car drivers, and now it’s being put to a public transport project. Why does he think it’s OK in the instance of the Eastern Busway, which is one of the few projects that was on the list of 14 projects to be funded? I’m really interested in the Minister’s answer on this. Does he think it’s fair for people who’ve been driving around Auckland, paying regional fuel tax, that that money be put towards a busway project, and, if so, why is that?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Just before I call the Hon Damien O’Connor, I’m just going to say that this is under urgency with no select committee. Part 1 is the substantial part of this bill, and we need to create an opportunity for some people who haven’t asked questions yet.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I came to the Chamber late—I had another meeting. I am thankful to be able speak to my amendment. There may be some in the Chamber who say, you know, “Do I care about Auckland?” I do care—particularly because I do travel up there occasionally—because my amendment reinstates Project 8 in the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax Scheme—Auckland) Order 2018, and it’s to do with road safety.

I have a passion for road safety. As someone—and there’ll be a few members here in the Chamber—who drives 50,000 or 60,000 kilometres a year at least, it’s a lot of time on the road and you fear for what might happen. There are a multitude of dangers out there. It’s one of the most dangerous things that people do: hop in a 1-tonne projectile and drive at 100 kilometres an hour, or something, towards someone else who’s coming the other way. It’s kind of taken for granted. We need to have proper laws and guidelines and protections to ensure that as few people as possible are killed or maimed. I said before: $5 million for every fatal accident.

So my question to the Minister for Transport is: when you are going to exclude capital expenditure of critical safety projects across Auckland, including safer speed limits, rural road safety improvements—something I’m very passionate about—what’s the cost of this long term? If we have one more fatal accident, that’s another $5 million cost to the economy. If he is indeed proposing that the amendments will drive better economic growth, every one of those fatal accidents cost $5 million. So has he done a study, has he got advice, as to what will be the effect of not investing in safer speed limits, rural road safety improvements?

Indeed, it goes over—there are many areas. The Cabinet Expenditure and Regulatory Review Committee addressed high-risk corridors, intersection and speed-related deficiencies on the network. Deficiencies are areas in infrastructure that have been identified as faulty, and this is going to be excluded from funding in Auckland—this is outrageous. We have a health and safety regime in this country that says if you identify a risk, you have a legal obligation to do something about that. Yet the Minister—and the question is for him: how can he walk away from this legal obligation to do everything in his power, and to work with Auckland Council, to reduce the risks that might result in deaths and injuries? Because if it was a workplace, and, indeed, as Minister of Transport, it is your workplace, Minister—how are you going to explain to the families of the people who are killed on rural roads because of insufficient infrastructure? How are you going to explain your legal position? Because if you were an employer or you were overseeing—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Please don’t use the word “you”.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Sorry, sorry, Madam Chair. If the Minister was the employer or was the pick—I can’t remember the technical term for it in Health and Safety—

Rachel Boyack: PCBU.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: —PCBU (person conducting a business or undertaking)—then the Minister would be liable. So this is excluding investment in areas of road safety, and if it was health and safety, there would be an outrage. So Minister, maybe you can explain how you can justify that—the urban road safety programme as well will be excluded.

Then, you go over to the area that I’m not familiar with—because it itemises the particular areas, and my colleagues will point to those—but funding will be applied or will be excluded to signage related to speed limit changes. Now, I’ve had the occasional speeding fine. Sometimes, it’s because I don’t know what the speed limit is. But there are many, many angry people around the country now who are getting pinged. The Minister says there’s going to be more police out there on the road—that’s fine, that will contribute to better road safety. But if they haven’t had the signage to know what the speed limit is—and there are numerous examples across the country, particularly rural areas, and they’ll be the same around Auckland. “What was that last sign I had? What’s the speed limit now? Is it 60 or 70 or 80?” Indeed, there’s an ability now for the council to set variable speed limits.

If people are going to be prosecuted because there’s not been an investment and the Minister’s legislation has prevented investment in speed signs, that is outrageous. You will see—no, the Minister will see—the reaction, the Government will, from the people who live in rural Auckland and those who live in urban—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The member’s time has expired.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the members for their questions. There has been a range of questions raised in regards to various projects, and I note there’s a number of tabled amendments as well, and I note the honourable member who’s just sat down has raised a tabled amendment in regard to a particular one. There is around $340 million of unspent regional fuel tax revenue.

In discussions with the Mayor of Auckland, the priority projects are those main ones, which are the City Rail Link trains and stabling, which is critically important around the City Rail Link; the Eastern Busway and Reeves Road flyover, which is under construction; and local roading improvements. Those are the priorities that we both have agreed, and that is what this legislation is putting in place.

In relation to the honourable member Damien O’Connor, who’s just sat down, he raises a tabled amendment where he seeks to change clause 7, which, effectively, revokes—

Hon Damien O’Connor: To reinstate clause 8.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Yeah, so he wants to reinstate clause 8, which is in relation to road safety, which he’s just articulated his reasons for that. I’m not sure if he’s had a conversation with his colleague Camilla Belich, because she has an identical tabled amendment where she doesn’t want to reinstate the road safety one but wants to reinstate active transport instead. So there seems to be some inconsistency in terms of some of these tabled amendments coming through from the Opposition members. I note there’s a range of other tabled amendments which seek to reinstate others. As we’ve outlined, we have already identified the three projects that we are going to require the remaining funding to go towards. We’ve been very clear about that. This is legislating that. In terms of all of those tabled amendments, we won’t be supporting them.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Well, thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak on this bill as it goes through its committee stage. I did want to speak to some of the amendments that I have put forward, and thank you, Minister, for looking at them in advance of this contribution. I can just assure the Minister that on this side of the Chamber we have had conversations with each other about this bill, and many of the amendments that we seek to table—and we would appreciate the Minister’s support in relation to some of these amendments—look at the value of the different projects which will not be undertaken as a result of the passage of this bill, and are really looking for the committee and the Minister’s support in debating the merits of those projects and seeking, perhaps, a reversal in the decision to exclude them.

So I don’t think it’s inconsistent to say that my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor wants to retain safety in relation to road safety issues. While my amendments address other issues, either of those amendments would be an improvement on the bill that the Minister has put before the committee, and what we’re asking the Minister to do is really to consider them.

So I do have two amendments, and I’ll try and speak to both of them but I will try and seek another call if I don’t have time to speak to both. The first one is in relation to clause 7, which is in Part 1, which we’re currently looking at, and I’ve got two amendments to clause 7. The first one is given the letter “N” and is in relation to a particular section which the Minister has already referred to, but it goes through the different projects which were to be covered. The one that I want to specifically talk about first is N, and that looks at Project 2, which is the central city bus infrastructure—essentially, the Land Transport Management Act, from which the regional fuel tax funded a number of things within the central city in relation to bus infrastructure and bus improvements.

As someone who lives in Auckland, and I know the member does as well, we’ll both be well aware of the importance of buses. Travelling by bus is one of the major public transportation ways that are utilised within our city. Of course, we’ve looked previously and there’s been a lot of discussion in the earlier readings around rail, but at the moment, buses fulfil a very important role in relation to public transport.

So just for those who are wondering about the purpose of the amendment that I’ve put forward—and I’m interested to know whether the Minister would support this—the project which is not going to go ahead is capital expenditure for downtown bus infrastructure, including a bus interchange in Lower Albert Street for the North Shore and western buses, a bus interchange in the Wynyard Quarter, a bus interchange in the Beach Road area, bus priority improvements, also capital expenditure for bus infrastructure in the city centre, also including bus priority improvements for passenger facilities, including bus stops and bus shelters on Wellesley St and Grafton Road, and a new learning quarter for the Grafton Gully bus interchange.

So a significant amount of work in relation to making buses more accessible and more easily utilised by Aucklanders, and so my amendment to clause 7 would be to delete the words “1 to 3” and replace them with “1 and 3”, so, essentially, keeping and maintaining project two as listed in the schedule which is due to be repealed.

So I think those are really important aspects of public transportation that would have been funded by the regional fuel tax, which are now no longer going to be funded. I would like to know from the Minister, firstly, would he support the amendment that I have put in place? If not, what can Aucklanders expect in relation to his plans for public transportation and also for bus infrastructure, specifically in the areas which I mentioned, which will now no longer be served as a result of this bill?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Well, as I said earlier, the Government has outlined which of these projects we’re supporting. We’ve put that forward into the bill as it stands before the committee. There’s a range of tabled amendments which seek to—through various ways—reinsert others of those projects and, as I’ve outlined, the Government will not be supporting any of those tabled amendments.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere): Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate being selected to take a call and make a contribution. I want to speak to my amendment, which is under clause 7, and it says to delete the words “1 to 3” and replace with “1 to 2”.

I want to highlight to the Minister that I am the member for Māngere, where the international airport is and where the domestic airport is, and I’m sure many of the colleagues across the Chamber—particularly on this side—come from Auckland and know the area well. Minister, I’m not sure if you know of the projects that are happening locally. So there has been a strong focus in terms of road safety, and the Hon Damien O’Connor spoke about why it is important to have intervention.

The repeal of the regional fuel tax heavily impacts on the continual delivery that the people in Māngere have seen. There has been a strong focus on pedestrian safety, on cycleways delivery, on serving the people of Māngere, which has actually served people of Greater Auckland and South Auckland because Māngere does not want to be an island where there’s congestion and continual roadblocks and continual cone city.

I wanted to highlight the project, Minister, in terms of the trends and what we have found with this project—local transport project called Te Ara Mua - Future Streets—and the success of that specific project has benefited because the funding has remained not just from central government but also from Auckland Council and the local community. That specific transport project has made the streets around Māngere centre, around our main precinct, safer by increasing the visibility and especially for our walking and our cycling community. So in Māngere—I’m just going to highlight very quickly in my time that a number of main streets in Māngere were like highways. They were not safe; not safe for families, not safe for our kaumātua who have to walk aided, and also too we have a disability community. This specific project has allowed the streets to be redesigned and we have local roads that have reduced traffic for up to 30 percent—and that has been measured, Minister.

So, Minister, I just want to ask some quick questions with regards to my amendment because it’s important that airport access is in the suite of options—and I know the Minister has highlighted, and thank you Minister: you have highlighted what is going to be kept in terms of local road improvements. I want to really emphasise and put on record that suburbs around the Auckland International Airport, if there is not that continual funding, are going to continue to be gridlocked and you can sit on a on a busy street in Māngere trying to get into the airport.

So, Minister, I wanted to highlight to you that we actually have the statistical data that has benefited from the funding of the regional fuel tax because Auckland Council has seen that the investment, the local transport investment, has not only benefited the local community but everybody using the airport in and out and even on the Pauanui interchange. I want to highlight also for the Minister that when you have a community who has not been served well in terms of transport infrastructure and to have that behaviour changed because you’ve got better public access on public transport, people are more confident in walking local streets; it’s a healthier option. The repeal of this regional fuel tax does not benefit lower socio-economic communities like Māngere and others in South Auckland. What we do know is that when communities like ours benefit, then the whole of Auckland benefits as well.

So, Minister, my question is: will you, in terms of the local road improvements, continue to engage; continue to consult the communities through your officials? Because we have benefited—we are a community that you can see the benefits are not just for old people, not just for community, but especially our young people who are in a modern age and I’d like to put that question to you. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m going to take a call from Arena Williams because I know that you indicated before that there are some more questions. What I want from here on in—and we are in the urgency and we are making allowances for that. The Minister’s made it very clear that he’s chosen three projects and that others will not be part of. So I understand the local passion for those projects, but really looking for questions now around the technicality of what’s actually happening with the repeal of the bill. So I welcome Arena Williams to ask her other questions that she hasn’t asked yet.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Chair. And I was going to bring the committee’s attention to the Speaker’s ruling at 79/4 about this interchange, because it is something that aids in the debate. I have asked focused questions about the impact on consumers of this bill, which seeks to lower their costs. The purpose of the bill is to provide cost of living relief for Aucklanders. So it is very relevant to the committee in the committee of the whole House stage to understand how these savings will be passed on to consumers.

So to follow up my four questions of six which I have asked the Minister, I haven’t heard an answer to questions three and four. Question four, which has not yet been addressed, is: what information about price will be collected? The next question, had that been answered, that I would have asked, is: given that information’s being collected, which agency is responsible for it? Is it the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA); is it the wholesale fuel distributors themselves who would have otherwise paid that levy? That’s relevant because this committee needs to understand who, within the system, is responsible for ensuring that the information is collected, so that the Minister can then be assured that consumers are enjoying the benefit of his bill.

The Minister, I heard before, remarked that this is the same sort of regime as Labour’s when it introduced its fuel tax savings. The difference here, and what I’m trying to get to with these questions, is that that was only ever a temporary cost of living relief. This bill introduces a permanent change to the regime and, in fact, removes all of the Government’s taxing powers for cents per litre charge for fuel that can be used for local government transport projects that otherwise may not be fully funded. So the question here is how does this new regime, which is a long-term regime, ensure that consumers enjoy the benefits of this change?

My final question for the Minister is what the impact of the wholesale fuel distributors not paying that tax to NZTA would be on Auckland Council. Because we have heard in a number of contributions in these questions specifically about the issue of whether an increase of rates will be used to fund these specific projects—that’s not my question. I want to hear the Minister’s explanation about the impact on borrowing for Auckland Council’s books. Auckland Council is subject to a cap on the amount of money it can borrow. So because those wholesale fuel distributors will not be paying this tax to NZTA, it would be useful for this committee to appreciate how that will impact on the borrowing levels of Auckland Council; whether the Minister has considered any alternatives like lifting the cap of Auckland Council’s borrowing; or whether one of the ideas that the Minister discussed on the campaign trail of time user charges, otherwise known as motorway tolls, is something that he is considering to alleviate the pressure on Auckland Council’s books.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to make clear—you made some observations about the nature of the debate. I think you mentioned, in passing, Speaker’s ruling 125/8, noting that we are in urgency and there’s no select committee, which perhaps expands the scope of the debate, because, of course, submitters haven’t had a chance to express their views about how it affects them and impacts them particularly, of course, in Auckland.

Also, Speaker’s ruling 124/5, which—although it mentions the nuts and bolts of a bill—also talks about whether the bill effectively implements the policy which it sets out to do. Obviously, members are identifying facts on the ground in terms of how that fits with the policy of the bill. So I just wouldn’t want members on this side of the Chamber to truncate their debate unnecessarily on the basis that you seem to say it should be a kind of technical—in other words “working”—debate, rather than how the bill actually implements the policies it’s intended to do.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yeah, look, I understand the point that the member is making within the point of order, and I think if there are specific things around a project that relate to what’s happening in the bill, then that’s a fair question, rather than we don’t want to be up talking all night about projects that the Minister’s clearly said he’s not going to do, other than things that relate to the bill around safety—we’ve heard of—and various other things, which I think then the Minister would be required to at least listen to the question.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Speaking to the point of order. I do want to emphasise that this is a matter which Aucklanders are particularly concerned about, and the voice of people coming to select committee, which would be—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yeah, OK. I get the point. I’m not ruling out people mentioning their projects; all I’m saying is can we home in when we’re speaking about points that relate back to the bill. I’m not going to sit anyone down for mentioning a project; I just want to know how it relates to their question.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Madam Chair. I know there are members opposite seeking a call. I would hope that they would share with the committee their views. I look forward to hearing from Andy Foster, the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. That would be if this was in front of a select committee considering this, along with Grant McCallum and Tom Rutherford. But it seems that only other members of that select committee are contributing tonight.

I do want to thank colleagues on this side who have shared their local passion for some of the projects, because I do think—and I hope that the Minister accepts this and perhaps that’s a question to the Minister: does the Minister accept that local members of Parliament, who obviously have a very clear and distinct connection to many of these projects, are firstly entitled to raise the concerns, and that those concerns are not simply set aside, because the Minister’s response is that he’s decided on the three. In actual fact, he’s already pointed out a couple of Amendment Papers in the name of the Hon Damien O’Connor and also my colleague Camilla Belich. I think there might be a suggestion, maybe from the Minister, that instead of isolating each of those, perhaps we could just put them all back in. I think he would find favour on this side of the Chamber if that was what he was referring to. Perhaps he could clarify that.

I have a number of Amendment Papers in my name that I would like the opportunity to address. They are distinctly different. Before I move to that, though, there are still a number of outstanding clauses within Part 1 that have yet to be addressed, and I do have questions about them, so I will turn those to the Minister.

The first in this call is in relation to clause 22, and that is still within the proposed new Part 5 inserted into Schedule 1AA—and this relates to the “Disbursement of proceeds”. When one looks at what is contained in subclause (1), it refers to “Top-up funding”, and there’s a specific word that’s used there, which is in relation to “the payment of scheme administration or winding-up costs,”. It says that “it may require the Auckland Council to pay it an amount or amounts from the Auckland RFT reserve fund to fund those payments.”

Now, my question for the Minister is: is that a discretion that rests with the agency, in which case there is perhaps no consultation with Auckland Council as to what its requirements or its role might be in terms of that final sentence there within the clause, or is the use of the word “may” more of a two-way transactional conversation? This relates, actually, to an earlier point that my colleague Shanan Halbert made about the level of consultation that had taken place between the Mayor of Auckland and the Minister. So my question is around where that discretion lies. Does it sit purely with the agency, or is there an expectation that it’s a one-way relationship in this regard. Now, I note that this is in relation to transitional provisions, but, none the less, it is important that that is understood.

My other question relates to clause 23, and this is in relation to the “reserve fund”. So clause 23(1) talks about the fact that “The Auckland Council must continue to operate … [this] fund under … [a parent section] until it is spent.” Now, my question to the Minister is: is there any incentive or disincentive for the spending of those moneys? Because it could be that the money could just sit there for—well, the question is: what period of time? It’s unspecified. Is it tied in with the date that other provisions within this bill would come into place? But, then again, these are provisions that are transitional, and so I’d appreciate the clarity around that.

The other is also in relation to subclause (2)(b) under that clause, and this ties in with projects—specifically, four, six, and 12. If those projects were to be delayed, what would be the impact in relation to how the reserve fund may be accessed or not? So, in essence, is the spending of the moneys for projects four, six, and 12 time bound; if so, could the Minister please point to the time-bound provision within clause 23, and, if not, why not?

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to take a call for the first time on the repeal of the regional fuel tax bill. As you know, I come from Ōtepoti—Dunedin—and the Dunedin City Council has a zero-carbon target by 2030, and in that they aim to change modality in transport. I’ve noticed here that removing the legislative framework for imposing regional taxes will provide certainty to households and businesses that no regional fuel taxes will be implemented by any other region. Now, this is a real concern for our community—for local authorities nationally—because the fuel tax has been an inspiration for other urban areas to make change to deliver for their communities.

If I think about the shifts that the Dunedin City Council said, they want three main themes to cover how Dunedin’s transport emissions can be reduced in three main ways: by supporting people to live well locally, by enabling businesses and people to shift to low-carbon transport modes, and by improving the vehicle fleet. There are eight key shifts that they talk about: nurture low-emission urban form; target closer destinations, encourage closer destinations, and inspire longer stays; unlock remote solutions; develop convenient and attractive cycling and walking networks and public transport services; boost transport demand management and support use of active and public modes; shift freight to low-emission modes; electrify light vehicles—ah, yeah, that’s right, we’ve got rid of the low-emissions fee—and decarbonise heavy vehicles, marine, and aviation. So if we think about what a regional fuel tax could do for urban areas that are taking their own work—we know this Government doesn’t care, we know this Government wants to destroy the environment, but there are cities who are working to decarbonise. There are cities and urban areas that are trying to do their best, and there are rural hinterlands that also want to do their best and have the option to do so, or had the option to do so, taking the example of the Tāmaki-makau-rau fuel tax.

Now, this is a fuel tax that has enabled public transport, it’s enabled walkable streets, it’s given the potential for light rail—and I can’t understand why anyone would want to stomp on local initiatives, on city initiatives, to do well by their communities. Why would central government seek to destroy localism? Why would central government seek to destroy localism when it can provide for their communities, when it can provide climate safe communities? This is something that should not be thrown out. This is something that is actually really important. And what this bill does is disincentivise and give the middle finger to every other local jurisdiction around the country, to say: “We don’t care. We’re too entitled to let you choose.” That’s essentially what it says.

I am embarrassed to be in a Parliament that allows something to happen like this. This is just a shocking, shocking indictment of the climate denialism that we face across the aisle. It’s a shocking indictment of the desire for Rapture—you want to head there in an SUV, but this isn’t going to happen. We need to be looking for solutions, and unfortunately the Minister doesn’t appear to see what’s in front of his eyes, which is a community—a community of local government who want this type of solution and have been arguing for it for ever and a day, only being overridden by a Government that does not care.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I thank the member for his question, which asked, effectively, why regional fuel taxes can’t also be applied elsewhere. Our Government doesn’t support regional fuel taxes. We’re repealing the legislation, as I’ve already told the committee, and so we are repealing it through this legislation.

In relation to other questions from members in the Labour Party regarding projects in their areas, as we’ve outlined, this bill prioritises the three particular projects listed and requires the remaining funds to go towards those, and we’re not supporting any of the other amendments that have been put forward. There were a number of questions from Tangi Utikere in terms of the disbursement. This is in relation to the funds that may be required for the council to pay this. The agency may request extra costs be recovered. Effectively, that is to do with the funds being used in relation to the rebates and ensuring that there are funds available for those rebates. That’s my understanding of the purpose of that particular provision, and also to cover the cost of the scheme.

In regards to clause 23, any incentive or disincentive to spend it, the legislation doesn’t make the spend time-bound, because obviously some of those projects are going to take two to three years, so there’s going to be no time-bounds on them. Ultimately, the council is motivated to complete them, and at the completion of it, once the funding is spent, then, of course, it’s spent.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. This will be my second line of questioning. I haven’t received responses to my key questions at the start. The Minister of Transport acknowledged that he had met with Mayor Wayne Brown, but my question was actually framed around what the current state of the relationship is and the impact of this piece of legislation. What were the views of the mayor and councillors on this piece of legislation to inform those decisions?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I don’t think that the Minister’s responsible for the views of the mayor. The questions are to the Minister’s actions, not somebody else’s.

SHANAN HALBERT: Sure. The reason I’m asking that question, Madam Chair, is because I’m interested in what advice the Minister took on board given the absence of a submission period from Aucklanders, from the mayor, and from councillors. Usually, in select committee, we would have the opportunity to hear directly from them; we don’t have that in this instance, hence the question to the Minister. I’d really appreciate just a bit of an update of that state of that relationship and how he intends to move forward in working on transport infrastructure with Auckland Council.

The second question I want to move to is around the relationship with Auckland Transport and how they might have been involved in his decision making. What was their advice that they gave the Minister, and which particular parts may he have considered in that? Did he meet with Dean Kimpton, the CEO, and what was Dean’s advice to the Minister, and is there follow-up to address the cancellation of projects and the hole that it leaves in in transport infrastructure in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland?

Lastly, in this line of questioning, I wanted to drill down back into—somebody touched on the road safety point, but I wanted to come back to, particularly, safety for our tamariki around schools and pedestrian crossings. I respect the Minister, and I have enjoyed working with him in the transport space over the past few years, but I have openly called him cynical today in our speeches, on the basis that he has doubled down on pedestrian crossings in this particular discussion. I’m seeking an explanation from the Minister, because children’s safety, road safety, is a very important part of the decision that this legislation is making, and in my community we have very good examples where pedestrian crossings have been very effective: outside Birkdale Primary, Beach Haven Primary, Northcote Intermediate. While the construction of those were quite disruptive, actually, it prevents any of our tamariki being hit by cars or being seriously injured as a result.

The question I had for the Minister is: in his second reading speech and first reading speech he continued to mention the amount of $500,000 as a cost for pedestrian crossings. Part of his rationale in this legislation change is that he wants to get more bang for buck, and that’s fine. I just wonder which example he might be referring to in that cost of $500,000, what other examples of more cost-effective pedestrian crossings he may have looked at, and what were those costings and which projects may he have completed site visits to. I appreciate that these might be part of the cancellation of prospective projects—but it’s an important part, just to understand where the Minister’s thinking is in his decision when prioritising key parts. I accept, partially, that, you know, he’s called a halt to the regional fuel tax; that there’s only a certain amount of money left, but when we come to how do we actually decide on how we spend that, I’m not clear on how the Minister has gone through that decision-making process.

My questions regarding pedestrian crossings are actually because, from what I’ve heard from the Minister, I worry that he has unfairly looked at those and used a poor example from the New Zealand Herald that has been withdrawn. So I do want to understand what his view actually is on that and what examples he might have looked at out in either my community or out in other communities, because from my understanding, not all pedestrian crossings are at $500,000. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): The number of questions there from Shanan Halbert asking me for my views, of the mayor’s views, and in relation to the views of Auckland Transport, etc., etc. I mean, ultimately, as I’ve outlined on a number of occasions, we took this policy to the election; Aucklanders voted for it—in fact, I think Auckland voted 57 percent for the coalition Government—and now we are delivering on that promise with this legislation. The bill, I think, outlines all of those various elements of how we are repealing it, what projects are remaining, and so I don’t think those questions are particularly in relation to the bill.

Arena Williams asked earlier around the issue around the fuel companies passing on the cost. The answer to those questions is that, ultimately, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is responsible for the regular monitoring of importer margins on fuel. They will be doing what they did when the last Government reduced fuel excise, I think two years ago, and we’ll be making sure they’re monitoring that in exactly the same way to ensure that the reduction in the fuel excise is passed on to motorists.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Labour—Panmure-Ōtāhuhu): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, e te Māngai o te Whare. I have a few questions for the Minister on the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill, Part 1, particularly on clause 4 and clause 5. My first question is: how will the Minister ensure that the abolition of the regional fuel tax does not adversely affect the funding of current and future transport projects in Auckland, especially those that are critical to reducing and improving the public transportation system?

My second question is: can the Minister explain how the alternative funding mechanisms he proposes will replace the revenue previously generated under the regional fuel tax and how will these be implemented to ensure the continuity of long-term transport infrastructure in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland?

My third question: can the Minister detail the transitional provisions that will be put in place to manage the wind-up process of the current scheme to ensure a minimal disruption to all ongoing and planned projects in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland?

My fourth question, and this is in terms of clause 5, particularly the savings provisions of clause 5: how will the Minister ensure that the savings provisions protect the already committed funds and projects that were to be financed by the regional fuel tax and what measures will he put in place to ensure that these projects are completed as planned?

And my final question—this time—number five: what legislative and regulatory changes will be required to effectively wind up the regional fuel tax scheme and what is the time line for these changes? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, thank you for some of the questions that were asked in relation to projects—I’ve answered in prior questions and answers. In relation to specific projects, we’ve been very clear about the ones that we will be requiring the remaining funding to be going towards, and this legislation and schedules deal with how exactly that will happen.

In terms of the winding up of the scheme, this legislation effectively requires, from the time of Royal assent—we’ll get to that debate later—that the funds are required to be spent on these particular projects and then on 30 June that is when the tax ends.

CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have some further questions for the Minister of Transport. Given that he was not interested in responding about either the increased personal costs of injury and death nor the cost to the Government of increased health, I will focus on the very immediate cost of living question. The median distance of travel to school in metro urban authorities is just over 2 kilometres. Is it cheaper for a family, let’s say with two children, to encourage their children to walk to school or to have to buy a second car to drive them there? Is it cheaper to have cycle lanes and footpaths or to increase the health budget? And is it cheaper to catch a bus or to drive and pay for parking in Tāmaki-makau-rau?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Look, I think there’s a range of questions in relation to a range of transport policies. I mean, ultimately what we’re doing here is removing the Auckland regional fuel tax, which removes 10c a litre plus GST off the cost of fuel in Auckland. That is what this Government does. That’s what the legislation does.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I call—I’m just checking to see who has taken the call—the Hon Deborah Russell.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m very grateful to have only my second call on this bill. I want to go to clause 7 to discuss some of the things that would probably have been discussed in a select committee process, had we been able to have one. I know we’re doing this under urgency, but the fact that it’s under urgency doesn’t mean we shouldn’t examine this as thoroughly as we can in the committee stage. I don’t think it was the choice of this side of the Chamber to go into urgency, so—consequences.

I just want to take one issue with the Minister. One of the things that the Minister says is “We won the election.” and so on, and “Therefore, we don’t need to discuss.” Indeed, that is quite clear, but that doesn’t mean that the Government is still not responsible for discussing these matters. Just saying that repeatedly, when we are raising concerns from our local communities, kind of does amount to going “Nyah nyah na-nyah nyah!”, so it would be helpful if we got some responses.

Having said all that, I do want to go to a very specific project which is missing from my area, and it matters. So it relates to project 13; it’s one of the items in clause 7, where we’ve got Schedule 2 being amended, and Project 13 is now taken out. That’s a real shame, because it was about improving the capability of the network, and the particular set of projects I was interested in is the one around dynamic lanes, which is really interesting—dynamic traffic lanes.

Now, I have a good friend who lives out in Whangaparāoa, out on Vipond Road out there. So I go and visit him every now and again, and there’s a really fantastic dynamic lane there, and it works really well to ensure that we’ve got effective traffic flows, that the road is being used to capacity, so two lanes out in the morning, then it gets swapped over and you get two lanes back in in the evening with the dynamic lane.

Project 13 has dynamic lanes included, and there were to be dynamic lanes along Great North Road and around Patiki Road and around Blockhouse Bay Road. Certainly, Blockhouse Bay Road could do with that extra lane out in the morning, and the extra lane in in the evening would have made quite a difference.

But the road I want to really focus on is Patiki Road, and the reason I want to focus on Patiki Road is it goes off State Highway 20, I think it is, and leads up into Rosebank Road, up through the Avondale Peninsula. That is an intense light—I was going to say “intense light industrial area”; it’s a light industrial area—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Does the member have a question for the Minister?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yes, I do—I do. I’m going to get to it, I promise. There are a lot of businesses there and the traffic gets incredibly congested there. It is hard for businesses to operate there because the traffic is inadequate. Yet this project, which would have been so beneficial to them, has been taken off the drawing board.

I want to know if the Minister consulted the Rosebank Business Association. I mean, they’ve been lobbying for years for better traffic on that road. They’ve lobbied, and they really do need some improvements there. So has the Minister—in lieu of having a select committee stage where people like the Rosebank Business Association could have come and talked about this project—consulted with the Rosebank Business Association?

That dynamic traffic flow would have made a huge difference, not just to the local residents but to businesses in that area, and it’s a real shame that they haven’t had that chance to come and make that case themselves, so I’m making it for them. What consultation did the Minister undertake with the businesses operating along Rosebank Road? Those businesses are typically represented by the Rosebank Business Association.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Before I take the next call, can I just reiterate what the former Chair said to members: not to now refer to specific projects but to the ones that remain as a consequence of this bill. She did say you could mention specific projects, but the questioning to the Minister about those has been fairly well done—I’ve got a good record of them. So we’re looking for new material and we are looking for specific questions to the Minister.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for the question. Ultimately, as I’ve outlined on a number of occasions, the Government has been very clear around which of these projects will require the remaining funding to support. There were a number of members raising questions about particular projects. Obviously, we’ve released the Government policy statement on transport this week and those issues will be dealt with through the council being able to continue to put forward projects. Ultimately, this bill is about the Auckland regional fuel tax. We’re removing the Auckland regional fuel tax and that’s what this bill does.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): I move, That debate on this question now close.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate the opportunity to take a call. I’ve got two specific lines of questions that could have definitely been addressed at the select committee stage.

So the first one is: whether a child impact assessment has been done on this bill. The reason why I’m raising this is because if you look at the general policy statement, it’s very clear that part of what this bill intends to do is to provide some relief to New Zealanders who are facing difficulty due to the rising cost of living. So it’s really clear that there is a cost of living intent in this bill. At the select committee stage, we normally could evaluate the impact that such a bill with cost of living implications would have on things like child poverty reduction. I think this is quite pertinent to ask because we’ve been told by different Ministers on bills that will increase child poverty that those bills that increase child poverty are not to be taken in isolation but as part of a range of interventions that the Government is doing. This is one of those, according to different Ministers.

So what I’m interested to know is whether a child impact assessment has been done as part of the process of this bill, to actually evaluate the cost of living impacts on children, particularly on child poverty reduction, because, to me, I guess, this is one of the bills the Government intends to have cost of living impacts. So I’m keen to know what analysis and to what extent those impacts on cost of living relief have been done as part of preparing for this bill, and if there’s no information, actually, around, for example, how many children does the Minister expect to be lifted out of poverty as part of the relief that this bill is supposed to provide, I’m curious to know then whether the Minister can back up his arguments around the significant cost of living impacts that this will have.

The other thing that I was interested to unpack was around a distributional assessment, and that’s the other part that I think hasn’t really been unpacked as part of the legislative process. Again, this is something that we could have unpacked with officials and with the Minister, and other submitters could have brought their own analysis on this. By distributional assessment, I mean, for example, which population groups are the ones that the Minister expects to have most to gain as part of the repeal of the regional fuel tax.

So on different bills that we normally evaluate in select committee, we do get the opportunity to assess where we do think that impact will go. So, for example, is he expecting that people from specific neighbourhoods will be more disproportionately benefiting compared to others? Is this families, for example, receiving income support, or different ethnic groups expected to benefit? Is this people who are working full time or part-time or who live near, for example, public transport areas? This is important, right? Because if the whole intent of the repeal is to have a cost of living impact, it’s worthwhile examining who’s going to feel that impact that he claims this bill will have the most on? I think, again, if the Minister’s unable to substantiate his so-called cost of living impacts of this bill by backing it up with evidence and robust analysis, I just question, then, whether the cost of living argument for this bill is just based on vibes as opposed to actually robust evidence around who will benefit the most.

To recap, I’m interested in whether a child impact assessment has been done, whether a distributional assessment was done, and whether the same analysis on how this will impact child poverty reduction targets—particularly in the context of other bills that will increase child poverty in this country.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): I move, That debate on this question now close.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Camilla Belich—oh, sorry, she’s not here.

Camilla Belich: I am here.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Oh, you are here. Good on you.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): I’ll take the call, even if you didn’t mean to give it to me, Madam Chair—thank you very much. I did want to speak to an Amendment Paper that I have and specifically cover some grounds which I don’t think have been covered to date in the questioning of the Minister.

There’s been a lot of talk about various projects that the Minister has decided not to exempt from the repeal of a number of these projects, and I would like, actually, a bit more of a thorough answer from the Minister. I just had a look at the Standing Orders, and the Minister is required to answer all of our questions. I’m not sure that simply saying, “I don’t want to” or “It’s not the one I picked” is a substantial enough or considered enough justification for the amount of projects which are being defunded, essentially, in Auckland. So the specific ones I wanted to mention—

Ricardo Menéndez March: There is an expectation that he does, yes.

CAMILLA BELICH: Thank you. So the clause I wanted to mention is clause 7. Now, the reason clause 7 keeps coming up, Madam Chair, as you’ll be aware, is clause 7, basically, gets rid of an entire Schedule within the primary Act, which lists a number of projects which the Minister, on the whole, has decided to defund for Aucklanders. The specific ones that I wanted to mention, I wouldn’t describe them as local projects; I  would describe them as essential infrastructure decisions which have been consulted on for a number of years and are integral to Auckland as a city.

The one that I think most clearly illustrates that particular point is the project number 9, which I have suggested should be exempted, and one of the aspects of project number 9 was capital expenditure to support the City Centre Masterplan Access for Everyone programme. Now, for those of you who aren’t aware about the City Centre Masterplan Access for Everyone programme, I’m sure Auckland MPs, including the Minister, will be well aware of it, because it’s existed since 2012 and was, indeed, in 2019 consulted on and endorsed in 2020 by the Auckland planning committee. And this is being repealed specifically in the part of the section which we are discussing at the moment.

I mean, that is quite different from a number of the other issues which have been discussed, and I wanted to know from the Minister: has he turned his mind to this particular plan? And how does he envisage that that particular plan and its very important objectives—which look at the best utilisation of the central city, which is something which is enjoyed by not only everyone who lives in Auckland but, indeed, visitors to Auckland—how is that going to be supported by his Government, considering this is proposed to be repealed by this bill?

The second area that I wanted to highlight in this particular project—which is called a project, but, actually, it’s a list of significant initiatives which won’t be moving forward—is the retrofit of existing painted cycle lanes and appropriate safety barriers. We can, I think, all agree that we need to have safer cycling in New Zealand, and this particular project was funded—2018 to 2028 was the proposal for that. That’s not going forward, and I think it’s important that the Minister explain to the committee why was a decision that he made or that his Cabinet made to not fund that anymore and to not have those safety features in Auckland cycling to be funded, and the justification for that. Because I think it is important and I think the Minister has a duty to this committee to explain why things that have been consulted on by Aucklanders, implemented by Auckland Council—proposals that sought to enrich the city centre and provide greater access to Aucklanders to the city centre—are now no longer going ahead.

It’s something that has existed since 2012, and was revisited in 2019, and then in 2020. It is a significant period of time and, for me, it seems very distressing to think that all of the work that went into that could be repealed without a select committee process. So I do, on that point—if he doesn’t come back to me on cycling, I think that he does have a duty to talk about the City Centre Masterplan Access for Everyone and the reasoning that he wanted to not fund that capital expenditure, and what will exist in its place.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): There’s a couple of questions there in relation to one from Ricardo Menéndez March from the Green Party in relation to the cost of living. This will have a cost of living impact by reducing the cost of petrol for Aucklanders, and that is something which is, of course, good news to people in Auckland and I know has significant support from the people of Auckland.

In relation to the question from Camilla Belich, I have answered a range of very similar questions in relation to particular Amendment Papers which we’ve said we’re not supporting. Because ultimately we were elected to remove this tax, we’re removing it on 30 June this year. There will only be a certain amount of remaining funding and we have prioritised that remaining funding to the projects listed in the bill, and that is what we’re doing through this legislation.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): I move, That debate on this question now close.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Before I take another call, I want to remind people, again, that we are not discussing or debating projects that are no longer in the bill. OK?

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Chair. There are two separate legs to this contribution. Both are new. The first is about what options the Minister considered for those policies which he discussed on the campaign trail around alternatives to a regional fuel tax, given that—and I’m referring the committee here to Part 1 of the bill, clause 4, on page two of our copy, which is entitled “Subpart 3 of Part 2 repealed”, and it says, “Repeal subpart 3 of Part 2.”

So what this part does is it removes the legislative framework that allows new regional fuel taxes to be created, also from 1 July 2024, and the regulations relating to the proposals of new schemes and the conditions that must follow will also be revoked. My question to the Minister about this is: is this not the part of the law which he would seek to amend, were he to introduce time-user charging, or would this piece of legislation not provide him with an easy way to introduce things like motorway tolls, which were discussed in the campaign about alternatives to a regional fuel tax for Auckland? Would this provision that is being repealed by this bill, in fact, be useful to those things that he has indicated to Aucklanders he is considering, and can the Minister give us an assurance that we’re not going to be back in this House quite soon to bring in what is, essentially, a very similar regime to the one that we are repealing?

You know, we could work in this committee stage very quickly on an amendment that would put that back so that it is quite possible for this House to amend that section, if those alternatives are something which the Minister wants to explore, because if we keep that in, then there is some efficiency about providing a legislative route for an amendment which is well understood and which everybody knows how it operates. That wouldn’t run in the face of what the Minister is trying to do. We accept that at this stage, the committee stage, the Minister is absolutely able to propose an idea to the committee, and this would not cut against his idea; it would simply leave in the provisions which allow for arrangements like these to be made.

The Minister might provide the committee here with some clarity about how time-user charges are different. They are different—they are not revenue-raising implements, usually—and in other jurisdictions they are ways of managing traffic flows, because people change their behaviour when they are in place. But this would be something which would allow the levies to be raised by Government, which would actually allow time-user charging to be in place. That’s the first question there.

The second question I have for the Minister is not about a proposal that has been taken off the table entirely—and, look, I think the Minister will be keen to answer this one, because it’s a project that he is interested in, as am I. Both of us are from Manurewa, and it concerns Manurewa: it is about Mill Road. But my question specifically is about this: the Minister is indicating that he is moving Mill Road out of this small pot of money here, which is created by the Auckland regional fuel tax, and into the big pot of money. So it’s very unlike the other projects that my colleagues have been discussing. It’s not going away; there is a provision for it. The Minister has indicated that it will go into the big pot to be considered alongside other significant projects that happen around the country.

So my question to the Minister is: I’m keen on Mill Road as a local roading upgrade—I want people to have access to that as a local project—but what I’m concerned about is that that project could balloon into, essentially, a road of national significance that we spend $3.5 billion on, and now, if it’s in that big pot and out of the instruments here in the small pot, which are being repealed by this bill, what assurance can the Minister give to the committee that there will be adequate controls over that sort of ballooning of costs in a project which should be an upgrade of a local road? It is a local road in South Auckland which South Aucklanders use. That’s a specific question about Mill Road, and I have others, if you’d like to discuss that great project.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, the first question from Arena Williams is not relevant to this bill. This bill is repealing the regional fuel tax. If the Government was to make other policy changes in regards to other types of funding and financing for infrastructure, that is something which would be done separately. So it’s not relevant to the bill which is in front of us.

In relation to the question around in-ground projects, again, that question has been asked multiple times. I would note, though, that the regional fuel tax was not proposing to spend any money on Mill Road because the last Government cancelled it.

MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki): I move that debate on this question now end.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I’m sorry, there was a problem with the motion that was put. We’ll have one more go.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is only my second call today, and I wanted to delve a little bit into a number of areas that I’ve been working on over the years with people who live, particularly, in the Maungakiekie electorate. Those are particularly around, for example, bus improvements in areas like around Sylvia Park, which is the busiest shopping mall in the country and an area that deserves improvement so that people can get around. I also have a few questions—specifically around road safety, walking and cycling routes—to the Minister as well. I have worked over the last few years with groups of mums and dads who’ve been walking their children to local schools. What they would really like is for their children to be able to cycle to schools together and to be able to do it safely.

Now, I get that we’re not delving into specific projects that are being removed by the dismantling of this structure through this particular repeal bill—I get that—but what I really want to ask the Minister about is the gaps, because, ultimately, what we’re talking about is 11 projects that will not go ahead, which, in its entirety, means that infrastructure that would have allowed children to be able, potentially, to cycle to schools or people to be able to get to their busiest local mall is not there. So there is a gap, and I do want to know what advice the Minister’s received about plugging some of those gaps.

I do want to know what the thinking was behind addressing those significant and intractable issues that Aucklanders are facing. For example, I mean, since 2017, we’ve seen reports saying that Auckland is in the midst of a road-safety crisis. Death and serious injuries have increased by 70 percent between 2014 and 2017. That’s three times more than what the rest of the country has experienced. In Ellerslie, in a suburb in Maungakiekie, alone, there’s been a huge amount of work and there’s been advocacy that’s gone into some of the road-safety improvements that are required to be able to save lives, essentially. So I’d like to know: what thinking and what advice has the Minister received in terms of plugging some of those gaps?

I also want to know from a disability perspective, because some of the capital projects that will be lost as a result of this repeal bill were meant to address accessibility deficiencies, and I see that specifically listed in the Order in Council. So I’d like to know from a disability perspective as well: where is the gaps analysis? Has there been any consultation with our disability communities—with our disabled people—for whom using roads is already unsafe, to ensure that there will be perhaps other road safety improvements that will help them?

Finally, my former colleague Marja Lubeck was a huge supporter of the Penlink project, and I just have a quick clarification question for the Minister, because I know that steady progress has been made since 2020. The sod was turned over a year ago. What’s stopping it? It’s under one of the projects listed in terms of it being stopped, and I’d really like to know whether it does stay or what exactly happens to that project as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Tangi Utikere’s tabled amendment to insert new clause 6A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Helen White’s tabled amendment to clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Lemauga Lydia Sosene’s tabled amendment to clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Shanan Halbert’s tabled amendment to clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Tangi Utikere’s tabled amendment to clause 7 replacing the words “7 to 11” with “8 to 11” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Hon Damien O’Connor’s tabled amendment to clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 7 replacing the words “1 to 3” with “1, 3” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 7 replacing the words “7 to 11” with “7, 8, 10, 11” be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s tabled amendment to clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Consequential amendments

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 9 to 14, “Consequential amendments” and Schedules 2 and 3. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Assistant Whip—Labour): Point of order, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. I raise a point of order in relation to Speakers’ ruling 132/1 and Standing Order 315(4). I seek your guidance on your rulings in the previous debate about those amendments that members on this side were raising questions about, which you said had been rejected by the Minister. This draws on logic in Speakers’ ruling 132/1 that “A Chairperson has to consider the admissibility of amendments that are substantially the same as an amendment that has already been [not agreed to]”. That logic was brought in after members of the Labour Party introduced a huge number of amendments about date changes, and then it allowed those date changes to be treated as, essentially, one thing to be voted on, so as not to waste the House’s time. The problem with applying that sort of logic to your points in that debate is that we do not want the committee to get into a situation where a Minister might reject all of the amendments that have been put by Opposition members, and then the Chairperson to apply that logic in Speakers’ ruling 132 in order to, essentially, stifle debate about a number of amendments.

The problem here is that the amendments that were presented by Labour members were all different. Some applied to projects which would continue; some applied to projects which would not continue; some applied to projects which would be continued by the Auckland Council but not by the Government. So those are amendments which had a substantially different effect, and they should not be treated as if they were simply changes to dates. I guess, Madam Speaker, I’m asking you to reflect on whether, going forward in these committee stages, Opposition members can expect to put a number of amendments which are consequentially different but amend the same sections, because if the Minister is able to rule out any support for amendments to the same section that have different results, then that will significantly stifle the Opposition’s ability to question the Minister on the changes that he proposes.

I’ll also draw your attention, Madam Speaker, to Standing Order 315(4), which is about “amendments are proposed that, in the opinion of the chairperson, are the same in substance”. That Standing Order should be applied at the time of voting on those amendments. But there is no indication there that there was ever an intention for that Standing Order to be applied to the debate and to the contributions. So to apply that logic in order to move on to a closure motion and to tell Opposition members not once but three times is the issue here.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Can the member please point out what the question is.

ARENA WILLIAMS: Yes. The question for you, Madam Chair, is: did you rely on Speakers’ ruling 132/1 or Standing Order 315(4) to, essentially, give direction to Labour members twice that their contributions should not mention their amendments, which were, in your view, substantially the same? You are well within your right to rule that those amendments were substantially the same, but did you use those Speakers’ rulings and that Standing Order to do that?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I take note of the member’s contribution, and, as you will be aware, it’s the Chair’s discretion about the length of the debate, to take the closure motion, and the content of the debate.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Assistant Whip—Labour): Speaking to the point of order, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Is this a different point of order?

ARENA WILLIAMS: My question is: is that a ruling, Madam Chair, that Labour members should take into account for further committee stages?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The discretion of the Chair is definitely something that you should keep in mind.

TANGI UTIKERE (Chief Whip—Labour): Point of order. Madam Chair, there was a question that, I think, I submit to you is reasonable in trying to get some clarity in terms of the ruling that you’ve made. It’s still not quite clear to members on this side of the House, my colleague Ms Williams identified—were you relying on Speakers’ ruling 132/1 or were you relying on Standing Order 315(4)? I don’t think it’s unreasonable for any member of this House to seek clarity as to which of those you relied on. I take the point that you’ve made that it is up to the Chair; however, effectively, giving an instruction to any member of this House that they are not to raise any issues that because the Minister had already indicated that they were—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): OK. I understand the point of order. I understand the various procedures that you’re outlining. But at the end of the day, I was attempting to give the Speaker’s guidance about the debate. We were getting very repetitive. The person in the Chair prior to me coming in had already tried to give that guidance; I did it twice, as you’ve pointed out. That was the purpose of making those recommendations to the members: the debate had become repetitive. Every one of those amendments was tabled and debated, and it was the repetition that we were very aware of that was happening.

TANGI UTIKERE (Chief Whip—Labour): Point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Is this a different point of order?

TANGI UTIKERE: This is a different point of order. Madam Chair, you’ve just indicated that every single item that was an Amendment Paper was tabled was debated. That, I submit to you, is incorrect. There was an Amendment Paper in my name that I sought a call for on many occasions, you chose not to give it to me, and it was not mentioned. It related to the ferry network and charging infrastructure.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): OK. I apologise if I missed that in the debate, but every one of the amendments was tabled and voted on.

TANGI UTIKERE: I understand that, but the issue here is that you, effectively, are giving an instruction to members opposite as to what they can and what they can’t do, and—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Yeah, you did take four calls, Mr Utikere, in this debate. So you’ve had ample—

Arena Williams: Point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): No, I’m not taking any more. We are moving on to Part 2.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Can I speak to that point of order, Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Are you seeking a call?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: No, I was going to speak to the previous point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): No, I just said that that debate is over.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Assistant Whip—Labour): Point of order, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Are you calling a new point of order?

ARENA WILLIAMS: Yes. Madam Chair, is your guidance for the Labour members that it is repetitive to seek a call on a new Amendment Paper, under Speakers’ ruling 132/1?

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Speaking to the point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. We’re getting to the point now where we are getting a number of what appear to be relatively frivolous points of orders being raised, and the Speaker alluded to this earlier on in question time.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Tell that to Winston in question time.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Points of order are still actually heard in silence, and so I think it’s reasonable to have the opportunity to talk to this, because what we’ve seen in the past couple of Parliaments has been a clear focus from the Speaker that clarification actually is something that should be taken offline, outside the debating chamber. If members are unsure on how the process in the House works, they can seek a time with the Speaker to clarify that. But the aspect that the members are concerned about, obviously, is that there are a number of amendments, there is a clear Speakers’ ruling that make it obvious that it’s not—just because there’s a tabled amendment doesn’t mean there should always be an opportunity to speak to every amendment, and indeed the repetition is a key part of that.

Tangi Utikere: If you get the call.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: So, again, I’d appreciate some courtesy here, Mr Utikere, as we’re going through a point of order.

The issue is, of course, that it is the Chair’s call to make, and the continuing questioning of that is not helpful to the order of the committee.

Hon Member: Speaking to the point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): No, this debate about all of that is over. I’ve said we are moving on now to Part 2.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for that explanation, because I do have an Amendment Paper in my name and it’s great to be able to speak to it tonight. It seeks an amendment to Schedule 3 and to delete the reference to the Search and Surveillance Act. I take the Minister’s point around it needing to sit there, but I guess what I’m interested in hearing from the Minister is what the active provisions are. I state that because, prior to coming to this House, I was an authorised officer under the provisions of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012, so I have some experience in its operation in relation to the issue of search warrants but also of production orders, where that’s considered appropriate.

My question to the Minister is where within—well, it’s proposed that it remains there in terms of within Schedule 3. But my question is around how it relates, specifically in an active form, to the bill, to the legislation. So I’d be interested in an answer from the Minister around that.

The other is in terms of those consequential amendments: is the Minister satisfied that all of them—and there are a number there that relate to local government legislations, and then there is of course the catch-all in clause 14, which is around all the other Acts that will be amended. But is the Minister satisfied that those amendments capture all of the possibilities, and, in particular, what provision is there if particular projects—and at this stage it looks as though they will only be three of the projects—are either deferred or if they don’t proceed? Given the changing dynamics of things, what does that then mean? So I’d be interested—particularly around the active nature of the Search and Surveillance Act provisions. [Member resumes seat] Oh, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Tangi Utikere.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps we’ll give some time for the Minister to reflect on that and perhaps take a call. The reason as to why the Amendment Paper is in my name is because—at this stage, there is an option that the Opposition may even vote against my own Amendment Paper if the Minister is able to provide an explanation or a rationale that is suitable. But failing to do that—and perhaps seeking to take a call might be a good start—I guess, leaves us in a position where we will have to actually vote for the Amendment Paper, but that’s obviously not necessarily a bad thing. Is the Minister comfortable that Schedule 3 outlines all of the relevant pieces of legislation? In particular, when we look at what’s listed there, the Goods and Services Tax Act 1985—the definition is the only thing that is suggested to be repealed. Does the Minister believe that, because the definition of what is to be a regional fuel tax, under subsection (1) of section 2, would be repealed, that’s all that is required and that’s the end of that one?

The only other question I really have is in relation to the Legislation Act 2019 and whether there needs to be a list of any other pieces of legislation, given that the Legislation Act 2019 often captures a number of items there—although I note that the Land Transport Management Act, certainly the earlier part that the committee dealt with, was what was seeking to be repealed, or a subpart of that—Subpart 3, I think—whether the list contained in Schedule 3 is fulsome enough for the Minister.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I thank the member for their question in relation to the Search and Surveillance Act. So the current legislation provides powers to issue search warrants in respect of alleged offences. Alleged offences are in relation to whether or not the people who are—in relation to the keeping of records, and this is in relation to the tax. So, obviously, it’s all about making sure that the tax is being applied and being paid appropriately. So, obviously, when the tax was in place, it’s appropriate to have penalties for non-payment. Of course, you then also need powers in order to make sure that search warrants can be done, in respect of alleged offences.

In relation to the consequential amendments, as the member will have seen in the commencement clause—which of course we will come to shortly in Schedule 3—the items relating to the Goods and Services Tax Act, the Land Transport Act, the Search and Surveillance Act come into force on 1 July 2025, so those repeals don’t occur until the system is, effectively, wound down.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Part 2 stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendments not agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): We come to Schedule 1. The question is that Tangi Utikere’s tabled amendments to Schedule 1 be agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Schedule 1 stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): We come to Schedule 2. The question is that Schedule 2 stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): We now come to Schedule 3. The question is that Tangi Utikere’s tabled amendment to Schedule 3 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Schedule 3 stand part.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Schedule 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, we now come to our final debate. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is the last part of the debate in the committee stage in this bill. Clause 1, of course, is the “Title” clause; this bill is the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill 2024. That is the title, that is what it does. I know there’s a proposed tabled amendment by the Opposition which we will not be supporting because, effectively, it changes the purpose of the legislation. This legislation is repealing the regional fuel tax, which is exactly what we’re doing.

Clause 2 is the “Commencement” clause, and there are three key dates for the commencement of this bill. On the day after Royal assent, the list of projects that regional fuel tax revenue can be spent on will be amended to just three. The regional fuel tax order from 2018 contained a list of 14 projects, and this legislation will constrain that remaining revenue and funds which have accumulated to be spent on the remaining three projects, as outlined in earlier parts of this debate.

On 1 July 2024, the Act will come into place. This is when the regional fuel tax will be lifted, and the fuel distributed in Auckland region will no longer be subject to the extra 10c per litre plus 1.5c of GST—11.5c per litre. On 1 July 2025, the savings provisions will be ended and other consequential amendments to Acts such as removing references to the regional fuel tax and particular mention of the Search and Surveillance Act—which I note sparked the interest of the Opposition transport spokesperson—will come into force. This will wrap the scheme up in its entirety. Leaving a year allows some activity to continue, so that’s issuing refunds, and it will allow the NZTA to continue its auditing process to ensure the tax has been correctly paid.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the Minister for his interest in the Search and Surveillance Act of 2012. The Minister has already alluded to a proposed amendment in my name; I have two in relation to “Title” and “Commencement”. I invite the Minister to reflect, perhaps, on the contribution that I’m about to make, and then he may wish to inform the House as to whether he has changed his mind or not, as to what this should be.

I think what’s really important is that the title of any bill or any piece of legislation needs to reflect what’s actually in it. And when I look at what is proposed here, my amendment is, effectively, to delete the words “Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax)” and to replace it with “Land Transport Management (Instructions to Auckland Council Regarding the Regional Fuel Tax)”. And that is exactly what this bill is about; it is about setting a set of instructions to Auckland Council about what they are going to do next.

It’s important, I think, that when you look at a label, it says what you’re getting. It says it on the tin. Perhaps this is something that should say: “227g Dole Pineapple Chunk” because that is the cost of living sort of measure that this Government is going to provide as part of this piece of legislation. What is really important is that the title of the bill reflects what it is all about. The Minister, you know, talks about, “Actually, it’s about a repeal bill”; yes, it is, but it doesn’t have to have that in the title. The content of the bill is what is important. And so your suggestion, Minister, that, well, it’s called what is suggested because it is a repeal bill; well, this House is the author of its own destiny, and it can determine what it wishes. And so I encourage the Minister to reflect on whether or not he thinks these are instructions to Auckland Council, and, if so, he may wish to think again. And, you know, it’s never too late to change in terms of support for a fantastic Amendment Paper.

Andy Foster: We’re still waiting for one!

TANGI UTIKERE: The other one is a proposed amendment to clause—what’s that?

Andy Foster: We’re still waiting for one.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, we haven’t got anything from you, so many people will be waiting for quite some time.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Not bringing the Chair—

TANGI UTIKERE: My apologies, Madam Chair. Mr Foster, we’re still waiting for a contribution that’s meaningful from him. But in terms of “Title” and “Commencement”, in clause 2, the suggestion that I’ve put forward there is to delete the commencement date by one year. And I’m interested in the Minister’s thoughts around this because being able to provide a bit of a buffer in terms of a delay to the commencement would mean that some of those transitional provisions could actually be looked at. They could be thought through. So that’s the basis on which I’ve put forward this amendment.

Then the second clause there—clause 2, subclause (2)(b)—the dates changing there are, effectively, consequential amendments that are further aligned.

So I’d be interested in the Minister’s thoughts around the title to make sure that it intends to say exactly what it intends to do, and that the commencement date is such that it provides an opportunity for things to bed in, and, in particular, a number of the unknown elements that may exist can be ironed out. So I look forward to the Minister’s contribution.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. As we debate clauses 1 and 2 of this bill, the “Title” and “Commencement”, as the Minister of Transport has laid out, and as we can all read, this is called the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill 2024. I would argue that this is just window dressing.

We’ve asked, on numerous occasions, why this piece of legislation that dismantles the structure, which will actually lead to gaps in infrastructure funding, across Auckland is being commenced at all. The only response that we’ve had from the Minister to date is that his party’s won an election. I would argue that the title of this bill is not what it should be or what we see here before us; what it really should be is: the “Land Transport Management (Backwards on Buses) Amendment Bill 2024”. With all due respect, I would point out to the Minister that the campaign wasn’t on the infrastructure projects—the 11 projects, that would be scrapped as a result of this bill going through—it was just on the repeal of the tax, which sounds great, but what people might not have known, because it wasn’t campaigned on, was the indirect costs to Aucklanders as a result of this.

In terms of being backwards on buses, I would really like the Minister to reflect on just the number of avenues in which we would be going backwards, because, for example, whether it’s bus priority improvements, whether it’s the central city being able to cope with the number of buses and the frequency of buses—in my area alone, we’ve had buses cancelled just because we have too many of them that are terminating in the city centre—what this bill will eventually lead to is absolutely a gap in how we manage that. How do we manage, in a central city the size of Auckland, buses not terminating there? How do we make improvements to the priority of buses in that sense?

In my area, as well, improving airport access was part of the project that was scheduled, and we’re going backwards in that sense, as well. There was a long-term programme of initiatives to improve bus services from the likes of New Lynn, Mount Roskill, Onehunga, right through to the airport. Now that’s been scrapped as well. That’s why I would ask the Minister to reflect on the number of instances in which we’re going backwards on buses here, as a result of this bill.

There are a number of other things. This could also be the “Land Transport Management (Repeal but No Replacement) Amendment Bill”, because this takes away, as I’ve mentioned, 11 projects that would actually make a huge difference for Aucklanders, and it replaces it with nothing. So if we’re going to argue that this is window dressing, this title, it doesn’t actually go to the heart of what it does or what the cost or what the impact would be for Aucklanders. I could also argue, then, that this would actually be the “Land Transport Management (Increase of Rates for Aucklanders) Amendment Bill”, because we’ve heard very clearly from the Mayor of Auckland that—

Tim van de Molen: Point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, the member has now had three attempts at suggesting an alternate name, none of which are actually credible or objective attempts to provide an alternate, and are indeed actually a criticism of the bill, which is clearly—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): That’s not a point of order.

Tim van de Molen: Well, it is. It’s clearly Speakers’ ruling 130/2, which specifies “An amendment to the title of a bill must be a serious or objective description of the bill rather than an attempt to criticise its contents.”, which is all we’ve heard from the member through her contribution.

Tangi Utikere: Speaking to the point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): There’s no need; we’ll just carry on. Thank you.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Chair. A new question for the Minister on this part. I draw his attention to clause 2, which is the commencement. My question for the Minister is about (2)(a) of this clause, and I’d like the Minister to provide the committee with some answers about this staggered commencement date. Usually in the legislation that I have examined in committee stage, there has been one commencement date. It’s possible for legislation to have multiple dates, but that is somewhat unusual. In urgency, it’s useful for the House to understand why a staggered date exists and what the rationale is, and what advice the Minister considered about the staggered commencement date.

So in clause 2, most of the bill is introduced on 1 July. That is the date that terminates the Auckland regional fuel tax, and though this side of the House does not agree with that, we accept that between now and 1 July—that is a very quick time frame—that provides some buffer for those arrangements to be made which will need to be put into place: things like changes to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s regime of monitoring fuel prices, which the Minister so helpfully told the House about in the prior debate. But my question is about the amendment restricting which capital projects will be supported from the Auckland regional fuel tax revenue, because that comes into force the day after the bill receives Royal assent.

My question to the Minister is: why is that earlier than 1 July? Is that because the Minister is essentially giving instructions to Auckland Council as soon as possible? Is there something which suggests to the Minister that Auckland Council would try to spend the regional fuel tax money on the projects which it prioritises over the priorities of the Minister? Is it the Minister’s thinking that he needs to intervene, given that the Mayor of Auckland has criticised this move by the Minister? Is it his thought that councillors will move against the Minister to spend that regional fuel tax money if he does not move this date forward? And what is the advice that he’s had about bringing the date forward for this particular part of the commencement clause?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for her questions. The regional fuel tax date is ending on 1 July, as she’s pointed out. I note there’s a tabled amendment by Tangi Utikere to try and push all those dates out. We’re not supporting that. We were elected to remove the Auckland regional fuel tax; we are delivering on that commitment, which Aucklanders overwhelmingly voted for.

Now, there are remaining funds in the Auckland Council coffers—over $340 million—and there’ll be remaining funding which will be received between now and 1 July, and as I’ve outlined publicly, 1 July was the date chosen because that aligns with the Auckland Council’s annual budget year and that’s the right time to make that change. We want to make sure that the remaining funds go towards those priority projects, and to do that, the commencement clause means that, effectively, the scheme is amended immediately upon enactment so that those funds are channelled towards those projects and any remaining funds which are collected between now and 1 July are also channelled towards those projects. Then once the tax ends, those funds continue to be channelled towards those projects until those funds are completed.

That is the rationale for the commencement clauses and the three different ways in which it is put in this legislation. I think it’s very sensible. I commend it to the House.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. There’s been—with all due respect to my Auckland colleagues—a lot said about the effect on Auckland when this commencement occurs. I’m concerned about that, but I’m more concerned—because no one on the other side of the House is—about what happens to other parts of the country. Because my questions—and the Minister and his colleagues voted down my amendment relating to road safety and the ongoing need for that funding. So given the absence of commitment to those projects, the question I have for the Minister is: will other regions of the country, following commencement, then start to miss out because he succumbs to political pressure to fund some of these Auckland projects?

Because they’d take money from Northland, or they’ll take money from Otago, or they’ll take money from South Canterbury because none of those members of Parliament are standing up for their own regions. So on behalf of them and other rural areas: once the commencement occurs, how do we know that there’s not going to be a shift in funding when the regional fuel tax ceases? How do we know there’s not going to be a shift in funding from other parts of the country into Auckland? Because there’s a whole lot of votes there, I’m told, and politicians seem to be receptive to a lot of voters.

The question is about the shift in funds to fill the gaps that my colleagues have identified once this bill comes into place. So I’d ask the Minister to give an assurance—an absolute assurance—that from commencement date, there will be no shift in funding from projects or commitments and safety around the rest of the country just to fund the shortfall that this bill will create for Auckland.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Tangi Utikere’s tabled amendment to clause 1 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Clause 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the Minister’s tabled amendment to clause 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Tangi Utikere’s tabled amendments to clause 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Noes 68

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

Amendments not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I move, That the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Tonight is a great night for Aucklanders, and it’s a great day for Aucklanders, because we are repealing the Auckland regional fuel tax which was imposed by the former Government.

Hon Tama Potaka: Gone by midnight.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: It’ll be gone by midnight tonight. This bill will remove the previous Labour Government’s 11.5c per litre Auckland regional fuel tax, and this bill will do so on 1 July 2024. This bill is part of our 100-day plan, and what a great 100 days it has been for the new coalition Government.

This bill is delivering on our coalition commitment to introduce legislation to remove the regional fuel tax, and I want to thank my colleagues in the National Party but also our coalition support partners from the ACT Party and also the New Zealand First Party for their support in bringing this bill through the House. It’s something we campaigned on and it’s something we’re delivering. It might sound radical to members opposite, but we campaigned on getting rid of the regional fuel tax. Aucklanders overwhelmingly voted—over 55 percent of Aucklanders—for the coalition Government, and here we are today delivering on our promises.

There are a number of reasons why we are removing the regional fuel tax: firstly, because it will save Aucklanders money as they fill up their cars from 1 July this year: $5 to $10 per tank. If you’ve got a Toyota Corolla, it’s 5 bucks—

Dan Bidois: That’s not insignificant.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: —and if you drive a Toyota Hilux, that’s 10 bucks. As my colleague from Northcote says, that is not insignificant. That will make a meaningful difference to Aucklanders.

Secondly, this bill will ensure that no future regional fuel taxes can be put in place. We are getting rid of the regional fuel tax regime that the last Government put in place—it’s “gone-burger”.

Thirdly, we will ensure that the remaining funds are spent on high-priority projects. There is over $340 million of unspent revenue. The last Government said, “We need this money to spend on major projects to get Auckland moving.” Mill Road: they said that Mill Road would be a high-priority project. Well, guess how that’s gone! It’s been cancelled more times than it was started under the last Government.

There’s hundreds of millions of dollars unspent. Over two years’ worth of regional fuel tax revenue has been taken from hard-working Aucklanders at the pump and not even spent, but we’re going to ensure that those remaining funds are spent on high-priority projects. The Eastern Busway, the electric trains and stabling, and local roading corridor improvements—those are priorities, and it’s not going to be spent on what the last Government thought were priorities. They thought that we should tax Aucklanders more to build speed bumps. Speed bumps—$490,000 speed bumps—that’s why they wanted to tax Aucklanders more, and red light cameras: they wanted to take another 11.5c a litre off Aucklanders to put red light cameras in. The other thing they wanted to do was speed management plans to slow Aucklanders down.

That was the priority of the last Government, and it’s not the priority of this Government. We want to get Auckland moving quickly and safely, and that’s going to be our priority. We released our Government policy statement this week, which highlights and clarifies and sets a very clear direction around transport investment for New Zealanders going forward.

The National Government, the coalition Government, our support partners—I thank them for their support. We’re very proud to bring this legislation to the House. We know it will make a difference to Aucklanders filling up their cars. We know we’ll make sure those remaining funds are put on high-priority projects. We’re going to stop the dumb stuff the last Government was doing. We’re going to get transport back on track in Auckland. I commend the bill to the House.

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

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The best thing about that contribution was when the member sat down. This is an appalling use of the House’s time and urgency, and it will come as no surprise to members of this House that we in the Labour Party will be opposing this terrible piece of legislation that is being rushed through without any select committee process and with no public scrutiny, and it is a real indictment on the ability of this Government to engage with communities, because it simply does not know how to.

The Act that this bill seeks to repeal and remove does have a purpose. It provides opportunities for the folk of Auckland and, in particular, the decision makers in Auckland to make decisions for their local community. There is an opportunity for many of those Auckland transport projects to move along the way and actually get done with provisions such as this.

As I said earlier today, this is a bill that, basically, forces Auckland into a corner. Earlier this evening, we talked in this House about the possibility of renaming the bill, and said that this should be a bill where its name is actually more about giving instructions to Auckland Council about the regional fuel tax (RFT), because that is exactly what this is all about. This will result in cuts to critical transportation projects in Auckland, projects that will make a huge difference. It will mean that local government, as a sector in Auckland, will have to rethink what it wishes to do, what it wishes to prioritise, and how it wishes to fund things. That is not a good move that this Government is seeking to rush through the House under urgency at this late hour. It is a realistic fact that this will result in increases for those in Auckland because of the funding hole that will exist as a result of many of these projects that have been consigned to the scrap heap by this Government, who seem to have the mantra of “We know best.”

This is a Government that clearly has no eye on the future. It is a Government that has no new ideas, it has no new funding, and, in particular, it has no replacement for this legislation—there is no replacement whatsoever. They have no credibility, they are wanting to whack folk with a 22 percent increase to fuel excise, and they are wishing to, effectively, introduce a drivers’ tax on folk. This is what Aucklanders are not expecting from this Government.

It was unfortunate that the Government decided that they did not want a regulatory impact statement as part of this. They seem to have adopted this approach that, because they won the election, they’re not going to bother about the impact that it’s going to have, and, surely, what we would expect is a Government that’s prepared to actually stack those things up and be accountable for the things that are contained in that document. What we do have, though—and this was referred to earlier in the House—is a departmental disclosure statement, and it makes for very interesting reading. It makes for very interesting reading. I note that members opposite haven’t really relied on that in any of their contributions as this piece of legislation was before the House this evening.

But when we have a look at what is contained in that departmental disclosure statement, in the absence of any regulatory impact statement, it simply says that when it comes to the focus on the cost of living, removing this regional fuel tax “will result in modest savings for households and businesses, between $5-$10 per tank”—and we seem to hear that from Minister Simeon Brown frequently—but also that the actual savings, based on the average distances that are travelled in Auckland City and not collecting that RFT out to 2028, will equate to around $1.85 for a motorist, all right—$1.85. I’ve done a little bit of a calculation and a little bit of online shopping, and I know members opposite don’t like to hear this, but what will that get Aucklanders? It will get them a 227-gram can of Dole pineapple chunks—not a large tin; a small one. Now, if that’s their solution to the cost of living pressures that households in Auckland are going to be facing, then they are far from the mark in terms of where this bill will actually lie.

This is also a bill that the departmental disclosure statement identifies as “regressive” but that it will also have a disproportionate impact on those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and we have heard in this House today from local members who have explained and who have questioned the Minister about the impact that this will have in local communities. Local communities in South Auckland: I heard from my colleague Lemauga Lydia Sosene, the member for Māngere, who talked about the impact that that would have in terms of access to the airport. These are issues that the Minister and this coalition Government seem very easy and quick to just move to one side.

Rima Nakhle: Takanini can’t wait.

TANGI UTIKERE: But there are three projects, of course—and I hear Ms Stanford calling out there. There are three projects, of course, that are going to remain in the picture, and they are projects that are going to still be eligible for regional fuel tax funding, or what is left of them, and isn’t it interesting that two of those three relate to two members in this Parliament? One relates to Pakuranga in terms of the Minister who is responsible for this bill—Simeon Brown.

Hon Member: What a coincidence.

TANGI UTIKERE: What a coincidence, and when questioned as part of the committee of the whole stage, one of the issues that came out was the perception of conflicts of interest. The Minister was given an opportunity to inform the House as to the process that things went through, and the answer, actually, was non-existent.

The other project, it seems, of particular interest is one that Erica Stanford seems to be very fond of—

Hon Erica Stanford: For seven years, my friend—seven years of lobbying.

TANGI UTIKERE: —and it is in relation to project No. 12. Well, it doesn’t matter if it’s for seven years or six years, or whatever; the reality is it’s still in the list. Why is it that, when we look through those 14 projects, of the three that seem to make the cut—

Tim Costley: None for “Palmy”.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, “Palmy” is not in Auckland, Mr Costley, in case you didn’t know, all right? But of the three, there were two of them that managed to make the cut, and it’s interesting that with regard to project No. 12, which is the Glenvar Road - East Coast Road, Erica Stanford has put a petition up and, lo and behold, it’s suddenly one of the projects that is still able to attract the funding. The other one is the member for Pakuranga, the Minister who is responsible—his own project seems to be funded. They don’t shy away from that—they don’t shy away from that at all—and I find it very interesting that given the opportunity to address this in the committee of the whole House, that opportunity was not taken up. Mr Speaker, they get a bit tetchy over there when they get challenged, and isn’t that interesting?

This is about a bill that is going to—yes—repeal, but it is going to make a limited difference to many in Auckland, and if we have a look at some of the other projects that are up for the scrap heap, they are projects that relate to infrastructure. They are projects that relate to improving airport access. They are projects that relate to rolling out infrastructure when it comes to the electric charging of the ferry terminal, something I wasn’t able to speak to as part of this particular process. However, capital expenditure for charging infrastructure for electric ferries, among other things, will not happen as a result of this bill. There are plenty of other active transport opportunities and plenty of other road safety opportunities that our colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor touched on.

This is a Government that is signalling to Auckland that they know best when it comes to projects in Auckland, and they didn’t even support one of the amendments which was to ensure that there was ongoing dialogue and consultation with Auckland’s mayor. Now, we heard through this process that there have been conversations, there has been dialogue, and there have been discussions. What is—

Shanan Halbert: A meeting.

TANGI UTIKERE: There has been a meeting or two. What is wrong with putting in this piece of legislation a provision that would require there to be some consultation with Auckland so that the transport needs of the future for Auckland were considered and were put into the mix and that the mayor and the council were part of that particular process as well?

This is a bill that has been rushed through the Parliament. It is something that is a real shame, because of the projects that are still in the running, they are ones that are of direct benefit to some members in this House who seem to be promoting these or have promoted them for quite some time.

This is a bill where it really is a shame that the Parliament has progressed this piece of legislation without any select committee process. There has not been any opportunity, and for a Government—a coalition Government—to simply say, “Well, we campaigned on this and, therefore, that is the justification.”, it is a blind-sided approach to democracy, and we on this side of the House will not stand for it. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. This bill reflects the very “short-termism” of the coalition Government, and particularly the National Party Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown. The whole way that they approach the problems and solutions is incredibly short term.

So within the explanatory note, in the general policy statement of this bill, it says that the purpose for this is to address cost of living because “Fuel costs are significant for many households,” and when this bill—the repeal bill—comes through, there will be potentially a tiny, minuscule saving in terms of what people are paying on fuel. I think we heard that the official advice from the Ministry of Transport was that it is about $1 or maybe $2 a week.

But, in reality, the high cost of transport is affecting all New Zealanders—particularly Aucklanders—and it’s not going to be solved by repealing a small regional fuel tax that was then being used to invest in infrastructure, because the problem is far more complex than that, and, fundamentally, there’s a misunderstanding on the part of the Government about why we’re in the world we’re in. The reason why New Zealanders have such high transport costs is because subsequent Governments over many decades—even more than half a century, I would say—have failed to provide for cost-effective transport solutions.

They have done this for really understandable reasons. They followed the United States in this pattern from the 1950s, where they prioritised urban motorways. They had planning rules that, basically, forced urban sprawl that did not allow residential development in city centres. They also underfunded public transport, and in the very worst years—in the 1990s—they sold off a bunch of assets like the railways and public transport operators and bus depots.

They ripped out the electrified, light rail public transport that had existed in the beginning of the 20th century in many parts of New Zealand, and that’s why New Zealand now has the highest car-ownership rate in the entire world. It is because people don’t have alternatives, and you don’t fix that by not funding the alternatives; you fix that by especially investing in the alternatives, and we’ve seen report and report and report of this.

There’s heaps of evidence around this. Even the previous National Government under John Key said that people don’t bike because—you know, I was looking at a press release from the Hon Gerry Brownlee when he was Minister of Transport, proudly announcing the urban cycleways fund and saying, “The problem is that there are not connected cycleway networks in cities. People don’t feel safe to cycle or to let their kids cycle and, therefore, they don’t, and so we’re proudly going to invest in that.” But now this National Government comes in, under Simeon Brown, and says, “We’re going to stop doing all of those things and we’re literally going to ban transport agencies and councils from using certain classes within the Government policy statement from investing in these things.” It’s very, very short term.

So we’re going to save a tiny amount of money for people in the short term, but in the medium term and long term, we’re going to keep having this same problem of households having to own more cars. That is affecting the cost of living. Transport is usually the second- or third-highest category of expense for a household, and for low-income households in New Zealand, it is much higher. They’re spending a much higher percentage of their income on transport than higher-income households. In other countries in the world, this is not the case. Low-income people spend less money on transport, but that’s because they have alternatives.

Here, in New Zealand, to afford a house you have to live far away from the centre of town, and then, on top of that, to get anywhere you have to own more cars. So it’s forced car-ownership. It’s thousands and thousands of dollars a year for every household, and for those who can’t afford cars or those people who are too young to drive or too old to drive or who have physical disabilities which mean they cannot drive, they cannot get anywhere. They’re completely dependent on other people to be able to get around.

There is an alternative to this, and that was some of the projects that were being funded by the Auckland regional fuel tax—not all of them, but some of them were quite good projects that had been consulted on by the community—so I’ll address now that part of this bill. Why we’re not supporting this bill is because it is very much central government dictating to local government and local communities about what they can do and how they can solve their local problems, and it’s the exact opposite of the rhetoric the exact same Minister used in all of the speeches around the repeal of the three waters. So, when it comes to three waters, they’re all about localism; when it comes to transport, they want to take away a tool that Auckland Council was using to fund projects that were prioritised locally, and even, I have to say though, in the regional fuel tax—a regional bill—I thought it was too much central control from the then Labour Government. I do believe in the very important role of local communities to decide what transport projects are going to be needed to solve their local problems, and I think much more central government funding needs to go to local government to be able to deliver that.

Finally, in this debate, the Minister has repeatedly used misinformation to exaggerate. He made these claims around speed bumps—it’s ridiculous. Yes, there was a project that involved a whole lot of other civil construction works in Auckland, not just the raised crossing. There was a whole lot of drainage issues, there was a whole lot of civil works. I asked the Minister written questions asking, “What is the average cost of a raised pedestrian crossing for Auckland Transport?” He couldn’t tell me—he didn’t know. The answers to his written questions were to go ask Auckland Transport. The only piece of evidence he cited was a New Zealand Herald article about this one project, and in subsequent New Zealand Herald articles where they kept referring to the cost of raised pedestrian crossings as $500,000, they had to retract it and print a correction because it’s just not true. There was only one project that was that much, and there were complicated reasons why that was the case.

But even if that were the case, why is it that on the one hand, putting in infrastructure that enables elderly people and young children to safely cross the road in urban areas where there are schools and markets and shops and homes—like why are we focusing on these trivial, tiny costs when the Government of the day is looking at building a highway in Auckland that’s going to cost $500 million per kilometre? Now, I know math is not everybody’s thing, but, like, that’s a thousand times more per kilometre.

Tim Costley: Speed bumps.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: No, it’s not a speed bump, my friend. I know that’s what the Minister keeps referring to it as, but that’s not what it is, firstly, and, secondly, the cost isn’t $500,000. It’s misinformation. But that’s the kind of Donald Trump environment that we are now facing in New Zealand thanks to the National Party in Opposition, who were totally irresponsible. We’ve heard over and over again that they campaigned on this and, therefore, it’s fine—every single idiotic thing they said on the election trail, apparently, was agreed to by the New Zealand public, and now that they’ve had that election, they’re going to push things through in urgency.

Now, the problem is that in Opposition, they did not have access to the kinds of tools to carry out a proper democratic process to properly cost things, and that’s why, of course, there is a $24 billion hole between the money they actually have and the projects they’ve promised to deliver. But, ultimately, this isn’t about money. It’s like we have money, we have resources, and we can use them well, and what the Green Party is saying is there is an opportunity to make a much bigger difference to people’s quality of life, to their health and wellbeing, to the affordability of transport, and to the livability of their communities, and to do so, we have to do the exact opposite of everything this current coalition Government is currently proposing, because what they are proposing is so extreme and so backwards that it goes far beyond what the last National Government under John Key did.

It is hard to explain just how extreme it is, and it will take many years for people to see the results of these policy decisions. But to completely rule out funding things and to talk about red light cameras, safe crossings, and speed management as though that’s somehow anathema to a flourishing and productive society is completely ridiculous.

I know that some of those members opposite will have been to other countries. They will have been to successful, thriving economies that have productivity that we would aspire to have, and do you know what they have? They have walkable neighbourhoods and they have affordable transport. Their children are much healthier and their people are much healthier because it’s normalised to be able to walk and ride bikes and take public transport. That is the tragedy of the Trumpist misinformation, pathetic approach that this Government is taking to transport, and I hope that all of those members opposite reflect on their part in this.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Cameron Luxon—Luxton.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. “Lux-ton”—yeah, cheers.

Hon Member: This will be good.

CAMERON LUXTON: It is good—it’s nice and short. I commend this bill to the House.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): I’m not going to be quite as short, but I will be quick. Two quick points to make. The first one of them is that we’ve heard a lot from the other side of the House that the repeal of this regional fuel tax will mean the death of all these projects they are so passionate about. All it will mean is that at the moment, Auckland gets about $130 million a year from this tax. It also gets about $1.5 billion from the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF), so any good project that meets the criteria of the NLTF can get funded; it might take a little bit longer.

The second one is that I think that the Green Party hasn’t realised that the last Labour Government actually was quite emphatic that they were arguing for regional fuel taxes in other parts of the country. The last Labour Government was quite emphatic that there were going to be no more regional taxes across the country as a whole—no more. That was Jacinda Ardern who said that.

So this is meeting the coalition agreement. It is meeting the commitments that the National Party made to the country in the election campaign. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): This is a five-minute, split call. I call Mariameno Taka—

Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai TokerauMARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (): Kapa-Kingi.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mariameno Kapa-Kingi—my apologies.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Ka pai. Tēnā koe. So, to build on my kōrero from earlier this afternoon, I now stand and question the real vision of this Government. In the first 100 days, this Government has repealed Act after Act and not replaced them, and if they have been replaced, then it has been to the detriment of our people and, in actual fact, to the detriment of their so-called one New Zealand, which is the preferred rhetoric. I think it goes like “All New Zealanders”, which is tantamount to “We are all the same.”, which finally lands with “We are all the privileged, entitled, white same.”

Hon Member: Oh!

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Despite the groaning in the corner, we have endured and continue to endure—only naming a few—the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora, a Māori institution. They had barely much room to get themselves going, and suddenly it’s like “No, no, no. That might just be a bit too brown for this time.” The Legal Services Amendment Bill, the misuse of drugs amendment bill, the road-user charges amendment bill, business payment practices—

Hon Member: What’s this got to do with the bill?

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: I know the list might be a little bit long for that side of the House, but at least listen and try and appreciate the position. The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill—which will be discussed later tonight—and, finally, the bill which we stand here to debate tonight, the land transport management amendment bill. All of these bills were pushed within the 100 days. Clearly, the Government coalition obviously didn’t realise or didn’t trust, or have any faith in their work, that they wouldn’t take it to the people.

Tom Rutherford: Yeah, we did.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Really? You know, like take it out in a select process, in a real way, not in a “just speaking to your own mates” way and suddenly landing here.

So 100 days it’s taken this Government to undo the work of generations of Māori—generations of Māori. [Interruption] That might be an unheard-of position on that side of the House, but just let me continue and, hopefully, these people on my left will take some time and take a breath. Generations of Māori have committed to the reclamation of what is rightfully ours under—wait for it, people—Te Tiriti o Waitangi—you might want a little bit of a session on that, but let’s just carry on—otherwise referred to as the tino rangatiratanga document. Again, that’s another education session, which we might, if we bothered, provide. All of these bills and all of these points lead me to question what is the Government’s real vision, their real focus for Aotearoa and for Māori in Aotearoa?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Ms Kapa-Kingi, it’s been half the speech now. We’d like you to get to the bill, please.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: All right. With this bill, there was no clear vision, at least not beyond this coalition’s three-year term. A lack of vision beyond three years is, in essence, a lack of direction for all of Aotearoa. This will be the third time in a span of 30 years that a National-led Government has repealed such a tax. This Government illustrates a continuous failure when it comes to innovative thinking, and so I’ll repeat: this is the third time in 30 years the Government has repealed such a tax. I’m getting to it, Mr Speaker, just so we can get a bit of calm back in the House.

It is not the top 1 percent of Aotearoa who utilise public transport—our buses, our trains, our cycleways—it is largely those who cannot afford private transport who rely on transport infrastructure and who rely on us in Parliament to ensure we can provide for them at least their basic needs. For the community I stand here today and represent, I question us all to consider the vision this Government really has for Aotearoa and what this will mean for us beyond a three-year term. They are determined to demonstrate their conceit and arrogance, and I could not possibly commend this to the House. Tēnā tātou.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): The Minister’s brazen confidence in pushing a bill through without actually substantiating the cost of living impacts it will have, despite the general policy statement focusing on the cost of living relief that the repeal of the regional fuel tax will have, is, quite frankly, admirable. For a Minister to have campaigned on a transport policy that was fiscally incoherent and then bring a bill into the House, claiming that it will have a benefit in terms of the cost of living pressures, and yet refusing to actually even present any evidence on how those benefits will be distributed amongst our different communities and not even being able to back up on how the poorest people in Aotearoa will benefit from the repeal of the regional fuel tax, let alone how this will lift, for example, child poverty rates—which the Government is making worse with other bills—speaks to the Government’s approach in the past few weeks, which is to ram through bills during urgency with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, making a mockery of their supposed commitment to using data and evidence.

Actually, this just speaks of a climate-denialist Government that wants to lock in polluting infrastructure—infrastructure that will make it worse for the people who were affected by the Auckland floods. Effectively, what this Government is doing is locking in damaging infrastructure that will prevent people having options, while at the same time presenting no alternative for revenue-gathering to be able to fund the clean, green public transport infrastructure that we desperately need and we’re desperately so behind on, and yet all that we have is a repeal that cuts off critical revenue sources and a climate-denialist Minister who actually just wants to condemn people to live in neighbourhoods that are going to be prone to flooding, neighbourhoods that actually are not going to be as safe as they could have been for children who need to go to schools. This Minister is leading a generation of the Americanisation of our towns and our cities, which is not exactly the kind of urban planning that I think we should be going towards.

The Minister should be ashamed that he was not able during the committee of the whole House to substantiate—he couldn’t even confirm to us about whether he had done a child impact assessment, despite parading the cost of living impacts that this bill would have. But are we surprised? No. At this point, I don’t think any of us should be shocked at the Minister being unwilling to back his legislation with data and evidence when, actually, he campaigned on a transport plan that was, as I said, fiscally incoherent—completely incoherent.

So what we are going to have as a result of this bill is a going to be a transport mess. There are going to be more people locked in traffic because this guy thinks that all we need is one more lane and that that will actually fix transport. According to him, he’s seen plenty of reports that, I assume, show that in the cities in the US that have taken the approach of just building more lanes and more infrastructure. That has not been proven to actually give people choices or to relieve pressures for those people who do need to use cars, and at the same time, it increases emissions by locking in years of funding of infrastructure that will make the climate crisis worse.

This is a Government that by nature of not providing a sustainable alternative and by the repeal of the regional fuel tax is making the climate crisis worse. Make no mistake: do not doubt the fact that this is a Government that is not committing to public transport infrastructure, despite people—particularly in areas like Auckland—being very, very well aware that our public transport system is not fit for purpose and needs a Government that is seriously committed to locking in generations of funding and to having a serious, reliable funding stream that does not become a political football.

This Government is not taking the climate crisis or the lack of public transport seriously in the repeal of the regional fuel tax, and it’s a Government that does clearly not care about actually fronting up about who is going to benefit the most and to what extent, despite passing through legislation earlier that will make 7,000 kids poorer and push them into poverty. The Minister couldn’t substantiate whether this bill will lift some of those 7,000 children out of poverty. Despite again being told that we should wait for those other interventions that will help people, this was supposed to be one of those, and yet, clearly, the Minister cannot back any of this up with evidence. This will simply make future generations poorer by making the climate crisis worse.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): I commend this bill to the House.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thanks for the opportunity to make a contribution in opposition to this very poorly thought-out bill in respect of Auckland transport issues relating to the regional fuel tax.

It’s now abundantly evident to every New Zealander who follows these issues that the National Party said anything to get elected. They were brazen, as the last speaker for the Greens has said. They were not straight with the New Zealand public. They pretended that they could have their cake and eat it too, and their numbers never added up—never added up. We had the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, and his leader, Christopher Luxon, look into the camera and promise New Zealanders that their transport numbers added up. They never did, and they now must be held to account for their lack of being straight with New Zealanders.

This is but one part of an enormous fiscal hole that they have created for themselves in transport. The “Roads of National Party Significance” that they told the New Zealand public were properly funded in their report were not funded; not just by $1 billion but by between $6 billion and $22 billion short. That was made clear most recently in a media article reporting on advice that has been given by ministries to the Minister that their “Roads of National Party Significance” are between $6 billion and $22 billion more than the amounts that they told the electorate at the time of the election.

These errors are huge. Take the one that was referred to in just the last couple of days: Tākitimu stage two. What did the National Party tell the public that was going to cost: $627 million. What’s its current funding projection: between $900 million and $1,400 million. What about Woodend? He was talking about that just today. The National Party took that and said that was going to be $270 million. What’s it costing now? Between $550 million and a number even bigger. Cambridge to Piarere: the National Party told New Zealanders it would cost $721 million. Present budgeted cost just a month or two later: between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion. Their numbers never added up, they said anything to get elected, and now they’re trying to hide from public scrutiny about that lack of straightforwardness to the New Zealand public.

Here we are, close to five months after the election, and just about every week we meet under urgency, where nothing goes to select committee—nothing goes to select committee—and this bill is another example. It’s being pushed through with no regulatory impact statement to judge the Minister’s errant comments that this will reduce the cost of living for Aucklanders. It is so superficial in its analysis. As Julie Anne Genter and Tangi Utikere have both pointed out, the costs of this will still be felt by Auckland. How will those costs affect Aucklanders? Well, as others have said, worthy projects that would have reduced congestion and reduced travel times in Auckland will no longer be funded. In addition to that, as Julie Anne Genter rightly pointed out, people are driven into having to purchase a second or third car in their family for a lack of transport alternatives.

The idea that just because this regional fuel tax is removed these costs are removed for Auckland is made clear by comments from the Mayor of Auckland, Wayne Brown. “The Government have cancelled this in order to reduce people’s costs,”—this is a quote—“which seems completely ridiculous. So I have to put up rates to increase people’s costs.” We’ve seen the Mayor of Auckland make a number of other comments, and he makes the point, quite fairly, that there’s actually going to have to be a combination of rate increases to fill in some of these funding holes but also a cancelling of projects, which will of course mean worse outcomes for Auckland.

The cost of Auckland’s congestion is around $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity. Now, that’s going to get worse as the consequence of this legislation, not better.

Andy Foster: They need more speed bumps.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Here we go, the reference to speed bumps. What puerile comments we have from the other side. They know that the amount that is projected to be spent on speed bumps is infinitesimally small.

Now, I actually back the Mayor of Auckland to get rid of unnecessary speed bumps, but it was never a big part of the funding package that was going into speed bumps. I also back the Mayor of Auckland to get rid of some of these ridiculous amounts that have been spent on traffic management for this famous new pedestrian crossing in Williamson Avenue. It’s ridiculous that they’ve spent $170,000 of that $500,000 cost on traffic management—I agree with that. But that is no excuse for this measure, because it is so infinitesimally small in the scheme of things, even though those costs are wrong and should be driven out of the system, and I’d back Wayne Brown to drive them out of the system far more than I would look to Simeon Brown to do it. Wayne Brown will be far more effective at that.

What other misrepresentations do we have from Simeon Brown? Simeon Brown goes around the country and he says, “Oh look, we’re going to fix potholes. We’re going to fix potholes.” The long-term problem as to the state of New Zealand roads was caused by the prior National Government. Steven Joyce came along with his “Roads of National Party Significance”. There’s nothing new in the National Party; it’s just retread from the last term they were in Government, and the last time they did that, they didn’t have enough money in the can then either because, just as they pulled the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders coming into this election, they did the same thing last time.

So what did they do? How did they fund their funding hole that time? They cut back on road maintenance. For a number of years, road maintenance was frozen. The effect of that was that the road surfacing, of which on average about 6 percent of the length of State highways every year needs to be resurfaced—that dropped to, in the worst year, about 3 percent because they froze the funding for road maintenance. So what happens if you don’t resurface the roads? The water gets in. What happens when the water gets in? You get potholes.

So what did we do as a Government, having inherited that mess? We increased State highway maintenance funding by 65 percent. We started to fill in these potholes that were caused by the National Party. Notwithstanding the enormous problems that were made worse by those flood events last year around the North Island, we were making inroads into that. You can’t fix this overnight, but every year, other than the COVID-related year after we’d been in power in the last Labour-led Government for about a year, we then made sure that road maintenance increased in every year, except for the COVID lockdown year. We got those maintenance rates up so that we were actually resealing 6 percent per annum of New Zealand’s road length.

Simeon Brown pretends that he’s interested in the issues, but he really is not interested in serious answers to serious and difficult problems. He’s into populism. He’s into processes that avoid scrutiny of his flawed decisions. No select committee, no regulatory impact statement—absolutely appalling process, and not just this legislation, but bills, week after week after week, are being brought forward under urgency. No fair process; no ability for select committee to hear from interested New Zealanders who would be able to unpick the misrepresentations and brazen—brazen—falsehoods that we get from the other side.

This is bad legislation. It is part of a broader suite of flawed decisions being taken in respect of transport that will make congestion worse in Auckland. They say they’re going to fill it in with congestion charging; they opposed that legislation. They say, “We want road tolls”; they blocked tolling for Penlink. There is no credibility on transport in this Government.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): There is so much to say following a lecture like that from David Parker, but what I actually want to say—as Ronan Keating sang—is that you say it best when you say nothing at all. So I commend this bill to the House.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere): There is so much noise from that side, they’ve finally decided to wake up. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Labour opposes this bill. We oppose it, because if you visit the Auckland international airport or if you visit the Auckland domestic airport, be prepared because you are going to be in gridlock. The regional fuel tax that is now being repealed will affect many families in Māngere. Many lower socio-economic households were reliant on the transport initiatives that the regional fuel tax was assisting in terms of payment for the investment, and it’s really important because I want to take the second opportunity to highlight a very local project.

It’s been helpful to understand and to hear the contribution of the effects that the loss of the scope of the regional fuel tax—local projects across Tāmaki-makau-rau will be affected. What does that mean? Well, it means taking from the left and putting to the right, and for those communities who use public transport, it’s really important that we are very clear on our focus, on this side of the House, that when you have options, you can catch public transport and you can ride your bicycle because there is a good cycle lane that has been planned and you can actually walk to school and you can walk to Māngere town centre.

I want to highlight the practicality and the impacts of the loss of such a huge fund that has been invested in Tāmaki-makau-rau. In many communities, the haves are fine, the have-nots will not be fine, and this will limit the choices of transport. Many of our young people work at the airport precinct, and they will have to continue to drive their vehicles because of the lack of transport investment.

I wanted to highlight Te Ara Mua, which is a local project for future streets that has benefited from this funding. How we have benefited is that we have many more in our community, including our mātuas, some of them who are over 65, who actually have started riding bicycles. Why? Because the transport infrastructure has been inputted with the assistance of central government and with the assistance of Auckland Council, and especially the elected members, who have been able to test, who have been able to be assisted in the design, and who have been able to be consulted upon in terms of what safety initiatives look like. Many of those projects have had provided the evidence from the community with transport planners.

So I wanted to remind our members of Government—who have come alive in the last 20 minutes—that it’s just helpful for you to understand that when you come to the Auckland domestic airport, be prepared. You are going to be gridlocked because if you can’t get out of the lanes that go across the isthmus, then it’s going to take longer for the transport initiatives to be delivered.

I want to emphasise this in this House and for it to be recorded: pedestrians and cyclists are people who feel safe on routes because they’ve been able to utilise the transport infrastructure that has been invested in. The reduction of traffic speed has enabled more lives to be saved because people understand that it’s an actual local road and not a highway. The reduction of crashes, having cyclists being safe, and for the parents to actually be able to utilise the cycles, rather than driving their children to school, and getting the bikes out—those are the practicalities that have an effect in our local community.

So, just as I end off, I just wanted to remind the Government members, and I know we’ve been reminded time and time again by the Minister—notwithstanding that that side of the House won the election, which is all good and well, you’ve got lots of local communities who rely on having a safe public transport networks. I do not commend this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Dan—[Interruption] Look, I can understand the frustration when some people don’t get to speak, but can you just allow your man to stand here so I can hear his call. Thank you—Dan Bidois.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): We did win the election last year. We won it on a mandate of easing cost of living pressures, of getting this country back on track, and of cutting back waste. This bill does it all, so I commend this bill to the House.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I think that last contribution was about 23 seconds. It kind of reflects on where that member is at—[Interruption] Mr Speaker, if I may, I can’t hear over the boys there, on the other side.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Yeah, look, can I just say that we’ve done pretty well. It’s late at night and we all need to keep our blood flowing. Interjections should be rare, reasonable, and preferably just a little bit witty—failing on all counts, across the board. We need to keep awake, so can we just try a little harder? Thank you. We’ll give you back however many seconds my little soliloquy cost then—start again.

SHANAN HALBERT: Tēnā koe, thank you, Mr Speaker. I do want to speak for the full 10 minutes on this call because it is an important one. As a member of Parliament in Auckland based on the North Shore, living in Northcote, actually, the contribution here is very important. We’ve actually had a lack of input into this particular discussion. We’ve got the global city of Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland that will have population growth hitting 2 million come 2030. So the common point for everyone in this House, whether you’re from Aotearoa New Zealand or if you’re an Aucklander, is actually: how are we going to ensure that productivity improves and remains high, that Aucklanders can get around the city out of their cars, and that they can get out of congestion?

What we know, Mr Speaker, is that under good tuition—yours—in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, we did work around the congestion question. We debated in this House tools, solutions, of how we provide Aucklanders with some other options to sitting in their cars. So I’m disappointed tonight, after going through three speaking rounds, a committee stage, with the lack of input from members opposite and a lack of voices from Auckland MPs from the Government. Where was their contribution and representation of Auckland communities? They did not put that argument up.

Like my colleague Lemauga Sosene, we know the results of the election, and I accept that. I’m fine with that. I accept that this Government wants to repeal the regional fuel tax for Auckland. But in this process, as with anyone who wins an election, it doesn’t mean you’re above this House. If you win an election, it doesn’t mean that you can bypass parliamentary process. What’s happened here tonight is that through ramming this bill through the House, Aucklanders haven’t had the chance to have a say. Aucklanders contributed—

Hon Member: They did when they voted.

SHANAN HALBERT: The person who said that Aucklanders had their say when they voted—that doesn’t give you a mandate. It doesn’t give you a mandate to overlook parliamentary process, because the voices that matter in this discussion—and the questions I asked the Minister, who was sitting in the chair during the committee stages, were: who have you spoken to, who have you consulted with, what did Mayor Wayne Brown say, and what did Auckland Transport say? His response was: “I had a meeting.”

I then asked what was the nature of the relationship, knowing that both of those organisations—both Mayor Wayne Brown and Dean Kempton, CEO of Auckland Transport—do not agree with this particular piece of legislation. Why? Because it goes backwards—it goes backwards on addressing the common goal that Aucklanders need us to achieve for them. It goes backwards on every time in this House when we have agreed that we have a deficit in our transport infrastructure, and that Government after Government has not invested in adequate transport infrastructure in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland.

While I agree that this was put up under a Labour Government—this was our plan—what we don’t see tonight is a plan from that side of the House. There is no plan; there’s only repeal. That’s not good enough for Aucklanders. That is not good enough for people sitting in their cars.

There hasn’t been a regulatory impact statement. They’ve pushed this legislation through the House. There haven’t been public submissions. There hasn’t even been a contribution from Auckland Council themselves. So when this bill particularly relates to Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, how the heck can we not invite those voices to make a contribution on this subject?

Auckland members on that side of the House have done 23 seconds in their contribution in this speaking round—23 seconds. They’ve heckled from over there. The member for Upper Harbour has heckled. The member for Northcote has heckled. His contribution was 23 seconds long—I don’t care about Rangitata. My point here is: where are the voices from Auckland? They only tend to be on this side of the House.

The other key point, and what’s very clear in this bill, is that what the Minister is attempting is to save some of the National Party’s reputation in providing cost of living relief. A clear promise that they made in the election—a clear promise. Tonight, I’m calling them out. I’m calling them out on their broken promises to Aucklanders, because all we’ve seen in 16 out of 17 bills come through this House in urgency is that they are only repealing bills, and not putting up new plans.

James Meager: The 100-day plan.

SHANAN HALBERT: It’s a 100-day plan, but just in this 100 days, we have incurred additional costs for Aucklanders. Let’s count them, because if you had asked me a week ago, I would have defended this piece of legislation differently. But what Aucklanders and the rest of the country learnt this week is that they might like the idea of not having a regional fuel tax, and I’m sure most people like that idea. They also want to get out of having congestion. But they got hoodwinked—they got hoodwinked. They got gaslit by this Minister. Through his cynicism, he cancelled a bunch of projects—cancelled the only thing that gets Aucklanders out of their congestion challenges. But what they got hoodwinked with was not cost of living relief, as promised; they got slapped with a $50 drivers’ tax, and if you count that up, that’s already impacting on Aucklanders. On top of that, they’re adding another 22c to fuel excise.

Katie Nimon: Talk to the bill.

SHANAN HALBERT: Whoever said, “Talk to the bill.”, and I think it was the member for Napier—it’s actually the cost of living, and if she’d read the bill, it talks specifically about the cost of living. It’s actually a failed attempt by this Minister and the Government to provide cost of living relief for Aucklanders. So that’s quite embarrassing when these MPs have to go back to their communities and explain: “Sorry, we had a fiscal hole that, yes, we pretended in the election wasn’t there, but absolutely it’s there. We can’t fund our promises.”

But that’s not the only broken promise to cost of living, because Aucklanders also face a 23 percent increase in water rates because those members also repealed the affordable water reforms. They also didn’t put up another plan for that. At the heart of this is Aucklanders, the people of Tāmaki-makau-rau—people still stuck in congestion, people still feeling stressed and having their mental health be impacted on—and productivity still being lost in our economy. For a city that makes the largest contribution to our economy, this has been one of the poorest pieces of legislation smashed through this House that I have ever seen. I’ve seen the poorest contribution from members of Parliament from Auckland, but most of all, I’ve seen the broken promises that in only 100 days, this Government have made, and they will be held accountable for that. But, most of all, they’ve let down our people of Auckland.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill): The number one issue for the residents of Mt Roskill is dealing with the cost of living. The Auckland regional fuel tax has disproportionally hurt those on the lowest incomes in my electorate, who often drive the oldest and most un - fuel-efficient cars. Reducing the cost of fuel will make a meaningful difference, particularly to the families who are counting every dollar at the moment.

Last year, people in Mt Roskill elected a National MP for the first time, because they believed in National’s 100-day plan to get New Zealand back on track. What a victory for people in Mt Roskill today. What a victory for Aucklanders. Thank you, Minister Simeon Brown. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice (Firearms)): I present a legislative statement on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation 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 NICOLE McKEE: I move, That the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2024.

For too long, gangs have been an intimidating and unwelcome presence in our communities. This Government is committed to restoring law and order and to ensuring that police have the tools that they need to take firearms out of the hands of gangs and criminals. The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill is an omnibus bill which aims to do just that. The bill will amend the Arms Act 1983, the Search and Surveillance Act 2012, and the Sentencing Act 2002 to reform the firearms prohibition orders regime.

We on this side of the House know that the changes we introduce here today will make a difference and will contribute as part of our wider law and order regime to making our communities safer. It does this by expanding the eligibility to cover more people in gangs, those associated with gangs, and those involved in organised crime. We will achieve this by giving the police greater search powers to enforce the orders upon those individuals.

We have all noticed the increase in gang-related violence, public intimidation, and crimes involving illegally held firearms. We’ve seen it increase significantly since 2017, where the data and the evidence tell a horrid story. The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill is an important part of the Government’s response to this increased crime in all our jurisdictions—urban, provincial, and rural.

Firearms prohibition orders—sometimes referred to as FPOs—are orders made by the court when offenders have committed serious violent offences. The way they work is that police make a case about an individual to the court, and if the court decides that individual meets the criteria for an order, then one will be placed upon them.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: What’s the criteria?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: It’s valid for 10 years, and it prohibits the individual from holding a firearms licence. And I am quite surprised to hear from the member across the way asking me what the criteria is, seeing as it was his Government that actually brought it in in the first place and didn’t do the job correctly, so we’ve got to come back here and fix it up. But I will be telling them what the criteria is in a little bit. Just wait a little longer.

Firearms prohibition orders, sometimes referred to as FPOs, are orders made by the court when offenders have committed serious violent offences. And the way they work is that police make a case about an individual to the court, and if the court decides that individual meets that criteria of the order, then one will be placed upon that person.

It is valid for 10 years, and it prohibits the individual from holding a firearms licence, from being around or near firearms—meaning they can’t go on to a range or into a gun shop, as an example—and the order prohibits them from being in possession of, or using, firearms. If that individual breaches the conditions of an FPO, they commit a criminal offence, and that is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

This amendment bill will make three key changes to the firearms prohibition orders regime that I just outlined. The first change is to expand the qualifying criteria so that FPOs can be issued to gang members and other criminals who commit drug, firearms, and other violent offences. Until now, FPOs could only be issued to people convicted of certain specific violent offences, like murder, serious assault, sexual violence, and aggravated robbery. The reality is that senior gang members often end up with low-level convictions because they get their prospects or others to do the dirty work for them. The expansion in qualifying criteria means that we are adding a penalty starting point and we are including a few more Acts of Parliament as qualifiers. So any crime committed that has a penalty of one year or more under the Arms Act 1983, the Crimes Act 1961, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, or the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 meets the current FPO Act’s criteria of being necessary, reasonable, and appropriate to managing the risk that the offender poses to public safety will be allowed.

What this means in plain language: FPOs may be issued to members or associates of gangs or members of an organised criminal group that commits drug, firearms, or violent offences. The courts will be able to issue more FPOs to gang members, gang associates, and violent criminals, helping to keep firearms out of their hands, ultimately making our communities safer.

The bill’s second change is to give police new specialist search powers so that anyone subject to an FPO can be searched at any time. People with FPOs are deemed to be of the highest risk to public safety. To reduce this risk, they should be subject to the highest level of monitoring. This is why we are creating these new search powers. There is no point placing an FPO on a criminal if the police don’t have the legislation that allows them to verify compliance with that order. Police need to be able to search offenders with an FPO, their vehicles, and their premises for firearms at any time to ensure that they are complying with the FPO. This change supports New Zealand Police to keep Kiwi communities safe from gun crime. We are giving police the tools that they need to ensure that these high-risk offenders are not accessing firearms.

Finally, the third change to legislation made by this bill is to establish a process for people who no longer pose a risk to apply to have the FPO modified or even removed. Currently, there is very limited ability to change or remove an FPO if a person’s circumstance changes—for example, if a person leaves a gang, changes their life around, and gets themselves back on track. Therefore, we propose that a recipient will be able to apply to the court for a determination as to whether the FPO should be reviewed, altered, or revoked after five years. This will ensure FPOs remain targeted only to those high-risk offenders. The review mechanism provides an incentive for people with FPOs to engage in rehabilitation and pursue law-abiding lives.

Keeping firearms out of the hands of gang members and high-risk offenders is fundamental to upholding this Government’s commitment to public safety. This bill provides police with the practical tools that they need to enforce FPOs, and it also sends a strong message to criminals and gangs that we are absolutely committed to addressing gang crime and to enforcing consequences for criminals, and we are taking back our communities. Enough is enough. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Well, that was quite a press release, but not much else, frankly. It is disappointing when you’re trying to do something as significant as this. I’m surprised that it’s the ACT Party. I actually went online and looked at the ACT Party’s—

Hon David Seymour: It is significant.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —constitution. Oh, it’s good to see that the leader’s come down to give the Associate Minister of Justice (Firearms) a bit of support, because she’s going to need it with this piece of legislation—

Hon David Seymour: That’s what we do in our party. Where’s that member’s support?

Hon Member: Where’s your leader?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —because here we have a piece of legislation which fundamentally cuts across the rights of people and intrudes on houses.

I’m not one to kind of cast back too far, but it was actually in the 1700s when there was a guy called John Entick, and his house was invaded and they had a bit of a search for papers. Now, in 1765, it was an open question as to whether the Government had a licence to walk into your house and have a look around or not. In 1765, that question was closed, because it was said that no one should be subject to arbitrary search.

Now, we’ve heard the Minister talk about why dangerous people should be subject to search, and we know that. There are really good grounds. But we know also that we have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, where that right found in the case of Entick v Carrington is now expressed.

Hon Member: Is this lecture available online?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: It says there in section 21, “Everyone has the right”—it’s funny that the party—

Hon David Seymour: If this speech doesn’t improve, I’m going back to my office!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —who claims their individual rights are sitting there heckling when I’m talking about rights, because it just goes to show the cheap shots that they’ll now take. But, you know, everyone should be secure—

Hon David Seymour: Oh, look, it’s not improving! Come on!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —against unreasonable search and seizure. Now, the Search and Surveillance Act has lots of powers of search, warrantless searches—

Hon David Seymour: Sorry, no good. Ka kite.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —and that’s fine because there are certainly cases where a warrantless search is appropriate.

Hon Rachel Brooking: A point of order. Mr Speaker, I believe that somebody was on their feet moving whilst heckling, and that is out of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I did not notice that, but I will take that under advisement, and if people are moving through the House to not heckle as they move, as well. But thank you for that notice.

Hon James Shaw: Point of order. Just to take the earliest opportunity, I’m afraid, Mr Speaker, which was, during the course of that debate, there was also an interjection reflecting on the Leader of the Opposition being absent from the House and locating where he was. That is also out of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Thank you. I’ll just take some advice on that. It’s important that we take points of order when they arise, and not five minutes afterwards. So I take the point, and I appreciate the energy in the House—I’m impressed by the energy in the House—and that you guys are so enthusiastic, and I commend that enthusiasm, but I would like now for the Hon Duncan Webb to continue.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The thing about this bill, though, is that the trigger for search is not only low, it’s non-existent. To search someone who is subject to a firearms protection order might be justifiable but the legislation that that Minister has brought before the House is triggered by a suspicion that someone might be subject to—the police don’t even have to be sure. Now, look, if you want to go and check on someone’s bail or parole, you can only do that if they are subject to bail or parole. That Minister wants the police to be able to have a reckon, and that is absolutely—you know, the fact is that the police can check on that kind of thing pretty much instantaneously on the National Intelligence Application. I think that that’s a reasonable thing for the police to do.

But that’s not the end of it. This is not only a warrantless search on the suspicion that someone might have a firearms protection order, but do you know what the trigger is for entering someone’s home, entering their car, waking up their kids? The trigger is nothing—nothing. The bill before the House says that this can be done without any reasonable suspicion that any offence or breach has occurred. I must say that I read this several times because I was flabbergasted that anyone in a democracy, somewhere where the rule of law exists, would put before the House a warrantless search on the suspicion of something that existed without any reasonable—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, look, lawyers on the other side are hanging their heads in shame.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —cause whatsoever. It is—that’s right; they should. They should absolutely hang their heads. It is shameful that here, in a modern democracy, we have the suggestion—and, look, let me tell you what could happen: a police car goes past a supermarket car park and says, “I think that guy might have a firearms protection order.” So they go along and they stop that person. Do they think anything’s going wrong? No, they think he’s doing his shopping, but they stop him anyway because they want to. That’s all they need: just to want to. So they search the car. They search him. Do you know what else they can do? They can search his partner and they can search his kids. That is what this bill does: a warrantless, without cause search on the suspicion that someone might have a firearms protection order of them, their car, and anyone in the car.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The member’s time has expired.

TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Every person deserves to feel safe in their homes and in their communities. Similarly, every person deserves to live free from harm and discrimination. Nobody disagrees with this premise. The Green Party agrees to that premise as well, which is why we created Te Aorerekura, which was the first all-of-Government cross-party approach to eliminating and preventing family and sexual violence in our communities. That was a really good plan that got to the root cause of making our communities safer and making sure that people could live free from harm and discrimination.

But what this bill does today is it hides behind a guise of making our communities safer. Over the last few days, we’ve heard from the Government that they have a mandate to crack down on law and order and to make our communities safer. But what we know about the bills that are going through the House this week is that they’re not going to do that, because they’re targeting such a minority group in society and placing the blame squarely on that minority group in society. But this is simply virtue signalling. It does nothing to make our communities safer at all. In fact, it will have the opposite effect, and it will make things more unsafe, especially because it’s adding to the increased workload of police, who are already going to have increased tensions in their communities. It just adds to the list of potential to increase hostility in our communities, between police and between gangs and other people that they might suspect to be prospective gang members.

What is a prospective gang member? If you look at the reasons, which this Government has not been doing at all—they love to talk about gangs all day long, but they never even seek to understand why it is that people join gangs in the first place. We know why that is, because it’s well documented. The Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister said that the reason that people join gangs is because of poverty—that a majority of people are in gangs because they experience abuse at the hands of the State. Many people who are incarcerated have high rates of disabilities; they come from impoverished backgrounds. These are the reasons that people join gangs, but you’re not interested in understanding that. You’re not interested in channelling investment towards reducing those drivers of crime. You just want to pin it on a small group of people—

Hon Member: Not “you”.

TAMATHA PAUL: Sorry, not “you”; “they”. They want to pin it on people, to say they’re the problem—that that’s the reason why we have harm in our community. We know why harm happens in our communities, and I guarantee you that this bill before us tonight does nothing to address those drivers.

I don’t understand what this Government is up to when they are going to make assault-style firearms more accessible in our communities, and then, on the other hand, they are trying to do things like this bill represents. Which one is it? Is it less guns or more guns? All I can see is the gun lobby all over all of these bills that are going through the House at the moment.

This bill will do nothing but contribute to the over-incarceration of indigenous people in this country. We know that we have some of the most shameful statistics when it comes to indigenous people.

Hon Nicole McKee: The most shameful people—standing up in Parliament, backing gangs.

TAMATHA PAUL: Māori women—Māori women—a group which that member is part of, are the most highly incarcerated indigenous people in the world—in the world. Congratulations, because that member’s bill is going to contribute to more incarceration of indigenous peoples. What a legacy to have—what a legacy to have.

When Moana Jackson wrote his amazing report in the 1980s, He Whaipaanga Hou, Māori women represented only 6 percent of the prison population. How is it that in only four decades, we represent more than 60 percent of the prison population? It’s because of bills that have gone through this House that seek to target small groups of people, without understanding those drivers of crime, that we have that overrepresentation.

The Green Party believes that no one should have access to a firearm unless it is for hunting or pest control. We believe that safer communities can be achieved when we address the root causes of crime and gang membership, which this House has no interest in doing. Those things include a healthy, affordable home, livable incomes, meaningful mahi opportunities, good education, and high quality access to healthcare. If you read the report that the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister wrote about gang membership and why people are joining gangs in the first place, it is all of those contributing factors that matter. It’s not things that this bill is presenting.

JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Unlike other members in this House, I care about the people of Rangitata. I care about the safety of the people of Rangitata—safety which is threatened daily by the presence of gangs in our community. When the pad in Washdyke was demolished by the council, firearms were present. There is no doubt that this bill goes some way to making sure that no longer happens. Good bill; good night.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill. What I’d like to say, to the Associate Minister of Justice (Firearms), is that I support this to go to the Justice Committee. It’s a great place to put this bill and to actually go through some of the issues that are being raised from the other side of the House.

It is about improving public safety, and when I read this bill, that is the most important thing. Our concern is improving public safety. It is about high-risk people in our communities, and the firearms prohibition orders (FPOs). It’s about the three key changes that will be put forward in this bill. It is about gangs and it is about organised crime, and it’s those people in gangs and organised crime that are convicted of offences under certain Acts that the Minister has already pointed out tonight. This has widened the criteria for those people where an FPO can actually now be issued.

The second part of this bill is around the right to challenge, and that is something that, through the select committee stage, I think will be a good discussion, around that five-year review process. So that is something that is new, and I think that is something that is a really good part of the bill.

But the most important part is the third part of the bill, and it’s around our police. It’s around the police being able to search, and being able to search people who are a high risk to the public. Having that ability to search people who have been issued with an FPO is something that I think is a really good thing.

Also, in our communities, we have people who will be able to search a vehicle and actually make the public safer. That’s what this is all about. It’s about improving public safety around high-risk people in our community. I therefore commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe e te Pīka; tēnā tātou. So this kaupapa is one of a heavy nature, and I wish to recognise the nature of this bill to begin with. I recognise this to begin with because it is the whakapapa. It is the context behind the original development of this bill that I will discuss now.

We have become so far removed from the whakapapa of this bill and from why this law was first established that I stand here to remind us all of the foundation of our debate this evening. Next week, on March 15th, it will be the fifth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque attacks that targeted our Muslim community and claimed the lives of 51 innocent people. To those whānau and to that community, I acknowledge that this is a loss that likely remains unhealed. This attack was endured at the hands of an ideology known as white supremacy. This is an ideology that we dance around, that we do not mention within the walls of this House, and yet it is in this bill, embedded into its very foundation. I’ll repeat the words “white supremacy”. It was Labour who originally introduced laws in response to the attacks in Christchurch as a means to justify the implementation of Operation Tauwhiro and Operation Cobalt. These operations targeted criminals, criminal gangs, and organised crime groups. This was their response to the attack: to target and focus on groups who were ultimately not responsible for the events of March 15th and to those who do not hold the same ideology: white supremacy.

So this is how a colonial Government responds when a white supremacist terrorist is inspired by a world view that they have enabled, to redirect their focus on to—guess what?—gangs, of which Māori make up the majority. They will distract us from how we got here, as they do today, but we shall never forget March 15th. So this brings us here today to say where the coalition Government builds and develops on from the foundation of white supremacy. Because of the actions inspired by white supremacy, the Government, with this law, targets gang members, aka Māori and their associates, ultimately targeting Māori, which, no doubt, will lead to the increased incarceration of our people, continuing the cycle of trauma in our communities.

While the component of the bill I discuss now will certainly be discussed in greater detail in the days to come, I want to address the amendment of the Search and Surveillance Act. This Act will give police the power to conduct warrantless searches without cause. One of my whanaunga recently got arrested; I think it was called a “searching while brown” situation. It will give the police the power to arrest—and on a person that police suspect is subject to a firearms prohibition order. So what this means is that police will be able to invade our homes—our homes—and conduct searches without reasonable grounds to suspect that any offence has been, is being, or will be committed. Imagine how that’s going to turn out.

The message this sends to our people, again, is this: we do not matter. Our safety, our security, and our place in Aotearoa as tangata whenua is of no value to this Government. It sends the message to our tamariki, to our mokopuna, that we Māori will continue to have our oppressors searching our homes—what a great life! Searching our Māori identities for something they cannot find within themselves. I leave it to the members of this House to consider what that something is, and I completely reject the position of this bill, and absolutely cannot commend it. Tēnā koe.

CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): We are here tonight for one reason. Some reasons have been put for why we’re here tonight, but we are here tonight because of the abject failure of the last six years to get on top of law and order. Serious offending through the roof. Retail offending through the roof. Youth offending through the roof. The gang numbers are through the roof, and if we look at some of the stats out of police districts: gang numbers in Auckland City Police District, up 87 percent in six years; Waitematā, up 74 percent; Wellington, up 124 percent. New Zealanders have had an absolute gutsful. They want us back in control. We tried six police Ministers in six years, and all we saw was failure and all we saw was soaring crime. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Look, in situations like this, I think it’s always good to go back to a good problem definition and look at what the proposed solution is doing to that. And that’s exactly also what the Police have done quite a good job with, with the supplementary analysis report on firearm prohibition orders (FPOs), which is tabled.

So the problem definition in this paper states that “Violent crime involving firearms is a significant source of harm in New Zealand.” We agree with that, and we agree that we would like to do something about that problem. “The objective”, as it says in here, “of the FPO regime is to improve public safety by reducing the likelihood that individuals who are high risk of violent offending are able to access firearms”, something that we also agree with.

The problem comes when it goes to assessing what the solution to this problem is, and Police are pretty frank in their advice: “Given the newness of the FPO regime”, the one brought in by the previous Government, “which only took effect on 15 November 2022, Police consider that it’s too early to evaluate if it is improving public safety. However”—this is the good bit—“there is a perception expressed in the National Party 2023 election manifesto and subsequent ministerial discussions, that several legislative design features of the current framework limit the efficiency and the effectiveness of the regime.” So Police say, “We do not know whether the previous regime is working because it’s too early” and, furthermore, the only evidence we have is a “perception” expressed in the National Party election manifesto, and that is the basis of the law change that we are here tonight debating.

The second point I’d like to make is in relation to the evidence for change. Police consider it is too early to properly assess and, in addition, the reason why it’s too early to assess it is that the majority of those individuals who now have an FPO placed upon them are in prison; so we don’t know how that will impact upon them, because they’re presently incarcerated. So we are introducing new powers tonight, new ways to a regime which is unable to be assessed largely because all of the people it would currently apply to are in prison. The problem definition of these changes, therefore, has limited evidence to support—there is “very little baseline evidence to support future monitoring of whether these changes have been effective.”

Then it goes on to look at the risks. It’s really important to look at the risks associated with proceeding with the current regime when there is no evidence or basis for changing it. “Few FPOs are issued as the impact on rights mean that they are only considered appropriate in extraordinary cases of risk to public safety. Evidence obtained by police in FPO searches may be ruled inadmissible where search powers are ruled to have been used in an unreasonable manner. Crown liability for damages may arise if FPO search powers are ruled to be used in an unreasonable manner.” So the problem is it’s still administered by the courts. You still need a judge to put one of these new things on somebody and so what the Police advice is saying is there may well be reluctance by the courts to do that.

And the fourth point I’d like to say, and this is one of my favourites—it’s titled up “Assumptions Underpinning Impact Assessment”. So the whole impact assessment is on assumptions: “There is an assumption that the current FPO regime is insufficient to mitigate firearms violence or control gang crime, which has not been rigorously tested. Given the newness of this FPO regime, it is difficult to assess if it is working effectively, or whether amendments are needed to increase its efficacy.” So that’s interesting. Then, on top of that, we have a coalition Government who’s making semi-automatic weapons more readily available to the general public. So you’re introducing new powers on controlling gun control while bringing back semi-automatic weapons: loopy, pretty damn loopy, I say. It is unbelievable that you can try and trumpet that you’re doing a tough-on-crime approach by bringing in something but, at the same time, you’re making available semi-automatic weapons, which will find their way into the hands of the criminal underworld whether you like it or not.

The last point I’d like to make is the impact on Māori and the Treaty. It says, “As these proposals will disproportionately affect Māori, under the active protection and partnership principles there is a strong Te Tiriti o Waitangi argument base that Māori should at the very least be consulted. However, due to time constraints, no consultation with Māori has been done.” But we won’t need to worry about the active principle of partnership and the Treaty principles because ACT has a bill with that as well to get rid of those as well. So, Madam Speaker, this bill is a joke.

PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn): The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill is a crackdown measure on gangs, their associates, and criminals. It is a bill that clearly sends the message that gun crime will not be tolerated and confirms our commitment to all our local communities that we take their safety seriously. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the chance, at 11.40 p.m. at night, to say a few words on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill. And it’s kind of a shame that we’re having this important conversation at this hour in the evening under urgency. I would have thought some due respect would have been at a more timely part of the day where people had the opportunity to maybe tune in.

Simon Court: Well, maybe if there were still FPOs, then you could have negotiated that, but we got rid of them.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: You know, 7.30, 8.30, is usually prime time for TV watching, isn’t it, Mr Court? But, you know, 11.30, people have watched the news, they’re on to their Netflix, and they’re probably off to bed, but never mind.

Tangi Utikere: Why are we still here?

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: I have no idea. But this bill makes, as my colleagues have said, three changes to the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Act. The first one—and they’re all quite benign on the surface. The first one amends the Arms Act 1983 to extend the group of persons against whom a firearms prohibition order (FPO) may be made; amends the Arms Act 1983 to establish a new review process that enables persons subject to an FPO to apply to the court to have that order varied, perhaps modified, or even revoked; and it amends the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 to introduce a new, without cause, search power that enables police to conduct searches in respect of a person who the police suspect on reasonable grounds may be subject to an FPO.

Before coming down to the House, I listened to my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, who is a professor of law, talk about the history of—I think it was way back in the 1700s and there was some story about a particular man who, and I don’t profess to have the legal intellect that that Dr Webb has, but I know that it was really important that not since that time have we thought about engaging these measures. So that goes to show what a potentially ill-conceived and ill-thought-out piece of legislation this is. And, look, the reality is that this doesn’t go any way to resolving the actual problem, does it? You know, the National Party, pre-election, went on and on and on about the concept, and they campaigned really hard on resolving the gang problem, and this doesn’t go any way whatsoever to doing anything about crime and anything about the issue of gangs.

So, as we’ve said, the proposed changes to the FPO add almost nothing. And that’s a bit of a shame because there was an opportunity to actually start to put together a suite of measures that could have tackled the issues at hand. But this does very little, and as my colleague the Hon Ginny Andersen has just said, you put that together with the fact that there’s loosening up of gun laws on the other hand, and it’s a bit of a recipe for disaster. So the FPO laws are already in place, and they work—they work well—and the Government is really, really planning to make military style semi-automatic weapons more widely available. And we know that the police have advised that they will end up in the wrong hands. So there’s a couple of just practical things that we have to think about. How will a person be identified as a gang member? What is the process for demonstrating that they’re no longer a gang member or they’re no longer affiliated to that gang? And what does good behaviour mean with regard to actually getting off an FPO earlier?

When you think about it, it’s almost laughable. We knew the “coalition of cuts” would cut services, and we’ve talked about that throughout the evening in various other ways, but now we’re actually talking about cutting safety and cutting protections from our communities. So that’s not really very good. Madam Speaker—Mr Speaker, my apologies; as I said, it’s very late. The firearms prohibition orders, as we’ve said, are really a back-door way of planning to introduce greater access to military semi-automatic weapons, and I think that that’s something we have to be really wary of, in conjunction with these other measures.

Now, ACT is putting our police in harm’s way, and I don’t say that lightly, but I think that that’s actually quite justified. The police have already got a dangerous job, as we know, without the risk of having assault weapons pulled on them during circumstances where these FPO orders are being amended. And I just want to finish my contribution by saying that Nicola Willis made a commitment that National would continue to support a ban on those weapons after the 15 March attack. So clearly this is a Government very divided.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): Too often, senior gang members have been getting away with their peddling of misery while the young recruits—those that are often lured to the gang lifestyle for the reasons mentioned by my colleague Tamatha Paul, which I acknowledge—are the ones that are usually dealing with the stronger sentences. So this bill helps rectify this imbalance, and it will help people in Takanini, in Mount Roskill, in West Auckland, in South Auckland, and around New Zealand feel much safer. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is, That the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to Justice Committee

Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice (Firearms)): I move, That the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2024.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 11.46 p.m. (Wednesday)