Tuesday, 28 May 2024

TUESDAY, 28 MAY 2024

TUESDAY, 28 MAY 2024

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere): Tatou ifo ma tatalo. Le Atua Silisili ese e, matou te sulaina lau Afio mo fa’amanuiaga ma tofi ua e fa’au’uina ai i matou. E lafoa’i ni o matou lagona ma manatua ta’ito’atasi i le amana’iaina o le Masiofo o Peretania. Matou te tatalo ina ia tonu ma fa’amaoni fuafuaga ma fa’ai’uga uma i totonu o lenei Maota Fono. Ia talosia ta’ita’i o lenei Mālō ina ia maua le tōfā mamao, le fa’apalepale ma le agamalū, auā le manuia ma le filemū o Niu Sila. O le matou tatalo lea, e ala atu i le suafa pele o Iesu Keriso. Amene.

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 Steven Price requesting that the House impose mandatory cumulative sentencing for the killing of more than one person

petition of Bex Howells requesting that the House urge the Government to pay a stipend to people while they train in healthcare, education, and social work professions.

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

CLERK:

Archives New Zealand Report on the State of Government Recordkeeping 2022/2023

Reserve Bank of New Zealand Monetary Policy Statement, May 2024.

SPEAKER: I’ve received the report of the Controller and Auditor-General entitled Strengthening government procurement: Lessons from our recent work. Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

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

committee’s scrutiny plan for the 54th Parliament

Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, and

report of the Controller and Auditor-General Inquiry into Callaghan Innovation’s procurement process

report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Employment Relations (Restraint of Trade) Amendment Bill

report of the Environment Committee on its scrutiny plan for the 54th Parliament

reports of the Governance and Administration Committee on the

briefing on the work of the Office of the Auditor-General

its scrutiny plan for the 54th Parliament

report of the Controller and Auditor-General Auckland Council: Preparedness for responding to an emergency, and

report of the Controller and Auditor-General Insights into local government: 2021

report of the Health Committee on its scrutiny plan for the 54th Parliament

reports of the Justice Committee on the

Corrections Amendment Bill, and the

committee’s scrutiny plan for the 54th Parliament

report of the Māori Affairs Committee on its scrutiny plan for the 54th Parliament

reports of the Primary Production Committee on its

scrutiny plan for the 54th Parliament, and its

review briefing on the 2022-23 annual review of Outdoor Access Commission

report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on its scrutiny plan for the 54th Parliament.

SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading. The scrutiny plans, the briefings, and the report of the Controller and Auditor-General are set down for consideration. No bills have been introduced.

Urgent Debates Declined

Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty 1982—New Zealand Deployment to Monitor

SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Marama Davidson seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the role of the New Zealand deployment to monitor the 1982 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. Not every ministerial announcement will give sufficient grounds for an urgent debate. I do not think that the two-year extension on such a long-term commitment warrants setting aside the business of the House today. The application is declined.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

1. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) to the Prime Minister: Talofa e te Pīka. Does he agree with all his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and especially our commitment to support working families with the cost of living crisis through tax reduction. After 14 years, this is a Government that is finally delivering income tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders in the Budget. The last Government’s response to inflation was more spending, more taxes, and more debt. We’re getting wasteful spending under control so that we can rebuild the economy and get New Zealand back on track.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What did he mean when he stated on Waitangi Day 2024 that the obligations Te Tiriti imposes “on both sides will always be with us.”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Sorry, I didn’t hear the question.

SPEAKER: Repeat the question if you don’t mind.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What did he mean when he stated on Waitangi Day 2024 that the obligations Te Tiriti imposes “on both sides will always be with us.”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, just that—that it’s actually the founding document of New Zealand; we’ll continue to honour it.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How is removing references to Treaty principles from over 40 pieces of legislation meeting his Tiriti obligations?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think that question mischaracterises what we’re doing. What we’re asking for is, actually, making sure that when there are references to the Treaty in legislation, that it’s actually very specific to the application of that legislation.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How do policies such as the Fast-track Approvals Bill, the Treaty Principles Bill, the removal of section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act, the ministerial alienation of te reo Māori, and the disestablishment of Māori wards and the Māori Health Authority meet the Crown’s obligations to Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I reject the characterisation of that question. What I’d say to you is I could take each of those issues and say why we’re making the changes that we are. We don’t believe a Māori Health Authority actually delivers better health outcomes for Māori—period. We think there’s other ways to deal with that. We think we can do that through working and partnering with local iwi health organisations, as an example. So I just—you know, that’s our position, we’re very clear about it.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What actions will his Government be taking to uphold his obligations to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in response to Israel’s continued assault on civilians and children in Rafah, including the murder of over 50 people last night?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think you heard us declare in February—and we partnered with both Australia and Canada at the time—that we did not want to see Israel undertake military operations in Rafah, because it would have catastrophic implications and impact on people. Obviously, we are a country that upholds international law and we expect Israel to be compliant with the ICJ ruling.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it the Prime Minister’s view that MMP has delivered far greater representation of Māori in this Parliament than any other left-wing, woke idea or—dare I say it—ethnic preference idea?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m incredibly proud of the Māori representation we have in this Cabinet.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder, Mr Speaker, whether you could indicate what ministerial responsibility the Prime Minister has for previous election results.

SPEAKER: That’s very true—he has none. But he was asked if he would reflect upon a situation, and I think the question, when it says “all statements”, “all actions”, etc., allows that.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura) to the Minister of Finance: What recent announcements has she made about the Budget?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Yesterday, I joined the Prime Minister to outline further details of the Budget 2024 savings programme. In the same way that households have adjusted their budgets and their spending, as a Government we have had to do the same. Ministers have gone line by line through the funding they are responsible for to evaluate whether it represents the best use of precious taxpayer dollars. As I said yesterday, this line-by-line process has uncovered more than 240 individual saving initiatives for inclusion in Budget 2024.

Stuart Smith: What will the savings be used for?

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Landlords. [Laughter]

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The savings will be used for two things—the members opposite laugh at the New Zealanders who are paying higher rates of tax than they have in 14 years, because it’s their view that they can always spend it better than New Zealanders can in their own families. But on this side of the House, we are making savings so that they can be both used to provide long overdue tax relief for hard-working New Zealanders and also be used to invest in Government priorities, including front-line services. On Thursday, members will see examples of careful reprioritisation in almost every area of Government, freeing up cash to go towards things—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: And all the children in Oranga Tamariki?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: —like training additional teachers—well, if the member opposite wants to talk about children, let’s talk about the young people who will benefit from the Gumboot Friday mental health counselling session that her side of the House seems to oppose—and additional funding for surf lifesavers. We are making active choices to stop some areas of spending so that we can redeploy those funds to better uses.

Stuart Smith: Where have savings been made?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: That will be announced in the Budget, and I can tell the member that the Government has already announced decisions to stop some lower-value spending. This includes finding $442 million in savings at Corrections so we can reinvest in our prisons and front-line corrections officers; finding $99 million from within the New Zealand Defence Force to reinvest in defence personnel and equipment; stopping work on the income insurance scheme, another name for a job tax; stopping work on so-called industry transformation plans; stopping work on Lake Onslow; repealing the Clean Car Discount; exiting the Crown’s contribution to Let’s Get Wellington Moving, otherwise known as “Let’s Slow Wellington Down”; and continuing the school lunch programme left unfunded by the outgoing Government, and delivering it in a way that saves taxpayers approximately $107 million a year.

Stuart Smith: What announcements has she made about the impact Budget 2024 will have on the job losses in the Public Service?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The increase over the past six years in the number of back-office Public Service roles was unaffordable and needed to be reined back. According to the most recent advice I have received, the Government’s baseline savings exercise will remove around 2,250 roles from Government departments, as well as closing around 1,150 vacancies. Further savings initiatives additional to our baseline exercise will remove a little over 500 roles. The number is subject to change and will remain so after Budget day. My heart goes out to anyone losing their job but Budget 2024 has required us to carefully reprioritise taxpayers’ dollars. The members on the opposite side of the House seem to think there’s a magic money tree at the end of the garden—or at least, if it’s not at the end of the garden, that magic money tree is New Zealand taxpayers whose pockets they never give up on fleecing. But we, on this side of the House, have reprioritised funding to support more workers on the front line, including nurses, doctors, police, teachers, and corrections officers. The list goes on, and I’ll have more to say on Thursday.

Hon David Seymour: Will the Government stop trying to save New Zealanders money after this Thursday’s Budget, or will it continue looking for ways to find efficiencies and do more with less for the benefit of hard-working Kiwis every day from the Budget onwards?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: What an excellent question from the Minister, because this is the new normal. We are a Government that every day, every week, every Budget will strive to make the most impact out of every taxpayer dollar. That’s what New Zealanders do in their own household budgets, that’s what small businesses do in their own businesses, and that’s what a good Government should do too.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

3. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Talofa lava. Does he agree with the then Leader of the Opposition, Christopher Luxon, who stated on 19 September 2023, regarding the National Party’s proposed tax cuts, that “for an average household income family with young kids, that would mean $250 a fortnight”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): In the context that that statement was made, yes, and I can confirm that this Government will be delivering tax relief in this year’s Budget, supporting Kiwis with the cost of living, with more detail to come on Thursday. And like him—though I don’t agree with Labour’s tax policy at the election; he’s already flip-flopped on capital gains tax, and my bet is he’s going to flip-flop on GST too.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How many families will benefit from $250 a fortnight in tax cuts as a result of this year’s Budget?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: As your former finance Minister used to say, “Two more sleeps to go.”

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How many extra dollars per week will a minimum-wage worker keep, thanks to his Government’s tax cuts?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, you’ll have to wait till Thursday, but what I can say to that member is that this is a Government that believes, after 14 years, that working New Zealanders, low and middle income workers, the same people the Labour Party and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions used to care about, actually need support. And I’d just encourage that member and his party and say, vote for the tax relief that we’re going to be delivering on Thursday evening.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Can he confirm that according to the National Party’s own tax calculator, which has mysteriously been removed, minimum-wage workers can expect an additional $2 a week?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, the member will have to wait until Thursday, but what I appreciate is the question about the tax calculator, because I do want to say to the few people that are watching this broadcast today, get on board, go check out the official tax calculator on Thursday, and see how much benefit you’re going to get.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How many extra dollars per week will a typical property investor keep, thanks to the Government’s tax cuts?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, that’ll be dependent upon their individual circumstances, but what’s great is that we have restored interest deductibility, we’ve reduced the brightline test, and we’re balancing laws between tenants and landlords so we get a greater supply of rental properties in the housing market.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Can he confirm that a typical property investor can expect to keep an additional $288 per week per property, or 144 times what a minimum-wage worker can expect to keep?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I can confirm is that this is a Government that is going to solve the housing crisis, unlike his Government that had six years to do it and didn’t deliver. We’re here to deliver. We want an increase in supply in new houses being built, an increase in supply in rental properties, and an increase in supply in social housing.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Will he guarantee—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Hang on. Wait on. Wait. OK.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Will he guarantee that this year’s Budget will not lead the Reserve Bank to hike up interest rates again, leaving families worse off; if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, look, I really appreciate the member’s interest in tax relief. It’s the most animated I’ve seen him discussing it. He had six years to deal with it. He didn’t touch it at all. And I’m just thinking of all those low and middle income workers out there that are working incredibly hard and still can’t get ahead because of the economic vandalism and mismanagement that his Government created. And help is on the way on Thursday.

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

SPEAKER: Point of order—I think I can anticipate—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Maybe I could just repeat it.

SPEAKER: Beg your pardon?

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Maybe I could just repeat it.

SPEAKER: Well, I don’t think you need to repeat the question, but I think the answer could be further elucidated.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Very good.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question.

SPEAKER: No, the Prime Minister’s going to—

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Can he repeat—sorry, I missed—

SPEAKER: OK. Repeat the question.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Will he guarantee that this year’s Budget will not lead to the Reserve Bank hiking interest rates again, leaving families worse off; if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I can say to him is our Budget is designed to lower Government spending, to lower inflation so we lower interest rates, get the economy growing, and we actually keep people in employment. The tragic reality of the previous administration was Government spending went up 84 percent, inflation hit an all-time high, interest rates hit an all-time high, the economy’s in recession, and rising unemployment. The Reserve Bank has an independent—we have an independent policy with the Reserve Bank.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Prime Minister assure the country that despite the economic crisis we inherited and despite the targeted expenditure and changes we’ve made, we, nevertheless, are looking forward to a period where New Zealand will have more money in the economy than ever before but in the right places?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Absolutely. And I also appreciate the opportunity to help the member understand economics, which is when you increase spending, you increase domestic inflation; that lifts interest rates, that slows the economy down, and that raises unemployment. That’s what we’re trying to deal with. The root cause of the problem: inflation. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: I know that a few days before a Budget, the House is a little more animated than usual, but it’s been particularly animated today. I’d just suggest members keep it as calm as reasonably possible.

Question No. 4—Prime Minister

4. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his Government’s statements and actions?

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

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister believe that more coalmining and oil and gas drilling is consistent with a livable planet or meeting our climate goals, as he has said that he is committed to?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I’d just say to that member is I would encourage her to read an excellent speech given by the Minister for Resources, Shane Jones, in the last week. It’s an actually thoughtful speech and it talks about the role that mining will play in New Zealand in helping us make that transition. Here’s the deal: every electric vehicle (EV), every smartphone, every solar panel, every wind farm needs minerals. We can’t just make them out of thin air.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Is he aware that that very speech he’s referencing of the Hon Shane Jones where he repeated the International Energy Agency’s assessment that the world needs six times more rare minerals for green transition is premised on a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and an end to coalmining?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, what I’d say to you is that it’s a very thoughtful speech and there’s no way we can deliver our transition to a clean economy without minerals.

Chlöe Swarbrick: If he disagrees with the International Energy Agency and the independent Climate Change Commission and the world’s top scientists that there is no future in fossil fuels or coalmining, from who is he actually getting his advice?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, look, I think the member would understand that actually mining is very important for helping us actually adopt EVs, to use smartphones, to adopt solar panels, and to make sure we get wind farms. We need minerals for that process and that transition.

Hon David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister have any advice for people who say they are opposed to mining but live a luxuriant lifestyle thanks to the benefit of it every single day of their life?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’d just encourage all leaders of political parties here in this House to support the oil and gas ban reversal and also support the fast-track legislation that’s going through the House.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he agree with Standard & Poor’s that “unabated mines face the risk of becoming stranded assets as the global economy works towards decarbonisation” and his idea of “a modern, reliable infrastructure in New Zealand”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I certainly agree with the last part of that question, which is I do want to see a modern, reliable infrastructure emerge here in New Zealand. That’s why, again, I keep saying to the member that I encourage her and her party to support our fast-track legislation.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister think that sacrificing the habitat of the great spotted kiwi at the altar of coalmines is an accurate representation of his Government’s economic and environmental policies?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Look, I reject the premise of that question, but what I’d just say to that member is, look, here’s the deal: we need minerals—we need critical minerals—in order to make the transition to a clean future. That’s all that the Minister was putting out on the table in an excellent speech last week. I encourage all members to read it.

Hon David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister aware that the ability to hold up colour laser-printed images all day, every day, in Parliament is reliant on a vast array of materials, from printer toner to the metal in the printer to the fibre-optic cables that transmitted the signal—you name it, it all comes from mining—and would the words “hypocritical actions” come to the Prime Minister’s mind?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I want to thank the Minister for his question and just say the irony was not lost on me.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Prime Minister—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Hang on. Wait on. Just listen. I know it’s exciting—48 hours to go—but just hold it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Prime Minister aware, in terms of the setting of future policy, that the latest records show that the Green MPs have the highest aviation expenditure record of every party in Parliament?

SPEAKER: No—no responsibility. No responsibility for that. [Interruption] When you’re ready—question No. 5 in the name of Rima Nakhle.

Question No. 5—Housing

5. RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) to the Minister of Housing: What announcements has he made regarding social housing places?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): Last week, I was proud to announce that Budget 2024 allocates $140 million to funding 1,500 new social homes. This investment underlines the Government’s commitment to housing New Zealanders in need in a fiscally sustainable way. We will be funding these places to community housing providers. They do an outstanding job housing people in need, currently providing over 13,000 social houses around New Zealand, and they have the capability, expertise, and desire to grow further. We’re committed to growing the social housing sector.

Rima Nakhle: When will he prioritise these new social housing places?

Shanan Halbert: 10 years’ time.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, in the next two years—you should listen up, mate; I answered that last week. Currently, social housing is procured from community housing providers on a project by project basis. What we have said is that around 500 new homes of the 1,500 will be allocated quickly, using the existing pipeline of community housing provider opportunities, with three objectives in mind: firstly, value for money from Government investment; secondly, contributing towards our target of getting people out of emergency housing motels; and a balanced approach between achievability and building capability in historically underserved regions. In short, this means we will be prioritising social housing places where it will make the biggest difference and get people out of motels.

Rima Nakhle: What about the rest of the 1,500 new places?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The balance of the 1,500 places, which will be about a thousand, will likely be allocated using an active-purchaser approach, which officials will be developing throughout the rest of 2024. This is a concept developed in the independent review of Kāinga Ora, and it refers to the Government developing a much more sophisticated understanding of current and future housing needs at a national, regional, and cohort level; taking a social-investment approach to improving housing outcome; and, potentially, outcome-based contracts. Subject to ministerial agreement, officials will be looking at developing longer-term strategic partnerships with some community housing providers to achieve specific social and housing outcomes, rather than looking at single proposals one by one.

Question No. 6—Finance

6. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: Malo le soifua manuia, Mr Speaker. Does she stand by her statement, “These savings and revenue initiatives are the same as those in the National Party’s tax plan, with some adjustments to reflect coalition agreements”?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I stand by the full statement I made in question time last Tuesday, which was, “Tax relief in the Budget will be fully funded through savings and revenue initiatives. These savings and revenue initiatives are the same as those in the National Party’s tax plan, with some adjustments to reflect coalition agreements. There will also be other savings in the Budget [and] these savings will be directed towards Government priorities, including front-line public services.”

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Where in the coalition agreement does it say that the international visitor levy will increase?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: It doesn’t.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Where in the coalition agreement does it say that she will introduce or consider a tax on utes as outlined in advice received by the Minister of Revenue?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: That’s not being considered. Now, I can see that the member is very interested in the funding of our tax plan. So what I want to announce to the House is that those interested in that can look forward to the Budget matters document, which will be released on Thursday. I can advise the member that—I think it’s page 3 or 4 of that document—there will be an itemised outline of the savings and revenue measures being used to support our fully funded tax package that’s going to put cash back in the pockets of hard-working Kiwis.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Will she commit to funding the 13 new cancer treatments promised in her fiscal plan; if not, why not?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I have told that member a few times over the last few weeks that she will have to await Budget day to find the full set of commitments that we are progressing. There’s two comments that I would make. The first is we are a Government that was left with a massive hole where funding for the Pharmac budget should have been—they left massive fiscal cliffs so that we have already announced our commitment to a $1.8 billion boost for Pharmac. The second thing I would say is that across the coalition agreements that the National, New Zealand First, and ACT parties have formed, there are a number of commitments and not all of them will be delivered in our first Budget.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Will the Minister be hosting a social services budget lock-up this year; if not, why not?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: No.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Has she taken down the tax calculator because she knows New Zealanders will not receive the $250 per fortnight in tax cuts that they had promised?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: No. There will be an official Government tax calculator. It will be hosted on the Treasury website, it will be available from 2 p.m. on Thursday, and you should go and check it out.

SPEAKER: Question—[Interruption] Just wait for a minute. When are you ready? [Interruption] Do you want to take the conversation outside? [Interruption] All right, so we’ll just try for a bit of quiet and have question No. 7 from Laura Trask.

Question No. 7—Education

7. LAURA TRASK (ACT) to the Associate Minister of Education: What progress has he made in making student attendance data more available?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education): On 7 May, I announced a new online data dashboard which makes daily attendance data available to the public and parents in a more timely way. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average and also regional breakdowns of how many students attended school each and every day. [Turns laptop toward members of the House]

SPEAKER: I can’t see that from here.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Mr Speaker, I’m sure that you should have gone to Specsavers.

Laura Trask: How will publishing attendance data help improve school attendance?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, it is critical that we create a sense of national focus on what is perhaps one of our biggest long-term problems in New Zealand—not enough students attending school. Publishing the data each week for daily attendance creates that focus but also allows us to better understand the data. So far this term, we’ve seen that there is a real problem with fewer students attending each Friday. We’ve also seen a gradual decline in attendance over the last four weeks, which we might attribute to the winter season where more and more people have been calling in sick. Understanding this kind of data, while not currently encouraging, will allow us to take a more proactive approach to increasing attendance. I’d also like to point out that in the last week to Friday 24, 90.8 percent of schools reported their data voluntarily, and this is a fabulous development. It started off closer to 85 percent. We’re now at nearly 91 percent of schools voluntarily reporting their data. We will aim for 100 percent when it becomes mandatory next year. But we are finally being honest about the problem, getting the data required to solve it proactively so that we can get students back to school, which is far more than the previous Government did, where Jan Tinetti was—

SPEAKER: That’s enough, thank you. If you want more questions, that’s enough.

Laura Trask: What is the daily attendance rate that schools should aspire to?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: This Government has set a goal that by 2030, 80 percent of students will be attending school at least 90 percent of the time. That compares with term 4 last year, when only 46 percent reached that target, and term 1 this year, where the figure was closer to 53. To get to 80 is going to be an enormous effort and that’s why it is paced out over the coming six years. However, the question was in relation to daily attendance rate. When you have 80 percent of students attending 90 percent of the time, you actually require a daily rate of approximately 94 percent. I’ll also just correct what I said earlier; I was relaying term 3 and 4 last year, not term 4 last year and term 1 this year in the earlier part of my answer.

SPEAKER: I’ll just remind the Minister that this is question time for relatively concise answers, not long dissertations that might be more in the nature of a general debate speech. Laura Trask. No more? Oh, OK, that makes it better.

Question No. 8—Housing

8. Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) to the Minister of Housing: Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. Does he stand by his statement that the review into Kāinga Ora was “thorough”?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): Yes.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: How is it thorough when the organisation under review has stated, “There was relatively limited engagement with our organisation, leading to some review conclusions appearing to be based on analysis informed by anecdotes rather than independently considering the performance of the organisation.”?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, that, unsurprisingly, is Kāinga Ora’s perspective. I prefer the findings of the independent review.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: How is it thorough—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just wait for quiet. OK.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: How is it thorough when he in paragraph 56 of the relevant Cabinet paper omitted that there were serious and credible concerns raised in Kāinga Ora’s response, instead stating, “the Board is broadly comfortable with the review recommendations”?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Because, unsurprisingly, I didn’t agree with Kāinga Ora’s perspective on the review.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: When did he approach Sir Bill English to chair the review into Kāinga Ora?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Sir Bill and I talked soon after the election about whether or not he could help out in reviewing Kāinga Ora. Ultimately, that is what happened, alongside two other very credible and expert reviewers.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Did he advise Sir Bill English not to involve Kāinga Ora in the review?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, and they were involved in the review. He met with Kāinga Ora alongside community housing providers, a range of people in the social sector, developers, and builders across a range of organisations in the social sector.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: How can he be confident this was a credible report when it ignored serious and credible concerns raised by Kāinga Ora, the details of which were omitted in the Cabinet paper, and he instructed the review not to involve Kāinga Ora?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, there are a number of factual inaccuracies there. Firstly, I didn’t ask the reviewers not to involve Kāinga Ora—you should have listened to my last answer. The reviewers did talk to Kāinga Ora. And in relation to the first part of his question, the concerns that the member relays as apparently or purportedly credible and serious are not credible and serious. I appreciate that the member wishes to defend the record of Kāinga Ora under the last Government; this Government has a different attitude to that, and the public can see for itself the financial disaster that is that organisation.

Hon Nicola Willis: Would it be fair to say that Kāinga Ora’s perception of itself and its unblemished excellence is somewhat different from the perception that communities have of Kāinga Ora’s approach to stakeholder engagement, is somewhat different from the approach harassed tenants have of the way Kāinga Ora deals with those matters, is somewhat different from the perception that those in the building and construction industry have from Kāinga Ora’s gold-plated approach to development, and is it in fact the case that the only people defending Kāinga Ora are the Labour Party?

SPEAKER: The Minister may answer only one of those questions, but not the last one.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, one of the great tragedies of the last few years is that the social—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: This Government!

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: We’ve been in office for six months; you really want to talk about your six years—good grief! One of the great tragedies of the last few years is that the social licence for social housing, which plays a very important role in housing vulnerable New Zealanders, has been eroded due to Kāinga Ora. Our Government seeks to rebuild the social licence to house vulnerable people in communities and make sure they have a warm, dry home. That’s the focus of our Government.

SPEAKER: The Rt Hon Winston Peters. Just wait for the House to go quiet.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister as to why should the Māori people and the Māori language suffer the ignominy of a disastrous housing policy and a name given to it by someone else in this Parliament?

SPEAKER: Well, just—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If you want to make it clear—one more time—

SPEAKER: No, no. My point was I actually didn’t hear what you were saying. Those microphones don’t tend to come back this way.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I’m very sorry. Could the Minister advise us as to why the Māori people, and, dare I say it, the esteem of the Māori language, have suffered from the ignominy of a disastrous housing policy such as Kāinga Ora, which has seen so many people without a home in a country they thought they could get a home in?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, sadly, the name Kāinga Ora has become synonymous up and down the country with poor housing outcomes and a poorly performing organisation. That is the tragedy and that’s my point around the erosion of social licence. This Government is committed to social housing for New Zealanders in a financially sustainable, fiscally responsible way, and in a way that partners with the community sector and people actually on the ground who need support and who are out there doing the mahi and doing such an important job for New Zealanders.

Question No. 9—Prime Minister

9. Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his Government’s statements and actions?

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

Hon Marama Davidson: Does he stand by his statement that “we have well-established processes for managing ministerial conflicts of interest”, and, if so, how many times have those “well-established processes” been used during the development of the Fast-track Approvals Bill?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes, we do. And as I said before, and as you’ve heard the Minister for Infrastructure say, the process is before select committee. If there’s any sensible builds and improvements that can be made to the legislation, we’ll happily take that on board. But we make no apologies for adapting something that David Parker brought in the previous Government to actually fast-track and get things done in this country. We’re going to build things.

Hon Marama Davidson: Was a process for managing perceived or real conflicts of interest used in relation to the previously undisclosed dinner Minister Jones had with coalmining executives, including those from Te Kuha coalmine project, and, if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I’d just say to the member is that we’ve got a bill that’s through the select committee process right now. We’re taking feedback in the select committee process to see if it can be strengthened. If there’s anything that people think that we can improve, we’re happy to take that on board. But I make no apologies. We are going to stop the talking and we’re going to get things done in this country. New Zealanders are expecting us to deliver more infrastructure, more windfarms, more renewable energy. And I keep calling on that member and her party to support this legislation.

Hon Marama Davidson: Was a process for managing perceived or real conflicts of interest used for the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries’ dinners with fishing executives who may be looking to use the fast-track consenting process and who have previously donated to Minister Jones’ election campaigns, and, if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I reject the premise of the question. We have processes in place to manage conflicts. But, most importantly, we are going to get this fast-track legislation done because it matters to New Zealanders. It improves the economic productivity of this country, it improves social outcomes, and it improves environmental outcomes too.

Hon Marama Davidson: Will the Prime Minister commit to changing the Fast-track Approvals Bill so that the panel has ultimate decision-making powers to prevent any conflicts of interest in decision making, considering a Minister in his Cabinet was lobbied by the mining industry before the bill was even introduced?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, the member didn’t listen to my earlier answers to earlier questions which was that the Minister for Infrastructure has said that he is open to sensible changes to the legislation that can improve it. But, again, I make no apologies. We are going to get things done because we’re not going to spend the time like the last six years of a Labour-Greens Government that just talked a lot, a lot of bumper stickers, and didn’t get stuff done. New Zealanders want delivery; they want things to happen.

Hon Marama Davidson: What would constitute a conflict of interest under the Cabinet Manual if none of these instances from his Ministers warrant concerns from the Prime Minister?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Look, again, I just say to the member: we have policies, as you well know, through the Cabinet Office for managing conflicts, perceived or real. I would just encourage that member maybe to think and focus on managing her own personnel, not ours.

SPEAKER: Supplementary question—the Rt Hon Winston Peters. The House will hear the question in silence.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Did any of your Ministers get $350,000 in taxpayers’ charity money, fail to declare it, and when challenged, shouted by way of defence “That’s racism.”—did any of your Ministers commit that sin?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Question No. 10—Carl Bates. Just wait for a few minutes. [Interruption] OK, we’ll try now.

Question No. 10—Education

10. CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) to the Minister of Education: What recent pre-Budget education announcements has she made?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Last week, I announced $53 million over the next four years to attract, train, and retain teachers—the greatest asset that we have in our education system and an essential part of our plan to lift student achievement. This investment will support an additional 1,500 teachers into the workforce and help to give our kids a world-leading education. Budget 2024 is unashamedly about the front line, and you don’t get more front line in education than the teachers who stand at the front of the classroom every day, shaping the lives of our young people.

Carl Bates: Why is investment in teacher training a priority for this Government?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Multiple recent reports indicate that the system is letting teachers down. Newly graduated teachers do not feel confident, supported, or prepared for the classroom. We’re also faced with a projected shortage of up to 680 secondary school teachers in the next three years. The Education Review Office (ERO) found that half of our graduating teachers felt unprepared for the classroom. This Government is listening. Lifting achievement means investing in our teachers and improving the delivery of initial teacher education and developing the workforce of the future, and that is a priority for this Government.

Carl Bates: What will this investment in the front line deliver?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: This funding includes 1,200 new on-site teacher-training places, a stipend for the trainees, contribution towards their tuition fees, and funding to support host schools. ERO recently reported that trainees who spend two or more days per week in schools were more prepared to enter the classroom upon graduation. On-site training provides an opportunity to spend more time in the classroom and to incentivise people with specialist skills and high-quality graduates to consider training as a teacher while receiving a stipend towards their cost of living and having their fees contributed to. We’re also investing in relocation grants for an additional 300 overseas teachers, supports for schools in early childhood education with teacher recruitment costs, and 670 scholarships and awards for teachers.

Carl Bates: What feedback has she seen about this announcement?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I’ve received strong support from the education sector. Post Primary Teachers’ Association president, Chris Abercrombie, said, “In-class training is a really good option and it’s a really good step from the Government to be looking at addressing the supply issue.” One new teacher, Hugo Miller, said, “I would have loved [to have spent] more time in schools.”—during his in-class training—“I really took so much away from that and from the guidance of a mentor teacher or an associate teacher.”, and David Ferguson, the principal of Westlake Boys High School, said that their experience with on-site training was a real success. He also said, “We think by exposing trainees to more in-class practising, watching really good teachers teach, that’s a better way of preparing them than being at university full time.”

Question No. 11—Education

11. Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: Talofa, Mr Speaker. How many, if any, teachers will lose their jobs due to cuts to Reading Recovery?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): I recently announced $67 million of investment into structured literacy approaches to ensure that Kiwi kids are learning to read using evidence-based approaches proven to lift achievement and close the equity gap. As a result of this, reading-recovery contracts due to expire at the end of this year will not be renewed as this Government commits to consistent use of best practice in our schools. Teaching staff who are employed under the ministry-allocated 271 full-time equivalent reading-recovery roles have already been offered the opportunity to retrain using structured approaches to literacy, and many have already taken up this offer. The ministry advise that, therefore, current reading-recovery teachers may not necessarily lose their jobs.

Hon Jan Tinetti: How many children will lose access to reading recovery as a result of cuts to the reading recovery programme and its teachers?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Well, good news: this Government is introducing a tier 2 and 3, which is small group and one-on-one interventions using structured literacy so all children at primary school who are falling behind in their reading will have access to proven methods of intervention consistent with classroom teaching and structured literacy intervention.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Is the Minister aware of the Government’s own report that found that children who partake in the reading recovery programme made double the normal progress expected; if so, why is she cutting the successful programme?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I will not continue to fund a programme that, at the core of its philosophy, believes in teaching children the habits of poor readers. That research that that member is quoting is taking a look at reading recovery compared to what they’re doing now, which is a little sprinkling of structured literacy. So what we know is when you do structured literacy, you get better results. So how about we just do structured literacy and see what happens, because we know the evidence backs that up.

Hon Jan Tinetti: What does she say, then, to Professor Janet Gaffney, who led the introduction of reading recovery at Illinois successfully, where structured literacy programmes were the programmes of the day, and said, “Because reading recovery teachers plan based on the child’s strengths, it doesn’t matter what classroom programme is happening, the individual nature of the remedial programme means that observation and assessment drive the teaching.”?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I’ll go back to my main point that I made in my last answer. At the heart of reading recovery, they believe in teaching children the habits of poor readers. The three-cueing system: look at the picture, guess the word. Those are the habits of poor readers. We know from all of the evidence from structured literacy in-class teaching that the need for remedial reading drops by up to two-thirds. So we know that structured literacy is the approach that’s going to work for most of our kids. I would also like to quote a very learned person, in fact a very learned teacher, who said that structured literacy was one of the best things that she had seen in her lifetime of teaching. And that person was Jan Tinetti. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: That’s enough.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Will she guarantee that any future remedial reading programme will be funded at the same amount as reading recovery and have the same, if not better, results than reading recovery?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Absolutely.

Katie Nimon: What has she heard from parents about the shift away from reading recovery interventions towards structured literacy?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: What a timely question. I was in the airport at Wellington yesterday heading down to see the Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand conference people, and I was approached by a mother whose young son, she told me, had dyslexia. In year 8, he was reading between a year 1 and year 2 level. With a structured literacy intervention, he gained that entire primary school—six years of reading—so that he was ready to start high school, using a structured literacy intervention. That is the result I want to see for all Kiwi kids who are falling behind in their reading—evidence-based structured literacy approaches that are proven to work.

Hon Jan Tinetti: What does she say to Paula, who is one of the very many reading recovery teachers who have contacted me and will be losing her job at the end of the year, who says, “Why would you take trained teachers away from those students who need them the most?”

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Well, my message to that woman is firstly, thank you so much for being a teacher. We value you. The ministry has already contacted all of those reading recovery teachers, offered them retraining in evidence-based structured literacy, and many of them are taking that up. So what I would say to that teacher is “Please take up the opportunity to retrain in structured literacy and be part of the tier 2 and tier 3 interventions using a structured literacy method.”

Hon Member: To the rescue.

Hon Chris Bishop: Do—ha, ha!

SPEAKER: Is that a question?

Hon Chris Bishop: Does the structured literacy method teach children, for example, to sound out and say the sentence “Shooting fish in a barrel.”?

SPEAKER: We’ll go to Dr Carlos Cheung.

Question No. 12—Mental Health

12. Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill) to the Minister for Mental Health: What comments has he seen regarding his recent announcement about Gumboot Friday?

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health): Budget 2024 will provide $24 million over four years to contract the I Am Hope Foundation to provide young people aged between five to 25 years with free mental health counselling services through the Gumboot Friday initiative. This will enable Gumboot Friday to provide more than 15,000 young New Zealanders access to free mental health counselling services each year. We know that mental health issues are one of the biggest issues facing New Zealanders each year. This announcement will play a vital role in enabling young people with mild to moderate mental health needs to access counselling services earlier. So that’s why it was heartening to read so many supportive comments about this announcement.

Dr Carlos Cheung: What other comments has he seen?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: I’m advised MPs’ inboxes and social media accounts have been overwhelmed with positive feedback following this announcement. Comments I’ve read include Melanie from Thames, who commented, “Great. There are a lot that need it too. Get behind the initiatives that are already working.” Rachel from Wellington said, “This is fantastic news. This is a great investment in our young people.” Finally, Sandy commented, “This is a wonderful organisation, and much kudos to Mike King for hanging in there. Great to see my tax going to a worthy cause.”

Dr Carlos Cheung: Do any comments stand out for him?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: Yes. One prominent New Zealander who was a self-described Labour supporter and donor said, “The issue here needs to be focused on the fact that every cent that has been given to Gumboot Friday will be going to consultations for young people at the earliest signs of potential mental health issues. This is the ambulance at the top of the cliff rather than at the bottom, and there is a huge need for that.”

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I take it by your silence that you’re ruling that it’s OK for Ministers to refer to someone’s donor status in an answer. Therefore, is it OK for the Opposition to question someone’s donor status in a question? Because if it’s acceptable for a Minister to refer to someone’s donor status in an answer, then it must be acceptable to ask that in a question.

SPEAKER: Well, I think there have been quite a few questions relating to donor status just recently. All I could say—

Hon Shane Jones: It’s envious!

SPEAKER: If you don’t mind—Mr Jones, if you don’t mind. No, the one in front! What he was doing was quoting from a text that had been sent to him. Now, that is reasonable. Whether it becomes reasonable in a question, of course, is quite a different matter—it must comply with the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. But this is not a particular Speaker’s ruling that I’d rely on for any future questions. Any other questions on this matter?

Dr Carlos Cheung: Why is the Government funding front-line mental health services for young people?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: A report by the Auditor-General earlier this year found that despite a $1.9 billion investment into mental health by the previous Government, young people in need of mental health support are waiting longer to access care. This new funding will enable at least 15,000 young people to access free mental health counselling services through the Gumboot Friday platform every year. This Government is committed to better mental health outcomes for our young people and to getting more money out of Wellington and into the front-line services like Gumboot Friday that are already delivering.

Dr Carlos Cheung: What reports has he seen regarding the return on investment for Gumboot Friday?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: Gumboot Friday is a longstanding and proven organisation that addresses the needs of our communities on the ground. A 2023 ImpactLab assessment found that every $1 invested in I Am Hope results in a social return to New Zealand of $5.70. This Government has committed to improving mental health and addiction outcomes for New Zealanders and is investing in this through Budget 2024.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Did any other mental health charities have the opportunity to bid for the $24 million contract?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: Two more sleeps to go.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That question concerned an announcement that the Government has already made, not something that the Government may or may not be talking about on Budget day.

SPEAKER: I think we’ll have the question asked again.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Did any other mental health charities have the opportunity to bid for the $24 million contract?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: Two more sleeps to go.

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

SPEAKER: Give me a few seconds to come to it. I think the point is the question, when it was asked, was asked in the past tense about what happened at a particular time. It’s a reasonable question and it is not dependent on an answer on something that happens in in a couple of days’ time.

Hon MATT DOOCEY: The commitment to Gumboot Friday was a coalition agreement.

SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill.

Bills

Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary matters, historical account, acknowledgements and apology, and settlement of historical claims

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the House is in committee on the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill. We come first to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 21, “Preliminary matters, historical account, acknowledgements and apology, and settlement of historical claims”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2

Cultural redress

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 22 to 117, “Cultural redress”, and Schedules 1 and 2. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Part 2 agreed to.

Part 3

Commercial redress

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we now come to Part 3. This is the debate on clauses 118 to 159, “Commercial redress”, and Schedule 3. The question is that Part 3 stand part.

Part 3 agreed to.

Part 4

Natural resources arrangements

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we now come to Part 4. This is the debate on clauses 160 to 178, “Natural resources arrangements”, and Schedule 4. The question is that Part 4 stand part.

Part 4 agreed to.

Part 5

Governance reorganisation and taxation matters

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we now come to Part 5. This is the debate on clauses 179 to 209, “Governance reorganisation and taxation matters”. The question is that Part 5 stand part.

Part 5 agreed to.

Schedule 1

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Schedule 1 stand part.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Schedule 2 stand part.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Schedule 3 stand part.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Schedule 4

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Schedule 4 stand part.

Schedule 4 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we now come to our final debate: clauses 1 and 2. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”. The question is that clause 1 stand part.

Clause 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that clause 2 stand part.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): In accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, this bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I present a legislative statement on the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I move, That the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill be now read a third time.

Tihei mauriora!

Te Whare e tū nei, tēnā koe. Te papa i waho nei tēnā koe. Te mana whenua o tēnei rohe, kei te mihi. E ngā tīpuna o te pō, haere haere haere. Haere ki te wāhi ngaro, haere haere. E ngā kāwai Rangatira tēnā koutou katoa.

[Tis the breath of life!

The House standing, greetings to you. The land outside, greetings. The indigenous people of this region, I salute you. Dear ancestors of the night, farewell. Farewell to the unseen realm, farewell. To our esteemed leaders, greetings to you all.]

I’m pleased to stand here to support the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill at its third reading. Today marks 184 years since rangatira of Te Whakatōhea signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in Ōpōtiki on 27 and 28 May 1840, and one year since Te Whakatōhea signed their deed of settlement with my predecessor the Hon Andrew Little. Welcome to you all to your House today.

It’s 138 years since the Crown confiscated 144,000 acres of Whakatōhea land and moved its people to the Ōpape Native Reserve. Te Whakatōhea took their first petition to Parliament 110 years ago to seek an inquiry into the confiscation of their land. Many more petitions followed. In response, in 1949, the Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board was established by legislation and the iwi received £20,000 in the compensation. With this money, the trust board bought a farm and began the work of re-establishing the Whakatōhea economic, social, and cultural infrastructure.

In 1996, 28 years ago, the Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board agreed a deed of settlement with the Crown for the comprehensive settlement of the Whakatōhea Treaty claims. The claimant community rejected this deed of settlement and it was never put into ratification. Te Whakatōhea recommenced negotiations in 2003. At the end of 2016, the Crown recognised the mandate of the Whakatōhea Pre-Settlement Claims Trust to negotiate a Treaty settlement on behalf of Te Whakatōhea. Today, 184 years since the Treaty was signed in Ōpōtiki, we renew the relationship between Te Whakatōhea and the Crown.

I offer this time line to the House today so that we can understand just how long the journey has been for Te Whakatōhea. I ask the House to think of those who have passed and the efforts of many Te Whakatōhea who have worked tirelessly across the generations to reach this day. I want to acknowledge Graeme Riesterer for his leadership of the Whakatōhea Pre-Settlement Claims Trust, as well as Robert Edwards, chair of the Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board. The Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board will be dissolved by this legislation and its assets and functions transferred to Te Tāwharau o Te Whakatōhea to lead Te Whakatōhea into the future.

I acknowledge the trust board’s leadership over the 75 years of its existence, during which it laid the foundations for the future prosperity of Te Whakatōhea. I also acknowledge the trustees of the post-settlement governance entity, Te Tāwharau o Te Whakatōhea, in particular the new chair, Arihia Tuoro. Te Tāwharau is made up of hapū and general representatives, people who have supported the settlement and some who did not. I know that all of you will work together in the best interests of the people to make the most out of the settlement and the opportunities that lie ahead.

I acknowledge those who were on the front line of those negotiations over the past 7½ years. Maui Hudson and Jason Pou brought Te Whakatōhea aspirations to the table and worked with the chief negotiator, Glenn Webber, and his officials, including Te Arawhiti, who have worked hard to assemble an outstanding package. My predecessors the Hon Chris Finlayson and the Hon Andrew Little, along with other Ministers of the Crown, made significant and bold decisions to make this settlement happen, including the development of a new redress mechanism reserving marine space for Whakatōhea to support their pioneering work in the aquaculture industry.

Finally, and most importantly, I acknowledge the many people of Te Whakatōhea who have travelled to Wellington today to witness this important milestone, and those who could not be here in person. I welcome you to this House again. While many have passed on over the century of struggle towards this day, you and your descendants carry their memories into a more prosperous future. As I said in the introduction to our greeting a couple of hours ago, it’s great to see all the generations here celebrating this momentous occasion.

As I noted in the second reading, last week, I personally became aware of the tragic history of the Crown and Te Whakatōhea in the 1990s when I was studying for my Master’s in history under the supervision of a historian who would be familiar to many of you: Judith Binney. My thesis was on the life of William Colenso, an early Christian missionary printer. In the course of that, I came across Colenso’s 1871 pamphlet Fiat Justitia, or Let Justice Be Done, which he wrote in the turbulent backgrounds to the events surrounding Völkner’s death at Ōpōtiki and the people of Whakatōhea being caught up with that. That was a powerful pamphlet, and it actually sparked an interest for me in this difficult period of history and also in those core concepts of justice that he stood up for and which, ultimately, we are acknowledging here today.

Te Whakatōhea lost much in the confiscation of their land and in the war the Crown waged on their people. Before the Crown’s invasion of Ōpōtiki, the people of Te Whakatōhea had developed a burgeoning agricultural industry to supply the growing settlement of Auckland. This included infrastructure in roads and ships and a windmill built by Ngāti Ira leader Hira Te Popo. Much of this was destroyed by the Crown forces in the invasion. Whakatōhea have lived with the aftermath of these devastating acts ever since. It’s past time for the Crown to make redress. This settlement provides financial, commercial, and cultural redress funds totalling $100 million. The deed and the bill provide the transfer of 33 cultural redress sites. The deed and bill include acknowledgments of the Crown’s breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and an apology from the Crown to Te Whakatōhea.

Most of all, this settlement is a platform for the current and future aspirations of the people of Te Whakatōhea. The redress will help Te Whakatōhea continue to develop their economic base, continue the good work in providing housing and industry in Ōpōtiki so their people can return home to live and work, and continue their efforts to develop their culture and revive their language. It’s my hope that this settlement can form the basis of a new future for the people of Te Whakatōhea and a renewed relationship with the Crown founded in the Treaty of Waitangi. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Ko te pātai kia whakaaetia te mōtini.

[The question is that the motion be agreed to.]

Rt Hon ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour): Kāti rā tēnā rā tātou katoa. Whakapiri ana āku mihi ki te mihi o te Minita ki a koutou Whakatōhea kua tae mai ki tēnei Whare anō. Nō reira, koutou katoa ngā whānau me ngā hapū. Ngāti Rua, Ngāti Tamahaua, Ngāti Patumoana, Ngāti Ngāhere, Ngāti Ira me Te Ūpokorehe. Tēnei ahau e tuku mihi atu nei ki a koutou, tēnā rā koutou katoa.

[Well, then, greetings everyone. I’d like to add my acknowledgments to the Minister’s in regards to you, Whakatōhea, who have arrived here again to this House. And so greetings to you all and your whānau and people. Ngāti Rua, Ngāti Tamahaua, Ngāti Patumoana, Ngāti Ngāhere, Ngāti Ira me Te Ūpokorehe. I acknowledge you all sincerely. Thank you all.]

I always think that the third reading of a claims settlement bill is a good opportunity to talk about the future, and the Minister also spoke about the future. You ask yourself why do claimants, do iwi, go through this long process for redress, not compensation. We’ve heard on many occasions in this House from members who say what the magnitude of the loss was compared to the relatively small redress that we get—it’s not compensation—and ask ourselves, “Why would you do that?”

I’ve been in the, I was going to say fortunate position—maybe unfortunate position—of being a negotiator for a settlement, and I have also sat on this side and seen the passage of legislation go through. I can speak for myself. I know why I did it; I know why my whānau, hapū, and iwi did it. It was for our future generations. We felt we were giving them the opportunity to move forward to a situation that gave them options and opportunities.

We all know that by going through this process, we don’t have to pass the burden of carrying the historical breaches of the Treaty to the next generation. Don’t be mistaken, though—they’ll have their own burdens to carry. I hope one of them is addressed by them coming back and relooking at what we have done. I sincerely hope that happens. I think, for our collective future, that must happen. We must look at how these Treaty settlements have been valued, how we have progressed from them. Have they been good, bad, or indifferent? That’s one for future generations to look at. They also need to look at relativity as well—relativity between the settlements—because some are a lot better than others, one would have to say.

I think it’s also an opportunity to look at—well, for me, anyway—the apology, and, in third reading speeches, I usually talk about the apology. On this apology and this settlement, I want to focus particularly on the last paragraph of that apology, and it says, “Let us look forward to a future of prosperity for the people of Whakatōhea and move towards it together in a spirit of good faith, partnership, and respect for te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi.”, which is lovely. It’s really good. But it’s only really good if this House makes sure that it upholds that apology and that this House does not do anything—does not pass any legislation—that impacts negatively on Whakatōhea. I say that today in an environment that we are all currently under of not really knowing what’s going to happen in terms of Treaty clauses that exist in current legislation—the value of those principles, whether you believe in them or not. That apology only means something for Whakatōhea if this House upholds its obligation to this apology.

I mentioned before that your tamariki and mokopuna will have their own burdens to carry; let’s hope that that’s not one of them. I implore this House to make sure that when it’s considering legislation on any issue to do with Te Tiriti o Waitangi—whether it is removing clauses from legislation, minimising the value of those clauses, minimising the value of Te Tiriti o Waitangi—they think twice about doing that and they remember this day that they voted for the third reading of the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill and they know that that is in that bill. That’s what I implore everyone to do.

I really have nothing further to say, except to say to all of Whakatōhea that I wish you all the best. It has been far too long for this day to come for you. You have seen other settled iwi doing really well, growing their settlement assets. As I said in my second reading speech, I admire the Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board for what they have done in growing the assets that they’ve had. Just imagine if they had had all of this as well. I’ll leave it there. Nō reira, huri rauna, huri rauna. Kia ora mai tātou katoa.

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. E tēnei Whare, tēnā koutou. Ki a koutou ngā iwi me ngā hapū o te Whakatōhea, tēnā tātou katoa. Ngā hapū, Ngai Tamahaua, Ngāti Ira, Ngāti Ngahere, Ngāti Patumoana, Ngāti Ruatakena, me Ūpokorehe.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, and this House, greetings. To you, the people of Te Whakatōhea, greetings to you all. The nations, Ngai Tamahaua, Ngāti Ira, Ngāti Ngahere, Ngāti Patumoana, Ngāti Ruatakena, and Ūpokorehe.]

Acknowledging the interwoven and overlapping interest among the hapū and Whakatōhea and that this is an incredibly significant day for so many reasons—of course it’s an incredibly significant day. But as I was remembering exactly how long the mahi to this day has taken, it’s not even since 2016. I was reminded again, reading through the history of the deed of settlement, that, actually, back in the early 1990s when Whakatōhea initiated and wanted to see some recognition for the many grievances and the Crown breaches of Te Tiriti, particularly in the iwi rohe, there was a go for a comprehensive settlement in the early 1990s. And then iwi members raised concerns that the negotiators had gone beyond their mandate and the settlement package was insufficient.

And this is always quite a difficult kōrero to have, because the mahi, the passion, the positive vision, and the dreaming that takes place from iwi when they are reaching a settlement has to be upheld and understood for incredible generational strength, while, at the same time, there is absolutely nothing. There is no level of settlement in a contract that can fully ever recognise the mamae that has been caused. And I immediately think of the complete scorched earth plunder policy that was particularly taken by the Crown as part of the mamae and the breaches.

But I think what I am trying to remind my colleagues across the House is when we talk about iwi being generous and patient, my goodness do we acknowledge in this case for Whakatōhea and hapū that this is an incredibly significant day today. So much mahi, so many people from the start of way back in the 1990s, this initial kōrero, who are no longer with us, and so much mahi done to get to this point.

I wanted to focus on the mahi and the visions and aspirations in this third reading speech, and also, in this third reading speech refer the House back to my second reading speech, which was where I again repeat and acknowledge the valid concerns that have been raised by hapū, including Ūpokorehe and Ngāti Ira. But I note in my submissions, it wasn’t just that. There were and are valid concerns—concerns that many of the select committee members raised questions about at select committee, concerns that I have put on record in my second reading speech that I am accountable for in my support to this bill for Whakatōhea to be able to move through this part of the dreams and aspirations that you have, recognising that no bill, no settlement, can ever be the fulfilment of those moemoeā.

So I wanted to acknowledge that with the mahi that was put into this settlement, the Greens have always been very, very clear that Te Tiriti was never supposed to be a transactional and a settlement approach. It is and has always been in the vision of all of our tūpuna that it is about an enduring relationship, where the Crown—as Mr Adrian Rurawhe has already said—must continue to honour its partnership agreement, and at the centre uphold the mana motuhake and the tino rangatiratanga of Whakatōhea over its lands and peoples. And that Whakatōhea has acknowledged time and time again that it has mahi to do in terms of bringing together and keeping together the whakapapa connections across all of the hapū, and noting those valid concerns that were raised by hapū under the settlement.

That is for the Crown to continue to uphold; that Te Tiriti is about partnership and enduring relationship, and not transactional settlement. In saying that, this settlement needs to be acknowledged and the apology and the harm that this settlement is attempting to at least address in some way.

Just quickly, I think, for the purpose of reminding ourselves why this day is so important, remembering the Crown invading and occupying parts of Whakatōhea rohe—things like the failure to return the body of Tio Te Kāhika after he had been killed and desecrated and the obviously great distress that that causes; Crown failure to act in good faith in its treatment and execution of Mokomoko, of course a rangatira of Whakatōhea. And last week at the second reading, I was very grateful and privileged to be able to sit with Mokomoko uri up here in this House to acknowledge the significance of this bill going through. Also, there was the failure to protect Whakatōhea from becoming virtually landless due to the ongoing and cumulative effects of the Crown’s acts, omissions, breaches, and harm; the failure to actively protect te reo Māori and encourage its use, and the widespread displacement of Whakatōhea uri and descendants to whanaunga, to reo, and to tikanga.

So, with those breaches, then, the ability for Whakatōhea to be able to move through this piece of legislation I know is going to play a significant role in the mokopuna moemoeā and the aspirations that you all told us time and time again at the submission hearings—the dreams that you all hold collectively for the descendants of many generations to come now and to come under this settlement.

My colleague who’s next to me right now—Mr Steve Abel—is going to, as tangata Tiriti, pick up on the importance for Pākehā of what happens through the whole negotiations, through the settlement laws, the legislation, and why it is important for Pākehā to understand that Māori continue to be hopeful and continue to be generous in how we settle these claims. But that should never let tangata Tiriti off the hook for the enduring requirements and relationships that are going to be required, not just from Crown but from tangata Tiriti all over. And, yes, mokopuna of Whakatōhea, tangi mai—this is your House, this is your bill, this is your day for all the mokopuna, and I really welcome you. I saw some babies and I, more importantly, am hearing the babies, including through question time, which I personally welcome. Hearing the mokopuna is exactly the reason why we are here, so tangi mai pēpē, tangi mai mokopuna. This is yours, this is your legacy, this is your day.

I’m finishing with—and I forgot to mention in my second reading speech—the fantastic van that took us on some of the site visits when the Māori Affairs Committee was down there. I believe we had Matua Robert in our van. I think we had Danny and Vaughn and Graeme and Dickie and Arahia, perhaps, in our van—some fantastic mahi from all of you. We started at the Hiona St Stephen’s Church, which became, of course, connected with what happened to Rev. Carl Völkner and all of the consequences from those events. So some of the places that we went are, for me, the strongest memories of connecting my heart and mind to some of the significant places of Whakatōhea.

I think I did mention in my second reading speech that Ngāti Ira actually took us out to Te Tarata pā, where select committee members could see for ourselves both the expanse of that whenua, and hear the history and what happened there while being on the land—well, there’s nothing that can substitute for that in understanding the role. And we had a beautiful lunch at the mussel farm—a very beautiful lunch that day—and we were hearing and seeing the factory workers and how important that is going to be under this settlement. So I just wanted to give my awhi and aroha to you all and wish you the best of luck in your future. Kia ora.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Aroha mai. Kua pau te wā ki te mema.

[I’m sorry. The member’s time has expired.]

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on this third reading. I was able to speak on the second reading of the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill, and I talked a lot about the history in there, but I want to start with how important it is to have an apology written down in a bill such as this. That really does mean that a side takes ownership of what had happened—that the Crown agrees about what had happened and the responsibility that the Crown had for these historical travesties that took place. This has been a long time coming, as we’ve heard the other members of the House speaking tonight say, but it has been a long journey that Whakatōhea has had to take in multiple iterations to seek justice. I am proud to be speaking on the third reading for the ACT Party in support of this bill, to give our shoulder to your effort of seeking justice.

As I say, it’s been a long time in the history of what had happened in the Ōpōtiki district and the surrounds. As I said in my second reading, these stories were something that I’d heard from down the coast where I grew up in Papamoa, Kuhawaea, and I knew some of the stories, but to have it laid out in the narrative, as it is in this bill, so that you can actually see what was done and the hurt that was caused and really understand why an apology is the least that can be done.

On Saturday, I drove across up the Motueka Gorge and drove through the whenua that is that of Whakatōhea. I drove through in the early morning and saw the beautiful sunrise and the stars and the moon and the hills and the green grass. It is a paradise, and it was a paradise in 1864 and it was burnt in 1865, 1866, and for 180 years after. To lose a connection with such an amazing place, such a beautiful place, and such a part of you must only hurt. This bill does not return all of this. It doesn’t go near addressing, as the previous speaker, Marama Davidson, said, a full compensation. It’s only a token of what could be done, but I hope that the things inside this bill—as crass as it is—the commercial settlement and the ability to rebuild an economy base and a business and a future for your people that brings people back to the land that is yours, to have a reconnection, to take part in that beautiful place and that paradise that is the whenua that was taken away. The land is a gorgeous place, and you’re a gorgeous people to be so gracious in accepting an apology.

I hope that future generations will look back at what was done tonight—as the member Adrian Rurawhe had said, I hope we look back and are proud of what the Government and Whakatōhea have agreed and that people feel that they are being addressed going forward, in perpetuity; people feel that the past has been accounted for, if not paid but accounted; they’ve been acknowledged, but we can actually look forward to a future in Te Moana o Toi, to a place where we’ve got all the abundance that God’s gift of our land can give and that we no longer treat it as people have in the past but, again, treat it as people treated it in the great past.

I look forward to future drives through your rohe, seeing what Whakatōhea can do, seeing how Ōpōtiki and the district can thrive, and, Whakatōhea, you’re going to be an essential, core, undivided part of that. I’m still a young man, I hope, and I’m looking forward to being an old man and seeing what you can do. So thank you very much.

Hon SHANE JONES (NZ First): A kāti, e ngā uri a Whakatōhea. Koutou kua hoki mai i roto i tēnei wiki. I kōnei anō ruarua noa iho ō koutou mātua nō te wiki pahure ake nei, kua tae mātotoru mai ai koutou ki waenga tonu i a mātou. Ngā uri a Muriwai, a Tūtāmure, a Tarawa nāna wāna mōkaikai i tuku ki roto i tō koutou wai puna. Nō muri noa nei ka whakaingoatia Ōpōtiki mai i Tawhiti. Nā reira tēnā anō rā koutou. Me te mahara ake i te roa o te hikoi te tāroaroa o te huarahi kua pau i a koutou kia tae mai ai ki waenga tonu i a mātou i tēnei rā.

I ahau i te kura i Tīpene he mea tono mai e ō koutou mātua, wā koutou tauira i te kura i Hato Pētera. Ruarua i tae mai ki waenga tonu i a mātou. Otirā he kete nō mātou i ō mātou whātorotorohanga haere i roto waenga tonu i a Mātātua Tūhoe Whakatōhea Apanui wērā pānga o te ao Māori. He iwi Motuhake anō koutou. Ō koutou whare he pae moko. Ō koutou kaumātua he mea ako ki roto i ngā āhuatanga me ngā ritenga o ngā karaipiture. Ēngari kīhai rawa koutou i wareware ki ngā kupu whakarite me ngā taonga tukuiho mai i te ao kohatu. Kātahi ka whakamārenatia i roto i te kauhautanga haeretanga a Te Kōti i waenga tonu i tēnā moka kei tērā pito kei te Ika a Māui he mea whakamārena ngā taonga mai te ao kohatu ki ngā kura taonga nāna i tiritiri nāna i ruirui kua riro ko koutou ētahi o ngā tāngata whakamutunga hei mau haere hei pīkau hei amo i ngā ritenga me ngā taonga mō te pūtea whakanakonako mō te kete e kī ana ki ngā taonga o te ao wairua.

Nā reira i a tātou e mihi nei ki a koutou i tēnei rangi, ehara i te mea he mihi ā-oneone ānakenake. Ehara i te mea he mihi ā-ture ānakenake. Otirā, mātou ngā kaikōrero e whai toto Māori ana i whakatupungia ai i roto i ō mātou kāinga Māori, rekereke o ō mātou kuikuia. He mōhio nō mātou ko tēnei whakataunga i tēnei rā he whakataunga ā-tinana, he whakataunga ā-hinengaro, he whakataunga noki ā-wairua.

Nā reira ko te mahi mā mātou ā tōna wā me pēhea rānei te wairua e mumura tonu ai? Kaua rawa atu e titiro ki te Karauna e muramura ai tō wairua. Kaua rawa atu e titiro ki te Karauna e koi tonu ai te hinengaro. Otirā tātou me titiro ki a tātou anō. E pai ana te werowero, e pai ana te whakatumatuma kia kaua rawa atu te Karauna e ārai tonu e whakaoruoru tonu i te huarahi kua rite hei haere mā tātou. Otirā i te mutunga, mā roto i tēnei whakataunga me ngā pitopito whenua kua oti te whakahoki atu.

He mōhio nō mātou ehara te mea ko te katoa tēnei kahore. Otirā tēnei rawa te tauira i whakaritea mō tēnā iwi mō tēnā iwi otirā ō koutou maha tonu ngā taonga kei āpōpō. Kei te Moana a Toi. E hari ana au ka oti i a koutou i tēnei rangi ngātahi me mātou. Me te whakamahara i a koutou mea ake nei taro ake nei mātou ka tae mai ki waenganui i a koutou te rapu me pēhea rānei te pūtea ngātahi ka kitea ka whakangāoa ngātahitia e koutou, e mātou. Katahi ka whai mana tēnā kupu e karangahia nei ko te co-invested. Whakangāo tahi.

Mātou e hae ana i roto i Te Tai Tokerau i te nui o te pārai mahi pūtea kei tō koutou aroaro kei te Moana nui a Toi. Ahakoa ō koutou tērā whanaunga tararā ōku, a Vitasovich e haere mai ana ki te rapu i ngā pīpi kūtai i waenga tonu i ahau i Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe. Otirā koia tēnā ko te huarahi hei haerenga mā tātou. Mahi tahi, tētahi iwi ki tētahi kē atu. Me whakarite he tauira hou kia riro ko tāu ko tāku ngā kīwai o te kete. Māu tētahi, māku tētahi kātahi ka whakakīia ngātahitia e tātou. He taro, he mātaitai, he oranga kei roto i tēnā kete. Nā koia tāku e mihi ake nei ki a tātou i tēnei rā.

[Well then, dear descendants of Whakatōhea, you all who have returned within this week. Last week, there were not many of your elders here. You have arrived today in great numbers. The descendants of Muriwai, of Tūtāmure of Tarawa, he who sent his subordinates to your sacred pool. It was only later on, the name Ōpōtiki mai Tawhiti was bestowed. And so, greetings to you all, and also not to forget the enduring walk that you have experienced to be here with us today.

When I was schooling at Tīpene, I was sent by your elders; your kin were schooling at Hato Pētera. Only a few came to us. We were fortunate to have been to Mātātua, Tūhoe, Whakatōhea, and Apanui, those Māori communities. You are indeed a nation of your own. Your houses were Māori. Your elders were schooled in the teachings of the scripture. But you also didn’t leave behind the metaphors and the heritage of the old ways. And then both were married together and taught by Te Kōti within those parts of this country. The old knowledge and his wisdom were married together and disseminated, and you are some of the last of our people to hold fast to these sacred teachings. To convey these customs and wisdoms in order to fill your wealth with correct spiritual measures.

So, as we acknowledge you today, these acknowledgments are not just words. These acknowledgments are not only part of our rules. Furthermore, we the speakers have Māori blood ties and were also raised within Māori communities, raised at the ankles of our grandmothers. We are well aware that these settlements are a settlement for the physical, a settlement for the mind, and also a settlement of the spirit.

And so our responsibility is that later on down the track, how do we still keep the spirit strong? Don’t ever let the Crown be the reason to keep you sharpening your mind. Let us look within ourselves. It is OK to challenge, it is OK to be defiant, so that the Crown will not block the pathway set for you all. At the end of the day, it is within this settlement and the lands that are given back to you.

We all know this is not speaking on behalf of everyone, no. But this is the example set aside for that iwi, and that iwi, and for you as well, there is a future to look forward to. It is the great ocean of Toi. I am happy that we are here today to settle this together. And to remind you that soon we will come to you to discuss how the funding will be implemented, we will meet and speak to this together. Only then will the term “co-invested” have true meaning. Together.

We in the North are quite envious at the funding and projects that you have before you, at the great ocean of Toi. And that kin of mine, Vitasovich, who is here at Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe looking for pipi and kūtai. And that is the pathway for us. Work together, one iwi with another. We need to show an example on how to fill all our baskets. For you, for me, and then together we will fill it. Taro, seafood, there is success in that basket. Hence why I am here acknowledging you today.]

As I have said in our Māori language, the passage of this bill reflects a long and perilous journey for this iwi, an iwi that stands in the ranks of the mātāmua, the senior positions, senior personalities, deep-steeped in the Māori world. A sad history, but a history that I reflected in our Māori language can be brightened by looking forward and that can be improved by a constructive level of engagement, as was the case with my friends on the other side of the House. At one level, we are combatants, adversaries, in the context of politics, but we are all here to, in a patriotic sense of duty, grow the wealth, the prosperity, and robustness of us all on this journey.

It was Parekura Horomia and Michael Cullen who, in 2005-06, took us to Ōpōtiki, where it became evident that one day we would have infrastructure built in Ōpōtiki. But it couldn’t be done without the acquiescence or the support of Whakatōhea.

Of course, that goes back earlier, in terms of the Helen Clark Government, when a Klondike—a race for space—took place around the coastline of New Zealand and an area that was focused upon by the entrepreneurs, by the strategists of that time, was to lock up coastal space off the rohe of Whakatōhea. Sealord originally showed some interest, but they disappeared. A cast of Lord knows how many people from the Orient came, and that soon disappeared. Then, eventually, working with some of the local Pākehā kiwifruit farmers, local farmers, the initiative was funded to create an aquaculture industry for Whakatōhea, and it’s that, which I’ve referred to in our Māori language, that we have to build upon, because in a number of these areas, the model of Treaty settlements is, by and large, confined to the mana whenua boundaries.

That’s fine if your mana whenua, or asserted mana whenua, is the entirety of Te Wai Pounamu, or you have the good luck and serendipity of enjoying the fruits of the golden triangle. But if you live on an isolated part of this country, as is the case where I hail from in the very Far North, or are Whakatōhea, we need to be strategic and work collaboratively with the Crown and other private sector investors to make the resources that we have at our doorstep more valuable and turn them into a flow of goods and services. That is not only important to you and I in our own country but desirable to a global market.

I am very confident that once the dust settles around this settlement, there’ll be the inevitable smoothing-out processes, you will seize the opportunity and work and build on the collaborative nature of the mahi that has been carried out over the last three to five years and create New Zealand’s largest and most profitable and most desirable new platform of marine, blue ocean growth, otherwise known as mātaitai, ngā kūtai, ngā kuku, ngā porohe—koia tēnā te kupu i ‘hakatupungia ai mātou mō te kūtai i a mātou i te nohinohi i roto i ō mātou kāinga me ō mātou kuikuia.

Nā reira ngā mihi ki a koutou, e Rōpata, e Te Kāhautū, ō koutou tuākana kua pau ki te matemate, ō koutou mātua e mātakitaki mai ana i a tātou i roto i tēnei rangi. E maringi mai ana te roimata? Tērā pea, engari meinga ko tēnā roimata ehara ko te roimata tūpāpaku engari ko te roimata hari. Āpōpō he huarahi ka kitea hei whakahihiko i te āhuatanga o ā tātou tamariki kia minamina mai ai rātou kia tū rangatira ai, ā-Māori, ā-tangata o roto o Aotearoa, ā-hapori, ā-pakihi, engari kia tū tangata. Kia kaua rawa atu e haere, tāmia, whakataimahangia ana e ngā kīhau o muri.

Kei te whiti te rā ki te ihu o te waka kei mua i a tātou. Tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou, kia ora tātau katoa.

[Otherwise known as shellfish, mussels, porohe—that is the word that we were raised with for mussels when we were little in our homes with our grandmothers.

And so greetings to you all, Robert, Te Kāhautū, your seniors who have all passed on, your parents’ generation who are watching us today. Are years being shed? Perhaps, but make that tear not be a tear of bereavement but instead a tear of joy. Tomorrow a path with be discovered to excite the circumstances of our children so that they will aspire to stand in nobility, as Māori, as people in Aotearoa, as communities, as businesses, but as confident people. So that they don’t ever go along being oppressed, having difficulties imposed upon them by the sprits in behind.

The sun is shining on the prow of the canoe in front of us. Thanks and greetings to you and all of us.]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call between the Green Party and the National Party.

STEVE ABEL (Green): Kia ora, Mr Speaker, thank you. Whakatōhea—kia ora, tēnā koutou. In the context of the people defending their land, a man by the name of Mokomoko was wrongly accused of murdering the missionary Völkner, and he was taken to Mt Eden Prison and he was hanged. His infamous words were, “Take this noose from my neck that I may sing my song.” I recall when I was first inducted into this Parliament in 2020 with Rawiri Waititi that Rawiri referenced this ancestor and said that he would make a claim for us to no longer have to wear ties in this House, in his reference to that ancestor when he gave his maiden speech. I am very sad that I was not able to be here for that maiden speech, but I remember that very well.

As I said in my second speech, the purpose of these settlements is to take the noose from the neck of Māori, the noose of colonisation. I indeed hope that this bill does this to some extent. The evils of Crown actions are not in contention. Sometimes, when you see a confused look on a Pākehā or tangata Tiriti face, it is because when the wrongs that have been done today to Māori are protested against—rightly—by Māori, Pākehā, because we are ignorant of our history, don’t understand. What is so important about these settlements, in part, is that they lay out the history—the truth—from a tangata whenua Māori perspective, from the perspective of Whakatōhea. It is told to us, it is laid bare, and, frankly, it is terrible reading. It makes one sick to the heart and sick to the stomach to see the atrocities committed by the British soldiers on behalf of the Crown against Whakatōhea.

The ongoing taking of land, denying of resources, denying of customary entitlement, denying of the mana motuhake and the tino rangatiratanga is, rightly, to some extent, acknowledged and laid out in this very bill, in this deed of settlement, in the bill that will pass its third reading tonight. These words get locked in the history books of this House, and that is an important thing. And I call on all my fellow tangata Tiriti and Pākehā to go and read this history. You will see a frequent pattern and you will see the incredible generosity and forgiveness of our tangata whenua partners in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. You will see the endless patience, you will know that you go to any marae in this nation and despite all the wrongs done, you will get “haere mai, haere mai, haere mai”—three times welcome. And it breaks my heart, because that is the generosity of tangata whenua Māori. And we are the beneficiaries of that generosity, as tangata Tiriti.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a profound basis on which to build a nation, and in this apology the Crown says that it “betrayed that trust by waging war and confiscating Whakatōhea land in a raupatu for which the Crown alone is responsible.”, and it goes on to lay out the apology.

There can be no legitimacy in our nationhood if it is not set in a principle of justice for Māori. We must know our history honestly and understand its impact to this very day. If we do not, then we will also not recognise the perpetuation of those injustices in the policy actions of today. I wish that this settlement goes some way to removing the noose from the neck of Whakatōhea, that you may sing your song. Kia ora.

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Ki ngā tāngata o Whakatōhea e huihui mai nei, ki ngā hapū e ono, Ngāi Tamahaua, Ngāti Ira, Ngāti Ngāhere, Ngāti Patumoana, Ngāti Ruatakena, Te Ūpokorehe. Nau mai haere mai ki tō koutou Whare. He hōnore nui tēnei ki au kia tautohu ai te pānui tuatoru o te pire.

[To the multitudes of Whakatōhea who are present here, to the six major tribes Ngāi Tamahaua, Ngāti Ira, Ngāti Ngāhere, Ngāti Patumoana, Ngāti Ruatakena, Te Ūpokorehe, welcome here to your Parliament. It is an honour for me to speak to this the third reading of the bill.]

It’s an honour to rise to speak on the third reading of the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill, and to acknowledge and recognise all of the members of Whakatōhea who are here today, and all those who are in distant parts of the country or around the world who will be listening to this, either now or in the future. I wish to acknowledge the incredibly hard work, and generations of work that have actually gone into getting us to this place here today for what will be a historic event that will complete tonight.

We should acknowledge all of those who’ve worked on the negotiation, both past and present. I acknowledge the previous Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Andrew Little, who I see is here today, for the work that he’s done previously in the previous Government, and the present Minister who’s completing this, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, and it speaks to the cross-party nature of this incredibly important work that New Zealand has done.

Seen around the world, I think, it is quite unique in that New Zealand has got an agreement between all political parties that we need to acknowledge the wrongs that were done in the past, we need to atone for them as best as we can, we need to create some space to apologise formally from the Crown for all the wrongs that were done in the past, and we need to provide for some economic base that the people—in this case, Whakatōhea—can use to create a future for themselves and for those who follow. And this is ultimately about creating a future for the people of Whakatōhea and a place where all of us can—and I mean all people in this country—come together and create a future for our children. Because that’s, fundamentally, I think, one of the most important jobs that all of us have here in our time on this planet Earth, and in this country—to build a better future for those who come after us. And that, fundamentally, is what this is about.

In terms of acknowledging the past history, it’s been touched on by previous speakers before me; I’ll only touch on it briefly in the time I have available to me. But I think it’s worth noting that in May 1840, seven Whakatōhea rangatira signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi, and by 1864 had developed a thriving agricultural economy, constructing a shipping fleet and trading extensively with the growing Auckland settlement. Whakatōhea embraced technology, built infrastructure, and developed political organisations to deal with economic and social change.

Unfortunately, after Crown forces landed in Tauranga in early 1864, things went wrong. In terms of the history, what happened was Whakatōhea joined other iwi in expeditions to support the Kīngitanga. A number of Whakatōhea rangatira were killed, creating a considerable leadership vacuum in Whakatōhea. And then Carl Völkner of the Church Missionary Society was hanged at Ōpōtiki in March 1865 after a meeting called by visiting Pai Mārire missionaries, who demanded his death. Whakatōhea rangatira unsuccessfully argued that he should be spared, but the Crown held Whakatōhea responsible and that led to Crown forces invading Whakatōhea rohe in September 1865, and all of the deep injustices that followed in the losses of land, rangatiratanga, and language as well—te reo Māori.

I just want to touch briefly on the value of te reo Māori. We’ve had a huge project over the last few decades to rebuild this in our country. And I was fortunate recently to visit Taiwan and just get some perspective on the broad connection that has to our region, actually, because te reo Māori is part of the Austronesian languages. And one of my colleagues spoke some Tongan and Māori in Taiwan to one of the indigenous tribes that we visited, and they still, after a few thousand years, understood some of the words that she was using. And just connecting that we have this connection from Madagascar, on one side, to the Easter Islands and Hawaii, on the other, and Philippines, Taiwan to the North. So there’s an incredible connection across New Zealand. Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak in support of this bill.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): I rise on this profound occasion, an occasion that has been like a mirage in the distance for so many people over so many years. In rising, I recognise a history of indescribable pain, of unthinkable injustice, and of heart-wrenching ignominy for the people of Whakatōhea, but also for our nation as a whole. I rise to convey my heartfelt support of the Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill in its third and final reading.

Allow me to extend a warm welcome to everyone in the gallery today, most of whom are part of the wider Whakatōhea whānau, including the unstoppable Dickie Farrar, chief executive of the Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, the hard-working Donald Riesterer, the forward-thinking Danny Paruru—actually, I’m not sure if I’ve seen you today—and the awe-inspiring Matua Robert Edwards. Welcome, all of you. Haere mai.

I hold the privilege and responsibility of serving on the Māori Affairs Committee, chaired by my friend and colleague the MP for Northcote, Dan Bidois, who isn’t here with us today because he’s on paternal leave, blessed with a little Bidois. Dan took a deep interest and care as we, the new Māori Affairs Committee for the 54th Parliament, navigated our way through this bill, the first we had inherited as a committee. The Whakatōhea Claims Settlement Bill gives effect to the deed of settlement signed between the members of Whakatōhea and the Crown in May 2023. With a population of about 17,000, the Whakatōhea iwi is based on the Eastern Bay of Plenty—and I would like to acknowledge the MP here, Dana Kirkpatrick for East Coast, and, of course, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel—with a land interest of about 200,000 hectares, and comprises of six hapū.

Each Treaty settlement has its own unique story. The Whakatōhea story spans over 180 years, beginning with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on this day, May 28, in 1840. Clause 8 of the settlement bill that we are discussing today outlines an agreed historical account, and sets the basis for the Crown’s acknowledgment and apology in clauses 9 and 10 respectively. The historical account states that by 1864, as mentioned earlier by my colleague, Whakatōhea had developed a thriving agricultural economy, and had constructed a shipping fleet, which was trading prolifically with the growing Auckland settlement at the time.

But matters turned horribly in 1865, when the Crown held Whakatōhea responsible for the death of missionary Carl Völkner, and proceeded to punish Whakatōhea by declaring martial law, and adopting a disgusting scorched earth approach. The Crown’s forces looted, plundered, and destroyed almost all in their midst. They enacted the only cavalry attack in New Zealand’s history, and the lives of 45 men and women were tragically stolen as a result at Te Tarata Pā. Even reservation was established on confiscated land in Ōpape, where many people of Whakatōhea were forced to relocate to. Unsurprisingly, the once thriving Whakatōhea economy and infrastructure was, effectively, destroyed. This is but a fraction of the suffering inflicted upon the people of Whakatōhea.

Although there is so much that has taken place in the Whakatōhea plight over 150 years, I will bring us to the more recent history for the purposes of this bill. In the 1990s, there was an unsuccessful attempt to settle, and after much soul-searching within Whakatōhea—and, dare I say, within the Crown as well—Treaty settlement negotiations began anew, under the Hon Christopher Finlayson, continued by the Hon Andrew Little, and now under the care of the Hon Paul Goldsmith. As I mentioned earlier, the bill is the first Treaty settlement that I have been directly involved with, and, in honesty, the process has been one that has moved me deeply and caused me to, at times, lay awake at night in reflection and contemplation; reflection on how the people of Whakatōhea live and carry on alongside their generational mamae—like two parallel universes existing side by side—and contemplation on the raw emotions that underpinned the submissions on this bill, both in support and in opposition.

It would be remiss of me to not acknowledge those voices who opposed the progression of this bill, in particular Matua Te Rua Rakuraku, whose sad but kind eyes I will never forget. When the Māori Affairs Committee travelled to Ōpōtiki in March of this year to hear the oral submissions, the depth of emotion behind all of them indeed stirred me. But, ultimately, I was able to see clearly, and I say this with all due respect—that this Treaty settlement is for the greater good of Whakatōhea, and that the destination point always was, and always will be, a brighter future for the mokopuna of Whakatōhea.

As I mentioned in my second reading address on this bill, the Treaty settlement confers redress in financial, cultural, and commercial form to Whakatōhea. This settlement, in particular, is a trailblazer—in two ways: first, that it confers 5,000 hectares of marine space to go to Whakatōhea for aquaculture endeavours; and two, that it allows for the Waitangi Tribunal to continue its Waitangi Tribunal district inquiry Wai 1750 pertaining to Whakatōhea, and to make findings, but not recommendations; two firsts of its kind in a Treaty settlement. I’d like to, here, acknowledge Glenn Webber, Jacob Pollock, Jason Pou, and Maui Hudson for the mahi they did in facilitating these innovative solutions.

Whakatōhea is engraved in my heart for many reasons, but mostly for showing me what forgiveness can look like. And here I’d like to acknowledge Dr Te Kahautu Maxwell, who I first witnessed many years ago at a Waitangi Tribunal on expressions of mana wahine in traditional Māori society. I was captivated, actually. I asked my friend Anne Kendall: “Who is this gentle man?” I’d like to quote you, Doctor, because your submission helped with the struggles I was facing in terms of listening to the different submissions. This is translated: “Allow te Whakatōhea to again stand in nobility. Allow te Whakatōhea to again be warmed by the rays of the sun, like te Whakatōhea has been waiting to do for 157 years. Allow te Whakatōhea to again be te Whakatōhea. Do not forget, I will never forget the mistreatment of the Crown, of myself, of te Whakatōhea, not ever, but allow te Whakatōhea to enter into the world of light, to rejuvenate te Whakatōhea, to cure its ailments, to return to me my health, my soul, my sovereignty”.

Thank you, Whakatōhea, for your manaakitanga, for your lessons, and for your aroha. I honestly pray with all my heart that you can go forward into that brighter future that Dr Maxwell spoke about. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe e te Pīka, ko te mihi tuatahi ki te atua nāna nei ngā mea katoa. Ko te mihi tuarua ki te Whare e tū nei, tēnā koe. Āpiti hono tātai hono te hunga mate ki te hunga mate, āpiti hono tātai hono te hunga ora ki te hunga ora. Ka huri ahau ki a koutou, ngā hapū o Whakatōhea, nau mai haere mai ki tō tātou Whare. Nau mai haere mai ki tēnei rā, ko te rā o te pānuitanga tuatoru o tō koutou pire. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker. The first acknowledgment is to the God who created everything. Second acknowledgment to this standing House, greetings. The dead to the dead, the living to the living, the lines are joined. I turn to you, the people of Whakatōhea, welcome to our House. Welcome to this day, the day of the third reading of your bill. Thank you all.]

First of all, I would like to acknowledge te huarahi roa rawa atu [the long enduring pathway] that Whakatōhea have been on from the beginning of time until this point, right now, in time. There has been a long road of wrongs and hurt committed by the Crown to bring us to this point. The cumulative effects of that are recorded well in the bill that lies before this House today, and very well recorded in the Crown apology to Whakatōhea as well. Your settlement process started as far back as the 1990s. It has been a road indeed to bring us to this point in time. I would just like to, in English, give a warm mihi to all of you and to acknowledge the weight of history that you carry into this House today.

Like my colleague Adrian Rurawhe, I would like my final speech on this bill to be one of hope; to be one of looking towards the world of light and the future that awaits not only you but the generations to come. But before I do that, I just have one thing I need to get off my chest. So there’s going to be one negative point about the process of the Treaty settlement process that I would like to put down in this third reading.

I first read of your history over 20 years ago when I was a new negotiator for the Office of Treaty Settlements, and I very quickly came to terms with the Crown’s policy of what was the preference to only negotiate with large natural groups. I guess I would like to say that I saw firsthand how damaging and difficult that policy could be, and that Whakatōhea saw that up close and continues to feel the pain of that policy.

My boss quit because of that policy. I was like one or two months into my first job in Wellington, and my boss quit and resigned as a result of him protesting to Ngāti Manawa, Ngāti Whare being tried to be shoehorned together and they were not. So right from the get-go, there were issues with how that policy was implemented and the feeling that it conveyed more hurt and pain in some instances when the efforts were trying to alleviate those.

I would like to talk about the redress of kotahi rau miriona tāra [$1 million] and that that sum is there for the future and the sustenance of Whakatōhea and for your young people to take full advantage of. I note there are 33 vesting sites as well as part of the cultural redress. But one of the things I think is most exciting is the opportunities for aquaculture that lie ahead. The fact that there are 5,000 hectares of space in the coastal marine area and that only Whakatōhea may apply for those permits, I think that is a great opportunity.

But with that, it is incumbent upon all of us to make sure our moana stay beautiful and clean and are able to be utilised for kai moana. There’s no good having aquaculture if we don’t have a water system that takes our paru water away and keeps our clean water clean. So your future is also reliant upon the decisions that happen in this country to make sure we look after the quality of our water, our beaches, and our kai moana.

I would like to wrap up, I guess, by acknowledging that the apology written in your bill is detailed. It carries a lot of weight and it really clearly calls out the wrongs that have happened and the systematic separation of a people with their land and the devastation that has caused. I think it’s incredibly important that we record that in this House, in legislation, not only so that we can tell those stories to our children but so people can read that in the years and years to come. Those words that are always so haunting to me, “Tangohia mai te taurā i taku kaki kia waiata au i taku waiata.” [“Remove the noose from my neck so that I can sing my song.”]

My hope is that this settlement is a warm protective cloak for rangatahi to nourish and nurture them for the future; that you use this to, as the words of Rima Nakhle say, bring you into the full Te Ao Mārama and take advantage of all of the opportunities.

There has never been a more challenging time for our rangatahi in this day and age in terms of the risks they face, the social media that broadcasts it, the substances available, and the fast cars. It’s a scary world for our rangatahi, and I truly hope that this warm cloak provides the comfort, the sense of standing in your place and knowing who you are, and getting strength from your community to set those young people up as strong as they possibly can to face those struggles and to face their future strong and proud. Nō reira, he mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie): Whāia whāia te ara matua. Whāia whāia te ara atua. Whakatikaia, whakatika. Whakamāramatia kia ora, whakamāramatia kia tau. Īhoa o ngā mano, atua Kotahi, he rākau whakaora, he tokotoko whakahaumaru he rau oriwa. Ko te mauri o te rangi ka hono, ko te mauri o te papa ka tau. Tau mai te mauri whakamanamana. Tau mai te mauri whakamōemiti. Āmine. Ae. Āmine.

Ki ngā hapū e ono o Whakatōhea e huihui mai nei mō tēnei rangi tīno whakahirahira, tēnā koutou. I tērā wiki i kōrero ahau e pā ana ki ngā wāhi e toru o ia pire whakatau. Ko te tuatahi ko te hītori, tuarua mō te whakapāha, tuatoru ko te puretumutanga. Tēnei te pānui tuatoru nā reira ka kōrero i tēnei rā e pā ana ki te wāhi tuatoru. Ki te hua o tēnei whakaaetanga. Ko te tūmanako. Ka huri ināianei ki te reo Pākehā kia mārama ai ōku whakaaro ki ngā tāngata katoa. Kei te mutunga o taku kōrero ka hoki ki te reo o te whenua nei. Ki te reo o te rongopai.

[Pursue the right pathway. Pursue the pathway to god. Be it with righteousness. Be it with good health and enlightenment. Almighty God, the one ruler, a tree of life, a tokotoko of shelter, an oriwa leaf. The power of the skies unite with the powers of the land. Bestow upon thee power of strength. Conjure the power of god. Amen.

To the six nations of Whakatōhea who are here on this special day, greetings to you all. Last week, I spoke to the three parts of the settlement bill. The first is the history, the second is the apology, and the third is the redress. This is the third reading and so I will speak today about the third part, to the benefits of this settlement. I hope. I now speak in English so that you can all understand my thoughts. At the end of my speech, I will return to the language of this land. To the language of peace.]

I said, last week, that the primary reason that I sought to come to this House was to advocate for the flourishing of communities, and none more so than iwi and hapū. I’ve spent my life doing everything I can to help people and families navigate the obstacles that life has thrown at them, and there are none in this land that have endured as much for as long as have our very first communities, which is why I so delight in what we are doing today.

I’ve seen firsthand the impact of Treaty settlements, the ability they bring for iwi to build homes, to start businesses, to fashion schools, to deliver medical services, to directly assist their whānau, and to see language and tikanga flourish anew; the ability, the space, the resources to genuinely pursue tino rangatiratanga.

Over this past summer, I read Dr Ned Fletcher’s book titled The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi. It’s an astonishing piece of work, one that I would urge every member of this House to thoughtfully engage with—as I would Dr Sam Carpenter’s many articles over the past decade. These researchers and others have done the painstaking work to help us understand the context, the complexities, and the beautiful simplicity of what our ancestors signed, that sun-drenched day in 1840 and in the months that followed, including your tūpuna.

What is, I believe, incredibly clear is that tino rangatiratanga was the very essence of what was agreed to and that tino rangatiratanga, the ability and the authority for every iwi to pursue its own flourishing, to care and provide for its own people, remains, as it was then, the very best hope of those communities today. And that is the hope that permeates, that drives, and that emerges from a Treaty settlement.

There was a fantastic picture this morning at the mihi whakatau of what might come after a Treaty claim is settled. Whakatōhea occupied most of the room, and there were just two rows of Government officials, and we were facing them. Behind the Government was another large space, and that was filled with all the waiting food. Our kaumātua, Kura, finished the proceedings by thanking Whakatōhea for their grace and love and then said, “Well, the food’s ready over there, so can I just ask the Crown to get out of the way?”

This is the first settlement I’ve had the privilege of working on, and I still can’t believe it’s Whakatōhea. I was in Vancouver, Canada, 10 years ago next month, with my then 13-year-old daughter. It was Canada’s national holiday, and Annabelle and I biked through Stanley Park to where wagons of fruit were loaded with every kind of summer berry you could imagine. We collected what seemed like several tonnes and, for the next hour, gorged ourselves. But there was something even sweeter than the berries; beside our picnic was a group of young adults swapping continuously between French and English. They were effortlessly bilingual. I don’t think they were even conscious of what they were doing. It just emanated from them. A dream was planted in my heart, that day, that has grown ever since. And when I think of what that could look like in New Zealand, of where that could be, my imagination turns to Ōpōtiki.

That March weekend, when we as a select committee visited you, I got a glimpse of vision of what could be. You see, my own journey with the reo has been most skilfully watered and most graciously tended by one of your own: Anameka Paenga. Go easy on her husband next week, Doctor. And, right now at Te Wānanga Ihorangi, she is doing the same for my son. Imagine an Ōpōtiki where the reo sings in every home and every school and on every farm. I know it already does, but imagine if it was everywhere, where it rolled like a river and flowed like a never-ending stream. And imagine an Ōpōtiki where every family flourishes in its identity, where your businesses and farms on both land and sea abound so that every family prospers, where your schools are the envy of the country, your community is marked by grace and peace. I know this is your vision. I’ve heard the ache in each of your kōrero.

Uncle Robert returned home 21 years ago to retire. Instead, he was called to bring together the people of Whakatōhea that their community might thrive again. Today, that first part of that vision is realised, and that’s why this is such an extraordinary moment, for, after generations of struggle, Whakatōhea enter a new season.

Last week, I read to you in the language of our land and heavens, the Government’s apology for the pain inflicted. That apology and the history it addresses are now written for ever into the records of this House, and they will never be forgotten. And now we get to look forward. That’s the beauty of reconciliation, of forgiveness, of hope. None of us need to be bound by the past. We are formed by it. But by the grace of Atua, we get to choose our tomorrow, and that’s what Whakatōhea have done. You’ve chosen to craft a new future.

This morning, Te Kahautu called for the lament, the loss, the suffering to be brought forward. And then he said this: “Kua tae mai te wā. Tēnei te wā o te whakapono, o te tūmanako, o te rangimārie.” The time has arrived. Now is the time for faith, for hope, for peace. In last week’s second reading, Shane Jones spoke of the centrality of your Ringatū faith to the strength and identity of Whakatōhea. He’s right. It emanates from you. It is the foundation of who you are, and it is why you have such capacity to forgive, to believe, and to hope.

Last night, as I was praying for you, my heart’s thoughts turned to the prophet Joel, to the words he spoke from his God to the people in their sadness. They are a promise to you: “ā ka meinga e ia te ua, tō mua ua, me tō muri ua, kia heke iho mā koutou i te marama tuatahi. Ā ka kapi ngā patunga witi i te witi; ko te wāina anō me te hinu o ngā waka, pūrena tonu. Ā ka whakahokia mai e ahau ki a koutou ngā tau i kāinga e te māwhitiwhiti ... Ka kai noa atu anō koutou, ka mākona, ka whakamoemiti hoki ki te ingoa o Ihowā, o tō koutou Atua, mō tana mahi whakamīharo ki a koutou: e kore anō tāku iwi e whakamā ā ake ake.” He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. The threshing floors will be filled with grain. The vats will overflow with new wine and oil and milk and mussels. I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten. You will have plenty to eat until you are full, and you will praise the name of your God, who has worked wonders for you. Never again will my people be shamed. Whakamoemiti ki te Atua o te tino rangimārie. Korōria ki tōna ingoa tapu. Āmene. [Thanks be to the God of absolute peace. Glory to his sacred name. Amen.]

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

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. To my uncle Te Kahautu, whose plaudits are well earned here in the House today, he might not have seen, but my tuakana and I—Rawiri—went out into the lobby to talk about how we talk about the time over the next wee while, while we continue to read the bill, and Rawiri said to me, “Peeni, don’t get greedy with the time.” He said, “You’ve already got Mataatua waka; don’t take anything else.”

Ēngari ka tū tēnei uri a Te Pāpuni rāua ko Tāpeka kia mihi atu ki ōku rahi o Te Whakatōhea kua tatū iho mai nei ki runga i tēnei kaupapa whakahirahira rawa atu. Inanahi rā i tae atu ahau ki Ōmarumutu kia kite atu i te takotoranga o ōku mātua ōku tūpuna. Nā runga i te mōhio ka pānui te Whare i tēnei pire, tana pānuitanga tuatoru ki roto i te whare i te rā nei. Hei whakamā i tōku wairua, hei whakamā i tōku kiri, hei tauawhi i tōku mauri kia mahi i ēnei mahi porotiki, ēnei mahi tōrangapū.

Kāti kua ora mai anō, kua ora mai anō i te kitenga atu i ōku tūpuna ki roto o Ōmarumutu ki roto o Te Whakatōhea. E te pāpa, e Te Kahautu kua rongo atu ahau i te kōrero a tōku matua a Shane Jones e meingia ana, āe, e tangi, engari kaua i te tangi mō te tūpāpaku. Heoi anō tāku atu ki a koe, e taku matua, koinā te pai o te reo Māori. Ka tīkina atu e ahau te kupu roimata. He aha tēnei mea te roimata? He tohu o te mamae, he tohu o te aroha, he tohu o te mokemoke, he tohu o te harikoa. Ko aua āhuatanga katoa o te tangata ka kapohia e tēnei kupu iti nei, a roimata. Nō reira ki ngā puna roimata, ki a koutou katoa e kawe nei i te roimata o te wā kāinga ki tēnei o ngā whare, e mihi atu ana, e tangi atu ana. Kāti, e te Māngai.

[However, I, the descendant of Te Pāpuni and Tāpeka, stand to acknowledge my people of Te Whakatōhea who have assembled here on this auspicious occasion. Yesterday, I travelled to Ōmarumutu to see the geography of my elders and my ancestors. Knowing that the House will read the third reading of this bill here in the House today. To cleanse my spirit, to cleanse my skin, and to settle my nerves and do politics.

And so feel well. I feel well having seen my elders at Ōmarumutu, in Te Whakatōhea. Dear sir, Te Kahautu, I hear what my Uncle Shane has said, it is OK to cry. But don’t cry the mourn for our loved ones. However, what I have to say to you, sir, that is the beauty of the Māori language. If I speak to the word “roimata”. What is this thing “roimata”? It means hurt. It means love. It means lonely. It means happiness. All those emotions of a person can be described in this one word, “roimata”. And so to the pool of tears, to you all who are carrying the tears of our people to this House here, I acknowledge you, I sympathise with you.]

I was reading the bill here, and the part that stuck out to me the most says, on page 4, “In our view, delaying the bill would frustrate the will of [Te] Whakatōhea”, so I don’t wish to continue any longer—I’d hate for my relations to be frustrated even further—but I will finish and conclude my contribution with the words I said in the second reading, and I’ll say it in Māori and I’ll translate it: tēnei mea te whakapapa e kore e taea te karo [our genealogy can never be cast aside]—the beauty of our genealogy is it can never be cast aside. That’s the strength that I know Te Whakatōhea will take into the future, and I wish them all the very best on this journey and say to them, mā te atua koutou e manāki e tiaki kia tae pai ai koutou ki te wā kāinga [may the god look over you, protect you on your return home]. Tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The next call is also a split call, and I understand an arrangement has been made for it to be a 10-minute call and there is no objection.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Tēnā tātou. E Te Whakatōhea, tēnā tātou e hui tahi nei i tēnei rā. Tēnā tātou i te āhuatanga o tēnei whakariterite o tātou. Ka roa nei tātou e whanga mai ki tēnei rā. Ka roa nei ō tātou mātua tīpuna i te pō e whanga mai kia ara anō hoki wā rātou mokopuna, a Te Whakatōhea. E kore au e ngaro, e kore au e ngaro. Hakoa ngā aupēhitanga o te wā.

Kotahi noa iho te mahi i tēnei rā. Ko te takutaku, ko te whakamoemiti. Kua oti ngā kōrero. Kua oti ngā mihi. Nō reira e ngā āritaritatanga a te Matua Tangata, e ngā toenga o ngā tamariki a Iharaira. Kotahi noa iho te mahi i tēnei rā. He whakamoemiti.

Kia īnoi tātou.

He hōnore, he korōria, he maungārongo ki te whenua, he whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata katoa, āmine.

E Ihowa, e te Karaiti, e te Wairua Tapu, tēnei mātou āu pononga e tuku whakamoemiti, whakawhētai atu ki a koe i runga i te āhuatanga i waihotia e koe i te wā i a Mohi, i te wā i a Aperehama, i ā rāua e patu nei i te Rēme Tapu i a koe, tae ake rā ki tō tama kotahi, ki a Ihu Karaiti, e maringi ana tana toto ki runga i te whenua. I rīpekatia ia, e Ihowa, e tō mātou Matua, hei puru toto, hei here toto mō mātou.

Kia aroha mai koe ki ō mātou hē, ngā ngoikoiretanga, hīangatanga katoa. Kauparea atu ō mātou hara kia tarea e mātou te noho hākoa ki mua i tōu aroaro i tēnei rā. Ka tiki ake au i ngā kupu a te waiata a Pāora, e mea ana ko te karakia whakapakoko, ko te makutu, ko te mauāhara, ko ngā whawhai, ko ngā tauwhāinga, ko ngā riri, ko ngā totohe, ko ngā wehewehenga, ko ngā tītorehanga, ko ngā hae, ko ngā kōhuru, ko ngā haurangitanga, ko ngā kakainga, me ngā mea e rite ana ki ēnei, me kōrero wawe ahau ēnei mea ki a koutou, me pērā me tāku i kōrero ai i mua: te hunga e mahi ana i ngā mea pēnei, e kore rātou e whiwhi ki te rangatiratanga o te Atua.

Ko ngā hua ia o te wairua ko te aroha, ko te hari, ko te maungārongo, ko te manawanui, ko te ngāwari, ko te ngākaupai, ko te whakapono, ko te ngākau māhaki, ko te ngākau ka taea te pēhi. Kahore he ture i rīria ai ēnei mea. 

Te hunga ia o te Karaiti kua rīpekatia e rātou te kikokiko, me ōna hihiritanga, me ōna hiahia i te mea e ora ana tātou i roto i te wairua, kia haere anō tātou i roto i te wairua. Whakarērea e tātou te korōria huakore, te whakapātaritari tētahi ki tētahi, te hae a tētahi ki tētahi.

E Ihowa, e te Karaiti, e te Wairua Tapu, whakarongo ki ngā whakamoemiti, ki te ngākau hihiko, ki te ngākau a Te Whakatōhea kua whakawhāiti nei ki roto i tēnei Whare ka roa nei e aupēhi nei i a tātou. Tēnei, e Ihowa, e tō mātou Atua, te whakamoemiti atu ki a koe i runga i te āhuatanga i waihotia e ō tātou mātua tīpuna i te pō.

Kia hīkina ngā taumahatanga, kia hīkina te kapua ka roa nei e whakapura nei i a Te Whakatōhea, kia hīkina te haki o Ingarangi ka roa nei e whakatakotoria ki runga i tō iwi, i a Te Whakatōhea i tēnei rā. Kia whai anō hoki a Te Whakatōhea i te māramatanga, ā tātou mokopuna mō ngā rā e haere ake nei.

Whakataiepangia a Te Whakatōhea ki tōu mana whakaora hei ārai atu i ngā whakawainga o te ao, a te kikokiko, a te Rēwera, a te ūpoko ariki a kiriweti me te porohae kia noho ko koe te Atua kei mua, kei muri, kei tētahi taha, kei tētahi taha o mātou i ngā wā katoa.

Tēnei mātou, e Ihowa, e tō mātou Atua, te whakamoemiti atu ki a koe, nāhau anō hoki a Te Whakatōhea i arahi ki runga i ngā huarahi, ki ngā kapua i te rangi kia tae pai mai ki tēnei huihuinga o mātou i tēnei rā. E kore te waewae tutuki e tutuki, kia tiakina rātou i a rātou e hīkoi ana i runga i ngā tiriti pūkohu tāiri o Pōneke, ā, i tā rātou whakahoki atu ki ō rātou kāinga. 

Tiakina rātou, e Ihowa, e tō mātou Atua. Tukuna mai ko tō Wairua Tapu, ko tōu mana whakaora, ko tō ringa whakakaha ki runga i a Te Whakatōhea i tēnei rā. Hīkina, hīkina ngā taumahatanga ka roa nei e whakataumaha nei i a tātou.

Nō reira e Ihowa, e tō mātou Atua, tēnei mātou te whakamoemiti atu ki a koe i runga i te ingoa o tāu tama, o Ihu Karaiti, tō mātou kaiwhakaora.

E ko te waiata a Rāwiri e waru tekau mā rima.

E Ihowa kua aro mai koe ki tōu whenua; kua whakahokia mai e koe a Hākopa i whakaponongatia nei. Kua murua e koe te kino o tōu iwi, kua hīpokina e koe ō rātou hara katoa. Kua whakakāhoretia katoatia e koe tōu weriweri. Kua tahuri atu koe i te āritaritatanga o tō riri. Whakahokia ake mātou, e te Atua, o tō mātou whakaoranga. Ka whakarongo atu ahau ki tā te Atua, ki tā lhowa e kōrero ai, nō te mea hoki mō te rongo mau āna korero ki tōna iwi, ki tōna hunga tapu hoki kaua ia rātou e hoki atu ki te wairangi. He pono e tata ana tāna whakaoranga ki te hunga e wehi ana i a ia, kia noho ai te korōria ki tō tātou whenua. Kua tūtaki te mahi tohu rāua ko te pono. Kua kihi ki a rāua te tika me te rongomau. E tipu ake te pono i te whenua, e titiro iho te tika i te rangi. Āe ka homai e lhowa te mea pai, ka tukua mai ōna hua e tō tātou whenua. Ka haere te tika ki mua i a ia, hei whakaatu i a tātou ki te ara o āna hīkoinga.

I te timatanga te Kupu, i te Atua te Kupu, ko te Atua ano te Kupu. I te Atua ano tēnei Kupu i te timatanga. Nāna ngā mea katoa i hanga; kahore kau hoki tētahi mea i kore te hanga e ia o ngā mea i hangaia. I a ia te ora; ko te ora te māramatanga mō ngā tāngata katoa. I roto i te pōuri te māramatanga e whiti ana, heoi kīhai i mau i te pōuri. Korōria ki tō ingoa tapu, āmine.

E Ihowa, e pono māu mātou e pīkau, māu anō hoki ā mātou pōuritanga e wāhi, [Inaudible] o ngā mea hara katoa e iri nei i te ao. Korōria ki tō ingoa tapu, āmine.

E Ihowa, whakapūmautia mai tōu māramatanga ki a mātou, āu pononga, i tēnei rā nā te mea nāu te rangi me te whenua, ka whakapāoho ana koe i runga i te kare o ngā wai, ā, ka kī koe, “Kia mārama”, nā ka mārama. I muri ka hangā e koe te tangata kia rite ki a koe te āhua, na i reira ka puta tāu manaaki kia huhua, kia tini, kia kapi katoa te whenua i ā kōrua, ā, hei rangatira kōrua mō ngā mea katoa i te whenua kīhai i mau tao, tae noa mai ki tēnei rā.

[Inaudible] otirā e kore e puta noa mai te oranga mā te inoi anake, mā te noho puku. Ae rā, manaakitia mai mātou, e Ihowa, i tēnei rā. Korōria ki tō ingoa tapu, āmine.

Kia whakapaingia ki a koe, e Ihowa, e tō mātou Matua nui i te rangi, nōu hoki te nui, te mana, te korōria, te wikitōria, te hōnore, nōu hoki ngā mea katoa i te rangi, i te whenua, nāu anō hoki te rangatiratanga e kore nei e mutu. Ka whakamoemiti atu mātou ki a koe mōu i waihotia hei upoko mō ngā iwi katoa o tēnei ao, kia whakapaingia e koe i tēnei wā haora hoki, ā, āke tonu ake. Korōria ki tō ingoa tapu, āmine.

[Inaudible] e te Atua i tō hunga tapu e noho iho nei i te rangi kia tata tōu ringa ki te whakaora i a mātou ki te whai i ngā tāngata rānea i tōu aroaro e rāweke ana i te riri e nui ana tō mahi tohu. E pai ana koe, e Ihowa, i ngā mea katoa i runga i a mātou tāu manaakitanga. Korōria ki tō ingoa tapu, āmine.

Tētahi wāhi o te inoi a te Ariki. E tō mātou Matua i te rangi, kia tapu. Kia tapu tōu ingoa, kia tae mai. Kia tae mai tōu rangatiratanga, kia meatia. Kia meatia tāu e pai ai ki runga i te whenua ki rite anō ki tō te rangi, ka whakamoemiti. Ka whakamoemiti nei hoki mātou ki a koe, ki te whakakorōria ki tō ingoa tapu, āmine.

E te Atua, tahuri mai ōu taringa, whakarongo mai ki ō mātou inoi kua ngaro atu koe i a au e tangi atu nei. Anga mai, titiro ki a mātou e pōkaikaha nei, e tangi nei hoki. Korōria ki tō ingoa tapu, āmine.

E te Atua, whakatuwheratia mai ngā kūaha o te tika, o te pono, o te māramatanga, o te ora ki a mātou, āu pononga, i tēnei rā. Mā mātou anō hoki koe e whakamoemiti, e whakakorōria ki tō ingoa tapu, āmine. Kia ora tātou.

[Greetings, all. Te Whakatōhea, greetings to us all here meeting today. Greetings to us in regards to the matter at hand. We have been waiting for this day for a long time. Our ancestors of the night have been waiting for their descendants, Whakatōhea, to arise for a very long time. We will never be lost—we will never be lost. Despite the suppression of the time. 

There is only one thing left to do today. It is to recite karakia, it is to express gratitude. Enough has been said. The acknowledgments have been made. Therefore, to the irascibleness of the Mortal Father, the children of Israel. There is only one thing left to do today. It is to express gratitude. 

Let us pray.

Honour, glory, peace on earth, goodwill to all people, amen.

O God, the Christ, the Holy Spirit, we, your servants, offer thanks and praise to you in the manner that you left in the time of Moses, in the time of Abraham, and their sacrifice of the Sacred Lamb to you, including your only son, Jesus Christ, whose blood was spilt on to the land. He was crucified, oh Lord, our father, to be a bandage and tourniquet for us.

Forgive us our sins, our weaknesses, and all of our deceits. Avert our sins so that we may gladly sit in your presence this day. I quote the words of the psalm of Paul, that says the worship of idols, sorcery, animosity, conflict, rivalry, conflict, contention, separation, division, jealousy, murder, inebriation, gluttony, and things like this, I must confess all of these things to you, it should be as I said earlier: those that execute such actions will not receive the kingdom of God.

The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, resoluteness, patience, virtue, faith, humility, and the heart that can be suppressed. There is no law that conflicted with these things.

The people of Christ whose flesh was crucified by them, and his desires, and his needs because we are alive in spirit, let us continue on in spirit. We cast out conceit, inciting strife amongst each other, and jealousy of each other.

O God, Christ, and Holy Spirit, listen to our prayers, to our invigorated hearts, to the heart of Te Whakatōhea who have assembled here within this House, which has oppressed us for so long. We, o God, our Father, praise you in the manner that was bequeathed to us by our forebears who have passed into the night.

Let the difficulties be lifted, let the cloud that has long blinded Te Whakatōhea be lifted, let the flag of England that has laid upon your people, Te Whakatōhea, be lifted this day. So that Te Whakatōhea may pursue understanding, and also our grandchildren for the days to come.

Encircle Te Whakatōhea with your healing power to ward off the temptations of the world, of the flesh, of the Devil, the paramount lord of bad temper and envy so that you, o God, are before, behind, and at each side of us at all times.

We, o Lord, our God, praise you who lead Te Whakatōhea along the roads and the clouds in the sky in order to arrive safely to this assembly of ours this day. The foot that stumbles will not stumble, protect them as they walk along the streets of Wellington that lay heavy with fog, and as they return to their homes.

Protect them, o Lord, our God. Issue forth your Holy Spirit, your healing power, and your strengthening hand upon Te Whakatōhea this day. Lift, lift the difficulties that have plagued us for so long.

And so, o Lord, our God, we praise you in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, our saviour.

The psalm of David eighty five.

You, Lord, showed favour to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. You set aside all your wrath. You turned from us your fierce anger. Restore us again, our God, and put away your displeasure toward us. I will listen to what God the Lord says; he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants, but let them not turn to folly. Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of all people. And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

O God, in truth you carry us, you also sunder our dejection, [Inaudible] of all sinful things that are suspended on the world. Glory to your holy name, amen.

O Lord, make permanent your light upon us, your servants, this day because heaven and earth is yours, and you floated above the ripples of the waters, and you said, “Let there be light” and there was light. And later mankind was created by you in your image, and at that point your care was such that they multiplied and became numerous, and all the land was covered by you, and you are lord over all things on the land that did not take up the spear, to this very day.

[Inaudible] indeed wellbeing will not come from prayer and fasting alone. Yes indeed, care for us, o Lord, this day. Glory to your holy name, amen.

Blessed be your name, o Lord, our great Father in heaven, yours is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, the honour, and all things are yours in heaven and on earth, yours is the eternal kingdom. We praise you who have left for us the head of all peoples of the world, blessed be you at this time, and forever and ever. Glory to your holy name, amen.

[Inaudible] o God your holy company that reside in heaven so that your hand may be close to us to save us in order to pursue the many people in your presence that manipulate conflict, great are your instructive actions. You are good, o Lord, in all things is your care upon us. Glory to your holy name, amen.

An excerpt from the Lord’s prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed. Hallowed by thy name, cometh. Thy kingdom come, be done. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we praise. We praise you to glorify your holy name, amen.

O God, turn to us your ears, listen to our prayers, you have become lost to me in my grief. Face us, look upon us in our struggles and our grief. Glory to your holy name, amen.

O God, open wide the doors of righteousness, truth, light and life to us, our servants, this day. We will praise and honour your holy name, amen. Greetings to all of us.] 

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Bit of a hard act to follow there, brother. Jeez—jeez!

Rawiri Waititi: It’s not an act.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I realise that. Ēngari tuatahi e mihi ana kia koutou Whakatōhea. Tae mai nei i tēnei wā, i whakarangatira i a mātou i tēnei wā. Mihi ana ki a koutou. He wā roa ēngari, ka mutu tēnei haerenga. Kāore i te tiki te mahi whakataunga ēngari, ka whai wāhi tonu te whakataunga mō ngā reanga hou, nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā anō tātou katoa.

[Firstly, acknowledgments to you, Whakatōhea. Arrived here today, we are honoured that you are here today. Thank you all. It has been an enduring time; however, it has come to an end. The settlement wasn’t made right, but the settlement will benefit the future generation, and so greetings to you all. Thank you everyone here today.]

We’re very lucky in the House to have that type of contribution, in all seriousness, from the member Rawiri Waititi—from your member, Whakatōhea. That type of karakia or kōrero has never been done in the House, so I mihi to my good mate and whanaunga Rawiri for putting that forward in the House, because that is what it’s all about. So mihi ana ki a koe, Rawiri.

When I was looking at this kaupapa, and I’ve been listening to some of the kōrero today—some magnificent kōrero—I think the Whakatōhea kaupapa is the best example of how badly the Treaty settlement process went. I’m not talking about the recent settlement, Minister; I’m talking about the history. I’m talking about 1995, when our good friend Ranginui Walker said no—he said no to this process. He said no because he said that the Crown picks winners, the Crown picks who they negotiate with, the Crown has all the numbers, and the Crown decides the final pūtea. Rangi said that in 1995, I think it was, and they waited 20 years for any justice to come back their way. They got put to the back of the line. That was his punishment and that was their punishment for daring to try and negotiate with the Crown.

See, we still talk about that type of thing—we all talk about it now, which is really good—but have things really changed? We have Treaty negotiators here: Rawiri, Deb, and others who have been involved—has the system really changed?

I remember this so well, and I spoke about it the first reading, because I interviewed Ranginui over this on radio when he was alive. He was quite tortured by it, because at one level he was proud of what he did for all the whānau here, but he felt some guilt because the tribe got put to the back of the queue. So I say today, when we look at the settlement, let’s try and learn something, I suppose. Let’s try and learn something, because there’s been some beautiful kōrero today—particularly the last karakia, kōrero, from Rawiri Waititi, which was absolutely exceptional. But if we don’t learn anything from the Ranginui Walkers, I don’t know what we learn.

Then I listened to Shane Jones today, too, and I thought it was beautiful. It was the same Shane Jones who keeps rubbishing the Waitangi Tribunal, and they want us to shut the tribunal down. I don’t know if it’s the same Shane Jones I’m talking to sometimes, because I love Shane Jones sometimes and then I hate him some other times. You know, we love Shane Jones when he’s in that mode, and then he goes into the media with his mate David Seymour and they talk about closing down the tribunal.

The tribunal should be alive for ever and a day. It does not shut down just because we complete Treaty settlements. If we shut if the tribunal down, are we saying we’re going to trust the Crown for ever and a day? That’s not what the tribunal was about. I need our Minister of Treaty Negotiations to not listen to Shane Jones and to listen to myself and Peeni Henare and Rawiri Waititi. Don’t listen to Shane Jones—he’ll just waffle on with Winston’s carry on, you know.

So I say today that we do these settlements with beautiful kōrero from all sides of the House, but we’ve got this sort of cloud hovering over us. I see that on Thursday, Te Pāti Māori is running their protests, and good on them, I say. But we have a cloud over us and something doesn’t feel right as we push through these settlements, and then we start losing Māori rights here, there, and everywhere. It doesn’t seem right. Are these the same people whom I’m listening to, going “Here’s some great kōrero from ACT, great kōrero from National.”, and yet we have Māori rights under threat.

So I say to our people who are here today that this is the completion of a journey, but it might be the start of another one. It might be the start of another one because we have Māori rights under threat and we have the tribunal being attacked every second or third day by two Ministers who should know better—particularly Mr Jones. I say to our people that we must get ready. We must get ready and we must continue this, because just because things shut down, it doesn’t mean that the tribunal shuts down. It doesn’t mean Māori rights are shut down. It doesn’t mean that the fight doesn’t go on.

So mihi ana ki a koutou—well done. I see Dudu Kāhautū up the back there. We tautoko your whanaunga out the back here, behind us—the kaihautū. He gave it to us at the Treaty settlement thing when we didn’t turn up, and we remember that. He said, “Where’s my nephew Peeni?”—ae, Peeni? Well, he’s right here, Dudu, and we absolutely tautoko—we just got caught up that day, ae, brother? He made sure he embarrassed us. The Māori Party said, “Yes, where’s Labour?” They were into it straight away.

But I want to mihi to you too, brother, up the back there, and to all of you who’ve come here today—you know, these are special times for this House. For all parties, these types of settlements bring the best out in everyone—you know, you don’t really see us at each other’s throats. I’m probably the only one who keeps booting the other side, you know—I can’t help it. But I also recognise that when you hear some of the kōrero coming out from some of these MPs on the other side, you can see that they’re conflicted—you see? There are some real obligations in terms of our people and getting through the Treaty settlements process, and then that conflict because Winston—you know how he is. Actually, Ranginui was quite a supporter of Winston’s, wasn’t he?

But, anyway, thank you everyone. It’s been lovely to make a contribution. Special kōrero today, as I said, from all sides of the House—all the best to everyone. Tēnei te mihi ki a koutou, tēnā koutou, ā, tēnā anō tātou katoa. Kia ora.

[This is my warm salutations to you. Thank you, all, and also, greetings to us all. Kia ora.]

DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Willie, that’s a hard act to follow.

Ngā mihi ki a koutou e te iwi o Whakatōhea, mō tō koutou kaha me tō koutou manawa nui i tēnei kaupapa whakahirahira. Tēnā koutou katoa.

[Greetings to you, the people of Whakatōhea, for your strength and your resilience in this important initiative. Greetings to you all.]

It is indeed an honour to be the last and final speaker in this House in this long, protracted, and difficult claims process for the people of the mighty Whakatōhea rohe. I welcome them to the House of Representatives to hear the third reading of their Treaty settlement bill. I’m privileged to walk alongside these people as part of the incredible East Coast electorate, and I acknowledge the presence of some of their esteemed leaders today. Uncle Robert Edwards, happy 91st birthday to you for next month, in a couple of weeks’ time. Te Kahautu Maxwell, Arihia Tuoro, Dickie Farrar—welcome back to the House. Graeme Riesterer, acknowledged not only as a longstanding Whakatōhea board member but also for your journey through both the previous, abandoned settlement and this most recent 20-year journey alongside the aforementioned, as well as your contribution as the chair of Tū Ake and then the pre-settlement trust.

Can I acknowledge Danny Poihipi, a kaumātua of Ngāti Ngahere te hapū and Bruce Pukepuke from Te Upokorehe for his contribution to the history of Whakatōhea, and all kaumātua who have been a part of both journeys as well—and Tahu Taia, a longstanding trust board member, who has waited patiently for this point in time. As always, we recognise the tūpuna who have not seen this day come to fruition, for the work and commitment to their iwi over centuries. There’s a small list of others who’ve played a big part—well, actually, there’s a long list of others, for me today, who’ve played an enormous part in this task, including: Kate Hudson, Vaughan Payne, Josie Mortensen, Julia Williams, Johnny Hata, Bella Williams, the komiti whiriwhiri team, and Danny Paruru, who assisted with the research and kōrero. Of course, we recognise the work done by the Hon Chris Finlayson, the Hon Andrew Little, negotiators for the Crown Jake Pollock and Glenn Webber, and for Whakatōhea, Maui Hudson and Jason Pou. The collective determination, wisdom, and vision of all of these people has seen this iwi dig deep over the years and achieve well beyond expectation despite the atrocity of the past.

I want to touch briefly on the settlement terms today and then focus on tomorrow and what lies ahead for this iwi in Ōpōtiki, the little town where there is so much good happening, and so very much of it at the hands of all of these people. This settlement will now transfer the asset liabilities and care of the people to the post-settlement governance entity Te Tāwharau o Te Whakatōhea, a new entity with representatives from all hapū to administer the future for the Whakatōhea people. In that settlement lies the secret to the next 10 years for the future of employment, economic return, and commercialisation in Ōpōtiki, because, as I mentioned last week, the vision and strategic nous of these people in buying a wee dairy farm in 1946 was a catalyst for change. They didn’t know at the time what it would do, but it crystallised the thinking of self-sufficiency, of commercial enterprise, and investment. And when Te Kahautu Maxwell’s father told him that the iwi would have to farm the sea, it set them on a path that should be celebrated and now, with the settlement of their claims, catapulted into the next phase.

Whakatōhea is a founding partner in the establishment of the Whakatōhea mussel factory, as part of the entity that is now the country’s largest open-ocean mussel farm, with access to an expansive open-water space, global markets, and a purpose-built processing facility that can take product from around New Zealand. At inception, Whakatōhea owned just under 10 percent of shares in the aquaculture entity, and now, as part of this settlement, the Crown Regional Holdings Limited shares will transfer to the iwi, increasing its shareholding to just under 48 percent and, as a result, increasing the return on investment for you as the people of Whakatōhea. The story of the mussel factory and aquaculture is now part of the modern history of this iwi, and it was Te Kahautu Maxwell who told us, in his submission to the hearings, that his father told him the iwi had no land and so they must farm the sea. You learnt to do that. And so, through significant lobbying, capital raising, dogged commitment, that’s what they did.

The iwi partnered where it needed to, sold shareholdings in the company, and built what was then a fledgling company in the heart of regional New Zealand. It is now the biggest full-time employer of people in the rohe, with nearly 200 people, and kaumātua Uncle Robert Edwards said at its inception in 2014, “We are all Whakatōhea. No matter who we are, we are all one.” And the local people supported the entity, with more than 197 local families buying shares in that entity. In fact, the story goes that when the capital raise was started, a local grandmother and grandfather—and you will know who this is—bought $10,000 worth of shares for their whānau with their life savings. The whole family was part of that decision, and the mokopuna paid off the shares with their pocket money. This is what brings a stringent sense of pride and belonging to the whānau and community for their ownership and dedication to the factory and all that it stands for.

The connection of Whakatōhea to the ocean now traverses a new opportunity and a new era. The share transfer in the settlement arrangement, with them having sole access to 5,000 hectares of seabed for aquaculture, is a game-changer. This will see the next 10 years strategically focused around growth and further commercialisation to provide for their people in many different ways. By 2034, the next 10 years, it expects to be employing in the order of 320 people, be operating out of the new harbour entrance, have many more vessels in the ocean, and will fair be pumping along.

We should never forget that the raupatu, the horrific treatment of the Whakatōhea tūpuna, and the considerable damage done to the iwi, the hapū, their reo, and mātauranga were real and atrocious. But, as they have told us so many times, they were determined not to live in the past but to focus on the future for the betterment of all of their people, no matter who. In the very wise words of kaumātua Uncle Robert, which were almost written for today, “The future opportunity,” he said, “belongs to us all. What we do today will define the future, and we must stand united with one voice, one mind, one people for the future before us. We live in dignity, with humility and courage, and we are proud of who we are.” And you’ll get no argument from us on that one.

When we went to the submissions hearings in Ōpōtiki in February, it was evident the hospitality of these people was next level. They were generous with their time and their hearts, and I now have a hydrangea cutting growing at home from the wonderful women I now call my “hydrangea aunties”, and I shall cherish that; it will remind me always of my first Treaty settlement hearings, of the deeply humbling experience it has been, and how much, as a country, we have to learn of our history, sometimes literally in our own backyard. It has been an honour and a privilege to join the very last chapter of the settlement and to walk alongside these fine people in the last part of this journey that has taken since 1914.

Today is about the people of Whakatōhea, the end of a long and protracted journey that will have left many, many weary but that now can bring a sense of clarity and a sustained focus on the opportunities to fulfil the next stage of their success. To the kaumātua who are here today, who have steered this waka to this landing point, this is a significant achievement that now marks a point in time. As you chart the next part of your centuries-long voyage, we wish you well. I know this iwi and its post-settlement entity will do everything and everyone at Whakatōhea proud and that this next step in the long and detailed history of the iwi has been a long time coming. Today, in this House, we see the leaders of yesterday honoured, those leaders of today here as part of this historic point in time, and the leaders of tomorrow included, as rangatahi, tamariki, and the mokopuna brought and in this House today. What an incredible way to mark the final step in this settlement process for you as a people.

This part of the journey is nearly complete. There’s just that long, long bus ride back home to Ōpōtiki to get through! But there, as Whakatōhea, as one, you will design your future aspirations, holding the inspiration from your tūpuna in your hearts and with you all the way. Stand tall; go well. You have brought dignity and grace in the face of extreme adversity. We wish you all the very best. Kia kaha. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Excuse me, can I call for order in the gallery, please. Order in the gallery—order in the gallery. There is permission for a waiata. The gallery is not the place for speeches, thank you.

Waiata—“E kore au e ngaro”

Haka—“Kī mai nei koe”

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Sorry, we’ll just wait for the gallery to clear.

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): We’re just waiting on the gallery to clear.

Rawiri Waititi: Point of order, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I hear you; I’m just waiting on the gallery to clear.

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Kei te pai the gallery; we’re in the House now. I call a point of order, Madam Speaker. I find it extremely insulting that one of our rangatira was cut off—which is part of the protocol of the waiata today. I call for an apology from the Speaker today, to Te Whakatōhea, for rudely interrupting what was—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Excuse me, that’s not a point of order.

RAWIRI WAITITI: No, no—that was a point of order. Absolutely, because I take umbrage to that. I am insulted by that, as is Whakatōhea. So I call for the Speaker to apologise to Whakatōhea before they leave this Chamber.

STEVE ABEL (Green): Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker. The purpose of these settlements is to acknowledge the wrongs of the Crown—to acknowledge the constant trampling and insults committed against Māori and direct losses. In this process, which is a meaningful one for the iwi who have come and agreed to this settlement, there is an opportunity for the Crown to actually receive the dignity offered by the iwi in the making of the apology, and yet in the whole process we find we keep committing further harm and insult. That moment then was a completely unnecessary interruption and an affront to an otherwise very dignified and positive process, and I support the call for you to make an apology.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): What I will do is consult with the Speaker on the way forward. It’s common practice for permission to be granted for a waiata. It is not the position for members of the gallery to make further speeches. So thank you. I will take it up with the Speaker.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Speaking to the point of order. Madam Speaker, what we allowed was to give you warning. You didn’t use any of your cultural support that you could have to have ensured that the mana of this kaupapa and the mana of our iwi was respected. There was a very wrong done here today, and they must be apologised to before they leave. Otherwise, the very process which every party supported today has been takahi. I please ask that you consider—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): There is also tikanga in this House that I have to uphold.

Hon Willie Jackson: Madam Speaker, speaking to the point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Is this a different point of order, Willie Jackson?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): No, no—speaking to this. I need to give a position to support the motion from Te Pāti Māori. This is not about trying to get one up on you; this is about tikanga, and our people have been slighted. They’ve come from a long way away, and we ask you to respect the request from Te Pāti Māori that an apology be given to our people. We tautoko that from this side.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House): Speaking briefly to the point of order, I think it would be worth the House just dialling down a touch. My read of the situation, having watched it quite carefully, was that no offence was intended by you, Madam Speaker, I’m sure. My sense is that it was more just a misunderstanding around what was intended to happen and what members thought was likely to happen at the conclusion of the third reading speech. So I understand—

Rawiri Waititi: No, Chris—no, Chris.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, I’m trying to be helpful here.

Rawiri Waititi: We’ve been misunderstood for the last 180 years. Come on—all it is is an apology.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I accept where you’re coming from. I’m just trying to say that in the spirit of the third reading of this very important settlement, I think it would be worth just everyone just taking a breath and dialling it down a touch, because I don’t think the Speaker intended any offence. I think it would be a shame if we left the third reading and moved on to the later items of business in a spirit where there was acrimony across the Parliament, because I actually think there’s unanimous agreement for reconciliation.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Thank you. I call on Government order of the day No. 2.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Madam Speaker, I present a legislative statement for the Resource Management—

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Oh, kei te hē, kei te hē. [That’s wrong, that’s wrong.] You’re wrong. You cannot sit there and bring our whānau here to settle Te Tiriti—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Order!

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: —and then you behave like this. You’re wrong. No wonder our people are coming here on Thursday—you’re wrong. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: All right. So arguments have been heard from both sides. My job is to protect the tikanga of this Parliament—[Interruption]—this Parliament. It is the Parliament of all people in New Zealand and there is no intention to offend anybody in the upholding of its own tikanga, and tikanga does not allow for speeches from the gallery. It never has. On that basis, we will now proceed, and for those who do not want to accept that, well, unfortunately, no change can be made. [Interruption] Call it as you want it. So we’re proceeding with the previously called bill.

Bills

Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll just start again. I present a legislative statement for the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

I move, That the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 30 September 2024.

For too long, New Zealand’s farmers have been tangled up in red and green tape which has prevented them from unlocking productivity on their own farm. We need to acknowledge that New Zealand’s farmers are some of, if not the, best in the world. Burying them under unnecessarily and unreasonable burdensome piles of regulations and compliance requirements is harmful for our economy—makes very little sense. This Government backs New Zealand farmers to make sensible, pragmatic choices which boost their productivity on their own farms and to protect the environment at the same time.

Getting Wellington out of farming is an important part of our plan to get the economy back on track. We are committed, as a Government, to unlocking development and investment in infrastructure, housing, horticulture, aquaculture, forestry, and mining whilst ensuring the environment is protected. To enable this growth and to support our primary sector, we are delivering on our promise to improve resource management laws and reduce regulatory burdens.

As the House knows, we are taking a phased approach to resource management law reform. We are currently in phase two, and this started with the introduction of the fast-track, one-stop shop approvals bill which is currently before the Environment Committee and it’s partly because the committee is extremely busy with that bill—

Glen Bennett: You can withdraw it if you like.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, no chance of that, Mr Bennett. The electorate for which Mr Bennett used to be the representative will discover that many of the projects and many of the benefits of the fast-track bill apply to the great electorate of New Plymouth, as will other electorates around the House.

So we’ve started with fast track, and today this is the first of two resource management bills which make urgent time-critical changes to the system. This is resource management bill one: quick, targeted changes to give certainty to councils and resource consent applicants to enable economic growth in key sectors including farming, mining, and other primary industries. Resource management bill two, we are working away on and we will have more to say about that in due course—that will be a more substantive bill and will also make targeted changes to the resource management system, but also national direction.

So let me run through the details of the bill. There are six key changes. The first is in relation to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPS FM). The bill proposes to exclude the hierarchy of obligations in the NPS FM from resource consenting. This will address concerns about the way it’s being applied while a review and replacement of the freshwater management policy statement is undertaken. Regional councils will be obligated still to give effect to this—the NPS FM, including the hierarchy—in their policy statements and plans. This is about individual resource consents having the hierarchy of obligations applied to those individual resource consent applications. That was never the intention of the NPS FM. There is some evidence that that is what is happening, and so we are clarifying that.

The second is in relation to stock exclusion regulations. It repeals the problematic and contentious low-slope map and associated requirements from stock exclusion regulations, reducing costs for farmers. Regional councils and farmers will decide where stock needs to be excluded based on risk and a catchment-focused approach, and this will be a good benefit for our farming community.

The third thing it does is in relation to intensive winter grazing. It repeals the permitted and restricted discretionary activity regulations and associated conditions for intensive winter grazing from the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater. Regional councils tell us there’s been a significant improvement in winter grazing practices around the country. Farmers are proactively making better decisions about where they plant crops and how they manage winter grazing. Sector groups have confirmed their continued and collective commitment to work alongside farmers and regional councils to ensure good outcomes. Winter grazing will instead be managed through freshwater farm plans, regional council plans, and farmers following good management practices as outlined in the winter grazing module.

The fourth thing it does is in relation to consenting pathways for coalmining. The bill aligns the provisions for coalmining with other mineral extraction activities under the NPS IB—the National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity—the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, and the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater. So the bill extends the consenting pathway for coalmines to new coalmines and removes the sunset clause on consent pathways for thermal coal. This means that coalmines will have to meet the same tests and requirements to manage their environmental effects as similar activities. As the Hon Shane Jones would no doubt point out if he was here, coal is required for food production, energy security, and industrial production such as steel manufacturing. If it’s not mined domestically, all we do is import coal and steel with potential flow-on costs—increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Fifthly, the bill suspends for three years the requirements under the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for councils to identify new significant natural areas—SNAs—and include them in district plans. It also extends some implementation time frames until 31 December 2030. This is so we can do a full review of the operation of SNAs and changes made before the existing regulations are locked in through council decisions. Criteria in the NPS IB sought to standardise the approach for identifying our most important biodiversity areas, but there are real concerns amongst many communities that the criteria is capturing areas with less significant natural biodiversity, placing undue restrictions on how land is used.

We recognise that landowners are already investing time and resources in protecting native biodiversity, and we take an approach, on this side of the House, which works collaboratively and in conjunction with landowners and incentivisation of this work rather than restricting what they can do with their land. Now, that’s what a property rights - based approach does. I want to acknowledge Associate Minister Hoggard for the important work he is doing in this area, as in so many other areas across the coalition between the ACT Party, the National Party, and the New Zealand First Party. There’s a real collective drive and commitment to sorting out our resource management laws.

Hon Member: Attack the environment.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Finally—I’m just going to choose to ignore that comment. Finally, the bill speeds up the process for—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Just like all the advice you’re given. Maybe you want to look at the supplementary analysis report.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, it’s easy to ignore when you didn’t actually hear it, but no doubt you’ll have your say.

Finally, the bill amends the process for developing or amending national direction. This is a really important change. The process costs too much and takes too long around national direction. It’s typically a two-year process to amend items of national direction, as other members in the House will know. We now have a suite of national policy statements sitting under the Resource Management Act across lots of sectors of the economy, and it’s important that there’s an expeditious process for making changes to that national direction. So there are targeted and technical changes to speed up the statutory time frame and evaluation reporting requirements. It streamlines and simplifies the process for amending a national environmental standard, a national planning standard, a national policy statement, or indeed the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement.

We intend to progress a suite of national direction changes next year to unlock development and investment in infrastructure, housing capacity, agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture, forestry, and mining while achieving good environmental outcomes.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Destroy the environment. Keep going. Fast track’s not enough.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I hear the member over the other side going on simplistically and tritely about destroying the environment. This is not about that; this is about simplifying and reducing the red tape that holds our economy back, particularly our primary sector, from growing. I reject the proposition that you can have the economy or you can have the environment. Actually, modern economies that grow look after the environment and modern economies that are growing quickly—that provide jobs and growth for their people—provide the prosperity and the revenue to do all sorts of things in the environment that we would want to do. But much of what the environment requires is investment, is resource.

Ultimately, when the size of the economic pie is growing, investment can go into cleaning up lakes and waters, for example, in remedying waste sites that have previously been the province of harmful waste. But all of that takes resource. This is why economies that are poor tend to be the worst environmental vandals. Economies that are wealthy and prosperous tend to look after the environment, and there’s a direct correlation.

So members opposite want to have a trite debate about the economy versus the environment. We have a more sophisticated and nuanced approach on this side of the House. We can grow the economy, reduce our emissions, look after the environment—all at the same time. That’s what this bill does. Thank you.

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

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I can assure the Minister responsible for RMA Reform that I’m not interested in having trite discussions, but what I have heard a lot of here has been trite. Now, first of all, this bill is being sent to totally the wrong select committee. It is going to primary production, and I have nominated the Environment Committee. I think that is where this bill should go to, because, of course, it is about amending the Resource Management Act (RMA), and what committee has always considered things to do with the Resource Management Act? Oh, that would be, of course, the Environment Committee that should be considering this, because the regulations that are being amended by this bill are to do with protecting the environment and improving the environment by stopping pollution. It’s all very well to say that you need investment to clean up the environment once it’s polluted, but, of course, the best and most efficient thing to always do is to stop that pollution from occurring in the first place.

What is the pollution we’re talking about? Well, a lot of it is sediment run-off into our rivers. Do our trading partners care about clean rivers? Yes, they do. Do our citizens care about clean rivers? Yes, they do. Do we want swimmable rivers? Yes, we do. This is the point of a lot of the regulations—

Grant McCallum: Farmers care too, by the way.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: —that are up for amendment today. I’m hearing farmers want clean rivers too—excellent news. I’m very pleased to hear that, and they should be talking to the Environment Committee about that.

Now, of course, the other irony is that most of the changes—the Minister just said that there are six main changes. Of those six, five of them are amendments to regulations. There is no need for primary legislation to make these changes. The sixth one, of course, is about how those regulations are made in the first place, and a lot of that is taken from the now-repealed Natural and Built Environment Act. The Minister often says that his legislation can be done swiftly because it is modelled on that of Labour’s. In terms of fast-track, that is totally wrong, because, of course, the fast-track bill that we have before us at the Environment Committee has nothing about the environment in its purpose. It is all about the facilitation of development, and that overrides all of our environmental regulations that are there to protect our environment from pollution. However, in this case, the only amendment to the RMA that is actually needed by primary legislation is similar to what was in that Natural and Built Environment Act—not exactly the same—and it should be considered by the specialist committee, the Environment Committee, but no, it appears to be going to the Primary Production Committee.

I also note that the Minister talking to us is the Minister of resource management reform. Making changes to regulations is not the reform of the resource management system. I note that the Minister for the Environment was not even involved in the press release about these changes, which is mind blowing.

Now, we know that this Government has some real problem with Te Mana o te Wai. One of the changes to the regulations here is that that Mana o te Wai hierarchy doesn’t apply to consents. We see in the documents supplied with the bill that the officials have said we don’t even know if this is a problem. We don’t even know if consents are being stopped, because the Te Mana o te Wai hierarchy is being considered in those consents. There have been a couple of cases where it was mentioned, but likely those consents would’ve been not granted—refused—based on environmental outcomes. So there’s very little analysis about that point, but then we see in the bill, in the explanatory note, that there are going to be many further changes to this national policy statement on fresh water around Te Mana o te Wai.

I want to pause here and remind members about this hierarchy. It is, first, the quality of the water body that comes first. Second comes the ability for humans to use that water—so things like drinking water; that’s important. Third is the consumptive use—that’s the ability to make money from the water. How can there be any discussion of rebalancing that hierarchy unless you intend for profit to come over the environment and to come over people? It is outrageous that there’d be any talk of going further with that, but that is what this Government is happy to do, and it just terrifies me, the state that our environment will be in when we come back to Government.

LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. When I joined this Parliament, I was really heartened to learn of and also experience the immense privilege that we have here to actually access information in this place. I know especially for my colleagues across the House that is even more accessible when the Public Service can actually go to work and do the consultation, get the data, get the evidence that Ministers need to actually make truly informed decisions. I want to raise that today in the context of this Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, because this bill makes a mockery not only of this Government’s claim that they care about data and evidence but it also makes a mockery of their duty of care that Kiwis expect of their Government when it comes to responsible governance for te taiao, or our environment, and within that, Kiwis’ rights to actually have their say.

So I want to begin there on the consultation aspect, because official advice across these supplementary analysis reports make it clear that the Government simply has not had the time or the care about what Kiwis would have to say on these bills. Let’s take, for example, the coalmining aspect. There was official advice that said there was no time for consultation, none with iwi Māori, no assessment of the Treaty impacts, including on the Crown’s Treaty settlements or commitments. For the amendments that have to do with fresh water, consultation was “limited”, and the limited feedback that they did receive from iwi Māori was “one of disappointment and frustration” and concern about the potentially irreversible negative impacts on freshwater quality.

So that’s a bit of a taste of what the Government might have heard if they did take the time to go out for public consultation before getting to this stage. But let’s go back to the data and evidence part of what this Government cares about and ask what the experts actually say. Because when these changes were first announced, 50 of Aotearoa’s top freshwater experts and leaders were so concerned about it that they actually organised and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister and Ministers, clearly and concisely stating their concerns. I want to quote them here: “New Zealand’s rivers, lakes, and aquafers are in a dire state. … The country’s freshwater policy, including Te Mana o te Wai, is the result of decades of public concern and policy development. To weaken this now, would be to take the country and our communities backwards.” That’s just the freshwater aspect of this bill.

The rest of it contains a litany of shortsighted environmental destruction. I wanted to take the example of the coalmining aspects, because I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I read the supplementary analysis report for this bill on “amending the consenting pathway for coalmining in or around wetlands and significant natural areas”. This, I might add, is in addition to the three-year suspension for actually identifying these significant natural areas for councils. The advice from officials made it clear that it is not possible to quantify how many new coalmines or extensions for existing coalmines would be affected by the proposed changes—that there is a risk of irreparable damage to, and loss of, wetlands if a consent pathway is to be provided.

I don’t know where to start with this aspect of the bill, other than to say the science is crystal clear that if we want to prevent a future filled with climate catastrophe and extreme weather, then fossil fuels need to stay in the ground. Protecting nature or keeping fossil fuels in the ground is not some woke idea or whatever the latest culture war buzzword is; it’s about the scientific fundamentals of human survival on this planet that we call home. When this Government won’t listen to the science, the evidence, to iwi Māori, or to the public, we have a serious threat to our future in our hands, and the only solution is to get organised, get loud, and make our voices heard. On Saturday, 8 June, we’ll be heard. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The Hon Andrew Hoggard—you’re taking this full five-minute call?

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD (Associate Minister of Agriculture): Yes, five-minute call. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to speak to three components of this bill that I’ve had involvement with. Those are the provisions around significant natural areas, the rules around stock exclusions, and the winter grazing component.

Now, before I do, we’ve heard a bit about how this is going to be the end of nature in New Zealand from the other side, despite these people previously protesting and getting all aggrieved about being accused of being at war with farming, yet these words clearly demonstrate they’re still at war with farming. Up and down the country, farmers are taking care of biodiversity on their farms, making changes to winter grazing practices, all before any regulations came about. Since 2003, 25,000 kilometres of riparian margins have been fenced off. That’s just by the dairy sector alone that we’ve measured; we haven’t measured all the work that’s been done on the sheep and beef farms up and down the country. I’m seeing more and more of that on a regular basis. If you added that all in, I am sure you would probably double that number.

Turning to the proposed changes around the mapping of significant natural areas, this comes from the ACT-National coalition agreement. “This suspends the requirement to identify new SNAs by councils while we review how SNAs are managed in the future.” There have been numerous concerns from many landowners around the implication of having significant natural areas (SNA) on their land. For many, it’s the principle of their property rights being trampled on and where this might go in the future with zero compensation or recognition of those property rights. For many, there is the question around, “Is this really significant?”. When you’re a landowner on the West Coast of the South Island where around 86 percent of the land is included in the Department of Conservation estate, you are quite justifiably scratching your head going, “Why the hell is my half a hectare so vital that all these restrictions need to be placed on me?” Haven’t we already protected quite a significant amount of the land in this region already?

Then there is that word, “significant”. We see numerous examples of what could generously be called “scrub” being viewed as significant. Going forward, we need better definitions of what “significant” is and we also need a much better carrot-type approach to improving biodiversity on private land as opposed to the Opposition’s favoured “go to stick” method.

The previous stock exclusions, low-slope map, and its various evolutions have proven once again that one-size-fits-all from Wellington isn’t the solution. There would have been extensive properties forced into financially crippling fencing programmes. Think of all the farms you see on Country Calendar. These are the sort of farms that would be put out of business by having to do all this. These are not farms that are having an impact on water quality. Instead, many of these farmers looking at these regulations, their only option was to go into pines, which is not what we’re wanting. Many regions also had longstanding stock exclusion rules that made sense for these regions. As I mentioned, the dairy sector had already been long-time engaged in this job.

I mentioned the changes around the winter grazing regulations. Once again, it was a one-size-fits-all approach from Wellington. Farmers have made significant gains in the last four to five years in how they manage this practice and we have seen great uptake of the winter grazing module.

All the current and soon-to-be previous regime did was add cost by forcing a regulatory burden on councils and farmers. The biggest frustration many had with this system was the fact that there was supposed to be an alternative pathway for Farm Plans. However, what we got instead was not fit for purpose. It was costly, complex, and also overlooked in a practical sense all the existing Farm Plans that were out there. Having a farmer-focused Farm Plan system is where I truly believe we will turn the dial forward on improving water quality outcomes out there in regional New Zealand.

This Government is committed to ensuring we have a fit for purpose system that doesn’t create duplication of paperwork and that provides farmers with good knowledge and plans on how they can make a difference in their catchments. That is the way forward, not an endless stream of green tape from Wellington. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities): Thank you, Mr Speaker. “The end of [the] war on farming” is how Federated Farmers have responded to this piece of legislation getting introduced to the House. This is a critical piece of legislation for our agricultural sector, and I congratulate Minister Bishop on bringing it forward and actually expediting it through as the first tranche of Resource Management Act reform in what is a much bigger body of work to try to undo the mess that we have inherited in this space.

Rachel Boyack, I can say to you, the Primary Production Committee is absolutely the right committee to be seeing this legislation go through there. It is the fact that the Environment Committee stuffed it up so badly the first time around because there weren’t enough farmers or people that understood the implications of the things they were signing off that we’re in this place now.

So, farmers: we are freeing them from the tyranny of one-size-fits-all regulation being imposed on them by Wellington, and we are fulfilling those promises of getting Wellington out of farmers. Farmers do care about the environment, and to say anything else—I absolutely dispel that sentiment for anyone that may be raising it in this debate. Grant McCallum, the Northland MP, and I spoke the other day at the Aotearoa New Zealand catchment collective. There are 290 catchment groups now in this country. They have proliferated throughout from Southland to Northland. This is actually people on the ground doing things—fencing, riparian planting, restoring wetlands, and dealing with it at a catchment-level solution. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, has just come out with a report on this, and he has said that the catchment-level solution is the only way forward here, that regulations that work within farm boundaries, catchments, and ecological systems do not.

There has been a quantum shift—a quantum shift—on management practices on farm, around things like intensive winter grazing. We have recognised that some of the practices of the past have fallen short, and that has been acknowledged by regional councils, which has given us the trust to take the measures that we have. And there is real oversight of this. We have fly-overs in Otago and in many parts of the country. You’re actually monitored from the air to make sure that you are complying with good management practices, and you’re exposed if anyone’s trying to cut corners; they’re picked up. They’re intensively managed by the regional council and often Dairy New Zealand, Beef + Lamb New Zealand, and Federated Farmers, and they’re working with those farmers—actually doing stuff—but we’re leaving the farmers that are following good practice alone. We’re letting them get on with the job. We’re not imposing heavy compliance and cost on them to do what they do when they’re doing it well. It will be a risk-based approach, and it will be locally driven with local solutions. We will be getting to the same place in environmental outcomes. We will be just doing it in a different and more practical way.

The Te Mana o te Wai provisions that also have been referenced, they are incredibly problematic. That was an incredibly powerful piece of planning legislation. It was a vague, catch-all term that could have meant anything. It could have shut down any farming operation for any reason. It had no place in a resource management setting where real lives, real livelihoods, real communities were on the line.

The significant natural areas—and I commend Minister Hoggard on his work there. That wasn’t an attack on property rights. We are a property-rights Government across this side of the House. There are hundreds of thousands of hectares of native vegetation, particularly on our sheep and beef land, much of it in QEII Trust, much of it preserved for perpetuity. Farmers care about this stuff. Genuinely significant natural areas may need to be captured. That is a piece of work that was going on. The low-slope maps, the stock exclusion, that was incredibly onerous on high-country farmers—little or no environmental outcomes. We trust our farmers. We’ll back them. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As the newly hatched, bright-eyed, shiny chair of the Environment Committee, I’m very happy to support this piece of legislation going to the Primary Production Committee, because I think that is a very good place for this piece of legislation to go.

Now, we’ve heard a little bit—not much but a little bit—of concern from the Opposition parties about why this bill, in their view, might be a bad thing. But I want to put to members of this Chamber, and also anyone that may be listening at home on their crystal sets or watching on television, they will be able to take reassurance from the fact that this is a good piece of legislation that brings a degree of sanity and purpose back to resource management in New Zealand.

So, for the last six years, we had a regime that thought Wellington knew best. They thought that they knew best. They thought that shiny, painted people sitting in front of computer screens looking at Google Maps of landscapes and slopes and things like that, they thought that those people had a better understanding of land, of catchment areas, of resource, of land slopes and all those sorts of things than the farmers and people who worked that land. Well, we take an entirely different view. It’s always been our view in the National Party, and I know that it is also the view of our hard-working and very collegial coalition partners, that a catchment-by-catchment approach is the best.

Now, I heard the Hon Mark Patterson making a comment in his presentation just a few minutes ago about the very good report released just last week by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—none other than the Rt Hon Simon Upton, a former member of this House who knows a bit about this kind of stuff. He has said, without any hesitation in his very good report, that actually a catchment-by-catchment approach is entirely the right approach.

Now, on this side of the House, we don’t take the view that matters relating to the environment and use of land are a binary equation, that it’s either one or the other. We think that actually there is a potential for us as a smart nation with clever people who have a regard and concern for our natural environment, to also be able to protect, maintain, and enhance that natural environment while at the same time encouraging a development, encouraging proper and appropriate land use that encourages the wealth and prosperity of our entire nation to give us the economic performance and strength that we need to provide for that maintenance, protection, and enhancement of our natural environment. Because without a thriving, growing economy, none of that other good stuff that we need for our environment can occur.

It’s often said in this House, and something that I think the Green Party members often forget, that it’s very hard to be green when you’re in the red—very hard to be green when you’re in the red. I know that on that side of the House, on the Opposition, they have only three policy objectives. There are only three things that they ever consider when it comes to policy, and that is either to tax it, make it compulsory, or to tax it again—no; ha, ha! So, actually, the third one is to ban it. So it’s tax it, make it compulsory, or ban it. Those are the only three policy options when it comes to anything in relation to the environment. We take a far more broad view of that. In fact, this piece of legislation is part of a coalition agreement we’ve entered into with the ACT Party. So we’re fulfilling that, but it’s also part of a broader three-phase plan that is to entirely reform our resource management landscape and our way of administering by statute and regulation.

The first step, of course, was to repeal the hopelessly inadequate Labour legislation; the natural built and environment, and spatial planning pieces of legislation that would have only made things worse—that would have only made things worse.

The second step is of course to introduce the fast-track consenting system so that we can get things done in New Zealand, and that is currently before my select committee and we’re working our way through that.

Then, of course, the third part will be ultimately to amend or develop an entirely new resource management statute that will actually achieve the objectives that we see on this side of the House that, as I said, are not a binary option—it’s not just the environment or development; it is actually both. We think that as a smart, nimble nation and a smart, nimble Government, we can achieve both those objectives.

Hon JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just find it quite fascinating that the member who just took their seat, the Hon Scott Simpson, praised this fantastic report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and yet that side of the House took absolutely no notice of his views on the fast-track Resource Management Act (RMA) bill. I find that quite fascinating.

What I also find quite fascinating is that there are a couple of things that members opposite have brought up that I actually kind of agree with. I agree that our New Zealand farmers are some of the most environmental farmers around the world. I also agree that catchment groups are doing some fantastic work. The Minister who introduced the bill mentioned that winter grazing practices have improved.

Minister Hoggard also talked about the fact that there are farmers who have been making improvements on their properties and around waterways for many years—that is also true, and I absolutely 100 percent agree with that. However, whether it be in agriculture, whether it be in the corporate world, there are always going to be those laggards who let everybody else down who is doing the right thing. The purpose behind the regulations that were introduced by the previous Government was to help to pull those laggards into line because they were dragging the rest of the sector down.

New Zealand is very, very proud of our clean, green image; our beautiful, pristine waterways—we trade off the back of that. That is why we are able to sell our product to the world: because of our clean, green image. I do genuinely worry that this piece of legislation is somewhat short-sighted. I seriously hope that it doesn’t come back to bite this Government in the backside.

The other thing that I am concerned about with this piece of legislation is the consultation process—the member from the Green Party touched on this—and the fact that iwi and tangata whenua don’t feel that they have been consulted with in a way that is meaningful for them. One of the things that I did notice in the regulatory impact statement is that they felt that the engagement process has been inadequate for reasons including insufficient information, lack of time, and that decisions appeared to have already been taken, which was in reference to a letter from the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform to support this view. Because of this limited engagement and the uncertain impact on the proposal on fresh water, it’s difficult to assess, as noted in the regulatory impact statement, whether or not the Treaty principles of partnership and active protection have been met. So, once again, iwi and tangata whenua are not being consulted with properly on something that has huge impact for them.

So, whilst I have agreed with some of the comments that have been made opposite with regard to the great work that our farmers are doing, I am concerned about the lack of consultation. It’s something that we are seeing time and time again from this Government, consultation legislation that is being rushed. I do worry that there will be serious unintended consequences as a result of rushed legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. On Saturday, 14 October 2023, the war on farmers ended. To the 360,000 people from across the country who are involved in the primary sector and who form the backbone of our economy, including those from the mighty Wairarapa, Central Hawke’s Bay, and the Tararua: thank you. Thank you to those who grow our grains, our fruits, and our vegetables; to those who milk the cows; to those who grow our meat. Thank you to all those that support our farmers and growers: the mechanics, the vets, the accountants, the retailers, manufacturers, labourers. Thank you to everyone else involved. Thank you to the farmers—all of you—for your commitment to being amongst the most carbon-efficient farmers in the world. Thank you for taking our food and fibre to the world. Thank you for your export dollars, which help to pay for the roads, the schools, and the hospitals we need. Thank you for keeping the farm gate open whilst members of the other side of the House vilified your industry. The reality is we need you now more than ever, given the near $100 billion debt that we’ve been left with by those same members over there.

We have the opportunity to make improvements to the Resource Management Act and slash the red and green tape, as my esteemed colleague so aptly put previously. This will allow those that, like I said, are the backbone of the country to do what they do best, and that’s just get on with it.

Changes to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management will allow us to find better ways to achieve the outcomes we continually look for. Those regulations have added cost, stress, and little in positive change or practice that wasn’t already happening on farms across the country. This is the same for the winter grazing regulations, which have never been fit for purpose and again added cost and stress without significant or positive results being seen over and above what was already happening before those regulations were introduced.

We need to recognise that those who work, live, and play on the land want to see an improvement in the environment—and they already invest in this. There’s many examples, as the Minister said. The 25,000 kilometres of waterways already fenced off—almost 100 percent of all waterways on dairy farms are fenced off. The 2.8 million hectares of woody vegetation that’s already on our farm lands. The amazing work the catchments continue to do—close to 300 of them—and the Queen Elizabeth II (QEII) National Trust covenants are a perfect example. Let’s be clear: we didn’t need regulation or law for our farmers to want to do this. The 5,000th QEII covenant was registered in the Wairarapa very recently.

Stifling businesses that utilise the land to produce both local and export products is not in the best interests of all of the people in this country. The assumption that the environment will get worse typifies the previous administration’s narrative that the farming sector are villains. On this side of the House, we don’t hold that view. We trust our farmers. We back our farmers. We can grow our economy. We can get Wellington out of farming. We need to let our farmers farm and, at the same time, continue to look after our environment, as they have always done. The war on farming is over. We’ll get the sector back on track. I commend this bill to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour): Today, yet again we have legislation that is introduced to this House which shows the Government’s disregard for our environment and for fresh water. I take offence when I hear people in this Chamber talking about the war on farmers, something that we never did. I heard a previous member talk about “Well, go and see.” What do I know? Well, I know a lot, because I live in Taranaki. I know the challenges. I leaned in and listened. I leaned in and I spent time sitting around kitchen tables in farms all around the electorate of New Plymouth in Taranaki, trying to understand the complexities and how this works, to get it right.

But we look at this piece of legislation, and I do see it as a war and an attack on nature, an attack on our fresh water. An example is Te Mana o te Wai. Te Mana o te Wai—the sacredness of water—which, of course, is the thing that gives life to us. We need to make sure that we get our fresh water right. We need to make sure that we get our soils right within the water systems, ensure around the animal welfare that we need to provide in terms of the water.

We worked hard. I hear lots of rhetoric around everything sort of coming out of Wellington—the bureaucrats sitting here with their pens, pushing them. Well, I remind the other side and the Government that it was the Labour Government that put funding into the catchment communities in the last term, who ensured that they were strong and thriving. I see those in Taranaki and I see them working well.

As we hear the attacks that we seem to have on farmers, I wonder about our wetlands. If there’s any attack that is being used within this legislation, it is on our wetlands. Do you know that 90 percent—90 percent—of our wetlands have been lost since we arrived. Ninety percent. So when I see the attempt to put coalmines on wetlands to ensure the degradation, the destruction of more of our wetlands, of the few that we have left, I think this is dangerous.

But I see that side of the House seems to fraternise with the coal industry, and that’s their thing. I guess that’s something that we’re going to have to watch and follow as the weeks and months progress.

This is a backward step yet again. As the Hon Chris Bishop said at the start, these are just some quick, targeted changes, just repealing a few things and there’s more to come. We’re in challenging times. Our environment needs us. Our water needs us. We need to fight this and we need to fight hard.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): It’s my pleasure to rise and speak on the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in the first reading. I’m proud to stand and represent the farmers of Ilam—all 300 of them! But in all seriousness, this is a serious topic. Freshwater reforms actually go right to the heart of our resource management and what we are going to do with it.

We are navigating this challenging situation. When we do face these challenges, we must not forget the crucial role our primary producers play in this country and in our society. We require them three times a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—to be able to put food on the table. It’s essential that we allow them to have access to water for their production. It’s key to ensuring our food security, our economic prosperity, and a sustainable future for all. If you are a farmer or you are a horticulturalist and you’re growing something, you need water to be able to make that food to be able to reach its full maturity. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a farmer, a grower, an orchardist, the backbone of agricultural sector, we work tirelessly to ensure that there’s food on our table, crops in our field, and livestock on our farms. However, the ability to produce food and fibre heavily relies on the access to water. As I know, as an orchardist myself, when it comes to that summertime, we need that water, otherwise all our inputs for a whole year can go to waste if we can’t get our fruit up to size. It puts our livelihoods at risk and also our food supply as well.

Now, the changes to this bill are focused on changes that will take effect quickly to give certainty to councils and to consent applications. Unfortunately, a lot of the previous reforms have just added cost and complexity but have gained very little for our environment. I think we need to be very clear that it’s not a binary situation. We can produce food, we can look after our environment, and it is a win-win situation.

We can stand here and legislate things. We can stand here and change the rules, but we need to think of what’s actually happening at the coalface. I think that is what has been missing over the last six years. Regional councils cannot process that absolute volume of consent applications that are required for the winter grazing. Our farmers wouldn’t be able to actually do that because they’d be waiting for the paperwork to come through.

Now, let’s be clear: we do care about the environment. I want to do a big shout-out to our farmers. We have heard others all around this House making a big shout-out to our farmers, but usually there’s a “but” in there and we always know what’s before the “but”. I don’t think I’m allowed to say it in this House, unfortunately, but I think we know where we’re going. So 98 percent of farmers have excluded stock from waterways, with around 25,000 kilometres of fencing erected, while 94 percent of farmers have buffers around their waterways to filter contaminants. We are talking about farmers who have been innovative. They know their land, they know what they can do, they can know how to improve it. Just think about how far our farming practices have come over the last 50 years.

I just also want to make a shout-out to our researchers and AgResearch and the New Zealand Institute for Crop and Food Research, who have done work over water flows and all sorts of things. It is great that we have such talent here in New Zealand.

We are going to get to the same point with or without these extra regulations—this extra complexity which is just adding cost to our farmers who are already under the pump. I will just point out that there’s been a recent report from the University of Canterbury which has revealed that 24 percent of New Zealand’s native vegetation—that’s about 2.8 million hectares—is estimated to be on our sheep and beef farms. Just pointing out how much our farmers care for the environment.

A blanket, one-size-fits-all, heavy-handed regulation doesn’t actually suit anybody. But I don’t think anybody in this Chamber will argue when I say we need to look at our resource management in this country. It’s in desperate need of an update, and this bill is our first step in that process as we go. We will be backing our farmers. They are the world’s best producing farmers that we have. We need to have safe produce, we need to have a good environment, and we can have both of these things. Therefore, I recommend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 49

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The question is, That the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be considered by the Primary Production Committee.

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 49

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Primary Production Committee.

Instruction to Primary Production Committee

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: I move, That the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 30 September 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 49

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.

Motion agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House is adjourned until 7.30 p.m.

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

Bills

New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 9 May.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): I’m delighted to rise to this third reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill. It’s been a very disruptive sort of debate, but, finally, we’ve got to this point, and we will actually get this through and into law.

This is really about the Guardians of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund being able to take controlling interests in entities other than things like real estate, which they’ve always been able to do. Currently, that is prohibited by section 59 of this Act. Really, what this bill is about is reflecting the growing size and maturity of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. It’s something that’s supported around the House, which is great, it’s non-controversial publicly—I think we only had six submissions on it—and the bill, frankly, is common sense.

It’s interesting that when we started this reading, the fund scale was about $72 billion to $74 billion. The last I looked this evening, it’s getting closer to $75 billion, so if we keep going on, it’ll be even bigger. Removing section 59—at the moment, that section constrains the Superannuation Fund’s ability to invest in some New Zealand entities, including in major infrastructure projects, and, really, what this is about is it’s allowing our Superannuation Fund to invest more in our present while it’s also investing in our future. It’s spreading its wings.

Just in passing, I’d like to mention the other major Government-aligned investment vehicle, which is the ACC, which currently has about $47 billion under management. So that’s quite a lot between the two of them. Both of them are dealing with future liabilities on behalf of New Zealanders, but both are investments in our collective future but also in our collective present if we manage them well.

But we’ve heard some discussion, during this debate, suggesting investing in particular projects within New Zealand, and while that might be great to do that, what we cannot do is we cannot direct the fund to do that. The Superannuation Fund must never be subject to instructions by politicians for whatever reasons. Section 64 of the Act is very clear on that. The Minister can give advice, can give directions, but only having consulted the Guardians, and the Guardians don’t have to take any notice, effectively, only just say what they’ve done in response, or not done in response.

But, during the second reading, our Green colleague across the way there Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan leaned into this issue, and I’ve got to say that I wasn’t particularly comfortable with that, because he said “we really would encourage the … fund to be guided in their activities … to divest from fossil fuels and the requirement for a portion of the fund to be targeted towards social impact investments, including emission reduction, as well as aligning with the Government’s goal of net-zero carbon by 2050.” They’re all very good things—all very good things—but no, no, no to any interference in the Superannuation Fund Guardians’ ability to do their job.

But I was pleased to see the same member in this third reading express some confidence in the fund’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) credentials, and I’m going to come back to that later on. So I hope the Green Party does realise, through this debate, that, actually, it can trust the Guardians of the Superannuation Fund to do a really good job, not only in terms of giving us a good return but also in terms of responsible investment.

Minister Willis, when introducing this reading, talked about nation-building infrastructure, and, yes, there is an opportunity there. The Guardians, at the moment, invest about 14 percent of the fund in New Zealand assets and only about 1 percent of it in New Zealand infrastructure. However, that’s actually overweighted, because the fund’s own annual report says that a benchmark portfolio would only be about 5 percent weighted in New Zealand. So it’s actually already doing that, and diversification is a fundamental principle of good investment. In fact, the fund’s most recent annual report is titled The Wisdom of Diversity, and they were talking not only about people but diversification of investment. The fund is always going to have the substantial majority of its investments in other parts of the world. But let’s not forget that even if they’re investing in other parts of the world, that is drawing income into New Zealand, it’s helping our balance of payments, and that is contributing positively to our standard of living.

I also wanted to note that the fund makes money, in considerable part, through this thing called capital gain. That’s gain in the value of stocks, shares, real estate companies, etc., and that’s the same as KiwiSaver. They gain a lot of their return, or our return, through capital gain. It’s the same as many Kiwis do in investing for our collective future.

Capital gains are not evil. They occur over time and through inflation. They’re nominal. They are about protecting and enhancing the real value of assets over time, and achieving capital gains is not without risk and cost. Capital gains incentivise saving and investment, and that is, without doubt, a good thing, certainly if you want to grow the economy and help address housing-supply shortages. Indeed, without capital gains, many investments simply would not happen. Incentivising investment rather than consumption is also a good thing for our balance of payments, which is one of our greatest financial weaknesses, especially because we keep borrowing from the rest of the world, day after day, to pay for our living standards.

But the fund is already doing some excellent nation-building. It invests in productive farming, and since 2019, under the Labour - New Zealand First coalition, the Guardians have been responsible for the $300 million Elevate New Zealand venture fund, which is about growing emerging businesses, which I think is a fantastic thing. But, fundamentally, the fund is about delivering the best possible risk-adjusted return. Now, that may or may not allow investing in nation-building infrastructure, but the judgment must be made by the Guardians—not by politicians trying to put weight on the Guardians, but by the Guardians.

In the New Zealand investment environment, if the returns in New Zealand are poor, if we could collectively create an environment that the Guardians don’t think is worth investing in, guess what! They and a whole lot of other people will invest somewhere else, and that is not good for the future of New Zealand, because capital is very, very mobile. So the better our governance, the better our stability, the better our integrity, the better our protection of property rights, the better our productivity, our infrastructure, our education system, and our tax and our regulatory systems are, the more attractive we are not only to the super fund but to all investors, whether they are New Zealanders or overseas people.

But, back to the fund. The independence of the Superannuation Fund and its Guardians is essential, and section 58 on that is absolutely clear. It says that “The Guardians must invest the Fund on a prudent, commercial basis and, in doing so, must manage and administer the Fund in a manner consistent with—(a) best-practice portfolio management;”. They need to “[maximise the] return without undue risk to the Fund as a whole;”, and they must “[avoid] prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community.”

I’d like to say that we are in very, very good hands, and a little history might demonstrate this very, very well. The fund’s clear objective is to offset the growing cost of superannuation on the taxpayer. But there are a lot of assumptions built into this. The fund is projected to pay, on average, about 16 percent of the total cost of superannuation—get this—between 2040 and 2090. So I know Tom Rutherford spoke earlier about saying this is future stuff, but, Tom, I can assure you that you’ll be benefiting from this a long, long time before that.

Tom Rutherford: I can’t wait—after my 40 years here!

ANDY FOSTER: I think you can wait for a little bit.

The Government made an initial investment of $2.4 billion in 2003, and the fund has performed exceptionally well. The average annual return since then has been 9.9 percent before tax but after costs. The Government has invested just $26 billion since 2003, and it’s now worth, as I said, approaching $75 billion. That’s a pretty darn good return. It’s $40 billion more than the cost of the debt borrowed to invest it. So I would say to the folks, particularly on this side of the House, don’t take another holiday from investing in that fund, because it’s been a good investment. The return is $16 billion to $17 billion above the passive benchmark fund, and we need to keep on with it.

In short, the Superannuation Fund has delivered an outstanding performance, and, wait, it gets better. The fund has received a large number of awards, and this goes to the ESG side of things. They fall into three areas, and together they tell you that our Superannuation Fund is right at the top of the game. In each of the last three financial years—2022, 2023, and 2024—it is ranked the world’s top-performing sovereign wealth fund—top-performing sovereign wealth fund—based on a 10-year return. So over 10 years, it has been the best in the world. That is something to be very, very proud of. It’s also an exemplar recognised for quality of communication—again, over a whole decade of performance. Also the fund is very highly regarded as a responsible ESG investor with a suite of related awards.

So I think the fund is performing exceptionally well. Really, what I’m saying is we should keep on relying on the legislation we’ve got there, which is to let the Guardians of the fund get on and do the job that they are doing so well.

Look, I’d like to make two final points. First, it was really interesting to look at a list of sovereign wealth funds. Of the 88 funds I looked at, 37—including our Superannuation Fund—are described as “non-commodity”, 14 were based on minerals, and 36 were based on oil and gas, and the biggest of those, of course, were the Norwegians, who have a very, very high standard of living. They have the highest use of electric vehicles, but where do they get a lot of their wealth from? Selling oil and gas to other people.

The last thing I wanted to say is that during this third reading—again going back to Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, he touched on superannuation eligibility, and he said that it would be good if recent migrants were eligible for superannuation more quickly than the 10-year residency requirement we’ve currently got. Actually, he’s slightly wrong on that, because this bill actually says that it’s between 10 and 20, depending on the age of the person that’s come in. But I completely disagree with him, because if we start doing that kind of thing, then the health and superannuation costs will really count against migrants of, should we say, more mature age being attracted to New Zealand.

So I commend this bill to the House, and I’m looking forward to it being passed into law tonight. Thank you.

CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to support the third reading of this bill and, in broad terms, to agree with my colleague across the House. Superannuation is the only benefit that’s not means-tested. Its near universality is admirable, but it’s not perfect. But we’re talking about widening the power of the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, not about eligibility, today. It’s strange—almost an anomaly—to do a better job within the existing economic system without a capital gains tax, a wealth tax, nor an inheritance tax. None of those are changes we’re going to see on Thursday, so I don’t have to worry about how many sleeps it is till Budget day.

But I would like to disagree with the points made about leaving it totally up to the Guardians. At the moment, there are a number of existing excellent exclusions. Despite the connections with the tobacco industry, I have not seen any member of the coalition arguing that we should get rid of the exclusion that stops the New Zealand Superannuation Fund Guardians investing in the tobacco industry. I have not even seen Ministers from parties that are not particularly keen on frogs trying to get rid of the exclusion on companies processing whale meat.

Tom Rutherford: All right, come back to the bill.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: These are exclusions that exist now, and we would have liked to have added more exclusions. That is absolutely the topic of the bill, and it could have been the topic of improved amendments. I haven’t even noticed people bringing forward the idea that it’s radical that the Guardians do not invest in developing settlements in Israeli occupied territory. I just think it’s completely inconsistent to say we want them to do the total judgment, we don’t want any thought about investment in fossil fuels or more renewable energy when we’ve already got some really strong exclusions. My suggestion is that certain members on the other side of the House have not read the existing bill.

I do think it’s important that we get the best return and, like reinsurance councils, I’m sure that these long-term investment funds will not wish to invest in stranded assets and will almost certainly continue their very good returns by not investing in coal or gas or oil. We also understand that the New Zealand Super, like most benefits, although super is not being cut, superannuitants are not being asked to prove that they’re still over 65 every year, as people receiving disability benefits are. We think it is useful that increasing the effectiveness of the Super Fund may go a little way towards, in the long term, improving the options for increasing superannuation.

It is a pleasure for once to speak to a bill that is going to have unanimous agreement, if not unanimous comprehension, in this House. Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill. I’ll come back to the “controlling interests” in brackets a little later.

We have a great Super Fund. It’s actually got $60 billion to $70 billion worth of assets now—

Andy Foster: $75 billion.

STUART SMITH: $65 billion?

Andy Foster: $75 billion.

STUART SMITH: $75 billon—OK, it’s gone up. That’s inflation for you. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t think it was that bad. Crikey! Well, there you go. I just looked at my speech notes from the previous time, so clearly either that was a long time ago or inflation really is bad. The Super Fund is a huge asset for New Zealand. Regardless of whether there’s $4 billion or $5 billion in it somewhere else, it is actually a great asset for New Zealand.

What this bill seeks to do is to allow the Super Fund to be able to take a controlling interest in a company. Now, what does that mean? What is a controlling interest? Well, I went to the Companies Act 1993 to find out what that is, and “control” is defined in section 7. I won’t bother you with all of the words, but, basically, it really means that a company has the ability to make the appointments on the board of the company without anyone else’s support.

But I think it’s a little bit more complicated and nuanced than that, in that having up to 20 percent of the shares in a company may well be, in some cases, defined as a controlling interest because all of the other shareholders had very small parcels and aren’t able to conglomerate together in a unified way, whereas a large entity like the Super Fund holding 20 percent could be a controlling interest. So they never got in that situation because they never sought to do that, and that was because they were set up originally to make investments for a return on those investments and not to own companies.

While you could understand why they would be required to do that, time has moved on. Not only has time moved on for the Super Fund but in New Zealand, in our case, we actually now have very shallow equity markets and we lack capital and, actually, we have one of the poorest foreign direct investment levels in the OECD.

So what that means is that companies in New Zealand that want to grow and need capital to do so have got limited choices. Yes, they can borrow money, absolutely, but capital and taking equity stakes in companies—often what comes with the equity is the expertise and it enables those companies to grow.

As you know, I came from the wine industry, so I’m going to give you a bit of a wine industry example. The wine industry would not be what it is today if it were not for foreign direct investment. Those companies that bought investments and bought their capital and invested in New Zealand wineries also bought a route to market, a route to market that would be very difficult to build out quickly. In fact, it takes years to do that, and it particularly does if you’re going to sell at the top end of the market.

While New Zealand wines are not at the very top of the market as such, on the pyramid, they are right up near the top as relatively small volumes and at quite high values. To actually build a market in that sector—it doesn’t matter what the product is; that is a really difficult thing to do. I think that’s why foreign direct investment is really important.

But we still have this resource here in the Super Fund that has a lot of capital. I can give you an example of one of the potential capital investments that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund could invest in, which, if we hadn’t made this change, I think would be unlikely, and that is in the offshore wind project that they have been associated with, with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

So if they’re partners and they’re 50:50 partners, is that a controlling interest? I’d argue it is. Anyway, I think that’s a huge project and it would be very difficult to see how anyone else in New Zealand could grow that. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners don’t have to come to New Zealand. They have $300 billion dollars’ worth of investments and so they can invest their money anywhere; offshore wind is a big industry. But what makes it attractive for them to invest is being close to where the machinery would be built, and that’s in Europe predominantly or in the United States, and all the equipment to put these things in place. You don’t just go out there with a boat with a part of a tower and drop it over the side; it’s quite a complicated business. There’s a lot of associated machinery and skills that go with that, and having an offshore partner like that would be really helpful. But for them to come here, the hook for them was having someone like the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to be a joint partner with them and also having the ability to engage with the Government of New Zealand, because we don’t have any regulations around offshore wind, so I think all those things fit together.

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund doesn’t confine itself to—oh, by the way, I’ll give you some stats for that particular wind farm. Initially, it’s going to be 1 gigawatt—that’s what they think they would like to do. A gigawatt, for scale, is about the size of the Huntly power station. I imagine, though, that that 1 gigawatt they’re talking about is the actual installed capacity. If you have a capacity factor of something like 60 percent to 70 percent, you’re talking about 600 or 700 megawatts. So that’s quite a lot of energy, but it could potentially go to 2 gigawatts. So there’s plenty of area out there that they think suitable where they’re looking to put that in place, so that’s quite a significant investment if they come that way. Actually, I’d better correct myself. I did say $300 billion; they’ve got $25 billion, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, invested in offshore wind projects.

The Super Fund actually also invests in vineyards. They’ve bought some significant vineyard assets in Marlborough. They’re not making wine; they’re owning land and either growing the grapes themselves and managing that or getting someone to do that on contract. They’ve put some investments in that area. I’m pretty sure they’ve invested in Hawke’s Bay in apples, and I know they’ve invested in kiwifruit and I know they’re looking at investments in apples further afield.

So they are significant players in the New Zealand scene and it’s something that I think we should be very proud of, actually. We do have large companies like Cooperative, as it happens, like Fonterra and other entities like that—Air New Zealand as well—but they are busy in their own businesses, not looking to broaden out their investments into other fields and, therefore, to allow our economy to grow. Particularly now where we are, we have to move—we don’t want to do away with our agricultural roots, by any means, but we do need to take a tech focus now and build off those good agricultural-producing entities in New Zealand and industries that have really built our economy. We need to take the next step, and that next step is going to require money and lots of it and a really significant player that has the ability to attract the people with the relevant skills to manage and develop those industries that they invest into.

So I’m really very pleased to support this bill. I’d like to finish briefly—the former speaker, Celia Wade-Brown, I don’t quite agree with everything she says in terms of investments. I think investments should be made based on the return on those investments, not on what they’re doing. She made a reference to oil and gas, which I don’t agree with. It doesn’t matter whether I did agree with it or not; it should be for the investment company to decide what they want to invest in based on the fundamentals that they see in that entity. If they don’t like oil and gas, that’s fine; they don’t have to invest in it. But they shouldn’t be beholden to anyone else for their decisions as long as they’re within the law and they’re investing for the betterment of New Zealand. With that, I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): The House is in somewhat—well, not even furious, but just solid agreement on this bill, that it is a good bill and that it should be passed into law.

I do want to remind the House of just some of the features of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. I want to remind the House that for a long time it had and still continues to have a nickname. It’s known as the Cullen fund, and that is because it was set up originally by Michael Cullen, when he was the Minister of Finance, in order to ensure that we had sufficient funds, not to pay all of New Zealand’s superannuation costs in the future, but, really, to smooth out the cost of New Zealand superannuation and, in particular, to deal with what we think will be the peak years of demand on New Zealand superannuation when it has the largest impost on our Budget each year.

Now, at the moment, New Zealand superannuation costs about $19 billion a year. That amount is predicted to go up, and it will go up not just in absolute terms but as a proportion of the Budget each year. If we are to stick with universal superannuation, which has a huge number of benefits, and if we are to retain it at age 65—which is possibly not so important for people here in this House, where we do a job sitting at a desk and giving speeches and engaging in meetings, but it’s very, very important for people whose bodies are exhausted by physical labour—we need to find some way to fund superannuation out into the future, and that is what the Cullen fund helps to do. It was set up by Sir Michael Cullen and it has earned a substantial return, a return that was, alas, forgone in the years when the previous National Government decided not to keep on putting funds into the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.

However, the fund started again after the election of the Labour Government in 2017, and it now does control about $70 billion worth of assets. But the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation are looking for higher returns. They are looking for ways to ensure that we continue to earn good returns on the funds that are invested and that is why it is now appropriate to enable them to take controlling interest in some entities, and this is precisely what this bill does.

The interesting thing is that the former Minister of Finance Grant Robertson, who got this particular piece of legislation going—when he was getting it under way, he consulted Sir Michael, sometime before Sir Michael died, about whether or not this was something that Sir Michael had had in his vision for the fund. Sir Michael did say that, actually, it was probably about time that the range of investments that the Guardians could make was actually expanded, and the reason for expanding it is primarily to ensure that the Guardians can earn a better return on the fund. It’s not to make particular investments because they happen to suit someone else here in New Zealand because they might build a bit of infrastructure or they might create a route to market, or whatever. It’s to ensure that the Superannuation Fund itself earns a decent return. That’s the objective of the Superannuation Fund.

So this bill simply enables all that. It enables the Guardians to earn a greater return. It is a good bill. It was started by the Labour Government before the previous election. It has been picked up and continued by the National - ACT - New Zealand First Government. It is a bill with which we all agree, and I don’t think there’s any further need to debate it. I commend this bill to the House.

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I rise to support this New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill because it aligns with this Government’s plans to strengthen our economy and provide for our ageing population. The fund adds to Crown wealth, improves the ability of future Governments to pay for superannuation, and reduces the tax burden of the cost of superannuation on future generations of New Zealanders. Passing this bill will promote operational efficiencies. It will help ensure the New Zealand Superannuation Fund’s assets are being managed in the best way possible and provide benefit to all New Zealanders.

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund has been very successful, as we’ve already heard tonight. It’s grown and matured, and it’s at a stage where we need to take that next step to grow that fund further so we can sustain our ageing population. I was very, very impressed during the select committee annual reviews with the success of this fund and the huge potential that it has. We’ve already heard tonight that the fund sits at over $70 billion and is projected to reach $110 billion by the end of the decade. It really has a healthy return of 11.9 percent—so huge opportunity for investment. Removing the control restriction provides the Guardians with added flexibility around the implementation of the investment strategy. This approach is consistent with the Guardians’ mandate to invest the fund on a prudent commercial basis and, in doing so, managing the fund in a manner that is consistent with best-practice portfolio management.

I think there are big opportunities to invest here in New Zealand. We’ve heard many times that we’ve got a huge infrastructure deficit, so to open this fund up for more investment here will be great. It’s timely to take this opportunity to look at some of the investments we’ve already seen from the Superannuation Fund, and that’s opportunities in agriculture, where the fund has already been investing, as we’ve already heard a little bit tonight, from dairy investments to a diverse portfolio including horticulture, viticulture, and hops, with the portfolio exceeding about $1 billion—so, really positive for agriculture investments. And, of course, our primary industries have been struggling recently with a lot of red tape and regulation, so opening up more capital could be very beneficial. As we have already heard, and as my colleague here spoke about the wine industry, we actually heard from New Zealand Winegrowers just the other day. We see huge opportunity for investment in the wine industry. They see it as a $2.29 billion industry at the moment. It has grown by 13 percent, and the industry has actually grown from 35,000 hectares to 41,000 hectares. Hawke’s Bay, where I’m from, is a huge winegrowing region.

I would actually just like to commend also the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, Stuart Smith, for his cellar door tasting amendment bill, enabling cellar doors to charge for tastings. It’s this type of legislation which supports our wine industry. During these discussions with the winegrowers, we also heard how supportive they were of some of our Government’s direction, which is about reducing red tape and regulation. It’s supporting water storage and, of course, infrastructure because getting bottles of wine to the port as fast as possible and out to the markets is very, very important. Coming from Hawke’s Bay, it’s heartening to see that we’ve got this Government investing in our roads of national significance and the four-lane expressway in Hawke’s Bay, which will get that wine to port faster. This is beneficial when we are investing in our infrastructure.

They were also very happy to see us out in the world, looking at more market access and investment opportunities, because, as we’ve already heard, capital investment in New Zealand, in our agriculture sector particularly, which creates a lot of our exports and wealth in this country, is really, really important. We need to be an attractive option for investors, and that is why this bill is really important. I talk about these industries because this bill will enable the Guardians to diversify investment. That’s not just offshore but it’s focusing investment at home here. We need to get on top of our infrastructure deficit, and opening up more capital opportunities will be positive. This is why I’m very, very supportive of this bill, and I would like to commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call—Helen White

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am really pleased to take a call on this bill because I was on the Finance and Expenditure Committee as it was going through, and it was something that I learnt a lot about and I really enjoyed learning about, because it was really a story of great success and security for the country, and it started with Sir Michael Cullen setting up this fund. I want to end where my friend and colleague the Hon Deborah Russell ended, which is with the people who this will impact on, the people who work really hard and get worn out.

But I want to start at the beginning, because it is important that the fund wasn’t set up with this particular mechanism in it, because there was a cautiousness about the situation. Those Guardians have done a good job of being independent to making prudent choices, and they’ve built up a fund. They’ve, basically, frankly, run out of things to invest in, in lots of ways, without being able to move to a controlling interest. Now, there’s some really good things that happen when you have a controlling interest with regard to other investors. That’s one thing I learnt in the process of looking at this bill, was that other investors will come alongside if the Guardians throw their weight behind and invest in something. That makes sense. The Guardians do due diligence, they come in, they’re a very stable investor, and so other investors will be attracted to things that we need in this country—infrastructure, etc. So I do think there’s an element of double duty going on here, when other investors can come along and invest behind the Super Fund, investing in something, and we can have investment in our own needs in this country while growing the wealth of the country.

Now, that kind of long-term view of the Super Fund is something that I do need to set in a context, because it’s not always been like that. This particular fund has not been treated as valuable as it should have been at certain times. After the global financial crisis, there was a freezing up of investment by the Government in the Super Fund. Now, if we had kept investing, there would have been $20 billion more in this fund today. We would have been so much better off as a country as a result—$20 billion. The fund is about $70 billion now. So $20 billion is a fair whack if we had kept investing at that time. I hope that the lessons have been learnt. It’s not a case of blame, really; it’s a case of really understanding that this is a very important fund, and we need to treat it with respect. We never need to do that again, because we’ve got an ageing population and we have a fund here that is a taonga, and we need to protect it and look after it.

So I’m comfortable, having been on the committee, with the changes that are being made and the cautiousness. I take the comments that were made about how we should not be standing in this House and deciding what the fund invests in. But I’m also confident that the Guardians have taken a really long-term view of those investments, and a responsible one, and that the approach that they’ve taken—I’m heartened by the comments of Matt Whineray in 2017. I’d just like to remind the House of those. He said at that point when they were divesting out of fossil fuels, when they stopped doing that, he said we think climate change represents a material risk that is not being properly priced into the market

That means that the people and the Guardians in the fund have priced in that risk. They have thought about it, they are thinking in the future, and I wonder whether from that we could do well as a Government, as a Parliament, to learn the lesson here. These investments that we make in fossil fuels—when we restart things like oil and gas—we are taking a dreadful toll on our communities because these are risky investments. They’re not sound. I doubt very much that the independent guardians will be investing in any such investments; they will be making sound judgments. I’d love to see them do things like a dry dock, which would help the Auckland Harbour get cleaner and it would help the Whangārei community. I’d love to see them get behind. But it will be their decision, and they will make a prudent decision. I’m very happy to commend this bill to the House.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to speak on this. I’m actually really excited to speak on it tonight. I must give credit where credit is due and also acknowledge Sir Michael Cullen on his work on this and also, of course, KiwiSaver, which is truly a blessing to the future of this country. So I do acknowledge that, and some of the kōrero of the previous speakers.

One thing that I’m really excited about with this bill is the fact that it removes existing control restrictions and—the keyword here—opens the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to a broader array of investment partners and opportunities, particularly in strategic infrastructure, deepening the capital markets for local transactions. I’m very keen on infrastructure, as is this party, and anything that we can do to promote better infrastructure investment. We know we’ve campaigned on infrastructure funding and financing, special purpose vehicles, tolling, foreign investment, value capture—all that stuff—but if we can get it right within our own country, with our own investment portfolio, I think that’s really exciting. And, of course, as we know, the fund is increasing and so is the life expectancy of New Zealanders. So it’s important that we have a commensurate investment strategy and regime that meets that.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC), which I’m now pleased to be a part of, has recommended that we pass this bill without amendment—and, obviously, this has clear cross-party support. It’s a pragmatic solution and something which I’m really keen to support also. I also just note that the FEC report said that this draft legislation goes a step further in freeing up the fund to exert control over active operating companies, and would therefore “represent a meaningful change to what the Guardians could do.” I’m all about meaningful change, as is this party.

But what I really want to speak on tonight is, I guess, an analogous correlation to what this bill represents. I can’t help but think of it compared to a hot bubble bath. Bear with me, Mr Speaker, while I give you an example. You can imagine on a cold night, you’ve got a bit of a chill, and you come home and you think, “Gosh, I’d love to hop in a big, deep bubble bath.” There’s a few things that make a bubble bath quite good, and I’ll just share a few of them. One is the temperature of the water. The temperature of the water, it’s very important—and the depth of the water too, because if you want a bath, you can imagine, you don’t want a shallow, stink bath; you want a deep bath with good hot water.

The other things which make a bath good [Interruption]—if I could; there’s a bit of noise on this side of the House—is a good bubble mixture, Mr Speaker, because you’ve got hot water, deep temperature. Bubbles, you know, contribute to it, and, ideally, if they’re perfumed—that helps too, the aroma of the bath. And also the lighting: if the lighting is dimmed a little bit, or even no light, or candlelight is actually quite good too. Also, perhaps, a little bit of music, Mr Speaker. So you’ve got a deep bubble bath, the right temperature, good perfumed bubbles—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Is there any of that wine investment along there, as well?

RYAN HAMILTON: —no light or low light with the candles. Yeah, no, this is coming to a real good comparison, Mr Speaker. And so—

Scott Willis: Glass of wine.

RYAN HAMILTON: Yeah, so a glass of wine, or potentially—

Hon Member: Yeah, 35 millilitres from the cellar door!

RYAN HAMILTON: Yeah, 35 millilitres, or a green mojito, or something like that, that you just top it off.

Now, that’s what this bill will do: it’s like the “Hot Bath Bill”. And if you think: not having a controlling interest is like having that expectation to hop into that bath, and then getting into a bath when it’s like—you were excited to hop in the bath, and the plug’s been leaking. You hop in and the water doesn’t even cover your thighs, and the temperature is, like, tepid. The light’s bright, like sterile, and it doesn’t provide that atmosphere. The bubble bath is non-existent because there’s no bubbles, and that would be a terrible thing, to hop into a bath.

So, I guess, just to recap, you’ve got a deep bath, hot temperature—I’m thinking 45-50 degrees—

Hon Member: You call that a hot bath?

RYAN HAMILTON: Well, it could be hotter, but, you know, each to their own—we’re a party of free choice. Good bubbles, a good thick density of bubbles, good background music, the lighting dim, potentially flickering candlelight, soft background music, and then, possibly, a drink as well. This is as compared to a shallow, stink bath that’s got leaking water. It’s quite shallow. It’s lukewarm, it’s a bit chilly. And you’re really looking forward to the bath, and it’s a bit chilly. The water’s leaking. The light’s bright. There’s no music. There’s no bubble bath. Your spouse is yelling at you, potentially, and the kids are fighting in the background. But, Mr Speaker, this bath—the controlling interest is like hopping into a bath that you have control of. It’s like hot water. The bubbles—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The member’s time has expired. I don’t know if that was in the bill, but maybe it should be. Thank you.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Meitaki maata, Mr Speaker. Look, I thank the member for putting the House into a state of relaxation at this point in the evening. But, for the benefit of those who may be watching, we are now debating the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this bill, a bill that enjoys cross-party support in Parliament, because this is a bill that will change the law and that will allow the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, colloquially known as the Cullen fund, to take an interest in an entity—but not just any old interest, a controlling interest at that. That’s because the time has come—it marks the next step in the growth and development of the Cullen fund. But it also allows for the fund to play its part in doing its bit towards the future in terms of preparing the country in meeting the costs of superannuation.

I note that we on this side of the House want to always give Kiwis certainty around their retirement, and so that’s why we have, in terms of addressing this legislation, maintained the super age at 65. It is unfortunate that some members of parties in this House have not, perhaps, done the same, because it does assist in the sustainability of the fund and in the many years ahead.

The Act as it currently stands does direct the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation to do what they can to actually avoid funding—in the sense of a controlling stake in an entity. The reason as to why that is in place is because the original purpose of the fund was to get exposure at the time, rather than to own businesses or have a controlling aspect in businesses or entities. So removing this limitation, which is exactly what this bill does this evening, will allow the Cullen fund to access a broader group of investment opportunities, including here in New Zealand.

Earlier, Mr Foster talked about the independence from political influence. The good thing about this bill is it doesn’t make any changes in that regard, so Mr Foster is quite right.

But this is a bill that will provide flexibility moving forward, and it will allow investment decisions taken by the Guardians to be a little bit more flexible, which is what we are wanting to achieve. It’s wonderful that this does enjoy cross-party support. It is a bill that was introduced by the Labour Government. It’s wonderful to see it through third reading. I commend this bill to the House.

NANCY LU (National): Mr Speaker, I stand before you to support the third reading of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Controlling Interests) Amendment Bill. At its core, the amendment seeks to empower the New Zealand Superannuation Fund by removing the limitations, thereby granting the Guardian’s ability to take controlling stakes in the variety of entities.

Now, the changes proposed to this bill are not merely admin, as it sounds, but are actually quite transformative. That aligns our Superannuation Fund in New Zealand with the global best practices, and positions our fund to capitalise on significant investment opportunities right here in New Zealand. In the modern investment environment, flexibility and strategic foresight are paramount. The current limitations for our fund in New Zealand have actually hindered the ability for the fund to fully capitalise on the dynamic and adaptable and flexible investment opportunities both domestically in New Zealand but also globally over the shore.

Now, the world of investment has evolved drastically over the last 10 and 20 years, and as a mature investment fund, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund must also evolve and catch up. It needs to be equipped with the ability to adapt to a modern economy and also to explore a wider range of investment opportunities, especially with those available in New Zealand. So by allowing the Guardians to take a controlling interest, we are actually allowing ourselves to align with the progressive trend, ensuring that our fund is not a passive speculator, but, actually, a very proactive participant in shaping the future and shaping the investments that it invests into.

Now, part of the bill actually talked about the champions of integrating ESG—which is environmental, social, and governance—criteria in the fund’s investment decisions. So by enabling the Guardians to have that controlling interest, we are actually allowing the fund to have the ability to influence and shift investment decisions. Now, this approach aligns with global standards, but it also resonates with values of Kiwis in our country, in our community, by ensuring that our investment reflects our commitment to the environment, to social responsibility, and to ethical governance.

Now, during the select committee stages, we deliberated on the potential impacts of this bill and this is how I feel after we finished the select committee stage: which is the amendments that we are doing are enhancing the economic sovereignty of New Zealand. The Guardians will now, after passing this bill tonight, have access to a broader array of partnership opportunities that promises not only financial returns with but also a strategic benefit to our economy.

During the submission stage, we’ve also considered, heard, and debated the merit, and also arrived at a consensus across the House that respects the need to both grow our own investment and grow with safety and insurance. So I do want to take the opportunity to thank all the members on the Finance and Expenditure Committee who share similar thoughts and insights looking into the future.

Now, as I debated and researched about the fund and I looked into the fund’s performance—if I can quickly allude to, at the end of the 2023 financial year, the fund had returned 11.87 percent for the preceding 12 months, almost 8 percent for the previous five years, almost 11 percent per annum over the previous 10 years, and about 10 percent per annum since inception. These returns are actually in excess of the return of New Zealand Treasury bills. And guess what! The New Zealand Superannuation Fund is one of the few sovereign wealth funds in the world that actually pay taxes in their home country. So imagine this: by allowing the fund to do better, by allowing them to have more opportunity to invest, they bring more return for New Zealanders and they also pay more taxes in New Zealand.

So, with all of the above, I’m actually very proud that I’m part of the team and part of the committee to be seeing and supporting this bill through. So, in conclusion, this bill reflects that we now have a forward-thinking approach to our national investment. It also recognises the role that the fund has in providing long-term security to our superannuitants and improving the opportunities to enhance returns for all of New Zealand. So, in the step of developments to similar funds to the other parts of the world, I join all members across the House tonight and commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Ngāti Tara Tokanui Claims Settlement Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 7 May.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare; thank you for this opportunity. When we discuss the Treaty bills, we always look towards the second reading, which is always considered after the considerations of the committee; the good work that’s done by the committee to make sure that members across the tribe and those impacted by the settlement—and in this case, the settlement for te Pire Whakataunga Kerēme a Ngāti Tara Tokanui—it’s a good opportunity to cover some of the issues, to discuss some of the matters in the bill, but more importantly how they relate to those that it affects the most.

We saw most recently, of course, in the Whakatōhea settlement bill, which passed through its third reading this afternoon, expressions from hapū about some of the dissatisfaction with their particular claims with respect to the bill. But there was a guarantee in there that the Waitangi Tribunal will continue the work it’s doing.

In the case of Ngāti Tara Tokanui, there’s an opportunity here to support the claimants and those who are looking towards addressing the past, but also making sure that Ngāti Tara Tokanui puts itself in a good position into the future through settlements. It speaks of a number of protocols in the bill that will allow Ngāti Tara Tokanui to be able to progress their interests into the future. It was made clear through the submissions, and of course in the bill here this evening, that the hard work has been done. The negotiations have all but been completed. Of course, it’s now up to this House to make sure that it progresses in a timely manner to allow Ngāti Tara Tokanui to get on with what they need to get on with. So it’s my honour to have a short second reading call on this bill here this evening and commend it to the House.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): I rise to give a kōrero in support of this bill before the House right now, the Ngāti Tara Tokanui Claims Settlement Bill. We’re in the second reading, as the speaker before me, Peeni Henare, just mentioned, and for the benefit of people watching from home, including my brother, whose birthday it is today—happy birthday, Tony; I love you so much, but not taking away from the magnitude of this bill—this bill will give legislative effect to the provisions requiring so in the deed of settlement signed between the Crown and Ngāti Tara Tokanui in June 2022.

Now, if I may, just a brief background on a couple of areas—first, a brief background on Ngāti Tara Tokanui, the iwi. Now, it’s an interesting story. It’s composed of Ngāti Tara and Ngāti Tokanui. They had distinct whakapapa back in the day, but they were joined over many generations through intermarriage—[Receives water from member] thank you, my friend Tom Rutherford, great local MP—and together created the iwi known today as Ngāti Tara Tokanui. Now, worth putting on record, I believe, also is that during the 19th century, Ngāti Tara rangatira described themselves primarily as Ngāti Koi, so if we ever see this reference with respect to speaking about this bill, just for the benefit of members and others listening, that also can refer to Ngāti Tara Tokanui. They’re an iwi based around Paeroa in the Hauraki region, and they’re one of 12 iwi and hapū that have interests in the Hauraki region. The area of interest is centred around Paeroa and extends west into the Hauraki Plains and north to the base of the beautiful, breathtaking Coromandel Peninsula at Wharekawa.

Now, just a little bit about the historical account which underpins this Treaty settlement. In essence, the history between the Crown and Ngāti Tara Tokanui is one of land confiscation, land acquirement through misgivings, and gross disrespect and disregard for tangata whenua. It’s agreed that this kind of began around 1865, when the Crown confiscated almost 300,000 acres of land around the Tauranga area, thereby extinguishing all customary interests in the land. Some land was returned to other iwi by the Crown, but Ngāti Tara Tokanui had no land returned to them and did not appear to have signed the sale deeds or to have been paid by the Crown despite the fact that they had interests in the land that was included in the confiscation.

There’s so much—there’s so much history, and there’s so much that took place—but if I can come to a kind of summary, today just two acres, two out of all of Ngāti Tara Tokanui’s original holdings agreement with respect to creating a gold mine, remain in Māori ownership. The reason why I share these historical backdrops is because it’s important that they’re put on record and that members of the House and listeners at home, including my brother, receive a clear picture as to the extent of the damage and the ripple effect that land confiscation has on iwi for generations.

Coming back to our recent history and perhaps the impetus for this Treaty settlement, Ngāti Tara Tokanui formed the Pare Hauraki Collective in 2009, specifically for the purpose of negotiating a Treaty settlement. In 2011, a deed of settlement was initialled, but it wasn’t until June 2022 that a deed of settlement was signed, and this portrays once again, as we reflected on today when we were talking about Whakatōhea and other Treaty settlements, how Treaty settlements span not only years but decades and, indeed, generations. The genesis of the negotiations for this Treaty settlement occurred under the stewardship of the Hon Christopher Finlayson, then the Hon Andrew Little, and now under the care of the Hon Paul Goldsmith.

I look forward to the third reading when I would like to go into a little bit more detail about the past but also going into the future. We commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Immigration): I present to the House a legislative statement to support the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) 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 ERICA STANFORD: I move, That the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

As has been canvassed in previous debates, this bill has been introduced to the House to address potential legal risks to a mass arrival coming to New Zealand. In 2019, a review of the Immigration Act identified shortcomings in the existing mass arrivals provisions that presented some legal risk to the safe and effective management of a mass arrival, if one were to occur—namely, the risk that the current deadline of just 96 hours is simply not enough time for an immigration officer to initially process a group, do security and identity checks, determine whether detention of a mass arrival group is necessary, and apply for a group warrant of commitment and have it heard and decided by a judge.

That means that if a mass arrival group were to come to New Zealand and if there were a need to detain them, a hearing on a warrant of commitment might need to be held without legal representation for members of that group. This is a breach of their fundamental human right to natural justice, and I do not consider that to be an acceptable scenario. So, as a responsible thing to do, I have progressed this legislation through the House to address this legal risk.

The bill and its subsequent amendments in the committee of the whole House will strengthen our immigration and court system and enable New Zealand to safely and securely manage a mass arrival, should one ever occur. Though I’ve only been the Minister of Immigration since November last year, I have followed the debate and engaged with this issue of mass arrivals and I remain convinced that this is a responsible thing to do. The debate on this topic, both in Parliament and in the public sphere through the select committee process, has highlighted strong feelings that Kiwis have towards upholding human rights and natural justice. The debate so far has demonstrated the difficulty that many had in engaging with this complex issue right from the start, highlighting the need for clear and accurate information. I’ll endeavour in my speech today to provide my parliamentary colleagues and the public with that information as clearly as possible to eliminate any confusion.

To those who remain concerned, let me assure you that our enduring commitment to upholding the fundamental human rights of all people remains intact. In that light, I’d like to thank all of those who voted for the changes to the bill at the committee of the whole House stage. There were four changes that I proposed. The first change was to establish that a mass arrival group cannot be detained in prison or at a police station. The second change is to require an immigration officer to establish why any proposed detention is necessary; that any detention sought is for the least amount of time and is the least restrictive necessary; and how a proposed detention meets our obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the 1951 Refugee Convention, and our other international obligations. The third change requires an immigration officer to report to the court weekly on a mass arrival group. The final change enables a judge to order that the location of proposed detention be changed.

These amendments will guide how Immigration New Zealand and the courts will operate in the event of a mass arrival and ensure that the right to natural justice and the right to not be arbitrarily detained are upheld. They were developed to allay the concerns of those who had submitted on the bill during select committee process and strengthen the human rights protections in the bill and reflect our longstanding reputation of upholding human rights.

I also want to touch briefly on the amendments put forward by my colleague the Hon Phil Twyford. I thank Mr Twyford for engaging with Minister Penk during the committee of the whole House. Mr Twyford’s tabled amendment covered three things: that families could not be separated during detention, that a third-party organisation be engaged to monitor treatment and conditions of detention, and that time limits on detention be scaled according to the size of the group. I’d like to reiterate what my colleague Mr Penk has expressed: that we wholeheartedly agree with the principles of those amendments—namely that the detention should be for the shortest amount of time and the least restrictive necessary, and that they are safeguarded against bad treatment stemming from their detention. Unfortunately, we did not agree with the text of the amendment itself, and I’d just like to touch briefly on why.

Regarding family separation: in no way do we want to separate families unless absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, there are some circumstances where it may be absolutely necessary, such as in instances of family and intimate partner violence, child trafficking, or where a real threat to security or the public has been identified.

Regarding independent monitoring. As outlined in committee, New Zealand already has a number of independent monitoring arrangements of immigration—notably the Ombudsman and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner as national preventative mechanisms under our obligations to the UN conventions against torture. These are trusted, independent Crown entities that are governed by legislation. I would implore members of the House to trust that they will execute their statutory functions appropriately.

And, finally, a scaled time limit system of detention wouldn’t be appropriate for this legislation as there are many reasons, beyond just the fact of the size of the group that factor into why a group may need to be detained, including if members of a group have health issues or distrust of Government officials due to circumstances from their home countries, or if a mass arrival were to occur during the Christmas period, where many on the refugee bar may be on holiday or otherwise unavailable. A scaled system based on size doesn’t always account for all of these factors.

I want to briefly touch on the security environment in which New Zealand operates, and, in particular, how this relates to the bill. We live in an increasingly disrupted and contested world. As was highlighted recently in the recently released national security strategy, New Zealand’s geographic isolation is becoming less of a factor for bad actors. Critically, this includes people smugglers and transnational organised criminal elements—groups that would be involved in organising ventures to New Zealand. These transnational criminal elements attempt to subvert the international rules-based system in which New Zealand operates and which we’ve always supported. These are not ghosts or phantoms; these are real threats that we know for a fact have attempted to reach New Zealand and we need to be prepared.

We also know that if a mass arrival were to occur, the stress it would place on our immigration and court systems and the challenges that it would bring would be immediate and severe. It is the responsible thing to do to ensure that we have a plan in place, that where there are deficiencies in that plan they are identified, and that those deficiencies be rectified. This piece of legislation is important to protect the human rights of vulnerable people who may arrive in New Zealand as part of a mass arrival and to uphold the integrity of our immigration and court system under what might be an unprecedented strain. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s good to be back here in the Chamber debating this bit of legislation. I want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Erica Stanford, for her contribution and make a few final comments as the bill makes its way through to the conclusion of the third reading.

The Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill makes a few tweaks to a system that was put in place, I think, back in 2013, if I remember correctly—legislation that provides arrangements for the kind of processing of members of a mass arrival who might arrive in this country, presumably making it to these shores in a steel-hulled vessel. This bill excited vigorous debate, both at select committee and in the House here, and in the community of asylum seekers, refugees, and human rights advocates, who pay close attention to these issues. Why did it do that? Because locking up asylum seekers is not a good thing. Arbitrary detention of asylum seekers is not consistent with New Zealand’s obligations under international law, and it is right that we should take this very seriously.

I note that, when this bill was before the select committee, the National Party opposed it—publicly at select committee and in the House—and I note that the National Party in Government has changed its mind, presumably because it read the security briefings that indicate that, actually, a mass arrival, while a very low-probability event, is not a no-probability event. And it is something that we must as a country take seriously and prepare for.

There were four safeguards that we discussed in some detail in the earlier stages of the bill’s progression through the House, and those safeguards emerged out of the select committee hearings. They were developed by officials and taken to Cabinet, under the former Labour Government, and agreed in principle. Now they are in the bill, and it was Labour’s position at the second reading and at the committee stage, and now at the conclusion of this process, that we would only support the bill and vote for it if four of those additional safeguards were included in the bill. In our view they are substantive. They make a significant difference. They will have the effect of minimising and limiting the degree to which members of a mass arrival are deprived of their liberty, freedom of movement, and they bring judicial oversight to the whole process. And that is a good thing.

I want also to comment briefly on the three extra amendments that I tabled in the committee stage, on behalf of the Labour Party, that the Minister referred to, and I regret, actually, that the Government has chosen not to support these amendments. The first one would have been a commitment in the legislation not to separate families. I take the Minister’s point that there may be some particular circumstances where it would be very difficult not to, but I believe, actually, it would have been a pretty easy drafting fix to provide some space for those kinds of exceptional scenarios.

I feel worse, actually, about the question of the independent monitor. It is true that, for example, the legislative mandate of the Ombudsman gives that office the job of monitoring the treatment conditions of people in prison, and so on. But the fact that the Ombudsman does do that work and could do it in this scenario doesn’t mean it will. The Ombudsman is a completely independent Officer of Parliament and cannot be told what to do by the Government of the day. The fact that the International Committee of the Red Cross, and their New Zealand representative, the New Zealand Red Cross, routinely do this work of monitoring treatment conditions and conditions of detention internationally, including within immigration systems—the fact that they do that and are international experts at it and could do it—doesn’t mean they will. There’s no obligation to do it. Previous Governments did not have independent monitors of asylum seekers who were imprisoned while they were waiting for their cases to be heard. I’m not aware that any independent organisations monitored their treatment of conditions. So I regret, Minister, that that second amendment wasn’t taken up, and I honestly think it’s a lost opportunity.

In terms of the amendment around the scaling of the amount of time allowed while a warrant of commitment is being sought, linking the number of persons in a mass arrival to the number of days allowed for that warrant of commitment application to be processed, the Minister’s argument against that was that there may be other factors, like the health of the mass arrivals group, or if it took place at Christmas and therefore members of the refugee bar weren’t available to help. I honestly don’t think those are substantive objections. The calibration of the time allowed per number of people in the mass arrival, I think, could easily have been tweaked to allow sufficient flexibility. So I regret that.

I want to finish with a point that I actually did make at the committee stage, and that is that the reason why we should be going the extra mile to put safeguards and judicial oversight and checks and guard rails in this process is that, left to its own devices, the bureaucracy won’t always pay attention to those things. I remind the House again that for many, many years Immigration New Zealand was jailing asylum seekers—not big numbers of them but nevertheless jailing asylum seekers—while their claims were being assessed. There are documented cases of those asylum seekers suffering terrible trauma and abuse in our prison system. That was an egregious breach of New Zealand’s obligations under international law, and Victoria Casey KC said as much in her report that our Government commissioned that led to a change in the policy—that asylum seekers will not be held in Corrections facilities or Police facilities and there are extra safeguards in place to make sure that doesn’t happen again unless there are particular security or risk-to-the-public issues.

So that should be a cautionary tale for our system, and when we are creating a situation where asylum seekers who are convention refugees entitled to exactly the same protections and treatment as quota refugees—when we are putting in place arrangements for them to be detained for periods of time, we should be going the extra mile in terms of putting in extra safeguards. We are willing to support this bill and vote for it now at the third reading on the basis of those four safeguards going in. But I do regret that the three amendments that we put up at the committee stage weren’t supported. Thank you.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Of course it would be Labour and National politicians joining forces to create greater powers to detain asylum seekers arriving by boat. Let’s make it clear: for all the talk and pandering about how this is human rights - enhancing, no credible human rights organisation has actually told politicians that they want this bill to go through. This includes the Asylum Seekers Support Trust, Amnesty International, Community Law, the NZ Council for Civil Liberties, the Red Cross, World Vision, Refugee Family Reunification Trust, the Refugee Council of New Zealand, and the Office of Human Rights Proceedings, as well as the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Look, there is a small risk that there may be a mass arrival incident—which in and of itself is political language. We’ve chosen to call people escaping some of the most harrowing experiences that one can ever imagine, such as genocide and war and arriving by sea, “mass arrivals”. But none of these organisations woke up and said, “Oh, look, there’s some security briefings that, perhaps, talk about the real risk of this happening. Let’s not resource a judiciary. Let’s not adequately resource the groups that work at the front lines with refugees and asylum seekers. Let’s instead create detention regimes that, as those organisations have said and many experts have spoken about, will create a rights-diminishing regime that will also create a two-tiered treatment for asylum seekers.”

So it’s really important that we make it clear that creating these detention provisions in the bill is a political choice; it does not need to happen. It does not need to happen to guarantee that asylum seekers and refugees are treated with dignity. It does not need to happen to ensure that everyone in our communities remain safe. This is a political choice that was brought about by the legacy parties. Many of those politicians who’ve spoken throughout the debate have made a career, past and present, by scapegoating migrant and refugee communities in subtle or more overt ways.

The organisations who work at the front lines were constructive. They tried to take a harm minimisation approach by working constructively with members of the Opposition and the Minister of Immigration to plead for amendments and greater safeguards, but none of the organisations actually said the safeguards would create a decent enough regime. They realised that—because the two legacy parties have teamed up to diminish the rights of asylum seekers—they have to galvanise to increase those protections. The Green Party worked alongside some of these members of the community—who intimately know the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers—to better protect the rights of children, to ensure that disabled people would be treated with respect and dignity and that they would not be detained, particularly when detention would exacerbate their health conditions. We’ve all supported amendments around greater supporting, and we would limit the reasons for detention to only managing security risks.

The reality is that the Government members are not interested in actually upholding the rights of asylum seekers or refugees. They want to pander to imported ideas from countries like the UK and other parts of the world that treat asylum seekers as a risk, as opposed to recognising the right to seek asylum and treating people with the respect and dignity that they deserve.

Throughout the debate, we’ve heard these soft reassurances around the rights of children, and we’ve been told to just trust that because something is in the immigration operational manual, it’s good enough. But the reality is that all these protections that exist in the immigration manual are easily subject to change. All it would take is a Minister like Shane Jones having the reins of the immigration powers. If we were to take anything from his contributions and interjections in the debate—calling it continuously “boring” and making fun of the debate rather than taking it seriously—what’s to say that he would not simply change the operational manual. If the Minister and the Government were serious about protecting the rights of children, they would have put it in the legislation, not left it in pieces of paper that are subject to change. If the pandemic showed us anything, it’s how quickly the operational manual can change. So if the Government was serious about better protecting the rights of children—in the bill that is already undermining the rights of asylum seekers—these could have been put in legislation.

But all that this showed was a Government that does not take the rights of asylum seekers seriously and is more concerned around jumping in with the Labour Party—who introduced this bill and who now are claiming that they have all these concerns despite having introduced the bill with little to no consultation with the refugee and asylum seeker sector. I think this speaks more to what was a political tool to scapegoat our communities and not actually take into account the very serious concerns that human rights organisations have.

The answer to the issue of arrivals coming in, as I said before, would have been to resource our community centres. I particularly want to shout out to the workers in the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre, because that has been spoken to as a centre that is expected to take up the burden of looking after people who would be arriving in the provisions that we’re seeing in this legislation. The workers that I know who work with people in the Māngere resettlement centre are overworked, they’re often tired, and they’re caught trying to deal with people who’ve undergone massive trauma and stresses. So to assume that, without additional resources, they’ll be ready to deal with a large group of people arriving by sea—who will have complex needs, who will have faced trauma, and who may have health conditions—is, frankly, absurd. Without Budget commitments to adequately resource resettlement centres, all that we will be doing is putting those organisations at risk of being overwhelmed, rather than being supportive.

The Minister talked about managed isolation and quarantine staff facilities and hotels as areas that could be used, but, again, there’s been very little to no consideration to the wellbeing of children and disabled people within those facilities. In fact, the Minister basically told us that we should just accept that any detention facility is better than being in the sea. I think people deserve far better than being told that they’re lucky to not be stranded at sea and that instead they’re going to be detained. Because, actually, what we are saying to people is that we don’t care if you’ve been escaping a genocide or a war, that, actually, the answer to those experiences is detention while we process your asylum seeker application. The truth is that that detention could worsen people’s trauma, it could worsen people’s health. We’ve seen no commitments from the Minister around that additional resourcing that will be needed.

It’s really important that parties from both sides—National and Labour—actually don’t just pay lip service to the reports that we have had, including the Casey report. I think the Government could have—and this report was spoken about by a Labour MP—taken all of the recommendations, taken them in full, before even exploring this bill. Actually, a lot of what is in the Casey report would also create a fit for purpose system to deal with arrivals by sea of people who are often escaping some of the most unimaginable things that one could ever, ever, ever imagine.

So the Green Party is proud to have been the only party to consistently speak against this bill, to consistently be on the side of human rights organisations and advocates. Despite what New Zealand First MPs may call “boring”, we simply call it taking the lead from the experts. I would say most politicians here are not experts on issues affecting our refugee communities—I would say most of us are not; very few MPs themselves come from those backgrounds. And therefore we have to lean on those experts, who are aware that there may be a risk of people arriving by sea escaping war and genocide—because, surprise, greater conflicts around the world and climate change are exacerbating those same things. But the answer, which those human rights organisations have, is to resource the judiciary, resource the resettlement centres, not create a rights diminishing bill, and certainly not disguise the detaining of asylum seekers as caring for human rights. This is not what this bill is about. This is not a bill about caring about asylum seekers; this is taking the easy, politically expedient route, which is to create new detention mechanisms to diminish the rights of asylum seekers. The Green Party won’t be supporting this bill.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT in support of the third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge all the changes that have been made to this bill in the committee of the whole House, and I want to thank all the members who contributed, and as this is the final reading, I, again, want to acknowledge the work that was done by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and everybody who contributed to make this bill, or bring this bill, in the form that it is now.

As we know, this bill is to change the Immigration Act 2009. It is to extend that time period that is there to process the applications for warrant of commitment from four days to seven days and then giving the authority to judges to extend that to 28 days if really needed.

Now, it was very clear in the committee of the whole House that members wanted to see that the time line is as minimal as possible. So that change, I want to acknowledge that. If this kind of incident happens in New Zealand, mass arrival happens, the maximum numbers of days will be utilised, but this is to make sure that there is enough time for processing of those applications for the warrant of commitment. And this is to include the natural justice component for people who arrive, if it happens here in New Zealand. So I think allowing this extra time actually is a really good thing, because it will help us ensure that these people will have fair representation and we uphold our international obligations as well.

Now, in this regard, we also want to take into consideration the capacity that we have at the moment. And we know that the capacity that we have at the moment is not going to be sufficient if we had any incident of mass arrival, especially if hundreds of people arrive here in New Zealand. We have limited numbers of lawyers who specialise in this field, and we want to see that enough time is given to these people, because the current legislation says it’s four days, and four days may not be enough time for hundreds of people to be represented in a fair manner. And also when we talk about the capacity, it’s important to note that—in terms of the resources that the Green MP talked about just now—this is also part of making sure that the resources are available so that these people can be fairly dealt with. “Resources” doesn’t mean only buildings but “resources” also means that those who are doing other things, important things, to keep our borders secure are not diverted to this job because all of a sudden we have this mass arrival.

And this will have impact at multiple levels. If I want to just highlight two, one is, of course, how these mass arrivals are dealt with if we don’t have enough capacity and enough resources to give them a fair representation. The second level is about New Zealanders, because if something of this sort happens, it can make New Zealanders quite anxious if they see that the New Zealand Government, the Government of the day, is not prepared to handle that mass arrival. So this is also to give that signal that if anything of this sort happens, then, yes, we can handle it, because there will be enough time allowed for the resources to be made available to these people and be handled, and also our court systems can be managed. So it’s not just immigration; it’s also our court systems. And we have to also keep in mind our border security, and we don’t want to divert all the staff to just deal with this if something of this sort happens.

Now, we know that our geographic location, of course, we always say, is good in some circumstances and not good in some circumstances. And, in this case, so far, our geographic location has been beneficial to us. But we cannot take it for granted. Things can happen. As we know, in the last few years, we have seen the numbers of those seeking asylum, around the world, increasing. So anything can happen. And these kind of things, when they happen, don’t happen with much warning. So this bill is about ensuring that we are prepared for anything if something of this sort happens.

Now, I also want to, in this third reading speech, give the message that this bill is not about saying that New Zealanders are ready to welcome mass arrivals with open arms. That is not the message we want to give, but I want to acknowledge that people flee their country for many, many reasons. It could be political unrest, it could be a prosecution or other reasons, but sometimes people leave their home country because of economic reasons. And to those people, I would say don’t fall in the traps of human traffickers, because human traffickers usually exploit vulnerable people. They will charge big sums of money and put people on these boats without caring about their wellbeing or even survival on that boat. And they are made big promises that they will arrive at the port and, then, all they have to do is seek asylum and they will be totally fine. So, to those people, I would like to give this message: do not fall in the traps of human traffickers, because New Zealand takes human trafficking very, very seriously. It is a crime, and there are good provisions in our immigration system, if you are looking for economic opportunities, to come to New Zealand through various visas that we have.

Now, for any mass arrival, of course they need to be processed individually, individual by individual, to see what their circumstances are. And talking about improving or increasing the capacity that we have at the moment—the Green MP talked about the Māngere refugee centre—it has been clarified in this bill that when we talk about “detention” in this bill, it doesn’t mean a prison. So detention is basically going to be a place where they will be kept. It will be not as restrictive as one would imagine because of the term that has been used, and this was one of the concerns that came up during the select committee process as well.

So this has been already addressed. Time line has already been addressed, and making sure that we uphold our international obligations in regards to human rights has been also clarified in the committee of the whole House. So the form of the bill that we have in front of us, actually, is quite a balanced way of going forward. Of course, we have to identify that there is a risk. This can happen, and as I said before, it can happen without any warning. We need to be prepared, and this bill is to make sure that New Zealand is prepared to handle these arrivals and also to give assurance to New Zealanders that if something of this sort happens, then we can handle it. But, on the other hand, I want to again emphasise on this that this is not to send any signal that New Zealand is, basically, willing to welcome mass arrivals with open arms if they are just being exploited by some human traffickers. So we need to be really careful here. So the ACT Party supports this bill, and we look forward to seeing it going through. Thank you.

TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. Irregular maritime arrivals present a complex challenge to New Zealand’s immigration system, demanding a delicate balance between humanitarian obligations and national security imperatives. As a nation, we must ensure that our borders remain secure whilst upholding our commitment to treating migrants with dignity and respect.

This bill aims to amend the Immigration Act 2009 to enable New Zealand to manage irregular maritime arrivals in an orderly and safe manner while protecting the rights of all who are involved. It has been noted by many that the risk of a mass arrival reaching New Zealand is actually low. However, while the risk is low, it is not zero. It is possible, hence the need to be prepared, and in the introduction of this bill we are showing that New Zealand is now taking the necessary steps to be prepared.

The sad reality is that there are victims of exploitation. The sad reality is that there are people out there who are willing to manipulate, and this is something that they choose to do to people who are so vulnerable in our community. This bill is necessary to ensure that there are sufficient protections in place for those who are vulnerable. Now, this bill is a practical and logical step in the right direction, and it is preparing us and it’s also sending a message to the world that we are prepared and would be prepared. And we are demonstrating that we are taking action.

Now, I won’t go through all of the amendments. There are a number of amendments, but I will mention a few. One is to extend the time for the District Court to consider a mass arrival—the warrants. And this will ensure a fair legal process and it will respect the natural justice principle. Now, this bill also clarifies entry requirements for members of mass arrival groups, and it also ensures the detention of such individuals is limited and consistent with refugee rights.

At the heart of New Zealand First’s approach lies a steadfast commitment to protecting New Zealand’s sovereignty and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of its citizens. We believe in a robust immigration system that not only safeguards our borders but also reflects our values of fairness and compassion. By supporting this bill, New Zealand First recognises the importance of striking a balance between our humanitarian obligations and the need to safeguard our nation’s security. By working collaboratively to enact this meaningful immigration reform, we can ensure that New Zealand not only remains safe but also a welcoming and a prosperous nation for all of our residents.

As already mentioned in previous readings by various members, detention in the bill does not equate to imprisonment but refers to safe accommodation options like the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre that has already been mentioned this evening. Now, it was emphasised that the bill aims to protect both national security and the human rights of migrants, ensuring that they receive the necessary support and care upon their arrival, which in many cases was very stressful.

New Zealand First has a commitment to uphold the principles of fairness and due process. Hence, on behalf of New Zealand First, I commend this bill to the House.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Let’s be clear: this bill is a technical solution on a hypothetical scenario while masking a much larger issue—an underlying issue—of chronic court underfunding.

As we have heard before, we could mask things by saying that we are here to uphold the refugees’ human rights; we are here to reaffirm our commitment under the convention relating to the status of refugees and under the relevant international obligations. However, as we have heard before from my colleague, no refugee organisations who actively work with refugees on a daily basis have asked for this and have wanted this.

So what does it mean for this particular bill? When we were at the committee of the whole House stage, we explored various options around this bill. For us, as the Greens, we put up four Amendment Papers—none of which were accepted but they were done in a way to address some of the issues that we see with this particular bill as it stands today in the third reading.

Some of them we have already talked about around the commitments that the Government have, or the commitment in the event that something does happen, and I think it has been mentioned multiple times that this is a hypothetical situation with a very low chance of actually occurring, in which case, at the committee stage, when we asked about additional and alternative hypothetical situations where our facilities—the facilities that people have talked about that uphold the rights of these refugees—are full due to other events such as another pandemic or other major events happening in the city at the time, no other commitments were able to be made that these facilities are appropriate for, to name a few, children and also disabled whānau. This is something that they were not able to make a commitment on.

In terms of the bill, there are additional specificities that I would like to bring up because you will hear people talking about 28 days—that’s the maximum amount of time that the people coming here will be held in detention centres. But that is on the basis of the application being made, which would have already taken 96 hours—i.e., four days. So let’s be clear that what we’re looking at here is a maximum of over a month, of 32 days, as being the absolute maximum. Also, there has been no indication or suggestion as to where people will be housed in those first 96 hours because the commitment made in terms of the suitability of the detention centre is only made when a judge makes a ruling.

The other level of specificity I would like to address is this notion that the reason we’re doing this is because of the fact that the District Court does not have the capacity for this. However, in clause 9, an amendment to section 317AB on “Limited period for decision on mass arrival warrant”, we are seeing that the judge will, in fact, need to make decisions twice and have the doubling handling effect of saying “within the seven days [it] was made”—that it cannot be made within seven days and have to make an alternative ruling much, much later—and there’s been no modelling on the resources it will require for District Court to do this.

So, in short, this bill has a lot of loopholes. No one asked for this. It’s a hypothetical situation. It doesn’t gain anything other than the fact it violates the rights of these refugees who are arriving in Aotearoa in this situation. So the Green Party will not be supporting this bill.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): I’m pleased to be speaking on the third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. This is a bill we’ve discussed and debated at length over the last wee while. I think that the greatest point that has been made across all of these debates is that while it is a low probability, it is high risk, and it’s something that we need to prepare for. So we’ve heard from members opposite about what they see as not being necessary or what shouldn’t be done. Ultimately, if we don’t address this and something does happen, we are not preparing our system to be able to prepare for it, and that is what is most fundamental here.

So the member opposite said that this is hypothetical. What I worry about is if we don’t address this and the hypothetical becomes reality, what then? Imagine people coming to New Zealand, as it says in the bill, on one or more craft—you know, a vessel that comes to New Zealand via sea—let’s just say, and arriving in the Far North, Grant McCallum’s electorate. This is hypothetically, let’s just say, the most likely place for a craft to arrive. Now, we’re expecting the District Court to be preparing and providing for these people. Now, this is 30 people or more, and we were, unless we change this bill, expecting this all to be dealt with within four days. It is absolutely impossible.

Now, what we are doing with this bill is providing the people that inevitably come to New Zealand in a state of distress—we have no way of knowing in what way they are going to arrive, how many, or where. We need to prepare for the situation that may occur, and that is what we are doing in this bill.

So let’s just say they arrive in the northern beaches of the northernmost point of the North Island. How does our District Court system work with that? We have only 40 qualified lawyers for this particular situation in the whole country. Our court system has to be able to be prepared to work with these people. We need somewhere for them to be housed, looked after, health checks, identification—all of the processes that that come in place. We can’t assume that they come in the best of health. There is triaging that might need to occur. All of these things need to come into account.

I remind members opposite that have been so opposed to this bill that this is not a target of time; this is an allowance of time that enables us to do the right thing for these people that come into New Zealand when and if they do arrive.

So what we can’t assume with the escalating situations around the world is that this isn’t more and more inevitable. We talk every day about New Zealand being the perceived safe haven in the South Pacific. We talk all the time about how lucky we are to be in the bottom corner of the world, but, actually, that poses a great, I suppose, attraction to a lot of people, and that is something we need to be prepared for. If we’re putting ourselves under pressure where we do wrong by these people when they come to New Zealand, that is a situation we will all regret if we don’t do something about it.

So to allow ourselves 96 hours from initial arrival—or arrest and detention; let’s just use the terminology—to then be able to determine the application and go through the process, following 28 days after that to go through the full process, this is giving us the space to be able to do the right thing by these people. It’s not to say, “Oh, we don’t have to do anything for another 28 days.” That is not the point. We are giving our system the space and the options to do this properly, to give people that come into New Zealand under distressing circumstances—very much likely with trauma; that has been discussed on all sides of the House—the process that they deserve, and, of course, at the same time, the treatment that they need, which is very likely in this circumstance.

I think that we need to be very aware that we can’t assume that they come to New Zealand in a manageable size of 30; it could be 500. That is something that we have to be prepared for. What we don’t want to see is that in, say, two or three years’ time when the inevitable does happen, we haven’t made this change, and, as a result, we are scrambling to make this work and we are making the wrong decisions, we are making fast decisions, we’re making rushed decisions, or we put people in further distress as a result.

I think it’s really important to home in on the fact that when I mentioned the 40 lawyers qualified to represent a mass arrival group, this is a direct result of the fact that this is not a situation we currently deal with. So every single thing in this bill that’s being proposed to amend the current law is not to address a situation we’re already dealing with but is something that may happen. So to be talking about the fact that this is hypothetical—absolutely, this is hypothetical, but this bill aims to address the hypothetical until it becomes a reality. What we cannot be doing is sitting here in urgency on the day that it happens, trying to rush through law so that we can better support the people that arrive in New Zealand. That is exactly what it is here that we need to be doing in preparation for potentially the inevitable—the low probability but high-risk event. We need to be making these changes that do the best by people that do end up coming to New Zealand under distressing circumstances. So, with that, I commend this bill to the House.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a slightly unusual situation today with this bill because often when we’re debating bills, they’re bills that we want to see enacted because we think the enactment of the law will improve the legislative situation in New Zealand. But I think we’re all agreed across the House that this bill is one that we would all like to see never have to happen.

We don’t want to see people smugglers coming to New Zealand, putting vulnerable people in harm’s way, and we certainly don’t want to see them put through further distress. But, unfortunately, although—as many members have reflected on in this particular case—this is a situation that hasn’t occurred, there is not a zero risk of it occurring. So that is why this bill is in front of us.

I think we can all reflect on the current instability globally at the moment—due to conflict, due to climate change—that may result in more mass arrivals, not just in New Zealand but in other countries where we do know they are grappling with these issues. I know that this is a controversial piece of legislation and I want to acknowledge that. I think it’s really good that we have a democracy where potential pieces of legislation which do come across important human rights issues are challenged, and that there are submissions and involvement by civil society and also with parties across the House making sure that when we do place some limits on people’s freedoms, even people who have just arrived in New Zealand, these are balanced and necessary and are not stepping too far over lines that they shouldn’t do in relation to human rights, because it is that serious.

We also face a difficult situation, because of the low probability of this occurring—although not a zero probability—in terms of being able to resource for such a situation. We heard that there are issues in resourcing, I acknowledge those. I think we would all like to see more resourcing in our courts. We would all like to see the amazing work at the Māngere Refugee Settlement Centre be supported. I know that they do incredible work and I’ve seen that when I visited there. I also think it just provides quite a challenge for us when we don’t know where or when the situation would occur, to be able to—even if we’re in that position to resource it properly, it’ll be very difficult.

I think that there are a number of changes that have been made to this bill which do make it a better bill than when it was first introduced, and I know that that came through some measures that Labour took in Government and also some that have been brought through the House under Erica Stanford as the current Minister. I think those are commendable changes. I will briefly touch on them: making sure that someone is detained for the least amount of time, making sure that the detention meets the obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, making sure that it meets New Zealand’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, making sure that there’s a report to the court at least weekly, making sure that the judge has overview of the location, and also, very importantly, making sure that a prison or a police station is not used as a form of detention. This is absolutely not about punishing people who might arrive due to the actions of people smugglers; it is about making sure that they’re treated with dignity and respect if they do arrive.

I am disappointed that the amendments put forward by my colleague Phil Twyford weren’t accepted. I think those are amiable and would have further improved this bill, ensuring that families be not separated. We’ve seen that overseas—I don’t think that is acceptable. Also, inserting a third-party organisation to monitor terms and conditions. And also limiting—I think his final one was limiting the amounts of time for detention based on the size of the group. I think those would have further improved this bill, and I would look to Governments on both sides of the House, when they are in the position to make changes, to consider those further changes. I think if we did have a mass arrival, we should revisit this piece of legislation and make sure it is fit for purpose.

So I think we all take this very seriously, and I take on board the criticisms of this. We will be supporting this bill, but would recommend that it’s monitored very closely—especially in the situation, which I hope never occurs, that it may be utilised.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise this evening and speak in this third reading of the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. I just want to acknowledge the work of the Minister of Immigration in getting this through the House, something that wasn’t able to be achieved under the previous Government. We’re now getting it delivered and getting this risk management framework, essentially, in place, to ensure that in the circumstance that we have the occurrence of a mass arrival, we have a framework and a structure to deal with it. Essentially, that’s what this bill is about.

There’s been a lot of talk this evening about taking it seriously. I think it’s important that everyone who’s watching this debate this evening—and watched the first and second readings and the committee of the whole House stage—appreciates how seriously the Government and the members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that would have been responsible for this on the Government’s side are here this evening. We are engaged in making sure that we get this framework in place. As part of that process, there have been four amendments that have been brought to the House and passed by the committee, to date, under the Minister’s leadership. They are important to making sure that we have the right framework in place, and the Minister spoke to those earlier this evening.

Let’s look at what this framework is, essentially, about. Currently, should there be a mass arrival event, there’d be 96 hours in which the legal profession would have the ability to come together and support those asylum seekers, to do the necessary processes in order for their applications to go in and their status to be determined. And it’s simply not practical. It’s not practical, because we’re talking about people and their families—men, women, and children who have travelled across the seas in boats that are probably unlikely to be in any good shape for that journey. They are highly likely to be malnourished, highly likely to have significant mental health challenges or social challenges from that crossing, and upon arrival on our shores they will need those challenges supported—before we even start talking about the legal process that they’ll be going through.

Along with that, we’re talking about whether or not there are actually enough lawyers in place to be able to support that mass arrival process in the first place, and the reality is there simply aren’t. There’s about 40 lawyers, as I understand it, across the nation, who would have the ability to be mobilised to support an event like this. Should it occur, for example, on a Friday night, that they land at Ninety Mile Beach—as was suggested earlier this evening by my colleague the MP for Napier, Katie Nimon—in the grand electorate of my colleague the MP for Northland, that would take a couple of days out of that 96 hours before the lawyers had even got the opportunity to start working. It simply isn’t practical.

I don’t want to see this happen. None of us want to see this happen. It’s unbelievable, actually, that our colleagues across the House—and I’m not speaking about my Labour colleagues, but some of the others—have made suggestions that we actually want this to happen, or the sort of attitude that we’re not taking this seriously. I tell you what I find extremely difficult to take seriously: this idea that we should somehow have a whole lot of lawyers on standby, a whole lot of places on standby, ready to support this should it occur, so that it can happen in 96 hours. At the same time, those same members opposite are talking about how this is unlikely to happen in the first place.

It’s a little bit like Budget week’s come early, because it seems to me that those members opposite think that there’s a bottomless pit of money that could be spent on hiring a whole lot of asylum seeker lawyers, training them up, and having them ready to support an event that is highly—or not highly but certainly unlikely, has a low probability of happening; not something that we want to happen but something that we need to make sure there’s a framework in place for. The idea that we should just resource them, that we should just appropriate it, I just can’t take seriously. It is simply nonsensical to suggest that as a Government we should be doing that.

There is a reason why there are a small number of lawyers in this country that would have the ability to support a mass arrival, a group, should it arrive on our coastline, and that’s because it’s unlikely. There’s not a huge amount of this work. If we had to be in a situation that we didn’t pass this legislation, that we didn’t put in a framework that enables us to manage this risk, however unlikely it is, we’d be in here under urgency trying to pass a piece of legislation that would end up being retrospective, and those same members opposite would have a problem with that. It’s because those members opposite simply do not understand how to make decisions, create practical frameworks, and ensure that we’ve got the sort of legislation in place to support this sort of event, should it happen, and I’m sure we’re going to hear much more of that unnecessary bravado from members opposite in the days to come this week. I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call, and I call the Hon Rachel Brooking.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s useful to be talking about a bill about planning, in a sense, and planning for something that nobody wants to happen, with it being a mass arrival by a craft, which, of course, could be a plane or a boat. We’re very proud of the fact that we can now settle 1,500 refugees in New Zealand, and we have a very wonderful facility. People work helping refugees in Auckland learn about what it is to live in New Zealand, and all the benefits that come with that.

I’m also happy to be talking about a bill that has been amended in the committee of the whole House stage, and there have been some very useful amendments at that stage. My colleague Camilla Belich touched on many of those.

One that I’ll just note, in clause 12, is the amendment to section 330, which is “Approval of premises for purpose of immigration detention”. At the moment in the Immigration Act, it says that “The chief executive may approve any premises for the purpose of detention under this Act.” Then what happened? One of the changes in the committee of the whole House was that it now says, “Despite subsection (1), the chief executive may not approve a police station or prison as a place that may be used to detain 1 or more members of a mass arrival group”.

So that’s an important change. Perhaps it should say “must not approve”, but it’s clear in the context of the legislation that police stations and prisons are not to be used, and that’s an important change. I commend the bill to the House.

MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa): Good evening, Madam Speaker. I previously spoke about what this bill was really about. Firstly, it was about risk and management of it, should a mass arrival occur—that risk that could potentially manifest itself as a threat to our own national security and also the risk that could very well be a reality to those that may arrive. I also talked about due process and the need to have a fair and equitable process in place, and about the need to have a plan to enable timely access to legal advice to allow for fair representation and applications to be considered, and I also spoke about how this Government is practical and sensible enough to change our position. We’d previously held a position of opposition to this bill. However, once we were able to access what was previously considered confidential information, we did change our position and now support this bill.

Although there’s a low likelihood of mass arrivals to New Zealand, we’re living in a false paradise to assume that a mass arrival won’t occur. Who are we kidding? You’ve only got to look at what’s happening around the world—the political unrest, the conflicts, the persecution—and you very quickly realise that there is an elevated risk of a mass-arrival event occurring here, and a failure to anticipate and plan for this would be a mistake. A failure to plan would simply be a plan to fail.

This bill’s not about imprisonment or incarceration, as some members on the other side of the House would have us believe; nor is it about saying that immigrants are dangerous to this country. I’d reiterate the value that immigrants add to our communities and to our economy, with the culture and the values that they bring with them, and I’d acknowledge all that they add—certainly, in the many recent visits I’ve had in the Wairarapa, in the Tararua, in the Hawke’s Bay, with many, many groups. They’ve been nothing short of inspirational, and I’m incredibly privileged to have been welcomed into their families, their lives, and their communities.

This bill is not about scaremongering and misinformation. It’s about one thing only: having sensible, pragmatic legislation that allows us to have a balance—a balance between detaining any mass arrivals while ensuring they also have a right to access legal advice and representation to support their applications.

I spoke previously about allowing extra time. That’s not a negative; it’s common sense. This bill is about protecting those arrivals’ rights, along with ours, and having a right to put forward a case to remain in New Zealand—again, in the unlikely event of a mass arrival. The current time frames are entirely impractical. Security and health-screening checks are likely to need significantly more time to complete, and allowing more time will ensure that judicial decision makers are afforded all the information that they need to make a fair and considered decision which has taken into account every relevant piece of information.

To finish, I’d like to reiterate that whilst initially, as a party, we didn’t support this amendment bill, we’ve made sure to now expedite this process. As my colleague Carl Bates mentioned before, the previous Government that introduced this bill had the means to pass it and had the ability to deliver it into law, but they didn’t. Well, we will deliver it. We are the Government of delivery. We’ll finish the job. We’re back on track. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Labour—Panmure-Ōtāhuhu): Talofa lava. Happy Samoan Language Week. Manuia le Vāiaso o le Gagana Samoa. I appreciate this opportunity to debate the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill. This bill came through the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. We received over 300 submissions. Most of them were either in opposition or in strong opposition against this bill. Only four were in support. I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Immigration, the Hon Erica Stanford, for taking on board a lot of the concerns that so many of the submitters made during the select committee process, and making quite a number of changes to safeguard this bill and to ensure that this amendment bill that we have before us is much improved.

People seeking asylum, and refugees, who come to Aotearoa New Zealand, whether they come by boats or whether they come by plane, they have certain protections under the 1951 Refugee Convention as well as the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.

The 1951 Refugee Convention recognises that, by virtue of fleeing persecution often in urgent and dire circumstances, people seeking a safe haven may be forced to enter a country without the required documentation, and without the legal authorisation that they often need before entering another country. But we’ve been concerned about what happens when refugees and asylum seekers come to our country, which is why a few years ago we commissioned a review on this issue.

This review was completed by Victoria Casey KC, and she made several recommendations to improve the asylum and refugee processes, and to ensure that they are aligned with both New Zealand’s legal standards as well as our international obligations.

I won’t go through all of the recommendations that she made, but I would just like to highlight a few. One of the recommendations that Victoria Casey KC made is, first, that detention should only be used as an exceptional measure of last resort. Detention must be individually justified, and regularly reviewed in order to ensure that it remains necessary.

I believe that adding additional safeguards to the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill, especially in the complex and often challenging landscape that immigration deals with—we’ve heard from many of the speakers at the first reading, second reading, and third reading, that the likelihood of a boat arriving in the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand is actually very low. However, we believe that it’s still crucial that if such an event were to occur, we balance the need for national security with our commitment to human rights and to ensuring that we uphold the dignity of all the people that arrive.

One of the other recommendations that Victoria Casey KC made is that we should protect the family unity and children’s rights. I want to point out that this is also an amendment that my colleague the Hon Phil Twyford tried to make, but, unfortunately, it didn’t go through.

Victoria Casey recommended that detention practices should prioritise keeping families together, and ensure that the rights of our children are fully upheld. This includes providing appropriate facilities and support services for the children and families to minimise the impact of detention on their wellbeing. We should ensure that family members are kept together, especially if they are detained. We know that the separation of families, particularly parents and children, can have devastating emotional and psychological impacts. We’re concerned at the fact that this bill actually does not ensure that families will be kept together. Children should not be subjected to the same conditions, we believe, as adults in detention. Their rights to education, to recreation, and to psychological support must be prioritised. Ensuring that our children’s rights are upheld in detention not only complies with our obligations against international conventions but it also, I believe, reflects on our compassion and our humanity as a society.

It is unfortunate that the extra safeguards did not go through, but I concur with my colleague Camilla Belich that if indeed the event of a mass arrival is to occur sometime in the future, hopefully we can revisit these issues. Malo le soifua.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): It’s a great privilege to rise to make the final contribution to this very important debate on the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill in its third reading. We’ve heard some contributions tonight where members have highlighted that they’ve thought that it’s unlikely to happen, and, yes, it is unlikely. But it’s really important that we are ready for that situation where desperate people—and we’ve only got to look around the world today—are in situations where they just feel they’ve got nothing to lose but to try and get in a rust bucket of some description and head towards a place like New Zealand.

We need to be ready for them, because they could turn up, and it’s highly likely if they do manage to come across the seas, as our forebears did in various types of boats in the past, and if they manage to come to this country, they could easily end up in a place like Ninety Mile Beach, which has been mentioned before, in the great area of Northland. Then these people would be here, and we’d have to look after them and make them feel welcome and treat them appropriately.

It’s really important to remember that what we’re trying to do when they come here is to make sure that we can actually deal with them, and so the increased time frames that we’ve allowed are really, really important. It just allows the processes to flow through. It’s absolutely vital that we do that, because we don’t want a situation where we’ve got people turning up here and we’re not prepared legally to cope with it, because that would just lead to all sorts of problems. That is not the sort of country we want them to come into.

Now, if they turn up here and we haven’t got the legal right to detain them while we process them, we assess their health and their mental health, and we probably feed them, because I suspect they would probably be short of food for the time they’ve come across the Tasman Sea—all those sorts of things have to be taken into consideration. It’s really, really important. It’s for these reasons that we’re passing this bill, so that we are seen as a country that’s ready to deal with these situations.

As the bill has progressed through, we’ve made some adjustments which have been well thought out. I commend the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for the work they did, mainly in the previous Parliament, obviously.

The safeguards establish that we require an immigration officer to establish, in making an application for a group warrant of commitment, why the proposed detention is necessary. They’ve got to establish that the detention sought is for the least amount of time and is the least restriction necessary to achieve the outcomes—right? The proposed detention actually now meets the Government’s obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which was something that was a concern for many. The proposed detention meets New Zealand’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and our other international obligations because we’re a good citizen of the world and we want to be seen that way. That’s very really important. It requires an immigration officer now to report to the court weekly, unless that is varied by a judge during a period of warrantless detention of a mass arrival group.

These are just pragmatic, sensible changes—OK? It allows a judge to order the location specified in the application of group or warrant of commitment to be varied to allow for this to all work smoothly.

It’s really important that New Zealand fulfils its obligations to people that are so desperate to come here and can make them feel as welcome as we can and process them appropriately. It’s really, really important. I feel really proud to be part of a Government and part of a Parliament that is actually dealing with this properly. I’m disappointed that some parties have opposed this. It’s very disappointing to see that the Green Party have decided to oppose it, and I commend the Labour Opposition for their support on this bill.

I commend my colleagues for their speeches and, on that, we’ll leave it there. I’d like to now commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 102

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

Noes 15

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Māori Fisheries Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): I present a legislative statement on the Māori Fisheries Amendment Bill.

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

Hon SHANE JONES: I move, That the Māori Fisheries Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Te Iwi Māori have extensive interests and rights throughout the motu in terms of holding financial and commercial stakes in the fishing industry—nigh on 40 percent of annual catch entitlement for fish stocks in our quota management system. The bill, which we address in the context of the third reading this evening, is a small contribution to a magnificent suite of options that I have the privilege of bringing to improve fisheries management in New Zealand. Much more will follow. However, tonight this bill assigns to Māoridom a greater autonomy over their fisheries assets. It’s designed to boost productivity and efficiency.

It needs to be said that this bill reflects considerable input from iwi, traceable back, as I’ve said in an earlier contribution to the House, to the Tim Castle report of 2014-15, which itself was traceable back to the passage of legislation 12 years earlier. That was designed to enable the fisheries commission to undertake an operational review. After a number of years having passed, the product of that review is this particular piece of legislation.

It enables the mandated iwi organisations to take more direct control of Te Ohu Kai Moana and Aotearoa Fisheries Limited (AFL). It changes governance arrangements of the settlement entities to make them consistent with each other in standard governance practices. It cancels voting shares in AFL and converts those income shares to ordinary shares which will be allocated to mandated iwi organisations, and it simplifies the process for trading within the Māori pool quota and other such interests.

Naturally, we must acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee and those who have contributed to the development of the bill: mandated iwi organisations, recognised iwi organisations, and representative Māori organisations, who took their time to make contributions to the bill. The latter category of Māori organisation caused some whitewater. However, it needs to be noted, from the very beginning of the Māori fisheries journey, representative Māori organisations, colloquially known as urban Māori organisations, have been a part of the infrastructure. That will continue as a consequence of this bill.

I also want to recognise the trustee of the fisheries settlement for driving this kaupapa. In another life, I was not a supporter, but circumstances change and roles have to be fulfilled.

On the matter of changing the electoral college, which was created as an intermediate step enabling the 60- or 70-odd iwi to appoint and remove directors, this now moves to a direct level of responsibility between the various iwi and the peak body—you could say it shortens the distance. Some submitters expressed concern that the changes would diminish the role of representative Māori organisations. That concern has been addressed without fatally wounding the importance of iwi organisations in the future governance of this important organisation.

There may or may not be future reviews of the Act. As the bill introduced provides for such a thing to take place, some submitters were concerned that such reviews could be undertaken by default. But when those reviews do take place, it’s important that independent reviewers are involved and that the ability to continue with such activity is legally mandated. However, such a level of review will now only take place when iwi pass a special resolution not to hold a review.

On the basis of the change to require the Crown to take all reasonable steps within its authority to introduce the bill, I am happy to share with the House that we are at the final stages. On the matter of issues related and changes in the committee of the whole House, I draw our attention to increase the time frame by which Māori iwi organisations can lease their annual quota entitlement. Historically it’s been five years. It has been changed, and that is to enable Māori iwi organisations to achieve the full potential over a different period of time in terms of the utilisation of such rights.

I think it’s important—given that we’ve had a historic day with the Whakatōhea settlement and we have addressed one of the more modest settlements in Hauraki—to acknowledge that there’s still much more to be done in the area of Māori fisheries. Although Māori are key contributors to the fishery, no single stakeholder’s interests are beyond the importance of the sustainability of the actual resource. There is a host of opportunities for the various iwi to engage with the civil service to ensure that the perspectives and priorities that different iwi have—whether it’s Ngāi Tahu, concerned about the change in the temperature of the water, the migration of the delicacy of the Tai Tokerau otherwise known as tāmure or snapper now down around—perish the thought!—Greymouth. This reminds us that the changes being made today place a duty on Te Ohu Kai Moana to be a fair, legitimate, and tenacious advocate for Māori, because, whether we like it or not, this resource is facing huge challenges, challenges driven through climate change, challenges driven through technology, but, most importantly, challenges to the very social licence that underpins fisheries. Sadly, a host of those challenges, from time to time, are driven by falsehoods and misinformation, but the responsibility to correct that now lies with the peak bodies, of whom this Te Ohu Kai Moana entity is one.

If iwi want to enjoy greater control over the affairs related to their investments in fisheries, they need to be proactive. They need a strong organisation that they feel they have control and authority over. But change and improvement will not come in the absence of quality information, constant vigilance, and ongoing advocacy. That is the challenge in a post-settlement environment for iwi organisations and their stewardship in terms of our natural resources. I am confident that this bill is a significant step towards enabling iwi to enjoy rangatiratanga in that context and increase the productivity of that full and final settlement, which was entered into in 1992 in the days of Jim Bolger. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House will adjourn, and resume at 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m.