Tuesday, 27 August 2024
Volume 777
Sitting date: 27 August 2024
TUESDAY, 27 AUGUST 2024
TUESDAY, 27 AUGUST 2024
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Karakia/Prayers
Karakia/Prayers
TEANAU TUIONO (Assistant Speaker): E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha. Ka mihi mātou ki te Kīngi, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Āmene.
[Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the King and pray for guidance in our deliberations that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom and humility, for the welfare, peace, and compassion of New Zealand. Amen.]
Visitors
Fiji—Member of Parliament
United Kingdom—Under-Secretary of State for Indo-Pacific
SPEAKER: I’m sure members will wish to welcome two visiting members of Parliament who are present in the gallery: the Hon Rinesh Sharma, member of Parliament from the Parliament of the Republic of Fiji; and Catherine West, member of Parliament from the United Kingdom, Under-Secretary of State for Indo-Pacific.
Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills
Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills
SPEAKER: There are petitions. The Clerk will read petitions.
CLERK:
Petition of David Glen on behalf of the Cornwall Park Leaseholders Association requesting that the House introduce legislation to compensate the lessees of residential ground leases for the market value of their improvements if they elect not to renew
petition of Miryam Denny requesting that the House require mandatory training and qualifications for people working with, caring for, and supporting the disabled
petition of Andrei Moore requesting that the House urge the Government to require Waka Kotahi to provide a safe crossing option for Halswell School on State Highway 75.
SPEAKER: Those petitions are referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers.
CLERK:
Government response to the report of the Justice Committee on the Office of the Ombudsman, OPCAT reports
2024-28 statements of intent for:
Tourism New Zealand, and
Ministry of Defence
2024-25 statements of performance expectations for Tourism New Zealand.
SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.
CLERK:
Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill
report of the Governance and Administration Committee on the briefing on the work of the Office of the Auditor-General
reports of the Petitions Committee on the:
petition of Mike Styles, and
petition of Peter Marra
report of the Regulations Review Committee on the complaint about the Education (Early Childhood Services) Amendment Regulations (No 2) 2023.
SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading. The briefings and the recommendation of the report are set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.
CLERK: Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024-25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill, introduction.
SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first reading.
Speaker’s Rulings
Oral Questions—Admissibility of Question No. 10
SPEAKER: Members, I’ve had a question raised to me today about the admissibility of question No. 10, which I want to take the opportunity to clarify. Speakers’ ruling 230/4 by Speakers Wall and Smith: once a member has made a complaint to the Speaker about a matter of privilege, it is not appropriate to raise that complaint in the House by way of notice of motion, nor should the member seek to litigate the veracity through House proceedings. It is not inappropriate to ask questions in the House on the general subject of the complaint, to prohibit that would unreasonably constrain Parliament’s privilege of free speech. The question is in order.
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): Point of order. Sir, on that ruling, can I direct your attention to Speaker’s ruling 231/3.
SPEAKER: Well, you can.
Hon SHANE JONES: Thank you.
SPEAKER: Thanks very much. What did you want to say about it?
Hon SHANE JONES: The point is that everything that happens in public happens in Parliament. This matter that you refer to, sir, a matter of privilege that may or may not be before you—how can we possibly allow questions to take place that do not violate natural justice, as reflected in 231/3?
SPEAKER: Well, if you’ve just listened to the ruling that I’ve just made, it’s quite clear. There’s a difference between challenging the proceedings, which is not open to Parliament, but the idea simply because there is a pending proceeding that Parliament is somehow gagged is not acceptable. So there, of course, will be a great deal of discipline upon the person asking the question and the ultimate supplementaries when it comes to this to make sure that there is no transgression of that separation.
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): I take your point, sir, but it also raises the importance of natural justice. Every question, every remark said in this House is public, and it’s clearly stated there that no one should use the public to influence negatively or in a jaundiced way your consideration of such matters.
SPEAKER: That is absolutely true. If there was a speech made about this matter, a general debate comment made about this matter, or a motion made on this matter, they would all be out of order. But a question doesn’t necessarily make any allegation. A question is a question. If it transgresses into that area, then clearly we have a problem and it will be stopped.
Hon SHANE JONES: Speaking to the point of order, sir, you make a very good point, but a host of the questions to date have been riddled with falsehoods. That has the effect of acting as an echo chamber, undermining fair consideration on the basis of natural justice at a time where a final decision has not been made.
SPEAKER: Well, that is true, but I’d ask you to consider the opening lines of 231/3, which says “It would be my preference”. Now, that is a former Speaker giving clear guidance to the House. I’ve just elucidated how that guidance might be considered by the House in the ruling I’ve just given.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Question No. 1—Prime Minister
1. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and especially our fast-track changes, which will make it much, much easier and much faster to get stuff done. We need more homes, we need more energy, more jobs, and more exports, and fast track will make it easier to deliver all of that and more. Fast track, of course, started life as an inspired piece of thinking from the “Piketty pirate” David Parker, and we have proudly stolen it and made it even better. Now we are making sensible changes—sensible changes—before it comes into law later this year, by shifting the decision making back to expert panels. So, if you care about climate change, care about energy security and a thriving economy, my message to Labour and the Greens is to get on board and vote for the fast-track legislation.
SPEAKER: Just before the supplementary gets asked, we are going to have a little bit more civility around the question and answer session. Some of that yelling out from over this side and the response from that side is not on.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Who is correct: Christopher Luxon, who said, “We’ve ended up creating a whole new series of addictions to nicotine that I think we’ll regret very strongly”, or Casey Costello, who received advice of an undisclosed provenance that was later forwarded to health officials, claiming “Nicotine is as harmful as caffeine”?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We are doing the job in this Government of lowering daily smoking rates. We’ve made tremendous progress, and I know the Minister is working incredibly hard to do that.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he agree with Casey Costello that nicotine is as harmful as caffeine, and, if not, why is he comfortable with his Minister presenting that advice to officials to inform the development of future Government policy?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’d just say to the member that Ministers are responsible for their own policy development processes and how they work with their agencies, and each Minister will operate differently, as we have seen with Erica Stanford, as Minister of Education, operating very differently from that member as Minister of Education.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked him two things: one was whether he agreed with the statement, and the second was whether he was comfortable with his Minister presenting that advice to her officials to inform the development of Government policy. As he repeatedly does, he has attacked me but he hasn’t actually addressed the questions that I’ve asked.
SPEAKER: Well, look, I think there were two legs to the questioning. He picked up the second leg pretty well, saying that Ministers are responsible for their own programmes.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he agree with the Hon Casey Costello that nicotine is as harmful as caffeine?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What we both agree about is that we’re going to lower daily smoking rates.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That wasn’t the question.
SPEAKER: I think the Prime Minister could perhaps address the question directly.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Could he ask the question again?
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he agree with the Hon Casey Costello that nicotine is as harmful as caffeine?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I think that nicotine is more harmful than caffeine.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Who acted properly: Judith Collins, who warned Shane Jones and David Seymour that their criticism of the judiciary broke Cabinet Manual conventions, or Shane Jones, who renewed his attacks last week calling a High Court judge a communist?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: You’d have to ask the Minister about that, but what I’d say is that he was being descriptive, not critical.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. When it comes to questions of the Minister’s conduct, the Prime Minister cannot say, “You’d have to ask the Minister that.” The Prime Minister is responsible for the Minister’s conduct. A Minister calling a judge a communist—
SPEAKER: That’s true, but you did ask a very direct question. Think about how you ask the question and, without penalty, ask again.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Well, I can shorten the question if you’d like, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: Well, if you’re capable, go for it.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is he comfortable with a Minister in his Government calling a judge a communist?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Sorry?
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is he comfortable with a Minister in his Government calling a judge a communist?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: The Minister was being descriptive, not critical.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order.
SPEAKER: We’re on a point of order, and I will call that point of order. I’d just say that you’re going to dance on a pin if we keep on having semantics around words—but please ask your point of order.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: This is a pretty substantial issue. There is a separation between the Parliament, between the executive, and the judiciary. It is well respected that not only Ministers but members of Parliament should not be criticising the judiciary. A Minister calling a judge a communist is a legitimate question to ask of the Prime Minister around ministerial conduct, and I think we could expect more than just a flippant answer like that.
SPEAKER: I don’t think it was a flippant answer. The answer was that he was being descriptive, not accusatory, which is a pretty reasonable answer.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is it acceptable for a Minister in his Government to describe a judge as a communist?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, the comments are descriptive, not critical. That’s exactly what has happened. It’s on the public record. They might not be the words that I’d use, but he’s perfectly free to do so.
Hon David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister surprised that the leader of the Labour Party believes “communist” is a critical term?
SPEAKER: No, I don’t think we’ll let that go.
Hon David Seymour: Sorry, comrade!
SPEAKER: We’re just going to come to order. Everyone might find everything highly amusing; you’re just taking up your own time.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is he, as Prime Minister, satisfied that Shane Jones’ comments are consistent with Cabinet Manual requirements around Ministers not criticising the judiciary?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes.
Question No. 2—Finance
2. TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on the economy?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Last week, Fitch Ratings announced it was maintaining New Zealand’s long-term foreign currency debt rating at AA+ with a stable outlook. AA+ is a very strong rating, being only one notch below the highest possible rating of AAA. Fitch is one of the big three credit rating agencies; of the other two, on foreign currency debt, New Zealand is rated AA+ by S&P and AAA by Moody’s.
Tim Costley: What reasons did Fitch give for this decision?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: In its press release, Fitch said that the AA+ rating reflects its view that the Government’s commitment to return to surplus will stabilise and then reduce Government debt to GDP in the medium term. It noted that tax relief has been offset by spending cuts, and future operating allowances have been tightened, with the aim of reducing core Crown expenses to 30 percent of GDP over time. And it praised New Zealand’s strong policy institutions and sound macroeconomic policy framework, which enhance its resilience to economic and financial shocks.
Tim Costley: Can the Minister tell us what Fitch said about the fiscal outlook?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: As I said, Fitch expects Government debt to stabilise as a percentage of GDP and then start to reduce. It noted that the Government’s return to surplus had been delayed until 2027-28 as a result of worse than expected economic performance. It also pointed the finger at large spending increases by the previous Government during the COVID period that had not been reversed. This Government is working hard to get Government spending down.
Tim Costley: What factors could lead Fitch to re-evaluate its rating of New Zealand?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Fitch points to a few factors. One could be a build-up of external vulnerabilities—for instance, from continued high current account deficits. Another could be a severe housing market correction or difficulties in household debt servicing. And, importantly, Fitch also points to the risk of insufficient fiscal consolidation. To my knowledge, ratings agencies don’t do counterfactual analyses. If they did, I think they would be horrified to find that in the current economic circumstances, if we continued with the future Budget operating allowances which were set by the previous Government, there would not be a surplus posted in New Zealand until at least 2030-31.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Are these ratings by Fitch higher, lower—or the same—than what the previous Government left them?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, that’s precisely my point. Despite all of those cries of wolf, they are the same.
Question No. 3—Finance
3. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by her statement, “On this side of the House, we take economic management extremely seriously”; if so, have her decisions since the Budget exemplified that?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Yes, and yes.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why did she give the tobacco industry a $216 million tax break when the Treasury was already warning that there will be difficult funding trade-offs with other areas of the health system and suggested any extra investment “could be prioritised in areas such as primary care or acute mental health”?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, Cabinet made a decision on the possible funding source for cancer medicines. Treasury provided advice on possible funding sources for those medicines. They included taking money from a tagged contingency for bowel screening, taking money from a tagged contingency for the Well Child / Tamariki Ora programme, taking money from the extension of breast-screening eligibility, taking money from emergency department security, taking money from Gumboot Friday, and taking money from a tagged contingency for heated tobacco products. The Government decided to do none of these things. It decided to keep funding intact for these initiatives and increased the combined pharmaceutical budget and charged this against the Budget 2025 operating allowance.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why has she prioritised the $216 million tax break for the tobacco industry, instead of ongoing operational funding to deliver the new drugs, ongoing?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I reject the characterisation at the beginning of the member’s question.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: How did she get Budget 2024 so wrong that she had to rewrite it weeks after and has spent 74 percent of Budget 2025 nine months before it is due?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, again, I reject the characterisations in the member’s question, and I’d point out the following things: tax relief out the door, fiscally neutrally; inflation down; interest rates down; stable ratings from the ratings agencies—the Budget was pretty good.
Question No. 4—RMA Reform
4. NANCY LU (National) to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: What recent announcements has he made about the Government’s one-stop-shop fast-track legislation?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Well, over the weekend, I was pleased to announce, alongside my colleague the Hon Shane Jones, the huge interest there has been in this Government’s one-stop shop fast-track process: 384 projects have applied to be listed in Schedule 2 of the Fast-track Approvals Bill. These applicants come from every corner of the country and almost every major sector. There have been multiple applications. I can give you the breakdown: 40 percent of the applicants are housing and urban development, 20 percent—over 70—are renewable energy projects, 25 percent infrastructure projects, 8 percent primary industries, and 5 percent each are quarrying and mining.
Nancy Lu: What recently announced changes to the Fast-track Approvals Bill has Cabinet recommended be made to the Environment Committee?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The positive feedback we’ve had so far confirms what we’ve been hearing around the country: New Zealanders want to see progress in their towns and cities. However, we’ve always said we’re open to sensible changes as a Government. We have listened to the concerns of submitters to the committee, and there have been two major changes to the bill I’ll highlight to the House. The first is that projects we’ve recommended will be referred to an expert panel by the Minister for Infrastructure, rather than the three Ministers, who will be required to consult with the Minister for the Environment and other relevant portfolio Ministers. And final decisions on projects will sit not with Ministers but with the expert panel, which is the same process adopted by the previous Labour Government.
Nancy Lu: How does the Fast-track Approvals Bill align with this Government’s priorities?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, we are determined as a Government to cut through the red and green tape holding this country back to make it clear we’re open for business, and build a pipeline of projects around the country. Here are the simple facts: we have an infrastructure deficit, we have a housing shortage, and we have an energy shortage and very ambitious climate targets. Our planning system does not have a hope of allowing us to meet those challenges without serious reform. That’s why we have the fast-track bill.
Nancy Lu: What are the next steps for the Fast-track Approvals Bill?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: As I’ve laid out, Cabinet has recommended a series of changes to the Environment Committee. It will be over to the committee as to whether or not they accept those recommendations. The bill is due to come back to the House by 18 October, and it is the Government’s intention to pass it into law by the end of the year so we can get on and rebuild this economy.
Question No. 5—Energy
5. Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) to the Minister for Energy: Does he agree with Mark Ogge, a climate and energy expert at the Australia Institute, that “only import liquefied natural gas if you like your energy very, very expensive, and if you want it to be very emissions intensive. Otherwise go for renewable energy, with storage, which is cheaper and virtually zero emissions”; if not, why not?
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister for Energy): No, but I do agree with the Labor Party Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, who said, “Gas in particular has a key role to play as a flexible source of energy, helping to smooth the transition to renewables.” I want to be very clear—New Zealand currently has an energy shortage. Electricity generators are having to burn coal and diesel to keep the lights on while factories close their doors and working people lose their jobs because of the energy crisis we have inherited. If the member opposite had continued to read further into the article which she—
SPEAKER: No, stick to your own stuff.
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Sorry?
SPEAKER: Stick to your own stuff, not the previous Government.
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Sorry. If the member had continued to read the article which she—
SPEAKER: Reference to past Governments is not helpful in this situation.
Hon SIMEON BROWN: I’m referring to a Radio New Zealand article that she was quoting the quote from this morning.
SPEAKER: Oh, that’s a different matter. But make it clear you’re quoting, that’s all.
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Absolutely, yes—the source for her question, that’s right. She would have noted the comments from New Zealand energy analysist John Kidd, who said, “LNG enables dynamic dispatch into the market when it is required, which fits very well with the requirements of power generation.” I know it’s a hard truth for members opposite, but the reality is we need more gas to enable intermittent renewables in New Zealand.
Hon Dr Megan Woods: What advice, if any, has the Minister requested or received in the last three months on renewable energy storage, such as grid-scale batteries, as an alternative to importing expensive and emissions-intensive liquefied natural gas (LNG)?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the Government has welcomed, in the last few months, announcements by some of the generators around actual construction and financial investment decisions on grid-scale batteries, such as Genesis, who are actually investing in that infrastructure. And one of the announcements we made yesterday was actually to ease some of the restrictions on electricity distribution businesses to be able to actually invest in generation on their own assets. That could include more batteries. So we need more batteries, we need more gas, we need more wind, we need more solar, we need more geothermal, we need more hydro—we need all of the above to have the affordable, secure supply of energy for New Zealand. That’s what this Government is delivering on.
Hon Dr Megan Woods: How does the cost of generating electricity using LNG at between $200 and $300 per megawatt-hour, compare to the cost of generating electricity from renewables—such as hydro, wind, and solar—and firmed with renewable storage?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: The answer to that question is if you look at the energy shortage that we currently have and the prices that we’ve been experiencing, with spot prices averaging up to $800 a megawatt-hour on the week of 11 August, LNG comes in a lot lower than that cost, and the good thing about it is all of those renewable energy sources, their long-run cost of production, is cheaper than that. So this is about providing the firming capacity so that people investing in renewable energy can have confidence that they can firm that energy source so we can have the renewable energy that New Zealand needs, as the Prime Minister of Australia—Labor Party Prime Minister of Australia—said.
Hon Dr Megan Woods: What, if anything, has he done to accelerate work based on advice from Genesis that estimated they could produce 600 gigawatt-hours of electricity with biomass in the range of $140 a megawatt?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: This Government is focused on ensuring that we are reducing the red and green tape needed to be able to invest in generation up and down our country, to allow generators, whether they are the four gentailers or new gentailers—we need a more competitive market—to be able to invest whether it’s in biomass, whether it’s in solar, whether it’s hydro, whether it’s geothermal, whether it’s gas—we need all of the above. But we’re not going to sit here and pick winners. We’re going to ensure the market is operating competitively so that New Zealanders can access affordable, secure, reliable energy.
Hon Dr Megan Woods: Why has the Minister not sought advice on renewable energy solutions as an alternative, given it costs $200 to $300 per megawatt-hour to generate electricity from LNG and the 2023 Generation Investment Survey put the cost of new generation from renewables at $90 per megawatt-hour?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: When the sun’s not shining, the wind’s not blowing, and we’ve got a dry year in the South Island, and we don’t have enough gas, we need to be able to firm the energy that is being produced. The member opposite might still be thinking it’s 2023 and she’s the Minister—well, she ain’t. We have an energy crisis in New Zealand caused by the policies that she left behind. She should take some responsibility.
Question No. 6—Prime Minister
6. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and especially this Government’s action to unleash renewable energy. Between 2018 and 2023, when the Greens were in Government, New Zealand imported 5.6 million tonnes of coal and nearly a million tonnes a year. Now with a Government actually fighting climate change, not just burning coal, we’ve got a plan to unleash investment in gas and renewables to keep the lights on. You heard it from the Minister: we have 71 applications for renewable energy projects so far under fast track. It’s a fantastic result for our economy and our climate change agenda, but the Greens, of course, we hope, are not voting against it. We want your support. We know that you care about renewable energy and you care about climate change, so support our bill; end the oil and gas ban. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Just a general comment: just calm it a little bit more.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Why does the Prime Minister keep saying, as he did just then, that consenting is the issue, when 33 solar and wind projects have already been consented to be built, and would he perhaps reflect on how the economic incentives under the status quo do not stack up when profit-driving fossil fuels continue to stay in our energy mix?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I don’t know how to explain it to the member, because we have been in a place where we have had the driest—[Interruption]—year on record since the 1990s.
SPEAKER: Sorry, I’m not going to have those outbursts. You ask a question, you should expect an answer. And, frankly, questions being asked aren’t enhanced by any sort of cheering from the bleachers, as it were.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: But he began with a very inflammatory comment; he was speaking with his mouth full.
SPEAKER: It was self-deprecating. He said he didn’t know how to explain. I would have thought you might have liked to know how much he didn’t know how to explain.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Mr Speaker, should I repeat the question?
SPEAKER: No, you can’t repeat the question. Just carry on.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I don’t know how to be clearer. We as a Government have talked about this in this House over the last few weeks. We have a dry year with low lake levels, no wind blowing, no sun shining, and we have no gas supply thanks to ending the oil and gas ban by the previous administration. The just transition was clearly a plan to move from domestic gas to imported coal.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Is the Prime Minister—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Hang on—just wait for the House to get itself in a bit of order. OK.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Is the Prime Minister aware that because gentailers are currently incentivised to keep fossil fuels in the mix due to them being paid for the most expensive source of generation in any 30-minute period, that by his Government choosing to keep fossil fuels on life support, his Government is actually actively undermining investment in renewable energy?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’d just say to the member, we have an energy security problem right now. It is a function of having ended an oil and gas ban—put the ban in place.
Hon Dr Megan Woods: Stop making stuff up.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: It is. We have no gas supply, and, as a result, we need that in our system and we’re going to need it for a long period of time. The answer is that we’ve got really high electricity prices. It’s putting businesses out of business. That’s not acceptable. Hard-working Kiwis are losing their jobs—the people that the Opposition used to care about but don’t. The reality is, we have an energy crisis; we’re sorting it out. We want cheap, abundant supply of both renewables and also gas, and that’s what we’re going to do.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Is an energy system that is run on fossil fuels or on renewable energy more profitable for our gentailers?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We want to see an energy system where we double the amount of renewables and we also turn on huge quantities of gas so that we actually have the security that we need in this country to keep the lights on, to keep people in work, and to make sure that working New Zealanders don’t pay high electricity prices.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That didn’t even go close to addressing the point of profitability of gentailers.
SPEAKER: Well, I think it did.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Mr Speaker, I would really appreciate your reflection on the Hansard because this is a really basic thing that we are consistently, as the Greens, trying to get straight answers out of our Prime Minister and are completely unable to.
SPEAKER: Well, I’m very grateful to be appreciated by the member. I’ll ask the Prime Minister to answer the question again.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Could the member ask the question again?
SPEAKER: Yeah, sure.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Is an energy system that is run on fossil fuels or on renewable energy more profitable for our energy gentailers?
Hon Shane Jones: Reliability equals profitability.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I can say is, yeah, reliability of energy supply is very important to determine profitability of our gentailers. We’ll keep an eye on how much money they’re making; we have a bit of a review going on within the energy sector, but they need confidence to invest. They need to have cash to be able to spend money on the capital projects to drive more renewables. But I want to be clear to the House and to the member: this is an issue around supply, and the lack of supply has driven up electricity prices. When you see mills going to the wall, and hard-working Kiwis losing their jobs because of that and paying more in electricity prices, that is utterly unacceptable. We care about working New Zealanders, we care about hard-working Kiwis; we’re going to do something about it.
Hon David Seymour: Is the price gained by a particular type of generation, such as gas, partly a feature of it being available to run on cold nights when people want energy and there’s nothing else, and, if so, is this an example of how keeping the lights on requires an understanding not of Instagram bumper stickers but the real, practical world?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I would agree with the member that the bumper sticker end-of-oil-and-gas ban didn’t think through the second- and third-order consequences. It was classic, old-school Government, wasn’t it?—made a statement, made a bumper sticker, but didn’t follow through with the plan.
Hon Chris Bishop: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Infrastructure Commission produced a report in 2022 that shows New Zealand is on track to miss between 11 and 15 percent of emission reduction targets from energy due to resource consenting delays, and that’s why the Greens should support fast track?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Absolutely. Resource consenting times have increased dramatically, and the cost has too. That’s why we’ve got fast-track legislation.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Why would the gentailers currently invest in renewable energy when, under the status quo, since partial privatisation under the former National-led Government, they have paid out nearly $11 billion in dividends by burning fossil fuels, nearly 2½ times more than what they invested in new power generation?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’d just say to that member, whose party was part of the previous Government, if you felt so strongly about it over the last six years, why didn’t you overturn the mixed-ownership model as a consequence?
Chlöe Swarbrick: Supplementary. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Just a minute. This is unbelievable. Can we just really have a bit of a break on things?
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I think you’ve got a legitimate point, but I’d also encourage you to think about the answers and the sort of reaction they’re going to provoke. Almost every one of the Prime Minister’s answers is talking about the previous Government, rather than the Government that he’s the Prime Minister of. That is going to provoke a certain sort of reaction.
SPEAKER: Well, I appreciate that, but it’s not prohibited. If a circumstance goes back through that time, then, obviously that’s something you can mention. I’m also listening to some of the back and forth as well, and all I would say is it’s perhaps not overly helpful in getting any answers for the public.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Why is the Prime Minister and his Government actively pursuing a climate-burning, anti-evidence fossil fuel strategy which actively contradicts and—[Interruption] Mr Speaker, point of order.
SPEAKER: No, we’re just going to start your question again and people are going to listen, and people who don’t listen won’t be staying.
Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Perhaps it’d be helpful to reflect on Standing Order 390, which states that questions should not include arguments or imputations beyond what is necessary to make the question comprehensible. Now, we’ve just heard a whole lot of word salad that, frankly, is going to get a reaction from the Government benches. Upholding that rule, 390, might actually lead to more harmony in the House.
SPEAKER: That would require me also to uphold the mirror of that particular Standing Order with regards to answers; in which case, Government Ministers would be saying very little at any point during any question time on any day.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Well, Mr Speaker, with regard to the member’s point of order, you might like to consider whether that should apply to the supplementary question that the member himself just asked of the Prime Minister literally about three questions ago.
Hon David Seymour: Speaking to the point of order.
SPEAKER: Oh, look, I’ve already got an awful lot of homework to do after this session. Is it really necessary?
Hon David Seymour: I can see that my supp is still a sore point for the leader of the Labour Party, but so be it.
SPEAKER: No, no, don’t go down that track. Could everyone just take a take a breath for a minute.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Why is the Prime Minister pursuing a climate-burning, anti-evidence fossil fuel strategy which actively contradicts and undermines renewable energy development and building in this country?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I just say I reject the characterisation of that question. What we are not doing is we’re not shutting off domestic gas to import foreign coal so that we can make emissions even worse. That was the strategy of the last Government; it failed. It created the problem that we’re in. You know, we know that gas is much better than coal, and as a result we’re very happy to expand the amount of gas and expand the amount of renewables, but we’re not doing what the last Government did—and what a mess that you left us.
Question No. 7—Energy
7. MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister for Energy: What steps is the Government taking to bolster New Zealand’s energy security?
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister for Energy): Cabinet has agreed quickly to approve a raft of immediate actions to address the serious risk to New Zealand’s energy security and affordability, including urgently reversing the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration and cutting red and green tape to allow for liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports so we have the supply of gas required to be able to firm renewable sources. New Zealand has an energy shortage. We’re facing the driest hydrological year since 1992, with less wind generation than forecast and a 25.8 percent downgrade in gas production this year, following a 12 percent downgrade last year. The Government is acting urgently to bolster our energy security.
Mike Butterick: What actions is the Government taking?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: The Government is taking a number of actions: firstly, acting with urgency to reverse the decision to ban offshore oil and gas exploration, led by my colleague the Hon Shane Jones; secondly, removing regulatory barriers to the construction of critically needed facilities to import liquefied natural gas; third, easing restrictions on electricity lines companies owning generation; fourth, ensuring the rules for access of hydro contingency are fit for purpose; and fifth, reviewing the electricity market regulations to ensure that New Zealanders have an affordable electricity system.
Mike Butterick: Why is the Government removing regulatory barriers to allow the importation of liquefied natural gas?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, we don’t have enough gas in New Zealand to firm our electricity system. We need more to be able to enable intermittent renewables so that we can firm these sources of energy and provide secure and affordable energy to New Zealanders. We know that around 50 countries around the world already import LNG, including Japan and the UK, with Australia set to open its first terminal this year. New Zealand needs abundant, affordable energy. That’s why we’re taking immediate action to cut red and green tape to allow for these liquefied natural gas imports so we can restore much-needed confidence in our energy sector.
Mike Butterick: What other actions are being taken to increase generation of electricity?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: We are taking the energy shortage incredibly seriously. Electrifying New Zealand’s economy is a key part of our Government’s plan to grow our economy and reduce emissions. To make it easier and cheaper to electrify our economy, my colleague the Hon Chris Bishop and I are working on a package of policies which will enable this, including establishing a one-stop shop fast-track approval and permitting regime, amending the Resource Management Act to speed up resource consenting, delivering stronger national direction for renewable energy, enabling a new regime for offshore wind, and updating the regulatory settings for electricity network and new connections.
Question No. 8—RMA Reform
8. Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: Does he stand by his statement that “we’ve replicated … the same law that Labour adopted” about the proposed changes to the Fast-track Approvals Bill?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Yes, in the context with which it was given. Let me read out the full quote from what the member said in her primary question: “The expert panel process is specifically designed to set environmental conditions that will apply to projects as they go through the fast track, and that’s exactly the same way the Labour Government COVID-19 fast track worked as well, where the Government—the Minister—picks projects. In Labour’s case it was the Minister for the Environment; in our case it would be the Minister for Infrastructure. They pick the projects, send them off to expert panels which will be constituted very similarly to the way Labour’s fast-track process worked. They set the conditions for those projects and then have the final sign-off over those projects, so we’ve replicated the same law that Labour adopted.” So I stand by my full comment, which is accurate.
Hon Rachel Brooking: Is it correct that Labour’s fast-track law included in its purpose to support the economy, the requirement “while continuing to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources.”, whereas the purpose clause in his bill does not refer to sustainable management?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, the member doesn’t need to ask me that. She’s sitting right next to the guy who designed it. I encourage her to turn to her right and ask the question, but the member already knows the answer is yes—there is a difference in the purpose statements as currently drafted, remembering that the bill is before the select committee.
Hon Rachel Brooking: Why was the reference to sustainable management removed from the purpose clause of his fast-track bill between policy papers and the bill as introduced?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Because the purpose of the fast-track bill is to facilitate the development of regionally and nationally significant projects; because we have an infrastructure deficit, a housing crisis, and an energy shortage, and we need to rebuild this economy. The purpose of the fast-track bill is to make it easier for all of the projects in the areas I’ve just mentioned to be built.
Hon Rachel Brooking: Why did he say in this House that there’s many protections for the environment in the Fast-track Approvals Bill when the clear scheme of the bill, as he’s just outlined, is to override protections found in the Resource Management Act such as water conservation orders, the Conservation Act, and the Wildlife Act?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I said that because it’s true. The purpose of the expert panels will be to set conditions for the projects that are referred to them and take into account all of the environmental factors, including many of the factors the member just mentioned.
Hon Rachel Brooking: Is the panel going to be able to decline the secret pet projects to be listed in Schedule 2, Part A?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, the member’s characterisation is offensive and wrong. We are running a very clean and transparent process when it comes to the projects we listed in Schedule 2. I might contrast that with the COVID-19 fast-track legislation where David Parker—again, I’d invite the member to turn to her right and talk to the Hon David Parker—was authorised by Cabinet to hand-pick 19 projects that made their way into the legislation and then got passed into law by Parliament. We are running an advisory group process chaired by Mr Tapsell, who has provided advice to Ministers, and we are working our way through.
Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Can they decline it?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: We’ve already said that the expert panels will, as recommended by Cabinet—again, it’s over to the select committee, but Cabinet is recommending to the select committee that the expert panels will have the ability to decline projects referred to them.
Hon Nicola Willis: Can the Minister confirm that the applications for the fast-track consenting process include tens of thousands of new homes and multiple renewable energy projects, and does he share my view that when these successful projects are built, then Labour will want to take the credit for the original legislation?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yes. Without getting into too much detail about the projects that have been applied for, I can tell the House that the sum total of houses that would be developed by the fast-track proposals that currently have been applied for numbers 80,000 new houses as a result of the over 100 applications for housing and urban development. Now, it will be over to the Government and then, ultimately, over to the Parliament as to whether or not those projects take place. But I think the point that the House should bear in mind is that our planning system is so stuffed that there are over 380 applications that have come in to Government to build more renewables; develop more housing; yes, build more mines and build more quarries; and build infrastructure that this country needs. That’s a sign of how stuffed the Resource Management Act is, and that’s why we’re fixing it.
Question No. 9—Resources
9. JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First) to the Minister for Resources: What reports has he seen regarding the need for more resource extraction to support New Zealand’s energy security?
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Resources): Energy security now trumps all sorts of falsehoods and woke-ism. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment determined that NZ cannot produce enough gas to meet the level of demand experienced over the last two years. The long-term gas prices will continue to follow an upward trend unless there is significant investment that can bring gas to market. There are no options in the short term, despite assertions to the contrary. We’re going back to granular facts. This is why the Government is overturning the dangerous, juvenile, ridiculous oil and gas ban.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, Mr Speaker. As has been established in this House a number of times, it is appropriate for Ministers to make comparisons with policies of previous Governments, but there is no way that that commentary could be considered a factual statement. That is clearly a debatable issue, and shouldn’t be included in a response to a question from his own party.
SPEAKER: Yeah, I’d just suggest the Minister might calm some of those comments down a little bit. There was the idea that you can criticise a policy, which is not out of order, but some of the descriptors that were used are probably a bit borderline.
Hon SHANE JONES: Speaking to the point of order. Sir, what is happening with this House that the beauty of language and robust expression suddenly are turning the other side into sobbers?
SPEAKER: I’m sorry that that’s your opinion, but it’s not mine. Do you have another supplementary, Jenny Marcroft?
Jenny Marcroft: What reports has he seen on the consequences of the oil and gas ban on New Zealand businesses?
Hon SHANE JONES: In 2018, on a distant political planet, Business New Zealand issued a press statement warning that businesses would be affected by bans, especially those using gas. Exporters such as Fonterra, New Zealand Steel, Methanex, and Refining New Zealand—well, that’s now gone, sadly—would suffer higher gas prices and a restriction of supply. This would have a chilling impact on confidence amongst domestic investors and overseas investors. They are the casualties of that historic—I won’t describe it with colourful language—ill-conceived decision.
Jenny Marcroft: What work is he doing to address sovereign risk for investors in resource extraction?
Hon SHANE JONES: Sadly, we do have members in Parliament making wild, indiscriminatory threats—should democracy prevail and this side of Parliament pass a piece of legislation—that entities seeking statutory, enforceable consents will have them stripped and expropriated without compensation. It is a very bleak day that members of this House feel they have the right to threaten and further undermine sovereign risk of investment. Sadly, I was also sad and disappointed to hear that that side of the House will not join to save the jobs by giving better energy resilience, which is currently showing—
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That question must fall foul of both your rulings and longstanding rulings about Government Ministers not using patsy questions to attack the Opposition, but it’s also full of factual inaccuracies. Nothing that the Minister has just said is true, and he would not be able to verify or authenticate any of the statements that he has just made.
Hon SHANE JONES: Speaking to the point of order, it is beyond cavil, it is beyond debate, that a member, admittedly, gone—gone from this House—made those very statements when he was a parliamentarian pertaining to the expropriation of rights that might be gained under the proposed fast-track legislation, and an offer has gone from this side of the House to that side of the House to join with us, save jobs, and boost energy security. That is an unassailable fact.
SPEAKER: If any member of the House feels as though they have been deliberately misrepresented, they know that there is a course of action they can follow.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Well, point of order, Mr Speaker. That particular ruling applies to when a member feels that their statements or actions have been misrepresented. Shane Jones has been misrepresenting the actions of an entire Government, of which he was part.
SPEAKER: Well, people will, obviously, pick up, as you have, and make their own decision about that.
Ricardo Menéndez March: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Beyond the sort of exchanges around the factual inaccuracies, I’m still none the less quite concerned about the Minister being allowed to, basically, make a whole rambling answer attacking the Opposition straight off the bat, and I’m just calling on you to make sure that we actually have clear constraints around that, because it just keeps happening.
SPEAKER: Yeah, but, look, with all due respect, this is a Westminster Parliament, where there is a certain amount of that across the House. I was listening very carefully to what the Hon Shane Jones has said, and in light of what I’d previously said, I didn’t find him to have transgressed. I know people might not like what he’s saying, but he’s got a right to say it. Is there another question?
Jenny Marcroft: Supplementary—
Ricardo Menéndez March: Point of order, Mr Speaker. So can I just get clarification that it’s OK for Ministers to start, in answer to a patsy question, launching directly into political attacks on the Opposition and previous Governments?
SPEAKER: Well, he expressed, as I recall it, some disappointment about some statements made by a member, and I think that that is why I made the point that if a member feels personally affected, then they have a course of action. But you can’t stop people speaking in this House generally, and I think that’s all that the Minister has done at this stage.
Jenny Marcroft: What is his message to potential investors in resource extraction?
Hon SHANE JONES: My message to investors is that in the unlikely event that you did pay any attention to members from the Opposition threatening to expropriate rights, that may be—
SPEAKER: No, I think you can just—
Hon SHANE JONES: No, no, no—that’s a fact, Mr Speaker. That’s a fact.
SPEAKER: Well, it’s not a fact that’s on the Table here at the moment, so I think it would help the order of the House if that answer was put in a different way.
Hon SHANE JONES: My message to investors is that we are open for business. Obviously, if you are coming from overseas, there is a threshold to go through that tests whether or not not only is your investment legitimate but how it will grow in New Zealand. We need more investment to save our energy system. It is in peril. Security risk has collapsed, and New Zealanders are losing their jobs because of them.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Shane Jones has made several repeated allegations about members on this side, potentially in a future Government, breaching a contract—so cancelling a contract that had been entered into with a previous Government. That’s a serious allegation of which there can be absolutely no foundation in fact, because no members on this side of the House have made that claim. In fact, to my knowledge, the only example of that happening in recent history was the incoming National Government cancelling the order for Interislander ferries entered into by the last Government. There has been no claim on this side of the House that we would cancel contracts already entered into.
SPEAKER: And I’ve just pulled the Minister up for making that statement.
Hon SHANE JONES: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I invite the Leader of the Opposition to talk to the former Minister of oceans—
SPEAKER: No, hang on—wait on. A point of order would be addressed in relation to the Standing Orders in relation to proceedings of the House.
Hon SHANE JONES: Sir, the assertion has been made that this statement has been made devoid of facts. I am responding to that assertion. I invite the Leader of the Opposition to talk to Rachel Brooking—what did she say—and the Green Party to talk to their own members about threats of expropriation. It’s—
SPEAKER: OK, well, that’s—
Hon SHANE JONES: —there on the public record.
SPEAKER: Good—sit down. That’s the end of that.
Question No. 10—Health
10. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Health: Does she stand by her response to written question No. 405 (2024), “There was no specific document written. A range of information was provided to officials, including material like Hansard reports, the Coalition Agreement and previous NZ First policy positions”; if so, how is this consistent with her having now released the document in question under the Official Information Act?
Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): Yes. As I first answered to the member on 31 January, a range of information from various sources was provided to officials. This was then scanned into a single document by officials and subsequently released to Radio New Zealand on 9 July 2024 under the Official Information Act (OIA). But I’d also remind the member that this document—the document in question—that she’s referring to was previously released to the Labour leader’s office on 27 March this year.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Does she stand by the part of her response to written parliamentary question No. 405 “There was no specific document written.”?
Hon CASEY COSTELLO: Yet again, as I’ve stated, it was a compilation of information, which was subsequently scanned by the health officials to form a document.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Why did she release this single document as a document under the Official Information Act if it is, as she has just claimed, not a document?
Hon CASEY COSTELLO: I’m not sure if I should speak slower, but it was a compilation of information—[Interruption]—a compilation of information—
Hon Dr Megan Woods: Your job’s on the line.
SPEAKER: No, it’s not. Take your time.
Hon CASEY COSTELLO: It was a compilation of information that was subsequently scanned by health officials, which turned it into a single document.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: When did she first become aware that the document exists?
Hon CASEY COSTELLO: There was a range of information that was provided to me as an incoming Minister. I would assume it would have been prior to my first bringing this matter to the House—
Hon Shane Jones: Historical data.
Hon CASEY COSTELLO: Historical data, definitely. It was definitely prior to the first action I took as a Minister of Customs, in which I raised the excise tax for tobacco.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Does she stand by her response to an OIA request from Radio New Zealand that the document was delivered to her office as hard copy on 6 December 2023?
Hon Shane Jones: Point of order. Sir, you undertook to ensure that the line of questioning did not violate Speakers’ ruling 230/4. We now have this member repeating falsehoods and using question time as an echo chamber to undermine natural justice.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Speaking to the point of order. Well, sir, there’s no possible grounds to make the claim that the member is asking falsehoods when she’s simply asking the Minister to stand by a statement she has previously made. This question is entirely in line with the primary, which you yourself have ruled to be appropriate.
SPEAKER: That is right, and if I listen to the answers that have been given so far, they are fairly clear. So, without penalty, ask the question again.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Does she stand by her response to an OIA request from Radio New Zealand that the document was delivered to her office as hard copy on 6 December 2023?
Hon CASEY COSTELLO: Recalling back to that period, I would definitely say, if I answered the question at that time, that was when I received the information, which, as I referred to, later was compiled into a single document.
Question No. 11—Prime Minister
11. LAN PHAM (Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes.
Lan Pham: Does he stand by his Ministers’ statement that “Cabinet has agreed to recommend a suite of sensible changes to the Fast-track Approvals Bill”, and, if so, would he say it is sensible for Cabinet to allow prohibited activities, such as mining on conservation land or areas where critically endangered species call home, to have a consenting pathway through the bill?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: In answer to the first leg of your question, yes.
Lan Pham: Did his Cabinet consider it sensible that local communities, iwi, and hapū who have fought for decades to protect their local rivers, beaches, and forests from damaging development will be locked out of having any voice on fast-track projects in their own neighbourhood?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What we thought was sensible was to address the infrastructure crisis, the housing crisis, and the energy shortage that we have.
Lan Pham: Is the Prime Minister concerned that the sole Minister tasked with referring projects to the expert panel under the fast-track regime found it “very difficult to distinguish between private and public benefit”, and, if so, can the Prime Minister outline for the benefit of his Ministers who the beneficiaries are of a public housing development, versus the beneficiaries of fossil fuel mining in untouched indigenous forest?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We want to get more jobs, we want to have an economy growing, and we want people to have more houses.
Hon Shane Jones: How does the Prime Minister respond: “Any companies thinking of taking advantage of a fast-track process that shortcuts our democracy, side-steps the scrutiny of our processes in Parliament, should be well aware a change of Government could result in the loss of consent, possibly without compensation.”, says Lan Pham?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, we want to encourage investment in this country to get the infrastructure built that we need.
Lan Pham: Does the Prime Minister agree with the Minister for Infrastructure that “Even things like mines—they have public benefits”, and would he consider the fluorescent, severely polluted Ōhinemuri River a public benefit of mining?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes, because, you know, if you think about mining, every electric vehicle (EV)—in answer the first leg of the question, yes, because you need mining to make sure you’ve got an EV, you’ve got a smartphone, you’ve got solar power, and you need to make sure, wind farms need minerals. And I’ll just say to that member, the Greens should back fast track to double renewable electricity; they should end the oil and gas ban so that we can lower emissions; they should back mining so we can have more EVs and more solar panels; and they should back GE, gene tech regulation as well, so that we can reduce on-farm emissions.
Hon Chris Bishop: Does the Prime Minister accept that a wind energy project—for example, developed by privately owned Contact Energy—might be a private project but that there is clear public benefit in increasing renewable electricity to address our energy shortage?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Absolutely. This Government takes its net carbon zero 2050 goals very seriously.
Question No. 12—Local Government
12. DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) to the Minister of Local Government: What recent announcements has he made on getting councils back to basics?
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Last week, the Prime Minister and I announced new measures to ensure councils get back to basics, reduce the pressure on rates, deliver core services and infrastructure, and improve decision-making efficiency. We are committed to ensuring that ratepayers’ money is spent wisely, with councils focusing on essential services that matter most to their communities.
Dan Bidois: What measures has the Government taken to get councils back to basics?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: We are implementing several key measures, including refocusing the Local Government Act to ensure councils concentrate on core services such as picking up the rubbish, fixing the pipes, filling the potholes. This involves scrapping the four wellbeings, which have distracted councils with nice-to-have pet projects instead of focusing on the must-haves. Our goal is to ensure councils are delivering the essential services and infrastructure their communities need.
Dan Bidois: Why is the Government considering an introduction of a rate cap for councils?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, we want to protect ratepayers from excessive rates hikes and prevent councils from wasting money on nice-to-have pet projects like rain gardens on top of bus stops, and $490,000 speed bumps by implementing a rate cap similar to those in some Australian states. We aim to balance the financial need of councils with the interests of ratepayers, ensuring funds are directed towards essential infrastructure and services.
Dan Bidois: What reactions has he seen in response to these announcements?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the public response has been overwhelmingly positive. Ratepayers who are facing an average rates hike of over 15 percent this year have welcomed our call for councils to tighten their belts and focus on core services. The New Zealand Herald editorial described our announcement as “timely”, resonating with those frustrated by wasteful spending. Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger supported the move, viewing it as a much-needed war on waste. This feedback confirms that New Zealanders want their money spent wisely, aligning with the Prime Minister’s strong emphasis on fiscal responsibility.
Bills
Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill
First Reading
Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I present a legislative statement on the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill.
SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I move, That the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill at the appropriate time. I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by March 2025 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during an evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196(1)(b) and (c).
The Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill will amend the Social Workers Registration Act 2023, through a total of 16 amendments. Each change separately has a small impact, but together the six policy changes and 10 technical amendments will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations carried out under the Act. This will, in turn, achieve better regulatory oversight of social workers involved with delivering health and social services.
Social workers play a critical role in our communities throughout New Zealand. They are particularly important for providing support to some of our most underserved and marginalised members of society, including children. In recent years, more so than ever, social workers have been critical in supporting New Zealanders, such as in last year’s North Island weather events. As a Government, we want to ensure that the workforce of social workers is helped and empowered to meet the needs of our communities. This Government is committed to supporting earlier interventions, which are more effective for those at risk. Social workers play an important role in helping to achieve this by providing vital help to New Zealanders when they need it.
The Act sets out occupational regulations for the social worker profession, provides mechanisms to ensure the safety of the public, and enhances the professionalism of social workers. It established the Social Workers Registration Board as the regulatory authority responsible for the registration of social workers. It also set up the Social Worker Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal to exercise disciplinary powers over social workers.
The Act mandates the board to conduct a review of its operations and the operation of the Act at least every five years. In 2019, the Social Workers Registration Legislation Act was passed, amending the Act by bringing in mandatory registration for anyone using the title “social worker” or practising as a social worker in New Zealand. The bill responds to the board’s 2020 review of the Act. The 16 minor policy changes and technical amendments in this bill will streamline operations and address minor inconsistencies, some of which were created by the 2019 amendments.
I’d like to take this opportunity to touch on each of the six policy changes that are proposed, and their rationale. Firstly, the bill proposes to broaden the scope of grounds for the interim suspension of social workers where an investigation is being considered. Social workers cannot currently be suspended until a formal investigation or criminal proceedings have started. This process has a risk of serious harm to the public, as social workers are not able to be suspended from work even when there are concerns around a social worker’s practice and/or professionalism. We are tightening up the process where social workers are accused of wrongdoing, enabling them to be stood down before a formal investigation or criminal proceeding has started, to reduce the risk to those served by social workers and the public.
The second proposed policy amendment is to change the extension period for the interim suspension of social workers to align with periods that are reasonable and necessary for the board to complete a formal investigation and/or medical examination. Currently, the maximum interim suspension is 10 days per notice, but investigations can take up to 18 months. This amendment will provide more certainty for suspended social workers and remove the need for multiple notices, which has the potential to be inflammatory.
Our bill’s third policy change will allow professional conduct to committees which are determining complaints or notice of convictions to combine available outcomes, rather than being restricted to choosing only one outcome and responding to and addressing complex complaints and circumstances. This will provide more flexibility for the conduct committees to take a tailored approach where needed.
We also plan to enable the board to delegate its registration functions to its employed staff. Under the Crown Entities Act 2004, the appointed boards of Crown entities are usually able to delegate these functions. However, the Act currently restricts the board’s ability to do so. This change will reduce delays in registration processes for social workers, as well as freeing up the appointed board to prioritise its governance responsibilities.
Another proposed policy amendment is to add a monitoring function to the board’s responsibilities in relation to prescribed social work qualifications. Although this function is implied, it should be made an explicit provision to provide any doubt of the board’s role in monitoring and assessing social work qualifications for the purpose of registration.
Finally, the sixth policy amendment proposes to transfer the power from the Ministry of Social Development to the board to obtain information to investigate anyone holding themselves out as a social worker or practising as a social worker without authorisation. This amendment will bring gains in both efficiency and effectiveness by consolidating the monitoring and compliance functions under the Act. It will also provide one point of contact and operation for employers and the social services sector.
This bill also proposes 10 technical amendments. These changes do not deviate from the policy intent of the impacted provisions, but rather address inconsistencies created by the 2019 amendments, streamline the Act’s operations, and update the language. This move follows wider changes to how social workers are governed, that professionalise the workforce across the board. Social workers all now need to formally register with the Social Workers Registration Board and hold a practising certificate, which must be renewed each year. These changes have, by and large, increased transparency within the social work profession and put the status of the profession alongside similar professions in health, teaching, and law, which all have mandatory registration. This bill further contributes to the enhanced professionalisation, accountability, and status of social workers.
It is crucial that we have a workforce of social workers that are able to serve increasingly complex and diverse needs. The 16 amendments in this bill require legislative amendment to resolve, and cannot be given effect by any other means. Fit for purpose occupational regulation is an important part of ensuring the safety of both social workers and the public throughout New Zealand.
I want to finish by acknowledging social worker representatives and all social workers for the vital work they do in our communities. Your tireless efforts and dedication to helping New Zealanders in need are valued and often go unrecognised. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the board who has worked with officials in developing the amendments to this bill. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I’ll start by saying that we do support the bill. There’s nothing, in our minds, that is controversial about this bill.
Every five years, the Social Workers Registration Board reviews the relevant legislation and works with the Ministry of Social Development to streamline, update, or otherwise improve the legislation and to see whether or not it’s working. The last review took place in 2020, under a Labour Government. It’s good to see that the changes in this bill reflect the findings of that review and that there are no surprises aside from that.
The Social Workers Registration Board initially put forward 13 suggestions to the Ministry of Social Development for consideration. This bill makes 16 minor policy and technical amendments to the 2003 Act. The amendments seek to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the operation of the 2003 Act. This includes six amendments that require a minor policy adjustment to reduce delays in processes under the 2003 Act, that protect the public from harm, and clarify functions that were provided for under the Social Workers Registration Legislation Amendment Act 2019. The remaining 10 amendments are technical and address inconsistencies created by the 2019 amendment Act, streamline the operations of the 2003 Act, and update language used in the 2003 Act.
Some of the changes—not all mentioned by the Minister—are that it: replaces the reference to “different ethnic and cultural groups” with a reference to “various ethnic and cultural groups” in various clauses; broadens the relevant sections to suspend a social worker if they are or are about to be under investigation for either a breach of the main Act, the Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994, or a crime; reinstates the ability of the Minister to appoint more than one deputy chairperson, which was inadvertently removed by amendments to the principal Act in 2019; provides the Minister with a flexibility to appoint at least five social workers to enable the tribunal to be constituted, instead of requiring five social workers to be appointed; transfers the power to obtain the information under section 147A of the power to obtain information to investigate offences from the chief executive to the board. Also, interestingly—which I thought might be controversial for some of the members on the other side of the House, and which, interestingly, wasn’t mentioned by the Minister when she spoke to the bill—it replaces terms with “he” or “she” with gender-neutral terminology, which we, of course, are supportive of on this side of the House. I find it interesting that the Minister didn’t mention that.
We do agree that social workers play an absolute critical role. In recent years, we have had to call on them more and more because of the different crises that we have faced, because of the many challenges that whānau have encountered, whether it be the cost of living, whether it be because they’ve been impacted by weather events, whether it be because they experienced hardship or difficulties due to the pandemic. I do want to acknowledge all of our social workers.
This bill is straightforward. We do have lots of other social worker - related questions for the Minister, like “What is happening to that pay equity settlement for social workers?” and “What will be the likely impact of Oranga Tamariki cuts to front-line social workers?” and “How is the Minister working to ensure we have the social worker workforce that we need, given that we do not have enough currently?” and “How is it she could continue with the repeal of section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act when social workers have strongly opposed it?” However, those questions might be slightly out of scope in relation to this particular bill, and perhaps we’ll save that for another opportunity to ask the Minister those questions. We support this bill and we absolutely support our hard-working social workers and the work that the Social Workers Registration Board undertakes as well.
RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party is supporting the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. As has been canvassed by others, this is part of a review of the Social Workers Registration Board that happens every five years, and, as a previous member mentioned, it happened in 2020. We do agree that, overall, the changes that are being put in place are not controversial, and we acknowledge that it includes things like broadening the scope of grounds for interim suspension where an investigation under the Social Workers Registration Act, under the Health and Disability Commissioner Act, where a criminal proceeding is reasonable, contemplated, just not under way; and a few other things that include enabling the board to delegate registration functions so that the board can focus on governance functions.
I think the key points around this are that it improves the mechanisms to hold social workers accountable for the work that they do, to keeping themselves and the people that they work alongside safe, and it also improves some of those governance aspects.
It’s interesting, because unlike the member Carmel Sepuloni, who spoke prior to me, I do think there are some standing questions that I actually think are relevant to this bill in terms of what the Government is doing. One of the key things in the changes here are about how social workers can be accountable for the work that they do. In my view, to have a thriving social work care workforce it relies on that workforce being resourced. It relies on that workforce being adequately trained. It relies on that workforce being trained in a way that allows them to have enough resources as they complete their training. Those are the things that actually create social workers that are best placed to serve their communities and to keep themselves, their colleagues, and the people that they serve safe.
If we’re going to continue with the reviews of the system that are in place to hold social workers accountable for any potential harm that they cause, I do have concerns around how the changes that the Government is pushing through will interact with the ability for social workers to have access to safe workplaces and that they don’t end up having to use these improved mechanisms. For example, the fact that many social workers will now be having to be in workplaces where there will be less of them to serve potentially just as many people concerns me because it could end up relying on some of these mechanisms more and more. So I guess there are some outstanding questions that I hope we can unpack at the select committee around actually some of these mechanisms—whether there’s an expectation that their use will increase as a result of the Government’s actions.
We still have a workforce—and I say this as somebody who has been a guest lecturer for social workers, who has trained social workers as a field educator—who, while they’re studying, are struggling to survive, and that affects the quality of their practice later on, because many of them are actually just struggling to make ends meet. If we’re going to make changes as to how we hold them accountable, I guess we should start with the question of how we can train social workers in the best way we can.
I also want to know about the professionalisation of social work. I do want to caution against assuming that the only way in which social workers can be of excellence is through this kind of professionalisation pathway. We’ve got to remember that many Māori, Pasifika, and migrant communities benefit a lot from the experience pathways, and, actually, that we should remember that those experiences can enrich and diversify our social work practices. And so I think there needs to be a balance struck in relation to what the Minister alluded to around putting them on par with other kinds of professions while, at the same time, acknowledging that right now, if we were to kind of streamline social work practice and potentially professionalise it further, it could actually miss the mark in terms of having social workers who actually extend their knowledge outside of what’s considered to be normal at the moment. Somebody could have a social worker show up who had never received any training around how Work and Income works and would come to my previous workplace hoping to have the labour of volunteers who actually did understand how Work and Income works, so I think there are some gaps right now in this kind of social worker professionalisation.
Overall, the Green Party supports this bill. We look forward to unpacking some of the nuances of how this bill interacts with the Government’s actions at select committee, and I hope this results in a constructive conversation across party lines.
Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT to say that we are supporting the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill in its first reading. As other contributors have said before, this is actually a bill that is making minor changes, but these changes are important. There are six minor policy adjustments and 10 technical amendments. These are based on the review that has been done as per the previous legislation that a review needs to be done in five years’ time. The technical amendments are, basically, to clear the inconsistencies which are there in the 2019 amendment.
It’s really important that we have a really good oversight of social workers, because we have given a very special status to social workers with the requirement of registration, and we want to see that people have confidence when they reach out to a social worker for anything that they need, so social workers need to maintain that integrity, that credibility within their profession. They can do that by providing that right kind of support that is needed when people reach out to them. That is why it was really important that we have registered social workers.
Now, in this legislation, the six minor policy adjustments are to actually strengthen the role of the board to ensure that there is proper regulatory oversight of social workers. As we have heard from the Minister in charge, one of the minor policy changes is to broaden the scope of grounds of the interim suspension of social workers where an investigation is being considered, because without this provision, this might put the board in a very awkward position, because if they know something is happening and they continue to let that social worker operate in the field, interacting with people, then they might be putting these people in more danger, because later on if it is found out that, actually, there was an issue with the social worker, that can put everybody in a very awkward position. It’s really important that we look into this, and that’s why we are supportive of this change, this minor policy adjustment in this legislation so that if there is any investigation being considered, that individual can be put on interim suspension.
The second issue is about the time that the board takes to investigate any complaint. The board needs a reasonable time that needs to be taken to properly investigate any complaint, and so this bill is to change the extension period for the interim suspension, because there is no point giving multiple notices. It’s important that that individual gets the proper notice so that they know that the board needs that kind of reasonable time, but that, of course, is the time that is really necessary to do that kind of investigation that the board wants to do on any complaint.
We know that we are short of social workers. This is a field which is in high demand. We don’t want anybody who wants to operate as a social worker to just wait in the queue for their registration to go through the Social Workers Registration Board. The other change that this bill makes is to delegate that function to one of its staff, so that way that backlog, if there is any, can be easily cleared and the board can actually invest more time in the governance role that they should be doing. In my view, this is actually making the whole process efficient. It is about making sure that those who want to register as social workers don’t feel discouraged because of the time it takes for them to register. We want to see that anybody who is waiting to be registered as a social worker gets that opportunity as soon as possible and is out there serving the community through their role.
In the time that I have left, I’ll very quickly touch on another function that is currently sitting with the Ministry of Social Development, but through this legislation it is going to be transferred to the board if this legislation goes through, and this is the overall monitoring and compliance function under the Act. If somebody is operating as a social worker without authorisation, at the moment the Ministry of Social Development can investigate that, but as per this legislation that power will be transferred to the board.
It’s really important to see that, because we have the standard set for social workers. People sometimes loosely use this term as a social worker—that they are not getting really serious in this while using the social worker term and not misleading anybody who might think that they are registered social workers, so it’s important to have that kind of monitoring. It is important to see that the requirement in the legislation is complied with. There are 10 amendments, as we have heard before. The ACT Party is supporting this bill. Thank you.
TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): I stand on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. The Social Workers Registration Act 2003 provides these mechanisms to ensure the safety of the public and to also enhance the professionalism of social workers. This Act established something called the Social Workers Registration Board, and this acts as the regulatory authority which is responsible for the registration of social workers. It also established the Social Workers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal, also known as “the tribunal”, to exercise disciplinary powers over social workers.
This bill is proposing to go through with the amendments, but before I speak on this current bill, I would like, firstly, to acknowledge all of the hard-working social workers who are out there and who are contributing greatly to our community. I, like many others, through lived experience, decided to go and study, and many of the people out there—at the time when I was studying towards a diploma in counselling, 20 years ago—had to do the social worker certification first. Coincidentally, I met with a friend who is still in that role, and she is still just as fulfilled 20 years later as she was when we were first studying together.
It’s a difficult task. It’s a difficult job. You sometimes have to speak with six individuals in a day, each one of those individuals carrying a lot of suffering, and it is up to you as a social worker or as a counsellor to give just as much attention to client No. 6 as you did to client No. 1. I just want to speak about this, just to acknowledge the social workers out there and how important it is that, whether it be through legislation or other means, supervision, they are really taken care of, because so many individuals who go there and share their deepest pain and suffering are relying on their expertise, their compassion, and their acceptance in order to be able to work through what they are going through.
Often, you think about your clients and you go, “Gosh, I wonder how that person is.” Then, all of a sudden, they pop up and you see that you’ve made a change in their lives. This is why the legislation is so important: so that our social workers are taken care of, they are monitored, and they are accountable. At times, the client - social worker relationship is one where the client is incredibly vulnerable—and some may say that it is an imbalanced relationship—so it is important that everything is kept in place in order for both client and social worker to be kept safe. Sometimes, it’s about changing one person at a time in order for a community to change. Hence, it is important that standards are set and standards are maintained in this industry—hence, the need for this amendment bill that we are speaking on today.
It is important that standards are maintained, as I mentioned before. It can be a heavy task, a heavy job, a very fulfilling one but one where you carry a lot, and by having these updates and amendments in place, the social worker knows that they are being watched, but also in a compassionate way. That is one of the things I would like to stress in my contribution today: everyone makes a mistake, and it’s important that social workers are held and supervised in an appropriate way; hence, the need for the five-year review which takes place. That way we can keep an eye on whether there are safeguards in place—are there registration processes in place? How are we safeguarding not only the public but also the social workers themselves?
I know I’ve come from a bit of a different angle here, Madam Speaker, but this is one of the reasons why New Zealand First is in full support of this bill. We commend it to the House.
HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato): Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka. Ngā mihi ki a tātou, ngā mihi ki te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mā Te Pāti Māori i te rangi nei, engari tuatahi ake ka tika me whakahōnore, me tuku i ngā whakawhetai ki ngā kaimahi kua pupuri i te mana i roto i tēnei o ngā rōpū, arā ko ngā social workers.
[Thank you, Madam Speaker. Greetings to all of us, greetings to the House. I stand to give voice to the comments on behalf of the Māori Party today, but firstly it is appropriate to honour and send thanks to the staff who have maintained the status within this particular group—i.e., the social workers.]
I first want to acknowledge the hard mahi that social workers do across the country. This bill proposes amending the Social Workers Registration Legislation Act to extend the experience pathway to social worker registration for an additional four years to February 2028. In short, ahakoa taku poto i tēnei rangi, e tautoko katoatia ana e Te Pāti Māori tēnei pire. [despite my brevity today, this bill is absolutely supported by the Māori Party.]
People applying through the experience pathway can use their practical experience to demonstrate that they meet the professional competency standards set by the board. The Social Workers Registration Board have been working with Māori social workers to make the application process for the experience pathway more holistic, cultural, responsive, and accessible. There has also been increasing recognition of the value of indigenous te ao Māori practice in social work, which the experience pathway supports.
Around a quarter of social workers registered under the experience pathway over the past 13 years have identified as Māori. A Māori-informed lens would recognise a variety of backgrounds as being capable of working with whānau in the way that social workers do and to support any work that better aligns the profession within tikanga approaches.
Te Pāti Māori believes that social workers can play a positive or harmful role in the protection of whakapapa. That depends on their training, cultural responsiveness, and background. We support the empowering of workers who have the experience to enter the workforce and contribute to the protection of our whakapapa. We note that this proposal is supported by the Tangata Whenua Social Workers Association and the Social Services Providers Aotearoa. We note that this bill will provide equity for Māori working in the social services—well, at least for the next four years. In short, Te Pāti Māori supports this bill. Nō reira, tēnā ra tātou.
PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn): Madam Speaker, thank you. I am pleased to be able to stand in support of the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill, and equally pleased that the support of the bill is shared by all members of the House. As diverse as the ethnic communities are in New Zealand, as diverse as the peoples are in New Zealand, diversity in the social worker profession is also extremely important. In that instance, it’s also important to ensure that the vulnerabilities of the profession are looked at, hence this review and that the changes that are made necessary by that review are being put into place.
Social workers perform a very crucial and supportive role to many New Zealanders, especially to the most underserved, the most vulnerable, including children. We want, across the House, to ensure the safety of all New Zealanders, especially those served by social workers the most. By these amendments, we are tightening the process for social workers in terms of registration, in terms of situations where they may find themselves and their actions having to be reviewed or investigated, and also in ensuring that every social worker who holds himself out as a social worker and performs the work, the critical work, that social workers perform is appropriately and validly enabled and registered to do so.
Mandatory registration is not a strange thing. Similar professions in health and teaching and law are already required to be mandatorily registered. That ensures the capacity and the professionalism of everyone involved in this profession.
The bill addresses one particular vulnerability of the profession, which is that space where there may need to be interim suspension of social workers during an investigation. It is important that when there is question, the questions and the facts need to be raised and considered and determined first, and, where there is question on a social worker’s performance or actions, then that social worker, for the protection of New Zealanders, should be able to be put in suspension while the facts are determined.
That suspension also must be defined—so the time for which that suspension is able to be handed down should be clearly defined, not just for protection of the public but also for the protection of the social worker, that they are aware and they know the time frame by which a suspension may be put upon them. This gives them certainty of time frame and removes the need for repeated notices of increased suspension periods as the process unfolds. It removes uncertainty as well. It also avoids that situation where a suspended social worker may appear to be continuously being extended and, therefore, may appear to be more deserving of the suspension than not.
All of these changes are aimed at making sure that the profession is respected and trusted by New Zealanders, and we also want to be sure that the social workers themselves are clear on the parameters by which they are able to carry out their work effectively and for the good of everyone. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This is a straightforward bill and we support it. There is nothing that we find controversial in this bill. It follows the process where, every five years, the Social Workers Registration Board goes through a process of reviewing the relevant legislation and works with the Ministry of Social Development to be able to streamline, update, or otherwise improve the legislation and see how it’s working. The last time this was done was under Labour in 2020, and it’s good to see that this is being done again.
It makes 16 minor policy and technical amendments to the original Act. These changes really seek to improve the effectiveness and the efficacy of the operation of the Act. The bill also looks at some inconsistencies—so going through and modernising and making sure that it reflects what it needs to be doing. Some of those, as have already been mentioned by the previous Labour speaker, Carmel Sepuloni, go into replacing terms like “he” or “she” with gender-neutral terminology.
It also transfers the power to obtain information under section 147A, the power to obtain information to investigate offences from the chief executive, to the board. This goes to the heart of acknowledging that the role that social workers do in our community is an incredibly difficult one and one that we on this side of the House value immensely. It’s important that there’s a framework and a structure around making sure we protect all of the interests of those involved when social work is taking place.
I’d like to acknowledge that my view is that some of the most difficult work is done by the front line of social workers, who are often required to go into families where there may be ongoing or high levels of family violence, and trying to engage with a family to find the best way of resolving those issues, of finding long-term strategies to enable people who love each other to go on and do so while protecting the wellbeing of all of the people within that family unit. It is a crucial part of having a community that is connected, healthy, and thriving, to make sure that those family members within a small or even an extended family are getting all of the things that they need, and social workers do an outstanding job, from all my experience of seeing their work in the Hutt Valley. They typically go above and beyond to be able to do that.
One of the issues that I would just like to flag is that there still is the unresolved issue in relation to a pay equity settlement for social workers that is still outstanding. I know many social workers who will be impacted by this bill are still awaiting to hear what the outcome of the pay equity settlement will mean for them.
Of particular concern is that some of those cuts to the Oranga Tamariki contracts have directly affected social workers in my area and in many other people’s areas where those jobs have now been lost. It is a real concern. This has been raised with some of these agencies who have lost funding. Their concern is that it is the pay equity settlement that has contributed to some of those cuts. When it was calculated what the increased cost of the contract would be to Government if pay equity was delivered upon, there is a view within our social worker community that that has resulted in some roles being cut. That is a really concerning—a really concerning—issue for us. Social workers do an incredibly important job. If we are seeing losses of front-line workers as a way of avoiding meeting pay equity obligations, that is deeply concerning for not only the good work that they do but for the future of those families who aren’t receiving that support, and also to the social work profession.
We want people to be able to take up being a social worker, with the view of getting all of the protections that this bill delivers, as well as having fair pay. I commend it to the House.
JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill. It’s a pleasure to rise as the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee that will be hearing submissions on this bill after it passes its first reading, which I speak on today.
This amends the Social Workers Registration Act 2003, which provides mechanisms to ensure the safety of the public and enhance the professionalism of social workers. Now, the board is required, at intervals of not more than five years, to conduct a review of its own operations and the operation of the 2003 Act, and consider whether any amendments to the 2003 Act are required or necessary or desirable. The board must then report its findings to the Minister for Social Development and Employment, who presents a report to the House of Representatives. The board conducted a review in 2020 that identified some areas for improvement. The bill that we have before the House today is in response to that. The Ministry of Social Development collaborated with the board to identify and develop 11 amendments to the 2003 Act, which are contained in the bill that we have before the House this afternoon. An additional five amendments were identified to streamline operations and address minor inconsistencies in the Act, which were added during the drafting of the bill.
In total, the bill makes 16 minor policy and technical amendments to the 2003 Act. Those amendments are seeking to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the operation of that Act. Six of those amendments will require minor policy adjustment to reduce delays in processes in the 2003 Act, protect the public from harm, and clarify functions that were provided for under the Social Workers Registration Legislation Act 2019. The remaining 10 amendments are technical and address inconsistencies created by the 2019 amendment Act, streamline the operation of the 2003 Act, and update language used in the 2003 Act.
I just want to take a moment to just acknowledge the work that social workers do right across New Zealand in what has certainly been a challenging few years, particularly in the last few years, including in my own electorate of Southland. The social workers are a voice for their clients. They help their clients—the individuals; they can be young people, families, people suffering various health and other challenges—navigate complex systems and connect them with other agencies that can support them, including facilitating access to organisations like the Ministry for Social Development and many others. There are a lot of agencies who provide support for people who are vulnerable in our communities, but sometimes it’s enormously valuable to have a specific social worker who can help connect them to all these organisations and help simplify what is often a complex environment. I just want to acknowledge all of the work that they do.
This bill is ultimately about assisting them and ensuring that also the safety of New Zealanders is served by social workers. So, in that vein, we’re tightening up the process where social workers—on the rare occasions they’re accused of wrongdoing, enabling them to be stood down before a formal investigation or criminal procedure has started, to reduce the risk to the public. This move follows wider changes to how social workers are governed, which professionalise the workforce across the board. I think we would all agree that a professionalised workforce is in the best interest of everyone—in upholding the integrity and the reputation of social workers, which is generally very good. Which is to make sure that the proper processes are followed in that respect.
Social workers will now need to formally register with their Social Workers Registration Board and hold a practising certificate which must be renewed each year. Those changes will increase transparency within the social work profession and, we think, will help elevate the status of the profession alongside similar professions in health, teaching, and law, which all have mandatory registration. The social work profession is one that we think is very important, very valuable. We think these changes will help elevate that both within the profession itself and in the mind of the public at large—a very good step forward.
The Government is always committed to supporting early interventions delivered by social workers, which are more effective for those most at risk. It’s crucial that we have a workforce of social workers that are able to serve increasingly complex and diverse needs, and I recommend this bill to the House.
GLEN BENNETT (Labour): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Any legislation that supports the work and professionalism of social workers is something that we support to, in fact, ensure we get it right. Social workers make a profound impact on the lives of individuals, on the lives of families, on the lives of our communities. Their work often is under-looked or under-noticed because the work they do is around transforming and often reforming individuals, whānau, and families.
They work in challenging situations. They work at the coalface of communities. Therefore, we need to ensure that, as a Parliament and as legislators, we are ensuring that we have the right pieces of legislation, the right supports, the right tools in place, but also the right sets of accountabilities and responsibilities. That’s why we support the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill.
When we look at the bill, as has been said already from around the House and from my colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, this is non-controversial. It is legislation that goes through a process—or last went through this process in 2020, under a Labour-led Government, and, therefore, we are here to stand and support as it goes to select committee.
Now, social workers—they’re advocates, they’re champions, they’re cheerleaders, they’re counsellors, they’re budget advisers, they’re critical thinkers, they’re dedicated, they’re resilient, they’re resourceful, they’re empowering, they’re mediators, they’re courageous. Social workers are the lifeblood that brings our communities together. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.
KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): I do enjoy an omnibus bill, and that is certainly what the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill is. It’s really great to hear that this has got unanimous support.
Look, just to acknowledge, first and foremost, one of the most weighty and important parts of the bill, obviously, is dealing with those social workers that, for unfortunate circumstances, need to be suspended for whatever may have happened—protecting the safety of those that those social workers do work with. Of course, this is putting their safety first and foremost, but it also does protect those social workers and their profession. That’s kind of what I want to get to.
For my 2c worth, I think the profession of social work has seen a remarkable change in recent years and the work that they must deal with is growing. It’s growing in complexity and it’s growing in reach as well. I have very conveniently and coincidentally, I suppose, had the great fortune of meeting with a number of social workers in the Napier electorate recently, and just to acknowledge some of those people in the work that they do and that they will benefit from something seemingly so technical, with six policy changes and 10 technical changes. It does make a great difference, and for these particular organisations—one of which is Innov8, doing amazing work, also LIFT Social Enterprise. As well as that, we’ve got a new youth hub, Maraenui youth hub, that has just opened in Maraenui, and they’re all doing amazing work.
Of course, there has been a remarkable number of new graduates—especially from the Eastern Institute of Technology, locally—getting into the social work profession. It is good and timely that they do get recognition as a profession by being registered and having to have a registration certificate, because, of course, the effort that they go to, to study, to prepare, to do the work that they do in the community to make a difference—whether they’re employed through a Government agency, whether they’re employed by a charitable organisation, or whether they’re just doing that work independently—they all make a great difference in our community. I think it’s very important to recognise and consider a social workers registration board being the regulatory authority, but of course having them be registered, having a practising certificate, and having to continue to do that.
Going back to the first point, they have to make sure they’re meeting that standard and that we’re maintaining the safety and security of those people that they’re working with and working for in the community and, of course, addressing the perverse outcome, potentially, of anything that may happen and protecting those in the community as well. What that does to the gravity and the recognition of their profession, undergoing—whether it’s a diploma, certificate, or degree, the work being done by social workers in that timely recognition of what they are doing. So just tightening up the process, making sure that a lot of these policy points and some of the technical amendments are making sure that for the next five years—because, of course, that’s what we’re doing with this omnibus bill—we’re in a better position to have that profession develop and that those people are being served.
Of course, we know many Government agencies have social workers as part of their workforce, but like I said, we’ve got a growing number of charitable organisations and private entities that are doing that great work; they do things across areas that some people may not recognise. I know when we were in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, the amount of social workers that presented to the civil defence hub to help communities after the cyclone, and the work that they continue to do as a result of that.
I think that it’s very important to have that credibility, and that’s something that I’m really pleased to see in this bill. Of course, just to note that, obviously, like I had said, the increasingly complex needs—to know whether a social worker is a registered and licensed or certificated social worker or not, and that that is also OK. But much like with registered nurses and registered teachers, that adds, like I said, to the gravity of the profession.
Look, like I said, very pleased to be speaking on this bill, and what some may see as just an omnibus bill that deals with some technical things, it does make some important changes and some that I look forward to seeing how the profession develops over time. So, of course, with that, I commend this bill to the House.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the Social Workers Registration Amendment Bill be considered by the Social Services and Community Committee.
Motion agreed to.
Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill.
Estimates Debate
In Committee
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, the House is in committee for consideration of the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill. The Standing Orders provide for 11 hours of debate on the Estimates. The Business Committee has determined to organise the debate by portfolio, so there will be no sector-specific debates. All Votes are available for debate, but only specific Ministers will be available each day to speak to the indicated portfolios only. The Government has indicated that the Minister of Finance and the Minister for Children will be available today.
The Business Committee has also determined that any member may commence the debate on a portfolio despite Standing Order 348(3). This debate expires after 11 hours, at which point questions will be put that the Votes stand part of the Schedules and on the provisions of the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill.
The time for the debate has been allocated to parties on a proportional basis and may be taken as parties see fit during the debate. New Zealand National has four hours, 23 minutes; New Zealand Labour has three hours, three minutes; the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has one hour, 15 minutes; ACT New Zealand has 59 minutes; New Zealand First has 43 minutes; Te Pāti Māori has 32 minutes; Darleen Tana has five minutes. The Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations. A compendium of the reports of select committees on the Votes is available on the Table.
The question is that the Votes contained in the Estimates of Appropriation for 2024/25 stand part of the Schedules. Members, we start with the Minister of Finance. The Minister is available to speak to that portfolio from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Finance
STUART SMITH (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to speak on this Estimates committee stage. When the coalition Government took over, we were left with the economy in a perilous state, like the Kaitaki drifting towards the rocks, but, fortunately, we had an incoming coalition Government that was ready and up for the task, and a finance Minister who realised that, while Kiwis were doing it tough and having to tighten their belts and cut down on spending or reprioritise spending, she didn’t think it was appropriate just to leave it to Kiwis to do that.
The Government had to do the same thing as well, so she embarked on a line by line—looked right through all of the Government expenditure, at different Government departments, and found 240 different savings initiatives. So my question to the Minister is: that’s a fantastic job, Minister, but is that the end of it? Is that all the possible savings and reprioritising that is able to be done? Is there more potential to get expenditure from the back office out on to the front line to deliver services to Kiwis in a more efficient and effective way?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the member for the question. As the member implies, our fiscal strategy is that we wish to get debt back down under 40 percent of GDP. In order to do that, we need to get the books back into surplus. If we had stuck with the operating allowances left to us by the outgoing Government, that date of balanced books wouldn’t come until the 2030-31 fiscal year, obviously far too long to be running in the red. We have set a very prudent fiscal policy in which we will have much tighter operating allowances.
We got off to a great start in this year’s Budget with 240 individual savings initiatives across Government, but the work must continue. In answer to the member’s question, there are always opportunities to look across the billions of dollars the Government spends, to judge what the best value for money is and what the investments that should be a priority for New Zealanders are. Ministers are in a continuous process of looking at initiatives to judge whether they are delivering what it says on the tin, whether they are delivering the outcomes promised, and whether there are better uses for those resources. That is actually the way that households run themselves, that is the way that small businesses run themselves, and we may have got out of the habit, as a Government, over the past six years of doing that, but over these next few years it is going to be essential and this Government is looking forward to doing that work.
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee for his opening comments. It’s quite interesting that he talked about how the previous Government left the economy in a mess when, actually, it was just Fitch Ratings last week that confirmed the same credit rating as the previous Government for this Government—so it’s no better, it’s no worse; it’s exactly the same.
Going into what the Minister has spoken about—front-line services—we’ve heard right throughout debates, questions, in select committee, and the media, the Minister has confirmed to the public of New Zealand that there will be no front-line service cuts to pay for the tax cuts, because, ultimately, that is what I understand the fiscal savings programme was set out to achieve. However, it’s been almost three months since the Budget and we are having daily examples throughout the community of front-line service cuts that have been done. For example, in Porirua, which has one of the lowest socio-economic areas in this country, we have seen cuts to the Salvation Army, cuts to the Taeaomanino Trust, we’ve seen cuts to the Porirua women’s centre. We have seen so many cuts across the board at a time when the cost of living is so high. Some of these cuts are to financial budgeting services. And this is not just isolated in Porirua alone; this is right throughout the country. There are ramifications for these Public Service cuts, and I don’t think it was wasteful spending for the previous Government to support these numbers of service providers. I’m sure members on this side of the House will actually come forward with other examples of where there have been front-line service cuts.
The other area that has been quite clear there’s been front-line service cuts is in Te Whatu Ora. So there is a savings programme, I understand, under way where they need to find $1.4 billion, which is part of the savings, as part of the merger of the different district health boards, and yet there is a hiring freeze. How do we know this? It’s because the nurses have come out saying that: “We can’t get jobs.” For those members of the public who don’t understand, through the memorandum of understanding with the Nursing Council, these graduate nurses are promised a job within the health system if they do not go to the private areas.
One of the key areas that the Government did have to respond to really quickly after the Budget was released was in relation to cancer drugs. We’ve received a number of Official Information Act (OIA) requests since that particular period, so I do want to ask the Minister, in relation to some of the process that she undertook—which was, in particular, that the OIA requests showed that the costings for those 13 cancer drugs were done after the Budget was released—why she had not prioritised her election promise and another party’s election promise around those cancer drugs. What was it that she thought wasn’t as important to prioritise?
We’ve seen, in the Budget, an allocation of $2.9 billion for landlords. We’ve also seen that there’s been an excise tax contingency of $216 million for heated tobacco products. I do acknowledge that the cancer drugs were eventually funded, and that was because of the community, because the community was up in arms because they wanted those promises to be met. However, given that her operational allowances have been reduced as a result of this Budget, how will she meet the cost pressures for health when only $103 million, in particular, has been set aside for infrastructure cost pressures? And we’ve seen some of our senior doctors’ unions, who have done some analysis of the Budget since it was released, saying that, once adjusted for inflation, there’s only a 0.4 percent increase in Vote Health.
The other question I want to ask to the Minister is how will she commit to delivering more efficient health services, alongside the $600 million for Pharmac, all while reducing the operating allowance to $2.4 billion in Budget 2025? We know that population growth is increasing, we know that people are getting older, we know the issues that are within the health system about the reduction of nurses or the hiring freeze that is currently happening, the savings target that Te Whatu Ora has to go through, as well as the fact that the operating allowance—about three-quarters has already been spent. I want to hear from the Minister how she was going to deal with these health cost pressures in the future.
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): The member makes a few assertions which I wish to address. The first is an assertion that in order to maintain the level of front-line service delivery to New Zealanders, somehow the Government must pledge to never ever alter a contract with a private or community provider—that we must under no circumstances review those. I think that would be a foolish stance for the Government to take, and we reserve the right to look at the contracts we commission on behalf of taxpayers to assure ourselves that they are delivering on the intentions that were there when they were initially funded.
Our pledge is to deliver improving quality of services, not to do things in exactly the same way as they have always been done. In fact, if we were to do that, we would continue to get the completely suboptimal results that characterised the past six years. We’ve set better Public Service targets. We are very focused on delivery and outcomes, and that includes actually being quite innovative and bold in doing things differently—for example, our work on charter schools comes to mind as I look out at the Hon David Seymour.
The next set of questions related to health funding. Now, in this Budget, which is what this debate relates to, we made a couple of important decisions. The first was that we decided to allocate funding for the pressures in health at a level which was exactly the same level as the National Party campaigned on, and, interestingly, the same number as the Labour Party campaigned on. That was because we judged that number was sufficient to meet the pressures. In addition to that number, we then funded individual initiatives, including some that have been very warmly received by New Zealanders, if opposed by the Labour Party, including things like funding Gumboot Friday mental health services for New Zealanders. So we stand by that approach.
We then took another decision—and I want to acknowledge in this House that it was a decision we did need to think hard on—which was: should we pre-allocate additional funding to the health system from future Budgets now, or should we reserve judgment and come to those decisions later? Ultimately, we were persuaded by the case that Health New Zealand and others working in the health system put to us, which is: if you commit up front out of future operating allowances to put additional funding in, that will provide us certainty of our funding path, the ability to plan and to budget, to find efficiencies, and to engage in longer-term contracts.
On that basis, we’ve then pre-allocated additional operating funding from future Budgets totalling $16 billion in total. And what that means is that the health system can be assured by this Budget that it is literally the first cab off the rank when it comes to additional Budget funding. It doesn’t need to line up to bid for funding in next year’s Budget; we’ve already allocated it and we’ve already allocated it from the next Budget as well—such is our commitment to the health system.
Then the member asks a series of questions about how we ensure that the health system can deliver and deliver effectively. I would put to that member, if only we hadn’t had a Government that was so focused on rewriting the org chart at Health New Zealand and merging different district health boards and creating new layers of management, then our task now might be easier. But that is not the case. We inherited a botched merger. We are now working through that. The way we are doing that is according to some principles, and one of those principles is that we think that those working on the front line are often best placed to make the best decisions for patients. We do not think that multiple layers of bureaucracy are the way. We’re working with the commissioner to get good results, but we are also thinking about the policies needed to ensure our health system can be productive, efficient, and service-oriented into the future.
Finally, the member asked about cancer medications. Well, I am proud to be a member of a party that campaigned on funding additional medicines—a campaign that that member has never made—and that actually delivered on that not only for those in need of those cancer treatments but delivered on that for multiple other patients by using the Pharmac model. That is a front-line delivery, and it is commitment, and it’s one that I’m pleased that this Budget represents.
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I call Chlöe Shwarbrick, thank you.
CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you, Madam Chair—Chlöe Swarbrick, for the record. Just some interesting comments there from the Minister of Finance, particularly that one on a pledge to improve the quality of services. I think this is something that is worthy of a little bit more scrutiny and, if the Minister would indulge me, a little bit of back and forth. There is a few elements that I’d like to touch on in this contribution.
The first is actually around the operating allowance, which, as we know from Treasury, is approximately $100 million less than is necessary to keep the lights on, based on projections around keeping public services as they presently are. I guess I would put to the Minister, as I believe we did in the back and forth that we had at the Finance and Expenditure Committee—the great committee that it is—that deferring maintenance into the future, or on one’s health issues, for example, can cost a lot more in the long run.
Here we have a Government that is saying that they are putting more money into front-line health services, but we’re also hearing from the front line—riddle me this—the fact that there is a hiring freeze and that there are professionals going offshore. The Government is saying that they’re not making cuts to front-line services, yet we’re hearing from front-line services that these cuts are, in fact, being made. It simply does not add up.
We also heard from the Government that they would be going line by line through expenses that the Government has on its books, but we’re then hearing that, despite this apparent meticulous approach, they have no responsibility where any of these cuts are then found to be unpopular, least of all by those at the front line. What all of this prompts for me is actually some reflection on a number of the debates that we’ve had in this Chamber over the last few months, and it is something that, I think, needs to be put on the table and put directly to the Minister, especially if she is to retain that operating allowance and her Budget as it currently sits.
The first question would just be a straight-up question: can she guarantee that the Government will stay within that operating allowance that she has set for herself, which Treasury has made pretty clear is artificially low and is going to be very, very challenging to meet? And, secondly, can she guarantee for the committee that she is not going to move towards greater privatisation and sell-off of State assets? Just a few months ago, we heard in a debate on the iReX project—it was pretty mask-off from the ACT Party when they argued for the privatisation of KiwiRail.
Funnily enough, they used the example of the partial privatisation of gentailers, which are now delivering us the energy crisis in the form of keeping fossil fuels on life support in order to keep household energy bills high and, therefore, the profits of those gentailers high as well. We’ve heard some similar comments from the Minister when it comes to the so-called capitalisation of Kiwibank, and I think, also in the context of this energy crisis and much of the hay that’s been made by this Government, I just want commitment from the Minister that there is no intention for further State asset sell-off.
I also wanted to touch on—because it is actually really related, too—the potential constructive liabilities that we have for meeting the Paris Agreement, or our nationally determined contribution therein. I think the Minister and I had a pretty constructive back and forth on this. We got into an Official Information Act request, and I understand that her office and the office of Minister Simon Watts got some advice on this issue. For the uninitiated, the Ministry for the Environment and Treasury did a phenomenal piece of work last year, which was published towards the end of last year, which touched on how, if we were to have a—basically, to pay towards meeting our nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement, we would be looking at potentially a liability of approximately $24 billion, which would be, effectively, us paying other countries to do that mitigation where we refused to do it ourselves, ultimately costing all of us all the dearer. The proposal here from the Green Party is that it makes sense for us to have this represented on the Government books, because it is a liability, be it constructive or otherwise, as far as the general public would concern themselves with understanding an issue such as this.
Not to thread too much through the needle on this point, but if I can just conclude on an issue that I’ve also had a bit of back and forth with the Minister about, which is for the Parliamentary Budget Office—to ask her whether this is something that she has progressed any further work on, because I believe this is, hopefully, something that we can have cross-partisan accord on, and, therefore, progress understanding of what all of our election costings are going out, so that the general public has baseline information to judge us all upon.
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Thank you, Madam Chair. Rather a few items there to rattle through, so I will do so. The first is about the operating allowance, and the member Chlöe Swarbrick used the phrased “artificially low”. Well, I would reject that characterisation, but I would say that it is the operating allowance required to get us back into surplus. If we were to have more generous operating allowances, the consequence of that would be more and more years of debt accumulation, and, actually, it would be future generations that we would end up saddling with that.
I know the member is conscious of intergenerational impacts, and this is one that she should consider. Actually, if we were of a fashion like the last Government, whereby the only way for spending to go was constantly to add additional layers to the cake, then, yes, it would be an extraordinarily challenging operating allowance to meet. But our approach is different. As I characterised in my initial remarks, we are constantly looking for areas where spending is not generating the maximum outcome or value, and we will look to reprioritise funding so that we can put it into the areas that really matter to this Government, which includes things like front-line education services, which includes things like our defence force and our police service. Those are the sorts of services that we accept will continue to need additional funding.
The second question was around State assets, and I’d just make a couple of comments there. If the member is still labouring under the belief that the reason we don’t have enough wind farms and solar farms in this country is somehow to do with the ownership model of the gentailers, I would just put to her: go and read the evidence. Actually, the considerable constraint those generators have faced is the consenting environment. It is very significant, and I once again join my colleague Chris Bishop in urging her to get on board the fast-track bus.
The member then also made comments about Kiwibank. Look, it’s not some sort of ideological burp. This is the Commerce Commission saying that if you care about fair and competitive banking services for New Zealand bank users, then—boy oh boy!—you should be on board getting a maverick disruptor in there, and Kiwibank is best positioned for that. It requires capital. If the member’s view is that instead of putting additional capital into hospitals, we should put it into Kiwibank, well, I would say that if there are others willing to invest in Kiwibank and we can do that in a way that allows it to remain New Zealand’s bank, then, actually, we owe it to New Zealand bank users to do that.
The next issue that the member raised was to do with climate change liability and how it sits on the books. I have released the advice that I have received on this matter. I am satisfied that Treasury has considered this properly and well and that this is not something that should properly sit as a liability on the books.
Finally, the member asks about the Parliamentary Budget Office, and let me put on the record today that one of the things that disappointed me with Grant Robertson when he was in this role was that he went out there saying, “We need a Parliamentary Budget Office to heighten our debate, so that we don’t have election campaigns with silly debates about costings and, instead, can focus on principles and policies.” Then, when I wrote to him and said, “Let’s get it done”, he rejected my advances. I do have that on my conscience, and I have commissioned from the Treasury advice saying, “What’s a way that we can do this, bearing in mind our current fiscal constraints? How can we do this in a way that makes use of the resources we already have but is impartial and fair?” I have not yet received that advice, but this is something that I, in good faith, would like to make happen.
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have some questions for the Minister of Finance, particularly around some of the climate aspects that we discussed at the Finance and Expenditure Committee.
There was $2.9 billion—arguably $3.7 billion—worth of climate initiatives that were cut in Budget 2024. We can see that this lines up quite neatly with the amount of money that was given back to landlords as a tax break in the Budget, but given that we have seen some of those initiatives that had direct emissions impacts—and subsequent to the Budget coming out at the Estimates hearings we had around the Budget, we have, of course, had the first scorecard from the Climate Change Commission around how policy changes from this Government are taking New Zealand backwards in terms of meeting its climate budgets and the flow-on effects to nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
A couple of specific questions for the Minister: she’s touched on one of them in terms of the contingent liability question that Chlöe Swarbrick asked her, but one of the things is that there has been an increasing body of work that’s come out only in recent months, and I just wondered if the Minister is thinking that, as we head into Budget 2025, this will change the scenario of how it is that we need to treat that liability under accounting practices.
What we’ve seen is the work from the McGuinness Institute that looks very specifically at some of those accounting standards, particularly, if we want to be specific, PBE IPSAS 19, which is an accounting standard that says that we need to take into account the likelihood an outflow of resources will be required to settle the obligation and the extent to which a reliable estimate can be made. This is quite different to the way Treasury has previously addressed this question of the liability and how it should be booked.
While Treasury acknowledges that there is a specific fiscal risk in terms of us not meeting our climate budgets—and us not cutting emissions at home means that New Zealand needs to go and pay other countries to do that work, that we need to go and buy credits off other countries, effectively paying for jobs and paying for initiatives in other countries rather than our own. We’ve seen the impact that this Budget had on reducing the domestic work we were doing on climate change, which means we’ll be funnelling more and more money overseas to pay other countries to cut their emissions and to keep people in green jobs.
I just wonder if the Minister is looking at how that might have to be accounted for. The Treasury’s argument has always been that the Government has choices about how it achieves its NDC. We’re seeing as work firms up with things like the report from the Climate Change Commission that it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the Government can’t, because it is cutting initiatives domestically that reduce emission, that that increases New Zealand’s liability offshore. It also points to the fact that when the then National Government actually signed the Paris Agreement, they laid bare explicitly that their plan was to offset by buying international credit.
So I just would like some information from the Minister around whether or not her thinking has evolved on this. There’s a lot more evidence that’s pointing to the fact that New Zealand has a $24 billion liability that needs to be booked, and the moves of this Government taking New Zealand backwards, cutting our initiatives here at home are just widening and making that liability for New Zealanders even greater.
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): As the member who has just resumed her seat, Megan Woods, knows from her time as the Associate Minister of Finance, Treasury provide advice on how such matters are to be treated, and I accept the same advice that the member accepted, which is that this does not constitute a liability. It does not meet the test required to do that. I’d also note for the member that the $24 billion figure she is throwing around is actually the upper range and it is dependent on a number of factors.
I’d also note for members of this House that the national contribution is significantly higher than the reduction required over the following emissions budget, following decisions taken by the previous Government. In terms of our emission reduction budgets, we are currently consulting on a plan that will see us achieve the emission reduction goal set out in the zero carbon Act in the second campaign period, and we’re on track to achieve those in the first period.
We have been unapologetic and, I think, very clear in a way that has been useful to the market in saying our key mechanism for reducing emissions will be the emissions trading scheme. Our recent moves to reduce the future allocation of units to that scheme has been a good response. That member took a different approach. Her approach was to put a carbon price across the economy that drove up prices for everyday people, and then to use that money to invest in projects for profitable multinationals. She went around the country signing cheques for profitable companies to help them on their decarbonisation journey.
Here, on our side of the House, we said that, actually, hard-working everyday people who don’t make multimillion-dollar profits deserve to keep a bit more of what they earn. We campaigned on a climate dividend and that is partly how we funded our tax policy. I think that, actually, if you want sustainable emissions reductions in the economy, it’s not sustainable to say to the working people, “You will pay ever more tax and ever higher costs so that Megan Woods can go and cut ribbons.”
Finally, I would say that I do respect the McGuinness Institute and the contribution it has made to public debate over many years, but on this matter, I beg to differ.
Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. There was a moment in the Finance and Expenditure Committee hearing with the Minister of Finance on the Estimates that I remember very, very clearly, and it was an astonishing comment made by the Minister where she said that she expected to see more workers in hard hats and high-vis and fewer workers wearing a lanyard on Lambton Quay. It’s a bit of an astonishing thing to say when the Minister was surrounded by officials wearing lanyards and threatening their jobs. It was quite a hard-edged thing to say.
The astonishing thing is that just three months on, in August 2024, we’ve been receiving reports from the New Zealand construction industry that the work is right down, that they are losing work, that Government work has disappeared. They are losing workers, they are losing people to Australia, they cannot see a future for them. We now have fewer people in hard hats and high-vis, and we actually also do seem to have fewer people wearing lanyards on Lambton Quay. We can all see the impact of that in Wellington, which is—you know, it’s a great city; I love Wellington, but it is a pretty tough place to survive at the moment if you’re trying to run a business.
It seems that the Minister, by cutting costs so aggressively, has in fact tanked the economy—fewer workers altogether—and I wonder what responsibility the Minister takes for the actions that she has taken in her line-by-line taking money away from New Zealanders, taking money out of the Budget, taking money away from the construction industry. I wonder what responsibility the Minister takes for that huge impact on our economy.
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, it’s wonderful to know that Dr Deborah Russell is still in fact the revenue spokesman. I’d thought that David Parker was auditioning for that role today with his comments on capital income taxes and the like, but I suppose we could characterise that as a leadership bid rather than a bid to be the revenue spokesperson.
Look, the member has raised a couple of matters. One of them is about the impact on the Wellington economy of our efforts to ensure taxpayer money is going to its best purposes. I would share with the member an anecdote where I went to a breakfast in Wellington recently and a business owner turned to me and said, “Thank you, Nicola. Actually, we can hire people for our business now. For years, we were competing against Government agencies that paid them more, and we couldn’t get the skills that we needed into our business.” Actually, having skilled, experienced people able to deploy that within private enterprise is no bad thing, Dr Russell.
Then you’ve asked me about hard hats in the construction sector, and what I would put to you is that this is a Government that is very committed to real infrastructure projects—not make-believe ones like light rail and project Onslow and all of that guff but real ones like filling in potholes, like repairing local roads, like building State highways. We have set out an extensive Government policy statement on transport which makes that commitment real and puts funding to it.
The member has asked me whether I will take responsibility for an economy which has been ravaged for six years by the economic mismanagement of the Government she was a part of. No, I won’t take responsibility for the impact of a Government that poured fuel on the inflation fire such that interest rates rose higher than they should have otherwise. Those interest rates have then had a crippling effect across the economy and have displaced economic activity and have driven unemployment.
What I will take responsibility for is the decisions that we have taken since coming to Government, which have seen inflation come down, the first reduction in interest rates in four years, tax relief delivered to the bank accounts of New Zealanders, and a much sharper focus on outcomes for the taxpayer investments we make.
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Chair. I now find it really interesting that the Minister likes to take responsibility for the official cash rate (OCR) coming down, but she doesn’t want to take responsibility for the economic outlook, which is in the Monetary Policy Statement, which shows all the major indicators are falling down. Which is it: do you want to take credit for it coming down but not responsibility for the economic activity in the outlook, or is it that you don’t want to take credit for the economic activity, which has caused the OCR to come down? That is the reason why in the Monetary Policy Statement and the OCR the Reserve Bank decided to pivot and to make those cuts earlier, because all the indicators were going down.
In the same way that the Minister’s Budget and Economic Fiscal Update—why has economic growth been revised downwards since that Budget was released? Those are actions of this Government. You can blame as much as you want the previous Government, but, again, the whole point about crying wolf, which was reflected in question time today—the reason why I asked that is because we had the same credit rating. You have the same credit rating, the same grade as Grant Robertson. I’m confused on this side of the Chamber about what it is about this economic activity and why it’s coming down progressively more quickly—which is why the Reserve Bank had to cut rates.
The really good thing around scrutiny week wasn’t necessarily the extra time we had with Ministers but, actually, it was the extra time we had with officials, because we actually got answers to our questions. One of the questions that we’ve repeatedly asked this Government is this: what are you actually doing about productivity? The response we’ve had back was around red tape. However, what are the other things that you’re doing around productivity, because when we asked their chief economist in that Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) hearing—when we asked them the same question in FEC—their response was that there was nothing in the Budget that gave cause for the Treasury to revise productivity upwards. These are all the facts that are in their own books. So, as much as Ministers in commentary may want to try and gaslight the economy that Labour left them with, the Government has the same grade as Grant Robertson did in relation to those credit risk ratings, but what has changed is that the Government’s decisions around economic activity have caused the Reserve Bank to have to cut things down.
Economic activity in New Zealand is coming down, which is why we’ve had so much migration from New Zealand over the Ditch, to Australia. So my question to the Minister is: does she think that making cuts to the likes of Callaghan Innovation, for example, an agency that supports research and development, which has been key to helping productivity, which is one of the reasons why other commentators would say and why the Productivity Commission would say to invest in research and development—how will that help improve productivity? Again, as we heard in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, we’ve heard from her own officials that productivity did not need to be revised as part of the Budget.
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, I’m sure that the mortgage payers of Mana would be disappointed to hear that their representative seems to want the interest rates to stay higher for longer, which is what I took from that statement. As a humble member, I don’t take responsibility for everything that has occurred. Nine months may be enough time to grow a baby, but it’s not enough time to completely change the course of a Government, but we are making good progress.
There are a few things that members on that member’s side of the Chamber said would happen. They said that if we delivered tax reduction, it would not be fiscally neutral. Well, we proved that wrong. Then they said that delivering tax reduction would increase inflation, and instead we’ve seen inflation come down faster than had been forecast. Then they said that tax reduction would lead to either increases in interest rates or interest rates staying higher for longer. Instead, what we’ve seen is the official cash rate come down sooner than had been predicted. Against that backdrop, I defend our economic decision making.
The member has asked a very good question, and it is one that this House should be focused on, I believe, every day, and that is: how do we enhance the productivity of this economy? That productivity directly relates to how much value New Zealanders are able to create with an hour that they work. For my part, I want New Zealanders to face better choices, better opportunities, and for this to be a wealthier nation that has more funds to invest in the things that matter to all of us. Now, as the member knows, enhancing productivity is not as simple as giving Callaghan Innovation a bigger grant, because, if that would have worked, we would have seen a big enhancement of productivity over the past few years as the last Government threw more money at just about every Government agency it could find. Instead, what enhancing productivity requires is deliberate action across a number of fronts.
I put to the member that one of the most important areas is education and skills, because our most important capital is human capital. We cannot expect to have a more productive economy if our school-leavers can’t read, write, and do maths. The legacy we inherit from the previous Government is one of declining educational achievement across those basics, which are the precursors for going on to be innovative scientists, AI engineers, road workers, and the like. We are actually stabilising the base of productivity by ensuring that we’re getting our skills back to basics.
I then put to the member that actually having an infrastructure pipeline that works is critical for productivity. The OECD and others have said that our infrastructure deficit and the inadequate way in which we plan and deliver infrastructure as a nation has directly reduced our productivity. I’m hoping that, soon, Minister Bishop will make a contribution about the many things we are doing to improve the infrastructure pipeline in this country.
We also need to be an outward-looking country that builds on our trade relationships and invites foreign capital in. We have low rates of capital intensity and we need to make sure that we’re getting more of that into our economy. Yes, regulation does actually matter. If you look at what the OECD have said, they say that one of the issues for New Zealand is that this economy has not got the levels of competition it needs in major sectors because of its small size, and we, therefore, need to be particularly careful to make sure our regulation ensures that our markets operate properly. You will have seen that the Government is responding, for example, to the Commerce Commission’s banking inquiry. We will take very seriously the next report on the grocery reforms that have occurred, ensuring competition and ensuring sensible regulation is part of our recipe for productivity.
Finally, Madam Chair, I would put to you that if you want a more productive economy, one of the things you need to reward is initiative and hard work. One of the ways you do that is have a Government that says, “When you earn a dollar, it’s not always the Government’s job to take more of it. In fact, we’ll give some back.”
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Associate Minister of Finance): I’m just responding to the Minister of Finance’s invitation to talk a little bit more about infrastructure, and, in doing so, I want to touch on housing, because the Opposition finance spokesperson, at least for the moment, was making much of the Government’s plans around—or lack of plans, in her mind—productivity. The simple reality is, she’s right in her diagnosis of the problem, which is that we have a big productivity challenge in New Zealand. This is not something that can be wholly blamed on the previous Government. If we’re honest about it, it goes back many, many years. And the Government is ambitious to address that.
One of the things we must do is get much better at the way in which we deliver infrastructure in this country, and that will be a key driver—
Hon Shane Jones: Fast track.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: —of productivity. I am told—well, I’ll come to fast track—that we do a very bad job, as a country, of turning our infrastructure delivery ambitions into reality. For example, we rank in the bottom 10 percent of high-income countries for the quality and efficiency of our infrastructure investments—bottom 10 percent. I’ve got to tell you, on asset management, it’s even worse. On asset management, governance, and expertise, we are dead last in the OECD. We’re the bottom, and we’re the fourth last on asset management altogether. We’ve got a big job to do, as a country, when it comes to asset management.
This Government is going to outline a 30-year infrastructure national plan and we hope that that will achieve some degree of bipartisan consensus. That will be very important. We are going to use every tool in the tool box available to us to drive better value for money from our Crown infrastructure spending. That means being open to private capital, and that will be a bit challenging for the other side of the Parliament, because, under the last Labour Government, there was just a hard no to private sector finance or even philanthropic capital, for that matter, when it came to things like hospitals and schools and roads and all the other things that the Crown has to procure and fund. Well, we’re very open to that. We’re developing new tools around value capture, around the reform of the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act. We’re open to public-private partnerships, so there’s a whole lot of different tools on the table. It’s going to take us a bit of time, as a Government, to build up the expertise inside the system to make that a reality, but we’re absolutely determined to do it.
While I’m talking about productivity, I do want to talk briefly about housing, because the committee will be aware that we have a housing crisis in this country. We’ve seen over the last 20 years the fastest house price growth in the Western World. You stand back and you say, “Well, how can that be? We are only 5 million people. We have a land mass the size of the United Kingdom.” Something has gone terribly wrong in our system where average house prices in New Zealand are seven, eight, nine, 10, and, in the case of Queenstown, 12 times average household incomes in Queenstown. You say, “It does not have to be that way,”, and that is, of course, true.
One of the points that I am constantly reiterating around the country is that one of the single best ways we can get productivity going in this country is to fix our housing market, because cities that grow and expand and are allowed to grow up and out are engines of prosperity. The evidence is really clear that the bigger a city is, the more people you have living close to each other; connected by good quality, high-quality public transport; and able to get all of their agglomeration benefits of a bigger city—the evidence is really clear: that is a key driver of productivity. That is the Government’s ambition for our housing market—bigger and better cities.
That involves a lot of complicated work around land supply, both at the urban fringe of our cities to make sure that there’s a safety valve at the fringe so that cities can keep growing out, but also sensible density, growing up as well. It involves fixing the infrastructure settings that mean that we have a housing crisis, for example. It also involves partnering with local government to make sure that councils are incentivised to go for housing growth, because we are determined to change the political economy of our communities and our councils that sees, at best, ambivalence towards housing and, at worst, outright hostility from some councils around the country to the idea that our cities should grow. Well, we’re determined to change that.
One way to do that is a big stick. We can use that. Another way is a bit of a carrot, and we’ll do the incentives as well. And we’ll find our way through the middle. Probably both will be effective, but we are determined to let our cities grow to address the productivity problems that the member opposite talks about.
Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Finance): Well, thank you, Madam Chair. I wasn’t going to say anything, because I just thought Nicola Willis was doing a fantastic job in the chair, and I thought Chris Bishop did OK too. You might ask what it was that made me want to get up and speak. It was the absolute drivel from the other side of the Chamber.
I heard Chlöe Swarbrick get up and I was transported back to the lounge room of my mum’s friends, listening to the music of the 1970s; Talking Heads - “Psycho Killer”.
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything.
—on and on and on.
What I heard in the different drivels was that we’re spending too much money, but also not enough. I heard that it’s somehow a problem that the Government has listened to people on the question of funding medicines and is now going to spend too much money on medicines. Well, let me talk about medicines funding. When I became the Minister responsible for Pharmac, I got some advice from the Pharmac people—and very good people they are—to say that if you don’t deal to the fiscal cliff we face, we’re either going to have to stop listing new medicines, stop letting new patients get new medicines, or tell existing patients that they can’t continue to have the medicines they expect to receive. That is because the previous Government did not put aside the money over its four-year period to fund the medicines that Kiwis expect.
We had to spend $1.774 billion extra in order to just keep the medicines that people expect going. Then we decided to put in hundreds of millions more to fund the 13 cancer drugs, and actually twice as many as that, and I can tell you that, around Pharmac, there’s been a real buzz because people who work at Pharmac love spending money to buy medicines. That’s what they get out of bed to do, and they’re doing more of that than they’ve been able to do in a very, very long time.
Then we heard about “All the cuts—it’s just so terrible.” It was actually revealing. It explains how we got here. You see, the people in Te Pāti Māori and the Greens and Labour think that the only way to get results is to throw more money at a problem. That’s why we got an extra hundred-billion dollars’ worth of debt, but, actually, this Government is showing how sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too. In the case of school lunches, literally we are saving $104 billion—sorry; million dollars a year; started to get so excited—$104 million a year on that programme. We’re reducing the cost by around a third and we’re going to feed 10,000 more children in early childhood centres and the most vulnerable children of all.
Doing more with less. Now, that will be a foreign concept to the people in the Green Party and Labour and Te Pāti Māori, but, actually, it’s very normal to households and farms and firms and families and the people up and down this country who have been having to do more with less, just as the Government has been doing less and less with more and more over the past five years—driving up debt, driving up inflation, driving up the interest rates that people pay, and, yes, driving up the rents that younger New Zealanders pay because their landlords have mortgages too, although that may be a revelation for some on the other side of the Chamber. We’ve shown right across the board that we can actually deliver better services with less money by working harder and working smarter and making the taxpayer dollar go further.
We’ve also committed, in this Budget, to spending money on dealing to red tape and regulation. I’m proud that this Government is putting together a regulatory standards bill, regulatory sector reviews in early childhood education and animal and horticultural products in order to make sure that Kiwis that go to work can actually spend more time doing the things they like, helping the children learn and grow, getting the products they need to be more productive on the farm, rather than spending money filling in forms and complying with reckless regulation which has been made by too many Governments for too long, taking us from second to 20th in the OECD for product market regulation in the last 25 years.
Finally, we’ve set a strict target of $2.4 billion allowance for the next three years, which means that we’re going to have to keep doing more with less. The good news is that we’ve shown we can do it, and the good news is—as a wise woman once said—that when this Government takes a smaller slice of the economy, there is just so much more for real people up and down this country to eat. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thanks very much, Madam Chair. I’d like to ask the Minister to talk us through the 248 roles that are being disestablished at New Zealand Police. I would like to have a level of reassurance from her that this will not, in fact, impact the front line. Also, would it be possible for the Minister to give us a bit of a steer on what services are able to be delivered for police with that 248 roles being cut? Specifically, service delivery in relation to beat patrols, the visibility of police on the street, responding to family violence when there’s need for that within the community, and also, the third one, in terms of crime prevention. Thank you.
INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Madam Chair, I’d really like to hear from the Minister. I was hoping to do quick-fire, but given that we seem to be getting lectures, I’ll do a series of questions, and it would be great to have answers about mental health.
The Minister for Mental Health has not been able to tell me, in response to written questions, what percentage of the $30 billion health budget he actually has available for mental health. I find that problematic, because with Oranga Tamariki, for example, three one-stop shops have been cut. Normally they would be able to go to the Minister for Mental Health and say, “Could you fund it out of your budget?”, but given he doesn’t know what his budget is, it would be really useful to hear that from the Minister of Finance and to hear whether she thinks he should be spending his budget on revitalising those really significant services, because we do know the country is in a mental health crisis.
I would also like to get her take on whether it is normal practice for a Minister to apply criteria to a fund such as the mental health innovation fund, requiring $250,000 co-funding without any formal consultation, in Government, with organisations. We understand from the media that he was consulted when he was in Opposition. That doesn’t seem kosher to me, so I’m just really keen to see whether it is going to be a continued practice of her Government.
Finally, we’re expecting the workforce plan to come out at the end of September. There hasn’t been any allocation for workforce in Budget 2024. What is she going to do to support her new Minister for Mental Health to be able to implement something, because the sector is crying out for psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, and so on, and it’s very clear that this cannot happen—it doesn’t matter how good the plan is—if there is no uplift of funding. Can she please advise how that workforce plan is going to happen? Is she going to provide her Minister with more money?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Briefly, I’d just like to congratulate the member Ingrid Leary for taking a pause in her ongoing crusade against Gumboot Friday to ask some other questions about mental health. We are proud to be a Government that has the first ever Minister for Mental Health, and I am advised that, in this Budget, we increased overall funding for mental health over the course of future Budgets, in terms of health funding, by $166 million.
The member Ginny Andersen asked some questions about police. Hey, this is a Budget that delivers 500 additional front-line police officers. It is true that Police did not contribute the full quantum of savings of 6.5 percent. That’s because when they put forward their proposals, we judged that some of them were not proposals that we wanted to advance. However, we did accept their advice that they could make some reductions at headquarters without compromising front-line services. At the same time, we provided a considerable uplift of funding to address police cost pressures of $120 million.
I’ll tell you what else helps the police. It is about funding, it is about front-line officers, and we’ve delivered those things, but it’s also about having a Government that says, “When you arrest people, we’ll ensure that the courts can sentence them properly by having proper sentencing laws, by having laws that actually make gangs out to be what they are, which is a threat and a harm to society, to create victims of violence, and we will be a Government that will be tough on crime”, and I think the police like that too.
Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Madam Chair, thank you very much. I note the comments earlier in this debate about increases to Vote Health, and also note that there has been substantial commentary and research showing that those increases to Vote Health do not meet reasonable assessments of what cost pressures in the health system are. So I’d be interested to hear from the Minister of Finance if there’s been any other advice to the contrary on that. But, of course, every year, our population goes up, inflation in the health system goes up, and more is required to do the same.
Then, I want to talk specifically about the population health primary and community care appropriation within Vote Health. That is $9 billion under this Budget, an increase of approximately $400 million from the year before, an increase proportionate to all the other health appropriations. What characterises that appropriation is that the vast majority of it is for services in the community that are largely provided by other providers—they’re largely contracted out. The most important one to most people is the contract the Government has with general practitioners is funded out of there.
What I want to ask the Minister is: if the uplift overall in this appropriation is sufficient, why is it that general practitioners are in the unusual situation of having to increase their fees this year? And, in fact, Health New Zealand has provided an allowance this year for general practitioners because they only have a 4 percent uplift in their contract, which is insufficient to keep up with their costs. Health New Zealand has taken the unusual step of allowing them to increase their fees by up to 7.7 percent, and that puts additional costs on people.
Hon Shane Jones: Relevance. Relevance.
Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: It’s going to hit them in their hip pocket. And I think it is relevant to a Minister who promised there’d be no cuts to front-line services, when general practitioners are taking the unusual step of writing to their patients around the city and saying that this is a consequence of this Government’s Budget. How does it add up?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): As I have said previously in this House, the cost pressure funding approach that we took in this Budget was twofold. One, we set a figure from Budget 2024 for the upcoming financial year that was informed by both the top-down funding model that factored in demographic inflation and other expectations, and a bottom-up planning and budgeting by Health New Zealand as part of developing the 2024 New Zealand Health Plan. The number we finalised was exactly the same number that we campaigned on and that the Labour Party campaigned on, so I do find it difficult when that member the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall dances on the head of the pin and pretends that somehow there would be free money trees if she were in Government, when, actually, she campaigned on exactly the same number.
As the member understands, there are always challenges in the health system and our job is, of course, to ensure there are additional resources. That’s why we’ve taken the extra step of making pre-allocations from future-year Budgets to give the health system assurance that there will be more funding for demographic increases in the future, that there will be more funding for cost pressures in the future, and that they should plan on that basis. But, as my colleague David Seymour has said, we would be fooling ourselves if we said that all that was required was more money. In fact, what is also needed is to ensure that we are supporting our front-line workforce to be the productive people that they wish to be, and not to be saddling them with flawed reforms like that member did when she was the Minister of Health, because that did not help at all.
What I would finally say to the member is this: it is lovely to have her embracing the public-private partnership, which is the GP model. And I would remind colleagues across the Chamber of this: we often hear that ideological cry that the private sector should not be involved in the delivery and provision of what are public goods.
Hon Chris Bishop: What about GPs?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I have, in the GP model, an outstanding example of why private enterprise has a very crucial role to play in our communities and to play in service delivery. And we, in this Government, want to work alongside GPs to ensure that they can deliver more of the services that are needed to prevent New Zealanders turning up in hospital and in the emergency room, and we are thinking very laterally about how to achieve that.
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, the Minister’s time in the chair has come to an end. We now have the Minister for Children. The Minister is available until the dinner break.
Children
Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of questions for the Minister about this year’s Estimates. Time and time again, the Minister states that child safety is a priority for her. Why, then, when her chief executive states that there is not enough money to meet the needs that we see every day—there just isn’t—did she not seek to be excluded from the 6.5 percent savings exercise required by the Minister of Finance?
That is my over-arching question for these Estimates as we ask further questions around the specifics that make up that 6.5 percent savings cut. My question to the Minister is: why, when her CEO acknowledged that there is not enough money to meet the current needs of the children—there just isn’t—did she not go back as their advocate to the Minister of Finance and ask the Minister of Finance to be excluded from the 6.5 percent savings exercise?
Further to that, I want to ask: can the Minister explain why people should trust her to make the best decisions for our children and whānau when her Budget 2024 decisions have led to cuts to key staff at Oranga Tamariki, cuts to prevention, cuts to early support and transition services in communities, and funding boot camps that have been proven not to work?
I also want to start off by traversing the issue around the restructure. The Minister said at our Estimates select committee that this is a 9 percent reduction in the back office, which I believe is not in fact correct. My question to the Minister is: in the final restructured decisions, what percentage of the back office have been cut as a result of the restructuring proposals?
Then I want to ask the question, what total amount of savings has been made through the Oranga Tamariki restructure and how much of that restructure contributed to the 6.5 percent savings reduction target as prescribed by the Minister of Finance? That is a number of questions to start with. I’m keen to hear the Minister’s response.
KAHURANGI CARTER (Green): Kia ora. I note that in the Vote Oranga Tamariki (OT) budget on page 158, it states “Addressing Serious Youth Offending” funding of $7.342 million.
Now, when reading the Vote Oranga Tamariki Budget documents for this year, we do need to read them alongside the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care final report. One of the quotes in that is: “There is no evidence that young people had any form of assessment for disability or neurodiversity prior to being placed at Whakapakari” boot camp. Further, on page 26, finding No. 53 states: “The incidence of young people with neurodiversity entering the youth justice system is recognised to be high, with as many as 40 percent believed to have an intellectual disability and 60 to 70 percent meeting the criteria for Conduct Disorder.” Further, in a Cabinet paper titled CAB-24-MIN 0209 that went to Cabinet on 10 June, there was no mention of—or explicit mention of—the effects of disabled tamariki in the 21 pages.
My question to the Minister is: given the findings of the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care—particularly in Te Whakapakari chapter, which highlights the lack of assessments for disability or neurodiversity among young people at Whakapakari and the high incidence of neurodiversity within the youth justice system—how does the Minister justify the allocation of $7.342 million for addressing serious youth offending in the Vote OT budget without addressing these critical issues? Furthermore, what consultation has the Minister conducted to understand the disproportionate effect of these boot camps that will have on children with disabilities?
Further to that, I note that in the Vote OT Budget document, page 136, it outlines a reduction in the contracting services costs of $120 million over four years—that’s $30 million per annum. This has already been well canvassed in this House; however, I am interested in the breakdown, which notes the $18 million per annum will be cut from “Prevention and Early Support” contracting services.
When reading this Vote, like I said, we need to be looking at the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care final report, and I want to draw attention of the House to Recommendation 121: “The government should support and adequately invest in: a. programmes for children [and] young people and adults who are in care”—and this is the part that I really want to stress, Mr Chair—“or are at risk of being placed in care that are delivered through community organisations”.
Can the Minister please outline how the proposed reduction of $18 million per annum in contracting services focused on prevention and early support will align with the recommendations from the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care, particularly Recommendation 121, which emphasises the need for adequate investment into programmes for those in or at risk of being placed in care; and how this reduction will affect Oranga Tamariki’s ability to fulfil its purpose as outlined in the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, section 4(1)(b)(i), which focuses on prevention?
The Budget also notes that investing in children and young people was $1.499 billion in 2024-25 compared to $1.546 billion in 2023-24—that is a $47 million decrease. The decrease in appropriation is due to reduction in contracting service costs funding decrease of $30 million. Can the Minister explain to the House what direction she will provide her ministry regarding contracting services in the 2024-25 Budget when organisations are achieving 96 percent key performance indicators (KPIs) and still being cut funding? I’m talking about Kia Puāwai family functional therapy, which had a 96 percent KPI—
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The member’s time has expired.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Bear with me—first time doing this. Just let me address one of the points from Willow-Jean, around the 6.5 savings exemption. I think it’s really important that, whilst we have more money given back to us than we returned, it’s a good exercise to go through to make sure that we are spending our money wisely and that the money is actually going where it needs to for children in care.
The total overall savings for the restructure for Oranga Tamariki was $200 million overall, for savings from reducing from the back office, and only the back office, and that was over four years. There was also a $200 million reduction—a 20 percent reduction—in travel for staff within Oranga Tamariki, by using better use of technology. But, ultimately, Oranga Tamariki received $33.3 million more than it returned to the Government through Budget 2024.
I think that also addresses the question from the Green member around the $120 million baseline savings. Ultimately, we received $33.3 million more than we returned to Government through Budget 2024. The accountant processes—yes, it went back, but we got returned more than we gave back.
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): My questions are in relation to the role that the Minister played with determining what would be cut in terms of funding and for what, and what wouldn’t.
Referring back to the actual hearing, the Minister, when questioned, said that she had no role to play in making those determinations because they were operational decisions. At that point, I said that as a Minister, and having been in this position, I would have been given advice on what the options were for cuts, and at that point, the Minister said that, yes, there was some direction and that she felt that the cuts were being made to back-office programmes. However, generally, a Minister will be given at least categories in relation to what would be cut.
Now, what we saw was that Family Start Nelson, the Porirua Whānau Centre, Northcote Women’s Centre—there have been counselling services, there have been prevention services, there’s been 24-hour parenting care that’s been cut across the country. I want to know from the Minister whether or not these names of organisations or the contracts for which they were contracted to provide services for were ever put in front of her, and whether she was given options in terms of choosing who would and would not continue to be funded, because there are huge implications for the young people that no longer have access to the services, and for those communities, some of which have lost access to all of what was available with things like counselling services.
Also, in the same vein, we asked the Minister and the CEO when we could expect to be informed of the contracting arrangements—which social services would continue to get full funding, which social services would lose funding, and whether or not there would be social services that got additional funding—and we were told that that information would be released publicly once those decisions and determinations were made. Now, the expectation was that that would be on 1 July. However, we are now nearly in September, and we have not seen a full list of organisations that are continuing to be funded by Oranga Tamariki and the Government, or that have lost full funding or partial funding, and we have not seen the list of organisations that may have got additional funding, because the Minister has tried to say in this House that that funding wouldn’t go back to the core, but would be shifted to other services.
So when will we get that full list from the Minister that, rightfully, should have been released on 1 July for public transparency’s sake and also for the sector to understand what has occurred here, and yet we still haven’t received it?
Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I do just want to say that the Minister did not answer my question about what percentage of the back office was cut in the restructuring. I would like to know what that number is, because at the Estimates hearing, she said that it was 9 percent, but I believe the number is different. If I could please have clarification around what percentage of the back office has been cut as a result of the restructure.
When we look at the Minister’s comments in the select committee, she said that “There will be no financial impact and there’d been no impact on the frontline services. This is a guarantee.”, yet I have just heard that social workers are now having to do things like drive children across country, which is taking them away from their social work responsibilities. Is this not an impact on the front line?
To add to my colleague’s questions and contribution, in the Estimates—I have the transcript here—the CEO said that “We’re happy to provide that with accuracy at the end of the completion of our contracting round. … At the end of that process, it will be very clear what services we will continue, what services will be enhanced, what services will be varied, and what services will be discontinued.” I echo the question: when will we receive that information, because the select committee has not received that in post-hearing questions?
I have asked written questions and have been told that it’s not in the public interest for that amount of information to be prepared and to be released, yet we were promised that we would receive that information. We need to see that so we can identify what services have been cut, what services have been reduced, and where the reinvestment has, in fact, gone, so that we can provide the scrutiny that our select committee is supposed to provide for these Estimates hearings.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just in regard to the 9 percent reduction in staff members, that’s the information I have. The final decisions and outcomes for the organisational restructure were that 594 roles were disestablished, 175 new roles were established—an overall reduction of 419 roles all together—and 1,900 total number of roles in scope of restructuring out of 5,100 staff, or 37 percent. Front-line staff were not in scope for these changes, and the reason that this information has not been finalised or publicised yet is that the exact number is still not yet available. We’re still working through the redeployment process, as some staff have been offered the opportunity, if they have a qualification in the social worker space, to move into that front-line space. Those conversations are still happening, so the exact number is not known yet.
Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate that this is quite a sensitive topic. Just as the Minister for Children was speaking today, I got a message that another women’s centre in my area of Porirua is being potentially closed; I’m going to get a bit more information. As part of that, I am working with that particular centre to transition their clients, who are very vulnerable women and children who have built trust and a relationship of confidence with the centre over a number of years; I am now having to scramble to help other service providers in our area now cover the loss of this particular centre.
What I want to ask the Minister is—because I understand, through both questions and also the response that was given from the Minister of Finance, that contracts can be changed—will she release a list of all the contracts that have been cut back or contracts that have been changed? The Minister doesn’t have to say how much has been cut. Then it makes it easier for local MPs who have electorates, who have services that have now been cut, to know what service providers are still available so that we can divert clients to those other service providers.
The other question that I have is in relation to the 70 percent that these service providers will only be funded, those who have been successful or have been reviewed. Of that 70 percent, how much will the Minister or the ministry be flexible to allow for demand levels that will be increasing as a result of, for example, the example that I’ve just used today, which I’ve only just got in the last hour, around another women’s centre closing in the area of Porirua—how will they be flexible enough that if demand is increasing because of other service providers closing, will they be flexible around that 70 percent, because, do you know what?
I bet those service providers, because of the history of it, will continue to operate at 100 percent, or potentially 120 percent because they’ve had an increase in clients. Will there be flexibility around that 70 percent threshold for these service providers?
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Speaking to the contracts and the proposals around contract changes, Oranga Tamariki’s saving plan has been focused on more effective contract management processes, addressing underutilisation, addressing need, and reducing duplication. Also, contracts are still under negotiation and are still under way. Once there is a final list and we have closed off all those negotiations, then there will be the ability to share that information, but right now, we’re still going through that negotiation process.
What I can say is that when it comes to local MPs worried about young people who may need to be transitioned to another service, Oranga Tamariki, as part of the process when working through the contracts and what new contracts look like, will be working alongside these agencies during that to help them with that transition process and make sure that that care is not interrupted for whoever that is.
Hon Member: When are we getting the list?
Hon KAREN CHHOUR: Once the negotiations are completed—so negotiations and contracts are still under way, just to answer that question. Just to be clear: I cannot announce things that haven’t been completed yet. Once the negotiations are completed, then we will be able to produce a list.
What I can say is that 50 services, with 35 providers, ended naturally, as intended, on 30 June 2024. The contract funding for those ones were one-off and they match what we’ve done in the past when we have contracts ending naturally. The proposal is that 269 services, with 142 providers, are being reduced to align with service levels based around forecasted utilisation and need; 337 services, with 190 providers, are being discontinued due to a change in prioritised need, underperformance, or underutilisation in previous years; and 1,470 services’, with 451 providers, contracts are already completed with no change or they’re being re-contracted with the same level of service from the 2025 financial year. Now, Oranga Tamariki is in the process of procuring at least another 50 new services going forward, which will align with the core purpose of Oranga Tamariki, because that was one of the expectations that I set for the agency.
When we are making decisions and when we are taking a real good stocktake of where we are at, we know that what we have been doing has not been working. We have had reports after reports saying that Oranga Tamariki is failing in their core purpose, and that is in the care and protection of young people. Young people are still at risk of harm in care. Oranga Tamariki were not meeting the national care standards appropriately for our young people year after year after year, and nothing seems to have improved dramatically over the years. It is important that we take a stocktake and we say what we have been doing hasn’t necessarily been working. It might have been holding off the floodgates, but it actually hasn’t made any progress in making our young people safer.
Oranga Tamariki’s purpose is care and protection of our children, and that’s what they need to be getting right. The Independent Children’s Monitor cannot come back year after year and say, “You’re not meeting the needs of the children in your care or the children coming to your attention, and we are not doing anything about the way we’re prioritising the funding in that space.”
MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair, and congratulations, Minister, on your undertaking. Thank you so much for speaking to the committee today. Can you extrapolate some of your remarks a little bit further, Minister, in regards to the contracts you’ve just alluded to and the fact that they are being reviewed? What would it look like, in terms of fiscal impacts, Minister, if this approach had been taken earlier, by virtue of the outcomes that so many are interested in today? Can you speak to that, Minister? I certainly think it would illuminate the conversation further, and the committee would further understand the wellbeing that perhaps hadn’t been invested in when it came to young people.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I think it’s really important that a review of contracts is undertaken. Needs change, communities change, and we need to make sure that, actually, what we are funding is fit for purpose for children in the care of Oranga Tamariki, children coming to the attention of Oranga Tamariki, and that we’re making sure we meet their needs.
Since becoming the Minister, that has been my focus. My focus has been on the children and young people that we have been failing so miserably over the years and making sure that, when they do come to the attention of Oranga Tamariki, we are responding in time. Are we giving Oranga Tamariki the tools necessary to respond in time when a report of concern comes in; are we making sure that we are vetting caregivers appropriately; are we sighting children when they come to the attention of Oranga Tamariki? That needs to be funded, that needs to be funded well, and we need to resource the front line way better when it comes to the care and protection, and that’s part of this service contract review: are these providers providing a service that is making a difference and making our young people that are in Oranga Tamariki care or at the attention of Oranga Tamariki safer?
Are we breaking the cycle of harm in these homes; are we actually getting outcomes for the services, rather than looking at how many people come through the door; are we looking at how they leave; are they any better off; and have we broken that cycle of harm; are those young people safe in the homes they’re in? That is what I am focused on. That is all part of this assessment of these contracts to make sure we are getting value for our young people that are in the care of Oranga Tamariki.
DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Kia ora. Ngā mihi. It’s good to hear the Minister for Children acknowledge some of the systemic issues that Oranga Tamariki has been confronting. Our questions are really to ask about the things—actually, there are some things that we’re doing, such as section 7AA.
A couple of questions I’d like to start with are: how much of the $10.428 million will be used to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in our State care system, as is mentioned in recommendations 14, 16, 39, 55, 63, 117, 126, and 129? Was the extra $1.9 million given to Corrections because the repeal of section 7AA will result in more tamariki Māori entering the prison pipeline? Will there be any cuts to funding for Māori service providers as a result of the repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act?
I guess on this line of questioning, it would be good to understand specifically how many Māori services providers will be impacted by the $30 million cut to Oranga Tamariki contracting services. I’d actually like to put this one in as well, if it pleases the Minister: is it appropriate to allocate $29 million to the serious youth offender and boot camps initiatives, given that the core features of boot camps—strong discipline in a military-style environment—have repeatedly proven to be ineffective to reducing—and, in some cases, increase—reoffending rates?
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): I just want to go back to some issues that were raised by the Greens around how there was a lack of training and awareness in boot camps back from the abuse in care inquiry. I absolutely agree. That was absolutely horrific what happened in that boot camp. They had staff that were not trained to look over those young people. They were on an island where they had no access to actually request help or to even say that they were being hurt and harmed. There were also weapons on this island where those young people were threatened and were absolutely scared to death. That should never have happened. I absolutely agree that there was no consideration taken to those young people with their needs when it came to disability or any behavioural components that should have been looked at.
What I would like to say is comparing that to the military-style academy that we have started the pilot on is not a fair comparison. We have staff that have been trained to deal with the issues with these young people. These young people are assessed before they even start the pilot programme to recognise if there are any disabilities, neurodiversity issues, learning issues—anything that we feel may make the process not OK for them. This is the reason why there is no plan in place at the moment for how to deal with that, because there has been a carve-out to make sure that somebody with a disability who may not have been able to participate in the programme fully is not being placed into an environment where we’re going to cause more hurt and more harm than good.
What I also would add is every young person—the 10 that are currently in the programme have gone through a process. Actually, they are there voluntarily. They have gone through a process with their family, with the courts, with the judge, working through a sentencing plan, through family group conferences, and they are there voluntarily. They can leave this programme, while it’s a pilot, any time that they would like and for any reason, but we are supporting them through this journey because we cannot continue to give up on these young people. We have to give them an alternative to be able to go out into the community with their heads held high in confidence, in knowing what their strengths are and how they can actually become contributing members of society in a space of either learning, working, or even dealing with their families when they go back into their homes.
So there’s a lot of work going on. This is a pilot; it’s constantly evolving. If issues like that do arise, there is the expectation that we will put the right people in front of those young people to make sure that we’re not causing more harm than good.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’d like to ask the Minister in relation to an exchange she’s had with North Shore Women’s Centre—so North Shore Women’s Centre wrote to her last month and explained that the cut to their contract for Oranga Tamariki services would mean, for them, the loss of two front-line social worker jobs—that cut would mean that. It would mean that for an organisation that has working in the community for 38 years, they will, effectively, close in April of next year without that funding now being in place.
When the Minister responded to that plea that they will close, on 8 August, she stated to them that she’s been assured that there will be no impact on front-line roles, such as social workers, in response to that statement. Secondly, she stated that she is confident that decisions will result in a better level of service delivery and outcomes. I would just like to understand why the Minister wrote that to a group that services 486 wāhine and 460 tamariki in the North Shore. How will they be provided with a better standard of service, as specified by the Minister, if they close in April of next year?
Further to that point, I would also like to understand—because this is the very question that the Children’s Commissioner is inquiring into, as to what her responsibilities are under the Oranga Tamariki legislation—when is the Minister, in fact, going to provide the information that is being requested by the Children’s Commissioner?
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): In regards to North Shore Women’s Centre, North Shore Women’s Centre were contracted for multiple services. I think it’s around six or seven services that they were contracted for. They were contracted for around $596,000—two services have been discontinued, so they are still being funded for those other services. The rationale for the funding decisions around that was because they did not align with core business for Oranga Tamariki, which is to prioritise children who come to the attention of Oranga Tamariki or are in the care of Oranga Tamariki.
Those were services to provide counselling for women, which is a valid service. But there are many services on the North Shore that provide counselling for women, and we need to make sure that we are actually putting that money towards our core purpose, which is children—children in the care of Oranga Tamariki.
Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Their mums matter too.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR: Yep, but there are plenty of services that provide women’s counselling, and it is a duplication of service that can be provided somewhere else, when that money could be used towards our children.
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to revisit something that the Minister said earlier about what was working and what wasn’t. On a number of occasions in this House, the Minister has said that the previous Government’s work and attempts to address youth crime and youth offending were not working. However, at the hearing, it was very good, actually, when I referred to Kotahi te Whakaaro and Circuit Breaker and Oranga Tamariki’s role in that, that the Minister said, “We’re actually extending that programme that you’re talking about—I called it fast track, but it’s exactly what you’re talking about—because it has shown good results, and that across the table, around the table, multi-agency approach really works well because we can get what the kid needs in front of them a lot quicker by not siloing ourselves as agencies. So, yes, that will continue. It will also be extended to older children. So we will go from 14 to 17 as well, where appropriate, because, yep, if it works, we will use it.” You also said, “This is not something that we should politicise and just stop a programme because it was run by the previous Government. It was showing good results and it will continue.” Now, it’s great that you said that, because there have been times when you haven’t said that.
To the Minister: I just want to know why then make the decision to put $27 million into boot camps when all of the evidence shows that that doesn’t work, when for all of the survivors of State care abuse it is triggering because some of them have been in boot camps, even if the Minister thinks that this one takes a different shape and form? Why not put the $27 million into what she could see was already working for young people: wraparound supports, multi-agency approach, supporting not just the young person but their siblings and the entire whānau? Why not put the additional $27 million into doing that?
Also, I’d like to know from the Minister—because, certainly, when we were in Government, we got regular updates of the results and outcomes for the young people that were in the Kotahi te Whakaaro programme. I know she’s changed it to fast track. There were good results in terms of reductions in recidivism and those young people and their whānau having good outcomes. I want to know whether or not the Minister is still receiving that information for what she now calls fast track, and what the latest results are for a programme which she sings the praises of that was started by the previous Government.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Yes, I do believe that—and that is why I say this constantly—since I have been here, my only thought is towards making sure that young people are safe, young people are provided with the care that they need, young people are listened to, and young people actually have the services that they need to be the best that they can be. I don’t politicise that. That is the reason why the fast-track programme will continue and that we are investing more money into that service—because it worked and it worked well. We are also extending the age group up to the age of 16 because that is important too. When you have something that is working, you invest in it. When you have something that is not working, you don’t invest in it, and you make sure that you are reprioritising the money into spaces that work.
In regards to the to the military-style academy, these young people have been sentenced to at least two crimes of 10 years or more, proven in court. These are our most serious repeat youth offenders. Do you know what was happening with them before the military-style academy? Nothing. They sat in a youth justice facility, like a holding pen on the way to prison. That’s how we treated them—we gave up on them. They had no purpose, no goal, no idea what the future was going to hold for them. They left, and they came back. It was like a revolving door where nobody actually gave a damn where they were once they left the youth justice (YJ) facility and nobody gave a damn when they came back to the YJ facility, because, as far as we were concerned, they were a lost cause and we’ll just wait for them to go to prison.
That’s what was happening to these young people before we decided to put a programme together to actually make sure we knew what their needs were, put services in front of them so that they could grow their skills in many places, learn routine, learn how to deal with their family—make sure we’re not sending them back to the same environment that put them in there in the first place, make sure they’re safe when they leave, and make sure we’re supporting them in whatever they want to do when they leave, for at least nine months when they leave.
JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I would just ask the Minister for Children if she could explain to the committee why she has undertaken a review of service contracts at Oranga Tamariki, and the factors that have been taken into account in the review of those contracts.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Thank you, Mr Chair. The ultimate, main factor is that Oranga Tamariki has not been achieving on what they should in their core purpose; we’ve seen that in report after report after report. I could probably actually repeat a lot of the stuff that was done in reports three years ago, that was done in reports 20 years ago basically word for word where we haven’t improved in the way we’re caring for our young people. We don’t need any more reports. We need to deliver in that space, and the way to deliver in that space is to actually support front-line services, give them the tools they need to do their job, and make sure that we are supporting them in that role, and that hasn’t been done well in the past.
This is previous Governments and Governments before that Government, so I’m not blaming it all on one Government. This has been going on for a very long time. We need to have the courage to make these tough decisions. Whilst people may disagree with these decisions because it financially impacts some people, the trade-off, I’m not willing to not do it. The trade-off is making sure that our children and young people, when they come to the attention of Oranga Tamariki, are seen in an appropriate time frame, they’re in a safe home once a social worker sights them and makes sure they’re safe, and if they’re not safe, making sure we’re placing them somewhere safe. This is the reason why we have to do the review on the contracts, because we have to re-prioritise our funding and our money to go to the right places for our young people.
Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Finance): Well, thank you, Mr Chair. I couldn’t help but notice the previous Labour member, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, seemed to get a bit more than she bargained for. But, Minister, I visited a youth justice facility with you about a month ago. I noticed that the people there seemed to already know you, and then you told me that you’d been back there just two weeks later to hear from the people some more. I’ve heard you mention visiting quite a number of Oranga Tamariki facilities up and down New Zealand. I wondered if you could share what you’ve seen and experienced about the culture and the operations; what you’ve tried to do, if you’ve tried to change that at all; and how that’s influenced the way that you’ve come to the budgeting process that led to these Estimates.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Thank you, Mr Chair. These are really good questions. When I first came in, part of the money that we had to hand back was actually money that was sitting unspent that had been bid for by the previous Government to provide community provider homes for young people. That came about because of Te Oranga and some issues that happened in Te Oranga. That money wasn’t spent. It was sitting in a bank account unspent while we had youth justice facilities that were lacking in maintenance; that weren’t fit for purpose for our young people. We had to lower the bed numbers in many of these facilities because they were not safe; the infrastructure wasn’t safe. It was a terrible environment.
I’ll tell you what my plan was. I actually went into these facilities, looked at what the issues were, and made sure that we actually delivered in fixing those issues, which we have done and we are still doing. We have to work through each one, one by one, to work out what those issues are. Epuni was an absolute disgrace. That has now been—
Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Painted?
Hon KAREN CHHOUR: —refurbished and actually made fit for purpose. Hell yes, repainted. That place was like a youth justice facility. Those kids did not commit a crime. It is a care and protection unit where those young people deserve to be in an environment where they are not treated like criminals, because they are not criminals—and that is how they had been treated for years and years, and nothing was done. That facility needed a revamp. It has had a revamp, and it is almost completed.
In Auckland, there were two facilities where I knew the moment I walked in that staff were not trained, were not capable to deal with the high needs that these young people had, were not treating them with dignity and respect. I could tell within two seconds that that place was not a place that I would be happy to put any young person.
We have put standard operating practices in place in these youth justice facilities. We have set a standard of, “You are going to get some training”—which they never got before. We have changed management to make sure that training process is done across the board—across multiple youth justice facilities—so that no matter which one they go to, they are treated with dignity and respect, which they weren’t being treated with when I took over.
KAHURANGI CARTER (Green): I’m really interested in understanding the Minister for Children’s definition of getting value for money when it comes to contracting services outlined in the Vote.
I bring this line of questioning up as I have heard from many organisations, including Kia Puāwai Functional Family Therapy, which in 2023 had a 96 percent improved living situation key performance indicator (KPI) in relation to the support to 252 rangatahi in Te Tai Tokerau. Can the Minister explain to the committee what direction she will provide her ministry regarding the contracting services in the 2024-25 Budget if a 96 percent KPI is not considered value for money? How can the Minister responsible for prevention of family and sexual violence justify cutting a critical programme with her Ministry for Children that is designed to prevent harm at its earliest stages?
On page 153 of the Vote, there is a success matrix—on page 153. How do you plan on meeting that despite repealing section 7AA, decreasing the funding to contractors, which include iwi and Māori organisations, by $30 million and, further, not investing any more money into work programmes to support iwi-led care organisations? We want you to be successful in that, Minister.
In light of the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in State care findings, which have absolute relevance to this portfolio and to prevention of family and sexual violence, particularly the issues highlighted on page 57 about the impact of structural racism and the stripping of Māori culture that caused actual harm to children, can you please tell us how you are planning to honour this and to be successful when you are not funding this?
DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Kia ora. Minister, just one question: if the model that works, that is being reinvested in, is a kaupapa Māori model—and let’s use, for example, the boot camp model in Palmerston North. If mātauranga Māori and Māori culture has been, indeed, used to make that its point of difference, then why aren’t you saying that that’s the model that’s best utilised instead of letting it get branded as being a military versus a Māori cultural solution for Māori rangatahi?
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): I’d just like to answer that question for the member, and I thank her for that question. Yes, there are iwi-led programmes within the military-style academy programme. There’s also defence-designed programmes within the military-style academy, and whilst there is a higher percentage of Māori within youth justice and a higher percentage of Māori within this programme, it’s not just a programme for Māori children; it’s a programme for all children, and it’s making sure that all young people get the services and the care that they need and making sure that we provide to their needs. That includes te ao Māori, and that’s important to me also. There are iwi-led programmes, but, like I said, there’re other programmes within that as well.
Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Just one on the boot camps. I asked the Minister at the scrutiny week how much per participant, per child, the boot camp was. The Minister said, “Any details of specific ‘how much it’s going to cost per child’ we’ve got announcements coming up soon in the future and we can’t go into [too] much detail around that”. The announcement came and went, and the detail around that has never come to the surface. How much is the pilot per child, per participant? That is my question on the boot camps.
My other question is: who, and on what date, made the decision that Oranga Tamariki would limit its core focus, its core purpose, its core business to that for children in care and protection or who come to the attention of Oranga Tamariki? Because, as I read the legislation, the very services that we are hearing being cut are services that go to the purpose, role, and function of Oranga Tamariki in the legislation. So who decided to refocus Oranga Tamariki to that which we are hearing now from the Minister?
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): The purpose of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 is all about promoting the wellbeing of children, young persons, their whānau, and communities. This means supporting and protecting children and young people, including preventing them from suffering harm to their development or wellbeing. This purpose also extends to preventing offending or reoffending. The Act also outlines that the wellbeing and best interests of a child or a young person should be paramount in the application of law. At its core, Oranga Tamariki is a statutory care and protection and youth justice agency. Its focus must reflect this core responsibility and purpose, and the operating model helps Oranga Tamariki to better deliver on its core purpose.
What I would like to say is that the care and the wellbeing of our young people is not just up to Oranga Tamariki. This is a multi-agency approach when it comes to our young people that are out in our communities. It tends to be the assumption that Oranga Tamariki is the only agency that is responsible for children—that just is not true. Kāinga Ora has an obligation to make sure that when we have families with young children, that they have a roof over their head and a place to live. Health has an obligation to children to make sure that they are healthy and that they have everything they need within a health system. Mental health has an obligation to children in regards to their mental health and their wellbeing. The Ministry of Social Development has an obligation to children when it comes to funding parents who may need help when it comes to taking care of their young people.
To say that Oranga Tamariki should be the be-all and end-all for every child in this country is absolutely untrue. It’s actually not helpful, because what we need to do is make sure that the all-of-children system works well together when it comes to the care and protection of our children. That is what I am doing: putting the focus back where Oranga Tamariki’s core purpose is, the statutory care and protection of the youth justice agency as well and must focus and must reflect on this core responsibility, because for far too long we’ve had report after report after report saying that children are still being hurt and harmed in care. This is something that people would be kicking and screaming about whenever a child is hurt or harmed in care: how could a child get hurt or harmed in care? Why aren’t we resourcing the front-line staff better? Why aren’t we focusing on the children in care?
That is exactly what I have said from the moment I have come in here: that we are going to focus on the children and young people that are in the care and protection of Oranga Tamariki. This is an all-of-agency approach; it’s not just Oranga Tamariki’s responsibility.
MARK CAMERON (ACT): Mr Chair, thank you. Minister, thank you very much for your quite emotive and emotional remarks. Do you want to tease it out, Minister, for this committee? I’m quite frankly sick and tired of the politicisation of what looking after children in New Zealand looks like. Minister, you used “core business”—core business. What does that mean for everyday children, irrespective of race, irrespective of ethnicity? Aren’t we all just Kiwis here? I am fascinated that in a modern country this becomes a political football. It’s certainly becoming a political football on the left. Minister, can you talk about core business and give this committee some assurance that we’re all on the same page when it comes to children and their betterment and welfare?
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): Thank you, Mr Chair. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of reports of concern that come in regarding people who are concerned about a young person being safe in their environment where they’re living. Usually that comes from another Government organisation, so it will come from education, it will come from police, it’ll come from another Government agency.
Oranga Tamariki’s first core responsibility is to make sure that we are triaging those phone calls and make sure that we are responding in an appropriate time frame to make sure that that young person has been either sighted or we have triaged to know that that young person is safe. We haven’t been doing that well over the last few years. We have not been hitting a target that I think is acceptable. Every time we see that a young person passes away or a baby passes away and there may have been a report of concern about that young baby, the immediate reaction from the public is, “Oh, here we go again. Oranga Tamariki has failed.”
What I would like to say—and I just want to make this perfectly clear: Oranga Tamariki’s job is to step in at the worst moment of a young person’s life and a family’s life, sometimes. That is what they do on a daily basis. They step in at the worst moment of a young person’s life. We can’t afford to get it wrong, because if you’re a young person and you’re reaching out for help and you’re asking the very agency whose core purpose is to protect you to protect you and they don’t, what are the chances of you actually sticking your hand up again and asking for help again? We need to make sure that we are getting that right from the very beginning. That is what I see as the core purpose of Oranga Tamariki, making sure our children and our young people are safe.
What I would also say is I know and I see the devastation in the eyes of some social workers when, even when they have done absolutely everything right and they have tried absolutely everything to protect a young person, we can get a bad outcome. That is not the responsibility of Oranga Tamariki. They didn’t hurt or harm that young person. The only person responsible for that hurt or harm is the person who was the perpetrator of that harm. We can do as much as we can in resourcing front line so they have the tools to step in and do what they need, but I want to put it on the table here that those social workers that step up every day for the core purpose of Oranga Tamariki, which is the care and protection of our young people, their safety and their wellbeing at the forefront of their decision making, I just want to thank them for all the hard work that they do, because it’s not easy when you are blamed for the hurt and harm that happened before you even arrived.
JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I move, That the committee report progress.
Motion agreed to.
Progress to be reported.
House resumed.
CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.
Motion agreed to.
Report adopted.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill is set down for further consideration in committee next sitting day. It is now time to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
Bills
Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill
Third Reading
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): I move, That the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill be now read a third time.
This bill delivers on our Government’s commitment to the Local Water Done Well policy. Our goal is straightforward: to ensure high-quality, locally managed water services and to improve infrastructure that supports housing growth. We’re working closely with local government to make this happen. Local Water Done Well empowers councils to develop financially sustainable solutions to the longstanding water infrastructure challenges affecting many communities.
The previous Government’s approach—an unpopular, mega-bureaucratic, co-governed model—was costly and overwhelmingly rejected by voters at the last election. Earlier this year, we put an end to those divisive reforms and returned water services to local communities and to council control. That was the first step in the Local Water Done Well policy reform process.
This bill lays the foundations for our new approach to managing and regulating water services. Under this bill, councils stay in control. They will determine their preferred delivery arrangements, starting with the development of water service delivery plans within 12 months of this bill’s enactment. These plans will show how councils will deliver drinking-water, waste-water, and stormwater services in a financially sustainable way to meet regulatory standards.
Local decision-making is a key element to this bill. We understand that for some councils, the best outcomes will come from collaboration. This bill allows councils to submit joint water service delivery plans, detailing how they will work together to provide water services more efficiently and cost-effectively.
It also includes provisions for councils that need support. This bill also allows me to appoint a Crown facilitator to help councils prepare their plans or a Crown water services specialist to do it on their behalf. Councils can also request this assistance. Crucial information from these plans will be shared with the Commerce Commission as it develops a full economic regulation regime. This includes asset conditions, revenue and expenditure projections, and details on capital and borrowing. This bill also provides for some councils to be subject to an early form of information disclosure by the Commerce Commission, building on the data collected through these plans. This is particularly important for councils’ more advanced practices or those ready for a faster track towards detailed oversight.
For councils ready to transform their water services now, this bill provides an optional, streamlined consultation and decision-making process. This will make it easier for these councils that want to establish, join, or alter a water services council-controlled organisation or joint local government arrangement as currently provided for under the Local Government Act. This streamlined process allows them to move quickly while still ensuring community input.
One of the Government’s election promises was to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland, and I’m pleased to say this bill also delivers on this promise. We’ve worked with Auckland Council to implement a model that gives Watercare financial independence, while allowing the council to retain complete ownership. This model also reduces the projected water bill increases for Aucklanders from 25.8 percent this year down to just 7.2 percent and, crucially, allows for Watercare to continue with their capital programme of investing in capital infrastructure to clean up our harbours through the Central Interceptor project.
Finally, this bill aims to reduce cost pressures across the sector through changes to the Water Services Act. These changes mean that the water services authority Taumata Arowai will no longer have to consider the hierarchy of obligations under Te Mana o te Wai and the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management when setting waste-water standards, addressing concerns about potential cost implications. While this is an interim measure, it provides greater certainty for those involved in infrastructure development, helping to reduce the costs of future investment in waste-water infrastructure. We’ll continue to work on replacing the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management to rebalance Te Mana o te Wai and better reflect the interests of all water users.
We’ve heard councils’ call for local control and flexibility in their delivery of water infrastructure, and with this bill we answer that call, providing councils with the options and tools they need to make decisions that benefit their communities. It’s clear that spending $1.25 billion on setting up new water service entities wasn’t necessary, as the last Government was proposing—$1.25 billion that they spent. New Zealanders deserve better water services, and Local Water Done Well is our plan to deliver that change. The previous Government’s one-size-fits-all approach wasn’t the right answer for local councils. Our plan recognises that local leadership and decision-making are critical to enhancing water services, supported by central government’s role in ensuring robust water-quality standards and better access to long-term funding for critical infrastructure. I am confident that we are giving local communities the flexibility and the tools needed to deliver water services effectively.
One of the cornerstone achievements of our Local Water Done Well policy is the innovative financing arrangements made possible by the Local Government Funding Agency (LGFA). We recognise that many councils face significant financial constraints in meeting the demands of upgrading and maintaining their water infrastructure. Better access to LGFA financing helps solve this, empowering councils with the financial flexibility they need, while ensuring ratepayers are not overburdened by unnecessary costs. Through this partnership, council-controlled water organisations that are financially supported by their parent council or councils can access financing equivalent to 500 percent of their revenues, backed by the LGFA’s AAA credit rating. This means improved access to finance for council-controlled water services, which would otherwise be constrained by their parent council’s level of borrowing. It also secures funding the investment in water infrastructure at much lower interest rates than would have been possible under Labour’s model. This financing is available now, and I think it’s really, really important to highlight this.
This deal which has been done with the Local Government Funding Agency changes the game when it comes to councils investing in water services. Under the last Government’s approach, the entities they were putting up would’ve been able to only borrow up to 350 percent, for most of them except for Entity A—up to 350 percent against their revenues. Under this financing, they can borrow up to 500 percent against their revenues, and because of the arrangement through the LGFA, LGFA is able to provide the lowest cost financing to councils through its AAA credit rating—the lowest cost financing to councils.
Members opposite will still be hammering on about how their three waters co-governed, mega-entity proposal apparently was going to be cheaper. Well, that’s a figment of their imagination—a complete figment of their imaginations. Firstly, those entities would’ve been lumped with $1 billion of establishment costs over and above the $1.25 billion—
Hon Scott Simpson: How much?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: $1 billion of establishment costs. Secondly, they wouldn’t have been able to—for most of those entities—achieve a 500 percent debt-to-revenue ratio. That wasn’t going to be available to them. And, thirdly, they would not have received the financing through the LGFA and the AAA credit rating, which meant that they would not be getting and would not be accessing the lowest cost financing available to local government.
What this Government has done through Local Water Done Well has ensured that councils have the framework, the tools, and the financing to be able to enable them, working with their local communities, to be able to invest in the water infrastructure that they need to invest in. This Government has done that in as simple a time as nine months. We didn’t spend hundreds of millions on consultants. We didn’t need an army of consultants to do this. We just needed to have clear direction, look at the innovation that came through the LGFA, make decisions, and get on with it. That’s what this Government has done, and because of that we’re on the cusp of a new and improved delivery system for local government.
My message to local government is: thank you for calling for this change. Thank you for the mayors who stood up and opposed the last Government’s divisive reforms. Thank you for supporting us through this process, and we look forward to seeing the work that you do, collaborating with your communities, taking advantage of this new financing so that you can deliver the infrastructure that your community desperately needs, the improved water infrastructure, the improved quality, and investment in the growth that is needed in your community. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The question is the motion be agreed.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The problem with that speech by the Hon Simeon Brown is that I just don’t believe him—and there are many New Zealanders around who don’t either—because I find the Minister to be about as disingenuous as you can get. Here he is standing in the House making all sorts of promises to the country, as he has done throughout the campaign, but what is in the bill doesn’t match what he is saying. There were a lot of claims made tonight where, if people were to take the Minister at what he was saying, they would expect rates would not continue to go up. But he failed short of making that promise, because he knows, in his heart of hearts, that rates will continue to go up, because the advice that he has received is that this approach by this Government will still result in rates increasing. And there’s a number of reasons why I find his claims to be disingenuous.
The workings that they are going on are based on a false assumption that the level of expenditure that is required over the next 30 years is less than half what was claimed previously. Now, we know, through peer-reviewed assessment that was derived from councils’ own numbers, that there needs to be up to $185 billion spent over the next 30 years. The Minister claims that it is less than half of that, not by looking at councils’ own numbers and projections over 30 years but by looking at councils’ projections from their long-term plans. That is not being upfront with New Zealand, because he knows that councils won’t reflect 30 years’ worth of work in their long-term plans, because it’s only 10 years out. Then there will be, through the process that councils have had to go through over the last wee while, a number of large-scale projects that won’t be reflected in those 10 years. But he stood up and he told the country that this is affordable for councils.
New Zealanders are in a situation where the Minister is making a claim and we’re making a claim, so why don’t they listen to neither of us and listen to the credit rating agencies instead? Ultimately, it’s the credit rating agencies that determine the cost of borrowing. Borrowing is the reality when it comes to this water infrastructure. We cannot escape that fact. Regardless of how much needs to be spent, it needs to be borrowed. When the Minister stands up and says that it is a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the expenditure and the credit rating agency turns around and says, “We don’t believe you.”, nor should New Zealanders. We certainly don’t. I don’t think he’s being upfront. What he’s doing is finding a political solution to a massive issue facing this country, an issue that hits every New Zealander, whether they own their home or whether they rent. Rates determine the costs that hit their household. I think rates are going to be the biggest issue facing households in this country over the next wee while, and this bill isn’t going to help at all.
They stand up here in this House and say, “We are helping councils.” when they know, from their own advice, that they’re not. On the back of dismissing the recommendations that came from the Future for Local Government Review, calling it woke nonsense—despite the fact that the recommendations had alternatives for councils, had some tools and levers that they could pull so that they didn’t have to rely on rates—they’ve dismissed it. The only option they’ve got is rates, and they have the gall, after doing those two things, to turn around and stand up in front of councils and lecture them in a patronising, cynical, and arrogant way and tell them it’s their fault.
Again, that’s political. That is a political calculation, because they know they’ve stuffed up. They know that they set the rules within which councils operate, and they know that they have now made sure that councils have no option but to continue to increase rates and they don’t want to cop it in two years’ time at the next election. So they are bending over backwards to make sure that the inevitable fury that comes from ongoing rates increases goes towards mayors and councillors instead of them. Well, my message to ratepayers is that it’s actually not your mayors’ and councillors’ fault. These guys are trying to spin it as if it is, but it’s their fault. The next time they get a bill and they are surprised by the rates increase, remember this: the Government had an opportunity to help councils out and they blew it. They blew it for political reasons, and now they tie their legs together and turn around and criticise them for not being able to walk.
Now, I could give them a week, an entire sitting week, and ask them to come up with all the lists of what they call wasteful spending, and it could be as long as you like. But it’s not even going to scratch the surface. When over 80 percent of councils’ expenditure is on water and on roads and all they want councils to focus on is roads, water, and picking up rubbish—that was the Minister’s response in question time today—even if councils got rid of all the libraries and all the pools and all the sports grounds and didn’t do up the local footpaths and didn’t do up the local town centres, rates would still go up. If they were being upfront with New Zealand, they would declare that, but they’re not. That is why I believe the Minister is being disingenuous. They know the system is stuffed, and they’re refusing to do something about it.
The credit rating agencies, the ones that actually determine what is and is not affordable, have said this will not work. They’re going ahead with it anyway. They are working on the basis of a level of expenditure which dismisses 20 years’ expenditure, because, if they actually were upfront and looked at the 30-year projection of up to $185 billion that came from the councils’ own figures themselves, this plan wouldn’t work. They’ve done some jiggery-pokery and they’ve made it look like it’s going to add up, but it’s not, and, at the end of the day, who’s going to suffer? It’s going to be ratepayers. It’s also going to be good and hard-working mayors and councillors. If the Minister actually sat down with them in their council chambers and talked to them during the long-term plan process, just like I would, he would know the angst that they have gone through to try and keep rates low. But they’ve got no choice.
Now, if you look at South Wairarapa as an example, they have had rates increases of 20 percent in the last two years, and they still don’t have the money to upgrade their roads; they still don’t have the money to upgrade their water system. Now, South Wairarapa are in a council-controlled organisation—the thing this bill does—but they still don’t have the money. They have stopped developments in Greytown and Martinborough—no more new builds. That’s it—none. The local tradies are having to leave the region to get work. The local Mitre 10 has really been hit, because, if there are no builds, no one is coming in to buy materials. Why? Because they cannot afford to upgrade their waste-water systems. Now, they’ve tried. They thought entering into Wellington Water was the solution, but then it didn’t work out, did it? It didn’t work out, because it doesn’t add up, because what the Minister is promising also doesn’t add up.
Today is actually a sad day. It’s a sad day when a Minister stands up and says something that he knows in his heart of hearts won’t eventuate. I think that’s a bit of a disgrace, and yet he carries on. He knows the numbers don’t add up, because the very advice that his own officials and own department have given him says so. They fiddled it. They fiddled with it to make it look feasible, and they’ve run with it. In some communities, they have already put rates up because they got rid of the affordable water reform. The councils have said so themselves—literally writing to their ratepayers and saying, “Sorry, it was going to be this amount; now it’s this amount, because these guys got rid of the affordable water reform.”
This bill does nothing for the likes of the Tararua District. They’ve got around 10,000 ratepaying units and the fourth-largest roading network in the country. They need to find $600 million over the next 30 years—that’s from their own figures; the figures the Minister called “dodgy”. That’s their own figures. They cannot afford it. They can’t afford it by themselves, and even if they joined up with, say, two or three councils around them, they couldn’t afford it either. If you were a mayor or a councillor in a surrounding district, why would you voluntarily join up with them? I know they’re entering into this process in good faith, because councils do that, but, at the end of the day, when they look at the numbers, why would they do that? I feel sorry for the mayor and councillors in the Tararua District, because this is a problem not of their making but it’s up to them to fix, and the Government is not helping them.
LAN PHAM (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I have to agree with my colleague the Hon Kieran McAnulty: it is a sad day, today. I want to acknowledge that we have got to today from a lot of unfortunate political failure and system failure. It’s created these longstanding issues that will worsen as climate change and extreme weather events take hold, and it’s putting our ageing infrastructure under increasing pressure. We know that the financial burden of all of this is in the hundreds of billions, so it’s no small thing. I have to reflect that I’m disappointed that this, ultimately, is a bill of missed opportunities—and I have to agree with my colleague across the House on that. We know, to solve these challenges, that whatever the model for reform is, it needs to be connecting our councils with communities. It needs to be taking a longer-term view. It needs to be incorporating mandatory considerations like climate change and needs to get out of this very siloed thinking where we’re lumping the blame and the responsibility on councils and ratepayers, who simply cannot meet that challenge alone. We are needing to be part of that, and we’ve missed that opportunity with this bill.
The first opportunity that I want to reflect on was how truncated the actual process was in the consultation—if you can call it a consultation—on this bill. It was hugely limited, to the extent that not all councils even got to submit on this bill and actually have their say. That is a huge, missed opportunity for actually getting to a place where we can address these very serious issues.
I want to start, as well—this is not about only our missed opportunity to address our infrastructure deficit, but it’s a missed opportunity to do so in a way that is actually comprehensive and fit for purpose for Aotearoa. I want to pick up on that specifically because it is a missed opportunity for co-governance. Some might call it co-governance, others might more accurately call it governance, and this is in upholding the rights of iwi and hapū in their exercise of rangatiratanga over water. It’s completely missing from the bill. The Pou Taiao of Iwi Chairs Forum put it really succinctly when they said, “The bill’s proposals lack any acknowledgment of the Government’s Te Tiriti obligations to iwi and hapū, and there is no reference at all to iwi and hapū participation in the delivery and decision making in respect of the mechanisms proposed.” Now, for this land and this place, for our water here, that is a glaring oversight, and it’s something that I’m hoping that this Government will take note of in the next bill, which becomes more substantially about the guts of how this new reform system will work.
I wanted to pick up, particularly, as well, on the missed opportunity to prioritise the health of our people and the health of our water. It was really disappointing hearing the Minister of Local Government talk about the positive nature of getting rid of Te Mana o te Wai considerations when setting waste-water standards through Te Mana o te Wai. We find this, as the Green Party, to be completely inappropriate, to be really short-sighted, and introducing considerable complexity into this water system that we have, where Te Mana o te Wai, as was pointed out really clearly by a number of submitters, was designed as a cohesive whole. It has a number of elements, and to pick out just one, in Taumata Arowai in the setting of these waste-water standards, is very short-sighted. Te Mana o te Wai was meant to be the driving force which actually improved the environmental outcomes and the health outcomes of our communities, and actually resulted in appropriate levels of investment that would further New Zealand in those outcomes. Without it, we risk locking in further underinvestment, an issue that we’ve already been party to, and we’ll end up with substandard infrastructure and decision making, which is, ultimately, detrimental to the health of our environment and our communities.
I really want to pick up on that; the public health implications which have had such a light shone on them during the submission process. I want to pick up, particularly, on the submission of the Public Health Communication Centre. They talked about the removing of the hierarchy of obligations from Taumata Arowai’s work meaning deprioritising the safety and quality of people’s drinking water and increasing the risk of illness from polluted drinking water. They talked about, given the human and financial costs of illness from water-borne disease and the typical high-cost effectiveness of reticulated and water sewage systems in urban settings—it holds that the safety of drinking water should have an extremely high priority. Now, that should not be news to anyone, yet we’re still making laws and legislation that make it necessary for health professionals to point that out to us.
What’s really disappointing, as well, with this bill is that it has failed to listen to the voices of councils when actually setting the criteria and the framework for which they make these decisions about whether to join joint water service delivery, to make the plans, and to make the joint entities.
We heard, overwhelmingly, from local councils and Local Government New Zealand and Taumata Arowai that they wanted 30-year minimum time frames for these water service development plans. They talked about how 10 years was completely insufficient when planning for resilient water infrastructure and water services, particularly with climate impacts. They asked for things like a much more pragmatic 24-month time frame, to actually allow them to have the conversations to make these water service delivery plans come into fruition and have the time to consult with iwi Māori on that. They also asked for much better integration with their existing planning processes, their long-term plans, their future development strategies, and their infrastructure strategies. The fact that, again, this Government has overlooked those time frames means that it is not going to be integrated. It risks councils that simply don’t have the resources available to them to meet these shorter-term time frames and will actually miss the boat altogether, and risks what we heard so often during the submissions as them then resulting in “orphan” councils that aren’t part of the bigger picture.
The last aspect I wanted to pick up on was the huge, missed opportunity in actually allowing regional council voices to be at the table when considering these joint water service delivery plans or entities. Now, yes, we add the Greater Wellington Regional Council, but we missed all the other regional councils. The reason why we needed to have them as part of the conversation is we need to get beyond this “What’s in it for me?” kind of thinking, where we’re taking these arbitrarily defined boundaries or areas. We know that our drinking-water aquafers cross city and district boundaries. We know our waste water and stormwater flow across the landscape into our streams and our rivers. It, ultimately, all ends up in our shared ocean. We need a greater, bigger picture to this, and the voices of individual councils considering these things alone is not going to get us there. We actually need that broader view.
I would really encourage the Government to consider all of these things as they go into the formation of the following bill to come, because, unless we are addressing these problems at scale, the solutions will, ultimately, be patchy, they’ll be inadequate, they’ll be expensive, and detrimental to the health of our communities and our environment. This bill has been a huge, missed opportunity, and the Greens will not be supporting it. Thank you.
CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It was rather interesting sitting here and listening to Kieran McAnulty, the former Minister of Local Government, make claims about rates going up. I think we know where they would have got the money from. It would have been from borrowing or it would have been another tax, and, really, it’s the same people paying at the end of the day. When you’re borrowing too much, you get inflation, and when you’re taxing too much, you scare people away and out of work. It leads to unproductivity, and it means less is getting done with more.
Today, I’m proud to speak in this final reading of the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. We listened to Kiwis. We did the hard work of restoring local ownership and control of water services as part of the Government’s 100-day plan, and I congratulate the current Government on having the courage to tackle this water infrastructure crisis head on. For too long, this country has faced infrastructure crises and we have dealt with that on a short term, Band-aid solution basis. This has been overwhelmingly rejected by New Zealand communities across the nation. The previous Government tried to address infrastructure issues in water services with misguided mega-entities and less local control, all while failing to deliver the solutions voters wanted.
The ACT Party is not here to impose top-down models on councils, who know their community, their waterways, and their waste-water systems better than a far-off bureaucrat, perhaps in Wellington or somewhere else, does. We are listening to voters and empowering them to find creative and innovative ways to meet local needs. I praise the mayors of New Zealand who saw through the affordable water reforms of the last Government.
This bill lays out the foundation for a much more financially viable and locally led future for water services in New Zealand. Councils will have the ability to choose their own financially sustainable delivery model that allows them to continue to support communities and improve their water delivery services. We want councils to be able to collaborate to address the different affordability issues across different regions, while maintaining their autonomy. Ultimately, we believe that councils who wish to move fast and adopt new delivery models should have a streamlined process to do so. We are removing unwanted barriers from councils which have got in the way, and we are allowing them to establish and amend new water services organisations.
Councils will be required to submit their water services delivery plans within 12 months of the bill becoming law. These plans will need to include a council’s approach to delivering drinking water, waste water, stormwater, and other water services. The plans need to show that the approach the council is taking will be financially sustainable and meets regulatory standards for quality.
Now, while Auckland is a key focus of this bill, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the small, rural areas, who have been anxious about the three waters changes taking power away from them. You and your local government understand what is needed, and we understand that councils need to retain their roles as strategic, democratically elected community leaders. Rural people have the right to be included in the reforms that would have pushed small councils to financial and resourcing limits. We’ve seen communities around the country concerned about how their small town would be impacted by the centralisation of these services. These communities are the backbone of New Zealand, and I’m proud to be able to reassure them that we will continue to fight for you.
The previous Government took away local control and wrapped it in bureaucracy and promises of co-governance. They hoped New Zealanders would look past this debacle.
This is a critical piece of legislation. It establishes the Local Water Done Well framework and the preliminary arrangements for the new water services system. We trust local councils to be able to make decisions based on the needs of their community, and to provide unique infrastructure solutions according to their needs and their concerns.
I come from a part of the country—Tauranga—which has been paying for its water for a long time. We have some high-class water infrastructure, and I hope to see the rest of the country follow suit on the path that Tauranga has done. ACT and I commend this bill to the House.
ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. During the committee of the whole House, we heard quite a bit about what isn’t in this bill, and from the Opposition saying, “You know, we want to know the answers to these things.” The clue is in the name. This is the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. It’s preliminary; there’s another one to come. We have a first stage. If we remind you, it was the repeal of the previous Government’s three waters proposal. Then there’s this stage and then there’s another one, which was quite clearly signalled in this bill and that will come at the end of this year.
I just wanted to briefly remind ourselves about that first stage—the repeal of the previous Government’s legislation—because I think in this debate there’s been a little bit of reinvention of history. We heard a bit of that reinvention of history from the Hon Kieran McAnulty before. There were less than 200 submissions on this bill. There were—how many was it?—86,000, 87,000.
Hon Scott Simpson: 87,000.
ANDY FOSTER: 87,000 on Labour’s legislation—and that wasn’t because people loved it; it was because people didn’t like it at all.
Look, it’s been portrayed as a solution that will fix everything overnight. But, look, the reality is, it wasn’t—and we’ve heard from the Hon Kieran McAnulty already that it’s in some way to blame for rates going up this year, and they’re going up across the board. But the reality is, that legislation wouldn’t have kicked in until—it wouldn’t be this year; it would be at least next year if not the year after. So that’s not true.
Also, we’ve had some people saying that somehow, magically, there was going to be this magic money tree. I know that some local body members think that this magic money tree somehow was going to pay for water. Well, it wasn’t. All that was going to happen is it was going to be transferred from ratepayers to water consumers, who, by and large, are the same people. That would have at least meant renters were paying directly for those services, potentially.
We’ve also heard from Kieran McAnulty that 80 percent of the rates goes on water and transport. I can tell you, certainly in the urban areas, it’s nowhere near that. I was looking for the rates bill to see if I could actually find the numbers, but I think it wouldn’t be a lot more than 50.
That legislation also appropriated council assets—appropriated them. They were assets built up by ratepayers over a century and a half, and, essentially, with no meaningful consultation. Remember it started out as something councils could opt into. Then it was like, “Uh, you’re going to have to opt out, because we’d really like you all to be in there.” And then it’s like, “You’re going in—you’re going in.” What sort of an approach is that? And some brave councils—and we’ve already had my friend Cameron Luxton saying, you know, brave mayors who took on the Government on this, and some of them took the Government to court, and the court said this was appropriation without compensation. In most cases, you would regard that as “theft”—is the word that you would use. And it’s another example that sometimes we need protection from our own Governments.
It also created the co-governance model. The co-governance model created two different classes of citizens. I know that some people have said that, as a result of that legislation and that other legislation, they did not even feel like they were New Zealanders anymore, and that is terrible. People have said that to me.
It also set up a complex form of governance that couldn’t possibly be effective and efficient. And it reached so far down into the small rural communities, and said, “Look, we want to appropriate, effectively, your small rural scheme.” Even, at one stage, two houses together was a scheme that they wanted to take over.
The other thing was it was always far, far too expensive. Right from the beginning, it looked like it was a gold-plated scheme. It was a gold-plated scheme. The numbers that have been talked about there—the $180 billion to $185 billion—I’m confident, as a result of the three stages that we are going through, that it will be well, well south of that; much, much cheaper to deliver the water services.
The other thing I wanted to comment on, because it came up also in the committee of the whole House, was the concern about the scrapping that’s been done of the Future for Local Government Review. Remember that? The Future for Local Government Review—let’s be very, very clear. That was an afterthought from the previous Government—an afterthought from the previous Government—only in response to local government, only because local government was saying, “Hey, you’re taking the water away. You’re taking away the Resource Management Act responsibility. So what are we going to be doing?” For many local authorities, that was an existential threat. Let’s just be clear about that. The other thing that review, of course, did is it focused only on what local government did. And some of us actually asked at the time, “Actually, could you focus on all forms of public service and say what fits where best? What’s best at central, regional, local, or even community level?”
What does this bill do? Well, it sorts out the borrowing issues for Watercare in Auckland. It leaves much more control with councils to sort out the structures, the financing, the service delivery, and some of the standards, and that matters. We’ve had some of our communities say that they, for example, don’t want chlorine in their water. Those kinds of things do matter to people. What stormwater levels do they want? Are we looking at a one-in-20-year flood, a one-in-100-year flood, a one-in-500-year flood? Those things matter. What about the receding water quality in waterways? Those things matter as well.
During the committee of the whole House, it also makes it easier to set up council-controlled organisations, alone or together. During the committee of the whole House, we heard concerns about that being only one consultation process rather than two. All I would say is, just make it authentic. That’s the key bit—to make it an authentic process—because I’ve seen a lot of tick-box consultation in the past and that does nothing for anybody. It doesn’t matter whether you do it once, twice, or 10 times; it is still a waste of time.
Then it requires a water service delivery plan. Have a look at what’s in the bill, because what is not to like about those things. A description of the current state of the water services network—sounds sensible. A description of the current levels of water services provided—that sounds very sensible as well. I’m not going to go through all of them. The financial projections, a description of the asset management approach—boy, that’s one I like; I like asset management. An explanation of how the revenue from and delivery of water services will be separated—all of those things are really, really important. It gives a lot more transparency than we’ve got at the moment, because, at the moment, we don’t have that level of transparency.
I want to come back to those water standards. The bill also includes—and we’ve already had that reference—the removing of Te Mana o te Wai. Now, Te Mana o te Wai sounded really, really good, because you want to look after the water. You want high-quality water. I had a regional councillor—not from this region, but a regional councillor—tell me the other day that they’re aiming for drinking-water quality standard in all of their rivers. I’d just like you to understand that thinking and whether that’s even possible—whether that’s even possible—and if you did, what you would have to do. That seemed just completely nuts. So there are concerns there.
The problem with Te Mana o te Wai is you’ve got three levels there, and what I’ve seen in resource management processes is that it’s only the top one that counts. For many decision makers, it’s only the top one that counts. And so the ones behind it—the health needs of people and then the ability of people and communities to provide for our social, economic, and cultural wellbeing—those things are subjugated to Te Mana o te Wai. That’s why that has come out.
Now, I’ve talked about asset management. Some people argue that councils haven’t done a good job of managing assets, and, actually, I think it’s fair—I think it’s fair. But I think that central government needs to be very careful that it is not in a glasshouse when it is throwing stones, because, for many parts of the central government asset portfolio, if you like, there is no asset management plan. And we lurch from crisis to crisis, saying, “Oh, goodness me! There’s a hospital that needs fixing because it’s got mould all over the place. There are schools which are falling down.”—you know, those things. And how do we do it? We cash fund them. I think central government should not be the pot calling the kettle black and needs to get its own house in order of that, and that’s something which we ought to be thinking very carefully about.
Now, if there was a real concern about underfunding—that thing of renewals versus depreciation—I ask a question: that was going on for years in every council around the country, and I know I was a part of a council that was doing it as well. I asked a question at the Governance and Administration Committee, saying to the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG), “Well, how many big red flags did you raise?” Crickets—not many. I would say to the OAG, in this process, and also to the Commerce Commission in this process, be waving big, big red flags, if you think there is a concern about the asset management, the way in which those important assets are being looked after.
Just to finish off with, this bill, to me, makes water delivery and investment much, much more transparent than it has ever been before, and that is a really good thing. It puts greater oversight there. The Commerce Commission will be involved, and I think that’s something that will be very interesting for councils to be exposed to. It allows the Government appointed assistance in developing water plans when necessary.
Can I just, actually, also add one other thing? We had a lot about the cost of delivery. Now, obviously, the changes around Te Mana o te Wai are going to make a difference there. The other one is the changes that are made outside of the water system to things like temporary traffic management. And you might go, “What the heck’s that going to do with it?” I’ve had chief executives of councils saying that 40 percent—I’ve said this in the House before—of the cost of every piece of work on the roads is traffic management. If you can halve that, you can go back and have a bit of a think about that and say, “Well, that’s going to really reduce the cost of delivering our water services.” Those things are really, really important.
So, look, I am really confident that the reforms through this bill and the forthcoming legislation will make the delivery of the three waters more reliable, more robust. It will still give us good quality systems. It will be done locally and it will be done for much, much less than the previous Government’s system. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): This is a five-minute split call.
TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero a Te Pāti Māori mō tēnei o ngā pire e hāngai pū ana ki te wai Māori.
Hei tīmatanga kōrero māku, ko te kī atu ki tēnei Whare me te iwi katoa o Aotearoa, nō te Māori te wai. Nō te Māori te wai i te tīmatanga, ā, kāore e kore nō te Māori te wai hei te whakamutunga.
Nō reira ka tahuri au ki te reo tāhae whenua, tāhae wai, tāhae tamariki e mārama pū nei te katoa ki ēnei o ngā kōrero.
[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Greetings to us all. I stand to give voice to the statements of the Māori Party for this particular bill that is directly related to fresh water.
For my opening comments, I would like to say to this House and all people of Aotearoa, water belongs to Māori. Water belonged to Māori in the beginning, and, without a doubt, water will belong to Māori at the end.
And so I will now turn to the language of land theft, water theft, child theft so that everyone will understand these statements.]
Let me just turn to English so everyone gets the rest of the speech. Māori have a very clear right to water. This bill doesn’t recognise it; many bills haven’t. There’ve been previous attempts to try and recognise Māori rights in water. Many people have spoken about it. I see it’s continuing to be debated in this House and new laws are being made as we speak, and these laws aim to take those rights away from Māori.
Let me just get way back to how Māori view the water. There’s a great saying that encapsulates this idea, and it comes from a place called Te Kāhui Maunga, all the way down the Whanganui to where it meets the sea. The saying goes, “mai i Te Kāhui Maunga ki Tangaroa, ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au”. [from the Mountain Clan to the sea, I am the river, the river is me”.]
Loosely translated, it means: from the gathering of mountains, all the way down to the lapping of the ocean, I am the river and the river is me. It’s a famous quote from Whanganui. It encapsulates not only Māori rights to water but the Māori ethos and thinking and philosophy around water, which is an idea called mauri ora, and it’s what Te Mana o te Wai, te Taumata Arowai, Te Tai Kaha, and many other initiatives that have aimed to preserve the quality of our water have been based on.
But, here we go, in this House, we’ll just forget all of that stuff and we’ll worry about legislation that gets water from one place to another, and see some crowd control it, and some other crowd not. There are a couple of examples that I would like—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): That’s good, Mr Ferris, because let’s concentrate on the bill, now—that’s some good context.
TĀKUTA FERRIS: I’m completely talking about the bill, as far as I’m concerned. There are two parts to the bill—
Hon Simon Watts: It’s the third reading, mate.
TĀKUTA FERRIS: Yeah, OK—OK. Kia ora. Well, back to the conversation. Māori rights continue to be stripped out, and the loss of Te Mana o te Wai, Te Tai Kaha, and te Taumata Arowai are a continuation of that. Whilst the discussion may be around local ownership and infrastructure and how that gets paid for at the end of the day—I just reflect on the submissions that we heard through the Māori wards legislation, whether they stay or not.
The resounding support from the local mayors and CEOs of the country, who actually prefer to have Māori at the table because—āe, āe. Māori are a long-term financial partner in the local regions of this country. And when it comes to delivery of water and, when we get down to it, the fight for who owns water, they would be better off having those Māori around their tables instead of talking to them across the courtroom. Many of them talked about that, and the long-term view is that Māori assets, Māori capital, and Māori people are more committed to their regions and more likely to leave their investments in those regions, which could be a helpful thing when you think about paying for long-term water solutions. But let’s not worry about that. So where to go—where to go?
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): To the bill—to the bill.
TĀKUTA FERRIS: You know, water seems to—the bill. Oh yeah, I’m still talking about the bill. I’m still talking about the bill.
Steve Abel: Point of order, Mr Speaker. A large part of the bill is explicitly to do with Te Mana o Te Wai and to ensure there is no co-governance of our water system—it’s getting rid of the three waters legislation. I believe the speaker is speaking directly to the bill, in the subject matter, and I take issue with you suggesting that he is not speaking to the bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Sit down, Mr Abel. That is a decision for the Chair. Carry on.
TĀKUTA FERRIS: Happy to continue.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Restart the clock from when the point of order was taken, please.
TĀKUTA FERRIS: Kia ora. Kia ora tātou. Kia ora, kia ora tātou. Ka hoki nei ki ngā kōrero. Mēnā kua meinga ēnei kōrero katoa ki te reo Māori, kua kore tētahi e whakauru i ōna whakaaro ki ēnei kōrero, but ka hoki au ki te reo Pākehā.
[Thank you, hello to everyone. I will resume my speech. If all of these comments were made in the Māori language, no one would interject their opinions into these comments, but I will return to English.]
Context is key, and, without a doubt, getting Māori concepts across in this House is quite a challenge when this House expects all of the conversation to be conducted down one lane. Well, there’s two lanes in this House, but the Māori lane is often just, you know, never given its rightful place. But I will persist; we’ll persist with that.
So let me get back to the bill and its aspiration to deliver good quality drinking water. And we all know that this comes down to a poor water event that happened in Havelock North a little while ago. But, at the same time—at the same time—there were kuia in places like Pānguru—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The member’s time has expired.
STEVE ABEL (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to speak to the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill at its third reading. This is the bumper sticker of this Government. It’s a bumper-sticker law that they speak so much about, and it involves kicking the can of contaminated drinking water, broken old pipes, and sewage on beaches down the road.
It is my prediction that there will be two obvious consequences from this legislation. Your drinking water will become lower quality—this is the members’, not yours personally, Mr Speaker, but yours too, possibly. The public’s water will become lower quality. Rivers will become more polluted and sewage will keep contaminating our oceans and our beaches. That is the first thing that is likely to happen as a consequence of this legislation.
The alternative to that is that conscientious councils will invest to fix the water infrastructure that is so desperately lacking in investment, and the rates will go up, as my other colleague on this side of the House, Kieran McAnulty, pointed out. The rates will go up, and those councils who’ve done the right thing will be punished by their electorate and blamed for the failure of central government to take responsibility for fixing the long-term infrastructure of our water. And that silly slogan, “Stop three waters”—as if it’s a good idea to stop drinking water and stop waste water and stop stormwater, but that’s essentially what this bill will have some effect on doing. It will stop the proper investment in that fundamental infrastructure.
That slogan was closely associated with another slogan during the election campaign: “Stop co-governance”, which the previous speaker, Tākuta Ferris, was speaking to directly. That was the classic anti-iwi, anti-Māori, race-baiting, fear-mongering basis on which this Government won its way into Parliament, and it’s a scurrilous undermining of our fundamental obligations as a nation to uphold the rights of iwi and hapū to the exercise of their rangatiratanga, including in regard to fresh water.
Now, it is rare for there to be a visionary insight to come into the formulation of our legislation and our law, but one of those visionary insights was Te Mana o Te Wai. Te Mana o Te Wai is a concept from te ao Māori which grapples with how we approach the hierarchy of obligations in regard to water, and it recognises the primordial truth that water is the source of life. Water is where life began. I remember my colleague opposite, Ryan Hamilton, when I mentioned that I’d take it back to the beginning, and he said, “What, Genesis?”. I said, “Yes, let’s talk about Genesis, because you’ll remember in the second verse of Genesis that exquisite language about the spirit of God moving across the face of the deep.” Before even there was the creation of light, there was the interaction of the Creator with water. Life began in water—this is where science and religion agree. Life began in water.
It turns out that perhaps the most sensible way to deal with what we prioritise in water is to put the hierarchy of prioritising the health and the wellbeing of the water itself first. Out of that prioritisation of water itself, you will find also that drinking water will be better off. Then you will find also the other uses our society wants to make of water will be better met.
Te Mana o Te Wai has a primordial genius to it, and this Government doesn’t like anything that is wise or deep or thoughtful or has foresight that’s going to soothe the interests of the future. There is wisdom in it, and that’s the sort of thing that we would like to see in a legislative framework. You can, in a sense, judge a society by the way it treats its freshwater, and this Government is sending our freshwater into a worse place with this legislation, because it fails to actually take care of that fundamental necessity of life, not just for us as humans but life for all things—the thing where, indeed, life began.
We will be opposing this bill. We expect to see drinking water getting worse. As my colleague also pointed out, this whole concept of dealing with a new structure for water came out of the sickness and death that occurred in the Hawke’s Bay around water contamination. I expect, sadly, that over the coming years, as a result of this Government, we’re going to see more of that.
STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to speak on the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The irony that has just gone before in the previous two speeches had to be something to behold. Actually, to the Māori Party speaker on Māori rights and relationships with water, every culture has had a relationship with water; it is not unique to anyone else. Actually, we’re a country of New Zealanders. It’s not a two-lane Parliament; it’s a multi-lane Parliament. It’s a 123-lane Parliament at the moment. We all have our rights and we have responsibilities when it comes to water and all things in New Zealand, and I think to say otherwise is to be actually quite one-track. I won’t go any further than that. Actually, I think it’s disrespectful to everyone else in this House.
On top of that, we had Lan Pham from the Green Party, for a start, who said we’ve got to get away from this “What’s in it for me?” mentality on these water services bills. Well, I’ll take the member back to August 2023 when the Green Party had voted against the first two readings and in the committee of the whole House stage on the previous Government’s three waters legislation. They said, “What’s in it for me?” When they got what they wanted, they voted for it. So I just remind you, be very careful what you say in this House.
Then we got quite back to Genesis with Steve Abel. I like that. That was a good analogy, Steve. I appreciate that, but I don’t agree with his conclusions, I’d have to say. Ultimately, this bill is about common sense. Actually, just to my right, the Hon Simon Watts here, the genesis of Local Water Done Well sits right there with that man. He came up with this great plan to bring good sense to this argument, to this actual issue, and do away with co-governance. Stop Three Waters was actually a gift to everyone against the Government. It was a real lightning rod for opposition to the Government. Why? Because people care deeply about things that they contributed to, they made. The local water assets were theirs and they were going to be taken away from them, and that’s why it was such a contentious issue. It was very simple at its base as to what drove that opposition.
I had people in my office really upset about this, who’ve never ever taken a position on anything political in their lives, but that was an absolute border line for them. The reason that the Government kept it going for, I do not know. Anything that starts out with a premise of centralising, I’m always deeply suspicious of. It usually ends up costing a lot more. It will be run a lot more poorly than it would be otherwise, and that’s what we saw. How could you possibly spend $1.2 billion on a policy, and that was all it was? I think it’s unbelievable, but they deserve a gold medal for bad work on that, and by a very large margin.
This brings control of local water back to locals. It allows for collaboration, and I’ve got five councils in my electorate, and I know they’re already actively talking about collaboration where it suits them, and that’s what it should be—up to them if they want to do it; others don’t.
I think last week really topped it all off: Local Government New Zealand having their great get-together in Wellington, all talking about how wonderful they are, and then the water pipes in Wellington burst right outside a very expensive “nice-to-have” where depreciation money that could and should have been spent on assets went to a “nice-to-have” edifice for the council rather than being spent on maintaining the pipes and the infrastructure. This policy will make sure that money that’s taken from those assets by way of use charges goes back to those assets and not to anything else. So with great pleasure, I commend this bill to the House.
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call in this third reading. Much has been said. I think it’s pretty clear that Labour (a) opposes, and (b) why it is that we cannot support this bill. What we heard from the speaker that has just taken his seat, Stuart Smith, I think exemplifies so much that the Government has got wrong with this piece of legislation. We heard this great—I wouldn’t say great speech—we heard some words from the member that’s just taken his seat about how this represented giving back the power to locals and community decision making and doing away with centralisation.
I think if members actually read this bill—and something that has been traversed at every stage of this legislation—we can see that there is lots of mandatory consultation contained in this legislation, but none of it is directed at communities having a say in the development and the preparation of their local plans. There can be a whole lot of talk about localism, but when it comes to putting pen to paper and drafting legislation, what we see is a Government that will retain the whip hand when it comes to the preparation and delivery of these water plans. Ministers can appoint Crown facilitators to councils that don’t toe the line, and I think we need to be very clear on that: this is not doing what members taking calls are purporting to do.
We’ve also heard a great deal from the member that sat down about what happened at the local government conference where we saw the Prime Minister turn up and berate councils about only spending on nice-to-haves at a time when this Government is imposing a regime on to councils that will only cause rates to rise. I think that’s something that every New Zealander needs to understand: the fact that ratepayers are going to bear the burden of these reforms through their rates. When they see those rates rises, think about the fact that this is a Government that scrapped three waters.
What we have not heard from Ministers—and they’ve been pressed, but they have not been able to give an answer since the announcements were made—is there was no clear answer on what the credit rating agencies thought about the plan and whether there is enough balance sheet separation. So much of what is in this legislation comes down to that fundamental question: the $185 billion that is estimated that is required around the country to upgrade our waters infrastructure; the Ministers cannot give clear answers on whether or not the rating agencies see enough separation there in terms of their lending.
I’m only taking a short call here, but I do want to finish with: I think that the contribution that we heard from the member talking about co-governance and criticising the contribution another member has given in the House around that really shows the attitude of this Government. It fails to understand that in the course of delivering this, there has to be that fundamental Te Tiriti partnership. It is the basis of how we must approach so much of this and that we must do this in the spirit of partnership, not the kind of contribution we saw from the member Stuart Smith, who has just taken his seat. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): Look, I rise in support of the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill because this is a momentous day for water infrastructure in New Zealand. It took the last Government six years and $1.2 billion to come up with an undemocratic, highly controversial, co-governance, three waters structure for our water infrastructure in New Zealand, with nothing to show for it—just a whole lot of wasteful spending, centralisation, bureaucracy, and no practical solutions.
As the member on the other side of the House—Steve Abel—earlier pointed out about the slogan “Stop three waters”, which, yes, we saw all across the country for the last couple of years because people across the country didn’t agree with the undemocratic, co-governance model. It’s taken this Government just 10 months—just 10 months—to put a popular, democratic solution in place, and put water infrastructure in this country back into local ownership. Local democracy: a popular, popular policy.
Councils and people around the country are supportive of this local ownership and control, as we heard from many, many submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I’d actually just like to congratulate a lot of those councils and mayors that came forth to support our Local Water Done Well.
Look, I am from Havelock North, where we saw the water crisis in 2016. So I would just like to acknowledge that, because it has been acknowledged here in the House tonight. I would just like to acknowledge the families and the people who were impacted, because lives were lost and thousands of people did get sick, including a few of my own family members back in 2016. Everybody in Hawke’s Bay knows somebody who was impacted by the Havelock North water crisis. Our whole community, literally, felt like we were being poisoned. For days we were drinking contaminated water and thousands did get sick. This was not OK. Our Hastings District Council was in charge of drinking water, but people died, and we did not have safe drinking water.
We know that we must do more to ensure that our water infrastructure delivers safe water across New Zealand, but centralising our water assets and putting it in undemocratic ownership is not the answer. We must keep it in local ownership and work harder across the country, as local councils, to ensure that we have safe drinking water. And working harder at councils to ensure we have safe drinking water is really important.
Look, I would just like to acknowledge our Hawke’s Bay councils, because in Hastings the council has spent over $100 million on a state-of-the-art water treatment facility. Waiaroha attracts thousands of people every year to come and have a look at how we treat water in Hastings. It is quite incredible and it is amazing. It’s actually the first of its kind in New Zealand—in the Southern Hemisphere, I understand. It actually was just recognised for an award recently in June where it gained national recognition. And the reason I talk about this is because this is a huge investment that has already been made in Hastings and in Hawke’s Bay.
I will just mention that our Hawke’s Bay councils actually were very, very supportive of our water done well policies, because they’ve expressed support for water infrastructure staying in local ownership and local control. I would just like to congratulate those Hawke’s Bay councils—the Central Hawke’s Bay District Council, the Hastings District Council, the Wairoa District Council, and the Napier City Council—because they have all jointly got together, they’ve collaboratively put together a proposal in terms of how they can see water infrastructure working really well and being able to deliver it well for ratepayers across the Hawke’s Bay and East Coast area.
Councils need to get back to basics. We heard this very loud and clear—as we’ve already spoken about in the House tonight—from our Prime Minister last week, where he said, “We need our councils to get back to basics in New Zealand.” That is fixing the pipes, it’s filling in potholes, and it’s maintaining local assets effectively and efficiently. Nothing in life is free. You expect your rates to pay for this kind of stuff, but at the moment we are seeing a lot of pet projects, nice-to-haves, and a lot of spending—distractions and experiments that are plaguing council’s balance sheets across the country.
That’s why our Government, as we’ve already spoken about—[Interruption] No, I’m coming back to why this is very important for water infrastructure because water infrastructure, of course, is a number one priority for councils where they do need to get back to those basics. So some of those announcements last week included making changes to the Local Government Act to restore council’s focus on local services and infrastructure and investigating performance benchmarks—yes, performance benchmarks. That may be something that the other side of the House hasn’t heard much of or can relate to, because it should be about setting performance benchmarks and targets so we can deliver results and be outcome-driven and have practical solutions, which is what we’re very focused on, on this side of the House.
Ingrid Leary: Great slogans. What do they mean?
CATHERINE WEDD: And investigating options to limit councils from spending ratepayer’s money on pet projects and nice-to-haves. Getting away from that kind of ideology and reviewing the transparency and accountability, which is what we do on this side of the House, looking at transparency and accountability and democratic decision-making for our ratepayers and our taxpayers across this country.
We’re stopping wasteful spending. Shifting money from the back office to the front lines; setting clear delivery targets. Yes, we talk about delivery targets and expectations and prioritising what we do and letting Kiwis keep more of what they earn. These are all the types of things that get us back to basics, get us focusing on the core things that will actually make a difference in this country. That is why we have expressed that message to councils, like we have to our Government agencies as well, that we need to go line by line, stop the wasteful spending, remove the bureaucracy, focus on better customer service and delivering for our ratepayers, and end the projects that aren’t delivering value for money. Yes, value for money. Now there’s a slogan, to that member on the other side of the House. That’s what we need to be thinking about.
Actually, I was just at an event tonight, and I spoke to a councillor, actually, who came up to me and she said, “Oh, it was great what your Prime Minister delivered last week, talking about councils getting back to basics and measuring results.”, because she said, “Look, now we can sit around the council table, and we can say, ‘Look, that’s what the Government’s doing. That’s what they’re saying and that’s what we need to do.’ We need to focus on what really matters and delivering for our ratepayers.”
Coming back to our water infrastructure—because that is where councils need to be putting a lot of focus—it was great through the submission process because we did hear from a lot of councils across the country. Of course, some are very progressive in this space, where they’ve already got together and they’re collaboratively putting together plans, like I’ve already talked about with Hawke’s Bay, where they’ve got their Local Water Done Well plan. They’re already collaborating together to ensure that we can deliver better water infrastructure across Hawke’s Bay. Water is a big issue for Hawke’s Bay because, of course, we’re a growing region and we rely heavily on our water. Currently, we have seen the allocations across the Heretaunga Plains being significantly decreased and, of course, this has huge wider ramifications for our region in terms of being able to grow what we grow, but also drive more productivity.
Water is certainly an issue that is very front of mind for us all, and that is why our Local Water Done Well is going to deliver for New Zealand. It is the democratic localism that we need right now.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Now, we all know that there’s been a problem in New Zealand with investing in infrastructure, and we’ve had this for some time. It’s been particularly difficult for small councils who have had maybe a lot of growth, haven’t had the financial mechanisms to charge for that growth, and have ended up with pipes and treatment stations that need upgrading. We’ve heard that there was up to $185 billion of infrastructure needed for three waters around the country; that is a lot of infrastructure. This bill does nothing to fix that problem. It is “head in the sand” stuff.
This age-old problem is not dealt with. Instead, we heard from the Minister, during the committee stage, “Oh, what this bill does is that it’s bottom-up. Labour’s approach was top-down; this is bottom-up.” All this bill does is make councils do specified reports with a whole lot of requirements around consultation, around levies, and around penalties. That’s not solving any problems.
Then, we hear that, well, Auckland is being dealt with specifically. How does that help Northland? We know, of course, that the Northland councils have a lot of deficit in terms of their water infrastructure and might need the help of a larger organisation. Can they get it? Who knows.
Then we hear about Te Mana o te Wai. This was an interesting issue, because, of course, the clause that is being amended in the Water Services Act 2021 does not refer to the Resource Management Act or any policy direction under it that includes the national policy statement for freshwater around Te Mana o te Wai. There is, however, another section—section 14—about giving effect to Te Mana o te Wai, but that is not the section of the Act that is amended. There was no discussion over the placement of this provision around Te Mana o te Wai in the committee stage. What was interesting was comments made by the Minister for the Environment that why the Government hates Te Mana o te Wai so much and doesn’t want it to apply to this water legislation is because councils’ waste water might not ever be able to be discharged to water; it might always have to be discharged to land. That is not what is in the bill. That was not under discussion anywhere. If that is the issue, it could say that without having to do a “King Henry VIII” clause in relation to this reference to Te Mana o te Wai.
Why are there drinking-water standards in the first place? Well, I suppose, for human health. We’ve heard about what happened in Hawke’s Bay, and that’s why we had the water regulator set up, in response to that. Also, there is an issue when you have waste water or stormwater being discharged to our water bodies, to our rivers, to our oceans that there are environmental impacts there, as well, that affect our kai moana and it affects whether or not we can go swimming somewhere. It is important that these matters are addressed. This bill does nothing to help that either.
We’ve heard, as well, about the cost of borrowing; we heard that from the Hon Kieran McAnulty. This bill does nothing to make borrowing cheaper. Councils are left in the lurch by themselves having to update—and it’s needed to update—many pipes and water treatment stations. They’re going to have to borrow for this at expensive rates, and that is going to put up everybody’s rates. This Government chooses, as a central government, to borrow for tax cuts and, at the same time, will make councils borrow more for doing up our pipes, and it’s a disgrace.
RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Oh, it’s a shame that the Green Party member has just left, because I was inspired by his Genesis—oh, welcome back—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m glad the member didn’t mention anybody’s name, because he can’t talk about the absence of a member.
RYAN HAMILTON: That’s right. The Genesis that was mentioned made me inspired. I know we’re not talking about title and commencement, but I felt like saying, “Let there be light.” Local Water Done Well—it’s such a good name, it’s refreshing. Or perhaps we could call this “Part 2 of the Holy Water Trilogy”.
Another member mentioned earlier the appropriation without compensation. Obviously, this is very much compensating with appropriation, but it was interesting that three waters was nicknamed “Appropriation Without Compensation”. Perhaps it was a glass half empty? We could call it a glass half full, or perhaps two-thirds full, being that this is two-thirds of the way through this bill.
It’s interesting that just for a little bit of context, when we think back about three waters for some context, we were talking about entity A and entity B, which had 24 councils in it. I mentioned that Hamilton City Council had $2 billion worth of assets and another council had $50 million worth of assets—a 40 times - scale comparison—and yet they each had one vote. I don’t know quite where the equity fell into that piece of legislation. It was quite ironic.
The previous Government talked about harmonisation, and that was the way that they did it. They averaged out the cost across those that could and those that couldn’t.
The Local Government New Zealand submission was very interesting, and I looked at that. They called it geographic averaging. I don’t know whether we could call it that—local government socialism would be another way to look at it—but they called it geographic averaging. If I quote from their submission, they said, “Councils have expressed concern that geographic averaging of water services charges may create new inequities. For example, should residential consumers in a metropolitan area (who benefit from the cost efficiencies gained by operating at scale in a defined location) share in the … higher costs involved in delivering a similar level of service to rural and provincial residential customers?” Even they challenged that very thing.
Really, it doesn’t have to be that complex. It’s about simple things like being collaborative. If you need help, we can provide it. The Minister has kindly offered the Department of Internal Affairs’ assistance in guiding councils, should they require that. Be financially sustainable, further augmented by ring-fencing for greater transparency—and, again, the member that just spoke has left the room. They talked about how rates are going to go up and said that we don’t have a solution for it, and yet we’ve approved the model in Auckland, where they were proposing a 26 percent rates increase, and we’ve got it down to a 7 percent rates increase. What was the manipulation we used? It’s called debt-to-revenue ratio, and we’ve incorporated it in this new legislation. It’s a 500 percent debt-to-revenue ratio, which means—to her other point—you can borrow more over a greater period of time, which reflects the intergenerational asset value, and it’s shared over a greater period of time.
It’s not rocket science; it’s a bit like a mortgage. You take it out over a long period of time. Rather than trying to fit it into councils’ 10-year plans, we’d take it out over a 30-year plan, which is not too dissimilar to what we’re trying to do with infrastructure funding and financing to get infrastructure away in this country. It’s not rocket science, but we’re on to it.
Let’s talk about the Better Off funding. Another previous speaker that came and has now left the room—I don’t know where they’re all going. But Better Off funding: the previous Government said that no council would be worse off—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t keep referring to the people that are not here. There’s still plenty of people here. Carry on.
RYAN HAMILTON: They’re all leaving. They’re all leaving, and I’ve got something really special for them. The previous Government said that no council would be worse off—Better Off funding—but they didn’t constrain councils to spend it on water infrastructure. It was a slush fund and it went to all sorts of things, and you can have a look on the website and look at the Crown infrastructure’s deployment of that.
None the less, Madam Speaker, I want to end on a high because I’m quite inspired by this transitory bill. I’ve created a little poem, and I hope you’ll approve:
Stop, collaborate, and listen,
get it right so that your river glistens.
Three waters—does that ring a bell? Shiver!
Better now as Local Water Done Well.
The community spoke and flatly refused,
“There’s a better way for unwanted poos.”
Entity A and entity B,
Locals said, “Just leave it to me.”
It’s about infrastructure, compliance,
not pushing ahead in total defiance.
Localism—let communities choose.
The Government hears all your views.
So, Madam Speaker, now I say,
I commend this bill; it’s on its way.
Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I have to say that so much of what is said on the other side is full of sound, fury, and slogans but signifies nothing. The Government seems to think that body count matters—the number of people in the House—but what actually matters is serious contributions to the debate, and these have been serious contributions to the debate on this side of the House.
I want to pick up on two things that have been said by previous speakers. The first was by the Minister, the Hon Simeon Brown, when he opened and he said that the previous Government’s legislation had been deeply unpopular. I’ll tell you what will be unpopular, and that will be the rates bills that are going to start arriving in people’s letterboxes, with the dramatically increased rates in order to pay for water services infrastructure. That will be unpopular, and it will be caused by that Government. It is caused because they have totally underestimated the cost of water services infrastructure in this country. It will cost $185 billion over the next 30 years. When we were in Government, we actually had a plan to deal with that.
The speaker immediately prior to me, Ryan Hamilton, was talking about how the problem had been solved for Auckland Council by tweaking the debt ratio. That’s a Government that spends a lot of time telling us how bad debt is, how it’s appalling that we have Government debt, but suddenly it’s OK for local bodies to have a lot of debt? Let’s remind them of something: central government pays interest costs at a lower rate, because it typically has a higher credit rating. Local body governments do not enjoy the same credit ratings as central government. The costs of borrowing will be higher for local bodies. What this bill represents is central government shifting a cost that needs to be paid from central government to local government. And, in doing so, it is creating tremendous unfairness for the small councils, for the councils who will be left out in the cold, like Northland, like the Far North, like some of the areas of the country which simply do not have the rating base to pay for water services infrastructure. When the rates bills arrive in those letterboxes, they simply will not be able to pay, and that Government is abandoning them.
NANCY LU (National): I am standing to support the third reading of the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill, and I am actually going to end it on a very positive and future-looking, forward-looking prospect note, because this is about stopping the wasteful spending. This is about stopping the $1.2 billion that the last Government spent—and guess what? The rates still went up. Water rates still went up. It didn’t fix anything. In fact, $1.2 billion didn’t even fix leaking pipes in our country.
What we will be doing is giving decision-making powers back to the local government, back to people, which is precisely how they voted in October. We are going to give the decision powers back to local government, back to people who know how things work on the ground. By unlocking this potential, by financially separating, for example—taking an example of Auckland City; most populated, the largest city in New Zealand—Watercare, it can actually take on additional finances to fund water infrastructure and unlock future capacity for other infrastructure.
I am so proud to be speaking on this bill as the last speaker and to actually end it on a positive, forward-looking—can’t wait to see this happening on the ground for New Zealanders, for Aucklanders, and for all of our ratepayers. I commend this bill to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill be now read a third time.
Ayes 68
New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 55
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6; Tana.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Bills
Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill
Third Reading
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): I present a legislative statement on the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) 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 Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.
With characteristic coyness and diffidence, I stand in our House in this late hour to share with New Zealanders that after 40 years—almost biblical—day and night, marine farmers have been waiting for this type of economic salvation. Now, let me briefly explain that this bill extends aquaculture consents by 20 years. It delivers the promise and the potential that New Zealanders saw when they enabled this Government to be formed through the sovereignty of the democratic franchise, not the sovereignty of the Treaty. This enables us to deliver on the commitments in our party coalition agreement of National and New Zealand First. The bill is designed to practically remove obstacles and impediments that thwart entrepreneurialism and drain the confidence of Kiwis who take a punt, go into debt, and create businesses and build jobs in the scattered coastal hamlets of New Zealand.
What the bill does is it enables 25 percent of our marine farms that need to be re-consented, who would have been facing bills up to $100,000—it enables them to keep $6 million within the industry to grow and to boost the productivity of that industry, owned by garden-variety Kiwis, by and large. This gives marine farmers certainty. No more empty promises, no more waking up to invasive correspondence from regional councils who have long since overstepped their statutory mark—no. This bill enables people to enjoy the tangible benefits of creating a higher level of confidence and getting on with the business of practising the best types of farming techniques to grow wealth for their families. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Of course, 2050, under this bill, is the point in the future when current holders of consents will need to come back and reapply—a substantial compromise on behalf of the party that I represent. My preference was for perpetual consents because it’s important that we give long-time, multigenerational confidence. Given that a substantial amount of the marine farming industry is owned by tanga whenua, I hear the songs being sung in my honour on the marae as I stand and offer this short little speech. There may be one or three hakas being conceived through kapa haka festivals, etc., but when we turn up to those events, they’ll meet the matua and I’ll give them a lesson in the real meaning of Māori language. But let me not be disrespectful to this House and digress.
Of course, there is controversy generated by falsehoods by a number of the commentators on this bill. People fear that there are conditions that may need to be renewed within these marine farming enterprises because they have had historical rights. There will be an opportunity for regional councils to redress that situation at their own cost.
We are not having any more indiscriminate, loose imposition of taxes on our enterprises for precious little return, and, of course, in the event that a regional council does want to poke its nose into the affairs of legitimate, God-fearing businesses running marine farms, they must get the permission of the Director-General of the Ministry of Primary Industries—i.e., fisheries. Now, this doesn’t mean we are compromising localism, but, as we are seeing, too many regional councils are pretending that they have the sovereignty of the nation—such as the Otago Regional Council. Soon they are to learn that the sovereignty is with Parliament, not these scattered, ill-informed individuals in regional New Zealand. I will meet them in my regional summits as I move around the country, spreading the gospel of growth.
Now, I must come back, as we draw this speech to an end, to acknowledge the work carried out by the officials and to acknowledge the work of the Primary Production Committee members, because we’re now at a point where trade-off is necessary. Yes, we do want positive environmental outcomes, but at the same time we must have economic resilience in the provinces of New Zealand, and we’ll get that by giving greater certainty to the people who hold rights. I only hope we can emulate this modest level of improvement in the water management system of New Zealand, as well; of course, we’ll get to that point in the very near future.
The chair of the select committee, Mark Cameron is very quiet, thoughtful. It’s quite extraordinary he comes from the same part of New Zealand that I do—a very judicious member of Parliament. We need to acknowledge the work progressing the bill through, and I say to the other side of the House that, yes, we have our differences. Surely, we all share the need to create outcomes in these benighted parts of New Zealand, where this is often the only industry that is capable of rapid growth and expansion: farming salmon, oysters.
In fact, I had two dozen oysters yesterday, and, fortunately, I do not suffer gout. I can assure you, I am practising at a biological level the intent of this bill. Indeed, I’m reminded of the word “kūtai”—don’t get the front consonant wrong. That is a type of kai moana that will be grown in greater volume as a consequence of this bill, and I find it quite extraordinary that a growing percentage of that great delicacy is now being turned into pet food. For those members of society who may or may not treat children as a luxury good and have gone for pets, kai moana is on the way to help you with that part of your whānau. On this note of common sense and the spirit of innovation and investment under the cloak of certainty, I commend the bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana, Madam Speaker. That unabated rhetoric that has come from that Minister’s mouth has done nothing except galvanise Labour’s opposition to this particular bill this evening. We have opposed this bill at all stages, and we will continue to do so tonight.
What this bill seeks to do is issue a blanket extension for a 20-year period. We heard from the Minister this evening that he is concerned about environmental implications and impacts. There is nothing in the rhetoric that has come out of that Minister’s mouth this evening that would give any confidence that that is, in actual fact, the position that he and his Government take. This is a bill that will change the date on existing permits to be beyond a period up to 20 years. This has no regard to potential and actual environmental degradation that may actually follow.
This has no regard to the numerous number of submitters that actually submitted to this select committee process. In a truncated period of 13 days, 1,100 individuals and organisations took the time, despite the very short period, to have their views known. The overwhelming majority, be it 1,000 of those submitters, were very clear that they did not want this bill to pass.
It’s also very interesting that as part of this process through the committee stage, there were no changes that were adopted or entertained by the Government, despite the fact that many of them were put forward. On this side of the House, we were prepared to provide some element of compromise. We put up two possible amendments that would reduce the extension period, with one of five years, which was actually backed by a significant number of submitters through the select committee process, and the other was a 10-year period. None the less, the Minister and members of this Government were not prepared to consider that. That would still have provided the certainty and the confidence, which this Minister rabbits on about on a constant basis, to the many individuals and organisations that are part of this particular sector.
Seven of the eight consent authorities—local councils—throughout this country oppose this legislation. They talked about the costs of the review and how that would serve as a disincentive for consent authorities to even think about going down that particular path or track. We also heard about the concerns expressed that the director-general would be involved in actually making that decision—something that is rather unheard of in the Resource Management Act sorts of spaces as well.
When it comes to the cost, it’s extremely disappointing that the Government was not even prepared to entertain or respond—despite this being put to the Minister on many occasions—to the opportunity to have some sort of cap or ceiling so that there would be a two-pronged approach to councils wanting to seek cost recovery: firstly, that the cost would need to be fair and reasonable—and there’s case law in in that particular regard. The second would be that there would be a cap of 50 percent so that you wouldn’t be able to, effectively, recall or claim anything above 50 percent of the total costs that were in incurred for a council. Yet again, this is a Government that is not interested in any of that because this is a Government that is more interested in lumping costs on to ratepayers, who are doing it tough in this country right now, and we’ve already heard this evening the fact that ratepayers receiving the council correspondence in the post or via email will be opening that up to significant rates increases.
This will continue to be a disincentive for councils to head down that particular path. It is simply lumping costs on ratepayers because that is what the modus operandi of this particular Government is all about.
One of the concerns that has been expressed is the whole process that the director-general would take around making the decision as to whether a review would go ahead. There is no time frame for the director-general to actually make that decision within. There are time frames for the provision of further information, be it 20 working days, and what’s really, I think, quite important is that there is no guidance; there is no framework. Now, the Minister was asked about this in this House last week. He was asked what were the guiding principles that the director-general would be required to turn their mind to.
Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, what was the answer?
TANGI UTIKERE: Well, the answer, Rachel Brooking, was there was nothing. The Minister might be catastrophising in that particular space that there was nothing there at all.
There are concerns that this is a shambolic approach from this Government without any consideration about due process or about the way in which these decisions may be taken or made. It’s also of note that if a review process is actually given the green light—and bearing in mind that would be a disincentive for councils to actually do that—there is a requirement for there to be no hearing to be conducted. That is absolutely appalling, and it affronts natural justice in the sense of the decisions and opportunity for that information to be made available.
This is a bad piece of legislation that has been hurriedly rushed through this Parliament. The big concern from my perspective also is not only around the time frames for information but there is a requirement for decisions on a review to be taken two years after initiating the review. Now, this is a very interesting change from the bill when it was introduced, because the bill as introduced actually referred to a time frame of two years from when the review began, or at the beginning of the review. This is, again, a ploy by this Government to shorten the time frame within which decisions can be taken and to throw the die against councils in this country.
It is an unfortunate piece of legislation which this Government should be absolutely ashamed of. It is shoddy, it is ridiculous, and it is not something that the Labour Party will support this evening. The Government and Minister Jones should be ashamed of this particular course of action. I do not commend this bill to the House.
STEVE ABEL (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill. I wish we could extend the analogies of Genesis, but just to recall that elegant second verse of the first book of the Bible, where the spirit of God moves across the deep, “where in life was created”, and I made the point in the earlier legislation that this is something where science and religion agree. Even before light began, the first interaction of the force of creation was with water, and those waters of the deep are a commons. It does not belong to anyone in a sense, though some have the right of customary claim to it based on their use over generations and generations.
This is a blanket piece of legislation that gives a free pass—a free licence—to 1,200 marine farms for 20 years, no matter whether they have been there for five years or they’ve been there since before the Resource Management Act was created in 1991. No matter whether they are a very good operator, whether they’re a questionable operator, or whether they’re a problematic operator, the good, the bad, and the ugly get a blanket licence—a blanket licence—no matter whether they’re in the right location and no matter whether they’re a form of marine farming that has a much higher impact than other forms of marine farming. We know mollusc farming—mussel farming, for example—has a lower impact than finfish farming.
We had hoped that this might be a Government—this was a forlorn hope, it turned out, but hope springs eternal, as the Prime Minister has said. We had hoped that the Minister might be open to suggestions of improvement of this blanket licensing of everybody, so we brought in a number of amendments. As my colleague on this side, Tangi Utikere, pointed out, we brought in an amendment to suggest that maybe it should be five years. Five years was well supported by iwi throughout the country, and there was a consistent feedback on that being a good thing to do—no, that was not an option. We brought in 10 years as a suggestion—no, that did not happen.
We suggested that perhaps, given that finfish farming has a particular impact on the environment, which is a much more significant impact than other forms of marine farming, and makes up a tiny fraction of the marine farms in the country—fewer than 2 percent are, in fact, finfish farms—this free licence should not be given to finfish farms. We made the proposal that they be excluded from the free pass, but, no, that was not accepted by the Government because this Government is not open at all to any changes or amendments that are sensible whatsoever to these reckless pieces of rushed legislation, as this one before us is.
We also made a suggestion that perhaps those farms that were designated by regional councils to be in inappropriate areas—there’s not many of them. Again, there are 18 in the Marlborough Sounds out of 600 farms in the Marlborough Sounds, and there are two in the Waikato. We suggested that maybe those ones that are in the wrong places should not be given a 20-year licence to continue being in the wrong place. It seems like a pretty nominal, sensible suggestion. No way—there’s no way this Government’s making any amendments to any bad piece of legislation, even when they’re good amendments that most New Zealanders would think were sensible.
Hon Shane Jones: Ideological—ideological.
STEVE ABEL: Far from it. I wish you would not speak about yourself so much, Minister.
The point is that this is amendment after amendment to try and make good of a bad bill and that the Government has said no to. I had been told by, actually, a former National member of this House when I was first inducted into Parliament that the job of the Opposition was to hold the Government to account and try and make legislation better if you can, even if you disagree with it. There has to be a willingness on the part of the Government to actually consider reasonable amendments to a piece of legislation for that to be possible. The effect of their attitude, particularly around this bill, is to lock in the basic cynicism of the attitude of this Government, and of politics in general, when we cannot have a reasonable process in the select committee for a large number of very well-thought-out and sensible submissions and have an utter unwillingness to even countenance making amendments that would improve the legislation.
I want to talk a little bit more about what the Environmental Defence Society said about salmon fish farming, which is that it can have serious effects on the seabed beneath and around farms because of the addition of feeds and associated nutrients, which contribute disproportionately to organic enrichment and smothering. Anoxic and hypoxic benthic environments are one of the consequences.
Another criticism of finfish farming is that it can be done in a way that is cruel to the fish, frankly. As dogs like to run, as the Minister for Racing says, so fish like to swim, and they don’t—
Hon Shane Jones: They’re cold-blooded.
STEVE ABEL: I don’t want to suggest the Minister is still speaking about themselves, but I would say that fish may be cold-blooded, Minister, but they are also sentient. They like to swim, and they should not be crammed like battery chickens into cages at sea. That is one of the submissions that we heard a lot from members of the public, who said we have to have an ability to recognise that fish are sentient, and, actually, our legislation, fortunately, does do that.
In recent years, marine heatwaves have repeatedly caused mass mortality of salmon farmed at shallow sites in the Pelorus Sound and Queen Charlotte Sound. The coastal permits authorising salmon farming at these sites are due to expire this year—those coastal permits are due to expire this year. Despite evidence of significant adverse environmental impacts and limited, if any, productive capacity, the bill would allow farming to continue at these sites for an additional 20 years.
The good, the bad, and the ugly—the good, the bad, and the ugly—get a free licence. If this is not corporate welfarism, I do not know what is. If this is not the utter overriding of any say of local people, of iwi, of regional councils, of those who are most affected by these sorts of consents—and it takes no care for the other users of the marine environment. What about the recreational users? What about the commercial fishers in the wild fishery? What about the crayfish harvesters? What about the recreational users? What about tourism users? What about the customary rights users?
Carl Bates: What about the businesses we need to pay taxes so we can do stuff?
STEVE ABEL: Half of what I’m talking about are businesses. Half of what I’m talking about are businesses, and this bill says that no other business interest but marine farming gets a free licence. Even if that business is more profitable and less impactful on the environment, this bill explicitly favours—perhaps it favours the people who bought the 24 oysters for the Minister the other night; I don’t know. Perhaps he paid for them himself.
The point is that this bill is not about balance. It is not about considering that there are multiple interests in the commons that is the marine environment, and is central government going to make all of the decisions on the part of local government? Is central government going to come down and determine the consents on everything, or is it just on marine farms, and where—
Hon Shane Jones: Now, that’s a good idea.
STEVE ABEL: —there is the need for a review—I know that’s your idea, Minister. I mean, it’s good that you’re up front about it. But where there is the need for a review, who should pay for that review?
Hon Shane Jones: Mining—coal.
STEVE ABEL: Under this legislation—
Hon Shane Jones: Coal.
STEVE ABEL: —it is the ratepayer that—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Too much noise.
Hon Shane Jones: Coal or gold.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Tone it down.
STEVE ABEL: Under this legislation, it is the ratepayer that will pay for any review of the marine consents. Not only are the rates going to go up because of that water bill that is going to take away the ability of local councils to pay for their water infrastructure; the rates are also going to go up because if the regional council decides to review the consent, the consent holder is not going to pay for it.
The Minister spoke about a $100,000 cost for a consent. Some of those consents last for 35 years. That’s a $3,000 a year cost; it’s the cost of doing business. If you can’t afford to pay that, then perhaps you’re not a viable economic entity. I thought you guys believed in the market. That is the cost of doing business, and I have to say that the public watching this sort of outrageous legislation going through the House will be knowing that this is a Government that is anti-environment, anti-localism, and anti-iwi, and we do not commend this bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before the next member starts speaking, interjections are fine, but some of the noise is getting a little bit loud to my right. If we can just keep it to interjections. Thank you.
MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much. I always relish the opportunity to actually come to this Chamber and have a debate, rather than offer priestly sermons and speeches. Debate is what this Chamber is all about, I think we would concur.
To speak to this bill, the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill, I want to pose the question to this House, if I can: what’s the length of New Zealand’s coastline? I’d imagine the other side of the House doesn’t have the answer. It’s 15,000 kilometres in length. Let’s conceptualise 15,000 kilometres by 200 nautical miles. It’s several million square kilometres—
Hon Rachel Brooking: 200?
MARK CAMERON: —of coastline at our disposal. To contextualise—
Hon Rachel Brooking: We’re not talking about the EEZ.
MARK CAMERON: —without the catastrophisation of marine farming in New Zealand—Rachel Brooking—what that looks like in terms of affording the rural sector, the farming sector, who are some of our most marginal communities, the kind of economic activity that we on this side of the House would celebrate.
Now, I am trying to see where the issues lie. I’ve heard the member Steve Abel raise concerns about the benthic environment, and I think that perhaps those remarks are salient to the sentience of finfish farming.
I want to go back to the 15,000 kilometres of coastline in New Zealand. That is the equivalent of one-third of the length of the entire coastline around Australia. We’ve only five million people here in New Zealand. Let’s frame some logic in the debate without the priestly sermons. I want to see economic activity afforded to all New Zealanders, sir—and I respect your opinion, Mr Abel, but I handsomely disagree with you. Some of the poorest New Zealanders are in our regions. Some of the poorest New Zealanders in New Zealand happen to be people that live in coastal communities, and by the certainty that this bill would bring them, I would hope that we could see some of the support for this legislation on the left.
We’ve heard about the sentience of finfish farming. We’ve also heard the counterfactual, which was that the population densities in those finfish farming environments was conducive that the concerns that the member raised and I raised and others raised in the Primary Production Committee, weren’t as onerous as perhaps were otherwise framed.
We heard about the frequency of development that this piece of legislation would afford with mussel spat, and how wonderful that industry was, with the 3,500 people that that entire industry encapsulated—3,500 jobs. I wager anyone worth their salt, when we’re trying to frame that in our minds, what that looks like when we’re talking about $700 million for 3,500 people, in a country that is economically depressed, with the left, respectfully, telling us every day, ad nauseam, that they care about people.
Well, I absolutely do—I absolutely do. I live in and I go home to rural New Zealand, and they are economically deprived and, quite often, suffering. The average income in New Zealand in some of those areas is $37,000. I’d wager anyone that this kind of business would certainly afford them the reality that they absolutely deserve.
I’m sorry that I disagree with Tangi Utikere. He is a good member. He sat on my committee and is very collegial. But this is a debating chamber where we actually put cause and effect—causality, you might say—into the debate, and I don’t think that that member has actually reconciled causality, cause and effect.
This will give investment certainty to the kinds of people that deserve it. Everyone in this Chamber here, we have a pretty comfortable lifestyle, you might say, by virtue of our income. These people often do not, and when I’m trying to reconcile $20,000 to $100,000 for a resource consent—some said, flippantly, that that’s not a lot of money. Well, it certainly is when your margins are slight.
Operational costs, in the remarks by Steve Abel, were excluded, in that part of his speech. I appreciate his remarks. You would argue that that isn’t a lot of money if you were to extrapolate that out over 20 years, which is the extension we’re affording, but that assumes that these businesses, kind sir, do not have costs, and they’re exorbitant, excluding the resource consent. The margins are so slight, and I’m not going to over-litigate the point, because I want to hear what remarks other members have in their speeches that support rural New Zealand.
We hear all the time on the other side of the House the evangelical sermons: “I care about rural New Zealand. I care about poor people. I care about marginal communities.” Well, this bill, being shepherded by my Primary Production Committee, with the steer of Minister Jones, I think—
Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, it’s just the steer, Minister Jones.
MARK CAMERON: —puts fishing people, fishing communities, rural people—Rachel Brooking—back into the conversation. That is our job as parliamentarians, to represent their interests, and, hopefully, tomorrow is a little bit better for those people than today. I commend this bill to the House.
MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m very happy to stand in support of the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill tonight. I must say, the Minister probably spoke very eloquently about the topic, and—
Hon Rachel Brooking: “Probably”?
MILES ANDERSON: Well, he did, Rachel, and you agree with me. Look, I couldn’t add any more to what he said, and I think the member Mark Cameron from the ACT Party also talked about those marginal and, I suppose you’d say, those desperate communities that are looking for economic development. I support the words that he said as well, so I commend this bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The next call is a split call.
TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Kia ora tātou, kia ora tātou. Well, e tū ana ahau ki te tuku i ētahi whakaaro, kōrero mō tēnei o ngā pire e kīia nei ko te Resource Management (Extend Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill.
[Thank you, Madam Speaker. Hello, everyone; hello, everyone. Well, I stand to offer some thoughts and comments about this particular bill called the Resource Management (Extend Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill.]
That’s a mouthful, eh? That’s a mouthful.
Look, in all seriousness, I spent seven years in Te Tau Ihu at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) as the director of Māori education during the time that NMIT championed the first Bachelor of Aquaculture in New Zealand. So, ae, we heard a few things while we were there doing that. One of them was that the iwi in the top of the South were concerned about the quality of the water of the Sounds—the quality of the water of the Sounds. The people with the longest-vested history and future in Te Hoiere, Arapaoa—ki hea anō? [Where else?]
Te Tai Tapu, Waimeha, all of it—the place where more than 60 percent of this work goes. The majority of them are kūtai farms, which are their own thing, but a large number of them are also king salmon fish farms. The Marlborough Sounds, Ngā Iwi o Te Tau Ihu o te Waka a Māui; Ngāti Apa—I’m sure you know Ngāti Apa, Minister—Kurahaupō waka; Ngāti Kuia, who led the charge that resulted in, you could call it a fallout from the foreshore and seabed debacle, but it was really about rights to marine space in the Marlborough Sounds. So, in all seriousness, this is the fight that an uncle of mine, Butch Bradley, led on behalf of Ngāti Apa. You probably know Butch, Matua Shane.
In all fairness, this comes down to the quality of local waters for the local people that live there, right, and here’s the problem. Here’s the problem with a kūtai farm: the farmer doesn’t have to do anything about cleaning up the mess he makes or the mess he leaves when he goes out of business. Mother Nature won’t take out two-ton bricks and a whole bunch of lines, so that’s one problem.
Although kūtai farming can reasonably be deemed as a fairly good use, except for the big tracts of water that it cuts out of everyone’s use—but kei te pai, you can catch a lot of snapper around them. But when it comes to fish farming—and unequivocally these are the views not only of Ngāti Kuia and Ngāti Apa but also of some of the leading aquaculturalists in the world, namely Dr Mark Burdass, who led the development of NMIT’s aquaculture programme along with Dr Charmaine Gallagher, and you might have met them too, eh matua? They have all said that fish farming in the ocean is destructive, and this is the thing, right?
What lives under a fish farm? They won’t know because they don’t dive. I dive, and I know what lives under a fish farm: nothing—zero. Nothing can survive under a fish farm. That’s why they’re located in high-flow areas. So the easiest thing to do to protect those waters is to move them out to sea. We want to move them out to sea—put them way out in the ocean, where 100,000 parts per million can be done just like that. But when you’re doing it in a sound, that’s not an option, OK, and we know because we’ve seen that if the fish farm can’t handle it and goes under, they just pack up and leave all the mess there for Ngāti Apa and Ngāti Kuia to sort out.
In all fairness—this is serious, right?—Ngāti Kuia is a small iwi at the base of Te Hoiere inlet, or at the base of the Pelorus Inlet, and the inner sound water doesn’t flush to the open ocean—ta-da! So if—and it’s not “if”; it’s “when” because it already has. When it goes wrong, guess who has to live with it! Ngāti Kuia. Many iwi in the top of the South are involved in fish farming, with most of it, or, actually, exclusively—all of it—kūtai and oyster farming. None of it is fish farming, because they don’t like it. So, anyway, I’ll leave you with that. Kia ora tātou.
LAN PHAM (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Now, this Government are making some truly terrible decisions, and I must say this bill is actually up there with some of the worst of them. This bill and its blanket-exemption approach of locking in existing marine permits till 2050 is plain wrong, and the people have voiced it. They didn’t actually have long to voice it, but they made the effort and voiced it.
Now, 90 percent of the 1,100 submitters actually opposed this bill, and why did they oppose it? They opposed it because it’s plain wrong. All councils bar one opposed it, and they opposed it because it’s plain wrong. It is wrong to lock out communities and iwi and hapū from having a say on activities that take place in our precious coastal areas for decades. That is wrong.
It is wrong to give industry a completely free pass on disregarding and denying the actually very real environmental impacts that exist with some of these activities. It’s not in every operation, but absolutely in some of them, and especially for those operations that have been in place since before the Resource Management Act was even enacted and that have never had any form of environmental scrutiny on their operations. It is wrong to progress a bill where official advice made it clear that it does nothing for the sustainable management of our environment, it does nothing to uphold the Crown’s obligations under Te Tiriti, and the best it does is provide what we’ve heard spoken of as so-called certainty for industry.
The truly perplexing part of this is that at no point in this whole process has it become clear what exactly the policy problem is. Even the official advice itself says that the case for change is unclear, and it outlines how the existing national environmental standards have actually been effective in managing marine farms while ensuring that environmental effects are properly managed, and I think the really key thing to note with this is that no applications under these rules have been declined. The applications that have been processed under them continued to be notified, communities could have their voice, and all were granted with no appeals within existing time frames. I think that is really important for the House to note—that this is purely a bill that’s put in place because industry wanted it.
Now, we’ve heard even tonight about the so-called crippling costs that industry would face if they had to go through these consenting processes, and the regulatory impact statement quite erroneously claims this $100,000 cost of re-consenting—and we heard it from the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries tonight. But Auckland Council made it really clear in its submission the actual costs that these applicants face. It quoted that replacement resource consents for 100 percent of the applications, which, again, they have been granting under the national environmental standards, were processed at an average cost of $3,844.
The other aspect that I’m hugely disappointed about with this bill is it undermines the local voices and existing local planning processes. It is so wrong for the environment, and it shows a total ignorance or wilful negligence in understating the impacts of aquaculture on marine species. Now, again, the official advice made this all really clear that the types of aquaculture can differ in terms of the actual environmental effects, but it’s been well documented that mammals like New Zealand fur seals, Hector’s dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, and dusky dolphins have been reported entangled in marine permit gear in the Marlborough Sounds, just as one example. This bill is wrong, and the Greens will continue to oppose it.
CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I rise to support this bill because it is all about supporting our primary industries and our food producers, and it will enable us to drive more productivity and increase the value of our exports—double those exports in the next 10 years, by value. This is really important because aquaculture is going to play a significant role in helping us do this in the next 10 years. That is strengthening the economy. That is supporting our primary industries. It’s about driving more productivity and it’s about taking a common-sense, practical approach when it comes to legislation.
This bill extends aquaculture consents by 20 years. It’s significant for supporting our aquaculture industry in New Zealand, and that is why I commend this bill to the House.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to talk on a bill that is amending the Resource Management Act. Of course, this is a bill that went not to the Environment Committee but the Primary Production Committee, and I disagree very strongly with Catherine Wedd, the last speaker, that this is about primary production. It is about pollution—unregulated pollution. That is all that this bill is about.
Now, I would note that because it’s amending the Resource Management Act, it applies to the coastal marine area and not the entire exclusive economic zone, as the chair for the Primary Production Committee suggested. We’re looking at 12 nautical miles—not 200 nautical miles—here.
Anyway, what this bill does is it relates to coastal permits, and we’ve heard in the various different stages of this bill the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries deride wealthy bach owners who are going to oppose the review of coastal permits for marine farms. But this bill doesn’t just apply to occupation permits; it applies to discharge permits as well—that is, coastal discharge permits—and that is a very real type of pollution that requires some regulation.
How do you do that with these very real environmental impacts? Well, councils can review the consent conditions for two years after this bill is made into law, and if they want to review in that two-year period—remembering that these permit extensions are for 20 years, so there’s 18 years there where they can’t be reviewed. The councils, if they are going to review in that first two years, need to first get the permission of the Director-General of the Ministry of Primary Industries, and then they cannot charge that industry for that review. That is totally outrageous and is very different from anything else in the scheme of the Resource Management Act, and I was very disappointed that the Minister for the Environment did not seem to be involved in this process.
When I’ve asked questions at annual reviews and the like, it seems that the Ministry for the Environment—which is the administrator of the Resource Management Act—has not been involved with this bill at all, and then, today in the House, we heard a heckle from the Minister for the Environment about people opposing this being vegetarians. That does not take these very real environmental effects seriously and it is shocking.
Now, it’s also important to remember that we are not talking about private lands here. These are not land-use consents; this is the commons, with the coastal marine area being part of the commons. It’s very unusual for anybody to get such an extension.
We know—well, people on this side of the House know—that human-made climate change is a real thing, despite what the Deputy Prime Minister might be saying today when he is visiting Pacific States who know all too well about climate change. But we know it’s a real thing, and it will impact the environment that these marine farms operate in, yet they won’t be able to be reviewed.
Hon Member: Yes, they will—20 years.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, I’m told that they can be reviewed in 20 years. Well, the member opposite makes the point that these extensions are for 20 years, and, at that point, in 20 years’ time, a new application will be required. Twenty years is a very long time, particularly in the context of the warming of our oceans and the impacts of climate change, and if that is the kind of time frame that the members opposite think is OK, then I despair.
This is the short-sighted legislation that we see in this House time and time again. We know that international markets demand New Zealand to have appropriate environmental regulations, but there are no environmental regulations here for that 18-year period when a council cannot review the discharge consents that will have very real environmental impacts, or they could—they might not, but they could. That is what we are worried about, if there’s a possibility of those environmental effects and they’re reviewed, and we heard from the most recent Greens speaker, Lan Pham, that of course there are other environment effects that can come with the structures as well.
The Minister tries to justify the need for these marine farms. He said that because industries ask for it, we should do it, but also for more pet food. An increase in pet food is no justification for ignoring important environmental laws. The need or the want—the desire for pet food—is no reason to make ratepayers, for the two-year period that they’re able to, pay for problems that may be occurring within the marine farming industry.
This Government, over and over again, is just tearing through all of our environmental protections, and I keep hearing National members laugh when the Minister Shane Jones is speaking with some extreme language, but it is the National Government that is allowing the destruction of our environment. I hope that voters, particularly those involved in the Bluegreens, realise what a disgrace they are.
TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki): I’m quite interested in this. In fact, I went with the great, hard-working MP for East Coast, Dana Kirkpatrick, and visited Tio Ōhiwa and the amazing oyster farm that’s there—this is just in and around Ōhope there. We had a chat, and I have to acknowledge Winnie and Simon and the great work they do there. They are not the environmental bandits that Te Pāti Māori make them out to be. They are using this to feed and to fund their iwi, Ngāti Awa. They have different marae come in each time to run the fish and chip shop, and anyone that’s been to Ōhope has had fish and chips from this shop. The best fish and chips in the region—great place to go. They’re feeding and they’re providing jobs for the different marae from the iwi, and they are creating a great environment there.
Of course they care about the environment, because they live off it and because they work off it, and they are part of the way that we are growing our economy. They are helping us not just grow the economy, but, as part of this plan that we’ve heard of, to double the value of our exports, and we have to support these people. The plan that we heard, where Tangi Utikere said in the second reading, “Oh, we’d do it for five years, I guess, but maybe not more.”—they want to keep them on the hook. Every two years, Rachel Brooking wants to have them having their consents reviewed. Actually, we need to support these people, and that is why this bill is doing it. I commend it to the House.
Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I cannot but agree with my colleagues on this side of the House that this is a terrible piece of legislation. It is lazy and it is irresponsible.
My colleague Rachel Brooking laid out very clearly how climate change is accelerating—particularly given that this Government feels no need to mitigate against the impacts of climate change, we’re going to see it accelerate even more quickly. We know that there are negative impacts of climate change on salmon farms, for example, in the Marlborough Sounds. We don’t know how quickly things are going to deteriorate. That is the whole point of the reviews. That is the whole point of looking out for the environment, which this piece of legislation runs roughshod over.
To add insult to injury, there was a very truncated consultation period. We know that there was inadequate time for this legislation to be considered. We also know that the overwhelming majority of those who submitted to the select committee were opposed to this legislation.
For all of those reasons, for the fact that from the point of view of the environment, of conservation, and of pure common sense, this is terrible legislation. I do not commend it to the House.
JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. But grant that man a 20-year extension on his marine farm and you’ll feed the entire nation. What an inspired bill by an inspired Minister—the “Cod-father”. I commend the bill to the House.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): It’s pretty obvious that James Meager needs a bit of a lesson in the gender make-up of the country, because there’s more than men.
There are many parts of this legislation that are objectionable. They have been well traversed by others, but I think the only thing that I would reinforce to the House is that it’s just wrong in principle. For a council to do its job to monitor the environmental effects and, on occasion, update conditions as necessary to meet the challenges of the day, they should be able to recover the cost of that from the people who are having the free use of the public space, and this legislation prevents them from doing so and it’s just wrong.
There’s been no justification given for it. The regulatory impact statement that accompanied the bill didn’t properly explain it. There has been a bombastic response from the other side to criticisms of it. It just doesn’t withstand scrutiny, and the Labour Party will be opposing this legislation.
CARL BATES (National—Whanganui): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my absolute privilege to end this evening’s debate with this bill being commended to the House. It is important for us to be removing red tape and enabling businesses to continue to do the job that they need to do to support our farmers and our food producers, and that’s exactly what this bill does. I commend this to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.
Ayes 68
New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 55
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Te Pāti Māori 6; Tana.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.
The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.