Thursday, 12 September 2024

THURSDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2024

THURSDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2024

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

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

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Deputy Leader of the House): Next week, the House will consider the committee stage of the Education and Training Amendment Bill. Across Tuesday and Wednesday, we will complete the remaining nine hours of the Estimates debate, and on Thursday, there will be extended hours for Government business.

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

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

SPEAKER: There have been no petitions presented. Ministers have delivered papers for presentation.

CLERK:

Statements of performance expectations for:

Tāmaki Regeneration Company

Kāinga Ora

statement of intent for Tāmaki Regeneration Company.

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

CLERK:

Reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the:

briefing on the Reserve Bank’s proportionality framework for prudential regulation

Reserve Bank of New Zealand Monetary Policy Statement, August 2024

report of the Officers of Parliament Committee on the inquiry into the appointment of an auditor of the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General

report of the Regulations Review Committee on the complaint about the Climate Change (Forestry) Regulations 2023

reports of the Social Services and Community Committee on the:

briefing about the Aged Care Commissioner

review briefing on the 2022-23 annual review of the New Zealand Artificial Limb Service

review briefing on the 2022-23 annual review of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

SPEAKER: The reports are set down for consideration. No bills have been introduced.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. To the Acting Prime Minister, does he stand by all of his Government’s—

SPEAKER: No, no—sorry. Read it as it is on the sheet. Start again.

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes, with the usual caveats.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he stand by his commitment made at Koroneihana that “We can value our differences, [we can] debate them constructively while still respecting each other,”; if so, does he consider it constructive to open a six-month select committee process on the Treaty principles bill when experts such as Dayle Takitimu have said it is “stirring up race fuelled rhetoric in this country,”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: With the greatest of respect to Mr Takitimu, he is not an expert, and we are slightly annoyed at the number of people—

Hon Members: She.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: She, rather—she’s not an expert, yes. Well, “they” and “them”—it’s because I’m talking to the Greens now, right? Look, they’re not an expert, and we are sick and tired of people stomping past five leading judges from 1987—

Tākuta Ferris: She’s the leading expert in this country today.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I beg your pardon?

Tākuta Ferris: She’s the leading expert on Tiriti analysis in the country today.

SPEAKER: No, hang on—wait on.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, to you she might be, but you know nothing about it, do you?

SPEAKER: Wait on, we’re not going to have that sort of exchange.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes. Well, Mr Speaker, the banality of ignorance is to be ignorant without knowing it, and that’s what you’ve heard over there. So our point is that of course we want discussion and consultation on the widest number of things, and democracy sometimes takes time.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he stand by his statement that a referendum on Te Tiriti would be “divisive and unhelpful”, and, if so, why is his Cabinet seeking advice on holding a referendum on the Treaty principles bill?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Sometimes in life, as in politics, chronology matters. If the bill doesn’t get into the second reading or the third reading, there will not be a referendum, will there? So, accordingly, some of us are not concerned about that.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Can the Prime Minister think of anything that is a bigger waste of the public’s time than allowing a six-month - long select committee process on a divisive so-called Treaty principles bill when the majority of Government has already committed to opposing that very bill?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: With respect, often there is legislation that comes to this House, often with a chance of possibly passing and at some times no chance, but we don’t, as a Parliament, say that we won’t discuss it, and that’s where we sit in terms of our democratic process. But I can think of all sorts of court cases which are a gross waste of the public’s time and money, where the mahi has been done when that person is not even here, and, of course, the court case is now involving taxpayers paying for the court proceedings as we speak—and that member from the Green Party would know all about that case, wouldn’t she?

Chlöe Swarbrick: Who benefits from allowing the Treaty principles bill to have a six-month select committee process?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, the reality is that on this side of the House, we’ve always been open-minded, prepared to hear others’ views, and to have a discussion, and that’s what we were saying when we looked at this matter and we still look forward to that process. We hope that those who have certain views will come along and share their views; those who are opposed, likewise. But I do not think that it is a massive obstruction of our lifestyle to consider what has been going on in this Parliament since 1854—that is, a democratic process.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Are we to take, then, from the Prime Minister’s comments that they are open-minded about what’s coming before this House and that they may, in fact, change their mind on supporting the Treaty principles bill beyond second reading?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I don’t know how some people have difficulty with this, but if you look at the coalition agreement, two parties have agreed to support it to a first reading only. Now, I’ll say it one more time, for the media’s sake: read the coalition agreement.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on the economy?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Economic data can be forward-looking, reflecting people’s intentions and expectations; it can be about the here and now; or be backward-looking if there is a long lag between measurement and reporting. In terms of the here and now, I’ve seen the latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, which includes a measure of firms’ current activity compared to a year ago. This measure improved slightly compared to the previous survey but is still weak, reflecting where the economy is at the moment.

Ryan Hamilton: When will the next GDP figures be released?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: GDP results for the June quarter will come out next Thursday. These are also likely to be weak, with many forecasters picking a negative quarter. We’ll see what transpires on Thursday, but GDP is a good example of backward-looking data. The three months to June seem a long way back in the rearview mirror, especially as the Reserve Bank has now started dropping interest rates.

Ryan Hamilton: Has she seen any forward-looking economic data?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Yes. This is where the news gets better. The ANZ Business Outlook includes a measure of a firm’s outlook for their own activity looking 12 months into the future. This is very strong—in fact, the strongest outlook in seven years. The survey also measures overall business confidence. This is an even more extraordinary result. Business confidence has risen sharply and is now at its highest level in a decade. These surveys, of course, can move around from month to month; however, on balance, while businesses have been doing it tough for a long time, the ANZ survey is a strong indication that they see better times ahead.

Ryan Hamilton: What sort of policies would damage business confidence?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: About the worst thing I can think of is imposing a capital gains tax on businesses, because a capital gains tax would increase the tax that businesses pay. It would tax small-business owners when they sell up and retire. It would increase taxes on productive assets, while exempting the family home, thereby encouraging people to put more and more money into their house. New Zealand has a capital-shallow economy, and what businesses don’t need is higher taxes on capital.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

3. Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Why has he failed to condemn Shane Jones for calling a judge a communist when his Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters, says, “It should not have been said.”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: As with the process of coalition Governments, we improve the outcome by consultation, and that’s what happened here.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Why did he allow the Deputy Prime Minister to discuss the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Budget bid with him instead of the Minister of Finance?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I want to say, on behalf of—

Hon Shane Jones: Fake news.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Every Minister on this side of the House who was asked to report to the Prime Minister their views with respect to their portfolio for the forthcoming Budget—and this was done last year. We all wrote to the Prime Minister, as did I. I shared it, of course, with the Minister—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: The Prime Minister wrote to the Prime Minister?

Hon Kieran McAnulty: He wrote to himself, did he?

SPEAKER: I’m sure he did.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: If I’d been away on Celebrity Treasure Island, I’d probably have lost the plot too, but the reality is that we all did that, and here we’ve got an extraordinary circumstance where the Deputy Prime Minister of that time is now being accused of talking to the Prime Minister. How horrifying is that!

Scott Willis: Supplementary question?

SPEAKER: No—Carmel Sepuloni.

Scott Willis: Does the Prime Minister—

SPEAKER: No, no—nice try. The primary always gets three.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Given he has previously stated that his party won’t support the Treaty principles bill beyond the first reading, is the $4 million the bill is projected to cost wasteful spending?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: We did see the economics of the former adviser to the Labour Party, Mr Renney. It is grossly wrong and can be proven with the greatest of ease, and so we shouldn’t—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: It’s way more.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Way more?

Hon Willie Jackson: It’s about $10 million.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, that’s what I’d expect from those two economists over there, too. What I don’t understand is: if they know so much about economics, why didn’t they stop Grant Robertson from blowing the whole purse? Both of you. But the reality is—I respect Mr Renney but, on this occasion, he let himself down academically terribly.

Scott Willis: Does the Prime Minister think that the current structure of the electricity market was possibly a factor in the loss of jobs and the closure of mills in the Ruapehu district?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The reality is that that matter is under review, but if you go back to 1988, that’s what I said back then, and I still stand by it.

Scott Willis: Will the Government commit to separating the generation and retail functions of the gentailers to ensure fair and transparent pricing for regional communities, industry, and households, and, if not, why not?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It’s very, very clear that we’ve got a crisis on our hands that we inherited, worsened, of course, by the appalling decision made by the then Minister of Energy and Resources to shut down, for example, Marsden Point, covertly as part of a deal, and she’s never ever told anybody about that, including colleagues on her side of the House. It will come out very shortly, but I’ll come back to the point. All of that’s under review, because it’s an urgent matter now.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Why won’t he save the taxpayer money and shoot the bill down now, given he and the leader of New Zealand First have said they won’t support the bill past first reading?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Because we have an undertaking, which we gave to another party, and we stick by our word.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Who is correct: Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who said, “How can you have a referendum when, after the first reading, that’s it?” or David Seymour, who said, “You just never know how circumstances might change.”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Modesty prevents me from answering that question.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Who is correct: Sir Apirana Ngata, who said, “Article two states that ‘The Treaty guarantees to the Maori people their rights and possessions to their lands, their forests and their fisheries.’ ”, or David Seymour, whose Treaty principles explainers ignore this and merely say, “all New Zealanders”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Actually, Ngata did not say that about article 2. He said it was about their positions and possessions. That’s the difference. I would ask her to go back and read that old treatise from 1922—102 years old now—and read it with great clarity, and for that member’s sake, I’ll make sure it has got pictures.

Question No. 4—Health

4. MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has the Government made about delivering the healthcare New Zealanders need?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): New Zealanders deserve to know that if they or their loved ones become unwell, they will receive the healthcare they need when they need it. That’s why, this morning, I outlined details of Health New Zealand’s plan to achieve the Government’s ambitious health targets. Our targets are tightly focused on five things that really matter: faster cancer treatment, increasing childhood immunisation, shorter stays in emergency departments, and shorter wait times for surgery. To achieve these targets, it will take a lot of work. That’s why today’s implementation plan is important, because it provides clarity to the sector on what areas need to improve in order to achieve these targets. This is a key milestone.

Miles Anderson: What will a focus on health targets look like for New Zealanders?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: Clear health targets are key to improving the performance of our health system. They focus resources, attention, and accountability on outcomes that really matter. I agree with clinicians: targets will save lives. However, the introduction of targets alone won’t drive all the change we need to see. We’ve got to get back to basics. That’s why the actions detailed in our comprehensive implementation plan focus on seemingly simple things that will ensure consistency and stability across the system. Our targets are designed so that every New Zealander should experience the change for themselves, however and whenever they experience healthcare.

Miles Anderson: How does the Government intend to achieve these targets?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: As I have said previously, we’ve got to get back to basics and tackle the seemingly simple things first. That’s why we are planning to establish more community infusion centres so that patients can access their chemotherapy closer to home. We’re also looking to expand the number of beds in operating theatres in public hospitals and make greater use of capacity in private hospitals. We will work towards separation between acute care and planned care so that operating theatres can be used more efficiently and result in fewer same-day cancellations. There will also be new radiotherapy machines for cancer treatment and a focus on patients who have waited more than a year to be assessed or treated. We’ve also got to make sure that we have the right workforce in the right place at the right time to help deliver these actions.

Miles Anderson: How is the Government investing in the health system to meet these health targets?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: The Commissioner of Health New Zealand has assured me that these targets can and will be achieved within current resources and will come with regular and transparent reporting. Our Government has already invested more money into health than any Government in New Zealand’s history, with the system receiving around $30 billion a year. With that investment, we are looking to improve efficiencies and improve health outcomes. That’s because every dollar spent on health is precious. However, dollar signs and numbers on a page won’t be the only way New Zealanders see change in the health system. We’re committed to delivering timely access to quality healthcare that New Zealanders need.

Question No. 5—Health

5. TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by the $1.4 billion in cuts to the health system, when extended wait times in Emergency Departments have led to a patient death?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you. Mr Speaker, I extend my sympathy to the family of the patient who recently passed away in the Rotorua emergency department (ED) and acknowledge the sadness they will be feeling. Health New Zealand treats any adverse event involving a patient in their care extremely seriously, and an internal review is being taken. As this case has been referred to the coroner and an internal review is under way, it would be inappropriate to comment further. I do stand by the $1.4 billion of reprioritisation, which will improve patient outcomes.

Takutai Tarsh Kemp: Is it acceptable that patients, including myself, are being placed in ED corridors, with whiteboards used for privacy, because they are short on beds, stressed, fatigued, and understaffed?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: What is acceptable is to have the best quality of healthcare that we can possibly deliver in our emergency departments. I have seen exactly what that member is describing, and I’m having discussions with Health New Zealand as to how we can do a better job in our emergency departments.

Takutai Tarsh Kemp: How can the Minister be trusted when his ministry denies front-line hiring freezes, yet doctors and nurses at Middlemore Hospital have told me that they’re overworked and understaffed due to those very freezes?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I accept the assurances that Health New Zealand have made to me.

Takutai Tarsh Kemp: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: The Māori Party have used up their allocation of questions for the week.

Question No. 6—Justice

6. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Justice: Does she agree with the Prime Minister, “What I would say is that no decisions have been made about semi-automatic weapons. We’re going to be focused on public safety, and those conversations are still to happen”; if so, why?

Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice): Yes, because that is the truth, despite near-daily attempts by the member and her party to scaremonger instead of sticking to the facts. The Government is drafting legislation to move responsibility for the Arms Act and firearms policy from the police portfolio to the justice portfolio. This is an administrative change, and it is clearly signalled in the National-ACT coalition agreement, so it should come as no surprise. This will mean transferring regulation-making powers, cost-recovery settings, and provisions related to the Minister’s Arms Advisory Group and reviewing the Arms Act 1983. As the member knows, given her experience as a former Minister, any changes to regulations require Cabinet’s agreement. I do not have the power to make regulatory changes at my discretion. To suggest anything else is totally wrong.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Did Cabinet agree to amend section 74A of the Arms Act on 20 May 2024?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: Cabinet agreed to fulfil phase three of the firearms work programme, which is to move the regulatory component from the New Zealand Police to the Ministry of Justice. In order to do that, we had to implement certain aspects of regulations, and that’s exactly what we did.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Did she issue drafting instructions to amend section 74A of the Arms Act, as invited by Cabinet on 20 May 2024?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I’m going to refer back to my primary answer, which actually states very, very clearly that in order to make the movements that we needed to make, we had to make changes. The section that has been changed was implemented by the Labour Party in the first place in 2019 and 2020. They should have perhaps been a bit more careful with what they put in the law if they were worried about what subsequent Governments may do. But we’ve made very clear our intent to remove the regulatory function from the New Zealand Police to the Ministry of Justice at this stage, and we had to make these changes to do that.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, sir. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I listened really carefully to the answer. It was at length, but it was a very specific question about a very specific section. Now, yesterday, the Minister again responded to all the questions that were about this section—spoke of other sections; did not speak of this section. We let that go. But in that instance, referring to the primary answer and then adding additional information, she still failed to address the specific question.

SPEAKER: Well, a specific question that seeks an answer that is either yes or no can be asked, but you can’t expect to get an answer. The member can have an extra question to further her exploration of this matter.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Well, speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, no, I’ve ruled on it.

Hon Ginny Andersen: No? OK, all right. Is Cabinet minute 173, that invites the Associate Minister to issue drafting instructions to amend section 74A—has that Cabinet instruction been actioned by the Minister by her initiating drafting instructions?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: Matters that have gone through Cabinet will be made public at a time that is meant to be made public, and I guess when that happens, the member will well know at that time.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, sir. The member asked a question referencing a Cabinet minute that she has got publicly, and therefore it is inappropriate for the Minister to brush this off saying that the information will be made public at the appropriate time when it already has. The House deserves a response.

SPEAKER: I’d invite the—

Hon Shane Jones: Point of order. That intervention cannot be true. Speakers’ rulings are very clear—207/1—the question was addressed, and it’s not your job to ascertain accuracy.

SPEAKER: No, but it is my job to judge “address”.

Hon Shane Jones: And it was addressed.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s your opinion; it may not be mine. So I’d ask the Minister to have another crack at answering that question.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: Yes, and there will be a bill coming to this House imminently.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Is she confident that Cabinet was fully aware that by changing the responsible Minister for section 74A, as per Cabinet minute 173, it would give her the power to determine what is a prohibited firearm by Order in Council?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I think I’ve made it really, really clear that the changes that we have made were in order to be able to take the regulatory function from the New Zealand Police and put it into the Ministry of Justice. If we were to utilise any of the other provisions such as what that member is suggesting, it would need to go through Cabinet and get Cabinet approval. There is no need for me to ask Cabinet about something that has not happened.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Does the change to the responsible Minister in section 74A give her the power to determine what is a prohibited firearm by Order in Council?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I refer to the answers that I have given repeatedly today, which are that any future decisions around what that member is asking would need to go to Cabinet and get their approval. That has not happened. We have not had advice. We are not even discussing that. This is about removing the regulatory powers from the New Zealand Police and putting them into the power of the Ministry of Justice.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Was the Prime Minister incorrect to state that no decisions had been made in relation to prohibited semi-automatic firearms?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: Yes.

SPEAKER: Question No. 7—

Hon Ginny Andersen: I’ve got—no, I’ve got—

SPEAKER: No, you haven’t. Has she? Come on, get organised.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Does she consider that she should have advised her Cabinet colleagues on the details of section 74A and also the political risk associated with transferring to her the power to determine what is a prohibited firearm?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I don’t see that there’s a political risk in having somebody with a whole lot of firearms safety background, education, and knowledge being in charge of firearms legislative changes. We can certainly do, and will do, a heck of a lot better than what that side of the House did when they’ve caused more harm in the community and loss of trust and confidence in the New Zealand Police. My advice to Cabinet is based on good, solid, sound public safety outcomes, and I’m proud of it.

Question No. 7—Education

7. TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcements has she made about driving structured literacy in schools?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Yesterday, I was really proud to announce that from 1 October, schools and kura with years 0 to 3 students will receive between $500 and $5,000 per year over the next four years to support them to buy structured literacy resources to drive support for students in their reading achievement. These resources will include things like decodable books, flash cards, games, mini whiteboards, and other materials, in addition to the free decodable books and resources already available from the Ministry of Education. I’m committed to supporting our amazing teachers every step of the way as we work together to implement structured literacy so that we lift achievement in reading.

Tom Rutherford: What did her announcement include relating to the phonics check?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I also announced that trials of the new phonics check in 80 primary schools are about to begin in both English and, for the first time, a purpose-built phonics check tool in te reo Māori, prior to a nationwide roll-out next year. In English-medium schools, they will be done after 20 and 40 weeks. In Māori-medium schools, to acknowledge the complexity that arises when children are learning in two languages, we are introducing an auditory check at 20 weeks to check the ability of tamariki Māori to detect sounds. This will act as an early alert for learners who are having difficulties with their hearing. Then, these tamariki will also participate in 20-, 40- and 55-week phonics checks. By checking on every child’s progress in their first year of schooling and intervening early where extra support may be required, we’re making sure that all children are getting the very best start in learning to read.

SPEAKER: Good—concise answers are good.

Tom Rutherford: What other announcements has she made recently to accelerate reading in schools?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: From term 1, 2025, this Government has reprioritised $33 million of funding from Reading Recovery directly into interventions which align with structured literacy, to ensure consistency of approach. This support includes 271 fulltime-equivalent roles, as was the case under Reading Recovery. Applications have now opened for schools to apply for this resource for years 0 to 2. These changes will work hand in hand with the knowledge-rich curriculum, decodable books, and other resources, as well as the phonics check, to help support our kids to learn to read.

Tom Rutherford: What feedback has she received from this announcement?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Yesterday, the principal of Boulcott School, Rachael, said, “Implementing structured literacy for us here at Boulcott has been … really positive … and we’ve seen [incredible] results.” Literacy expert Dr Pamela Snow said, “they’re taking a very systematic and thorough approach.” and that “There’s no time like the present and the evidence has been … for a long time that a change is needed if we’re going to be ensuring success for the highest number of children regardless of postcode, level of disadvantage, [and] other factors”. And this morning, finally, Alice Wilson from Lifting Literacy Aotearoa said, “We are delighted this Government really has taken this on wholeheartedly”.

Question No. 8—Disability Issues

8. Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) to the Minister for Disability Issues: Does she stand by her statement, “That is why we are prioritising disabled people, their families, and carers”; if so, how can she justify a funding freeze for residential care facilities?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) on behalf of the Minister for Disability Issues: Thank you, Mr Speaker. On behalf of the Minister, yes. Maintaining funding at existing levels for residential care providers was recommended by the independent review into disability support services, led by Sir Maarten Wevers, to enable an urgent assessment of the residential care pricing model to be undertaken. The independent review found that despite no increases in the number of people in residential care, cost increases to residential care providers had exceeded inflation, and it found it was unclear how these costs were being monitored. The independent review said the urgent assessment of the residential care pricing model, and I quote, “will stabilise the financial underpinnings of services to a group of clients with some of the highest needs.”. Overall, a record $2.6 billion is available for disability support services this financial year due to this Government’s decision to inject an additional $1.1 billion over five years in Budget 2024.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: What does she say to the mother who is too old to care for her high-needs, intellectually disabled adult son, who can get aggressive and will no longer be able to transition into a residential facility that he was approved for, because of her Government’s freeze?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: It’s very important to be clear that there has been no freeze or reduction on admissions into residential care, and that those decisions continue to be made by local needs assessment and service coordination centres (NASCs). I’ll repeat it again: there is no freeze on admissions into residential care.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: How is she prioritising disabled people and their carers when Parents of Vision Impaired (NZ) has said that “The restrictions are so severe that there is significant risk of harm to disabled people and their families, particularly for ageing parents who are finding care work increasingly difficult.”?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: Again, there has been no freeze on admissions into residential care. The funding has been maintained while a review can take place. Can I just be very clear, also, that the review that took place found an alarming inequity of services across the system, and so this Government is very focused on ensuring there is fairness and sustainability of disability services across the disability sector.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: How is she prioritising disabled people when St John of God Hauora Trust has a wait-list of disabled people needing a room and an empty six-bedroom home that is staffed, but says the admission freeze means that it’s likely to remain empty?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: There has been no freeze on admissions into residential care. There has been a pause and a maintenance of the funding for residential care. The process is the same as it has always been—that the local NASC will make a decision based on need.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Will she commit to reversing the freeze that was laid out in a document sent to NASCs that is preventing disabled people from accessing residential care that they were approved for, given the risk of harm that it has caused?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: There is a pause and a maintenance of the existing funding while a rapid review is undertaken to understand why residential care costs have gone up beyond the level of inflation. That rapid review will have answers by the beginning of early 2025.

Kahurangi Carter: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: Kahurangi Carter. [Interruption] Just wait for a minute. Kahurangi Carter.

Kahurangi Carter: Thank you. Could the Minister outline how freezing funding for residential care, while not increasing community support options, aligns with the Enabling Good Lives principles, particularly the principle of self-determination?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: So, again, existing services continue. Enabling Good Lives continues. The pause and the maintenance of the existing funding is for a short period while the rapid review is undertaken to understand how the cost can have increased for residential care above inflation rates when the numbers going into residential care have not increased.

Kahurangi Carter: What would the Minister say to Anita Nicholls, who has two sons with intellectual disabilities and says, “It actually says quite clearly that people who are in family homes, if a parent becomes unable to support them there is no guarantee from government that a residential place would be provided. And that’s every parent’s worst nightmare.”?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: I absolutely know that it is the worst nightmare of every parent with a child with a disability to not be able to get services. But the important thing to remember is that services have not been cut. Services are being maintained. There has always been a process where NASCs undertake prioritisation of needs when accessing residential services.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Mr Speaker, Point of order. I seek leave to table a report that I understand is not publicly released, that shows there is a funding freeze.

SPEAKER: Well, how do you know it’s not publicly released?

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Because I can’t find it publicly. It was sent to me by a provider who said it was leaked.

SPEAKER: Right. Any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.

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

Question No. 9—Justice

9. CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) to the Minister of Justice: What actions is the Government taking to reduce harm caused by gangs and to make communities safer?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. We’re taking many actions; in particular, progressing the Gangs Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill, which will reduce the ability of gangs to operate and cause fear, intimidation, and disruption for New Zealanders. This legislation is a significant step in making our communities safer by providing the police with additional tools to deal with the mayhem on our streets and in our communities created by gangs.

Catherine Wedd: What new tools will be available for police to deal with gangs?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The Gangs Bill and the Sentencing Amendment Bill will prohibit the display of gang patches in public places and, in the case of repeat offences, prohibit possession, full stop. Police will have the ability to issue dispersal notices to break up gang gatherings that disrupt the public, and to issue non-consorting orders to prevent specific gang members from associating. The legislation will also amend the Sentencing Act, making gang membership on its own an aggravating factor, meaning gang members will face tougher consequences for their crimes.

Catherine Wedd: Why is the Government taking action against the fear, intimidation, and disruption that gangs cause in our communities?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Because over the past six years, gang membership increased by 51 percent and at the same time violent crime in our communities went up by 33 percent. We don’t tolerate that. We’re doing this for the law-abiding New Zealanders who should be able to go about their normal lives without fear of being intimidated and preyed upon by organised crime, and that is why this Government is taking action.

Catherine Wedd: Does the Minister agree with commentary that the Government is limiting freedom of speech?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I think it was freedom of expression, and, yes, I do agree with that. We are limiting the freedom of expression of gang members, but we’re also conscious of the fact that New Zealanders have the right to be safe in their communities and to go about their lives without being fearful of violent and intimidatory gangs. If that means preventing a segment of society from associating with each other, preventing them from displaying gang patches, we think that is justified.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: How can the Minister justify the last-minute nature of the amendment banning gang patches in private residences, given the comments of the convener of the Law Society’s Criminal Law Committee, Chris Macklin, who said, “This amendment came so far after the consultation process, and so close to what would be the bill’s third reading, that it’s almost like it’s been railroaded”?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: That is a tough piece of sentencing which will only be involved if somebody repeatedly flouts the law and is convicted three times within five years. So it’s very, very easy to avoid—and that is simply not to be convicted three times in five years for flouting the gang legislation. That’s what we’re going to do, so this Government makes no apologies for passing laws that are about ensuring that ordinary New Zealanders can go about their lives without fear and intimidation on their streets.

Question No. 10—Internal Affairs

10. SIMON COURT (ACT) to the Minister of Internal Affairs: What recent announcements has she made on passport wait times?

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister of Internal Affairs): I’m pleased to announce that, as of last week, the wait time for passports has returned to normal and New Zealanders are now advised to allow up to two weeks to receive their passport. This will be welcome news to many New Zealanders who are looking to receive their passports quickly for themselves and their families in time for their travel. After a software upgrade in March caused unexpected delays to passport processing, with expected wait times pushed up to 10 weeks, I’ve been focused on reducing passport wait times as a top priority. Ensuring that New Zealanders continue to receive timely and quality passport services remains a priority for me as a Minister.

Simon Court: What steps were taken to achieve this reduction in wait times?

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: The department reviewed its processes and identified where system improvements could be made to increase efficiencies, including automating some steps of the process. I would like to thank all the staff who have worked hard to clear the backlog of applications and reduce processing times. I know many people have been working overtime during evenings and weekends to get the wait time back down to two weeks, and I appreciate all of your efforts.

Simon Court: What can New Zealanders expect from the passport service going forward?

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: I expect the department to maintain the standard wait time of two weeks. The upgraded passport system has delivered benefits to New Zealanders, including the option for families to apply as a group, using an online form rather than multiple paper ones. It has also made it easier for people to report a lost or stolen passport and receive a replacement in a timely manner. I also expect continuous improvement across all of the department services, including citizenships and identity verification.

Question No. 11—Immigration

11. Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister of Immigration: Does she stand by her statement to the Education and Workforce Committee that work on the Parent Visa Boost will not start before 2025?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Immigration): I stand by my full statement, which is “So AEWV this year really had to take precedence because of the high rate of migrant exploitation. I think that’s pretty reasonable. New Zealanders would expect us to get on top of that immediately, so we’ve planned out for the next year to start work on the parent boost visa.”

Hon Phil Twyford: Why did she tell Indian Weekender back in January that she will soon begin working on a mechanism for a five-year renewable parent visa when, in fact, officials won’t begin work on it at all until sometime in 2025?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: As I told the committee at the time, we had started early scoping work. We’d worked out the types of insurance that would be required for that sort of visa. We’d also worked out that it’s really expensive for that type of insurance. And we’re also working out what are the types of mechanisms we could use to ensure that parents who came here either had access to some type of insurance or some type of payment that would ensure that we could pay for their health requirements while they were here. So early scoping work had taken place, but the detailed policy work that needs to take place for such a visa won’t take place until next year.

Hon Phil Twyford: Does she agree there is a huge unmet demand from people who desperately want a visa that gives them a chance to bring their parents to New Zealand?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Oh, well, I acknowledge that it’s really important for people to visit their family in New Zealand. There is a three-year multiple entry visa that is available, and we know that, since 2022, 25,000 people have applied for that three-year multiple entry visa. So while they’re waiting for the work that we’re going to start early next year—and I’ll be pleased to announce that later next year when it’s available—that pathway is still available for parents and grandparents, and 25,000 people have applied for it.

Hon Phil Twyford: What does she say to Auckland woman Elsa Wang, who told RNZ the time frame for the Parent Visa Boost was—and I quote—“unacceptable” as she thought the Government would introduce the policy soon after coming into power, and now feels let down?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Oh, well, I say to that woman that she should apply for the three-year multiple entry parent visa, like 25,000 other people have done. But I would also say to that woman that we never made any indication that we’d be able to do this visa within our first hundred days or first three months, as policy work takes months and the implementation required just for the IT function alone takes three months. The previous Minister, I’m sure, knows that very well.

Hon Phil Twyford: Will she commit to a time line in which the new visa will be implemented and become operational, and, if not, why not?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I’ve already committed to starting work on the visa next year. As I’ve already mentioned, it takes a number of months to be able to do the detailed policy work to make sure we get it right, and it takes a further three or four months to get the IT implementation right.

Hon Phil Twyford: Is it correct that coalition partner New Zealand First blocked her from delivering on this campaign promise earlier than next year, and, if so, why did she allow herself to be bullied out of delivering on an election promise by a minor party?

SPEAKER: No, no, no—sit down. The member can have one shot at rewording that question.

Hon Phil Twyford: Is it correct that coalition partner New Zealand First blocked her from delivering on this campaign promise earlier than next year?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I can categorically state that that is completely untrue; in fact, quite the opposite is true in that the coalition agreement that we have with the ACT Party means that we have to implement this policy. In fact, the ACT Party have been very vocal in the fact that they want this work done quickly as well. I’ve explained to them and everybody else that detailed policy work will take place next year, because this year we had to get on top of the huge number of migrant exploitation cases that the Government left us, thank you very much.

Bills

Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister of Internal Affairs): I present a legislative statement on the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill.

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

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: I move, That the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 10 October 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House—

SPEAKER: Can I just ask the Minister to move that other microphone around towards her, to that spot there; that might help, yeah.

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Is that better?

SPEAKER: We are making adjustments to your facilities.

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: From where I was—during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

I’m pleased to be here today with the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill. This bill will ensure that a longstanding fundraising tool remains fit for purpose for the community organisations who depend on it to fund their operations. This amendment will ensure that the Gambling Act 2003 continues to provide the tools and means for one of its key purposes: community benefit.

One would be hard pressed to find someone in New Zealand who is not familiar with community fund-raising efforts in the form of gambling, be it a raffle run by a local branch of Fire and Emergency New Zealand or a lottery run by the New Zealand Heart Foundation for which the top prize is a house. One would also not necessarily realise how often the community services and activities they interact with are partially financed through fund-raising in the form of licensed gambling.

One such type of fund-raising is class 3 gambling, defined in the Gambling Act as gambling with prizes over the value of $5,000 from which the proceeds are applied or distributed to an authorised purpose such as charities or non-commercial operations which benefit the community. A common form of class 3 gambling is lotteries, used to fund organisations that provide a charitable service to local communities or New Zealanders generally.

Normally, the Gambling Act prohibits gambling operators from providing gambling online. The Act prevents what is called “remote interactive gambling” or gambling at a distance by means of a communication device. This prohibition on remote interactive gambling is one way in which the Act works to prevent harm and maintain the integrity of gambling provided in New Zealand. Contravening this prohibition has serious consequences for operators of gambling in New Zealand. For the organisations and charities operating lotteries with a class 3 licence, selling tickets via tools such as their website could come with penalties including suspension or loss of their licence for that lottery draw or, more concerningly, prosecution, with a maximum penalty of a $50,000 fine.

In 2020, as part of a suite of law changes made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government introduced a temporary exemption to the Gambling Act, which allowed three large class 3 licence holders—the Heart Foundation, the Coastguard, and Countdown Kids Charitable Trust—the ability to continue selling their lottery tickets via remote means, such as by telephone and the internet. In 2021, this amendment was expanded to include all licensed class 3 lotteries and extended until the end of October this year. These amendments have been a valuable demonstration of the relative safety of this type of gambling. It does not allow gamblers to reinvest their winnings as some other forms of gambling do, and is not permitted to be conducted on a gambling machine, avoiding the appealing features these often include. In the time that these gambling operators have been able to sell their tickets online, they have proven their continued value and safety. It is this demonstration that gives me confidence in making the exemption permanent.

Since 2003, when the Gambling Act was first enacted, and in the time since the first temporary exemption in 2020, the world, and New Zealand with it, has changed substantially. Where in the early 2000s print media still dominated the advertising landscape and balancing a chequebook was a common household task, today New Zealanders consume information in advertising almost entirely online and digital payment tools are so simplified and integrated into everyday life that the major banks no longer accept cheques as part of their services.

If the temporary exemption were to expire next month without a permanent solution, I’m concerned about what this would mean for those organisations relying on this fund-raising tool. In practical terms, this would mean charities removing payment platforms from their websites, community organisations returning to advertising lotteries in print media and in person, and vital community services being forced to seek ticket sales in person. More significantly, these changes would likely result in a loss of customers, both existing and new; a loss of revenue for these important and valued community organisations; increasing operational costs and resourcing to fund-raise, with impacts on the services that these organisations provide; sunk costs for digital platforms built to sell tickets; and an increase in safety risks for volunteers selling tickets door to door. Put simply, I want to ensure, as I believe other members in this House would agree, that a hospice trust delivering care in the community, for example, can fund-raise as safely and efficiently as possible while focusing their resources on the care that they provide rather than on inefficient and costly fund-raising efforts.

The bill I am speaking to would ensure that these vital charities and organisations do not have to return to selling their lottery tickets in a fashion that complies with the prohibition on remote interactive gambling. The Gambling Act currently already exempts a range of gambling types from the prohibition on remote interactive gambling. It does so by modifying the definition of remote interactive gambling to exclude these types. Currently, they are: gambling operated by the Lotteries Commission, gambling authorised under the Racing Industry Act, online gambling with an overseas website, sales and promotion schemes, and, of course, class 3 lotteries until the end of October 2024. This bill would permanently add lotteries conducted by a gambling operator that holds a class 3 licence that allows them to operate lotteries to that list of gambling types not included in the definition of “remote interactive gambling”, and exempt them permanently from the prohibition on remote interactive gambling. The impact of this change for the organisations fund-raising via lotteries is the confidence that they can continue their safe and enjoyable fund-raising in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible without risking the licence which allows them to operate these lotteries.

It is my pleasure to introduce this legislation to the House and see that these organisations can continue to serve their communities. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a real pleasure for me to be able to take a call on the first reading of the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill.

I’ve spent a lot of time—obviously as a mother with lots of children, you become that mum who has to do the sausage sizzle, who has to sell raffles, who has to run gaming nights, you know, for the local surf club; you kind of become that naturally as that particular mum, particularly when you’ve got eight kids and when you’re a lawyer as well. The effort that charities and local community organisations have to put together in order to raise funds for really great initiatives—for example, today in Tauranga, the AIMS Games is on, the Association of Intermediate Middle Schools. It took our little group of parents, we had to fund-raise $22,000 to get those children there. It’s no easy effort, but we do it because we love the community that we live in, and we want the opportunity that is available for our children to be available for other children.

The reason why I’m standing on behalf of the Labour Party to speak on this particular bill is to offer our support for it. The reason why we are offering our support through the first reading to select committee is because actually this bill is almost word for word for a bill that I have in the tin at the moment. So the reason why this bill—

Andy Foster: Another one then!

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: Yes, I know. And because previously I was the Minister of Internal Affairs and one of our members—Dr Anae Leavasa—came and saw me and he said, “Minister, there is a particular issue that the Heart Foundation really want our support on. They know that with COVID, they were given a particular exemption to be able to do these raffles.” Most people here have probably bought one of those raffles. You know, it’s the raffle to win a—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Postcard.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: I’m talking about Heart Foundation here, first—to win a house, say, in Queenstown. I’m sure many members of Parliament here have probably bought one of those tickets. During COVID, the Hon Jan Tinetti, who’s here in the House today, was also Minister of Internal Affairs at the time, so she allowed an exemption during that COVID period to allow that particular raffle, and those who are societies who run a class 3 licence, such as the Coastguard and Countdown Kids, allowed them to be able to take it from the paper raffles that you see a lot, or the letter raffles, and allowed it to go online. At the time, there was a sunset clause to that particular exemption, and that sunset clause is actually due to expire this year.

As a result of that, the Heart Foundation spoke to Dr Anae Leavasa. That was Clive Nelson and Mike Tomlinson, the leadership of the Heart Foundation. They spoke to Dr Anae Leavasa and they said, “Can you please help us to get a particular bill to extend this out?” As the Minister of Internal Affairs, I said to Dr Anae, “My apologies; I’m not able to do this within the bill programme that I have on, but, actually, if you put a member’s bill in the tin, it might be likely that your particular legislation, that little piece of legislation, might be able to get through faster than if I as the Minister am able to get the programme work on it.” Dr Anae Leavasa put it through the tin. Then, obviously, when the election happened and we came back into Parliament, I picked it up as the Opposition MP, and it is currently sitting in the ballot box right now.

This side of the House does support this bill. We know there are always some risks around opening up gambling, which is why we do welcome submissions from the public to say, “Are there areas we need to strengthen in this bill?” Again, this bill is almost word for word the same bill that’s in the ballot box. Clearly, Dr Anae Leavasa had really good drafting instructions given to our Parliamentary Counsel Office in order to draft that. We do welcome this bill. We know of the work that the Heart Foundation do. There are 180,000 people in New Zealand who suffer from heart diseases, and we know that the Heart Foundation depends on this lottery in order to raise the funds to pay for that research, to pay for that education.

So, without further ado, we want to support this bill to the first reading. We do welcome the public to be able to submit, ask us whether we need to strengthen it just to ensure that we’ve covered all the gambling harm that could be possible from this. But, otherwise, we want to thank the Hon Jan Tinetti, Dr Anae Leavasa for bringing this bill first to the House which we got through under COVID, and then through a members’ ballot. Thank you.

KAHURANGI CARTER (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take this short call on behalf of the Greens to support the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill. As we have already heard from my colleagues, this amendment bill is narrow and technical. The Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill—the bill—will allow class 3 gambling, such as lotteries, to be conducted remotely on a permanent basis.

Class 3 lotteries are used to raise funds for charitable and non-commercial purposes. For example, organisations like the Royal New Zealand Coastguard and the Heart Foundation use these lotteries to support their fund-raising efforts. The bill amends the Gambling Act 2003 to make permanent the temporary exemption currently in section 4A, which allows licensed class 3 lotteries to be exempt from the remote interact gambling prohibition outlined in Schedule 9. These temporary exemptions were introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. What this means in the day to day is that this amendment will enable class 3 lotteries to, for example, continue receiving payments via phone or internet banking.

While we support this amendment as a technicality, we must acknowledge the broader conversation of gambling’s role within our communities. The Green Party advocates for reducing the social harm associated with gambling—specifically, our focus should be on harm minimisation in gambling legislation and regulation. One major way to reduce the harm associated with gambling is to ensure that community groups are not dependent on gambling revenue.

These organisations, such as the Royal New Zealand Coastguard and the Heart Foundation, are literally saving people’s lives and must be properly funded by central and local government. Take, for example, the Royal New Zealand Coastguard, Aotearoa New Zealand’s main maritime search and rescue organisation. When you look at the funding breakdown for Coastguard, two-thirds—66 percent—of their funding comes from donations, lotteries, memberships, sponsorships, and grants. The remaining one-third comes from the Government’s assistance. Let me say that again: two-thirds of the funding for Coastguard Tautiaki Moana, Aotearoa New Zealand’s main maritime search and rescue organisation, comes from donations and lotteries.

When we talk to those working in these organisations, we hear firsthand how fund-raising efforts and grant applications take precious resources away from the mahi and communities they serve. This is not a given. Our community and voluntary sector can be properly funded and resourced by central and local government. This would ensure that these groups can channel their resourcing towards the flax-roots mahi rather than focusing on fund-raising.

By supporting this bill, we take a step towards accommodating the evolving landscape of charitable fund-raising while remaining committed to reducing gambling-related harm and expanding alternative funding sources for our communities. Thank you.

CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): The National Party enthusiastically supports the first reading of this Government bill. Anyone would think that we were on private member’s bill day today, but, no, the previous Government did not progress it as a Government bill, and this Government is.

I want to acknowledge our Minister of Internal Affairs for the success that she’s having in her portfolio in that wide-ranging ministry, including getting passport wait times back on track, I think, was the headline from the Minister—back on track was what she said earlier today—with 93 percent of passports now issued within two weeks. The Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill, first reading, is something that we are backing as a Government, and hence it’s coming here with the full weight of the House, and, hopefully, the full support of all parties.

The previous speaker for the Green Party, Kahurangi Carter, said that such invaluable charities must be properly funded by central and local government. Well, I’d like to table—I won’t seek leave—this news item here from Radio New Zealand on 17 May where Surf Lifesaving New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Coastguard will receive a funding boost of $63.6 million over four years, this Government has announced. That’s right—$19 million for Coastguard and $44 million for Surf Lifesaving.

That money that Government commitment is coming in the way of extra funding as well, but the biggest winners are the likes of the New Zealand Heart Foundation, who we know were sending out brochures and forms via the post, via people’s letterboxes for people to manually post back. That legislation now puts a permanent end to the manual and administratively difficult process by consumers and charities. Now you can get on to the Coastguard website as well as the Heart Foundation website and go in, buy a ticket for their lotteries, and support those worthy charities. This permanent digitalisation for fund-raising by charities for their class 3 lottery tickets is long overdue and mostly warmly welcomed, and I encourage submissions to the select committee and commend the bill.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Mr Speaker, thanks. Like the other speakers here, New Zealand First supports this bill. It’s great to see this harmony breaking out around the House, and I wonder if it will continue for the rest of the afternoon.

We support this bill because it’s about the ability for community organisations to be able to raise money to enable the great work that they are doing to be able to continue and to expand. This bill is about helping class 3 licence holders by enabling fund-raising for the likes of lotteries, housie, and instant games to be done online as opposed to having to go door-to-door, or any other way.

For those people who are out there watching, class 3 organisations must be societies or corporate societies if they’re doing regular fund-raising; they must be raising money for community-authorised purposes, so the good works that we’d want to be done around the community; they must have a turnover of at least $25,000 or prizes of $5,000; they cannot involve machines—it’s not that instant reward which gets people into that continual cycle of reinvesting their winnings, so to speak, and then losing it all—and we’ve already heard the kinds of examples. They’re the great organisations like Countdown Kids Charitable Trust, the National Heart Foundation, the Royal New Zealand Coastguard, and many, many others.

This bill is common sense, and, in fact, it’s actually great to hear that its genesis was the trial which made common sense during the COVID years, because otherwise those organisations would not have been able to keep on raising the money, which they needed to do. It recognises that so much of our activity is now done online. Imagine if we’d said that we weren’t going to be able to allow ourselves to communicate online—the world would just about stop. This is really important, and it’s common sense in that way.

We’ve already had the experience of going online for class 3 during COVID and subsequently, and that seems to have worked well. As we’ve already heard, it’s going to be good to actually hear submissions from the public about what maybe didn’t work but also what really did work—that’s going to be very, very important—and this bill will make that online ability permanent.

The final thing that I wanted to say is just that I know that there’s a lot of angst about online gambling, but this is very, very different. It is not international organisations that are just wanting to make a profit; this is community organisations based in New Zealand and wanting to support really good stuff happening in New Zealand, and I commend this bill to the House.

SPEAKER: I’m calling on this side of the House next.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It appears we’ve got a little bit out of order in our speeches, but I’m sure everyone will get an opportunity to have their say. It is a pleasure to take a call.

SPEAKER: No, you’re in perfect order. Whoever I call is next.

RACHEL BOYACK: It’s a pleasure—ha, ha! Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to take a call on the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill. As previous speakers have noted, this is a continuation of the work that the Labour Party had done while we were in Government, particularly during COVID times, when we did have situations for some of our highly esteemed community organisations that run class 3 operations who were unable to continue running some of their critical fund-raising programmes during COVID because they were paper-based and occurred in person.

I am privileged to hold the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee and I’m pleased that this bill will be coming to our committee. We’ve already heard from some of the hard-working members of our committee and it looks like we will be working quite hard over the coming weeks—we’ll have another conversation about that later, though—to make sure that we consider this bill. What I did want to note, that I think is important for the committee to take into consideration, is that we will be extending this out beyond the named organisations that we had named while we were in Government. That was legislation that was specific to a small group of organisations like the Heart Foundation, like the Royal New Zealand Coastguard; this bill actually extends that out further. Furthermore, it makes it permanent, so it will be appropriate for us to hear from the community about any concerns they may wish to raise.

I think the comments that Mr Foster has already made well are worth repeating, which is that this is about those community organisations that operate class 3 gambling. This is not about any gambling that occurs offshore; it’s onshore here in New Zealand. It’s not gambling that I would say has the benefit of a profit-making exercise or for those who are interested in gambling for gambling’s sake; this is actually the type of activity that occurs in order to help fund-raise for some of our critical community organisations. I think that point has been well made by Mr Foster and I want to reiterate it. Having said that, we do know that when we take things online, it can become easier for people to access and then that can lead to harm. I think it will be important that during the select committee deliberations we have enough time with officials to be able to really dig into some of those concerns that the community may raise, and I’m sure that will happen.

I wanted to pay tribute particularly to one of the organisations that we had allowed to operate under our law, which is still in place until that sunset clause expires this year, and that is the Royal New Zealand Coastguard. In my electorate of Nelson we have an outstanding award-winning coastguard—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: It saved me once.

RACHEL BOYACK: I did not know that. My colleague Duncan Webb has just said that the Nelson Coastguard saved him once. I will probably go home and ask them about that. But I want to pay tribute to the team there, led by Pete Kara, who is an outstanding leader, and our fantastic Coastguard, who have a really strong connection with the Nelson community but have had to do fund-raising activities over the recent years; for example, to fund-raise for our fantastic new boat that was launched a couple of years ago. That does go out into some very dangerous conditions, often getting close to Cook Strait, not quite there, but close into places like Devil Island, where we’ve had really quite dangerous situations occur for boaties in our area. That’s an organisation that will benefit from this law being continued and being made permanent.

I do want to congratulate former colleagues the Hon Jan Tinetti and the Hon Barbara Edmonds, who were the two Ministers of Internal Affairs who put this work in place, in the first place, and it is good to see it continuing.

We will enjoy debating this at the select committee and, hopefully, making any necessary changes we need to make to make the bill better when we bring it back to the House, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We got there, and I do want to say, firstly, that the purpose of the bill is to allow lotteries that raise funds for charitable or non-commercial purposes to operate online permanently.

I laugh at the irony I hear, particularly from the Labour member Barbara Edmonds. She said when she was the Minister of Internal Affairs that it would be quicker for change to be made on this specific legislation through the member’s bill ballot biscuit tin than for her to actually lead the work herself as the Minister. It could have taken 10, 15, 20 years for the bill to be drawn from the ballot, and yet she as the Minister decided not to do it quickly and to leave it to one of her colleagues to put it in the biscuit tin and for it to be done that way, and I say, “Rubbish!”

Here you’ve got a Minister of Internal Affairs who’s taken this matter seriously and is doing something about it—no credit to anyone previously; credit only to the current Minister who’s leading this work. I commend the bill to the House.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere): Talofa, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity. I just want to respond to my colleague on the other side of the House Tom Rutherford. We’ve heard from the Hon Barbara Edmonds. She gave a very impactful statement, and in her experience, she has been fund-raising for a very long time.

I come back to the bill. It is a pleasure to make a contribution. It is helpful to understand that we have had two members who have been—

Hon Jan Tinetti: Unlike the lack of knowledge on the other side.

Tom Rutherford: You could have done something about it.

SPEAKER: If members want to be invited to take it outside, they will be.

LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE: —Minister of Internal Affairs. And we’ve heard the purpose of this amendment bill and the change in terms of the Gambling Act 2003. The temporary provision that is currently in section 4A will exempt class 3 gambling in the form of lottery from the prohibition of remote interactive gambling in section 9.

This is a very important change that is being made here, and Labour supports it to the select committee process because we have heard, on this side of the House, from a number of our community who are still worried and facing different gambling harms. With the movement to online, any regulatory impacts or new provisions or permanent provisions require a very good submission process. We want to hear from our community who have raised these concerns. So, for the record and for those listening at home, there are long concerns around online gambling harm minimisation. What are those gambling harm minimisations and what are the tools in place via legislation?

I was asked to read the departmental disclosure statement—there is no regulatory impact statement—and, on the front, it says, “[When] there are certain significant powers or features in the Bill that might be of particular Parliamentary or public interest … [warrants] an explanation.” The select committee must be that filter that questions and allows our public to make those submissions so that the select committee can hear from the public and from those who are working in the space.

I just have with me some of the evidence that has been presented to the public. One of those papers is called the Māori Specific Preventing and Minimising Gambling Harm Evaluation, presented and prepared by Kōkiri Consultancy, April 2024. Another quite recent one is a position paper on online gambling which was produced in August 2024. The organisations that have raised this right throughout Aotearoa are asking Parliament and members of Parliament to consider the effects when there are regulatory changes.

So, whilst the Labour Party is supporting it through the first reading, there needs to be important understanding as to how a piece of legislation achieves that balance for the community of Aotearoa in terms of positive and negative changes, which the select committee has to understand and mitigate through legislation, through good quality legislation, that affects people’s lives. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr Speaker.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill): I stand here in this House to support this bill. I would like to use this opportunity to acknowledge the 27,800 registered charities in New Zealand and all their volunteers for the amazing job they do.

In the past 12 months, I have visited a range of charity groups in Auckland. Many charities are struggling, not only with reduced financial support but also with the challenges of recruiting volunteers to sell tickets and collect donations on the streets. They often emphasise just how important it is to ensure Government does everything it can to ensure these charities can fund-raise effectively and efficiently. We have listened. Our Minister has listened.

This bill allows lotteries that raise funds for a charitable or commercial purpose to operate online permanently, and that allows charities a much-needed boost in their fund-raising efforts. This Government has a huge amount of respect for the work charities and their volunteers do. This bill is a bill that not only backs our charities but it means they have the tools they have asked for so that charities and their volunteers can spend more time on the front line, making a difference across the country. I commend this bill to the House.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the first reading of this bill, the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill. I’d like to acknowledge the Minister of Internal Affairs—thank you for bringing this bill to the attention of the House.

Although I have my own personal views about gambling, this is a situation where absolutely I support it because it’s going to be helping community organisations and charities. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

SPEAKER: The question is, That the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Instruction to Governance and Administration Committee

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister of Internal Affairs): I move, That the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 10 October 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The select committee will consider this bill for only four weeks. This reflects the fact that the bill is very short—just four clauses—and very simple. The bill, essentially, recreates the temporary amendment to section 4 and, therefore, continues the status quo.

More importantly, however, it is my hope to provide community organisations relying on this exemption with the confidence that they can continue to conduct their lotteries legally and reliably beyond 31 October. It is my desire that the select committee report back to the House by 10 October so that the House may see the bill passed in time to enact this permanent exemption upon the expiration of temporary exemption. I commend this bill to the House.

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

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): I rise to take a call on the specific matter of the report-back date to the House on 10 October that the Minister has put on the Table today. I rise to speak against that motion and I will outline those reasons now.

I am the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee that will be considering the bill. The concerns I wish to raise, while we are a dedicated, hard-working committee that often flies under the radar—we don’t always get those bills that make it into headlines—we are an important—

Hon Phil Twyford: And modest.

RACHEL BOYACK: Very modest committee of hard-working members. I know that we will diligently approach this bill in the way that we need to, but I alluded to some of the concerns I was going to raise in the contribution I made earlier on the substance of the bill, and that is around the need for there to be proper community consultation on this bill.

It does go further than where the Government had established the law under Labour. Look, we support that. We support there being a permanent approach; however, and we need to be honest about it, this does actually make permanent an opportunity for gambling to occur online permanently. While I don’t believe the risks are such as you consider the likes of a pokie operating being online—it’s a completely different scenario, right? I’m not suggesting that they are at all at the same level of risk for a person who is undertaking the activity. We do have to be honest about the challenges that we face through harm, and the importance of us hearing from the community and being able to tease out with officials and giving officials enough time to provide us with that proper advice.

For those of us who are engaged as parliamentarians in that process, we know that the advice officials provide to us is critical. We will ask officials to provide us with detailed advice, and then we’ll ask questions and come back again. Our committee has just been doing that on another bill which we can’t talk to yet. But it’s the practice of a select committee to actually interrogate and seek really substantive advice from officials, and then to be able to say, “Well, actually, we need more information on a particular matter.” So to only have four weeks in order to do that is actually an unreasonably short amount of time for us to consider it.

I don’t agree with the Minister’s view that because the bill is short and only includes a couple of clauses, it’s not a big matter—that’s not the case. We can change laws where you’ve only added one clause to a piece of legislation and you can make an enormous change to a law, and we know that as parliamentarians. Even just a word inside a clause can make an enormous difference to any piece of law that we may consider from time to time. I don’t accept the argument that because it’s only a couple of pages, that somehow that means we don’t have substantive matters to consider as part of the consideration of this bill.

As I said, we are a hard-working committee, and we are a committee of people who like to ask questions. I say that, actually, as something that I think should be celebrated. We have members in our committee that actually do like to get into the detail of a bill, and we will do that. We will ask questions of officials. We will, hopefully, hear from submitters in detail and ask them questions. It is my hope as the chair that we will hear submissions from the community organisations that seek to benefit from this, of which there actually are many. We want to make sure we have adequate time to hear from those charities, because their voice is important in this process. Likewise, it’s important to hear from other organisations. I can think of the likes of the Problem Gambling Foundation, other organisations that do work supporting people—

SPEAKER: Let’s stay concise. Is the member moving an amendment?

RACHEL BOYACK: No, I am speaking against the Minister’s motion, which was to put on the Table that the select committee report back by 10 October and to set aside the Standing Orders that allow us to meet during the evenings and at other times when the House is sitting. She’s put that in her motion.

As the Labour Party, we will not be supporting the Minister’s motion. I’m outlining the reasons why we’re not supporting that motion, and I’m doing so as the chair, because I do have the responsibility of chairing that committee—one which I take seriously. I’ve just noted that our committee is very hard-working, will absolutely be—

SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s all good. It’s a very concise debate.

RACHEL BOYACK: It is a very concise debate. What I do want to do is be able to take that time to talk through the process that the select committee will be following in order to meet that—

SPEAKER: No, that’s outside the concise nature of the motion. The member’s doing very well to extend time, but I think her points have been rather well made. Perhaps now get back on to that concise thing.

RACHEL BOYACK: The Labour Party won’t be supporting the motion of the Minister because we would like to have the usual time frame that we would take in order to actually consider a bill. As the Minister said, she believes that it can have a short time frame because it’s a short bill in terms of the length of it, but, actually, as I’ve already noted, that is not necessarily an indication of the impact or substance of a bill. Labour won’t be supporting the Minister’s motion, and we do not commend that motion to the House.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also rise on behalf of the Green Party to say that we are very concerned in terms of the truncated time frame that has been suggested by the Minister of Internal Affairs when it comes to the select committee process. I understand that from the Minister’s perspective this is quite a short bill and the fact that, with this particular bill, they may not need the same level of consultation as one would expect. I also think that it is ironic that the Minister’s party are happy to have a drawn out process when it comes to the Treaty principles bill, but over here we are looking for what is, essentially, not four weeks but two weeks.

When we’re looking at the duration of this, when we’re looking at the process of the Governance and Administration Committee, with 10 October as the report-back date, we must also factor in that the only remaining consecutive non-sitting weeks we have for the remainder of the year are at the beginning of October. Particularly, it lies over school holidays. For a lot of parents—and some of our MPs are also parents—they may actually have booked holidays for that period.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the member come back to the timing of the bill, because there are processes for subbing people into select committee should they be needed. As the Speaker said before I was in the Chair, just keep this concise around the timing, please.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think it does highlight the issue that, yes, although we have the process for subbing members, we don’t have to sub those members if this bill was given the proper time for consultation, extending even just by a few weeks. It is not an unreasonable request to have the two non-sitting weeks not be considered as part of this and give a four-week sitting week block—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is about the bill and the actual concept of the bill at the timing, not about the lives of members around the House. We need to be very concise. I know it’s relevant to you, but it’s not relevant to this motion.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: But, in terms of the motion here—Madam Speaker, if you wouldn’t mind also clarifying that we are looking at a motion to shorten the process of the select committee, which it is my understanding that it normally has a duration of six months. Dropping that from six months to one month is significant. As the honourable Rachel Boyack mentioned before, it does add additional pressure to the select committee, in this case the Governance and Administration Committee. I just simply would like to know what was the rationale behind shortening that, particularly from—of all people—the Minister, who is also the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety. I would really like to know: what is the rationale for shortening it to one month?

Like the previous speaker, Rachel Boyack, mentioned, another thing that we are looking at here is although this is quite a simple bill and we have spoken on this in the first reading, this bill requires public consultation. As the legislature, we must give the public—and this includes both in terms of the charities but also in terms of those preventions, or communities that are trying to prevent things like gambling and addiction—a chance to be heard as part of the select committee process. I think I would really like to see some reason why we need to have such a short process.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): I move, That the date in the motion be changed to 30 November 2024 and all subsequent words be removed.

I move that motion because I was extremely disappointed with the Minister’s explanation for why this select committee report-back time should be shortened. In fact, there were no reasons given. She stated that the bill is a short bill, but that bears no rational connection whatsoever with the amount of time that it takes to deliberate on it. It’s well understood in this House that when the procedures of a select committee are to be circumvented or shortened, a fulsome explanation is expected to be given by the Minister—not one in which she jumps up, basically states her wish for a shortened report-back time, says it’s a short bill, and sits back down. Gambling is an important—if the Minister wants to seek leave, or I will yield to you, to say more on the matter if you’re intending to. Do you intend to say more on the matter?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister’s had a call. I don’t think the Minister is able to take another call in this debate.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I can yield to her to answer the question. Does she wish to answer the question? No, and I’m not surprised, because she can’t answer the question. Here we have a Minister who basically just wants to circumvent the process without any real reason. There is no urgency in this bill. We all agree that the concept behind the bill is one that is worthy of going to select committee and being deliberated on. In a period of four weeks, NGOs, community organisations, individuals, and others simply don’t have the time—and who knows what period of time the select committee will call for submissions? It’s quite likely, given that there will be drafting to do, a report to be had, deliberations to be undertaken, there will be a one-week process or time frame for proceedings. I didn’t move a motion that pushed it out to six months; it’s only a couple more months and removing those additional words.

It’s another example of the Minister not really thinking, because why does the committee have to sit while the House is sitting? Why is she depriving members of their right to sit in this House and debate on legislation because she wants to rush through a select committee process? That’s a very genuine point that was alluded to by the Green member Lawrence Xu-Nan, that people are elected to this House to represent their constituents in this House—not to sit in select committees and look at legislation rather than being here.

As to being able to sit outside of Wellington, it’s just fatuous—why don’t you look at the motion you need? This committee does not need to sit outside of Wellington, so why give it permission to sit outside of Wellington? Absolutely ridiculous. Sitting on a Friday after the House is sat—well, is it going to do that? Is there any expectation that it does that? Are you going to hope that it does that? Why didn’t you write the motion you wanted? All we need is for this committee to be able to have some more time, but perhaps not the full six months, because perhaps this bill isn’t as complex as others. The Minister gave no reasons. She just stood up, as they do in the ACT party, entitled: “Oh, I just want it. We’ve got a majority, so we’re going to truncate the process.”—just like Paul Goldsmith did with his Amendment Paper.

The fact of the matter is that this bill, just like any other bill, deserves full and proper consideration. If the Government is going to treat the select committee process as a tick box where they they’re not giving it the time and resources to do a good job, and one where people can have enough time to deliberate on their submissions and to actually make arrangements to turn up to select committee, I hope this committee will have the time to take oral submissions. I’m not sure it will, but if it does, you’ve got to accept people have diaries that get full up with other obligations—work and personal, family obligations. How is the committee going to get oral submissions on this important issue when they’re going to ring them up and ask, “Can you submit tomorrow?”, “Of course not.”? People aren’t at the disposal of this House at our beck and call. I could understand if it was three or four months, but four weeks is no time at all. It’s actually pretty shameful. If the Minister’s changed her mind and does want to make a couple of comments to answer the question, “What is the real reason you’re rushing this?”, I will yield.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just on this issue, I’ve just taken some advice, and when an amendment has been moved, a member who has already spoken may speak again. That is not a “must”; that is a “may”. If the Minister wishes to, she may speak again.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you for that. That was in the back of my mind, but I’m confident that the Minister will have found her backbone and will stand up and take a call on this because—[Interruption] no, but to be serious for a moment and then I will sit down—the New Zealand public and other parliamentarians can genuinely expect to be told real reasons. The fact that the bill is short isn’t a reason. If there is some genuine urgency, then that’s maybe the case. They haven’t been knocking on my door saying, “We’ve got a raffle that we can’t do in four weeks’ time.” Perhaps the Minister will take a call on my amendment. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s my understanding the Minister is going to.

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister of Internal Affairs): Thank you Madam Speaker. I’ll take a short call just to suggest that I oppose the amendment to the motion that I have moved, based on one very important ground, that the member did not listen correctly to my original motion—that it’s my hope to provide community organisations relying on this exemption with confidence that they can continue beyond 31 October this year, which is the reason for wishing for the select committee to report back by 10 October so that we can have the law through this House in time for these charities.

With the time I have, I’d just also like to, if I may, respond to the member Rachel Boyack and her reason for opposing the motion, who suggested that, you know, there is a difficulty here in that it’s a very, very short little bill, but it changes a lot in the law. That’s incorrect. Under the previous Government, there were only a small specific number of class 3 lotteries that were originally allowed to have this exemption. The previous Government then changed it to all class 3 lotteries. The member is incorrect in her statement. It simply extends the temporary exemption that we currently have, permanently.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m going to take a call from Rachel Boyack, who can because there’s been an amendment taken of a call.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to take an opportunity to take a short call on the amendment put forward by my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, and just respond to the Minister’s comment around the type of change that this is, because I disagree with the Minister. They’re actually taking something that is a temporary practice and making it permanent.

That actually is a big change. We specifically made that change during COVID when people were unable to meet in person, people were unable to stand outside supermarkets with tickets that people may purchase, were unable to, you know, do those usual things, going door to door. The reason we did it was that organisations like the Heart Foundation, like the Royal New Zealand Coastguard, could not actually talk to people face to face to sell them a ticket, and so we put in place a temporary measure. We acknowledge that that actually did produce a risk of harm for people, but that we also needed to ensure that some of our critical community organisations were able to operate their fund-raising activities.

Now that situation that presented itself at the time no longer exists. Those organisations that couldn’t, during COVID lockdowns, go and sell tickets to raffles outside a supermarket, which we’ve all walked past and purchased one—it’s a good thing to do—can do that again. I completely disagree with the member, and I’m sure this will come up during the select committee process, that we are not making a large change; it is a large change. We’re going from—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Back to the timing.

RACHEL BOYACK: I’m responding to the Minister’s comments.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, and you have.

RACHEL BOYACK: The reason I want to take another call was for that response, but also to say that we’re supporting my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment to actually give us that time to have this conversation. The fact that we’re debating this in the House now shows, I think, that we’re going to need to have some time at select committee, and we’ll end up in a situation where we end up in the committee of the whole House having to ask a lot of questions and spend a lot of time there. Actually, that’s not always the most helpful time to actually have those decent, deep conversations.

The questions I will be asking when this comes forward, in a detailed way, is what processes are being put in place around harm minimisation? I think that is a valid question to ask. We do have people that will potentially be harmed by making this permanent, so I would urge the House and, I think, those members from parties that may be thinking, “Hmm, is this actually going to be enough time for the committee to do its work?” to consider actually supporting this amendment to the motion from my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. Thank you.

STEVE ABEL (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. Speaking to the amendment, we support the amendment, and I just want to clarify something: it is our view that the essential tenet of the legislation is appropriate. We are not opposing the legislation itself, but gambling is a pernicious public ill when poorly managed and poorly regulated, and so it is very important that in, scrutinising the way in which we liberalise a gambling regime or extend it to permit what this bill does, we thoroughly scrutinise it to protect public good, to protect the public from the harm that we know gambling causes. I have a family that has gamblers in its past, and it is a very destructive thing when you become addicted to gambling, and so it is very right that we extend the period of the select committee so we can hear from those expert agencies and those experienced on how to protect the public good while allowing there to be the supporting of rights.

On the question of the 31 October date, surely that deadline of the temporary order was well known by the Minister ahead of time, and surely springing it upon us now so that we now have to have a report back by 10 October so as to meet that 31 October deadline—that is surely information that the Minister knew about many months ago, so why is it that only now this truncated proposal comes to the House and comes for the select committee’s consideration and the House’s consideration?

We strongly support the amendments being proposed by the Hon Dr Duncan Webb and we support that it be extended and we call on the members opposite and the Minister to consider that position and change their position on that and support a full select committee process. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the amendment to the motion in the name of Hon Dr Duncan Webb be agreed to.

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

Ayes 49

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Tana.

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Gambling (Definition of Remote Interactive Gambling) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 10 October 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 49

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Tana.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Education and Training Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister of Internal Affairs) on behalf of the Associate Minister of Education: I present a legislative statement on the Education and Training Amendment Bill.

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

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: I move, That the Education and Training Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

The purpose of this bill is to introduce charter schools. Charter schools can be new schools or State schools that convert to charter schools. The bill also eases the regulatory burden on early childhood centres and enables rules about daily attendance reporting. A key aspect of the charter school proposal is the establishment of an authorisation board that will be responsible for approving new charter school sponsors. There will be a board of experts from different backgrounds with knowledge of communities, education, law, finance, and business.

A charter school agency is already operating and will be responsible for the contracts with the sponsors who run the school. Those contracts will be quite different from the approach that has been taken to New Zealand education under successive Governments. Sponsors of charter schools will have more flexibility in how their schools are governed and run, in return for having to meet performance outcomes set out in contracts. Charter schools will have more flexibility than State schools. They will receive their funding as cash. Sponsors will be able to run a school their way as long as they are meeting their performance targets and their students are showing up and learning.

This legislation also allows State schools to convert to a charter school. It’s not just new applicants, brand new schools; it’s also about State schools converting to a charter school. The bill also proposes to remove the network approval requirement for new early childhood education (ECE) centres. The network planning requirements put up barriers to new ECE services by putting the Ministry of Education into the decision making around where you can open an ECE centre. This decision will now be left to the people that risk their own money to start them, and the parents who truly know what is best for their children. This means people spend less time on the bureaucracy of justifying their existence and more time on the empowerment about being able to do it their way.

Finally, this legislation will allow the Secretary for Education to make specific rules around attendance, addressing the crisis in attendance that is threatening not only New Zealand schools but our future as we currently conceive ourselves as a modern, developed country with a highly educated population who went to school.

As a country we have not got to grips with who was attending school each day, so we don’t know what the patterns are, and we don’t know why they are not attending school. We’ve got regulations that are old, so we’re going to require attendance data from schools on a daily basis under new regulations. The bill allows the secretary to make rules which will complement the proposed new attendance regulations.

The Education and Workforce Committee deserves credit for reporting this bill back to the House with some credible and sensible amendments. The committee did not recommend any changes to the attendance rules proposals. With regard to removing the network approval requirements for ECE, the committee recommended some transitional provisions be removed as they are no longer needed. All the other changes recommended by the committee are for charter schools. While some of the recommendations made by the committee are in response to concerns or comments from submitters on the charter school proposal, there are others that are purely technical and designed to improve the operation of the charter school model.

One example is the committee’s proposed amendments regarding the authorisation board that oversees the performance of charter schools and approves new charter school sponsors. These amendments are intended to improve the operation of the authorisation board.

The committee has also addressed some issues that submitters did not agree with. One example is the concern by some submitters around students being affected if their local State school converts and then takes on a new special character—for example, a secular school converts to become a religious school. The committee has proposed making it a condition of approval that an ordinary State school that converts and didn’t have a special character before conversion cannot then take on a special character after conversion. This is to ensure that students who were at the State school before conversion are not forced to go to a school that has a special character they are not fully aligned with. It also complements the bill’s existing provision that ensures a State school that already has a special character—e.g., a State integrated school or a kura kaupapa Māori must retain that special character if they convert to become a charter school. This is to ensure students are disrupted as little as possible while still allowing the converted school to have the necessary flexibility to try and improve the attendance and achievement of students when they move to the converted school.

I also want to note that some submitters thought charter schools would provide more choice for parents, whānau, and communities and that the improved funding flexibility would result in better outcomes for students. This is primarily because of the ability to provide more flexibility and care for more diverse needs than mainstream schools. These submitters thought charter schools would be able to tailor their governance, curriculum, and operational procedures to best meet the needs of learners and address the failing student achievement and attendance levels, particularly in low socio-economic and disadvantaged communities.

There was a misunderstanding by some submitters on how the bill allows a charter school to refuse enrolment if a parent will not accept the special character of the school. The committee has proposed making this clearer by referring to any special character approved by the authorisation board. This is no different from what happens in State integrated schools, designated character schools, and kura kaupapa Māori, which can deny enrolment if the parent does not accept the special character.

I understand some submitters wanted more detail on how charter schools could offer distance learning. I agree with this. The committee has recommended a couple of changes to do this. This includes requiring the charter school contract to specify how student engagement and attendance will be measured and how they will provide for pastoral care, including the online safety of students and adequate supervision arrangements for students aged under 16 years. I think this is important as there are different settings and circumstances for students learning by distance. It also requires the Minister of Education to include in the Gazette notice about the new charter school, whether it will offer distance learning, and, if so, whether the school’s main mode of curriculum delivery will be distance learning.

Some submitters were concerned about the ability of a charter school to charge property maintenance fees if they own property or used to be a State integrated school. The committee has proposed a change to limit this to converted schools that were previously a State integrated school.

This means only those schools that used to charge attendance dues before they converted, or once converted, will be able to charge similar fees, but called “property maintenance fees”.

I also understand that some submitters thought charter schools should not be able to operate for a profit. The bill as introduced did not refer to this. The charter school model is about providing educators with greater autonomy and flexibility, creating diversity and choice in New Zealand’s education system. Although sponsors could be entities that are profit making, the charter school contracts will require sponsors to be accountable to meeting performance outcomes as set out in the contracts. For example, if they make a profit but fail to make their performance outcomes, then there will be a problem the authorisation board will need to intervene on.

The committee have recommended an amendment to the Local Government Rating Act 2002 so that the charter schools that are not operating for a profit are treated the same as State schools and private schools not operating for profit. These schools do not have to pay rates on land. I think this is only fair. The committee have also recommended sponsors specify in the charter school contracts if they are intending to operate for a profit or not for a profit. This will add some clarity and transparency for everyone involved.

Moving on to the important role of teachers, I understand that some submitters thought charter schools will undermine the teaching profession by allowing teachers without qualifications to teach and put students at risk. This is not the case. Sponsors will be able to employ either registered teachers or Limited Authority to Teach (LAT) - holders who have been approved by the Teaching Council to teach. The contracts will specify what percentage of teaching positions can be filled by a LAT holder.

The intention is to allow more flexibility and acknowledge that there are some very good and experienced people who can teach students but don’t have teaching qualifications. The success of this flexibility in teaching positions will be measured under the performance framework as specified in the contracts. The committee has recommended some technical-type changes to LAT holders in the bill, following recommendations by the Teaching Council.

There are many, many more areas of which I could speak, but given time, I just suggest that there are a range of other suggestions that the committee has proposed, which I think will improve the functioning of the bill overall. These include minor changes to provisions, such as on definitions and allowing charter schools to have secondary tertiary programmes.

I want to thank the committee for its work and thank the members of the public who made submissions. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I too would like to start by thanking submitters on this bill. It wasn’t an easy process, because it was an incredibly rushed process that we went through. The first reading of this bill was on 25 June, so it’s under three months since we had that first reading.

Even worse, though, was that a major Amendment Paper—Amendment Paper 49—was released to the Education and Workforce Committee by the Associate Minister of Education on 23 July, and that made significant changes that will have implications beyond the education sector. At that stage, it was actually only a day or two days before the then closing of submissions, and so we, as a committee, extended that by a couple of days so that people could have some time, but it wasn’t enough time.

I find that very surprising when the Associate Minister, in shepherding through another piece of legislation recently, has said that the six-month select committee process was making sure it would “treat the legislation with the respect and dignity it deserves”. “Making sure that people get a real say … through a proper length select committee, that’s really important to me.”, he said. Is he saying that the education legislation isn’t important? That’s certainly how it felt in this particular case.

I’m going to talk on the education amendment parts that came through the select committee. My colleagues will talk more on the industrial implications of what came through from that Amendment Paper 49, because they are huge implications, and they will, as I said, have implications beyond the education sector.

I want to just start by talking not about charter schools, but I want to just very briefly talk about the early childhood network management repeal. We’ve heard from the Minister who presented the Associate Minister’s statement here this afternoon that there were submitters that were in favour. I just wanted to point out that of 161 submissions on this part of the bill, 155 opposed it. When we’re talking about those that were in favour, that is an incredibly small percentage.

It very much came through that this was a step in the wrong direction. It will only intensify the increasing market consolidation and dominance of a small number of large, private providers, and that will be at the expense of the small, local, community-based early learning centres.

In fact, I just want to talk about the concern that came through very clearly on the oversupply of early childhood education (ECE) services, and I just want to read this very short part out from one of the submitters, Catriona Ferguson, who stated that she could see the impact that not having network approval in the past had caused. She’s seen centres that have opened next to each other or across the road from each other, creating clusters and competition, all vying for the small pool of children.

On that competition, Mana Mokopuna have said that “children suffering trauma and harmful environments if quality of provision is reduced in response to excessive competition and consequent cost reduction” will be very detrimental to our young people, and I’m really, really concerned that we’re once again putting profits over the heart and the essence of quality early learning provision. Most submitters, as I said, were really, really concerned about that oversupply, and they saw network management as a way of reducing that supply but also a way of ensuring quality education.

I now want to move to the charter schools part of this particular bill, which I see as an insidious attack on quality public education. Labour, as a party, is completely opposed to this. We have said in our differing view in the report back that we will reserve the right to actually not have any more charter schools when we are back in Government. The future of charter schools is only for a short time. We do not see that they add to the landscape of quality public education whatsoever, and we were given the essence of that through the submissions that came through.

Of the 431 submissions on this part of the bill, 389 were opposed to it, so 90.3 percent—

Grant McCallum: Unions.

Hon JAN TINETTI: —that were opposed to this, and, no, they weren’t only unions. There were schools, and you should know that because you were sitting on that—not you, Madam Speaker, sorry.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s not “you”.

Hon JAN TINETTI: The member over there was sitting on that select committee and he should know better. We even had the likes of the New Zealand School Boards Association, who said that the work that had been done so far on having the Charter School Authorisation Board receive applications before this process was even through was completely wrong, and I totally agree with them.

We heard from submitters about the fact that we have a completely devolved education system,. That is where some of the critical and crucial elements and issues that are occurring in education happen, because of that devolvement, and all this is doing is creating a new part of the system that will not make a difference. It will not make a difference to the education system at all, it will not make a difference to the individual child, and many of our submitters presented a lot of evidence and research that showed that it will not make that difference.

We’ve heard the Associate Minister himself present evidence and research along the way that was proven during this process to be incredible—as in not credible, I should say. I’ve got that one wrong—it was not credible.

Hon Scott Simpson: This member used to be a principal.

Hon JAN TINETTI: Mr Simpson, perhaps you would like to get up and show the information that would show that this would make a difference. You will not be able to, because, Mr Simpson, the research and evidence is sitting there that shows that this will have the exact opposite response—absolutely.

Money withdrawn from the public education system in the form of profits—as this is doing—means that that money cannot go to any other part of the education system, and we heard throughout this that the education system has many issues that are sitting within it. There are young people sitting there—neurodiverse students—who are not getting the support that they need, because the resourcing is not going in at the level that it is needed. Now, if we put charter schools in place, that would only serve to help some of those students, and a very tiny percentage of them. That means that we’re going to have greater inequities within the system than we have ever seen before. That is what the research shows overseas and the research that we have seen from New Zealand the last time this failed experiment was put in place—and it was a failed experiment.

One of the greatest issues that we saw during the select committee process was that once again—once again—we are not having the public scrutiny that is needed on these particular schools. The Ombudsman discussed his concern around the fact that the charter schools were not going to be subject to the Official Information Act. That happened last time, as well. Those issues were prevalent last time, and we saw that in the failed experiment. But, once again, this Government sees that it is only right to bring back what failed last time and put it into the bill this time, and I can only think that young people will suffer because of it.

One of the areas that our teachers said, time and time again, that they were really concerned about was the lack of emphasis on quality teaching in this particular bill. Really, really upset with what some members were saying around this—and upset with the emphasis from the Minister, during this time, thinking that anyone can teach our young people. I can tell him that not just anyone can teach our young people. It is absolutely upsetting to think that we can staff a school with people with limited authority to teach, which means that they don’t have to have any qualifications whatsoever, they don’t have to know about the pedagogy, and they don’t have to know about what goes on inside a young person’s head. He believes that they can staff a school completely on that.

We know that there have been a number of young people whom the system has not served well. This is not the answer to that. As I have said, this will create greater inequities within the system.

Flexibility already exists. We heard from the Hon Marian Hobbs that she was able to set up a school within the State system—Four Avenues High School—that was already able to answer a lot of what this bill is trying to fix.

This is a terrible piece of legislation, and we will hear more about this throughout the process as it comes before the House. Thank you.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. What a time to be a parliamentarian, to witness firsthand the parallel universe that the Minister is living in, in terms of some of the stats that were referred to. I am disappointed. I am disappointed at the way that this particular bill was approached, and the way this particular bill was approached during the select committee stage.

Let’s start with some of the common themes of the submissions, and let’s start with charter schools. We have heard from multiple submitters that our existing education system in Aotearoa is already flexible enough and does not require yet another tier, yet another educational system. We have State schools, State integrated schools, specialist schools, special character schools, kura kaupapa, and private schools. We do not need another one. In fact, some have argued that our system is almost too flexible as it stands. That’s the first thing.

Second thing: a lack of evidence. We have consistently seen a lack of evidence both in Aotearoa and internationally that charter schools as a system work. We have heard submitters from overseas, particularly from the UK, of the danger when you introduce charter schools in their form of academies and also in terms of the orphan schools and the orphan students that are created as a part of that system.

Other things that we have seen: the number of overseas interests in setting up charter schools in Aotearoa. We have heard from submitters who blatantly tell us that the only reason they’re interested in setting up a charter school is because they can get public money for it. That is shocking. That is shocking, that this is the tone that educators take on how they are going to approach education in Aotearoa and how they are going to educate our future generations.

Let’s talk about the next thing, in terms of the process of this bill. Now, the Hon Jan Tinetti has already talked about the truncated select committee process that we have seen, which meant that we rushed things through—and I thank the Education and Workforce Committee; I thank the chair, Katie Nimon; and I also thank the staff who helped us through that. However, that shouldn’t have been the normal process, and, particularly, when we had this bill going through select committee, the application for charter schools should not have been opened. People should not have already had to apply for it, not knowing whether there’s going to be any amendment. That is a presumption that we’ve had that this bill is going to go through as it stands.

The other thing is, as we saw, the original deadline for the select committee, which we decided, was 25 July. Then, on 23 July, the Associate Minister of Education released a new Amendment Paper, Amendment Paper 49, with some major, major adjustments, which I’m sure other speakers will speak on later. That meant that we then had to go back to those submitters, saying, “Sorry—you already submitted, but we just released an amendment. Would you like to make an amendment to your submission?” We have to adjust our time line and deadline to accommodate the release of that Amendment Paper. That is not OK. That is not the process that people of Aotearoa expect from their Parliament and from their Government.

What we see with the charter school as well, in terms of the flexibility, over and over again, is the fact that this is, essentially, a carve-out. This is a carve-out for the Associate Minister. This is the only way that the Government was able to form a Government, by pandering to what their coalition partner demands, and I have mentioned in this House before of the discrepancy and inconsistency between what the Minister of Education and what the Associate Minister of Education has stated, and their vision and direction of education in Aotearoa.

Lastly, when it comes to charter schools, let’s talk about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications. Now, I don’t know how often this happens, but the Chief Ombudsman himself made a submission and made an oral submission expressing his concern under freedom of expression, under freedom of access to information, on the basis that charter schools, as a publicly funded institute, will not be subjected to the Official Information Act. No other publicly funded institute does that, to my knowledge. When we asked the Chief Ombudsman, he couldn’t give a clear answer on whether anyone else has such privilege. That is a serious concern to the fundamental right that we have here in Aotearoa.

When we heard the submission from the Children and Young People’s Commission, they mentioned our obligation under international conventions around the right to education and rights for children. We then asked, “Why was there no child impact statement produced as a part of this?”, and there was no answer for that. This whole process has been incredibly disheartening but also just incredibly negative in terms of how this Government has chosen to progress their bills.

Now, let’s move on to the second part of this, which is around early childhood education (ECE). We’ve heard from the Children and Young People’s Commission around the ECE, we have heard from people, we have mentioned that there was no child impact statement. First of all, the network management approval process was introduced in 2023. For any other party, in a number of other bills we have seen in this House, they said, “Oh, you know what, there is not enough time for us to see how well it’s going to work.” Apparently, one year is sufficient for this particular bill and for this particular process, for it to be repealed after one year.

On top of that, they said that this is going to be a barrier for the creating of new ECE centres. Well, let me tell this House: the number of ECE centres that have been approved under the network management has increased in 2023—not decreased; increased. So what is the barrier that is being referred to here, other than the fact that this is giving a carte blanche to for-profit ECE companies to privatise further at the cost of our future? Our young children should be able to live their lives, should be able to be educated, and that should be the priority of our focus here in Aotearoa. If someone’s like, “My priority is going to be making money.”, it is not going to be about the children. It is not going to be about our ākonga. That is a serious concern.

Overall, in terms of what we have seen with the submissions and during the select committee process, 90.3 percent of the submitters, 90.3—not most, not some; 90.3. For those of you, that is an A+ when you are in the schooling system. It is an A+ if you are looking at the GPA system at university. That is the percentage of people who said no to this bill: 90.3 percent of people said no to the repeal of the ECE network management. That is not some; that is almost all of them, and that has not been acknowledged by the Minister and that has not been acknowledged by the way that we have progressed this.

I do thank the submitters who have submitted on this bill. I thank all of you who have experience, both lived experience as well as decades of work experience, who took the time out of your busy lives to make a submission. I am also angry. I am angry for all of you who made those submissions, to think that your voice will be heard by this Government, and it has not been heard by this Government. That is shameful. What a joke of a process.

So, with everything that we have seen from the submitters, no, the Green Party will not support this bill.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Education and Training Amendment Bill, a bill that we wholeheartedly support. I’d like to begin by thanking the people in our select committee, chaired by the wonderful Katie Nimon, deputy chair, Carl Bates, my colleague Mike Butterick, Parmjeet Parmar, the Hon Jan Tinetti, Camilla Belich, Lawrence Xu-Nan, and the Hon Phil Twyford.

The bill came in three parts, right? There was the first part to deal with the charter schools, the second part was around the network approval for early childhood education, and the final part, which has hardly been spoken of, was to do with the Secretary for Education being able to make rules for State schools about collecting, recording, and providing attendance data.

Well, I’ve been in this House now, listening to the Opposition, and listening to them, I’m thinking “Well, they really have missed the point, haven’t they?” This is about choice, about giving parents and students choice in their education. That’s what it’s all about, right? This is where they forget that when parents go to look at where they’d like their children to go to school, they look around and at the moment, clearly with some parents, they’re struggling. Some parents are struggling to find the right school. Right?

I’d like to point out actually, yes, we received a number of submissions. Well, I notice they’ve ignored the ones that were in support of. I’ll give you a quote from a submission from the Maxim Institute—

Hon Jan Tinetti: Five!

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Five—less than 10 percent.

GRANT McCALLUM: —about a long study. Oh, they’re excited, aren’t they; boy, they’re very excitable now. A long-running study of charter schools in the United States reached this clear verdict last year: “Against a backdrop of flat performance for the nation as a whole”—sound familiar?—“the trend of learning gains for students enrolled in charter schools is both large and positive.” The most encouraging take-away from this work by Stanford University, no less, Centre of Research, is that disadvantaged students are the ones that are most likely to do better. Now, isn’t that interesting? In fact, I’ve got some other great quotes, actually, I’ve got some great—

Camilla Belich: What about the New Zealand evidence? What does that show, Grant?

GRANT McCALLUM: I’m going to talk to you about the New Zealand context. In fact, I’m going to give you a quote: “The charter school model presented an opportunity for us to work with whānau and switch them onto learning. We provided a wraparound solution to re-engage Māori parents and their children into learning.” Who said that—who said that? Oh, the Hon Willie Jackson. What a great quote. What a great man that Willie Jackson is to actually recognise the benefits of charter schools.

Actually, I’ll give you another quote—I’ll give you another quote, another great quote. The other quote said—when Labour were campaigning in 2017, talking about getting rid of them, then this quote came, and it said, “The bottom line is, why would you stop something that is working?” Why would you do that? Why? And do you know who said that? The Hon Peeni Henare. See, this is the thing. This is the thing, you see. They hate the fact that, actually, many of their own love the opportunity in charter schools, particularly Māori. They love the choice. They love the opportunity to be able to set their own rules. That is what it’s about. I’d like to say to you all, thank you all very much, and I commend this bill to the House.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Look, I’m going to take a short call on this one. The bill, as we’ve heard, is in three parts. I’m not going to talk about the early childhood education part, but I am going to talk about the other two parts.

First of all is the one about the Secretary of Education being able to get that daily attendance data from schools. That’s really, really important now because we know what’s happened to attendance and we know that our children cannot learn from schools if they’re not actually at the schools. Knowing they’re doing everything that we can to get them to school is the first and most important thing. Actually, we’ve seen a turn-around from the frankly disastrous numbers—and I will come back to those numbers, the frankly disastrous numbers—that we’ve seen over the last few years. We’re starting to see that turn around because we’re taking it seriously. That is really, really important.

The second thing we’ve got to do is make sure we’re teaching the right things in our schools. Again, the Government is doing some great work on that, and I credit Minister for Education, Erica Stanford, for that fantastic leadership that she’s showing there.

The other thing that I want to talk about, though—the third one—is the most prominent one, which we’ve been discussing now: the establishment of charter schools. This has been long signalled. It’s not like it’s a surprise. It’s an election promise that’s been made through the ACT Party, as part of a coalition agreement, and this is a Government—it’s been really great to be able to stand up here time and time again and say this is a Government which is delivering on the promises that we made to the people of New Zealand and which the people of New Zealand voted for. We are delivering on what we said we would do.

To charter schools—they are a recognition that one size doesn’t fit all. As my good colleague Grant McCallum said, it’s about choice—it’s about choice. I don’t think there’s a compulsion to attend a charter school, is there?

Camilla Belich: Yes, there is—if it’s the only school in your area.

ANDY FOSTER: You have to! You have to! OK, well, that’s interesting—yeah, for a few people, maybe. But it’s about choice. It’s about choice. I hear the angst from Labour and some of its supporters around there, because this challenges—

Hon Jan Tinetti: 90 percent of submitters.

ANDY FOSTER: —the existing model which benefits some of those supporters. We’ll hear the unions at the Education and Workforce Committee.

I’ve heard a lot of catastrophising about the charter schools and also, reading the minority report from the select committee, the clear threat from the Labour Party to kneecap charter schools. The question is: what about the parents and the teachers who’ve chosen to go to those charter schools? Don’t they matter? What about those people who’ve chosen to go? They don’t matter, clearly! What happens if they are a raging success?

Actually, Jan Tinetti said that she thinks that they will increase the inequalities. Now, that tends to suggest to me that she thinks they’re going to work—

Hon Jan Tinetti: That’s what it’s done overseas.

ANDY FOSTER: —better than the State system. Give them a chance, I think, is the key message. Give them a chance, and if they’re working—so if they’re working, the Labour Party is saying, “Don’t care if they’re working”—

Simon Court: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d just ask you to reflect on whether it’s appropriate for members to heckle from a seat that’s not their own. I’ve observed a member—Jan Tinetti—heckling from what I believe is a seat that’s not her own. I’d just like to ask you to reflect on that; I’m not an expert on the Standing Orders.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I’m sure—I’ll take advice—but we all swap seats after question time, so I’m not sure that it’s a problem. If it’s a problem, I’ll let you know, but, at this stage, I don’t think it is. Carry on, Andy Foster.

ANDY FOSTER: Thank you for that disruption from my good colleague Simon Court. It was more disruptive than anything that was coming from the other side of the House. Anyway, what we heard is that the Labour Party believes that these things could work—the charter schools could work—they could increase inequalities because they work, and yet they want to kneecap them. That is ideological and nonsensical. It makes no sense whatsoever.

The one thing I do agree with them on is the need to be more transparent. Transparency is really, really important because then you can tell whether something is working and working well.

The final thing I want to say is, look, the Opposition would say that the jury is out on charter schools, but I just want to ask the Opposition to think about where our State school system is at. Our State school system has some real challenges, and, obviously, we’re working to try and fix those.

I just want to finish off with some numbers. In the last five years, under the last administration, the number of staff at the Ministry of Education increased by 36 percent; 1,900 new staff members. You’d think that would generate a fantastic result, but the percentage of students at school in 2022 was 46 percent in term 3. In 2017, that number was 67 percent. It’s dropped by 50 percent. The achievement levels in maths, reading, and writing in 2021—an Education Review Office report found that 40 percent of 15-year-olds were not meeting literacy and numeracy standards for NCEA level 1.

Finally, teacher capabilities in maths—because that obviously is related to that. In 2023, a quarter of New Zealand students were in schools where principals said that they had inadequate or poorly trained teaching staff, up from 16 percent in the previous round of testing in 2018, and that nearly half were in schools that struggled to hire teachers.

My point is that the Labour Party want to kneecap charter schools, and yet the real focus has got to be: give them a chance. If they work better than the State system—and we need to fix the State system as well, after six years of their mismanagement. I commend the bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will say to the member Simon Court, under Speakers’ ruling 65/1, “(1) A member may interject from any seat the member may be occupying at the time, but not while walking about.” Thank you.

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te tuku i ngā kōrero me ngā whakaaro o Te Pāti Māori ki tēnei o ngā pire e kīia nei o te Education and Training Amendment Bill.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker. Greetings to all of us of the House. I stand to offer the statements and opinions of the Māori Party regarding this bill known as the Education and Training Amendment Bill.] 

 I was fortunate enough in the last couple of days to be at Waiwhetū Marae where the 40-year celebration of the Te Māori exhibition took place. The reason I mention it is because the Te Māori exhibition was a seminal watershed moment in the development and reclamation of Māori of their rightful place in our own country. What the Te Māori exhibition forced forward—drove forward—was Māori determination to speak for ourselves in our own country. Subsequent to that came things like kura kaupapa Māori, wharekura, kura-ā-iwi, whare wānanga, and a whole raft of development activities within te iwi Māori, which has largely led to what you would consider to be the space that Māori hold today, which was not there 40 years ago.

I stand here, listening in the main, and having spent 20 years in Māori education, in whare wānanga, in institutes of technology and polytechnics, and most recently in universities. None of this is new—none of this is revolutionary or anything like that—but the thing that really strikes me about the charter schools, the amendments to the Education and Training Amendment Bill, is that you have a Government who are hellbent on standardising education, standard delivery, standardised testing, and these are all ideas that were sort of shuffled out with the last ice age, but they’re determined to make that the pathway forward for education in Aotearoa. In the same breath, from the same Government, you’ve got a small pocket that want bespoke, specialised education delivery for 35 schools out of how many thousands.

Those two positions are juxtaposed—it’s not really hard to see. They’re juxtaposed and it’s not really hard to see. They’re juxtaposed, and it just begs the question, “Why?” Why is it even entertained? Why is the Minister of Education giving away $153 million that she could put in anywhere to improving the central system? Why is she giving away $153 million that she could invest in bespoke schools that already exist, like kura kaupapa Māori, wharekura, or kura-ā-iwi? Why are they not $153 million concerned about the underachievement of young Māori in the mainstream system? Why can they not see that Māori-medium education and kura kaupapa Māori, wharekura, and kura-ā-iwi have been outperforming mainstream delivery of education to Māori for more than 30 years?

I can tell you why they don’t know, because they don’t bother to look. The evidence is lying around everywhere. It’s been championed by Te Rūnanga nui o ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori, by the tribunal for years and years and years, and just consistently ignored. If they were concerned about the whānau who need better education, better access, better everything, then $153 million to Te Rūnanga nui o ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori would be a great start.

Simon Court: I think they can apply.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Thank you to that guy over there.

Simon Court: I think a charter school, they can apply.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: I mean, it defies rational response in any sort of ideal thinking. This guy over here, well, he can keep running his mouth, if he likes. There’s absolutely no recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi or the place of education and the determination Māori have demonstrated over decades, paying for it ourselves—none of that’s considered.

There you have it. I mean, I look forward to the next iteration of the select committees and we’ll see if we can get the old percentage up to 99 percent of people not supporting it, but I doubt that that will matter either when it comes to talking in this place, because that seems to be how it works. But whatever—

Grant McCallum: Democracy.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Oh, yeah, democracy. Good on you, mate—you can count. Ka waihohia ēnei kōrero i konei hei tā-ihutanga mō te motu katoa. Tēnā koe e te Pīka, tēnā tātou. Kāre mātou e paku whakaae ki tēnei pire. [These statements will be left here for the enjoyment of the whole nation. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Greetings to us all. We do not commend this bill at all.]

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my pleasure to stand for this call to represent the Green Party’s strong opposition to this bill. I guess that puts us in the A+ category—as well as the majority of submitters who oppose this bill, the vast, vast majority—because we want to see a well-funded public education system where all students can thrive. What we can see here with the charter schools model, where they’re going to do it their way, is this path leads us to a place where the quality and consistency of education is put at risk, threatening student safety and educational outcomes by permitting unregistered and unqualified people to teach.

This bill will allow charter schools to be reintroduced into Aotearoa with all of those negatives. This is something that we know because we’ve seen it happen. The Government, as we’ve heard, has allocated $153 million for the set-up of an authorisation board and agency. That’s an increased risk to part of our education system being operated for profit rather than for public good and for positive outcomes.

Another part of the bill is the repeal of the network management approval process that was just introduced in 2023. Network approval exists to ensure there is consistency and sufficient checks around the suitability before an early childhood education (ECE) centre is approved, and this would mean the removal of those checks. What about the financial security of any potential ECE operators? It’ll make it so much easier, as we’ve heard, for big global businesses to monopolise and privatise the sector to the detriment not only of teachers but of our students.

Simon Court: You have the State monopolise it, so what’s worse?

SCOTT WILLIS: The State looks after and aims to care for everyone. That’s the big difference here. That’s why the Green Party opposes the Education and Training Amendment Bill and would like to comment here on three aspects: charter schools, ECE network approval, and the overall legislative process.

We’ve got no specific concerns, issues, with the attendance data other than general concerns about how that data would be used. We want to see a well-funded public education system where all students are able to thrive, particularly those with diverse backgrounds. I’ve got to say that my eldest son has dyslexia. We didn’t lack for choice for good schools to send him to. We want all schools to be able to provide for those with diverse backgrounds or various needs, and we strongly oppose the reintroduction of charter schools on the grounds that there is no evidence, either domestically or internationally, that charter schools are a successful model for schooling.

We’ve heard the cherry-picking of evidence, but we know, from the evidence, that there’s no support for this model. Submitters have also raised concerns about the violations of our rights, and we’ve heard about the Chief Ombudsman’s concern that charter schools would be cloaked in secrecy. It was reassuring to hear from Andy Foster that there could be transparency and they want to see transparency, but that is not what this is doing. This is not where charter schools are heading.

We’ve heard about the omissions of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We strongly oppose the repeal of the ECE network process, because considering it was only introduced in 2023, there is not sufficient time to judge whether it has been successful or not.

We’re concerned that while this bill is still progressing through the select committee stage, the Government is already calling for applications for charter schools. They’re putting everything in front. They are not respecting the process. With 90.3 percent of submitters opposing charter schools and 96 percent of submitters opposing the repeal of the ECE network approval, the Government has clearly not listened.

MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Isn’t it great that on this side of the House, we’re intent on making sure we lift outcomes for our young students? Much hard work has already been done by the extremely dedicated, focused, and passionate Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, and the feedback from parents has been overwhelming. I’m delighted that the spotlight has been put on wanting improved educational outcomes for our young people, for the future hopes and dreams of this country rest on their young shoulders as much as ours.

This bill, in the name of the Hon David Seymour, allows for the introduction of charter schools. It has the potential to further lift the bar on those aspirations, and the appetite for participation, as evidenced by the number of schools interested, 78 so far and counting, shows that we’re on the right track to getting educational performance back on track.

This bill also enables rules for State schools about collecting, recording, and providing attendance data. Simply, we want our kids at school. Regarding the early childhood education component of the bill, we’re removing the red tape to make it easier to deliver effective, affordable, and accessible early learning services to families. That is a complete contrast to the other side of the House who would rather spend all of their time working out how to relieve those same people of their income with more taxes. I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just want to mention too, for anyone that was—I was just thinking about what that rumbling was, and it’s actually just the vibrations coming from the building. So it’s not an earthquake or anything like that.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, here we are on the second reading of a bill that would take money out of our public school system, set up an alternative school system, and for what reason? After sitting through the select committee process and hearing 90 percent of the submissions in opposition to this move, I am still not sure.

Now, I want to focus on a couple of things in my contribution today that have arisen since the first reading of this bill. The first is really around some of the allegations that the Associate Minister has made about the relative positions of teachers and students in New Zealand, and the second is around the additional Amendment Paper that the Associate Minister put in just before submissions closed on this bill which took away the rights of teachers at charter schools to be in multi-employer collective agreements (MECA), removing one of their fundamental rights as workers in this country.

First of all, I wanted to address the Associate Minister, and I am noting with disappointment that I’m not able to address this to the Minister in person today. I know it’s a convention that we don’t refer to the absence of members in the House, but I do note also Speaker’s ruling 29/1 that suggests that when the matter is of sufficient importance, it overrides the convention of mentioning that one person’s absence, so I’m relying on that today to say that the Associate Minister in this particular case needed to be here in the House to hear what submitters on this bill said. It is with great disappointment that he is not here to listen to it, because 90 percent of the submissions were opposed to this bill, and some of the things that the Associate Minister is doing in this bill honestly defy logic.

I am very surprised if, in their heart of hearts, the members of the National Party sitting opposite actually believe that this is a good thing. They have their primary Minister of Education not wanting to speak to this. Why? Because they don’t agree with it. Because it’s a bad idea. Because we’ve got one Minister, on one hand, as other members have commented on, saying, “Structured literacy. Structured maths. No phones in schools.”, and on the other hand, “No teachers. No structured literacy. No maths. Whatever phones you like. We don’t know—totally unstructured.” It is illogical. The entire premise of this bill defies logic and will be damaging to New Zealand’s education system.

We heard in the Education and Workforce Committee that it will be damaging for a generation of children that are caught up in these charter schools. We heard evidence from other countries who had these charter schools to say that it takes literally an entire generation to get over the detriment that some of these schools pass.

The point I wanted to make around the Associate Minister and some of the things he has said around teachers and students—he has said that we care only about teachers; we don’t care about students. Now, I don’t know whether he thinks New Zealanders are stupid, but we all know that parents want to have teachers who are satisfied in their work. We want teachers to be happy, well remunerated, and we want them to be in a good place to be able to teach our children. There is no “us” and “them” when it comes to teachers and students; their interests are one and the same. His constant remarks around the fact that unions want certain things and they’re only for teachers are offensive and blatantly wrong, and I think New Zealanders know better than to listen to that type of division once again from this Minister within this country.

Now, very importantly, in this bill, the Minister has taken away a right that applies to every other employee in this country, and that is the right to, if they want to, join a union, and if all of those other union members at that particular organisation also want to, and the employer wants to, enter into a multi-employer collective agreement. This is something which is in our Employment Relations Act. It applies to everyone. It is also consistent with a lot of our international obligations which are recorded in our domestic legislation.

This Minister has decided unilaterally, as far as I can see, and in the advice he received, there were a number of options on what he could do in relation to this. The one he went with is called “The Associate Minister of Education’s proposed option”, so he has thought about this himself. He has put this into this bill, and the reason he has done it is because he wants to attack teachers and he wants to attack the unions. Now, he has told us the reason that he is doing it.

Simon Court: We don’t care about them; we care about the children and their learning.

CAMILLA BELICH: Well, that’s exactly my point, Mr Court—that is exactly my point. The interests of children and teachers are the same. These children and teachers are the same. There is not a teacher in this country that gets into teaching because they want to be in opposition to students; they get into teaching to help students—for the children. It doesn’t even deserve a response. It’s so obvious that teachers are in there to look after students. Honestly, I think some of these other members should listen to those comments and just have a bit of a reflection on whether that’s really who you want to be associated with.

Anyway, the MECA opt-out that the Associate Minister has proposed takes away fundamental rights, and we were concerned about this. I questioned the Associate Minister at select committee about this particular issue. Before I had read any advice, I asked him, “Have you received advice on this?” He said that, yes, he had. He said that he wasn’t concerned about breaching not only our international obligations to the International Labour Organization (ILO) but our international trade agreements—and I hope people are listening to this—from the UK and the EU which protect and maintain workers’ rights and require us to promote them.

I was concerned about this. I asked him. He said he didn’t mind. He didn’t care. He was not concerned about that. He thought people could take in a complaint, but he wasn’t too overly bothered about it. The next day, helpfully, we got a document which said exactly what I was concerned about. It said, and I’ll quote from our report, “There is a strong misalignment with the ILO obligations and it creates a significant restrictions on parties’ ability to bargain freely. If a complaint were brought to the ILO, it’s likely the ILO would confirm the misalignment.” This is his advice.

It also said in relation to trade agreements, “The European Union and UK trade agreements require parties to respect, promote and realise the fundamental rights at work and in the ILO fundamental conventions. In light of the above assessment, it follows the option is also likely to breach some of our binding FTA obligations.” There we have it. It breaches our commitments internationally. It takes rights away from our teachers. So why are we doing it? Why are we deciding to take rights away when it can jeopardise our trade agreements, which we know are so important to our producers, to our farmers, to our manufacturers in New Zealand? Why would we put this at risk for something that has obviously come from ideological opposition to the rights of unions?

Now, even his arguments in response to my questioning around the reason he didn’t want MECA provisions in schools do not make sense. If there is a multi-employer collective agreement, you can opt out of that by not being a member of the union and you can have a separate agreement with your employer, so this logic that somehow charter schools won’t be able to employ the best person because there’s a multi-employer collective agreement simply does not make sense. None of it makes sense at all. It is an attack on our fundamental rights, it is a risk to our international reputation, and it is something which I am disappointed the Associate Minister is not here in the House to answer to.

We will continue to oppose this bill, and I would ask members opposite, those in coalition with the ACT Party—that wants to see these schools in place by 2025 after having a three-month consultation period at select committee—whether this is really what you want to see for the future of our country and our children: institutions that you have no control over, no teachers, no scrutiny of what they’re taught, they don’t have to teach the curriculum, no control, and a situation where, if there is only one school in your area and David Seymour decides that that school should be a charter school and invites you to apply to become a charter school, then your child has no option, if they’re zoned for it, but to attend a charter school. That might not be what you want; you might actually want your child to be taught by teachers, which I think is reasonable, and the New Zealand Curriculum. This takes away choice. It is a bad bill, and I do not commend it to the House.

NANCY LU (National): I rise to support the second reading of the Education and Training Amendment Bill, because unlike the Opposition, they said it’s not making sense, but it’s making a whole lot of sense to me. I read the bill, I’ve read a lot of the news, I’ve read feedback, I’ve read comments, and it makes a whole lot of sense for me, because you know what? I am also a mother of young children. I’ve been thinking hard and long about the education of my children. And guess what? I stood for office. I ran in the election because I wanted the better future for my two children.

This bill is about giving more choices and options for parents, for teachers, for schools, and for children to find the best for what they have. As a young mother of two children who are going through early childhood education (ECE) at the moment, I have to say I am so pleased to hear, particularly from the first speaker on this bill, the decisions to be made by the people who invest, who take risks, decisions for parents who send their children to ECE. It is not for bureaucracies to make those decisions. That is exactly the principle behind setting up charter schools. It is for parents to choose what suits them the best. For that, I commend this bill to the House.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana, Madam Speaker. I rise in opposition to this bill. I was not a member of the Education and Workforce Committee; however, I have read the committee’s report and I take up the comments that have been made by colleagues about this being a rushed process in terms of the time that was allotted to consider this bill. There are three components, and I want to focus my contribution this afternoon on the area of education, largely, because we all know that, actually, charter schools have been around for some time, but we also know that they are a failed experiment. They are an absolute failed experiment. We’ve heard, already, members opposite talk about the views of the Hon Willie Jackson, the views of the Hon Peeni Henare. Well, I can confirm that they are opposed to this particular bill. Members opposite can say whatever they like, but the reality remains that those two members will vote in opposition to this particular bill. This is a failed experiment and it did not work.

This is being advanced by the Government, and specifically by the Associate Minister of Education, who is responsible—a Minister who has a one-track mind when it comes to this piece of legislation. If we step back and have a look at the horrors, the disappointment that will be inflicted upon communities all around this country as a result of this bill, there are many things that we can talk about. I’m going to touch on a few. This issue of charter schools being reintroduced, legitimised as an option, into communities means that teachers can, basically, teach whatever they want. They can teach whatever they want. Where there have been specific moves to ensure that, actually, our tamariki, our ākonga that are coming through the various learning establishments in this country, have a real strong foundation about New Zealand history, about the New Zealand context, about what is appropriate, about what it means to live in Aotearoa New Zealand—that is something that this particular Minister simply wants to undo.

It’s also a particular opportunity that doesn’t mean that any registered teachers necessarily need to be involved in this. Now—

Hon Jan Tinetti: Shocking.

TANGI UTIKERE: It is shocking. As someone who was a registered teacher for quite some time, I know that being a teacher brings obligations. Certainly, it brings opportunities. The reason why all teachers in this country get involved is because of a love of learning, a passion for young people, ensuring that, actually, you can get the best out of them as they go about their schooling life. Making sure that there is a minimum standard around what is a code of conduct—what is a minimum standard that families, when they send someone off to a learning centre, whatever that might be, can expect from the adults and the practitioners that are there spending time with them during the day—is actually not too much to ask. It’s something that exists in our public education sector and something that we should all value.

This is a Minister, this is a Government, that simply wants to wipe that aside and say it’s all right, actually, as long as someone is going to be in a learning environment who wants to teach anything. It doesn’t matter if they’re not registered, it doesn’t matter if they sign up to a particular code of professional responsibility, because this is something that is going to benefit the deep, big pockets of corporates. That is going to be the winner, at the end of the day, in terms of charter schools. It’s going to be the corporates, it’s going to be those that are going to make profit rather than actually get anything out of the learning opportunities that are so important for the tamariki of this future. That is absolutely appalling—an appalling position. This is a Government that is signalling to not just New Zealand but to the rest of the world that that’s OK, that we’re all right with that. Well, members on this side of the House are not all right with that, and we will continue to be opposed to that.

The important thing is that the public education system is there for everyone. In order for it to do its job, it needs to be resourced. This move to allowing charter schools will, basically, strip out more than $150 million that could otherwise be utilised for the State sector. It could be utilised for a continuation of the healthy lunches in schools programme—many members all around the House will see the significant success that that has created and supported in their communities. It would continue, at the expense of charter schools. Or building projects could be continued. This is a Government and a Minister that simply has its priorities in all the wrong places. Now, I know my colleague has referred to the fact that the Minister was not here today—he’s in Palmerston North. I hope that he gets the same experience as when he went to talk about attendance in other schools, and that is one that is not supportive of this bill—

Hon Casey Costello: Point of order. This was raised as—you know, members have previously talked about a member, commenting on their absence. There was a strong case put forward previously as why that was important, to comment. I think we’ve gone way past that, and I think the member should reconsider that.

TANGI UTIKERE: Speaking to the point of order, my colleague Camilla Belich identified and relied on Speakers’ ruling 29/1, which simply indicated that the significance of this issue being progressed by the House at the moment—the convention would be that that particular issue is set aside, given the gravity of what is being passed. Now, that was not challenged at the time—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I accepted that, at the time, and I accept that the member has spoken to the fact that the Minister’s not here and where he is. And you’re expecting, in relation to this bill, the feedback that he’s getting?

TANGI UTIKERE: Correct.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Right, so if we could just finish that line, and then we’ll move back to the bill.

TANGI UTIKERE: Thank you.

Simon Court: Madam Speaker, further point of order. I think the line that the member was going down when describing another member—the reception that they received the last time they were in Palmerston North, hoping it would happen again—I do think, when we reflect on the circumstances, where a member of Parliament was put in a situation where they might have been at physical risk, and this member in the House is suggesting it would be good if that could happen again—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, I—

Simon Court: Madam Speaker, I’d just like to finish. I’d just like to reflect that making statements like that might bring disorder to the House and—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don’t think that that was the intention of the member who was speaking. The member was just hoping that the Minister was going to get some messages that were portraying his message that he’s speaking about now, which he’s going to carry on with.

TANGI UTIKERE: And, Madam Speaker, I hope that the Minister does receive a reception that indicates a very strong message that this is not the direction that this Government should be hitting on.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This is a great piece of legislation. It’s a great day for New Zealand. And, particularly, one of the things that I really looked at when I saw how many people had applied to have charter schools in New Zealand—and they had exceeded the demand on offer, and there were 78 applications already to open new charter schools or to convert existing State schools to charter schools. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you, Madam Speaker. After sitting through the submissions, the advice from officials, and the debate about this charter schools bill, my conclusion is that this is a very expensive, taxpayer-funded lab experiment in the privatisation, the de-unionisation, and the dumbing down of our education system. I say for the folks at home who are watching that $153 million of your taxes is being spent on this weird ideological experiment of the ACT party. That is $153 million that could be spent on the things that our schools desperately need.

There is not a school in this country that is not crying out for more teacher hours, teacher-aides, and learning support coordinators to help them deal with the large number of kids showing up to school these days with learning challenges and neurodiverse learning needs. The money could be spent on something really worthwhile like that, but it is actually being blown on this strange ideological experiment.

This bill sits alongside the divisive and nasty and undemocratic Treaty principles bill that the ACT Party has brought to this Parliament, alongside making military-style semi-automatic weapons more accessible in our communities. These projects are the price of ACT’s 8 percent of the vote in the last election being delivered to the National Party coalition, but it is the people of New Zealand that are paying the price because of this nutty fringe stuff that the ACT Party are bringing to the House with the connivance of the National Party. In spite of the juvenile hooting and hollering that we’ve seen from the National Party benches during this debate, I actually don’t think that they care very much for this legislation. It’s all superficial political stuff. They don’t really care for it.

The reason I say that is the National Party’s education Minister has a completely different approach to the portfolio than David Seymour. All of the policies and all of Erica Stanford’s public statements have been about the need to impose more a uniform structure and discipline on the public schooling system. It’s all there in black and white. All of the initiatives that have been announced have been about the Minister demanding compliance from our school system with the dictates of this Government, whether it’s structured literacy, structured maths, or no cell phones in schools. But somehow it’s OK that this bill carves out a privatised part of our public education system and says to those schools, “Don’t worry; you don’t have to employ teachers that have had any training, any certification. You don’t have to actually teach the curriculum. Do whatever you like.” And, by the way, there’s $153 million of taxpayers’ money and no public scrutiny or accountability through the Official Information Act. How can that possibly be justified?

I ask the members on that side of the House: where are your principles? Where is your commitment to good governance? Was 8 percent of the vote enough to make you sell them down the river? That’s what you’ve done—$153 million, no public accountability, and these schools can be run for private profit, extracting a surplus from our communities, from the teachers of our students, that won’t actually be reinvested back into our education system but will go into the pockets of the people running these private schools. Now, I can see from the members opposite that they don’t really believe in this bill, they don’t believe in this policy, but they are simply going along with it for political expediency.

I’m very glad that my colleagues Jan Tinetti and Camilla Belich have spoken so eloquently this afternoon, critiquing this bill—not only the education aspect but also the shameful taking away of the human rights of our teachers in contravention of the commitments that this country made internationally at the International Labour Organization and in our trade agreements with the EU and the UK. This Government, for political expediency, is prepared to ride roughshod over those commitments and deny teachers fundamental human rights to bargain collectively, in this case through multi-employer collective agreements. It’s absolutely shameful.

The thing that should really depress the members opposite is that fact that there is not a skerrick of evidence to support the political claims that are at the basis of this bill. It is not so much evidence-based policy making; it is policy-based evidence making. There is no evidence to support the suggestion in this bill that the charter school model will give more flexibility to schools and somehow improve educational achievement. It won’t, and we heard at the select committee that one of New Zealand’s most celebrated educational researchers, John Hattie, wrote that it’s ironic that a popular solution to claims about failing schools is to invent new forms of schools. Given that the variance in student achievement between schools is small relative to the variance within schools, it is folly to believe that a solution lies in different forms of schools.

The evidence that we heard at the select committee went on to say that there is little evidence that policies aimed at increasing school choice make any meaningful difference to aggregate student achievement. It’s all there—most of it in peer-reviewed OECD data. There is no evidential basis for the claims that the Government and the Associate Minister have been making.

We also heard at the select committee that Sweden had a 30-year experiment with charter schools and it has been declared a system failure by the Swedish Minister for Education, because it’s contributed to growing inequality within the Swedish schooling system and considerable dissatisfaction of parents. What is more, the Ministry of Education’s own analysis of the last time charter schools were imposed on New Zealand students and their families, between 2014 and 2018, and the ministry’s own report say that there was no quantifiable increase in student achievement attributable to charter schools during that time.

It’s a very, very strange inconsistency that this Government is willing, in every other piece of its education policy, to impose structure and dictate to schools what they should do but in this instance, this weird ideological experiment, they are prepared to throw all the evidence out the window and allow the ACT party to have this $153 million indulgence at the expense of our students and their learning opportunities.

The main innovation that the charter school experiment offers is governance. There is no suggestion that there’s any evidence that will actually offer any innovation or change that will make a difference to learning outcomes. How is the governance of a school, or its employment relations policies, going to improve the learning outcomes of our students? It is very, very weird.

Instead of going ahead with this bill, it’s our view that they should throw this bill out now, or in the committee stage, and, instead, address the core issues that our public education system is dealing with. No one is suggesting that New Zealand’s public education system is perfect. We all know it has challenges. Most of those challenges are actually due to a lack of funding. There is clearly a problem of underachievement among many of our students, and particularly Māori and Pasifika students are struggling. We need as a country to find ways to address that underachievement and help those young people do well in our education system, but this bill offers nothing to do that. Instead, it is a weird and expensive ideological experiment. It should not proceed

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): I’m really pleased to be able to wrap this second reading up on behalf of the Government. As the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, I’d really like to firstly acknowledge the work of the committee. Contrary to how it might sound, actually this committee heard people, they listened carefully, they made some smart amendments, they asked insightful questions of officials, and they worked through realistic changes. I want to thank the committee for their work on this, and I want to thank members, particularly on the Government side, for their views this afternoon.

Firstly, I just want to address the misrepresentation of members of this party from the other side. To say that we don’t truly believe in this is nothing other than rubbish. Actually, charter schools—and no solution in education is a silver bullet—are centres of innovation, and they give people chance, they give people choice where the current system does not work for them. And you know what? I hear from people around the country and especially around my electorate in Napier who want a different option. And if we gave charter schools a chance when we brought them in last time, we wouldn’t be sitting here calling them an experiment, again; we would have seen the results, and we would have seen what they have done.

I just want to acknowledge my good friend Greg Fleming and a colleague of his who has done his PhD in the outcomes of charter schools. He has studied at the Australian National University in Canberra, and he has brought that knowledge back to New Zealand, and there is proof that they are brilliant institutions of innovation that do things differently. Of course, it’s not going to be the same as the State school system, because that’s the point. They are different. Otherwise, why would we be bringing this choice in? So, with that, I am pleased to say that at the second reading, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee by majority be agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 49

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Tana.

Amendments agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 49

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 14; Tana.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2)

First Reading

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): I present a legislative statement on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2).

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

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: I move, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 October 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Youth vaping in New Zealand is too high, and the Government is focused on changing the regulatory settings to better protect our young people. The Government is also committed to reducing smoking rates and ensuring that people have the practical tools and support to quit smoking, including access to vapes. The vaping reforms proposed in this bill sit within the Government’s commitment to achieving the smoke-free 2025 goals.

Many people have switched from smoking to vaping. That has been a contributing factor to recent rapid reductions in smoking rates, with nearly 230,000 people quitting smoking in the last three years. We are committed to sustaining that momentum, and vapes must continue to be available as a cessation tool for adult smokers. However, the number of young people vaping remains a concern. Vapes should not be targeted towards children and young people, and they certainly shouldn’t be sold to them.

That is what this bill aims to stop. The bill makes four main changes to tackle youth vaping. Firstly, it bans the manufacture, sale, supply, and distribution of disposable vapes. Disposable vapes are disproportionately used by children and young people. Banning disposable vapes will ensure the vape products that have been targeted at young people and that are the most popular among this group are removed from the New Zealand retail market. This Government is committed to removing disposables as a way to deter young people from vaping. As a consequence, we have taken a strong position on the products that will be banned under this bill. I want to re-emphasise, however, that we want legislation that works. I’d repeat again: we want legislation that works, that works to protect young people, and that allows access to effective vaping products to help smokers quit. It will be important that those with an interest in both areas, including the stop-smoking services, engage with the select committee process.

The second feature of the bill is that it increases penalties for unlawful sale of regulated products to minors. It is apparent that the current penalty levels for breaching the prohibition on selling to minors are not a sufficiently strong deterrent compared to the potential gains for non-compliance, and this has been coupled with low levels of enforcement capability.

The Government is significantly increasing the penalties for illegal sales of vaping, tobacco, and other regulated products to our young people. The maximum fine for selling vapes or other regulated products to under-18s will increase from $10,000 to $100,000. The penalty for infringement offences will rise from $500 to $1,000 for individuals and to $2,000 for businesses. Compliance activities should be targeted at businesses that are non-compliant, not the young shop assistants who often get caught in the middle. These tougher penalties will be backed by a far greater enforcement capability, with 16 dedicated smoking and vaping officers to be in place by December.

The third change the bill introduces is imposing retail visibility restrictions for vaping products. We have all seen the way vape shops display, and it is likely that the marketing and visibility of vaping products has contributed to youth uptake due to the normalisation of vaping, instead of vaping being seen as a harm reduction tool for people who smoke. The Government’s approach is to ensure vapes are not publicly displayed in a manner that appears to be targeting youth. This means that they will not be allowed to be visible from outside specialist vape retailers and inside stores that people under the age of 18 are allowed to enter, such as dairies, supermarkets, and petrol stations. Additionally for those stores with websites, online advertising will be restricted to a list of names and prices.

Additionally, finally, the bill includes early childhood education centres in the proximity restrictions for specialist vape retailers. For those applying to set up a specialist vape retail store, this means that in addition to it needing to be at least 300 metres from a marae and a school, new applications will also need the store to be at least 100 metres from an early childhood education centre (ECE). With nearly 4,500 ECEs around New Zealand, this will further restrict the places specialist vape retailers can establish.

The Government is committed to achieving smoke-free 2025 and to reducing youth vaping. This bill represents the first tranche of Government changes to ensure we have the right settings to protect our young people from vaping whilst continuing to support adult smokers to quit by maintaining access to vapes as a smoking cessation tool. The select committee process is important for ensuring we maintain the excellent progress in reducing smoking rates. This bill needs to progress now so that the changes I believe will have significant impact on reducing vaping come into force as soon as possible.

In the second tranche of work I’m considering ways to strengthen how we regulate smoked tobacco, vaping, and other nicotine products. This includes licensing schemes, how regulations are balanced between products, and the role of alternative products to smoking. Alongside this legislative-focused work, smoking cessation services will remain a crucial part of our efforts to achieve smoke-free 2025. I want to see improved support for our young people to stop vaping.

There has been a lot of noise in this space, which has been distracting from sensible conversations about the work that we want to achieve. This bill is another important step in New Zealand vaping regulation that is necessary to protect children and young people and is part of the Government’s commitment to doing so. I look forward to the Health Committee’s consideration of the bill and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

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

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Well, there has been a lot of noise in this space, because New Zealanders want to have our smoke-free generation back. We want to have our young people protected and supported by independent governance and decision-making, not by—pardon the pun—the smoke and mirrors that is coming from the other side, from Ministers who have talked about nicotine being as harmful as caffeine, from Ministers who have cut the tax on heated tobacco products by 50 percent, from Ministers who have stretched out the smoke-free goal for our country that was set by the National Government in 2011, from 2025—so close—to now 2061, as a direct result of the actions that they have taken to make sure that they support their big tobacco friends; from Ministers who have failed to tell their Cabinet colleagues about the $46 billion that the smoke-free generation and the Labour Government’s policies would have resulted in had they not come along and wiped them all away. And we are now expected to swallow the excuse that they want to move and truncate this select committee process forward because they’re committed to smoke-free and to supporting our young people. Well, all I can say to that is, “Yeah, right.”

We will support this bill, and it is very cautiously, because it is at best an incremental bill, but that caution, which was a big toe in the right direction, is now a nail on the big toe in the right direction, because this bill does not go far enough to support our young people. We know that vaping is less harmful than nicotine, but it is still harmful. We know that 5,000 people per year in New Zealand die from smoking and that there are still 330,000 smokers in New Zealand. Yes, we do want to support them from getting off cigarettes, but we need more effective regulations. We need more implementation and more effective monitoring, and, most of all, we need population measures that move the distribution of the focus of smoke-free and vape-free New Zealand, rather than simply targeting the high end. There is a wealth of evidence that the Health Committee has received lately from excellent researchers such as ASPIRE Aotearoa and also Vape-Free Kids New Zealand, which shows that distribution measures are far more effective in achieving the things that the Associate Minister of Health says she wants to achieve.

I would also like to acknowledge the mental health element of this, as the mental health spokesperson for the Opposition. Young people have described to our committee the predatory environment of the vaping companies. What we see in this bill are a few fiddles around the edges to make it look like this Government is committed to doing something. We know there are a whole lot of organisations out there who are passionately interested in this, who want to share their thoughts, their evidence, and their experience, and the Minister has just told us this afternoon that they’re probably not going to have much chance to do that because of the truncated process.

There are many things to do with the restrictions that we could include, but I want to focus my comments about enforcement, because the committee heard evidence that, in the last two years, there has only been one prosecution for a vape retailer that has sold to youth. The Vaping Industry Association New Zealand has given us an excellent submission about the conflicting advice that it has received from the Ministry of Health on how to understand the regulation, so there needs to be a simplification around that. We need to see much more powerful enforcement processes, such as being able to seize illegal vape products or perhaps issue instant fines. I’m sure these are the types of submissions that we would hear in the select committee if people had enough time to be heard, but I find it really rich to take on board that this Government is truly committed to helping our kids get off vapes. We’ve seen the mental health harm that it causes. We have seen and heard their anxiety about vaping. They really want to be free of this, and this piece of legislation doesn’t go nearly far enough.

So, while we are cautiously supporting the bill, we’re deeply disappointed at the truncated select committee period. We’re deeply disappointed that we were only told about that this afternoon, and I would invite everybody watching or listening to this debate to think very carefully about what the motivations of this Government are when it comes to giving tax cuts to tobacco companies and introducing incremental, fiddly-biddly little bills like this one that don’t go nearly far enough.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. I stand on behalf of the Green Party to speak to the first reading of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2), and we also cautiously support this bill to select committee as well.

To line out some of the reasoning for that—and, of course, broadly speaking, this bill is looking at not necessarily limiting the number of people who would vape but what we are doing is banning the manufacturing, sale, supply, and distribution of disposable vapes, not necessarily non-disposable vapes. But there are also other elements of this which are really important in catching up to the existing legislation around the display of products—the display of tobacco products is visible from a store window etc.—and now it is going to be applicable here to vaping products as well. The bill is tidying up other areas such as not allowing to sell vaping products to under-18-year-olds, which is incredibly important, but also including some of the early childhood education centre elements in terms of proximity restrictions.

For this bill, there are definitely concerns on top of that. I mentioned one of the concerns already, which is although this puts a ban on disposable vapes—which is a step in the right direction—it doesn’t ban or limit non-disposable vapes. For one, it doesn’t limit the number of retailers who potentially will be selling vaping products, which is, I would assume, contributing to the broader target of a smoke-free Aotearoa. Now, the other thing that we see is that when we are looking at some of these alternatives such as vape or even HTPs, heated tobacco products, often it is being portrayed as a way of reducing or moving people away from smoking cigarettes or smoking tobacco.

However, what we have seen in some of the latest data is that a lot of people who do take up vaping have never smoked before. We have seen an increase in terms of young people who take up vaping, and the problem with that is we simply do not know some of the long-term impacts when it comes to vaping. One of the particular areas that may not be immediately obvious is the interaction between flavouring and health concerns. This is something that has been highlighted to us recently: that certain flavouring, when heated, may produce or may create certain effects in our body—some of which may be considered carcinogenic. There’s still a lot more work that needs to be done in this area when we’re looking at the long-term effect to our health when it comes to vaping.

Now, looking at some of the other elements that we’re looking at here as well is that when we look at the first Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill, we were incredibly disappointed at some of the moving away of our target when it comes to achieving smoke-free Aotearoa. Most recently, we have also seen similar moves when it comes to HTPs and heated tobacco products as well. I think, in general, what we would like to see is that the Government is going to take a really bold and visionary plan when it comes to achieving a smoke-free Aotearoa, regardless of if it is going to be cigarette tobacco, regardless of if it’s going to be heated tobacco products, regardless of if it’s going to be vapes, and take a more holistic approach and a more long-term approach when we’re looking at these health effects.

I’m really hoping that when this particular bill goes to the select committee, we will be able to hear from the public and from the health experts about some of these concerns. I would really hope, as part of that—and I genuinely do hope this—that we are able to potentially expand the remit or expand the boundaries of this amendment bill to a much broader context that includes some of the other things I mentioned, such as limiting the number of retailers and such as looking at some of the restrictions around non-disposable vaping products as well.

SIMON COURT (ACT): The problem that vaping tries to assist us in solving is that smoking kills and makes people sick, and vaping is a much healthier alternative. The research shows that nicotine is no more harmful than caffeine, but cigarette tar is very harmful, and that’s why vaping or inhaling water vapour is a much preferable alternative to smoking cigarettes.

The problem this bill tries to solve is that parents and principals have told us that they do not want to see children and young people having access to vaping and that they want the Government to take action to make it far harder to access those products and that the penalties should be significantly increased. That’s what this bill intends to do, to increase the penalties for selling these regulated products—vapes—to minors, to reflect the seriousness of that offence, and to reduce the visibility in access of vaping products to children and young people.

This bill will remove products from the market that have been particularly attractive to young people, and it will amend the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act by banning the manufacture, sale, supply, and distribution of disposable vapes; increasing penalties; and including early childhood education centres in the proximity restrictions for specialty retailers.

The benefits of this policy and legislative change is that vapes will still be widely available for those people who choose to use them, who are adults, 18 and over, in order to reduce the harm that smoking causes them, but they will not be widely available to children and young people, and that is what this bill aims to achieve. ACT is proud to support this bill. Congratulations, Minister.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): It gives me great pleasure to stand and support this bill. It has, really, some key, strong objectives, and that is to remove vaping products that are popular with young people from the market, noting that part of the appeal of these products to youth is that they’re inexpensive, brightly coloured, and easy to conceal. The second thing is to improve the retail compliance with the existing prohibition on sales to minors. If no action is taken, it is likely that these cheap, disposable vaping products will continue to find their way into the hands of young people. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill): I rise in this House this afternoon to support this bill as a small step in the right direction towards reducing the harmful impact of vaping.

Last week, I hosted Mount Roskill’s first youth vaping awareness seminar. More than 60 concerned parents and community members came together to listen to the seminar and raise their concerns. Teachers, parents, and principals are genuinely concerned about the numbers of young people vaping or having access to vapes. We believe that this bill will help us to make it harder for, in particular, young people to access vapes.

For me, I’m looking forward to seeing this bill go through the Health Committee process. I’m looking forward to hearing further suggestions, to ensure we do everything we reasonably can to reduce youth vaping.

Finally, I look forward to a day where I no longer hear from the parents of an eight-year-old that their child is vaping. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I think about the changes that have been made with respect to smoking in this country, and one needs only to look into one’s own House to see just how far we’ve come. When I say, “one’s own House”, I don’t mean my personal house or my whānau; I actually mean Parliament.

Once upon a time, you could smoke in Parliament and in fact, our Grand Hall used to be the billiard room. For our members back in the day, and when my great-grandfather was here as an MP, they’d file out the door when the bells rang and they’d pop into the billiard room, have a smoke, crack a brandy. In fact, it was so bad that there was a thick, yellow stain at the top. There was a ring around the room, because that’s just how much people smoked. That’s the harmful impact of tobacco. It was clear for everybody to see, yet they still did it. That’s the point we’re making here about vaping.

I can tell you, after having spent a week on the marae at Tūrangawaewae, it felt like at some point in time you were in Rotorua, because it looked like geysers all across the street as people vaped. You walk along and you’re walking behind somebody and you don’t get washed with a plume of smoke anymore; you get washed with a plume of vapour that smells like bubble gum or it smells like blueberry or it smells like peaches.

While that might be appealing to some, simply saying that it’s just water vapour, when the science hasn’t fully shown the true impact of vaping right around the world—and in fact, you only need a quick Google search or to read some of the more in-depth research that’s coming out of Otago at the moment showing the impact of vaping on lungs. The point we’re making on this side of the House is: why don’t we do this and do it properly? Why don’t we go all the way? Why don’t we wash the tobacco stain that’s on the wall of this House off for ever and get it done? This is the opportunity to do it and we’re not quite doing it.

I can say that as we look across the country—and I, for one, in Auckland celebrated very recently, as the LAPs, or the local alcohol policies, in Auckland have finally recognised that there are far too many alcohol stores in South Auckland—let’s actually change the settings and the plan to make sure that we’re not opening more closer to schools in poorer socio-economic communities. Finally, after 15, maybe 20 years since the well-intended start of those LAPs came in, we have sense in Auckland around alcohol. Well, we’re looking to do the same with vaping, so why don’t we go harder?

If I think of a little place in the Far North, where I come from, a place called Pānguru—a beautiful place, by the way. Everyone in the House who quotes Dame Whina Cooper, that’s where she’s from. If you go to Pānguru, on the one street within a 300-metre stretch is the school, the marae, the kōhanga reo, and the only shop for miles. What does that mean? With all the well-intended things about saying, “Let’s stop Māoris from smoking. Let’s give them the opportunity to vape.”—OK, so then what are these people going to do? Why isn’t this clearer? Why can’t we just go all out and do it properly, make sure that we’re not just simply supporting more bad behaviour?

Smokers will tell you that it isn’t just the addiction to nicotine; it’s the habitual addiction of the hand to the mouth. And guess what happens! You still do the same when you vape. That’s the problem we have here. We need to make sure that we stop this from getting into the hands of our young people. So, while I appreciate that in this particular bill there are harsh penalties for those that break these rules—yep, I’m OK with that—what we’re not doing is actually sending a clear message to families in New Zealand that smoking is no good—

Simon Court: It’s not about smoking; it’s about vaping.

Hon PEENI HENARE: That smoking and vaping are no good, Mr Simon Court. It’s no good, and simply saying it’s water vapour is absolute garbage. A simple Google search will show the impact of vaping on lungs, and we’re doing that to our young people.

All of us come to this place to make sure that we can make positive changes. I urge, as this bill continues to progress, let’s make sure we beef it up. Let’s make sure we go all the way. That’s something we can all buy into, and let’s make that happen. Let’s show this country a very clear pathway and a commitment to making sure that we are smoke-free very soon.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s really great to speak in support of this bill—it’s making some four pragmatic and reasonable changes. It’s banning the manufacture, sale, supply, and distribution of disposable vapes; increasing penalties for unlawful sales of regulated products to minors; imposing retail visibility restrictions for vaping products, including early childhood education centres; and proximity restrictions for specialist vape retailers. This is good for the safety of the New Zealand public. This is good for our next generations that are coming through. I commend it to the House.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Kia orana, Mr Speaker. At this stage, we’ll lend our tentative support to this bill clearing the first reading hurdle, but it is disappointing to hear the possibility that this will be subjected to a truncated select committee process. We will leave that to the Minister to move that if that’s what she desires, and we’ll deal with that when we have an opportunity to share our views around the House on that.

It is interesting though, when I look at the content of this bill that’s been introduced, it does seem to be at odds, actually, with the approach that the Government had taken and its response to, effectively, cancelling a smoke-free generation. That’s what the members on that side of the House did previously, and within their first 100 days, they went about effectively dismantling that opportunity for the first time in New Zealand’s history to have a smoke-free generation coming through the ranks. It is a little bit ironic and misplaced that we are considering a bill that has a number of measures that seem to be at odds with the approach that this track record for this Government has adopted to date.

When the smoke-free generation legislation was before the Parliament last year, I had the privilege of being the chair of the Health Committee at the time. As I have a look through this bill that’s currently in front of us, many of the issues that are contained in them, and then some, were front and centre for the committee at the time as they were considering a number of things.

My colleague the Hon Peeni Henare has talked about experiences that I’m sure all of us have had, if not in our own families, in our own communities. I think about the invitation that some vaping products do actually share towards younger generations, things like candy floss, things like unicorn milk. Now, who wants that?

Hon Member: Bubble gum.

TANGI UTIKERE: I mean, who is that appealing to? It’s very clear that it is appealing to our rangatahi, a younger—

Simon Court: What?

TANGI UTIKERE: What’s that, Mr Court? You didn’t hear it? I said “unicorn milk” and “candy floss”. My colleague says “Bubble gum”—those sorts of things like ACT Party gospel and vision.

These are the sorts of things that did come up, and it’s interesting that this is a bill that seeks to touch on an issue that is so important to communities all around this country, so important to the rangatahi in electorates all around the country. I think of Manukura in the last term when I visited more than once to talk about what the issues are that matter most to them. Top of the list was vaping—access to vaping and the pressures that they received from peers around the need to do that. It was very difficult, actually, for many to stand up and say, “Actually, it’s so easy to resist that urge.” That’s not the experience. That’s not the case.

It is important that as this bill progresses beyond first reading, we hear from those very people who want to share their experiences and their views with us. This bill will look at their regulatory framework but, more specifically, try and, I guess, tackle some of the issues that are really important in terms of protecting our rangatahi and our young people—things like banning some aspects of disposable vapes, not the non-disposable type, but the proposed action around disposable vapes; things like a new penalty regime that would introduce some changes that would basically toughen up some of the penalties as they apply to those that would be responsible for sale and supply or manufacturing and the like.

Also a really important aspect is the whole visibility thing. We all have places in our own communities, I’m sure, where we walk past and it’s an out of sight sort of place—ensuring that those particular venues and locations are not actually placed in sensitive areas. And one of the good things about this bill is it seeks to introduce early childhood education (ECE) centres as part of that “sensitive” definition. Actually, it’s one good thing that this Government is actually doing for the ECE sector. You know, we’ve already heard today that they’re clearly doing everything else. It’s one; it’s not enough, but it is a start. It is ensuring that early childhood education centres are part of the consideration as to where particular retailers would not be able to be based. It’s very similar, actually, to the approach to sensitive sites for alcohol. There are many comparisons, and, as we dealt with this in the last Parliament, we heard from those that made some direct comparisons with alcohol.

There are some components of this bill that are very, very important. It doesn’t go far enough, in our view. The select committee will be a chance to tease out some of that, and it is disappointing that, at this stage, it looks as though we will clear that first reading hurdle by support on this side of the House.

CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): What we’ve heard across the House today is amazing, really—amazing. We’ve heard that they are deeply disappointed that we are rushing through this anti-vaping legislation. We’ve heard about unicorn milk. We’ve heard that Labour are deeply disappointed that the bill doesn’t go far enough. Well—mind the French—what the hell did they do for six years? What did they do about vaping for six years? With 65 MPs—65 MPs!

The BBC reported on 13 August last year that New Zealand’s vaping crisis data showed that under Labour, the number of teenagers in New Zealand who vaped regularly tripled—it tripled—between 2019 and 2021; all under Labour. Also, under the previous Labour Government, the number of vape shops in New Zealand exploded to 7,500. Like everything else, Labour created the youth vaping crisis and this Government is here to fix it. I commend the bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The question is, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2) be considered by the Health Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.

Instruction to Health Committee

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): I move, That the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2) be reported to the House by 31 October 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it, that on a day where the Government have gone black and blue defending this idea that they have to put the Treaty principles bill through a full select committee hearing, even though that’s not in the coalition agreement, we are now debating as a House to put through a piece of legislation that the previous speaker, Cameron Brewer, was crowing about solving the youth vaping crisis, even though he knows it’s going nowhere near that. If they want to solve it, then what’s the rush? Why not do a full select committee process and take the Hon Peeni Henare at his word and work with us to do it right? Why rush through this, only to have to come back and do something later?

Then they complain—they complained, “Oh, well they had six years.” What’s the rush then? Why don’t we get it right? All they are interested in, as we’ve seen with all the other pieces of legislation, is doing just enough to be seen to be doing something, rather than actually sorting it out. They’ve spent more time considering the tax cuts to tobacco companies than they have actually looking at the legislation that might address youth vaping. And it is a major issue. They can crow and they can cry and they can pretend to be outraged, but it’s true. They are asking this House to agree to an instruction to the committee to report back by the end of next month.

Every single community is affected by this. There are vape shops in communities where the idea of a vape shop only a few years ago wasn’t even considered. Every country is dealing with this. There are examples of what other countries are doing to curb this issue, and many of them have been successful. If we had a full select committee process, we could consider that. The Health Committee could look at submissions from overseas to see what worked and what didn’t. I can almost guarantee that there are provisions in this bill that if properly considered and compared with what’s happening overseas, they would in good conscience look to improve it, because that’s what a select committee is for. Why the hell do we have to put up with six months of people that have been emboldened by racially selective positions and politically motivated views that they’re going to come up and say divisive and hate-filled things at the select committee for the Treaty principles bill, but we can’t actually hear decent submissions that are evidence-based, that are actually going to look to improve this?

There are good things, and speeches from the Labour Party and other Opposition parties outlined those, and that’s why we are supporting it. But we also outlined that we don’t believe that there are things in here that don’t need improvement—of course there are. We also outlined that there are things that we are willing to work with the Government on to improve. They’re not willing to do that. They’re not willing to work constructively. What happened to the calls of being bipartisan on important issues? They turn around, they scrap things, and then they say, “Come work with us.” And then they say, “Oh, we’ll work with you if you agree with us.”

Here’s another example: they will sit there in the protracted period of the select committee and they will encourage the Opposition members of that select committee to work with them, and then they will turn around: “OK, if you agree with us then we’ll work with you.” You cannot expect the select committee in a protracted period of time to take into consideration the views of those affected communities, those that are affected, that are working with youth, that want to put forward the perspective that perhaps this could go further.

I have a personal view. I happen to think that there should be no flavours for vapes available, other than those flavours that are allowed for tobacco, because, at the end of the day, vapes are a cessation device. They were brought in to help people get off tobacco, and I am one of those people. I used to smoke. I no longer smoke, but I do vape. I vape a tobacco-flavoured vape product. I’ve managed to reduce the level of my nicotine in half in the time. I am slowly weening myself off nicotine—exactly what these are intended to do.

What these were never intended to do—and I think it is fair to say it’s an unintended consequence—is for these to be targeted to children with things like bubble-gum and lollipop rainbow and all the other types of flavours that are quite clearly not intended to be used as a cessation device. It’s extraordinary. How the hell can anybody argue with that? It’s true. Yes, they are. The comments earlier that the members’ hearts aren’t quite in this—I think the Government members are demonstrating that. This is a wasted opportunity, an opportunity where the House could actually demonstrate to the public that we are willing to work together for the benefit of New Zealanders, particularly the health and wellbeing of our young people, and they’re not interested.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The question is that the motion be agreed to. I call Tangi Utikere—although I will say we are now at 5.59 p.m. I will suspend the debate at this stage—although I realise now, Mr Utikere, you have got to your feet, so I will actually have to allow you to finish.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. We are willing to knock off now, as long as we have your assurance that, given this is a referral motion and people are only allowed to speak to it once, Mr Utikere wouldn’t be penalised. If he would, then we’d like to continue, but if not—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): No, that was exactly what I was in the process of saying. Mr Utikere, you can continue your speech because you have actually stood up and begun. You will only have the opportunity to speak once.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I am appalled that this is a shortened report-back date that the Minister has moved through to 31 October. And the reason for that—

Hon Casey Costello: I thought you said it was urgent.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, it is urgent, but the other thing that’s really important is that so many people want to be able to participate in this process that we need to hear it.

I’m pleased the Minister asked me that, because I want to reflect on the experience as chair of the Health Committee when this particular issue was last in front of it—was tangentially sort of linked to it. It is important, because I reference the fact that we had Manukura previously, who we’d spoken to as a local school in my electorate at the time, and what was really important there is that they talked about the fact that it was having quite an impact on their school community. It’s important that we ensure that these individuals, these school groups, these others are not short-changed as a result of having a shortened select committee process, so I think that making this through to the end of October will actually prevent a fulsome opportunity for folk to consider the many various things that they can engage about.

The bill itself does talk about a few things. One example is banning the manufacturer, sale, supply, and distribution of disposable vapes. There’ll be people who are in the manufacturing sector who will want to have an opportunity to speak on this. There’ll be people who are in the sale sector who want to have an opportunity. There will be those in the supply sector that want to have an opportunity, and those in the distribution sector. Those are just four various sectors that will benefit from an opportunity to actually have a chance to have their say in all of this. I note that we’ve talked about this bill having early childhood education (ECE) sectors—something that this Government usually is not that supportive of in terms of the welfare and wellbeing of them, but this is one example where it would make a difference. We want to hear from those ECE providers, and the opportunity that they would have to participate in the select committee process will be curtailed. Ensuring that we give them adequate time is really important.

Some of the issues that we have in terms of bigger considerations are things like the community concerns about access and ensuring that their accessibility to vape shops to others are able to—

Suze Redmayne: Stop procrastinating. We just want to stop kids vaping.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, we want to hear what’s going to work. One important thing is ensuring that the process is right and making sure that, actually, anyone that wants to have an opportunity can do that. By effectively truncating this through to 31 October, is this going to ensure that the Health Committee, which we’ve resolved to support the bill going to, is actually going to be able to have its dedicated focus?

Now, one of the things, when this issue was raised previously, is that the committee itself went out around the motu. We went to South Auckland. There were opportunities in the South Island. This will not make it an easy choice for those that wish to do that. There are those considerations that are really, really important as well.

When we’re looking at the advertising rules and opportunities and reviewing the available flavours—colleagues have touched on what they are currently and what they might look like as well—we want to hear from folk. Is it actually only that early childhood education (ECE) should be the only thing that is a sensitive side? Should we be looking to broaden that? Well, the longer that we have—because let’s remember: the default position here is a period longer than that which is through to 31 October. It’s important that we do consider that.

We don’t believe this bill goes far enough, and so we want to make sure that the community has a chance to adequately submit in this process. Members opposite, I’m sure, will know that whenever there is a truncated or shortened period for a select committee referral, inevitably you get folks that come in well after the closing date for submissions, because they have something that they want to say. There are those opportunities.

This is, effectively, the Government saying, “Well, we want to make this change, but we don’t want to give adequate information or availability to the community to actually say anything about it.”

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): This debate is interrupted. The member will, of course, be able to finish his five minutes and 36 seconds when the debate resumes. The debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 17 September 2024.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6.05 p.m.