Tuesday, 17 September 2024

TUESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2024

TUESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2024

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha. Ka mihi mātou ki te Kīngi, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Āmene.

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

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

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

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

CLERK:

Petition of Patient Voice Aotearoa requesting that the House urge the Government to address staffing shortages which we believe are affecting health services to Buller.

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

CLERK:

Government response to the:

report of the Regulations Review Committee on the complaint about the Animal Welfare (Care and Procedures) Regulations 2018

Animal Welfare Secondary Legislation

Foreign Affairs and Trade Strategic Intentions 2024-2028

Transpower Integrated Report 2024.

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

CLERK:

Reports of the Environment Committee on the:

briefing on agricultural emissions pricing

briefing on biogenic methane

briefing on NZ ETS unit limits and price control settings

report of the Controller and Auditor-General, Regional councils’ relationships with iwi and hapū for freshwater management - a follow-up report

review briefing on the 2022-23 annual review of the Climate Change Chief Executives Board

report of the Justice Committee on the Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill

report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Richard Capie.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading. The review, report, and briefings are set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of bills.

CLERK:

Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, introduction

District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and especially our action to crack down on serious offending. I was out in Auckland on Saturday night, seeing the fantastic results from having more cops out on the beat. We know that visible policing can have a real impact, with serious assaults down 22 percent in the last year in the Auckland CBD. But this week’s data on our violent crime confirms what many Kiwis already know: violent crime has risen in recent years and we need a much more aggressive response. That’s why we’re giving police more tools to go after gangs and why we’re bringing in tougher sentences for violent and repeat offenders. So I’d encourage that member, if he’s serious about restoring law and order and keeping communities safe, to back our gang laws so we can get on with the job and clean up the mess that he left behind.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How many jobs in the building and construction sector were affected by the Government’s decision to cut $2 billion from school building and maintenance projects?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: If the member would like to direct a specific question to the Minister, I’m sure we can come back with the numbers. But what I would just say to that member is that there is no doubt about it, it is a tough time for New Zealanders at the moment and people are losing their jobs. And that member has to ask the question: why is that? It is because the economy is in recession. The economy is in recession because interest rates are sky-high. Interest rates are sky-high because inflation went through the roof. And why did inflation go through the roof? Because of wasteful Government spending. And yet we hear from that member that he wants to borrow more and he wants to tax more. You don’t tax your way out of a recession.

SPEAKER: Good—OK, well, that was question one. It was incredibly rowdy, so we’ll just moderate from this point on.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether the Prime Minister could attempt to answer the question that I asked him, rather than just a general diatribe about—

SPEAKER: I think he was—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: —how mean and nasty he thinks the Labour Party is.

SPEAKER: Yeah. Good. He most definitely attempted to answer it. Do you have another supplementary?

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Sure. How many jobs in the building and construction sector were affected by the Government’s decision to cut $1.5 billion from the State house build and maintenance programme, including thousands of already consented new homes for vulnerable New Zealanders?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I disagree with the characterisation of that question. I’d just say in answer to his further question, there’s actually been more money put into school buildings—that’s what we’re doing. But, I just say again, we are in a tough time because of the economic mess that the Labour Government left behind. You have to take some responsibility for that as a former Prime Minister and as a former Government, and you’re not.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Could the $530 million plummet in building activity between the June 2023 and June 2024 quarters be due to his Government cutting $2 billion from school build and maintenance projects, $1.5 billion dollars from State house building and maintenance projects, and funding from hospital rebuilds?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We did not cut anything from school buildings. But I’d just say to that member, we are where we are in the economic cycle by virtue of the decisions that your Government made. Businesses have hung on through a recession, businesses have hung on through high interest rates, they’ve hung on through high levels of inflation, and now they’re having to lay off workers. That is the consequence in the history of economics. I hope that you learn something about economics on the UK trip.

SPEAKER: I didn’t want to interrupt the answer, but that exchange is unacceptable. It’s not a screaming match from one side of the House to the answers; it’s questions and answers.

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

SPEAKER: Oh, point of order!

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Mr Speaker, I think you’ll find the crowd noise on both sides of the House is directly related to the quality of the answers being given. Where the Prime Minister decides to start attacking the questioner personally, that is going to provoke a certain sort of response.

SPEAKER: Look, the member is absolutely right. It is about the quality of the question and the quality of the answer, and both sides will have different opinions on that—they can keep them to themselves.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he believe his Government’s decision to cut billions of dollars from infrastructure projects like schools, State houses, and hospitals has contributed in any way to the fact that there are over 8,000 fewer people employed in building and construction today compared to when he became Prime Minister?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’d just say to that member: we are seeing the lag effects of a woeful economic management of the previous administration. How does it start? You have an 84 percent increase in spending, it drives record levels of inflation, that drives high levels of interest rates, that puts the economy into recession, that drives unemployment. That is the history of economics that we’ve been trying to articulate to that member and also his former Government about why they got it so wrong. Take some responsibility. We are where we are today because of woeful, uneducated economic management.

SPEAKER: The last part of the Prime Minister’s answer doesn’t help order of the House. The answer’s for the Government; he doesn’t question the Opposition.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Prime Minister: does he not think he should contact the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer about a visitor soon to come to his conference and warn him that sliding polls are contagious?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, in answer to that—

SPEAKER: No, that question is not going to proceed. If you think about the primary, then there’s been no action by the Prime Minister in that regard. You can’t call for it.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How many of the 55,000 New Zealand citizens who have left the country since he became Prime Minister—1 percent of the population—worked in the construction sector?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, I just say direct your questions to the building and construction Minister if you want a specific answer. But what I do know is that our economy has been in trouble because of economic mismanagement on a scale we haven’t seen before. We didn’t need to have high inflation if you controlled spending. We didn’t need to have high interest rates; we didn’t need to have a recession and, therefore, rising levels of unemployment. This is the history of economics. I appreciate the Labour Government didn’t understand economics. We do. We’re fixing it. We’re sorting it out.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Which of these best reflects his so-called laser-like focus on outcomes: fewer homes being built, fewer classrooms being upgraded, fewer jobs in building and construction, or record numbers of Kiwis simply giving up and leaving the country?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: This is a Government that is focused on rebuilding the economy, fixing the mess that we’ve inherited so that people can get ahead. You see lower levels of inflation, you’ve seen interest rate cuts, you’ve seen the highest level of business confidence we’ve had in 10 years—then we’ll get economic growth, then we’ll keep people in employment. But that’s the programme that we’re working through economically. I wish the member understood economics. I hope that he can learn about financial discipline in the UK.

Question No. 2—Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): Point of order. Mr Speaker, if you look very carefully at question No. 2—and it’s rightly so—it begins the question in Māori, and then there’s the English translation and it goes straight back to Māori. So what is it to be?

SPEAKER: Sorry, you’re going to have to explain that to me a bit better than that.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The question is in Māori. Fine—that’s good. Then it’s explained in English, but it’s not: it ends up in Māori. So what’s it to be in terms of this House, and going forward?

SPEAKER: OK, then I’ll ask all members in the House to amend their question sheet, if they’ve got one, to change the word “te” into “the”.

Tākuta Ferris: Point of order.

SPEAKER: No, hang on a minute. It’s an interpretation. Nothing—

Tākuta Ferris: No, no—it’s not. It’s a title.

SPEAKER: Well, I would just advise not to have an argument with me on this one.

Tākuta Ferris: Well, it’s not with you; it’s with him.

SPEAKER: Beg your pardon?

Tākuta Ferris: The point is with the member over there.

SPEAKER: No, it’s not, because I’ve ruled, so it can’t be.

2. TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga) to the Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti: Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Taku pātai ki te reo Māori. E whakapono ana ia kei te hāpai tēnei Kāwanatanga i ōna herenga me āna mahi ki te iwi Māori i raro i te Tiriti o Waitangi?

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question will be in the Māori language. Does he believe this Government is upholding its obligations and duties to Māori under te Tiriti o Waitangi?]

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti): E te Māngai o te Whare, ehara i te whakapono noa iho. Tūturu taku whakapae, e mōhio ana au e kaha ana tēnei Kāwanatanga haumi ki te whakapūāwai i ngā wawata o ngā tūpuna i tāmokohia te kāwenata tapu reorua, a te Tiriti o Waitangi. He paku whakatauira hoki, tirohia tō mātou Manu Pūtea, te tautoko i ngā whakahaeretanga a Te Matatini mō ngā tau e toru kei te heke mai.

[To the Speaker, it is not merely a belief. Truly, it is an assertion, I know that this coalition Government is consistent in its endeavours that the aspirations of the ancestors that signed the sacred bilingual covenant, the Treaty of Waitangi, flourish. As a small example, look to our Minister of Finance, who has supported the undertakings of Te Matatini for the next three years.]

Tākuta Ferris: He aha tana kupu whakahoki ki tā te Taraipiunara mō Te Ture Takutai Moana, me te kī a te Taraipiunara, “the Crown’s actions are such a gross breach of the Treaty that, if it proceeds, it would be an illegitimate exercise of Kāwanatanga”?

[What is his response to the tribunal’s statement about the Takutai Moana Act, the tribunal’s statement, “the Crown’s actions are such a gross breach of the Treaty that, if it proceeds, it would be an illegitimate exercise of Kāwanatanga”?]

Hon TAMA POTAKA: E te Māngai o te Whare, hei whakahoki i te pakirehua i tae mai ki aku taringa whakarongo, kua rangona hoki ngā kōrero a te Taraipiunara. Hei ākuanei ka whiwhi ngā whakaaro me ngā tohutohu a ngā āpiha me ngā kaitohutohu o te Kāwanatanga, ka taea hoki te whakautu.

[To the Speaker, in response to the question that has come to my attentive ears, the statement of the tribunal has indeed been heard. Soon we will receive the thoughts and advice of the officials and advisers of the Government, and we will be able to respond.]

Tākuta Ferris: Does he stand by the Crown’s actions regarding the Takutai Moana Act, which the tribunal has found will “significantly endanger the [Crown-Māori] relationship.”?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: E te Māngai o te Whare, kāore anō kia whakarurehia te pire e kīia nei e te mema. Tāria te wā, ka mōhio ka riro mā te Pāremata e whakamana.

[To the Speaker, the bill that the member has referred to has yet to be enacted. At the appropriate time, we know that it will be up to Parliament to enact it.]

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Sorry, I was just listening to the last of the translation. Where a Government Minister is being questioned on a Government bill, I don’t think they can give an answer like the one the Minister just gave. It is a Government piece of legislation, and they have to be able to answer for it.

SPEAKER: That’s a reasonable point, so we’ll just have the question again.

Tākuta Ferris: Does he stand by the Crown’s actions regarding the Takutai Moana Act, which the tribunal has found will “significantly endanger the [Crown-Māori] relationship.”?

SPEAKER: Well, it’s a bill at this point, but—some response.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The reference is to an Act, and we have not got to an Act yet, which has to be enacted by this Parliament.

SPEAKER: Yes, I realise that, and I’ve just corrected him. We can get incredibly pedantic. It becomes more difficult when we’re working in two languages. I’d ask you, just as we asked the questioner, to show some leniency with the ruling around the translation into English, that you accept that he didn’t say “bill”—he said “Act” but meant “bill”. Therefore, I’d ask for a response.

Hon Simeon Brown: Speaking to the point of order, the question is in relation to a particular bill. The Minister who is being questioned about it is not the responsible Minister for that bill, and so I would just ask consideration as to whether or not that question is in order.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s very interesting. But the Government, of course, always chooses who answers any particular question on any matter. And the Minister has started to answer these questions, so he’ll keep it up.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: E te Māngai o te Whare, can I please ask that that question be read out again?

Tākuta Ferris: Tēnā tātou. Does he stand by the Crown’s actions regarding the takutai Moana bill, which the tribunal has found will “significantly endanger the Crown-Māori relationship”?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: E te Māngai o te Whare, āna. Tāria te wā ka riro mā tō mātou Hoa Minita Mete-koura e kawe ki mua i te aroaro o tēnā, o tēnā raiona o tēnei Whare.

[To the Speaker, absolutely. At the appropriate time, it will be up to our ministerial colleague Minister Goldsmith to bring it before each of the members of this House.]

Hon Shane Jones: Point of order. I might be able to be of some use here.

SPEAKER: I beg your pardon, sorry. What did you say?

Hon Shane Jones: I roto i te reo Māori. Ko te kaituku i te pātai e ui ana mēnā e tautoko ana tēnei Minita i tētahi pire. Kāore anō tēnā pire kia whakakaupapatia, kāhore anō tēnā pire kia tuhituhi mārikatia, tukuna ki te Whare. He kaupapa noa iho i tēnei wā. Kei te whiriwhiringia e mātou, ngā Minita, engari kāhore anō kia whakapūmautia i runga i te kapu o te pepa hei pire.

[In the Māori language. The person who posed the question is asking if this Minister supports this bill. The bill has yet to be formulated. That bill has yet to be completely drafted and brought before the House. It is merely an initiative at this time. We, the Ministers, are still discussing it, but it has yet to be realised on to paper as a bill.]

SPEAKER: Well, thank you. I think that’s what the Minister actually said.

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

SPEAKER: Point of order, the honourable Shane—the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Ha, ha! No one’s ever made that mistake before, Mr Speaker!

SPEAKER: No, well, I could have gone through 120 names and still got it wrong.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: That’s right. I think, first of all, Ministers can be questioned on bills that are currently being considered by the Government—that’s always been the case. But, more importantly, if you look at the primary question, the primary question is about whether the Government’s holding its obligations and duties to Māori under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Government have chosen which Minister is going to answer that question; therefore, all of the actions that the Government takes to uphold or otherwise Te Tiriti o Waitangi can be within the scope of the question, and the Minister should be coming to the House prepared to answer those.

SPEAKER: And that was the essence of what I’ve had in response to Mr Brown’s point of order.

Tākuta Ferris: He pātai anō tāku. [I have another question.] Does he support the tribunal’s recommendation that the Crown cease all efforts to amend te takutai Moana bill and make a genuine effort to meaningfully engage with Māori, and, if not, why not?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: E te Māngai o te Whare, kei te tautoko au i te anga whakamua a tō tātou Pirīmia, me taku hoa, te Minita Mete-koura, kia kawea atu ngā kōrero kia whakarurehia tētahi pire, whakakaupapatia, whakatakotoria ki mua i te aroaro o ngā raiona me ngā taika me ngā kererū o tēnei Whare.

[To the Speaker, I support the direction of our Prime Minister and my colleague Minister Goldsmith to continue the discussions that the bill be enacted, formulated, and laid before the brave, strong, and considerate Ministers of this House.]

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister as to whether it’s a fact that the tribunal came down with a finding after having a hearing on a bill that they hadn’t even read—that that is the actual chronological fact here, that they were talking about a bill, the contents of which they had never seen and hadn’t read?

SPEAKER: Well, I don’t know that the Minister can actually answer—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I can.

SPEAKER: And I think you’ve made the point. But I don’t think the Minister can answer that.

Tākuta Ferris: Does he support the legal action taken by Te Ohu Kaimoana against the Crown’s intent to increase the total allowable commercial catch for snapper, which is a direct violation of the Treaty of Waitangi fisheries settlement that could lead to a 20 to 29 percent loss of the Māori fisheries quota?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: E te Māngai o te Whare, kua kitea hoki ki ētehi wāhi kei te mimiti te haere o te mau o te moana, pērā ki te tāmure e kōrerotia nei, engari kei ia tangata tana piki amokura. Nōna anō tōna piki amokura; kei au anō, nōku ake tōku piki amokura. Nā reira kia riro atu mā Te Ohu Kaimoana e whiriwhiri te huarahi tōtika mōna anō.

[To the Speaker, it has been seen in some areas that the catch of the sea is reducing, like the snapper that has already been mentioned, but each person has their own autonomy. They have their own autonomy; I do too, I have my own autonomy. And so it is up to Te Ohu Kaimoana to come up with the right path for themselves.]

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Kia ora. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. How does he justify his place in the Government that, according to the Waitangi Tribunal, is seeking to erase any duty of the Crown to act with honour and assert parliamentary dominance over Māori without any justification?

SPEAKER: The Hon Tama Potaka—in so far as he has ministerial responsibility.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: E te Māngai o te Whare, ehara māku te tuku whakapāha ki tēnā pakirehua. Nōku anō te hūmārie me te hōnore ki te tautoko i tō tātou Pirīmia i tēnei wā, me te anga whakamua o tēnei Kāwanatanga haumi.

[To the Speaker, it is not for me to apologise to that question. It is my humility and my honour to support our Prime Minister at this time and the direction of this coalition Government.]

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Does he accept the findings of the tribunal that this Government has breached the Te Tiriti o Waitangi at every stage of their Treaty principles bill, Māori wards policy, the removal of section 7AA, and now the Takutai Moana bill?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: E te Māngai o te Whare, ka nui hoki ngā whakaaro me ngā tuhituhinga a Te Rōpū Whakamana i te Tiriti o Waitangi. Na reira e mihi ana ki ērā momo tuhituhinga, engari kāore anō ētehi o ngā pire kua kōrerotia nei e te mema kia tau ki mua i te aroaro o tēnei Whare Pāremata. Taihoa te wā ka mōhio hoki ki te ngako o ēnei kōrero, me te mea nei kaua e riro mā te kakī hōhonu o Kāwanatanga kē, engari kua kite hoki i ngā hua kei te whakarurehia e tō tātou Pirīmia me ēnei, aku hoa, e kaha nei ki te whakapakari i te ōhanga, te hauora, me te mātauranga o ngā hapori Māori puta noa i te motu. Tēnā tātou.

[To the Speaker, the Waitangi Tribunal has many opinions and documents. And so I acknowledge those types of documents, but some of the bills that the member has spoken about have yet to come before this House of Parliament. In time, we will have an awareness of the gist of these discussions, and also it should not be left to other Governments who have contributed little but discourse, but we have also seen the results of our Prime Minister and these, my colleagues, that consistently strengthen the economy, health, and education of the Māori communities all across the country. Thanks to us all.]

Question No. 3—Finance

3. NANCY LU (National) to the Minister of Finance: What recent announcements has she made about support for families?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): This morning, I announced that from today that low to middle income families with young children will be able to register with Inland Revenue for FamilyBoost. As members know, this is a new payment to help parents and caregivers meet the costs of early childhood education (ECE). FamilyBoost will help make childcare costs more affordable, providing relief for many families struggling with the cost of living, and it will make it more worthwhile for people to enter or stay in the workforce when they have young children.

Nancy Lu: How much can people get from FamilyBoost?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Parents and caregivers are eligible for a payment towards their early childhood education fees, up to a maximum fortnightly payment of $150. Payments will be made quarterly as a lump sum, so parents and caregivers can get up to $975 a quarter, up to 25 percent of their early childhood fees after the 20 hours ECE and Ministry of Social Development childcare subsidy have been taken into account, and, therefore, up to the $150 maximum.

Nancy Lu: How do parents and caregivers register for FamilyBoost?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Parents and caregivers can register for FamilyBoost through MyIR, which is the online secure system for managing interactions with Inland Revenue. Many people already have a MyIR account. If they don’t, don’t worry; they can set one up by going to the Inland Revenue website at www.ird.govt.nz. The link to register with MyIR and the link to login are on the home page. I encourage all families who are eligible to register so they can get this payment direct to their bank accounts.

Nancy Lu: When will parents and caregivers be able to claim FamilyBoost?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Parents and caregivers will be able to claim their first FamilyBoost payment from 1 October onwards for the three months going back to 1 July. They will do this through MyIR by uploading an invoice or invoices from their ECE provider. Inland Revenue will then calculate the payment to be paid into people’s bank accounts. These payments will make a real difference to more than 100,000 Kiwi families—that’s 140,000 Kiwi kids. I note that members opposite are grumbling about this. They would take that money away.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by her statement she would “make good economic decisions so people can actually see better prospects in New Zealand, that’s essentially our mission”; if so, why have a new record of net 55,800 Kiwis moved overseas in the year ended July 2024?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Yes, I do stand by that statement. I know that New Zealanders have been doing it tough, with high inflation, high interest rates, and wider cost of living pressures. The Government inherited a mess after six years of economic mismanagement by Labour and it will take time to turn that around. I think New Zealanders understand that. What they do want to see is a Government that will take decisions that will in turn bring better prospects for New Zealanders, and we are doing that. We are focused on supporting our economy to grow, and we are already seeing inflation coming back under control, interest rates decreasing, and business confidence rising. These are the green shoots of economic recovery. There is much more to do but we are optimistic and confident that brighter days are ahead.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she agree with Christopher Luxon’s statement: “I think there’s a lot of New Zealanders already leaving New Zealand because they don’t think it’s a place of sufficient opportunity.”, and, if so, does she agree that the latest record of New Zealand citizen net migration is due to the lack of opportunities at home?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: As I just said in answer to the last question, the comment that the Prime Minister made when he was the Leader of the Opposition is an accurate one, and I think that the member opposite needs to reflect on what she thinks a Government would have changed in 10 months. We have been working at pace. We have inherited an extremely difficult economic situation. We are taking accountability for our own decisions which are moving things in the right direction. I’d note this: I’ll tell you one thing that wouldn’t help this economy right now, and that’s more debt and more taxes, which is what that party say they stand for.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Are the increasing company liquidations, which are up 19 percent year on year, and insolvencies up 23 percent from the first quarter of the year and 36 percent higher than the same period a year ago contributing to the brain drain?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Can I say that any company that goes into liquidation is of concern because what that represents is someone’s effort, their hope, their investment coming to a very sad end, often affecting many New Zealanders and their families. That is exactly why, as members of this House, we must never drop our focus on good economic management, because you can stamp the word “wellbeing” all over your Budgets but if what they do is drive inflation to record highs for sustained periods of time, leading to record increases in interest rates, the outcome for New Zealanders is harsh. That is the effect we are seeing in the economy right now; we’re suffering the lag effects of six years of economic mismanagement, and we’re cleaning it up.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Sit down.

SPEAKER: I think the member can leave those sorts of instructions to me if that’s all right.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: I was only helping.

SPEAKER: I might ask her to stand up in a minute.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she agree with the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, which forecasts annual average GDP growth at zero percent in the year to March 2025; if not, why not?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: There are a number of forecasts. What we are seeing consistently across those forecasts is a pattern that I wish members opposite had understood when they were in Government, which is this: if inflation is left very high for a long time, interest rates rise very high to counter it. There are impacts on businesses, who chose to invest less, some of which fail, and that has very destructive effects in the economy. We are experiencing that in New Zealand, and what parties on this side of the House campaigned on was not that we would fix it overnight but that we would take the decisions that would ensure progress in the right direction. We are doing that every week and New Zealanders should know that we’ve got their back on the economy. The members opposite would destroy it.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why isn’t one of her Government’s targets reducing the number of New Zealanders leaving the country?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, this is a matter I differ to the Prime Minister on. They’re his targets, he set them, and they’re very good indeed. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Now, hang on—it’s the Leader of the Opposition’s own member who wants to ask a question here.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: How would the negative GDP growth that is widely predicted by economists provide New Zealanders with confidence that there are better prospects at home?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, what New Zealanders can have confidence in is that they have a Government that is delivering what it said it would, that has delivered tax relief in a fiscally neutral way, that is getting Government spending under control so that debt can come back down, so that inflation has come down, so that interest rates are reducing, and so that business confidence can revive. What New Zealanders can also reflect on is the prescription that others in this House have offered in response to this economic situation. They’ve said the way out is more debt, more wasteful spending, and more taxes. I can assure you that New Zealanders know that’s not the answer, as “Mr 12 Percent” can tell you.

SPEAKER: I just remind all Government Ministers that they’re not responsible for anything that comes from the other side of the House; they can only talk about it in the context of their own portfolios, and that’s quite limiting.

Question No. 5—Education

5. GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland) to the Minister of Education: What recent changes has she made to increase the number of relief teachers available in school classrooms?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): I’m proud to share that this Government is encouraging more trained teachers back into the classroom to help with relief teaching. We heard the call from the sector that cost and lengthy processes to become recertified were putting many teachers off coming back to relieve. So, in a short-term measure, the Teaching Council has agreed to allow these teachers to apply for a limited authority to teach (LAT)—a cheaper and easier way to get our amazing teachers back in the classroom to relieve. To kick start this process, we are paying for 200 LATs and 150 teacher certificate renewals to make it easier for former teachers to come back into the class, and we’ll be prioritising applications from previously certified teachers. We’ve set up a website, paid for a navigator at the Teaching Council to help people with the process, and the ministry and the Teaching Council will start to contact out-of-service teachers to advise them of the changes and ask them to consider coming back.

SPEAKER: Good. That was a very long answer, so I hope they’ll be more brief from this point.

Grant McCallum: Why did she make these changes?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: We know that winter illness has increased markedly since 2019. This has been compounded by additional classroom release time and out of classroom time for professional learning and development. Even with an increase in the number of relief teachers overall, the pressures have meant that schools are rostering home classes and year groups, combining classes, and using cover from teachers who should be on classroom release time. I’ve heard from many teachers who want to relieve; they find the process expensive and difficult. So inaction is not an option and that’s why I’ve asked the ministry to listen to the sector and implement an action plan. While these measures are short-term, we’re working with the Teaching Council on a longer-term plan.

Grant McCallum: What feedback has she heard from principals?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: The Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand president, Vaughan Couillault, said, “Right now we’ve got classrooms that need relief teachers in them. You’re not just grabbing anyone off the street, you’re grabbing people who have been trained and [who’ve] been registered before.” One secondary school principal messaged me to say, “This is the right thing. And as you say, it’s a short-term measure. It’s the right one to get us all through. Thank you again for what you’re doing for the sector.” This good feedback is due to the fact that we listened, we consulted with principals and teachers, and we acted on their suggestions.

Grant McCallum: What feedback has she heard from teachers?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I received an email from a wonderful lady who spent 50 years in teaching and 10 years as a principal. She wrote, “After listening to the news tonight, I decided to inquire about renewing my teacher registration to perhaps help out our local school. The idea, I think, is awesome and could go some way to helping with a shortage of classroom relief teachers.” And I received another email from a teacher who said, “I saw your interview this morning on Breakfast TV regarding the 350 free teacher registrations, and I’m a former teacher who subsequently did some relieving, whose registration I allowed to lapse due to the bureaucratic reasons you mentioned. I’d be interested in applying for one of these re-registrations, and can you send me a link, please?” I’ve had many other emails to the same effect.

SPEAKER: Those answers are probably quite interesting but far too long.

Question No. 6—Workplace Relations and Safety

6. Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What changes has she recently announced about improving certainty for those in contracting relationships?

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): On Sunday, I announced that this coalition Government has agreed to amend the Employment Relations Act to provide greater certainty and clarity for businesses and workers in contracting relationships. This was an ACT-National coalition commitment and it was also a priority in the Government’s quarter three plan. The amendments to the Employment Relations Act will provide a gateway test that the Employment Relations Authority can consider when responding to a claim that a person is an employee and not a contractor. If the working arrangement in question meets the four factors set out in the test, then the person is considered to be a contractor. This approach provides a much clearer path to establishing who is a contractor, compared with the current test, which leaves room for ambiguity.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How will the gateway test work in practice?

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: There are four criteria for the gateway test. These criteria are that there must be a written agreement with the worker specifying they are an independent contractor, not an employee; the business does not restrict the worker from working for another business, including competitors; the business does not require the worker to be available to work on specific days or times, or the worker can subcontract the work; and the business does not terminate the contract if the worker does not accept an additional task or engagement. I want to make it clear that these changes do not change any worker’s current employment agreement or their contract. Businesses that use contract arrangements will not be required to change their contracts. Any business or worker who wants to use this gateway test will need to willingly sign up to a contract of this nature. Workers who challenge their status and their contract and it does not meet these four criteria will be considered under the current full test.

SPEAKER: OK, those answers need to be much more concise. That was almost a minute—just under a minute. It’s a very long time for an answer.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How will the changes affect workers in contracting relationships?

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: The changes I’ve announced have the potential to improve protection for contractors and enhance the benefits of contracting relationships. These changes remove the current ambiguity that can happen when there’s no written agreement to begin with and a worker might genuinely not understand what they are agreeing to. Speaking to TVNZ, an employer of people with disabilities said that the criteria of the new gateway test are clear and would help workers better understand their rights in a contracting relationship and to assert those rights.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How will the changes affect businesses in contracting relationships?

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Businesses have been suffering uncertainty for years around the boundaries between an employee and a contractor relationship, and these changes provide more certainty. I’m pleased to share that my announcement has been welcomed by a range of sectors. The chief executive of Freightways said that the Government’s announcement has provided the certainty that businesses and contractors alike have been waiting for after what he called five years of ambiguity. Business New Zealand also welcomed the announcement, saying, “The government’s decision to clarify those relationships in law will be particularly welcomed by all businesses that use digital platforms to contract with workers, and all businesses currently concerned that their contractors could be re-categorised to be employees in the future should they decide to take a court case.”

Camilla Belich: Is it correct that after she met with Uber on 1 May 2024, and said, as stated in her talking points from that meeting—and I quote—“It would be great to hear more about Uber’s views regarding what you would like the changes to the Employment Relations Act to achieve.”, Uber responded, suggesting the changes that she announced yesterday?

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: No, that is not correct. What is correct here is that I did meet with Uber—yes, that’s true. I did ask a range of things within our meeting. I don’t always stick to the talking points that my officials provide for me. However, we did provide around 20 people that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) consulted with a draft policy. That was not the policy that we’ve ended up with. There were seven unions that were consulted by MBIE, and I note that some of the changes that they suggested were actually implemented in our model.

SPEAKER: Question No. 7, the Hon Ginny Andersen—and we’re going to have silence for the question.

Question No. 7—Police

7. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Police: Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Does he stand by his statement, “Kiwis ought to feel safe going about their daily lives, and that is why this Government is focused on restoring law and order, and putting victims first”; if so, why?

Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Yes, Kiwis ought to feel safe going about their daily lives, and that has been my unrelenting focus since becoming the police Minister. I was pleased, over the weekend, to share news that there has been a reduction in serious assaults in our biggest city’s CBD. Of course, we have more work to do to fix the mess that we were left, but I am committed and focused on delivering for our country. I’d also like to acknowledge our outstanding police force, who announced today the conclusion of three significant operations targeting the Comancheros: Operations Scuba, Brewer, and Avon. The operations have seen nearly every member of the Comancheros in New Zealand face charges, have seized 206 kilograms of methamphetamine, $9.2 million in assets seized, $1.275 million in cash, five properties, 14 vehicles, and 15 firearms.

SPEAKER: That was also a very long answer and somewhat unrelated.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Was Radio New Zealand correct when they reported that violent crime has increased by 7 percent across Auckland between 1 January and the end of July?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, as I said to Radio New Zealand, we’ll have to verify that number.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Was the New Zealand Herald correct in reporting that there has been a 17 percent increase in retail crime when comparing the first five months of 2024 with the first five months of 2023?

Hon Willie Jackson: Come on, get your numbers right.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, I think the Hon Willie Jackson is right: get your numbers right. I’m not sure if the member has. She doesn’t have a good track record of it. But I would say this: you’re right for once, Willie. I’ll give you that. But I would say this to the member: retail crime is a big focus for this Government, but the most immediate focus for us is dealing with the violent retail crime, and that is the crime where shopkeepers, their employees, or customers are being exposed to violent aggravated robberies. And the good news is that violent aggravated robberies in this country are down 10 percent.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Is the most recent Crime and Victims Survey correct when it notes that between 2018 and 2023, “there was no significant difference in the overall violent offence prevalence rate”, as reported by Stuff?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, you know, we do have ambitious targets on this side of the House, and the member will be well aware from her time as justice and police Minister that the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey has up to a two-year lag time. What we’re seeing is a crime hangover from her time as sole-charge Minister for public safety.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Why did the Government choose to base its crime reduction target on the Crime and Victims Survey rather than on Police data, as National did when in Opposition?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, we will use both datasets, but the Police stats, of course, inform me, and we’re using the Crime and Victims Survey to make sure that across Government we’re setting targets, which is something the previous Government failed to do.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister: talking about Willie Jackson getting it right, has he heard the saying that a stopped watch tells the time right twice a day?

SPEAKER: Well, I’m sure he has, but Greenwich Mean is not something he’s responsible for.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Point of order, Mr Speaker. My maths might not be that flash, but his is worse—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Points of order are heard in silence. It’s a very risky thing to start reacting, as some have, to a point of order.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Does he now need to—

SPEAKER: No, hang on. You called for a point of order.

Hon Ginny Andersen: He didn’t address the question, was my point. So my point of order was that his maths isn’t flash, either, because—

SPEAKER: No, no, don’t explain it to me. I just asked what the point of order was, and there is none, so ask another supplementary.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Does he now need to reduce the number of victims of violent crime by 50,000 in order to meet his Government’s target, given that data from the most recent Crime and Victims Survey shows an additional 30,000 victims of violent crime?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well, it amazes me that the member is standing and asking a question like that when it is the previous Government that was responsible for a large part of the lag on those figures that have been recorded. And, if they’d had a bit more focus and they’d actually applied some targets and taken it seriously, like this Government is doing, then maybe they might have actually avoided the fact that, yes, we’re going to have to work hard to achieve our targets, but we’re committed to doing that.

Question No. 8—Justice

8. PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn) to the Minister of Justice: What actions is the Government taking to ensure criminals face real consequences for crime?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Yesterday, the Government introduced the sentencing reform package, delivering on a range of coalition commitments and making a number of changes to restore real consequences of crime while also putting victims at the heart of the justice system. It’s got three objectives: making sure that the punishment fits the crime; restoring the principle of personal responsibility for offending; and better recognising victims, particularly those who have suffered through years of increased retail crime.

Paulo Garcia: What specific changes is the Government making as part of the sentencing reform package?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, the Government’s amending the principles of the Sentencing Act to give greater prominence to victims’ interests. We’re also capping the sentence discounts that judges can apply at 40 percent, preventing repeat discounts for youth and remorse, and implementing a sliding scale for early guilty pleas. We’ve seen too many examples of people convicted of serious violent and sexual crimes having their sentences discounted away and ending up on home detention. Limits on these discounts will restore real consequences for crime.

Paulo Garcia: What new additional aggravating factors are included in the sentencing reform package?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, offending against sole charge workers and those whose homes and businesses are interconnected will become an aggravating factor at sentencing, as committed to in the National-ACT coalition agreement. The Government has also decided to introduce new aggravating factors that will address adult offenders who exploit children and young people by aiding and abetting them to offend, and those offenders who glorify their offending by live streaming and gloating about serious crime.

Paulo Garcia: What impact will these changes have?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, the Government is concerned that in recent years, the courts have imposed fewer prison sentences and, at the same time, the prevalence of violent and serious crime in our communities has increased. Tougher sentencing will restore real consequences for crime. It will put more serious offenders in prison for longer to prevent them creating new victims. And if they spend time in prison on remand, we’ll ensure that they have access to rehabilitation programmes to turn their lives around.

Question No. 9—Prime Minister

9. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko tonu ana ia i āna kōrero me āna mahi katoa?

[Does he stand by all his statements and actions?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Tēnā koe i te pātai. Āe. Me tautoko ahau i āku kōrero me āku mahi katoa.

[Thank you for the question. Yes. I should stand by all my statements and actions.]

Chlöe Swarbrick: Kia ū tonu ia ki tāna kōrero “I want to encourage as many New Zealanders to learn te reo as possible.”? Mēnā āe, ka pēhea tōna Kāwanatanga i te manaaki i te reo Māori?

[Does he stand by his statement “I want to encourage as many New Zealanders to learn te reo as possible.”; if so, how is his Government protecting te reo Māori?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes, we do. I think this week, for example, is a great opportunity for people to expand their knowledge of te reo. We encourage that. We value te reo Māori as an official language of New Zealand. I’ve enjoyed trying to learn. Personally, I’ve struggled with it, but I encourage all New Zealanders to do the same.

SPEAKER: If the member’s going to translate her own answer, I think it would probably be better that we let it come through the translation so we know where it’s at.

Chlöe Swarbrick: It wasn’t a translation, Mr Speaker. We provided translations to the translator for the sake of the speed of the translation.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s fantastic. So we should be getting it through our earpiece. The member doesn’t need to do it as well.

Chlöe Swarbrick: I didn’t do it, Mr Speaker.

Hon Member: It was a quote—

SPEAKER: Oh, it was another part of it? Oh, well, there you go. I’m learning day by day.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Ka pēhea ia e akiaki ana ngā tāngata ki Aotearoa ki te ako i te reo Māori mēnā ka whakawātea i te reo ki roto i te rāngai tūmatanui, ahakoa koirā te wāhi ki te whakaārahi?

[How is he encouraging New Zealanders to learn te reo Māori if he is deprioritising te reo within the public sector even though that is the space where it should be led?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m not sure I caught the front end of it.

SPEAKER: Was there a question in that, because that hasn’t—

Hon Member: Yes, there was a question in reo.

SPEAKER: No—you might think so, but I don’t. It hasn’t come through as a question. Can we just get perhaps another interpretation of it?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Stop showing off and just ask the question!

SPEAKER: Mr Peters?

Chlöe Swarbrick: If I may, Mr Speaker?

SPEAKER: Are you going to do your question again—because there’s no penalty.

Chlöe Swarbrick: I will give the question again.

SPEAKER: Without losing one, OK?

Chlöe Swarbrick: Yes. Ka pēhea ia e akiaki ana ngā tāngata ki Aotearoa ki te ako i te reo Māori mēnā ka whakawātea i te reo ki roto i te rāngai tūmatanui, ahakoa koirā te wāhi ki te whakaārahi?

[How is he encouraging New Zealanders to learn te reo Māori if he is deprioritising te reo within the public sector even though that is the space where it should be led?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I’d just say is, you know, the Government is wanting to encourage people to learn te reo Māori.

Chlöe Swarbrick: How?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, let me talk you through some of the things that we are doing. We’re investing in te reo language. We’re developing and resourcing structured literacy in our schools and offering te reo modification there. We’ve got a new phonics check, which is a world first in te reo Māori. We’ve got a curriculum-aligned mathematics programme, and all those resources will be free to schools and also available in te reo Māori. We’ve got a range of initiatives that we’ve got to encourage people to learn what is a taonga and a great language.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Kei te whakaae ia he taonga tuku iho i te reo Māori? Mēnā āe, he aha ia e āhei ai i tōna Kāwanatanga kia whakawātea i te reo Māori ki ngā kura, ahakoa e ai ki ngā taunakitanga ko ngā tamariki reo rua e tere ake ana ki te ako i ngā tamariki reo kotahi?

[Does he agree that te reo Māori is a taonga to be handed down to future generations? If so, why is he allowing his Government to deprioritise te reo in schools when evidence shows that bilingual children learn faster than monolingual children?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, if I understood the translation that came through, we’re doing an awful lot in schools to encourage young students to adopt te reo.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Seriously?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yeah, we’ve got schools that will be able to access free decodable books and other resources in reo from the ministry where they’re directly receiving cash funds to actually supplement this with other materials they might need. As I said, we’ve got a phonics check, we’ve got the Māori structured literacy programme, we’re accrediting providers to work across New Zealand professional development, we’ve got the Māori Advisory Group supporting the Minister, and we’ve got the Māori Education Action Plan.

Hon David Seymour: Can the—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: We’ll just wait for a bit of quiet.

Hon David Seymour: Can the Prime Minister confirm that in Budget 2024, the Government allocated an additional $12 million of capital expenditure to kōhanga reo, a form of early childhood education school choice that is actually valued by parents who want their children to learn te reo Māori whether they be Māori or non-Māori?

Tākuta Ferris: Six thousand dollars—

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes, I can confirm that and I thank the member.

SPEAKER: Sorry—

Tākuta Ferris: —to kōhanga reo.

SPEAKER: Excuse me. Questions are heard in silence. Please respect that, and we’ll have the question again.

Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’ll also just note that Tākuta Ferris has been saying that $12 million is only $6,000—

SPEAKER: That’s a point of debate, not a point of order.

Hon David Seymour: Well, I just point out—

SPEAKER: No, you’re not going to point it out. OK, we’ll move on. Prime Minister, do you want to answer that question?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I can confirm that that money was put aside in the Budget, and I’m very proud of what we’re doing to build te reo across our young students.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Me pēhea te tapahi pūtea ki Whakaata Māori e whai hua ai ki te whakahauora i te reo Māori?

[How is cutting funding to Whakaata Māori a productive way to revitalise te reo Māori?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I don’t have that number with me, but if you’d like to put that in writing, I can get an answer to you.

Hon Erica Stanford: Can the Prime Minister confirm that this Government has committed to ringfencing $100 million for kura kaupapa Māori property, and has also announced the first of those, which is Mokopuna here in Wellington?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I can, and I appreciate the Minister’s efforts to also make sure that, as we improve numeracy and literacy in this country, we can do that in English and te reo. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Hang on. It’s going to be a very long afternoon if people just can’t—[Interruption] Wait on. Just wait until the place goes quiet.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Do I need a translation?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, you won’t need a translation. Can the Prime Minister confirm that $12 million for kura does not equate to $6,000 per kura—

Tākuta Ferris: Kōhanga reo. Get it right.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —and where would he get that sort of mathematics from?

SPEAKER: No, Tākutai Ferris. You’re going to be leaving the House if you do that again.

Tākuta Ferris: It’s Tākuta.

SPEAKER: Do not interfere with a question. The Rt Hon Winston Peters: repeat your question, please, sir. [Interruption] OK. Chlöe Swarbrick.

Chlöe Swarbrick: E whakapono ana rānei ia e mahi pai ana tōna Kāwanatanga mō te iwi Māori; ki te pērā, he aha i whakatū ai te iwi Māori i ngā hīkoi ki Pāremata, te tuku take me te hanga petihana hou ia wiki, ia marama, hei whakahē i tēnei Kāwanatanga mai i tōna tīmatanga?

[Does he believe that his Government are doing good work for te iwi Māori; if so, why are they organising protests, submitting claims, and creating new petitions every week and month against this Government’s inception?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m incredibly proud that this is a Government that’s focused on improving outcomes for Māori and non-Māori, when you think about the efforts that we had to ensure that we’re improving numeracy, literacy; when I think about the efforts that we’ve made moving many Māori young people out of emergency housing into dry, safe, good homes; when I actually think about what we’re doing to rebuild this economy, giving tax relief for Māori families to support them in a cost of living crisis. We are a Government focused on outcomes, and we’re improving them for Māori and non-Māori.

Question No. 10—Police

10. Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill) to the Minister of Police: What “promising results” has he seen on the Government’s plan to restore law and order?

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Cherry picking.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Well, you’re very good at it—I’ll give you that. On Sunday, the Prime Minister and I shared that from 1 January to 31 July this year, there were 22 percent fewer serious assaults in the Auckland CBD than last year; within that, there were 18 percent fewer serious assaults resulting in injury. As I’ve previously informed the House, nationwide there have been 6 percent fewer serious assaults resulting in injury, 15 percent fewer burglaries, 10 percent fewer aggravated robberies, and 10 percent fewer stabbings. Auckland Council have reported 35 percent less crime in the CBD, and Heart of the City says that retail thefts have dropped by 50 percent. This has been a combined effort across Government. These are only very early signs of progress in restoring law and order, but I want to acknowledge police who’ve increased foot patrols nationwide by 10 percent and are getting back out there on the beat, back to their core business, and keeping people safe.

SPEAKER: That’s another very long answer, but some of the interjections from the other side of the House didn’t make a lot of sense and would be best unsaid. Talking about holiday job aspirations is not very much parliamentary business.

Dr Carlos Cheung: What feedback has he seen from Aucklanders?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: The property manager of the Queens Arcade told One News on Sunday that there has been a huge change in the CBD. He said, “Going back two years, it was dreadful in here.” There is more work to do, but this feedback is encouraging.

Dr Carlos Cheung: What work has he done across Government to improve the situation in Auckland’s CBD?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: In May, I brought together key stakeholders, including the Auckland City Council, Government agencies, Māori wardens, Community Patrols of New Zealand, ratepayers’ and residents’ groups, business associations, social service providers, and the local MP to develop and implement a coordinated strategy to make Auckland the safe and vibrant city it should be. Since that first meeting, the Ministry of Social Development, Police, and Kāinga Ora have been working together to open doors for police to connect with more community providers, enabling police to find the right support for the right situation.

Dr Carlos Cheung: What results has that work brought about?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Since 1 July, 97 people have been referred by police for support with accommodation, addiction, and family wellbeing. Additionally, there has been a 68 percent drop in the number of households in emergency housing in the Auckland CBD. This has enabled the exit of two emergency housing motels in the CBD. While some trends are starting to move in the right direction, there is still an enormous amount of work to do.

Question No. 11—Commerce and Consumer Affairs

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): E te Māngai o te Whare, ngā mihi o Te Wiki o te Reo Māori ki a koe.

[To the Speaker of the House, greetings of Māori Language Week to you.]

SPEAKER: Ka pai.

11. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: Will his changes to the rules for Buy Now Pay Later make things worse for the one in five New Zealand users who forgo essential spending such as paying bills or buying food to pay off these purchases?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): No, and I’d like to thank the member for the opportunity to talk about the great consumer protections that have just recently come into force. As the member will know, from 2 September, buy now, pay later services will be regulated under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, commonly referred to as CCCFA, which means they are now operating under the same protective umbrella as other credit products such as credit cards or personal loans. The key elements are, first, buy now, pay later providers must comply with responsible lending rules, ensuring that consumers are treated fairly and ethically. Second, when consumers sign up or request an increase in their credit limit, buy now, pay later providers must undertake credit checks. Third, buy now, pay later providers must disclose their key terms, including their default fees. Fourth, buy now, pay later providers must join an external dispute resolution scheme. And, finally, buy now, pay later providers must also offer relief for those experiencing financial hardship.

SPEAKER: Another extremely long answer, well beyond the scope of the question that was asked.

Arena Williams: Given that was a long answer, may I have another to test the Minister’s ability to opine?

SPEAKER: No.

Arena Williams: Does he know that one in six New Zealand users of buy now, pay later have incurred a soon to be deregulated, under his changes, default fee?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: It’s an interesting comment, particularly the assertion in the primary question, which I didn’t pick up on—which I will now address, given the question—but it’s interesting that Afterpay report that 95 percent of their customers paid on time in the first quarter of this year. This is broadly in line with Centrix’s figure. That data showed that only 8 percent of people missed the payment—i.e., 92 percent hit the payment—and that, of all of Afterpay’s people, only 1 percent applied for an application for full financial hardship, and all of them were granted relief from those payments because the default fee is also capped, and if a payment is missed, then the account is suspended until the overdue payment is made. That is why these are good provisions and they will protect consumers.

SPEAKER: It’s an answer to a question, not a speech to the House.

Arena Williams: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for his long answer, but he didn’t answer my question. May I ask it again?

SPEAKER: Well, with all due respect, I think given the brevity of your question, he did answer it but then carried on far too long and you perhaps lost it, because it could have been a cure for insomnia, the way it was being presented. If you have another supplementary, then please ask it.

Arena Williams: Does he know that Zip users, who could tap and go 10 purchases of $5, may be charged $400 in default fees over seven weeks because of his changes?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: That’s not correct.

Arena Williams: Is it a good idea to loosen up on credit regulation at a time when financial hardship cases are up 27 percent, sitting at 13,850 for July?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: As I said before, 99 percent of people who use buy now, pay later actually meet all their payments, and the 1 percent who have applied for hardship have all been granted proper full relief for their situation.

Arena Williams: Is it true that he tried to protect consumers, as he says, by preventing buy now, pay later providers from charging excessive fees if he was only to be overruled by David Seymour?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: The reason why we made the exception for buy now, pay later is that we wanted to protect this as an important source of finance for people, and the model did not work under the CCCFA provisions as they were currently proposed. That’s why we accepted them, because we think it’s important that people have access to buy now, pay later services and most people—99 percent—use it very responsibly.

Question No. 12—Māori Development

12. HŪHANA LYNDON (Green) to the Minister for Māori Development: Kei te whakaae ia ki te Tumuaki o Whakaata Māori kua kī nei ko ngā panonitanga pūtea mō Whakaata Māori i hua mai i ngā “kaupapa here Kāwanatanga e huri haere ana”; mēnā āe, kei te tau ia ki te whakaaro ko ngā hua o aua kaupapa here kia huri te hongere reo Māori ki te ipurangi anake, me te whakawhāiti i te haumitanga ki ngā kaupapa Māori?

[Does he agree with the chief executive of Whakaata Māori, who said the funding changes for Whakaata Māori were the result of “shifting Government policies”; if so, is he comfortable that Government policies are resulting in te reo television channel becoming online-only and reduced investment in Māori content?]

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Minister for Māori Development): Kua kitea hoki ngā piki me ngā heke o ngā pūtea tautoko mō Whakaata Māori. Ia te Kāwanatanga ka nukunuku mai, ka nukunuku atu, ehara i te tikanga hou. Heoi anō e tautoko ana au i te poari me te kāhui kaihautū o Whakaata Māori. Ehara māku, mā rātou anō e whiriwhiri i te huarahi tika mō te whakahaere o te hōngere Te Reo Māori ki te ipurangi anake, me te mea nei koirā hoki tā rātou i wawata ai i tērā tau. Kei te ipurangi te marea.

[The rise and fall of the support funding for Māori TV has been observed. With each successive Government it shifts back and forth; this is nothing new. However, I support the board and the executive leadership of Māori TV. It is not for me; it is for them to choose the appropriate path for the administration of the reo Māori channel online-only, and that is what they aspired to last year. Everyone is on the internet.]

Hūhana Lyndon: He āwangawanga nōna mehemea te whakawhāiti ia i tēnei pūtea mō te hōtaka Māori me te whakakāhore i te hōngere Reo Māori kei raro e putu ana tēnei ture reo o Whakaata Māori nei 2004? Ki te kore, he aha i pērā ai?

[Is he concerned that if this funding for the Māori channel is reduced and the reo Māori channel is disestablished, this Māori TV legislation from 2004 will be defeated; if not, why not?]

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Me kī au i konei kei te whaiwhai haere mātou i te huarahi i whakatakotoria ai e te Minita tawhito kei tērā taha o te Whare, me te mea nei kāore mātou i te tapahi i te huarahi pūtea, engari kei te whaiwhai hoki i te tauira i whakaritea mai ai e tērā Kāwanatanga. Heoi anō māku e kī atu ki te hunga pātai, kaua e riro mā te Kāwanatanga tō tātou reo e whakaohooho, engari me riro hoki mō tō whānau, mō tō hapori, mō tō marae e whakatenatena, e whakakenakena hoki i te whirikōkō.

[I should say here that we are following the path that was laid down by the previous Minister on that side of the House, and we are not cutting the funding pathway, but instead are following the precedent that was set by that Government. However, I will say to the person who asked the question: don’t leave it up to the Government to awaken our language, but instead it should be up to your family, your community, your marae to encourage and inspire the songbirds.]

Hūhana Lyndon: Kei te whakaae ia, te Minita, mō ngā whakataunga kerēme WAI11 e kīia nei, “the Māori language is an essential part of Māori culture, and must be regarded as a taonga, a valued possession”? Mehemea e whakaae ana te Minita, he aha te take kei te whakaiti i ngā pūtea mō Whakaata Māori?

[Does he, the Minister, agree with the WAI11 settlement claim that says, “the Māori language is an essential part of Māori culture, and must be regarded as a taonga, a valued possession”; if the Minister is in agreement, what is the reason for the reduction in funding for Māori TV?]

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Ehara nā mātou—

SPEAKER: Sorry; we’re still getting the translation.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Ka pai.

SPEAKER: Please start again.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Ehara nā mātou i whakariterite mai i te huarahi pūtea nei, engari nā te Kāwana tawhito i whakarite mai ai kia iti iho te pūtea ka whakapaua ki tēnei take. Engari me mōhio hoki te Whare, te ana o te raiona nei, tēnei take, te Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Entity, he mahi moumou moni, moumou pūtea, moumou kaupapa ki te pō.

[It was not us that arranged this financial path, but instead it was the prior Government that arranged for the reduction in funding to be spent on this issue. But the House, this den of lions, should be aware that this issue, the Aotearoa New Zealand public media entity, is an endeavour that wastes money, wastes funding, and wastes initiatives in the darkness.]

Hon Willie Jackson: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Is the Minister going to stop blaming the previous Government and show some courage and make a bid for Whakaata Māori next year, or is he going to do nothing?

SPEAKER: I’ll tell you what, you can reword the question. You do not question anyone’s courage in this House.

Hon Willie Jackson: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Will the Minister be going back next year to ask for more money for Whakaata Māori?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Kei te mōhio te hunga whakarongo, te hunga mātakitaki e kaha ngana ana au ki te pātai atu, ki te tautoko atu ki te whakanui i te pūtea ki tō mātou Manu Pūtea, a Nicola Willis. Engari me mōhio hoki ka tika, ka nui te whakamoumou i te pūtea i tērā Kāwana tawhito.

[The listeners and watching audience are aware that I am trying hard to question and to support the increase in funding with our Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis. But it is appropriate to also be aware that that previous Government wasted a lot of funding.]

Hūhana Lyndon: Kei a wai te hē mō te iti rawa o te pūtea mō Whakaata Māori? Kei roto i tēnei Tahua Pūtea tonu, 2024 tonu, kei te tari Kāwanatanga, kei a ia raini?

[Who is at fault for the very small funding allotted to Māori TV; is it this Budget 2024, is it the Government department, or is it him?]

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Kua kitea hoki neke atu i te $142 miriona ka whakapaua ki ngā ohu e whā. Kāore anō mātou kia iti ake i te pūtea i whakaritea i tērā tau, engari ko tāku e mea atu ana i tēnei wā, koinei hoki te wero mō ngā mema Pāremata o tērā taha: kaua e riro mā te Kāwanatanga me ā koutou pahupahu e whakanui te pūtea.

[It has been seen that more than $142 million has been spent on four entities. We have not yet reduced the funding that was arranged last year, but what I am saying at this time is that this is indeed the challenge for the members of Parliament on that side—don’t leave increasing the funding up to the Government and your ranting.]

Hūhana Lyndon: Ko te pātai whakamutunga, e te Māngai. E te Minita, he aha te anga whakamua mō Whakaata Māori mehemea kahore te pūtea e tino piki ana i tēnei tau, me ngā tau e tū mai nei?

[The last question, Mr Speaker. To the Minister, what is the future direction for Māori TV if the funding is not to be increased this year and the years that follow?]

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Kei te mōhio hoki te hunga whakarongo nei me te Kāwanatanga haumi ki tāku e wawata ana, ki te āta pītaritari ki tō mātou Manu Pūtea kia nui ake te pūtea, heoi anō ka riro mā te Kāpenata me te Kāwanatanga hoki e whakarite te kaute, me te mōhio hoki ahakoa ngā kōrero hōhonu, kakī hōhonu o tērā taha o te Whare, e kaikā ana mātou ko ngā tāngata pēnei i a Matua Tararā nei ki te whakatakoto i te reo Māori, ehara i te reo pahupahu.

[The listening audience and the coalition Government are aware of my aspiration to carefully encourage our Minister of Finance to increase the funding; however, it is up to Cabinet and the Government also to arrange the accounts, and we are aware that despite the deep discussions, and the hot air of that side of the House, we and people like Minister Jones here are keen to lay out the Māori language, not mere rants.]

Hon Shane Jones: Mehemea he whā kē ngā pou kia whakatairangatia ai te reo Māori, kua rite rānei te wā me whakawhāiti i aua poupou e whā kia kaua rawa atu te pūtea e moumoutia, otirā me waiho kia whakatōpūngia kātahi ka whiwhi pūtea a Pouaka Whakaata Māori, mā te whakahiato i aua poupou e whā?

[If there are indeed four pillars of revitalisation of the Māori language, has the time then come to amalgamate those four pillars so that the funding is not at all wasted; indeed, should they be combined and then funding can be distributed to Māori TV, by combining the four pillars?]

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Tāria te wā he kaupapa tērā hei wānangatanga mā ngā ohu me ngā hapori maha e kaikā ana ki te whakanui i tō tātou reo. Engari mō tēnei wā, nau mai ki te Wiki o te Reo Māori. Kia kaha te kōrero, āke āke āke.

[At the appropriate time, that is a subject for the boards and many communities that are keen on celebrating our language to discuss. But for the time being, welcome to Māori Language Week. Speak the language, for ever and ever.]

SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill.

Estimates Debate

In Committee

Debate resumed from 27 August on the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the House is in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill. The Business Committee has determined to organise the debate by portfolio, so there will be no sector-specific debates. All votes are available for debate, but only specific Ministers will be available each day to speak to the indicated portfolio. The Government has indicated that the Ministers of education, housing, local government, climate change, and health will be available today. The Business Committee has also determined that any member may commence the debate on a portfolio despite Standing Order 348(3).

This debate expires after 11 hours, at which point questions will be put that the votes stand part of the schedules and on the provisions of the Appropriation (2024/25 Estimates) Bill. There are nine hours and four minutes remaining in this debate. Parties have had an indication of the times that are left, but if anyone’s in doubt they can come and ask us.

The Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations. A compendium of the reports of select committees on the votes is available on the Table.

The question is, once again, that the votes contained in the Estimates of Appropriations for 2024/25 stand part of the schedules. Members, we start with the Minister of Education. Ministers are available to speak to this portfolio.

Education

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair. Since becoming the Minister of Education, I’ve had the privilege of travelling around New Zealand and talking with education experts, principals and teachers at the front line, union leaders, parents, and iwi. Budget ’24 is the start of transformational change in the education system to lift student achievement and close the equity gap. We’ve made many other announcements since the Budget, but in my short five minutes I will just go over some of the highlights from Budget ’24.

In Budget ’24, the Government boosted Vote Education by $2.93 billion over the next four years to improve student outcomes despite very tough fiscal times. We are a Government that is committed to improving services for everyday New Zealanders, and education is one of those extraordinarily important services. This Budget is about taking a coherent, considered, and evidence-based approach to education. The money includes building the teacher workforce of the future, providing additional professional development for teachers—and other teacher-aides and learning support workers—and relieves cost pressures in early childhood education. There is, of course, the $67 million for structured literacy and $53 million for an additional 1,500 teachers.

Since coming into Government, one of the biggest challenges that we had was the number of building projects in the property pipeline that were not able to be committed to because there was not enough budget to undertake them. The ministry knew this before we became the Government—in September, a month or so before we were elected—and started their value-for-money exercise because they knew that they had a pipeline of projects that they were unable to deliver on because there wasn’t enough money.

Since coming into Government, we have put in an enormous injection—over $1.3 billion of investment over four years—into school properties so our kids can learn in safe, warm, dry buildings and so that the portfolio can be expanded to accommodate more students. We are investing $780 million in funding invested across the education portfolio to maintain and upgrade schools across New Zealand. This is the largest increase in maintenance, upgrade, and redevelopment funding that has been delivered in at least three years, and I understand from the ministry that this injection is more than the last six years combined. It’s important that we invest in the property that we already have as well as building new classrooms. To that end, we’re also investing $456 million to expand the property portfolio to manage roll growth by delivering an additional 8,000 student places, which we’re well on the way to doing.

The Government supports choice in education. We’re also committed to kaupapa Māori education and Māori-medium education, and are committed to ring-fencing of property money for kura due to the very dilapidated state of their buildings.

Budget ’24 also provided $1.3 billion in focused supports for the education sector. These investments are focused on increasing student attendance and achievement and will address rising cost pressures. There was $478 million of funding for the school lunch programme, which was new money because this had come to an end; $199 million over four years, including a 3 percent increase for school Equity and Isolation Index - based components and a 2.5 percent increase of the remaining components of school operating grants; $191 million over four years for a cost adjustment of 2 percent to the early childhood education sector.

This Budget also included $45 million to enable an additional 14,400 students to access the English for speakers of other languages—or ESOL—programme, and this amount will be funded by immigration levies in part. There was an additional support for the sector featuring $15 million that will support the increasing number of students who qualify for the High Health Needs Fund. There’s $14 million to continue the delivery of the period products in schools programme—very excited to announce that earlier in the year—which distributes period products to students in need throughout New Zealand. We’re also investing $163 million over four years to support the digital services in schools, including cyber-security and equipment replacement.

I also was very excited to announce in this Budget our partnership with Māori. Our collaboration with Māori partners underscores our dedication to fostering enduring relationships and working alongside Māori experts, kaupapa Māori leaders, and iwi as we strive to enhance educational outcomes for all tamariki in mainstream, rumaki, and kura kaupapa. We’ve done that through the refresh of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, the Māori immersion curriculum; by continuing the ring-fencing of $100 million for kura kaupapa buildings and property; and by establishing a Māori education advisory group to help us with our Māori education action plan.

There’s much more to say around teacher supply and lots of other things, but I will leave that, perhaps, to answering some of the questions.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): What has the Minister done to boost the teacher workforce?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair. That was actually one of the things that I didn’t quite get to in my opening remarks. One of my six priority areas is developing the workforce of the future, and we’re investing $53 million to attract and retain teachers. One of the things that I was really pleased to be able to do was to invest more heavily in the on-site teacher programme. The previous Government had a pilot running and it was extraordinarily successful—150 teachers a year. We’ve doubled those numbers off the back of that, and I hope to do more in the future, but a big part of this Budget was allowing schools to take people who already have a degree and to do the teacher training part in the classroom; as I say, extraordinarily successful, and we have doubled the numbers there.

We’ve also put money into continuing the BeTTER and Teach First programmes. We’ve also announced just recently the changes we’ve made to encouraging more trained teachers back into the classroom through making it cheaper and easier for them to get a limited authority to teach. We’ve already had a number of people who’ve registered their interest in doing that. We know that the single most important thing is the quality of the teacher in front of the student, so we’re making sure that we are getting great people enrolling in initial teacher education, encouraging people back, but also we’ve got under way a large work programme around taking a look at initial teacher education and making sure that it’s fit for purpose. There’s many things that we’re doing to support our great teachers and that’s just some of them.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I really want to start by looking into a few questions that I have for you, Minister, around learning support. We heard, during the select committee hearings, that the overall learning support for this Budget had reduced by $5.449 million from the previous year. We do know that this is probably the number one issue that is facing schools on a day-to-day basis at the moment. Certainly, I’m sure that you hear what I hear when you go around schools: that the number of complexities has increased with our young people coming through the school gate, and that teachers are feeling like they are not getting the support they used to have.

As the Vote Minister, I want to get a sense—I’ve got a few questions. The first would be a sense that you made decisions, as the Vote Minister, around what was in and what was out with your team and you talked about some of the areas and priorities that you had. You had $153 million for charter schools, whereas the research is very questionable around the effects of charter schools for our young people. I want to know how you can reconcile that allocation with the urgent need for funds for students with existing gaps in their learning.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Can I just make mention of the fact that the Minister, the Hon Erica Stanford, is here for her portfolio, so she’s not expected to be answering questions that actually sit in somebody else’s portfolio.

Hon JAN TINETTI: That’s exactly right, Madam Chair, which is why I’m asking: when she came to make those decisions, how she could reconcile that. She is the Vote Minister overall, so that’s why I’m asking this question around making those decisions that she needed to, to make those decisions around learning support.

The other area, Minister, that I’m quite keen to get an understanding of is the cuts that happened. You put an expectation around cuts on the Ministry of Education, to reduce spending by, I think it was, 7.5 percent overall. I remember asking, during the Estimates hearings, around those learning support areas. They are really incredibly important and evidence-based, such as the delivery of PB4L School-Wide in schools, and I was told that that would carry on. After that hearing, which was a public hearing, I got an email from people within the Ministry of Education who had not long left, who said that those teams had been disbanded and many of the people had lost their jobs due to those cuts and had absolutely no belief that that role would be able to carry on and that the fidelity of PB4L School-Wide would be able to continue.

I want to get an understanding from you about (a), as I said, the choices that you had to make and how you can reconcile those choices with the fact that learning support funding reduced over that year, and (b) how those really important programmes, which do make a difference for young people who have a complexity of needs, can carry on with the fidelity that they are supposed to be delivered with when cuts are happening within the Ministry of Education.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to thank the member the Hon Jan Tinetti for her questions because everybody knows that learning support in education is one of the greatest challenges and, if I’m being perfectly honest, in my six priority areas is the most difficult. I’m sure that the previous Minister would agree that it is one of the most difficult problems to solve in education, which is why it’s one of my priority areas. We’ve got quite a big work programme under way—

Hon Jan Tinetti: Point of order. I’m very sorry to interrupt you, Minister, but we can’t hear you very well.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I apologise. I’ll try and move the microphone closer, and I’ll speak louder.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Is that better?

Hon Jan Tinetti: Yes, thank you.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I’ll start again. I said I just wanted to thank the previous Minister, the Hon Jan Tinetti, for her question because I know that she’s passionate about learning support, as am I, which is why it’s one of my six priority areas.

I just wanted to acknowledge that it is, if I’m honest, one of the most difficult areas to solve. The reason for that, as I’ve discovered, has been that there’s very little access to any solid data for me to make decisions on. When I asked the ministry to provide information on what’s working—what resources are working, evaluative frameworks on some of the contracts that we’ve got running, in the last little while, at least—we haven’t been collecting that data. To make informed, evidence-based decisions on what works best when you’re dealing with a $1.2 billion spend is really tough to do. At the Budget, we made some commitments around the $15 million extra for high health needs. We’ve also invested in tier 2 supports for structured literacy.

Also, on the front line—and I know that the member is always interested in some of the reprioritisations that we made in education—I was always very clear with the ministry that that was not to affect the front line and also, more importantly, not to affect learning support. In fact, over the last little while, to August—so this is from the end of June to the end of August—we’ve increased numbers ourselves. There’s an additional 100 full-time teacher equivalents in learning support—so that’s six Curriculum leads, three leadership advisers, 85 learning support roles, including 10 early intervention teachers, 19 speech language therapists, 10 schoolwide practitioners, 20 intern psychologists, 13 educational advisers—and other roles, including advisers on Deaf children, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and psychologists. I made it very clear to the ministry that, when we were going through this exercise, the front line was not to be touched, but when it came to learning support, and especially those curriculum leads, we were going to make sure we increased the numbers. That was very clear.

I want to go back to the broader problem that I mentioned to the member, around the lack of information and data that we have to make really good choices. The programme of work that we have under way at the moment is to put some really good structure and frameworks and evaluative frameworks back into everything we do in the ministry. I don’t know how the last Government were able to make any decisions without that level of data and insights to inform them on where the best place was to spend their money. What I’ve noticed is that when we continue to spend more and more and more, the snowball of band-aids gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and we never sit down and go, “What’s not working? Let’s stop doing that thing and put it into the thing that is working.”

I was astounded at the fact that previous Ministers in the Labour Government never went through that exercise of going, “Hey, ministry, give me a line by line of everything we spend in learning support”—

Camilla Belich: Point of order, Madam Chair. I understand the Minister is to be talking about the Estimates in relation to her budget, not the work of the previous Government.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): She is actually talking about the process—

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Speaking to the point of order, this is the process we went through to get to where we did in the Budget, Madam Chair. A big part of that is to make sure we have really good data and evidence and good evaluative frameworks. We are shifting everything that we’re doing in the ministry now to these really good practices and frameworks to make sure that we’re getting good value for money. We are now working on our learning support action plan. We’re using a lot of that data and evidence that we’re now starting to gather. Some of the things that we’re looking to do—those operational changes in the system—we’re making sure that everything we’re doing is data-driven and evidence-based.

We’ve also heard that one of the biggest problems facing schools is the amount of paperwork they have to fill out, the time that that takes, the declines that they get, and the fact that they just feel like there’s no point in actually applying for anything because they keep getting declined and it takes them hours and hours to fill out the paperwork. I’ve said to the ministry, “What we need from you is one application form, one piece of paper.” We are the back end, and that’s what we are building the capacity to do at the moment. We’re also going through all of the money we spend, line by line, and working out what is having the greatest impact for our kids when it comes to learning support. We’re going to shift our funding to those areas, and I can tell the member that one of my big focuses of the upcoming year is learning support.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Tēnā koe e te Tiamana. Kia kaha te reo Māori, and 中秋快乐, happy Moon Festival.

I would like to ask the Minister of Education a question around teaching supply a little bit later, but the first question I would like to ask the Minister is around the cuts to Creatives in Schools, and this is volume B.19, page 39 of the Summary of Initiatives. Now, despite what was said in the Summary of Initiatives, this particular programme was not introduced as a COVID measure, it was not funded as part of the COVID measures; it was introduced in 2019 and it was funded for four solid years when it was announced in 2019, prior to COVID. The Minister before was talking about informed decision-making, evidence based, and what is working. In round four of the evaluation for this that was recently received, it states that 63,730 students over four years have benefited from this, it funded 211 projects in 223 schools—and the overall evaluation being very good. That also includes lifting attendance. While I appreciate the Government’s singular—some would argue “tunnel vision”—focus in terms of a priority that advancing student achievement is important, it does not address education holistically. When we are looking at something that is informed, is evidence based, is working, then what indicators does the Minister use for evaluating programme success and the continuation of a programme? That is my first question.

My second question on this is that the funding for this, overall, is miniscule. It is $12 million over 4 years. It is roughly $3 million a year. This is miniscule compared to the lavishness that the Minister has funded for other projects, such as $153 million for charter schools. This is a fraction of that, and we know that it benefits a lot of the students. Why is this particular programme being cut despite the fact that it only is a very small part—a very, very small part—of the Budget, despite its enormous benefits? Now, my third question around this to the Minister is: if it were cut—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Could the member please just repeat the second question because the Minister was taking some advice. We got a question about the indicators—yes.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Yes. The first question is around the indicators for evaluating programme success and continuation, because the Minister mentioned before that she takes an evidence-based approach, and the evidence for this programme is outstanding. My second question is around the funding for the Budget, considering it’s very small. The third one is: how would the Minister anticipate Aotearoa upholding our obligation under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 31, which states that every child has the right to “rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to possess freely in cultural life and the arts.”? So how would we uphold that?

We know that the Minister herself has found her passion through arts, music, and sports at Rangitoto College—and as a fellow bassoon player, I commend that. Clearly, arts and music have a place in our education, so my fourth question is: why wouldn’t the Minister consider funding for this particular programme? I know there are other programmes, but we also know that this particular programme works. Thank you.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Can I just pass on my condolences to the member for having to play the bassoon, like I did. It doesn’t do much for your reputation at school! Ha, ha!

Look, can I just start by talking about Creatives in Schools. I was initially told that it was funded as a COVID response, but have subsequently been told that it started in 2019 but had a much bigger boost as part of the COVID-19 recovery and response, in conjunction with the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. We had to make some decisions when it came to this Budget. I did speak to the ministry about the other types of things that we fund, including the enriching curriculum funding, which was previously called Education Outside the Classroom, which is where we fund schools to take children to things like museums. There are the music mentors in schools, secondary music grants, Smokefree Rockquest, Showquest, Tangata Beats—there are a number of things that we fund.

The thing is that we have a crisis in literacy and numeracy. The results have been dropping for many decades over many Governments, and, yeah, we had some tough choices to make. We made sure, of course, that there is still funding for the arts, culture, and heritage when it comes to schools and music. There were choices to be made, and the Creatives in Schools was, for the most part, a response to COVID to help artists during COVID when they were unable to work. COVID is now, for the most part—even though some of us have had it recently—over, and it’s time to get back to the things that kids are really struggling with: 45 percent of our 14- and 15-year-olds recently passed a foundational numeracy assessment at high school, which is the NCEA corequisite. That is a terrible result for our kids. We have to do better, and we had to make some choices. We’ve got the same in literacy as well when it comes to reading and writing. We have to make choices.

I’m a Minister whose goal is to make sure we are raising achievement and closing the equity gap, and good literacy and good numeracy—especially good literacy—opens up so many other areas of the curriculum that we cannot ignore it. Yes, we made choices. Yes, we’ve put money into structured literacy and phonics checks and decodable resources. The money that’s about to hit the accounts of every single primary school in the country next week to help them buy some of the resources they need for literacy—that is a priority for this Government. It doesn’t mean that we still don’t encourage schools to be participating in art and in music, and there are other things that we are funding.

When you look at those results and the fact that around 10,000 kids last year didn’t get NCEA at all, and their trajectory is grim because we know that those kids end up in youth justice, they end up on benefits, and they end up not participating in society to their full potential. That’s what we want for our kids. We want them to realise their full potential, and, unless they’re literate and numerate, that is not likely to happen. So, yes, we made some tough choices. Yes, we’ve invested heavily in literacy and in numeracy. In this Budget, especially in literacy with that $70-odd million into structured literacy, which included professional learning and development for our teachers, it included the decodable resources, it included the phonics check, which we just are about to start piloting in schools next term, which is looking fantastic, to make sure that every single child next year in years 0 to 3 learns to read using structured literacy. That was a choice we’ve made, and I’ll stand by it every single day of the week.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that, Minister. It’s not my main question, but I just wanted to ask a question supplementary to my colleague’s question that he was talking about.

Minister, you know that attendance has been something that we’ve been grappling with for over a decade now, and it’s one of the areas that Creatives in Schools did really well at. In fact, I visited a school here in Porirua recently that was getting amazing results through their Creatives in Schools programme at getting their young people to school. Taking those things away isn’t creating a very good, inclusive curriculum, and I wanted to ask you your thoughts around the fact of how we can teach inclusively literacy and numeracy through those other areas, and how responsible the Government has to be to ensure that schools don’t become bland and boring and become places that kids don’t want to be. Creatives in Schools was an area that was making a difference to so many kids to get them to school.

I want to go back to your answer that you gave me around the lack of data on learning support and to challenge that to ask whether, when you were looking at that and you were asking the ministry around getting that data, you were not given the vast amount of data that is collected by schools on a daily basis. That data is also given at individual education plan meetings—IEPs—where Ministry of Education personnel are at those meetings. That data is freely available from schools. That data is collected to show the importance and the success of all of the interventions that come through in that area, and when I’m looking at this Budget and seeing a reduction of over $5.4 million—which isn’t insignificant in the learning support area—I just don’t think that saying that we don’t have the data washes, Minister.

I wanted to know what your availability is to get that data—how has the ministry made that data available to you? If it has not, then you should be going back and asking questions around that, because it is there and it is available. I really wanted to know that, but I also wanted to know your response to the Government’s responsibility to ensure that schools are not bland and boring places and that kids want to come to school—acknowledging that Creatives in School was one way to get those kids who are hard to engage or who learn the world through the arts going to school on a daily basis.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): We have amazing teachers in our schools all around the country who are engaging and vibrant and who know how to get kids to school and how to engage them in the classroom. What I suggest that we are able to reprioritise is getting artists to come into school to paint murals. I understand that it might be a “nice to have”, but I’ll tell that member that what else keeps kids at school is knowing how to read, knowing how to write, and knowing how to do maths, because when you can’t do those things, you stop turning up. Having some fancy artist come in to help paint a mural at the front of the school is a “nice to have”, but when kids can’t read, write, and do maths, I’m sorry, but I’m going to prioritise that every single day of the week.

Now, I’ve had a chat to my officials and, look, individual education plan data is not centrally collated, as much as I like to ask for these things. That is not available from the officials. What I can say to the member is that most of the evaluations that have been presented to me that have been done over the last few years under that member’s previous Government have been highly qualitative. Most of the things that I’ve seen have said, “Teachers like this. Principals like this. It seems to be doing really well.”, but what it doesn’t tell me is how many kids do they deliver it to, what was the outcome when it came to attendance or achievement—those are the things that are missing in all of the evaluations that were previously done under that member’s Government.

Hon Jan Tinetti: It is there.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: It’s not there. Qualitative data does not count. What I asked was how—the member is laughing, but I’ll tell her what happened at the Budget. I asked for a line by line on everything we’ve spent in the last year, part of which was under that member’s Government—a line by line of everything we have spent—and do you know what? The officials have said, “This is not something we’ve been asked to do before: a line by line, right down to the contracting level, of everything we’re spending money on.”, and when I did get it across, we weren’t able to see, for the most part, for everything we spend money on, how many children and what were the outcomes in terms of attendance and achievement.

It’s really hard to make decisions, and so what we are now putting in place is profit-evaluative frameworks to make sure that every single thing we spend money on and every contract we sign has an evaluative framework that tells us what the outcomes are against the achievements that we are trying to aim for, which will mean that we don’t have to spend so much money on these evaluations, which for the most part over the last few years that I’ve been looking at tell us almost nothing apart from, often, “Teachers like them and some principals like them.”, without telling me how many kids and what was the actual impact on attendance or achievement. That is all about to change. Overall, that is not what the ministry has been doing under the previous Government, and I’m surprised that the two previous Ministers didn’t ask for that level of detail.

Coming back to learning support, it is going to revolutionise the way that we spend money. It’s going to mean that we are going to know what the outcomes are that we want to achieve, we’ll know whether or not they’ve been achieved, and then we won’t have to spend so much money—because we spend a lot of money—on evaluations that don’t tell us a lot. When we’ve got access to this data, we can then make really good decisions on where we spend money, and that’s what we’re going to do.

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Heamana. I have a few questions, so I’ll try and keep them really brief so the Minister can answer them. They’re set in the context that Māori education, historically and currently, only receive around 1 percent of the education budget, which is not surprising—that’s an equal amount to what Treaty settlements equate to.

Firstly, given that we’ve seen a $4 million cut out of education with Te Pae Roa vanishing—Te Pae Roa’s goal was to increase Māori children’s participation in kōhanga reo kura and wharekura by 30 percent by 2040; so that’s gone. We’ve also seen a $22 million programme called Te Kawa Matakura gone. Te Kawa Matakura’s goal was to ensure that rangatahi Māori leadership was coming through education and there would be enough to lead it forward going ahead. Given that, and given education outcomes for tamariki Māori are significantly better in kura kaupapa, how does the Minister plan to not just incrementally increase but radically boost funding for Māori-medium education over the next five years? That’s number one.

Number two is: what concrete steps will the Minister take—and we’re pretty clear that there weren’t any leading up to this Budget—to embed Māori perspectives and priorities into the education budgeting process, ensuring that Māori voices are not just included but are the driving force behind funding decisions and decisions that directly impact Māori learners? Koina te wāhanga tuatahi. [That’s the first couple.]

Secondly, how does the Minister plan to increase the funding and support for Māori students’ participation and success in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and science, technology, engineering, arts and maths (STEAM) fields or programmes; and what strategies are being developed to incorporate mātauranga Māori into these areas and create a more inclusive and culturally responsive learning environment?

Continuing on in the culturally responsive learning environment space, what targeted funding and support mechanisms are being put in place to increase the number of qualified reo Māori - speaking teachers across all education domains—including early childhood, kōhanga reo; primary, kura kaupapa; secondary, wharekura; and tertiary level, whare wānanga? Additionally, how does the Minister plan to retain and upskill these teachers to ensure that Māori students have consistent access to culturally responsive, high-quality education in te reo Māori? Given the quick decision she’s made just recently to pay for some hundreds of teachers to return on a limited authority to teach, then I think this is a very good question for her—she should reasonably have a good answer.

The last part: what future funding plans are in place to address digital inequity among Māori students, particularly in terms of access to digital learning tools and online educational resources? Lastly, what innovative funding mechanisms is the Minister considering to support the development of culturally relevant and innovative Māori education programmes, including those led by iwi, hapū, and Māori organisations? I just reflect on the Minister’s interview on Q+A, and she was very clear that she has a programme that is seeing Māori students perform to the same degree of success as non-Māori students. Given the level of confidence the Minister has, I’m very keen to hear her answers to these questions.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for the questions from the member. I have extraordinarily high aspirations for our tamariki Māori and, as the member said, those aspirations are that our tamariki Māori are achieving at the same rate or even higher than everyone else, and there’s no reason that we can’t do that.

One of the things that I talk about a lot is closing the equity gap, and every policy that we put in place, I have that in mind. Every school that I go to and look at the success that they’re having with their tamariki Māori, I ask them, “What is it that you’re doing? Show me the evidence of that closing the equity gap.” Part of the reason that we are introducing structured literacy across the whole of New Zealand is that the schools that I’ve been into that have implemented structured literacy have seen extraordinary results for tamariki Māori—extraordinary. It’s one of the biggest game-changers in literacy that we’re going to see for tamariki Māori.

I wanted to make sure that not only are we doing that in the mainstream for the 95 percent of Māori kids who are in the mainstream but we’re also providing those resources for Māori medium as well. It’s been really well received that we are thinking about our rumaki, our kura kaupapa, and saying, “Actually, we are going to make sure that all of our decodable resources—so those books that you learn to sound out words—are not only available in English but they’re also available in te reo Māori.” We’ve also accredited 12 providers for professional learning and development for Māori-medium provision of structured literacy across the country. We’re also going to be dropping into all of the accounts of those schools—coming up in the near future; I think in the next week—funding to allow them to purchase resources to support literacy and structured literacy. That might be different decodable books, it might be whiteboards they write on, it might be flash cards or other games or things that they’ll use to support structured literacy.

One of the things that we learnt from kura, of course, is that the way that our tamariki Māori learn to read in kura is through structured literacy. They’ve known that for a long time and we’re just catching up. We want to make sure that they have all of the resources that everybody else has.

We’re doing exactly the same thing in maths. All of the teacher guide books, all of the workbooks, everything we provide in English will also be in te reo Māori for all Māori medium to use as well. Again, in mathematics, when we’re looking at closing the equity gap and accelerating achievement for our tamariki Māori, every school I go in who’s been using structured literacy, I say to them, “I want to see your Māori results.” And very, very similar to structured literacy, unsurprisingly, because they both follow the science of learning, explicit teaching, a structured curriculum, deliberate intentional teaching, mastering of the basics, rehearsing, you know, making sure that things are stored in the long-term memory so we don’t have cognitive load problems—sorry, I’m geeking out a bit, but the point is that every school who’s done this approach has seen enormous results for their tamariki Māori. I want that in every single school, which is why we’re investing heavily in that.

Tākuta Ferris: Point of order. I appreciate the response, but the response is a very broad one, and the question I asked initially, or the context, is that kura kaupapa, Māori medium education outperforms—outperforms; and has been doing it for 30 years—mainstream delivery. The crux of my questioning is why is Māori medium education—and it’s in this year’s Budget too—not funded to any kind of degree that would signal that it is a good—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I think the Minister’s got the gist of your question. Thank you.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I’d just like to point out that Māori-medium education—which is why I’m answering the question in full—includes bilingual, rumaki, kura kaupapa, everything, which is why I’m answering the question around all of the resources we are providing to all of those mediums. You’ve mentioned Māori medium education; I’m going to answer in full.

Tākuta Ferris: Kura kaupapa Māori, kōhanga reo, wharekura—what about them? Kura ā iwi—what about those four?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: The member asked about Māori medium; I’m answering the question about Māori medium. The member also wanted to know about—

Tākuta Ferris: Kōhanga reo?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: No. Te Kawa Matakura—yeah, Te Kawa Matakura. I remember at the time when we were going through the line by line, this was one of the items that stuck out because it was a sum of money that was not reaching that many children. One of the questions, as I say, I always ask is how many kids—

Tākuta Ferris: It was a leadership programme.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Well, I seem to recall somewhere around 25 kids for the $4 million that we were spending. It wasn’t good use of money, and it was a pilot, a small pilot that was actually for tertiary intervention. When I looked at the need of our tamariki Māori in reading, writing, and maths, it was important that we made decisions based on the money that we’ve got and the effective use of that money. I know that putting that into the structured literacy, the structured maths, the phonics check that we’re doing in our Māori medium is going to have huge impacts.

One of the things that we are doing for the first time ever for Māori medium is a phonics check at 20, 40, and 55 weeks. We know that in a bilingual setting the language acquisition is slightly different; that’s why we’ve got three checks in place. The very first check is actually an auditory check to make sure that we are testing kids’ hearing and picking up things like glue ear before we start getting into phonics. We are thinking really carefully about the difference in settings when you’re learning in a bilingual setting and about what our response needs to be, so that is where we have directed our funding, and when we are making decisions in a tough fiscal environment, when there isn’t a lot of money floating around and we have to reprioritise.

Tākuta Ferris: Surely you like success?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: We took—there was no success in Te Kawa Matakura. [Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, we’re not going to always agree on the Minister’s answers, but the Minister is answering the questions, so let her finish, please.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Thank you. I was talking about Te Kawa Matakura, about that funding not being good value for money.

One of the member’s other questions was around Te Pae Roa. I did disband Te Pae Roa, but I have now stood up a new Māori advisory group, so—

Tākuta Ferris: Another one!

Hon ERICA STANFORD: A different one. Te Pae Roa has been disbanded, and I have just recently put in place a new Māori advisory group with some excellent people: Dr Wayne Ngata, Olivia Hall, Dame Georgina Kingi, who is probably the top principal in New Zealand with some of the best results at St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ school—of course, Will Workman as well. We will add to that group. They will be taking over some of the work of Te Pae Roa, so I can assure the member that that work is still under way.

It is important that we have a really good relationship with Ngā Kura Ā Iwi and Te Rūnanga nui and I’ve been meeting with them in my office a number of times now. And the message that I’ve given to them is that they are different, that we have a different relationship with them, that we make decisions differently, we make decisions together. We’ve had a number of meetings where we’ve sort of set the tone of how we’re going to work together. I think they’ve been very appreciative of the things that we’ve done so far, making sure that we are ring-fencing money for their property. We know, and I know that the member knows as well, that the investment into kura kaupapa property has been abysmal. When you go around the country, the state of some of their buildings is not great, so we are committing to ring-fencing that funding and making sure that we’re improving their property.

I’ve also made a commitment to them that we will include them in network planning as well—something that’s not been done before—to make sure that when we’re actually looking at the provision of the network that we are including those voices at the table, seeing where we need provision of kura kaupapa and including them in those discussions around network planning.

Tākuta Ferris: Point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No, I’m going to take the next call now that the Minister’s finished. I know it’s a point of order, but if it’s about the answers to the Minister’s questions, as I said, we’re not going to agree, but the Minister is making an effort to answer the questions. Now, before I call the Hon Willow Jean Prime, I’m just going to say that the Minister has agreed, because we started at 3.15 p.m., that she will be here until 4.15 p.m. if other people have questions.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to ask a few quick questions. The Minister has touched on professional learning development funding for structured literacy and I want to ask the Minister: is she confident that the funding that has been made available for Māori medium professional learning development for structured literacy is sufficient for those 12 providers to be able to deliver that professional learning development? Reports that I am hearing are that it is less per capita, that many are having to descale because it has not been prioritised, and that they cannot afford to do the work they are asked to do in the contract on the funding that they are being provided.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): E te Tiamana o te Whare, kia ora, tēnā koe. Just to kind of first respond to some of the things that the Minister has mentioned in terms of what is getting students to school—that what is getting ākonga into school is being able to read, write, and then do math. As someone who has stood in front of a classroom for a number of years, I can tell you that is not actually what gets ākonga to school. It is having a safe environment, it is knowing that they can wake up in the morning knowing that they love what they are doing, and, yes, although I am a believer of linguistics because that is my background, that is not necessarily what gets students there. It’s having a balanced curriculum.

Also the other thing that the Minister has mentioned around the work that’s being done around ākonga Māori—in that case, what we’re seeing and what we’re currently being consulted on right now is also a deprioritisation of giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which includes tikanga Māori and also te reo Māori. Currently, section 127 has four primary objectives. By devaluing one of them, deprioritising one of them, it means that if you deprioritise them to a secondary clause, it means that if they don’t meet the objective, the primary objective, then a school does not need to consider it. That’s how schools will interpret that particular piece of legislation.

Going back to where the Minister mentioned in the beginning around teaching supplies, I understand the current dire situation with teaching supplies shortages, and also the added pressure being placed on teachers and on schools as a result of just the sheer volume of cuts from the Ministry of Education. I’ve also acknowledged the fact that although the Minister has put in $53 million for teaching supplies and for on-site training and the most recent announcement in terms of allowing Limited Authority to Teach, a lot of those are the ambulance-at-the bottom-of-a-cliff approach. What we are not seeing the Minister making commitments for is how we are going to ensure that people from Aotearoa are enticed and are well resourced and funded going into teaching in the first place.

What we have seen, however, is the Minister increasing the math requirement for entry into education to NCEA Level 2 mathematics, something that was done by Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand as well, but without the consultation of the sector and without the consultation of the schools and also of teachers. What is the Minister doing to entice students going into teaching in the first place? Would the Minister consider paid placement for teachers? Would the Minister consider subsidising or providing bursaries for students going to teach as a blanket one to entice people into doing something like that?

What we are seeing in terms of the subsidy for commencing teaching and degrees is that Australia offers scholarships and $40k scholarships. We’re seeing bursaries in the UK and Canada; we’re seeing places like Singapore, Denmark, and Finland fully funding their degree so that the students don’t then have to get a student loan or have to pay that student loan on top of having no money for placement, on top of then going to an industry that is already not catching up to the cost of inflation and not being paid and resourced very well. Around the teaching supply bid in particular, Minister, what are you doing to make sure that we have more students, we have more people who want to do teaching, and who are able to go into teaching without the financial pressure of a teaching qualification.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you. I’ll just go over those one by one from the beginning. A balanced curriculum, of course, is very important, which is why we are refreshing the entire curriculum. Every single one of the curricular areas will be refreshing. They’re all important areas; we expect all of them will be taught. Just because we’re not going to pay artists to come into school and paint murals doesn’t mean we don’t think there should be a balanced curriculum. I know the member is, for some reason, really focused on having artists in schools—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: That’s what you said, though. You said you only care about one thing.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: We are prioritising reading, writing and maths. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to have arts and music in schools—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: That’s what your Prime Minister said.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: It just means at the moment—I’m not going to argue with the member. If he wants to ask another question he can, but with the dire state of reading, writing, and maths at the moment, our attention is going into—because we’ve got to make decisions—reading and writing and maths. But we are going to be making sure that we have a world-class curriculum in the arts and music as well; that will be rewritten and available in the coming years.

The member also mentioned section 127 of the Education and Training Act, which is not a Budget question, but I want to make it clear that it does not in any way remove or reduce any Treaty obligations on school boards. It’s still there. We’re adding some other things in because, actually, achievement and assessment and attendance are also really important things. The member seems to think that just because of the order of things makes one thing more important than the other. That is completely untrue, but that clause is still very important. It’s still there; it’s been consulted on. I know that the member’s party has a very strange questionnaire out, stirring up some weird fear and untruths, but, actually, there is no removing or reducing of the Treaty obligation in section 127, which is the board’s obligations.

The member also mentioned that the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand has ensured that people who are going into teacher training need to have level 2 maths. It was interesting that the reaction from the public of New Zealand was “I couldn’t believe that that was not a thing anyway.” I think most people expected that if you’re going in—

Camilla Belich: Not in charter schools.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: —to teach children to have—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Most degrees don’t require NCEA level 2.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: —to teach maths, then you need to have a good proficiency in maths yourself. When I answered the question that the member just yelled out to me—“Not in charter schools.”—actually, the requirement for teaching in a charter school is that you need to be a registered teacher or have a LAT, which is no different than exactly what we have now in every single school in New Zealand. So there you go. That’s the misunderstanding of the member.

Now, I’m not going to talk about future Budgets, because that’s not part of this debate, but I do want to talk about this Government’s investment into attracting people into teaching: 1,200 additional places in the on-site training programme over the next four years has been massively welcomed by the sector. As I said, the previous Government put that in place. It was really successful; good on them. We’ve doubled the numbers and what that says is “Here’s a $20,000 package. If you would like to come and teach, we will pay you a stipend, we will pay your fees, and the school gets a portion of that as well.”—extraordinarily successful and has been oversubscribed. I’d love to do more of it in the future because it’s so excellent, because what’s happening is that schools are going and shoulder tapping either excellent graduates or people who are in the middle of their careers thinking “I might come back to teaching.”, and that’s why it’s been so successful. There’s an extra 1,200 places. The TeachNZ scholarship, which is worth $10,000—492 places in the last year. There’s the BeTTER programme as well that we’ve also invested in.

There’s a number of things that we’re doing to encourage people financially to come back into teaching and I would like to do more of it in the future. I think on-site training has got extraordinarily good potential. One of the things I said to the team when we were doing this was, at the moment, it’s really only kind of in Northland, Auckland, and Waikato, and secondary schools. I want to make sure it’s in primary schools because we’re struggling at the moment in some areas of New Zealand to staff our primary schools, especially in rural and isolated areas of New Zealand. One of the goals for me was to say when we are doing this: please keep primary, rural, and isolated schools in mind for the on-site training programme, which is exactly what we’ve done and exactly what we’re working on and have given our training providers—Initial Teaching Education providers—that direction as well so that they are now looking to provide those positions in primary school and trying to work out how they can do it online as well for our rural and isolated schools.

We’ve thought really carefully about where the gaps are. We also put teachers on the green list fast track to residence for our secondary school teachers, which has meant we’ve got 50 percent more of them coming into the country since last year.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I too want to talk about teacher supply and talk about those teachers that are in the profession now and the plans around retaining those teachers in the profession. The money that was put into this Budget was more about getting teachers into the profession, but a big part of it is retaining and, at the moment, there seems to be a number of teachers that are actually leaving the profession. I met a principal last week of a big school in Auckland who said she’d lost five in the previous week that are going to be leaving at the end of this term.

It worries me at the moment that the work around the refresh of the curriculum and the speed at which that’s being implemented seems to have put a number of teachers in a very unhappy space. We’ve had a couple of surveys that have gone out—both from NZPF, the New Zealand Principals’ Federation; and from NZEI Te Riu Roa, the New Zealand Educational Institute—that show that the vast majority of principals and teachers are saying that the change is happening too fast to be effective. Now, none of these people disagree with the reason for the change and none of these people just agree that change has to happen, but they are questioning the capacity around that change, and that is why many of them are making that decision to leave. Of those five, four got positions over in Australia—which, again, worries me, too, that we’re competing on an uneven market.

I just wondered, Minister, in all of that, whether there was consideration around the fact that the likes of Leanne Otene from NZPF said that the money that’s been put in from this Budget to supporting teachers with that professional learning and development is not going far enough, and that while you as a Minister have said, “Don’t worry, the supports will be there,” the sector aren’t feeling that and the sector are saying, “Well, we don’t think that the supports are forthcoming because this is the only money that has been put forward in this Budget.”—whether there’s any appetite from you to (a) perhaps give a bit more transparency around what those supports would look like to ensure that the sector is feeling a lot more supported in this massive change; and it would be a massive change for anybody from any sector at the rate that is coming at them.

I mean, firstly, they had structured literacy and people were on board with that, knowing they had to have it; and then out of, it seemed to be, thin air, structured maths, which was a term that they weren’t even aware of within their sector. That feeling of having that lack of support is making them make this decision that they don’t want to be there any more—so transparency around that. What the sector is calling for—and, again, I go back to Leanne Otene saying, “I think it would be wise to slow down and revisit the time line for any implementation plans so that we can get this right.”, which tells me they want to get it right. They don’t want it to muck up; they want to get it right. What plans do you have in place to enable that to happen?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just to go back to Willow-Jean Prime, a question that she asked me about professional learning and development providers for structured literacy. I said there were 12; I misremembered: there are 10 providers for structured literacy, and they are funded in line with the per-teacher rate. It’s no different from anybody else.

I know that the previous speaker, the Hon Jan Tinetti, who asked a question has spoken to some people who’ve decided to leave teaching. The teacher retention rate hasn’t changed—it’s 89 percent—and it’s really important that we, of course, continue to encourage people to stay in the profession and do everything we can, which is why it’s been so important to me to provide everything we possibly can when it comes to supports for implementing the new curriculum.

As I’ve previously mentioned, with structured literacy, all of the supports—the professional learning and development, all the decodables, the money that’s been dropped in their accounts for extra resources—are there. We’ve also said to the sector—and I’ll say it again today—“This is not a one-year and we’re finished.” We know to implement structured literacy really well, it is a multi-year approach. We have already said publicly—maybe the member missed it—that we are reorienting all of the professional learning and development money that we have, which is about $130 million - odd a year, into structured literacy and maths and assessment to make sure that we get this right over the next few years.

Our message to the sector has been: this is a multi-year approach. There are some schools who have done structured literacy; they’re really far down the track. They’ve been asking me for structured maths. They know that this approach has worked in literacy. They want it, they’ve been crying out for it, they’ve been asking me when it’s coming, and I actually think the silent majority of schools are really excited about this.

I know that all schools are at a different point in their readiness for this. Some, as I say, have done structured literacy—they are 100 percent ready to dive into maths. There are other schools right back down to schools who have done neither. My message to them in the two emails I’ve sent recently and another email that’s going out next week with the full implementation plan says: “For those of you who have only just started your journey, just make a start.” We will be providing an implementation plan that says, “If you only do one thing in term 1, do this. If you only do one thing in term 2, it’s this.”

The message is very clear to those schools that this is a transition year; we expect you to make a start and we’ll give you the information and the implementation plan that you need to do that. But, as I said yesterday—or the day before or whenever it was—on Breakfast television, we now have a world-leading curriculum that is knowledge-rich that lays out year by year what’s to be taught. We have all of the curriculum-aligned, high-quality resources that we are about to, in the next month or so, tell schools what they are and allow them to order them for next year. I’m not prepared to hold those back from the silent majority of schools who are desperate for those items that will make teachers’ lives easier.

Of course, as I’ve already said, for those schools who are feeling like they’ve got two new things to do next year and they haven’t done structured literacy or structured maths before, the message is clear: just make a start—we will support you, we will wrap around you, we’ll provide you with what you need. We’ve got extra curriculum advisers in the takiwā. We’ve got all of these great resources. We’ll provide you with what you need, but the message is clear: from day one, you don’t need to implement it all perfectly. You just need to make a start—and if that’s just one thing in term 1, that’s fine.

I’ll finish up by saying that I’m really proud of the pace that this Government is working at, because we know that if we wait another year, that’s another 60,000 kids that enter education on a trajectory of heading to 45 percent of them getting the NCEA numeracy prerequisite—and that’s not OK. For all of those schools who are out there who are waiting for these resources and waiting for the implementation plan, I tell you that there’s not too much longer to wait. The implementation plan will be out next week. You will be able to order your resources in October, and we will provide you everything that you need to make this a success.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the Minister’s time in the chair has come to an end. We now have the Minister of Housing.

Housing

TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Kia ora. Tuatahi ki te Minita, I just want to extend our condolences to the Minister of Housing for his recent family passing.

Hon Andrew Bayly: Can’t hear—we can’t hear you.

TAMATHA PAUL: Yep, is that working now? Cool. Ka pai.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): If someone could fix the microphones—Tamatha Paul.

TAMATHA PAUL: Cool. Thank you. Just firstly extending our condolences to the Minister of Housing.

The first question that I have is around State housing and Kāinga Ora (KO). Starting with asset maintenance for Kāinga Ora, I understand that the Government has planned to cut $1 billion for Kāinga Ora towards asset and maintenance and staffing over the next four years, which makes me ask the question: what impacts will those cuts have for the people living in Kāinga Ora housing—acknowledging that in Sir Bill English’s review, he noted that over the next two decades, significant investment will be needed in maintenance and renewals of State housing?

In terms of those staffing cuts at Kāinga Ora, what impact will that have on tenants who rely on KO’s support staff? I just wanted to—for context around those questions—bring attention to the Minister that respiratory illnesses are now the third leading cause of death in Aotearoa and researchers have attributed some of that to poor-quality housing. We know that a lot of our State housing does not meet Healthy Homes Standards. How are we supposed to get our State housing stock up to standard and make sure that it’s healthy when there’s been over a billion dollars’ worth of cuts?

My next question in regards to Kāinga Ora is around the 300 public housing projects—large-scale projects—that have been paused indefinitely. When will we know the status of those projects and when they will continue? An example of a major large-scale project in my electorate—Wellington Central—is the Arlington Apartments, which has had $48 million put into it and was going to fund 350 new homes in a city where there are over 3,000 people waiting for homes. I’m not sure where they’re going to go, and we are relying on that project to be built. Can the Minister offer any assurances that those 300 projects will remain and whether they will be built, given the need is definitely there?

My next lot of questions are around emergency housing and the changes to eligibility that the Associate Minister has led. Obviously, those changes in emergency housing are saving $350 million, but the downstream impacts of people not being able to access emergency housing means that more people will be homeless, as the Minister was advised by Ministry of Social Development officials. Are those cost savings worth increasing homelessness? And what is the point of reducing access to emergency housing numbers by putting people on the streets?

I just have one other question that was brought up when Q+A looked into emergency housing over the weekend. Twenty percent of those people in emergency housing who have left emergency housing are unaccounted for—we don’t know where they’ve gone. Does the Minister have any more information about where they’ve gone? And what proportion of the people who have left emergency housing have simply been moved into boarding houses? That is a question that I have around emergency housing.

The next point that I want to raise is around homelessness. I want to understand how the Government, since they have cancelled the Homelessness Action Plan, are going to account for the massive levels of homelessness that will happen due to all of the cumulative decisions that the Government has made around bringing back no-cause evictions, tightening the eligibility for emergency housing, and the lack of public housing supply increase. Will the Government commit to renewing a homelessness action plan or at least having a plan towards addressing the consequences of their decisions?

Finally, does the Government have any data around women experiencing homelessness? There is no publicly available gendered data on homelessness—who is experiencing it and how they’re experiencing it. I want to understand whether the Minister will consider that.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Mr Chairman. We have some very specific questions for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Tama Potaka, that we will dive straight into. Of course, within the Budget, there are a number of choices that the National Government have made about housing. The choices they have made are essentially about taking New Zealand backwards. Rather than building thousands of State houses a year, the choice is to add only 750 a year because of funding that has been cut. We’ve seen $1.5 billion cut from the housing budget by this Government, so there are a number of very specific questions.

First, we’d like to know of the Minister, of the 750 new income-related rent subsidies places that the Government is saying it is going to fund, how many of these are redirects from pre-existing community housing provider contracts? What proportion of that 750 will be taken up by the likes of Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust with their already contracted redirects that will go in, and how many will be new-build additional State houses? What will be the divide of those 750 between Kāinga Ora and community housing providers? We’re looking for some clarity on that.

We’re also interested to know: of the houses that have been signalled—the already, in many cases, consented and funded Kāinga Ora developments that the Government currently has either on hold or under review—what is the Government’s plan regarding any funding that is associated with that housing, where will that be redirected back to, how much has already been spent on the list of properties that Kāinga Ora has issued of the properties that are currently under review, and does the Minister think that is good value for money for New Zealanders?

I’m also interested to know from the Minister the breakdown between the North Island and the South Island, between Auckland and other places, of Kāinga Ora houses that are currently under review, and how the number of properties in Auckland gels with the now Minister of Finance’s undertaking in Auckland pre-election, for an additional 1,000 State houses to be built in Auckland each year. Does the Minister consider that his Government is on track for an additional 1,000 houses per year in Auckland, and, if so, how are we tracking against that number to date? There are some very specific questions that we’re looking for answers for, and we’ll come back with many more through the course of this hour.

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Mr Chair, thank you, and thank you for those kind words about John Bishop, the Minister of Housing’s father, who recently passed away.

There are a number of take [subjects] or kaupapa that have been raised. Let me just go through them one by one, but opening with the statement that we are absolutely committed to making sure we have sustainable and enduring State housing provision. We are really focused on getting a number of things back on track. Certainly, State housing sits within and across a whole housing ecology or ecosystem where everything needs to work together and in sync.

What we found is that the ecology of the ecosystem of housing when we arrived was not necessarily working in sync. Yes, there have been some tough choices made about savings across Vote Housing and Urban Development, particularly around Kāinga Ora but also across other aspects of the system—for example, the mention of the emergency housing savings over the next five years. Certainly, in terms of some of the initial consideration of asset management and savings that would be made through better asset management over time, some of those conclusions were drawn well before we arrived in office, and there was an ongoing programme within Kāinga Ora to consider how they could better manage and maintain the asset. Some of those musings and directions were actually forming well before we turned up.

In terms of the Healthy Homes Standards, yes, we are committed to that and over 99 percent compliance in the Kāinga Ora portfolio. There are a number of projects that have been put on pause or on hold, and we consider those, especially given the fiscal responsibility that we undertake as the coalition Government. In terms of Arlington, again it’s sort of in that category. We’re considering all options. I understand that nothing has been decided as yet on Arlington, but we’re considering that project and that will come up along with a number of other matters in the next few months.

What we are really focused on is making sure more houses, more new builds and new housing, are built, not only for those that need some Government tautoko, actually, but for all New Zealanders. Some of that provision—actually, most of that provision—will come through private developments rather than State housing developments. We’re trying to make sure that the conditions are in place where we can encourage that.

Just in terms of net houses, I’ll just get through the income-related rent subsidy (IRRS) and Kāinga Ora questions and then I’ll come back to emergency housing. Over the next couple of years, we are foreshadowing nearly 5,500 State homes will be built. However, there will be a net build of just over 2,500—2,650 net homes will be built.

In terms of the IRRS places, as people know, we were envisaging 1,500 new IRRS places to be contracted specifically with community housing providers over the next couple of years—500 to get going quickly to maintain some sort of momentum and 1,000 through a bit more strategic partnerships in specific areas where the needs are high.

In terms of the Kāinga Ora review, again, we’re very clear about the conclusions that were drawn out of that review—and what a great review it was, might I add—which identified some unsustainability in the funding and financing of Kāinga Ora and also a need to drive more transparency and credibility around State housing delivering on the needs of New Zealanders who need State housing. Those were, ultimately, the two key findings, and there were some recommendations that came out of that, and you’ve seen a refreshed Kāinga Ora board as a result.

Can I turn to emergency housing, because that’s quite a topical matter. I think we can all attest that emergency housing over the last few years has been a financial, moral, fiscal, and cultural catastrophe. At the peak, of course, over 5,000 households were in emergency. When we arrived, there were about 3,342, but our goal in emergency housing is to reduce that number of households by 75 percent to about 800 households by 2030, and we are getting back on track and reaching that goal. We are focused on making sure that emergency housing can support those with a genuine need for short-term stay and temporary accommodation. The data shows that we now know where 80 percent of people exiting emergency housing go to. When we arrived, we knew where 50 percent were going to; now we know where 80 percent are going to. But can I say that people exiting emergency housing do not have to tell us where they are going, but we are 30 percent better, knowing where 30 percent more are going. Kia ora.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Mr Chair. I wish to ask the Minister about some of the comments that Government Ministers have made around the supply side measures that the Government is introducing to improve housing for New Zealanders.

I’ll start by asking him whether his goal is still more affordable housing and higher rates of homeownership, given that policy changes that his Government has overseen affect the attractiveness of housing as an asset rather than a place to live, and that’s affecting the way that people are not only seeing homes for their first home but it’s also disincentivising first-home owners to save and be able to buy first homes.

The particular policy is the Government’s restoration of mortgage interest deductibility, which is making housing more appealing for investors relative to first-home buyers. Under the previous Government’s policy, the new builds were still able to claim interest deductions under the prior rules, and I want to ask the Minister whether his change to that is having an effect to increase house prices without adding anything to the additional housing stock or additionality to housing supply, as the policy advice has it.

Treasury’s advice on the issue, when it was introduced, stated that in the short and medium term, the bulk of the impact from restoring interest deductibility is likely to be reflected in house prices with minimal impact on rents. I want to ask the Minister again: is he and is his Government committed to affordable homeownership for New Zealanders or does he accept Treasury’s predictions that rents will continue to rise and more people will need to rent?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Can I ask the Associate Minister of Housing about his commitment in terms of the Māori housing programmes that have been rolled out over the last few years. Can I ask him: has he had meetings with the iwi leadership who’ve made this a major priority in terms of by Māori, for Māori solutions going forward? In terms of funding, how much funding has the Minister allocated in preparing, for example, Toitū Tairāwhiti and Ka Uruora to scale up housing in those areas? These are particularly important areas given the amount of time that that leadership on the coast and in Taranaki have put in—Jamie Tuuta, Willie Te Aho; they’ve put in a lot of time with regards to iwi support.

Also, I want to ask the Minister today: what impact will the Government’s directive in terms of needs-based service provision have on the delivery of Māori housing to whānau and the continuation of papakāinga housing on whenua Māori? This is another area where we were able to get a lot of collaborative strategies going in terms of Te Puni Kōkiri. The Minister will be very aware of papakāinga housing always being on its own. What we were able to do was bring papakāinga housing much closer in terms of general housing, and we had a coordinated strategy in terms of getting Māori into homes. I’d like to hear from the Minister: what are their plans still to continue with the type of strategies that we put in place? I’ve heard various things from iwi leadership with regards to this—a lot of worries out there in terms of by Māori, for Māori strategies going forward.

Also, can I ask the Minister: what regulatory barriers is the Minister considering removing to increase Māori housing like papakāinga on both whenua Māori and general title land, because we’re always coming across barriers in terms of Māori development. Is the Minister in talks with iwi, has he got a strategy with Te Puni Kōkiri going forward, and what plans, moving forward, does the Minister have to accelerate the delivery of Māori housing, given the progress, as he has acknowledged, that has happened over the previous years? Certainly there’s a fear from iwi Māori, hapū, and Māori organisations that some of this work is going to be put on hold—what sort of assurances can the Minister give us, and what are the plans in terms of funding?

TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Thank you, Mr Chair. On the Minister’s answers around the pause to over 300 large-scale public housing projects, what is the cost of those not being delivered, given that those construction partners have already been engaged and are now uncertain about the future of their projects? What is the cost and what is the impact on the construction industry, who are expected to build the public housing that we desperately need, particularly in our cities?

On the emergency housing answers that the Minister provided before, the Minister made a comment that when people leave emergency housing, they don’t have to tell you where they’re going. How do you know that that 20 percent of people who have left emergency housing are not now homeless? And how can you confidently state that the 80 percent of people who have left emergency housing are in “warm, dry, safe homes”, in the Minister’s words? How do you know that they are in warm, safe, dry homes and have not simply been put into boarding houses, where they are subject to even fewer rights, because boarding houses are not regulated under the Residential Tenancies Act?

Finally, I just wanted to restate my question about homelessness and women, and reflect on the fact that, in the last census, we found that 50 percent of homeless people are women and that women experience homelessness differently to men. What is the plan to collect the data about the gender of people experiencing homelessness? And will he make a commitment to look into that?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Just in case I get 30 questions at once—look, I think there’s a few questions. I’ll just come back to the women and homelessness, especially on those questions about emergency housing, and I’ll circle back around here to Matua Willie—Mr Jackson—and Ms Williams.

In terms of the exits, I can repeat, when we came to office, we knew where about 50 percent were going and we didn’t know where 50 percent were going. Now we know where nearly 80 percent are going, of which around 50 percent are going to transitional housing or social housing and about 30 percent are going to private housing. We know that because of the nature of the Government subsidies and through the Integrated Data Infrastructure—we can identify that on an anonymised basis.

The question around women and homelessness—absolutely, this is something that I’ve talked about or met with people on recently. There is a request—I think I understand your request is to have data that’s based on gender around women and homelessness. I think that the only credible reliable data on homelessness is actually through the census, but we are trying to be clear about and engage with people like Home Ground, Vision West, and the Salvation Army and others to get their sense of homelessness right now. On a regular basis, we are meeting and talking with them to understand what their observations are across communities where there may have been an increase in homelessness.

Now, what you’re saying is that within the 20 percent of people where we don’t know where they’re going, there might be some homeless people. That may be the case. We don’t specifically know. But what we do know is that we know a lot more about that cohort of people that are leaving emergency housing, and it’s through the hard work and diligence of the teams to find out where those people are going.

What we also know is most of the households in emergency housing are either singles and generally male, or single parents and generally female. Since we took the decision to prioritise households with tamariki to leave emergency housing and to get into social housing, between 30 April and the end of July, we saw through that Priority One decision, 540 households, mainly women with children—1,110 children—leave emergency housing. I think that’s a fantastic result and, no doubt, there’ll be more material and more positive news in due course when we deliver on the August numbers. We have seen an acceleration of people leaving emergency housing, and, for the most part, we know where they’re going and they’re going to warm safe, dry homes.

There are some comments around Māori housing and there’s been some excellent delivery of Māori housing solutions over the last couple of years, with some iwi prototypes doing some very fine and exemplary work, often in difficult and trying conditions, especially for infrastructure across the rural areas where they are operating, but also in the urban areas. We are continuing to review the value for money in the Māori housing space, but we see that there’s been some excellent value for money across some of the work that the prototypes have been undertaking, and others that are working under the Whai Kāinga, Whai Oranga kaupapa. There are further projects, both through the prototypes and through papakāinga providers and others.

What I can say, and add as well, is that some of the regulatory barriers that are making it difficult for us to progress Māori housing on Māori-owned land also relate back to the nature of shared and multiple ownership, and also the challenges that are associated with Pātaka Whenua and the IT system that is operating in the Māori Land Court to make sure that it is in a state where judges can use it much more presciently and in a perfunctory manner, to sort out land ownership to enable occupation, licensing, and other things. We had proposed granny flats of up to 60 square metres without requiring a council consent—it can be signed off by an engineering consent—and you’ve heard me speaking in various fora to encourage that on Māori land as well, without having to have a primary dwelling. Ditto the papakāinga national directions statement, which we are inviting comments on in the near course and we’re out to discuss those matters.

The rental pricing has actually come off a little bit over the last 12 months, and we think that’s part of the outcomes that we’ve sought to get the economy back on track. Rental pricing has come off a little bit. I know that there’s a concern with interest rates and how the impact of interest deductibility can have an effect on rental pricing, but we are absolutely committed to ensuring more houses are built, that they’re more affordable housing, and higher rates of ownership can be curated. It may not be exactly the same as what our colleagues on the other side of the House are envisaging. We have to look at other models, including leasehold, and other ways of going for housing growth.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): If that Minister, the Hon Tama Potaka, will not commit to the goal—which everyone in this House should have—that Kiwis should have access to homeownership, that first-home buyers in New Zealand should be able to work hard, save up, and buy their own home, why is that Minister further weakening the rights of renters? Why are 90-day no-cause evictions back under his Government?

Let’s zoom out for a minute and think about the effect that that has on the economy as a whole and on the housing system that he has responsibility for. Weakening the rights of tenants increases the incentives for investors to buy up more of the existing stock of properties. At the same time, insecure tenants might feel like they’re more desperate to get into a house. They might take on more debt than they can manage because they need to be out of a situation where their landlord can evict them at any time—if they are parents; if they have to care for vulnerable people in their family. Both of these factors put upward pressure on the price of houses in the near term, but they have no impact—no positive impact—on the supply of housing in the long term. It’s the supply of housing—

Dr Hamish Campbell: The rental supply has gone up—the rental supply has gone up.

ARENA WILLIAMS: The supply and demand, that member says. It’s the supply of housing that this Government has said it will commit to dealing with in its housing solutions, but exactly those measures, which weaken tenants’ rights and affect the housing system as a whole, are doing the opposite of dealing with that problem.

I want this Minister to tell us, if he won’t commit to the New Zealand public being able to save hard and get into their own homes, isn’t it right that he would protect renters and he would protect people who are going to be in long-term leasehold and long-term renting situations for the rest of his life under his vision for this economy?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Thank you, Mr Chair. And thank you, Arena Williams, for that sermon-like commentary and questioning.

Look, we are very focused on making sure that more houses can be built, and there’s a very clear ideological divide. On one side of the House, members think that central control will drive house prices down and central control of land supply—for example, Kāinga Ora crowding out a whole bunch of other private developers from getting in and using land to build housing—is the way to go. On this side of the House, we have a different view. We do not think that Kāinga Ora or the State housing provision should be accumulating and monopolising the land market. We do not believe in that. We actually believe that we should free up more land, both greenfield and brownfield, to go for housing growth.

That means some changes to the urban planning rules. It means better infrastructure funding and financing. It means recalibrating some of the building costs that our construction businesses are facing. It means making sure that consents and the regulatory red and green tape that confronts those people who want to build a house—who want to build a house and land package for those who want to buy a house and land package—are actually done at an affordable rate. And what we’ve found, over the course of several years, up until our election last year, was that we were starting to see crowding out, and private developers were walking away from the market because they couldn’t buy land at a certain price, because they’d been overtaken by the State housing entity.

Now, what that means is this: ultimately, we believe that the ecosystem around the provision of State housing sits across the housing system generally. We have to get different dials right. It’s like a DJ at a nightclub back in the 1990s. Get the dials right, otherwise people get out of control and all of a sudden no one can buy a house, because it’s too expensive and it’s been crowded out by the State housing provider. Now, our view of the world, as you’ve heard before, is to make sure we get those dials right: the funding and financing, the regulatory and the planning laws, the consenting and the building and construction laws. If we get those right and make sure that we are supporting the economy in a manner where interest rates are coming down and we’re not delivering a whole bunch of wasteful spending, then we believe those conditions will be much more fertile for the provision of housing in an affordable rental or affordable housing space.

Now, the question was asked: do we believe in more affordable housing and higher rates of homeownership? Many, many New Zealanders have been blocked out of homeownership and have been unable to get there. We want to see people having both the opportunity to own a home that’s affordable and also rent a home that’s affordable. That’s what we’re committed to.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Thank you for that, Minister. Given that explanation, can I ask the Associate Minister of Housing how many homes have been funded and are in the pipeline? What’s in the pipeline in terms of this Government? What’s coming up? What’s the plan?

Can I also just go back to the question with regards to emergency housing. Is the Minister concerned about the lack of information about whānau who have left emergency housing, and, if he’s concerned, what is he doing in terms of ensuring all whānau are in a safe and warm home once they’ve left emergency housing? A real concern in that area.

Also, back to some of the questions amongst Māori at the moment, one of the big questions from Māori was about the inability to get access to funding. Access to funding has been an ongoing issue for whānau, to build and develop their land, so what plans has the Minister considered to make it easier for whānau to get access to capital through mainstream banks and lending providers? This is a huge issue for iwi leadership. In hui facilitated by Te Puni Kōkiri, it was put forward by them as being the number one barrier. What are the strategies around that?

Again, in terms of homes in the pipeline, we really need to know about the targets: what are the targets, if any, in terms of building homes? I’m not including the Government sort of granny flat policy here. We need to hear about the targets going forward. Is there a clear plan here? The worry is that all of the wonderful work that we put in place—and we built more houses than any other Government in the past, I think, 50 years—is going to go down the tubes. Can I have some responses in those areas, particularly in the access to capital area?

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): I’m glad that the Associate Minister of Housing in his earlier answer touched upon the plight of construction sector businesses at the moment, because the Minister will be aware that New Zealand is lurching towards a historic slump in the building and construction sector, which is relevant to all of his plans for housing in New Zealand. Not only is New Zealand in recessionary conditions right now, which is affecting the construction sector, but we have seen Government decision after Government decision to cancel a pipeline of infrastructure works—schools, hospitals, housing builds under Kāinga Ora—that would have been able to act as a ballast for the construction sector that is on its knees and asking for Government support through these difficult times.

My question to him is: how will he ensure that New Zealand’s building and construction sector is ready to go when we desperately need it to come back online and provide those new and additional housing places that he has spoken about being committed to today? How will we ensure that the building and construction sector has the workers it needs, when on election day last year, 8,000 more builders and construction jobs were in the system than are there now? Eight thousand people in that sector have lost their jobs, and many of those directly because of the Government decisions which have cancelled infrastructure projects. What is this Minister’s responsibility to ensure that New Zealand’s house-building sector is at its best when we return to economic conditions which ensure that the demand for housing is back online?

And I want to ask him: is he aware that Treasury has not only predicted a 3 percent downturn in the construction sector this year but, in the next financial year, is predicting an 11 percent downturn? How is he going to ward against that? Because he should be taking action right now.

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Thank you, Mr Chair. There have been a number of questions that have been asked and they’ve been very useful questions too. Now, I think I mentioned earlier that the expectation of the Government is that Kāinga Ora will deliver 5,400-plus houses over the next two years, for a total of 2,650 net homes. Certainly, the member will be aware that the Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga projects have already contracted or committed to over 1,000 homes, and about 300 have been built, so there’s probably another 700 to go within that programme. Clearly, all members will be aware of the great work of the manu Pīhopa, Minister Bishop, to commit to 1,500 income-related rent subsidies funded houses to be committed and contracted with the community housing providers. There are several thousand homes that we expect to be built over the next couple of years.

There was an assertion around the lack of info in relation to emergency housing, but we are steadily and robustly building up the detail around information of whānau and households that are either in emergency housing, nearly getting into emergency housing, or exiting emergency housing. I’m very proud of the professional diligence that the teams have undertaken to ensure that the data robustness is improved and increased. Of course, as members will be aware, the ethnicity of whānau who are living in emergency housing is very much disproportionately Māori. About 60 to 65 percent of all whānau living in emergency housing are Māori, and about 10 percent are Pasifika, so it’s disproportionately brown whānau that are living in emergency housing.

Certainly, the steps that we’ve undertaken to ensure that the assessment of genuine need is credible but also the support system around those people who are exposed to falling into emergency housing, or are in emergency housing trying to find a pathway out, is something that we’ve committed to. We’ve seen a dramatic drop in the number of whānau and households living in emergency housing. Of course, when we arrived, 3,100 were living in emergency housing in December; it was 3,342 in November. At the end of July, it was down to 1,707, which is a drop of anywhere between 1,400 and 1,600 households in eight months. I think that that’s a remarkable outcome—and that’s what we’ll focus on: outcome, not outrage.

In relation to capital and access to capital, it’s something that’s confronted a lot of Māori organisations, but organisations generally. Certainly, access to capital for building and construction on Māori land is something that’s really challenging. The Reserve Bank and others have laid some comments down and made some observations. In fact, one of the observations was that the interest rates that are charged in the development of Māori land are several basis points higher than interest rates charged in other developments, which I find incredible. It’s something that we need to look into a little bit more.

What we want to do is to make it easier for not just Government to fund public housing but for private developers, philanthropic investors, and others to corral and collate together in order to invest in housing—so you see people like Simplicity and Sam Stubbs, who are very committed to investing in community housing and in social housing. I would welcome that type of interest from the likes of Simplicity, and others like collective finance, the Tindall Foundation, who are definitely committed to seeing more housing, and, like us, very aligned—very aligned, in fact—with getting more new houses built.

Certainly, there is an assertion that the previous Government built more houses than any other Government. I think we can all admit, especially after the events this week, it sold some public houses along the way too, and that’s no different from Governments in the past. But what happened when the previous Government built more houses than any other Government? It nearly broke the property development system, and it’s made it a lot harder for private developers, who build the majority of houses in New Zealand, to actually come in and put on a house and land package for the masses. That’s where we’ve got the balance of housing growth skewed in a way that we’ve had to step in as a fiscally responsible coalition Government and say, “Enough is enough. We need to recalibrate the system and recalibrate the whole ecosystem otherwise we’re going to run out of money.” That’s what we saw in the Kāinga Ora review, which said—I think—it’s $12 billion of Kāinga Ora debt today, but by 2033, it might be $28 billion.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Mr Chair, thanks for the opportunity. The Minister did not answer my question about how he will play a role in ensuring that the building and construction sector is ready to go and is building houses, so let me test with him two good ideas.

In previous years when the construction sector was facing similar conditions to what it is now, the Labour Government took a very different approach to this Government’s approach. In early 2020, the New Zealand Upgrade Programme was announced, and it included $12 billion worth of infrastructure projects. My question to him is: could it be that Government decisions to cancel infrastructure projects are having a negative effect on the construction sector, and would he advocate, as housing Minister, for those house builders to have access to the kinds of contracts—which they are asking for—for the Government to provide them with for infrastructure builds, which it says it is committed to?

In the early stages of COVID-19, the Apprenticeship Boost scheme provided certainty to employers to take on and train additional workers and to expand the construction workforce. This is something that his Prime Minister committed to during the election campaign, but when it came to Budget day, that was cut in half. Those builders—especially builders with expertise in house-building—need those apprentices for more than one year, but they are not funded for the entire time. Will he, as the housing Minister, ensure that a sensible programme like Apprenticeship Boost, which gets young New Zealanders into well-paid work in the building and construction sector—which we desperately need—be supported to do that by his Government?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): Following on with that, will there be a coordination in terms of Māori trades training? Is that a plan from the Minister, with him knowing that background and knowing that history very well? We were able to have a coordinated strategy in Government in terms of apprenticeships, in terms of Māori trades training, in terms of He Poutama Rangatahi. Everything was able to be connected so that we could get young Māori into training and into work.

I want to ask also—coming back to that, because I don’t think the Minister has quite answered some of these questions—what the strategies are going forward in terms of the te ao Māori perspectives, given that we lost over half the roles in the Te Aka Taumatua group, which was giving vital advice to Māori. Is the Minister still committed to that strategy in terms of advice—continual support for Māori providers who were excited by what we did as a Government? I want to hear: are we going to have ongoing advice, given that so many of these people have lost their jobs—what is the plan?

I think that Kieran McAnulty has asked Minister Bishop—can I also give all our regards to the Minister at this very sad time. He’s going through a very tough time at the moment with the loss of his father. Ngā mihi ki a ia me tana whānau i tēnei wā. [All our love to him and his whānau at this time.] But the Minister has been clear that there is an ongoing plan in this area. I’d like to hear that from this Minister, particularly with that ongoing advice.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Just before we take the next call, just to note that we did start late and the Minister is able to stay for a little bit longer, but we will be moving on to the next debate soon.

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Mr Chair, thank you for that explanation and the opportunity to speak to these important questions.

We have witnessed boom and bust over the property development sector over many years, maybe decades. One of the unintended consequences of the Government monopolising land developments is a massive unaffordability in both houses to buy and houses to rent, and so we are very focused on making sure we get that ecology, that housing ecosystem back on track, but also moving the dials in a manner that encourages a whole bunch of developers back into the market. What we found in the last few years is that, essentially, private developers were crowded out because they could not afford to buy the land or to develop the land because they’re being outbid down the road—

Hon David Parker: That’s just not true.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: —by the State. Who said that was not true? Come with me to 30 Mangere Road. Come with me.

Grant McCallum: Come with me to Kerikeri.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: It’s actually the old King’s College hostel site there, Mr McCallum.

Just on the Māori trades training and the apprenticeships, and very close to my heart, given my son lives up at the kāinga there at an ex-Māori trades training facility, yes, I do expect that apprenticeships and trades training and other courses will continue to be supported, because we need people in the trades. We need people who know how to build houses and know how to build things. I’m so pleased, so enthusiastic, that I’ve got the member for Pakūrangarāhihi over here, who is absolutely determined to get things done, particularly in the area of bulk infrastructure. None of this three waters; we’re back to Local Water Done Well, doing things in a proper way, and also those roads of national significance that will unlock serious swathes of land to be enabled into both industry, commercial, retail, schools, and housing. I’m pleased that Minister Brown has appeared out of the mist of the fifth floor in the Beehive.

Now, in relation to Te Kurutao and te ao Māori perspectives, I think there are a couple of matters that are clamoured up together there, but in relation to Kurutao and the kaimahi that are working, that’s a matter that is still with the management team down at Kāinga Ora and the newly refreshed board. I can’t speak to that, but what I can say is that that is a matter that they will manage and that they will carry through and execute.

This Government has faced a lot of tough choices, but one of the foremost aspirations of this Government is to reduce the regulatory red tape and green tape, and we have something called the Fast-track Approvals Bill. It’s pleasing again to see Minister Brown, who is part of that team effort in order to get that bill moving. What that does and what that enables is a whole range of projects that contribute to residential housing growth, amongst other things—for example, energy projects, infrastructure projects, mining and quarrying projects, and housing projects.

Hon Simeon Brown: Solar, solar, solar.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Yep—wind, wind, wind.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the beauty of a committee stage is that you have the opportunity to stand and speak, rather than trying to drown us all out, so carry on.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Thank you. The steps that we are taking are to enable a recalibration of the economy, and with that a resetting of the housing ecology or ecosystem, as some of my colleagues like to call it, so that we can have growth in housing across the housing continuum, but not in homelessness and emergency housing. We don’t want that. What we want are more affordable renters, more affordable buyers, and ultimately new houses being built. If we can do that in a credible way, in a sustainable way, in a reliable way, then this will be the Aotearoa New Zealand that our kids want to live in and not the home that they left to go to Australia to work in the mines.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Is the Minister aware of the submission of Kāinga Ora Deputy Chief Executive Central Daniel Soughtton to the Rotorua Lakes Council, where he presented that there is “no robust evidence” that Kāinga Ora activities impact house prices in surrounding areas, which refuted directly his argument that Kāinga Ora has increased the price of land, and would he like to correct his answer to the House now or later?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): I think that this might be the last question I can answer, given the time constraints upon us. There are people who actually have lived in the property development world and there are those that have observed. Certainly, from my experience of living in the property development world, when you have low-cost debt and a very low yield expectation on the return on investment, you can outbid a private developer most days of the week, and this is what we saw in a number of instances through Auckland—and I raised it in select committee last year, at the Estimates—Kerikeri, and other places, where the feasibilities that were adopted by the State housing provider were able to be undertaken on an apples-for-oranges basis, compared to the private developers. Hence why we’ve seen a crowding out of private developers across key locations where we actually have absolutely serious significant need for social housing and to ensure that people come out of emergency housing.

Now, the unintended consequence of this has been that some feasibilities that were undertaken by Kāinga Ora in the past have resulted in some pretty unhelpful circumstances, where there is still insufficient provision of housing for those people in need. What we are committed to, as I’ve mentioned before, is to go for housing growth to get more new houses built, and to recalibrate the regulatory impost that sits alongside the construction and development businesses to fund and finance infrastructure in a material way that can help enable not just housing but homes and communities to be built in a manner where people can afford to live. It’s part of the cost of living and other crises that are upon us, but we are slowly but surely determined to get the housing ecosystem back on track. Thank you, Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the Minister’s time in the chair has come to an end. We now have the Minister of Local Government, if the Minister is available to speak to that portfolio, from now until the dinner break.

Local Government

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Chair. It is a pleasure to kick off the debate into the Vote that relates to the local government component of internal affairs, as chair of the Governance and Administration Committee. I will just make a short contribution now. Throughout the course of the debate, there will be questions from myself and other colleagues specifically for the Minister.

I wanted to begin with a couple of observations. One is around the significant rates increases that we’re seeing across New Zealand at our local councils. This was a matter that was traversed throughout our hearing. There is real concern from the Labour Party about the increases in rates that we are seeing, and particularly in the context of the cancellation of Labour’s affordable water reform, which would have provided a number of new tools for ensuring that councils can properly invest in the infrastructure that they need to invest in. So we will have some questions around that.

Furthermore, I want to note that the Minister has made comments around the local government review and the report, and has, essentially, said that there will be no action on any of those recommendations. We have yet to see any significant move from this Government to support what was in that report about the desperate need—which we have heard about at the select committee this year—for new financing tools for the local government sector, that they are struggling to invest and they are desperate for that support through both funding and new mechanisms. This is something that has exercised the select committee and, certainly, has exercised the Labour Party.

There are a couple of other matters that I want to bring to the committee of the whole House’s attention now. One is around the changes being proposed by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), which will have a negative impact on councils that need to invest in roads after they have had significant road damage following an event. This is a big issue in my electorate of Nelson and was also a massive issue following Cyclone Gabrielle where NZTA are proposing to move from funding road repairs—currently, it requires a one-in-10-year event as the criteria; the proposal was to change to a one-in-20-year event, which would limit the amount of investment going into councils and going into road repairs.

The final matter that I just want to raise is what has, in my view, been a really unfortunate debate about what is considered a “nice-to-have”. I ask the Minister: is a swimming pool a “nice-to-have”? Is a library a “nice-to-have”? Is a sports field a “nice-to-have”? What we know from Local Government New Zealand themselves is that 85 percent of their funding through their long-term plans goes into the particular matters that the Minister has said should be invested in, which, the Labour Party would agree, are very important for councils to invest in, which are roads, pipes, and infrastructure. However, social infrastructure is also critical to communities, as we hear from them all the time. I’ll come to that in further contributions. Those are my initial questions for the Minister.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to take a call in this Estimates debate in regards to local government. The Government’s priorities are incredibly clear when it comes to the local government work programme: firstly, repealing Labour’s broken three waters mega-entity, co-governed approach to water infrastructure has been done successfully, and we’ve replaced it with Local Water Done Well. That replacement has saved significant amounts of money for New Zealand taxpayers.

The last Government spent somewhere around $1.2 billion trying to set up their new approach and would have then lumped, further, another billion dollars of establishment costs on those water entities. By stopping that policy agenda, we have stopped that extra billion dollars being lumped on to local communities, and we’ve been able to provide local councils with a more financially sustainable approach to investing in water infrastructure. We’ve restored the ownership of those assets to those local councils, and we have also worked with the Local Government Funding Agency to ensure that there is the ability for councils to be able to access funding and financing tools so that they can support that investment, that critical investment, in their local communities. Most importantly, this will be done at a lower cost to ratepayers than what the previous Government’s reforms would have done.

That’s evidenced in a number of ways. Firstly, under the Local Government Funding Agency’s support, these water service organisations will be able to borrow up to 500 percent against their revenues. That is in comparison to the national average under the previous Government’s reforms, where those entities would have only been able to borrow up to 370 percent of revenues. Secondly, the Local Government Funding Agency is able to provide the lowest cost financing to local councils. They don’t have to go out there into the normal debt markets and borrow directly. They will have, by the support the Crown provides, a liquidity facility, which provides them with a very high credit rating and allows them to provide the lowest cost financing to local councils.

Ultimately, what this means is that councils are able to deliver lower-cost water infrastructure and have high leveraging to be able to deliver that over the long term for local councils. The department has advised me that if councils utilise this new model, it will deliver 11 percent lower prices than forecast in their long-term plans and 8 percent less than the Water Industry Commission for Scotland modelling which was produced under the previous Government. That is a substantial saving for local ratepayers. My message to local councils is to move quickly and at pace to implement Local Water Done Well in their local community, set up those water service organisations for their ratepayers, and pass on those savings to their communities. Because they’ll move their water debt into these entities, for many councils, they will have additional borrowing capacity within their council structure.

Now, that’s a good thing; they’re able to invest in roads or other local infrastructure in their community, but it is not an excuse for them to simply go and spend that money willy-nilly on “nice-to-haves” in their local communities. The expectation is that they pass those savings on to their ratepayers, and that is a very clear message, and that is why the Prime Minister announced, at the Local Government New Zealand conference, the Government’s local government efficiencies work programme, which is about ensuring that councils are focused on the basics, they’re delivering high-quality services to ratepayers, and that there is clear accountability in place so that ratepayers know they’re getting value for money for every dollar that is being spent. It’s not acceptable that in New Zealand, over the last year, we’ve had rates increasing four times the rate of inflation. We need to see councils going line by line—just as Government has found $24 billion of savings in this year’s budgets, councils need to be doing the same and pass those savings on to their local communities.

We’ve also announced our Regional Deals Strategic Framework at the Local Government New Zealand conference, which is about ensuring we have a longer-term partnership between local and central government, focused on the priorities of economic growth, housing, and infrastructure. There’s a significant amount of work around other funding and financing tools as well. I’m happy to answer questions.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I thank the Minister for his extensive answer, but there’s a question that is being begged all the way through his answer and it’s something we’re not getting any clarity on from the Government and I’d like to have it. That is: what is a “nice-to-have” versus what is a “necessary-to-have”?

I’d like the Minister to give examples of things that are nice to have and things that are necessary. For example, is a safer crossing outside a school a “nice-to-have” or a “necessary-to-have”? Is a local library a “nice-to-have” or a “necessary-to-have”? I’d like the Minister to provide examples—concrete examples—of what are just “nice-to-haves”, so that local councils have a better steer on what is a “nice-to-have” versus a “necessary-to-have”. It’s a phrase that’s tossed around, but not without a great deal of information about it. Some clarity, please, Minister.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to take a call because I wasn’t sure if the Minister was going to stand up and answer and I did want to add my voice to that question. Who, in the Minister’s opinion, is best placed to choose or decide what a “nice-to-have” is? Is it the residents of a local area and the representatives they’ve elected, or is it the Minister?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Mr Chair. There’s a number of examples which can be given, and I think the Prime Minister gave those examples when he spoke at Tākina, and I think he stood inside the Tākina Convention Centre and made it very clear “This is a ‘nice-to-have’.” It’s all well and good to have another beautiful venue in Wellington for politicians to speak in, which is now losing money—the convention centre is literally losing money whilst pipes are bursting outside on the street. There’s been other examples where councils have been looking to invest and build hotels in their local communities, thinking that’s a core business. Well, it’s not. Gardens on top of bus stops. I mean, the Greater Wellington Regional Council is putting gardens on top of bus stops, spending over $2 million on bus stops because they’re putting gardens on top of them. The list goes on.

In terms of the types and scenarios where councils are focusing on things which are nice to have where they’re spending more money than is required to actually provide functionality to ratepayers. Ratepayers wanted a bus stop; I don’t think they needed a garden on top of the bus stop—

Hūhana Lyndon: I do!

Hon SIMEON BROWN: OK, then I’ll answer the question that the Hon Julie Anne Genter posed in terms of the question of who should decide? Well, ultimately, that’s why we’re saying, “Well, there should be clear benchmarking put in place to ensure that there is far greater accountability for local councils and mayors around the decisions that are being made.”

Benchmarking is something that’s used in other countries. It’s used in New South Wales and Victoria to provide more clarity around performance metrics between councils so that ratepayers can understand whether or not their council is actually spending money in an appropriate way aligned with how other councils are spending that money, and also looking at a revenue cap in terms of those non-core activities—not in terms of infrastructure around water or transport, but there’s other parts of the council business and saying, “Well, actually, when inflation is running at 3 percent, why are rates running at 15 percent?” and actually putting some downwards pressure on rates so that communities are protected from decision makers who are making decisions without necessarily considering the full impact on those who have to pay.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Chair. A quick question to the Minister. But before I ask him specifically about public transport, which he’s raised, he hasn’t answered my question about the work that New Zealand Transport Agency is doing to consult around changing the criteria for accessing funding for roads that are damaged. This came up in the hearing that we had with the Minister, and I’d like an answer to that question from the Minister.

He’s raised the matter of public transport, and there are a number of councils that have raised with the Minister, with the Government, concerns about a lack of investment into public transport. The Minister talks about functionality. We’ve got a comment here from Environment Canterbury talking about the fact that they have $4.4 million less in funding that was initially provided for some of their public transport improvements. My question to the Minister is: is that a “nice-to-have”?

We’ve got councils calling out here for funding. Also in the Minister’s own electorate—the Eastern Busway, we’ve heard from Mayor Wayne Brown that the axing of the regional fuel tax has required us to reconsider our capital programme. A number of projects have been cut from the budget or de-scoped as a result. This includes stage four of the Eastern Busway, which is no longer funded—a reduction of $298.7 million, or 88 percent of the project. Auckland Council is now left with a $600 million shortfall. So a question to the Minister is: what support is he going to provide to Auckland Council to deliver on that critical project that actually runs through his own electorate?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to follow up this distinction between “nice-to-haves” versus “necessary-to-haves”, because the Minister’s now added another way of defining that, and that’s core versus non-core. He gave us some examples of things that were “nice-to-haves” and I presume are non-core: hotels, convention centres, and gardens on bus stops. But he still hasn’t answered whether libraries, parks, and swimming pools are “nice-to-haves” or “necessaries-to-have”—whether they are core council business or non-core. I actually really want to know these, because these sorts of amenities—they’re not drains, they’re not roads, they’re not footpaths, but they are critical to the wellbeing of communities. I would like the Minister to say very clearly: are libraries, parks, and swimming pools “nice-to-haves” or are they just fripperies?

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Mr Chair. Talking about “nice-to-haves”, my question to the Minister relates to: will investigating options to limit council expenditure on “nice-to-haves” put downward pressure on rates?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank members for their questions. I think the key message to councils is the reality over the last 12 months—and it’s not just the last 12 months but the year before then, we’ve seen a record increase in rates as well. I would just point out a couple of facts in relation to the four wellbeings, which we’re proposing to remove from the legislation. The four wellbeings were brought in in 2002. They were then removed in 2012, and then they were reinstated in 2019. The advice that I’ve received from the department is that, when those four wellbeings have been in the legislation, rates increased by an average of 2 percent more per year than when they are not in the legislation.

Grant McCallum: It is quite significant.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: And I think the member just makes a point—that is quite a large cumulative impact. Am I not speaking loud enough? Sorry. That is—

Grant McCallum: Important answer—very important answer.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: It’s quite an important point, the Hon Julie Anne Genter. A 2 percent increase might not be a lot on a year, but when you add that up on a cumulative basis, that has a significant impact on the overall rates bill, particularly for those people on fixed incomes. That is why this Government is proposing to remove those. That’s why this Government is taking a number of other actions.

Also as part of that efficiencies work programme, we’re focused on looking at those parts of local government where Government requires councils to do things and then doesn’t necessarily allow them to be able to cost recover for that activity. That is where they then have to go to general ratepayers to find those fees, and then they don’t have the ability to have those regulated fees actually changed on a regular basis. There are a range of things that we need to be doing. We’ve just inflation-adjusted parking fines, for instance, which is one area which I think is a sensible change to ensure there’s more cost recovery and ability to regulate in that space. And there’ll be other areas where we need to have a look at that as well.

The member from the Labour Party asked about public transport. I will be back tomorrow to talk about transport. I’m more than happy to answer those question in more detail then.

Then the other question was in relation to activities such as parks and libraries. These are part of the role of councils—and libraries and swimming pools—but what ratepayers are seeing is gold-plated infrastructure being built in their communities, and they’re wanting to see a back-to-basics approach. Yes, they want a library, but they want a library which is built to a more standard, modest level. They’re wanting to see infrastructure built to a more affordable level in their communities. My message is it’s the same for central government as well.

That’s why, in the Government policy statement on transport, we said we want a no-frills approach to transport infrastructure. We’ve seen gold-plating of transport infrastructure in recent years, and that needs to stop as well because, actually, New Zealand taxpayers and ratepayers want to see the functional benefits of that infrastructure, rather than the gold-plating, which is what they’ve been seeing in recent years.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Chair. There’s a couple more questions I’d like to ask the Minister, and this is related to the National Land Transport Fund, but it’s specifically about how it will impact rates.

How does the Minister expect councils to maintain footpaths now that there’s no money available in the walking and cycling activity class for maintaining footpaths? I’ll directly cite, for example, Tararua District Council, a relatively small, provincial council saying now they will no longer be able to maintain footpaths because of Government decisions in the transport budget.

This is in the context of central government spending more than ever before on transport, yet providing less and less to councils to deliver the basics. Does he think footpaths are not the basics? Are footpaths a “nice-to-have”? Are maintaining footpaths “nice-to-have” or is that a core function of the councils, and how does he expect councils to keep rates low when the Government is, essentially, taking away funding that was to be available?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Chair—I say that with much excitement. I’m interested in a couple of things on this theme of “nice-to-haves” and gold-platedness. Now, the Minister of Local Government said that the Act, when it came in in 2002, had the four wellbeings in it, and then Rodney Hide took them out and then Labour put them back in. He referred to some evidence about rates going up during that time period, and my question to him on that evidence is: is that entirely what the Minister is relying on for his decision to remove the wellbeings again? That’s my first question.

My second question on the “nice-to-haves”: we had my colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell ask about libraries, parks, and swimming pools, and the Minister has answered about libraries and parks; they are core business—he hasn’t answered on swimming pools—but only if they’re not gold-plated.

We’ve also heard examples from the Minister of hotels, a convention centre, and a garden on a bus stop, and that leads me to stormwater. I don’t know about this garden on the bus stop, but I am very interested in stormwater, and that’s not something we’ve heard much from the Government about. It’s a very important role that local government, that councils—territorial authorities—do in terms of stormwater, and whether or not stormwater provision, particularly green spaces for stormwater, is a “nice-to-have” or is in some way gold-plating.

We haven’t had answers about playgrounds. Are they a “nice-to-have”? Museums: are they a “nice-to-have”? Theatres: are they a “nice-to-have”? Festivals: are they a “nice-to-have”? Economic development teams: are they a “nice-to-have”? Biodiversity protection: is that a “nice-to-have”?

Now, finally, I want to focus on regional councils, because all of this focus in the debate so far seems to be about territorial authorities and not those regional council functions, and there’s very important functions there involving pollution and, of course, the prosecution of polluters. We know from the recent legislation we’ve had that regional councils will not be able to review marine farms for 18 out of 20 years, and for two years, if they do review those marine farms, then it is at ratepayers’ cost. Is that a core service, Minister?

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Mr Chair, I just refer to Speaker Tolley’s ruling 79/4. I’d like to engage the Minister in a series of short calls, and I understand that, using this opportunity, I can continue to seek the call and will be given the call. I have a couple of questions I’d like to get a quick fire response from the Minister on.

My first one is around the concept of “nice-to-have”. In Nelson, one of the things our council is going to be investing in is new facilities for our surf life-saving club, which performs a very important function during the tourism season where we have a number of people coming to our beaches, being well supported by our Mayor Nick Smith and the rest of Nelson City Council. My question is, is that a nice-to-have?

Hon Members: Mr Chair.

Rachel Boyack: I can have the call again, Mr Chair—point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): No—Andy Foster.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I wanted to ask a couple of questions around asset management. We had footpaths mentioned, but I’m interested in your view, Minister, about how you would require assets to be managed so that you know that councils are actually looking after the assets they’ve got.

The second thing I’m interested in is just the monitoring process. As a Government, a lot of work is being done on reducing the costs of temporary traffic management. A lot of work is being done on reducing the cost of the provision of water services, to make it a much more sensible level. My question to you is about the monitoring process by which you can look at those councils and say they have actually responded to those great Government initiatives, and they are now reducing costs, and you are seeing that in their budgets and, therefore, also in their rates.

The other point is that there has been a lot of discussion around what is a nice-to-have. I can remember Rodney Hide, back in the day, saying, “Stick to core services”, and immediately what happened is that councils were then asked, “How much money are you putting aside to prepare for the 2011 Rugby World Cup?”, which meant that Rodney had lost the argument right there and then about what a core service was. But my question is, “Is there a different way of doing this?”, which is to say, “These are the clear core services—there is a certain amount of money that you’ve got to spend to look after those assets and provide those services, and then it’s up to you to decide how much money”—and you mentioned, Minister, a cap—you’ve got to spend across all of those other, non-core services which are discretionary, and that is the way you do it.” It’s still up to councils to decide, but they’ve got to decide that within an envelope. I’m interested in your views on those matters.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Thank you, Mr Chair, and I thank members for their questions. In relation to the question around footpaths, I’m ultimately happy to answer further questions around the National Land Transport Programme tomorrow as part of the transport debate.

In terms of the question around stormwater, the Government’s made substantial announcements around the role of stormwater in our Local Water Done Well policy announcement we made about a month ago. There’s a significant amount that we are proposing there, and there’s a choice for councils whether to include stormwater as part of their water service organisations or not. That’ll be a choice for them to do. There’s a range of elements in that legislation in terms of the requirements and how councils will be required to report and develop stormwater plans as part of that announcement as well, because, obviously, that is a critical role that councils do play in terms of managing water infrastructure.

In terms of the questions from Andy Foster around ensuring that there is better asset management, we’ve outlined in our systems improvements for local government about making sure there’s more use of benchmarking between councils. I think that’s particularly important in the asset management area, where, actually, there is a real need to ensure that the quality of asset management is lifted across, I’d say, central government and local government. Having clear benchmarks assists with that drive towards better performance, because councils will be able to see how they are faring compared to other councils, there’s better public accountability, and they’re able to drive towards that, whether that’s in transport, whether it’s in water, whether it’s in other areas.

In terms of water, we’re proposing an economic regulator. The Commerce Commission will ultimately support councils by being an economic regulator, and they will play a critical role in that asset management place and also in terms of pricing appropriately for water infrastructure as well. The member raised the point there around also, as we’ve outlined in our systems improvements, limiting rate increases for non-core expenditure, that, ultimately, will mean councils have to make better trade-offs. It’s not just a matter of just simply putting rates up and requiring communities to pay more; actually, they have to make choices, just like in our Budget this year we had to find savings—and we found $24 billion of savings—and we made trade-offs. Ultimately, those are the type of trade-offs that councils need to also be making in terms of the range of activities that they choose to engage with.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): All right, now, all members involved, we’re now halfway through this debate. I’ve learnt from experience it’s folly to try and get people to do questions and answers early on. However, there’s been some quite good speeches—long—from questioners and from answerers. It would be good now to try and encourage people to go to, as Ms Boyack has said, the question-answer. It does take all sides to tango, to cooperate, so I’ll endeavour to try and make that happen now.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to ask the Minister some quick questions. Does he believe that the Surf Life Saving Club in Nelson, which will train people so that they can keep beach-goers safe at one of New Zealand’s busiest beaches over summer—so that we have decent facilities—is a “nice to have”?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): I was pleased to announce pre-Budget that there was, I think, $60 million for Surf Life Saving New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Coastguard to support the important work that they do.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): My question, then, to the Minister is: was any of that specifically going to Nelson City Council’s upgraded facilities?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Well, how much goes to what facility will be a matter for those organisations.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): The Minister also hasn’t responded as to whether he believes a sports ground is a nice-to-have. Does the Minister believe a sports ground is a nice-to-have?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I’m just going to repeat my colleague Rachel Boyack’s question: does the Minister believe a sports ground is a nice-to-have?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): I mentioned parks, reserves, playgrounds, libraries—I mentioned those earlier. Ultimately, though, the message to local government is around ensuring that when decisions are made, there is a focus on the core purpose and the core activity as to what that expenditure is going towards. We’ve seen far too much gold plating of infrastructure, and I’ve given some examples of that. Ultimately, ratepayers and taxpayers are wanting money being spent on the core purposes of what that is being spent on—whether it’s a park, a library, a swimming pool, a road, all of those things—they are wanting to see a no-frills approach so they keep costs down.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I want to go on to some of the financing issues that the Minister has raised. In particular, he has talked about how rates have increased quite a bit in recent years; we know that’s the case. He’s referenced the rate of inflation and says that when inflation is getting down to around 3 percent, then rates should be no higher than that. At the same time, we know that councils have an infrastructure deficit, that there is much delayed maintenance, particularly on hot water systems and the like. How does the Minister expect councils to keep rates down when there is this huge infrastructure deficit that needs to be repaired?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Well, if the member was listening to my first speech here in terms of this debate, she would have heard about the Government’s Local Water Done Well policy, which allows councils to be able to move their water infrastructure and services into new water service organisations. Through the Local Government Funding Agency, they’ll be able to access up to 500 percent against their revenues in terms of debt to be able to make those long-term investments, spread those costs more affordably for local communities, and also release debt headroom on their own balance sheets, which means they can then put downward pressure on rates. That is an incredibly powerful financing tool for local councils, and our message to local councils is to get on with it.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Carrying on with that funding issue, he has said that he anticipates lifting the debt level for local councils from 370 percent of revenue to 500 percent of revenue. That’s a substantial increase. Is he saying that the Local Government Funding Agency is going to fund all of that increase in debt for councils?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Well, as I said—if the member was listening carefully to my answer—this is for water service organisations. The Local Government Funding Agency has already agreed: if a council sets up a water service organisation and guarantees that water service organisation, they will fund up to 500 percent against the revenues of that water service organisation. That financing is available now for councils to take advantage of, and my encouragement to councils is to get on with it.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): May I clarify: that 500 percent of revenue; is that related to revenue only within the water services?

Hon Simeon Brown: Correct.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: So it’s not available to councils for other debt funding for other activities that they might need to carry out. That’s got me worried. I’m worried about the fact that, if we’re expecting councils somehow to keep rates down, somehow to spread the cost of infrastructure other than water across many years, and we are saying they might have to increase their debt to do that—what is that going to do to their credit ratings? What is it going to do to their interest costs? How is that going to flow on to the expenses that councils must bear?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Well, I’d just point the member again to my first speech, which was that the Local Government Funding Agency provides the lowest-cost financing to local government. They have, I think, a triple A credit rating. They are able to provide incredibly affordable financing. Under the previous Government’s reforms, those water entities would not have been able to receive financing through the Local Government Funding Agent. They would have had to go out into debt markets by themselves and would have had to be paying 1 to 2 percent higher interest rates for that debt. That would have been a huge impost to add on to ratepayers.

We have a huge infrastructure deficit in this country. This is about taking that water infrastructure and debt off the council’s balance sheet, putting it into a water service organisation, allowing that council to invest over the long term. It frees up debt headroom on the council’s own balance sheet, enabling them to invest in other infrastructure that they are required and need to do, and also pass on those savings to ratepayers.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): If I could clarify: so the other debt financing for other forms of infrastructure—is that coming from the Local Government Funding Agency, or are councils expected to seek that on the private market?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Well, the majority of councils go through the Local Government Funding Agency in order to access debt, because it is the lowest-cost financing facility available to local government, due to its joint arrangement between shareholding councils and the Crown, being a 20 percent shareholder of the liquidity facility support the council provides. That makes it the lowest-cost financing for local government.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I understand that. What I’m asking—I’ve asked it three times now and the Minister has avoided it every time. I’m not asking about funding for water services. That’s quite clear; it’s up to 500 percent of the revenue. That’s quite straightforward. It’s the other infrastructure.

Now, he said that councils may go to the Local Government Funding Agency for that, but he’s not said whether they must go to the Local Government Funding Agency or whether they are debarred from going to the Local Government Funding Agency for some forms of debt. Will they have to go to the private market for some forms of debt? In fact, what is he saying—local bodies, can they all go and expect to get a yes all the time from the Local Government Funding Agency for any other debt they want to incur, setting aside the water services debt?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): The Local Government Funding Agency already provides those facilities to local councils.

Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Just answer the question that I asked.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the question is, “Can they?” The answer is yes. And they will because it’s the Local Government Funding Agency. It provides the lowest-cost financing, and I’m not sure about the member, but if the Local Government Funding Agency is providing 1 to 2 percent lower interest rates than going out to the market, I’m pretty sure councils will go to the Local Government Funding Agency.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to refer to answer the Minister gave previously about parking fines being adjusted for inflation. Has the Minister considered whether it would be better to give more power to local councils to decide what level fine they’re able to levy, given that the value of parking in different jurisdictions is different? For example, the cost to pay for parking in downtown Wellington is higher—or downtown Auckland—than it would be in Palmerston North. Is it appropriate that every council across the country is forced to set the same level of parking fine, or would it make more sense for the Government to devolve that to local government to make that decision based on their own parking management strategy; and, if not, why not?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): The work programme—the systems improvements local government efficiencies work programme—has an element on bylaws and infringements, which is to ensure councils have appropriate modern tools for making and enforcing local regulations effectively. This could also include considering greater delegation for councils to set infringement fee levels.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Then I wanted to follow up on the example of the green roof on the bus stop—just uniquely because I happened to attend the World Green Infrastructure Congress, which was held in Auckland at the university two weeks ago. What is fascinating is there’s more than 20 years of research about different techniques that help alleviate stormwater run-off in a city and improve biodiversity and other outcomes that councils are—you know, it does affect councils’ bottom line. Green infrastructure can be much more affordable. There were a huge number of presentations on how cost-effective and effective it can be.

Is it the Minister’s position that councils are not able to pursue cost-effective, nature-based solutions—that help manage water better and address some of the issues around nature and the health of nature in the cities—because it’s his opinion that this sounds silly? Or is he open to green infrastructure being a cost-effective solution that could actually get better outcomes for ratepayers at lower cost? That’s my question. Is the Minister open to that?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): I think when someone’s turning up to a bus stop, they want a roof over their head so they can get dry.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Does the Minister of Local Government understand that when you cover the ground, whether it’s with asphalt on the ground or whether it’s a building with a roof, that reduces the amount of green cover that absorbs water, and, therefore, when you have big stormwater events, less water is soaked up by plants and trees and what not, and then you have less nature in the city, less opportunities for birds and bees and all the other things we actually rely on to survive?

I understand the Minister has a very old-fashioned view of things, but can he see the opportunity for solutions that are cost-effective, because, at the same time that we’re dealing with the pipes, part of the problem with the pipes is too much water is going into the pipes because the water’s running off hard surfaces. Green roofs and vegetated swales and all this green infrastructure is actually more cost-effective because it’s taking the water pressure off the pipes. That’s why cities all around the world are investing in green infrastructure—because it’s more cost-effective. Is the Minister open to the 21st century or not?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got a number of questions and I’m going to ask them all at once rather than jumping up and down, if that is all right, Mr Chair? The first one is on the stormwater topic, and thank you to the Minister of Local Government for his answer before, but it would be great for the Minister to give the committee of the whole House some comfort that he does not consider green infrastructure to be “gold plating”, and that goes to the speech we’ve just heard. That’s my first question.

Again, thank you to the Minister for confirming some things—libraries, parks, reserves—are core. I’m also interested in museums, theatres, festivals, economic development, biodiversity, and, again, that regional council function around prosecution of polluters.

My third question is around annual plans. Has the Minister looked at local government annual plans? We’re hearing a lot from the Minister, and in his discussion with the New Zealand First member Andy Foster, about the importance of good asset management. What analysis has he done of the annual plans and the general auditing framework of councils, and are there specific concerns from that work?

My fourth question goes back to water and the funding agency. If the Minister could confirm that he’s saying that the money through the Local Government Funding Agency is at a higher level than central government can get? That’s one question. Then, related to that, are there other funding mechanisms being made available, other than the city and regional deals, or is it simply that councils are being left on their own to fund all of their water infrastructure—that’s waste water as well as drinking water as well as stormwater—being told that they have to do different reports to central government and then being left to it?

Then, with the city and regional deals—is this the only new funding? And how is it different from the $3.8 billion that the last Government had in that Housing Acceleration Fund and associated funds to enable councils to open up land for housing development that couldn’t be opened up before because it didn’t have those pipes in the ground?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): I thank the member for her question. In relation to stormwater, ultimately, councils have the ability to manage and fund their stormwater networks and components, including overland flow paths in parks and wetlands. It’s for council to determine this as part of their water service delivery plans.

Hon Rachel Brooking: It’s not gold plating.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Oh, well, yes—we don’t want gardens on top of bus stops, that’s correct. I appreciate the member’s support for that position.

In relation to the questions around annual plans and some of those compliance mechanisms—again, in our system improvements, we’re looking at an area around consultation decision-making to help councils adapt quickly to changing circumstances, save councils time and money while balancing democratic principles. There’s a lot of legislation which requires stuff to be printed in newspapers. I don’t know about you, I don’t read newspapers, but there’s still—

Rachel Boyack: It shows.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: —lots of requirements. Yeah, I mean, I do keep informed. Probably, you know, members may have their views, but I don’t read newspapers—I don’t think many people my age do. So it comes back to a lot of those things.

Then, implementing discrete interventions to provide regulatory relief to council and update the laws could include modernising public notice requirements and also some of those reporting things. There’s a range of things in there which we will look at because there are a number of issues which I think councils do rightly bring forward: some of the regulations and reporting requirements can be become convoluted or don’t keep in pace with the times. At the same time, we need to make sure that there’s the appropriate democratic accountability and the ability for the public to understand what is happening. When it comes to water, having a regulator in place to ensure that there is efficient investment taking place and that we are achieving value for money for ratepayers is a good thing.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Chair. I have two questions for the Minister. The first is, again—this will be the third time I’ve asked it, and I am frustrated that we haven’t had engagement around the work that the New Zealand Transport Agency is doing to potentially change the criteria for councils to access funding for roads following a severe weather event. It is relevant to this portfolio because it is about the costs that are imposed on councils. Following a severe weather event, when there are potholes everywhere and landslips and roads that have fallen away, it is critical that those roads can be fixed. If the criteria is changed so that councils receive less funding, it imposes a greater burden of funding on to councils and on to ratepayers when they are already burdened with significant costs following a severe weather event, and I would like an answer to that question from the Minister.

My second question is on a new topic, which is around a growing issue about the number of dogs that we have—particularly, in parts of the country like Auckland—that are roaming, and support from Government to councils to deal with the issues around roaming dogs and support for animal control officers. I ask whether the Minister considers that to be a “nice-to-have” and something that could potentially get more support from central government to ensure that councils can adequately deal with this problem, because it does present both an animal welfare risk but also a risk to people when we end up with a growing number of dogs across the country that are roaming and unsocialised and that can present risk to human life. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): In terms of addressing the first question, I’ll be here tomorrow as the Minister of Transport, and that question probably more specifically relates to my transport portfolio. I do acknowledge that it was raised during the hearing. Ultimately, I think that the answer is quite simple, and it is that the New Zealand Transport Agency went through a consultation process. They have had submissions and the board will then make decisions based on those submissions, and, obviously, the member is more than welcome to ask further detailed questions about that tomorrow. In the Budget, we provided significant resource to local councils to support the roading recovery for the North Island weather events to ensure that they are able to recover from that event, and that is an important role that the Government has to play.

In terms of the second question in relation to dogs, I think that whilst there’s, obviously, a specific issue in relation to that—and I’m aware that that is an issue which can become more prominent in some councils over others—ultimately, this comes down to the question of trade-offs. Councils have a role and responsibility under the legislation to ensure that they are managing dogs within their areas, and the point that the member was asking about was whether this was an area in which the Government is willing to provide more money to councils in order to help them do their job.

Well, ultimately, it’s a trade-off. They could spend half a million dollars on a speed bump or they could ensure that their dog and animal welfare department in their council was actually well funded. Those are the trade-offs that councils need to be making, rather than every time they face a challenge or a problem, they come and put their hand out to the central government and say, “Well, we want to still spend half a million dollars on a speed bump, but we also want you to help pay for our core regulatory functions.” That is not an acceptable approach. There are trade-offs that need to be made. We have had to make those trade-offs as part of this Budget and this Government. We will continue to drive efficiencies, and that is exactly what local government needs to be doing at the same time.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you. Regional deals: how are they different from the $3.8 billion in the infrastructure package of the last Government?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): Well, the purpose of a regional deal is about actually having a long-term partnership between central and local government in relation to areas around housing, infrastructure, and economic growth and productivity. Previous Governments of, I think, both colours have had various ways in which they’ve worked with local government, whether it’s in transport, whether you know, in Auckland you had the Auckland Transport Alignment Project, and the last National Government had the Housing Infrastructure Fund. I think the last Labour Government had the Housing Acceleration Fund.

There’s been various programmes or partnerships between central and local government. This builds upon that and says, actually, we need to have a 10-year document which talks about those three priorities. What are the priorities, what are the funding and financing tools that are needed to unlock those priorities and deliver that pipeline, and to get that agreed partnership and agreed pipeline between central and local government? I think it elevates it significantly up, builds upon what was seen in Australia where city and regional deals have played a really important role. Also, it will help bring councils together rather than Government just dealing with one council by itself on a case by case basis; actually taking a regional approach and getting councils working together with central government on those key priorities which are important to both local and central government.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Will he then be bringing back the Spatial Planning Act?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Local Government): No.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the Minister’s time in the chair has come to an end. The time has come for the dinner break. We’ll resume the debate at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.59 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Climate Change

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the committee has resumed. We now have the Minister of Climate Change. The Minister is available to speak to that portfolio for the next hour.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Madam Chair, and we will have a series of questions for the Minister. We are concerned about what is happening in terms of climate mitigation. Across both the pre-Christmas mini-Budget and the Budget that was delivered in May, we’ve seen over $3 billion cut out of climate funding. There are obvious implications for this, and we have a series of questions for the Minister around that.

One of the first questions that I have, however, for the Minister is that it’s recently been reported that the Minister has talked about how he and the Prime Minister have been signing a series of memorandums of understanding (MOUs) while on their international journeys with other countries around what our international efforts around climate change may be in terms of us funding our obligations through offshore credits. I just wonder if the Minister can give us some more updates on that in terms of the countries that those MOUs have been signed with and whatever conversations have been occurring in terms of the cost of credits under those schemes and what kind of costs New Zealand will be facing.

Of course, one of the things we’re very aware of on this side is that we’re seeing that over $3 billion worth of cuts to climate funding has meant there have been corresponding and unsurprising cuts to the number of greenhouse gas emissions that we will be abating here at home. Every kilo of carbon dioxide or its equivalent that we do not reduce by domestic abatement is something that we’re going to have to pay another country to do, so I’d be interested to know from the Minister what the value is of having that put on.

The second question that I have for the Minister is around the recently released information that we’ve seen in terms of the climate impacts report that went with Budget 2024, in which we saw the increase in emissions that were associated with the package of measures that were presented in the May Budget. The question I have for the Minister is: was this additional to the climate impact assessment and the obvious emissions increases that occurred through the mini-Budget—so is that a plus-plus, or is it included in terms of both the mini-Budget and the May Budget? I’d be very interested to know on those two very specific points.

We would also be very interested to have more information from the Minister around plans to remove public sector carbon neutrality goals and what the climate implications of this will be in terms of the carbon reduction. We know that the money for the State Sector Decarbonisation Fund that our Government established was scrapped in the May Budget in terms of the scrapping of the Climate Emergency Response Fund budget, but what are going to be the emissions implications of that measure?

I just wonder also whether the Minister has had conversations with some of his colleagues across Cabinet, such as, for example, the Minister of Education. One of the things that we know is that the work that we were doing in terms of emissions reductions and taking out coal boilers—particularly in our schools—was not only reducing our emissions but it was having huge impacts on school operating expenses budgets. It’s much cheaper to heat your school with electricity than it is with coal. So I ask whether or not he has been working with his colleagues around the savings across a variety of communities, not least households, that will occur by scrapping a number of the initiatives.

I’d also like to know from the Minister whether it is still his intention that the emissions trading scheme (ETS) drives most of the change that we need to see, particularly in industrial and process heat—obviously, in the mini-Budget we saw that the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund (GIDI) was scrapped—and whether the Minister still considers that the ETS can do that lifting on its own, and, if so, what does the price of carbon need to be to drive that change? What advice has he received around that?

I’m also interested to know from the Minister what has happened to the rate of industrial decarbonisation since the scrapping of the GIDI scheme. How is the Government tracking, what projects are taking place, and how are they calculating both what their emissions reductions are and the marginal cost of abatement? Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Look, I want to continue in the frame that my forebear the Hon James Shaw did in the climate space with regard to reaching out for a sense of cross-party consensus on the challenges that we face as a country and, indeed, as the world. It must be noted that friends do not let friends knowingly decimate the scientific fundamentals necessary for life on Earth, and what it is that we are grappling with, as was well canvassed at scrutiny week in front of the Environment Committee, is a draft emissions reduction plan that this Government knows will increase emissions based on what the track had been under the prior Government.

I think it’s really important to note that while the Minister and, indeed, the Prime Minister, have been trumpeting the fact that they appear to be relatively on track with a number of variables—it’s quite difficult to pin down in the data and difficult to, in fact, look at meaningfully—in fact, the Climate Change Commission emissions reduction monitoring report, the first of its kind, debuted this year. What that did was signal a warning bell for the fact that, actually, what we are potentially looking at as a result of the intentional decisions made under this Government to wind back some of the most successful climate change and mitigation policies is that we are, potentially, going to be off track to meet emissions budget 1 out to next year—to 2025. It is demonstrably off track, which this Government should pay attention to.

We also have a situation whereby the Climate Change Commission, I understand, has put it very frankly to pretty much anyone who will listen that a tree planted this decade will not sequester carbon this decade, yet what we have in the draft emissions reduction plan from this Government is, effectively, a waving of the hands in the air and saying, “We’re not going to care about stopping pollution at the source.” I would really like for the Minister to provide us with some certainty and some concrete answers to whether the Government has simply just given up on gross emissions reduction and if it is simply going to rely on market mechanisms, such as the likes of the emissions trading scheme (ETS), which in its own draft emissions reduction plan it says is going to cost far more—approximately four times as much money—for the poorest New Zealanders than it will for the wealthiest. So that’s to note that not only are they knowingly increasing emissions; they’re also knowingly exacerbating inequality. How is that? Who’s this economy really working for?

Further to that, we have a Government that is pursuing under its ACT-National coalition agreement a smokescreen on climate delay—that being the new denial—on so-called no additional warming. I would really like to understand how the Minister is factoring in any potential outcomes that come from his ministerial working group with Ministers in agriculture into what the final emissions reduction plan actually looks like, and whether there will potentially be any changes to our targets or our goals as a result of that pseudoscientific nonsense working group that he has decided to set up. I also think it’s really important that we dig into some of the projections on the ETS revenue, in particular.

I made the quite flippant point—but, in fact, it’s now bearing out to be relatively true in our scrutiny week hearing—that perhaps one of the most effective climate policies that this Government could be pursuing is creating so much uncertainty inside of the emissions trading scheme that auctions will continue to fail to the extent that all of those units are cancelled at the end of this year. I’d like to ask the Minister whether he sees that it is going to, potentially, be the case that we are going to see those ETS auctions fail out to the end of this calendar year and, as a result, all of those units ultimately cancelled—and, hey presto, look, he has been pretty effective as far as that goes, although probably not with that being his intention.

More so than that, that poses a massive issue for the Government’s revenue projections. Notably, each ETS auction is worth approximately $700 million, and this Government has made the decision not to ring-fence or hypothecate that revenue for the likes of the Climate Emergency Response Fund, as occurred under the last Government, but instead to take that revenue and put it back into the pot for generalised tax cuts, which—guess what!—will also disproportionately benefit the wealthiest in this country.

My questions for the Minister primarily relate to that point around no additional warming, and whether he is factoring in any potential changes to the emissions reduction plan or to our climate goals or otherwise, what projections when it comes to ETS revenue and whether he sees that that system will be improved, and also, if I may, to sneak in that point around our nationally determined contributions constructive liabilities and whether he has taken any further advice on that issue.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change): Well, thank you very much, members, for the opportunity to speak, and I will be brief in the context of the time that I have available. Just in regards to the questions asked by the Hon Megan Woods—and I’ll work my way through; I think there were six questions that were asked—firstly, in regards to the memorandums of understanding (MOUs) that the Government have engaged in with other countries, to date we have had and have MOUs in conversation and in progress with the Philippines, Thailand, California, and Singapore. There is also a mechanism with the EU which is also available, but those conversations in regards to those countries specifically around article 6 are in progress, and that will cover that point.

In regards to the conversations in regards to the carbon neutrality in the carbon-neutral Public Service mechanism and project, it’d be fair to say that that programme was initiated around 2020, give or take. It has delivered a number of reductions in regards to boiler replacements, etc., across health and education. I have requested advice in regards to that programme of work, as any Minister will be doing in terms of reviewing the effectiveness of what is left to be achieved and the cost and the outcomes expected to be achieved. I’m awaiting that advice, but I’ve taken no decisions in regards to that programme. That programme is continuing as we stand here today.

In regards to the role of the projects the member referenced in regards to the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) Fund, the Government has been very clear that the way in which we are looking to reduce emissions is different to the prior Government. We are not deploying the GIDI Fund, but we are—and we signalled this in our draft emissions reduction plan (ERP)—very much open to working with emitters around putting in place mechanisms to reduce gross emissions in addition to the role which the emissions trading scheme (ETS) plays. We are open to that and we are keen to engage with industry around opportunities to do so where that is aligned to the objectives that we have as a Government.

In regards to questions from Chlöe Swarbrick in regards to the emissions budget 1 and the emissions budget 2, it is clear from the draft ERP that we are on track in regards to that. It’s also a prime ministerial target. We are looking forward to being able to finalise our ERP document No. 2 by the end of the year, which will include substantiated updates in regards to our progress against both of those plans.

In regards to the credibility of the ETS, that is a significant focus and priority for this Government. The unit settings announcement that was made by this Government, I think in reflection—and the feedback that I’ve received reflected a bold move by Government in regards to dealing with one of the underlying issues around oversupply in that market. It isn’t a failure for that auction not to clear; that is the auction operating as it should do. There is an active secondary market, which has reasonable liquidity in play as well, and it is a major focus for this Government to ensure that we have a credible ETS so that can do its role in reducing emissions, which is its primary purpose. The primary role of the ETS is not to make revenue; the primary purpose of the ETS is to reduce emissions, and the focus by this Government is to ensure that it does so.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the Minister for his largely substantive answers to those questions. I’m not sure if the Minister jotted it down, but the other question that I asked that hasn’t been addressed was around the climate impact, and whether or not the December mini-Budget was additional to the climate impact reporting that accompanied the May Budget. If the Minister could address that at some stage, that would be useful to the committee.

In terms of additional questions to put to the Minister, one of the things that I’d be interested to know is, given the challenges that we know the independent climate commission have spelt out really clearly in meeting the 2030 nationally determined contribution targets—if we laid them against our emission reduction plans—what specific new measures is the Government considering to bridge that 100 million - tonne emissions gap? That is no small gap that we’re seeing.

In his answers, the Minister talked about being open to talking with some of our industrial and process heat users about initiatives that sit alongside or that are complementary measures to the emissions trading scheme. I’d be interested to know from the Minister what those mechanisms are. What are the things that are currently under consideration? Is he considering changes to industrial allocation and how that might be used, and is that one of the mechanisms that he is looking at here?

I’d also be interested to know, given the cuts that we’ve seen delivered in the Budget and the implications we know from the Government’s own modelling in terms of our ability to domestically reduce emissions, whether or not there have been any conversations across the parties of Government about whether or not we are going to meet our 2030 international targets. Have there been any conversations about us withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, for example, and is this something that is being considered across Government?

The other thing that I would be interested to hear about from the Minister when he next addresses questions is, given that he agreed to substantial funding cuts to the independent climate commission, does he have concerns about the depth and the quality of work that can be produced from that body, given that the organisation itself, when it came to the select committee, said that if it were to face cuts, it had concerns about the quality of work that it could present to Government. It is important work both in monitoring and giving advice, and in providing those all-important scorecards about how the Government of the day is doing. Those are the questions I’d be interested in hearing from the Minister about.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. While the Minister did address a number of questions that were put on the table, he didn’t address the largest emitter in the room—that is, of course, agriculture, which makes up more than half of our domestic emissions. I did put that question to the Minister, particularly about that smokescreen of the “no additional warming” ministerial working group, and whether there is any intention or any space that is presently being held within his work programme to see that potentially reflected in the updated emissions reduction plan, which he did refer to. If I may just get that response from the Minister and if we’re able to have a meaningful back and forth and engagement, as this forum is supposed to allow for, I would really appreciate that.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change): Look, I appreciate the members’ questions. I will just acknowledge that I am operating under a short amount of time, so I’m being briefed deliberately. In regards to the conversation on the questions on the industrial allocations process, we obviously have a regulatory process that’s currently under way and that is under active consideration, and that’s all I can say in regards to that at the moment. It is something that we are looking at.

In regards to the questions in regard to the Paris Agreement, there’s been no conversations around pulling out of that type of agreement. The focus by this Government is ensuring that we are doing everything possible that we can in regards to domestic emissions reductions, and that will be formalised as part of our final second emissions reduction plan (ERP2) document. The member is right to highlight that the nationally determined contribution 2030, in particular, is a significant gap. When I came in as Minister, as that member will know, the gap is significant, and that is something that we are working through at a degree of pace. As and when appropriate, I think there will be, no doubt, some dialogue in terms of challenges because the key challenge with climate change is ensuring that the policy positions, where possible, are enduring and we have some of the mechanisms in regards to that. We’ll be open to discussing that.

In regards to the questions around the mini-Budget and the Budget changes, what I can be clear about is that all of the policy changes that we have highlighted were included as part of the draft ERP2 document. The implications in terms of emissions in both the mini-Budget and the Budget were a part of that modelling, and so those are included.

I think there was a question earlier around the emissions trading scheme drivers for industrial heat and some optionality around that. The conversation is interesting. When you look at the abatement curve for industrial heat, particularly low and medium heat, and the price point around that—and I think the question was: what was the price? Don’t fully quote me on it, but I think it was in the range of around $60 to $70, or a little bit—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: $150 to $200.

Hon SIMON WATTS: Yeah—so, it depends. I mean, there’s a range, but what we do believe is that there are opportunities in that space, and obviously the key players in that, including Fonterra, have a role to support the electrification of some of those opportunities as soon as possible.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m going to encourage members to keep coming with your questions. As we know with these processes from experience of being on both sides of the Chamber, the Minister is genuinely time-constrained, so I’d encourage members to keep asking the questions, and maybe the Minister can do a bit of a wrap every now and again because I don’t think it’s going be possible to get up between every question.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the Minister again for answering that. In terms of his statement that his Government is committed to doing everything possible in domestic abatement, I would like the Minister to tell us what are the cumulative decreases in emissions from the cuts that we’re seeing as a result of both the December mini-Budget and the May Budget? In other words, the policy changes this Government has made have decreased the amount that we can domestically abate at home in tonnes and megatons. What is the impact of decisions and choices that his Government has made to cut funding for those initiatives?

In terms of the discussions that he’s had with international players around exercising article 6—buying or paying overseas countries to cut their emissions and, effectively, create jobs and work and stimulus in other people’s countries other than our own—one of the countries that he listed was the EU as a player that they have had discussions with. Has the conversation been in the frame of the general offer that the European Union has been putting out to countries that are not managing to reach their targets through their own domestic abatement to buy into their emissions trading scheme (ETS), and, if so, what is the current cost of a credit in the EU ETS, and what would that mean for New Zealanders in terms of the costs that that would be piling on to them?

In terms of the domestic abatement and the Minister’s claim that they’re doing everything possible, I’d really like a list of the new initiatives that his Government has put in place to cut emissions at home. All I can see when I read through the Budget documents is actually a programme of work from the Government that is increasing the emissions that we have in our economy; not decreasing them. I’d be very interested to hear from the Minister a list of those new emissions and, by megaton, what the impacts on our emissions will be.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): It was really interesting to hear the Minister say just then—I wrote it down, and I quote—“We are doing everything that we possibly can to reduce emissions.” That is a fascinating statement for a Government that is doing everything that they possibly can to reduce emissions except for reducing emissions, because if you look at the Government’s own emissions reduction plan and you add up the cumulative effect of their own so-called key policies, you are looking at an emissions reduction which is approximately a third of a reduction in emissions that their intended reversal of the oil and gas ban will increase emissions by.

As many experts and commentators have pointed out, we are dealing with a situation in this emissions reduction plan, as is also reflected in this Government’s Budget, whereby there are no new policies or initiatives whatsoever to actively reduce emissions. I’d like to echo the sentiments in the question from my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods for the Minister to name just one policy that will actively go about reducing emissions which was not already under way under the former Government.

I’d also make the point that the Minister has still not addressed the sacred cow in the room—that is, where the majority of our domestic emissions come from—but, more so than that, he has not even fully fleshed out nor engaged with the point that this Government has seemingly all but given up on gross emissions reduction. What that leaves us with is the challenge of net emissions reduction, which, as I alluded to before, actually rubs up against the scientific reality as laid out by the expert, independent Climate Change Commission, which tells us that there is not a tree planted this decade which can sequester carbon this decade. It turns out that those natural processes actually take time.

If we’re not to deal with meaningful gross emissions reduction domestically, then we are dealing with a situation whereby we are going to be held accountable under international agreements—the likes of the Paris Agreement—every time that we hear from any person in this House or from any commentator out there in the world who says, “We’re just such a small country; how are we possibly going to contribute to this global fight?” Well, firstly, if you add up every country that contributes less than 1 percent of global emissions, then you’re talking about anywhere between 20 to 30 percent of global emissions.

More so than that, we have an international framework called the Paris Agreement and we hold each other accountable under things called nationally determined contributions, and we are getting to a point where those nationally determined contributions and our potential liabilities under them are going to come to fruition. What the Ministry for the Environment and Treasury estimated in papers published last year was that that is going to look like a bill in 2030 for anywhere between $3 billion to $24 billion. If we do not do that work domestically to reduce our own emissions, we are going to have to pay other countries to do it for us.

The outstanding question for the Minister continues to be: what work, if any, is he doing to see this meaningful liability represented on the Government books to spur greater action? All anybody can see, looking at the black and the white and the evidence and the data that this Government promised us that they care about and that they would drive policy by, is that, in fact, this Government’s agenda is knowingly increasing emissions but, more so than that, it is also exacerbating and increasing inequality. We’re left with the picture that this Government is knowingly creating an economy and a policy platform that is exploiting both people and the planet. I’m sorry, as I’ve said before, the Minister is a nice guy, but this doesn’t add up. His job is not being done properly.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change): Well, thank you very much to the member Chlöe Swarbrick for those compliments. It was very nice, and I am a nice guy, I’m sure. You wanted some examples, so I’ll give you some examples—more than one.

In terms of the draft plan, in terms of initiatives, we included investigating opportunities around resource recovery through the Waste Minimisation Fund: 1.3 megatons of impact in Emissions Budget (EB) 2; 1.3 megatons in EB 3. Improving organic waste and landfill capture: 1.1 megatons in EB 2; 1.4 megatons in EB 3. Lower agricultural emissions—there’s a huge amount of work under way in regards to innovation: 5.5 megatons in EB 3. Better public transport initiatives: 0.1 megaton in EB 2, 0.3 megaton in EB 3. That is not even talking about the Electrify New Zealand policies, which have 1.6 megaton in EB 3: 10,000 electrical vehicles chargers, and that is also looking at investigating carbon capture.

There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven new policy initiatives by this Government in order to reduce emissions. Simply making statements that we don’t and, hence, substantiating that we do is the reality of where this Government is at.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Madam Chair. I am intrigued to hear that list that the Minister is rattling off, because a number of those initiatives that he listed are initiatives that, indeed, funding was cut for in both the mini-Budget and in Budget 2024.

One of the things I am very eager for the Minister to have a conversation with the committee about is a really simple concept. When the Minister’s Government came into Government, we were on track to meet our 2035 target; now, we’re expected to overshoot it by 17 million tonnes of carbon. This is a consequence of decisions that this Government has made on funding that has been cut for initiatives that were reducing carbon emissions.

That is the lot of Government, to make choices, but one of the things that most of the parties—in fact, all of them but one—in this House signed up for was an emissions budget and for us to have an emissions reduction plan, where we do have to account for our actions so that our fiscal decisions actually do have implications for what we are doing in terms of reducing our own emissions. If we’re going to cut it somewhere, then we have to make up for it somewhere else, and what we have not heard through the course of this debate is what is the plan that this Government has. What it seems to me—and I’m becoming more and more convinced—is that there simply is no plan, because we certainly haven’t heard it tonight.

We’ve heard that they’re going to build a whole lot more electric vehicle (EV) chargers. Well, they are woefully behind. They need to be installing something like a hundred-odd a month. On a good month, they’re managing 20 at best, but what’s more, they’re installing EV chargers at a time when they’ve collapsed the demand for EVs, and every piece of modelling that we have shows the plummeting and the falling off of the cliff of the uptake of electric vehicles in New Zealand because of policy and funding decisions that this Government has made.

We are yet to hear a plan, Minister. There is a 17 million - tonne hole, and I have not heard anything in the course of this debate that gives me any more knowledge or insight on how this Government plans to fill it. The kinds of things that the Minister was talking about are magical thinking and simply aren’t even going near the problem that is a 17 million - tonne hole. This is no small feat. To put it in context, the deal with New Zealand Steel—New Zealand’s largest ever emissions reduction project—was 800 million tonnes, and we’re talking about a 17 million - tonne hole. So I would like to hear the Minister address that.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Well, thank you, Madam Chair. In fact, I think it’s actually quite timely that I take a call, because just hearing the last contribution, maybe I can ask some questions which will allow the Minister of Climate Change to actually talk about what the Government’s plan is. I know that the Government has released a five-point climate change strategy aligned to this coalition Government’s policies, so, Minister, I do have a few questions. Why is it important to have a climate change strategy beyond the policies that already exist—so, really, what have you, as the Minister, put in place?

I referred to the five pillars. I would really like to hear some more detail on those and why those five pillars were chosen. I think also that the strategy the Government put into place links through to the Prime Minister’s targets—specifically, No. 9, around greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps you can tell me how the pillars and the strategy relates to that, and how progress is going against that target, which I think, obviously, the Government is taking seriously if it’s one of the Prime Minister’s targets. Also, the climate change strategy contains a commitment to having a net-based policy. Really, what does that mean and why does it maybe differ from the previous approach?

Finally, there’s also a commitment in your strategy, Minister, around a least-cost policy, which is something ACT is very keen on because, obviously, while we want to take climate action, we do not want to do it in a way that costs lots and lots of money, but in a least-cost and effective way. Obviously, that means we might be going to invest differently, so I really want to understand, when you’re taking a least-cost approach, what that would mean. Thank you.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I’d actually just like to pick up on that last point from the member Todd Stephenson, who has just taken his seat, and argue in absolute agreement with him that we should be doing our abatement in the least-cost way. I would like to know from the Minister whether he considers a marginal abatement cost of $18 to $19—with that being the cost of the price it takes to cut carbon—to be very good value, and, if he was offered on the international market to be able to buy carbon credits for $18 a unit, whether or not he would be purchasing them.

Of course, $18 is the figure I chose because that was the marginal abatement cost that we got through the partnership with New Zealand Steel. I do not know of anywhere else where New Zealand could go out and buy credits at $18 a tonne, but the Minister could let the committee know if he’s been having conversations with other countries about whether or not he is getting offers like that, and whether or not that will result in jobs in New Zealand in the way the New Zealand Steel deal did; whether or not that will result in resilience in New Zealand’s manufacturing sector; and whether or not that will result in keeping New Zealand having an industrial heart. I ask whether $18 is something that’s being matched on his travels.

Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like to ask the Minister a couple of questions on the agricultural emissions. I note that it did elicit some interest earlier before, and I’m sure the Minister is delighted that agricultural emissions are dropping significantly and meaningfully steadily over time. In fact, I would argue, Minister, that they’re dropping too quickly—we’ve got a million less lambs coming this year.

That is the danger, of course: the balance that you have to strike. We do already have the world’s most efficient farmers in terms of our farming systems here. If we were to pull levers too quickly, we would drive emissions and production offshore to less efficient producers, so that is something that you would be part of overseeing as part of the wider Government strategy.

I’d also like to acknowledge—and you could perhaps go into a little bit more depth here—in terms of what you have been doing in this space. The significant funding through the last Budget that was committed to the AgriZero initiative was tens of millions of dollars—I haven’t got the figure offhand—but, importantly, it is not just the Government funding; you have crowded in significant private sector funding. We’ve seen a couple of—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Like the New Zealand Steel deal and Fonterra.

Hon MARK PATTERSON: Like Fonterra—exactly, Megan Woods. They are investing heavily in AgriZero, as are Silver Fern Farms, as are the major agricultural banks, who are taking this issue very seriously and are putting money into the research and development, and as is the Minister in terms of trying to find the scientific methods, of which there are many promising developments under way, and bringing them forward to commercial use.

The other thing, of course, I’d just like to highlight in the coalition agreement between New Zealand First and National is the initiative to bring forward and encourage low-methane genetics, which is, in my view, one of the most significant levers that we have. It is a very simple mechanism to roll out. You do have to get your cows or your ewes pregnant, so you’re doing it anyway, and so it’s a choice of genetics. These genetics are now commercially available in sheep, and the Minister’s funding has allowed AgResearch to help that in the sheep industry. In the dairy industry in particular, LIC are very active. I’ve been to AgResearch and I’ve been to LIC and seen that work happening, and that work has all been enabled by funding that is coming through in this Budget and is being supported onwards from this Budget, picking up on work done earlier.

I commend the Minister for the initiative that he is taking and would strongly refute some of the allegations coming from across the Chamber that nothing is happening. There is a lot happening everywhere, all at once. Thank you.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change): Well, thank you very much to the members for those questions. I want to spend a little bit of time in regards to the agricultural conversation and link it back to the members’ questions in regards to the Government’s climate strategy, because we have clearly outlined a climate strategy which has five pillars and one of the key elements of that strategy linked to the conversation around agriculture is around world-leading climate innovation that boosts our economy, and the agricultural sector will play a significant role. I think it is important to acknowledge that as a Government, we see that there is collective responsibility between industry and Government and the other participants in society in order to achieve the emissions reductions required but also, importantly, to grow that agricultural sector and grow that aspect of our economy in order to drive productivity and also drive exports as well. It’s all linked up.

There is, I think, just one small example that is worth highlighting. I visited Ruminant BioTech, which is a firm based in Auckland but also out of Hamilton, in terms of it doing what is some pretty exciting work in terms of developing slow-release methane-inhibiting boluses, which, basically, will allow a 70 percent reduction in methane emissions for up to six months for animals. That is the type of technology that is going into commercial-scale roll-out and development. Sadly, because our genetic engineering laws aren’t where they need to be yet—but Minister Collins is pushing that through fast—it’s being trialled in Australia in 2025, first up, but we look to bring that back into New Zealand. That is an example: 70 percent methane reduction for six months through a bolus, and that is a tech being designed here in New Zealand. A member noted the relationships and the private-public partnership between AgriZero, Fonterra, and other players, and the Government, and it’s a great example of working together.

For those on the other side that often naysay around the role in which innovation can play, innovation will play a significant role in emissions reduction in agriculture in this country, and we should be proud of that. I’m proud of being part of a Government that is enabling and working with industries to achieve that outcome that can support what is such a critical sector of our economy, which is the agricultural sector. I think we have got a lot to be able to be proud of in that regard and we will see significant delivery, and I’m glad to be part of the Government that’s driving that action.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of questions. One question is: was funding cut for agricultural research relating to greenhouse gases?

My second question relates to where we’ve been talking about examples of areas where the Government is investing to reduce emissions. We see in the report back from the Environment Committee that there’s been a reset and a couple of things have been mentioned, and I thank them Minister for the Environment for naming some of the examples today, because when we were in our annual reviews, we had no such examples given.

He has said that everything possible is being done. One of the main contributors to greenhouse gases is of course our transport fleet, and we know that this Government has no intention to increase public transport, to increase active transport, or to increase rail use. All of these things have been cut by this Government, so how can the Minister stand up here and say that he is doing everything possible when public transport and active transport are being cut?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like to ask the Minister whether he’s aware that his Government, between the mini-Budget and the May Budget, has cut $47 million in agricultural emissions reduction research. That was funding that had been put in place by the previous Government. It has been cut and, to my knowledge, it hasn’t been replaced. Maybe the Minister could update us on which vote that research funding was increased under.

I’m also interested to hear from the Minister, in terms of his discussion of technology for us to reduce agricultural emissions, whether or not that is brand new technology that has just been developed in the last six months, or whether or not that’s technology that has indeed been under development for many, many years under several Governments and, actually, was subject to substantial increases through the Climate Emergency Response Fund in terms of the funding that was put into that research.

I’d also be interested to know from the Minister in terms of his advocacy for public-private partnerships—which I do share—why the Minister sees that they are a good when it comes to agricultural emissions and sees them as a positive thing, but calls them corporate welfare when it comes to partnering with industrial and process heat users, where, under our Government, we achieved our largest ever emissions reduction projects.

Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities): I’d like to traverse the work the Minister is doing with the emissions trading scheme. Of course, he inherited a scheme that had been mucked around with, the market had lost complete faith, and there had been a collapse in the carbon price.

Of course, a steady rise in the carbon price over time is what is required to put the prerequisite pressure on emitters to change behaviour, so the Minister has stepped in—you’ve taken significant measures, as I know, to restore confidence in that sector, in the investors, and in the people, whether they be farmers or foresters or companies, that were looking to invest. There were, obviously, publicly listed companies as well, and that confidence had been eroded—devastated, in fact. We’d seen a collapse in the price, which is exactly the opposite of what we needed in terms of a steady incline to drive the behaviour that the emissions trading scheme is designed to do.

Would the Minister like to give us an oversight on what he is doing in that regard? He has recently dropped beyond—beyond—what the Climate Change Commission had recommended in terms of the units going into the Government auction volumes. The Minister has been very active in this space, so I’d just like him to elaborate on that, please.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you for those questions. I’ll address a couple, and you’ve got the Minister of Transport coming tomorrow, but there are a number of public transport initiatives included as part of the National Land Transport Plan, including the completion of the City Rail Link, which will obviously be a significant benefit for the Auckland citizens. In addition, we’re also looking at further expansion in terms of busways, as well, and there are significant benefits in regards to that.

In regards to the questions in regards to the emissions trading scheme (ETS), we have made significant changes in regards to the ETS settings. We need the ETS to do its role and we need to ensure that the market has confidence in terms of that mechanism, as some member has outlined. We decided to retain the current price floors within the ETS market. We’ve also ensured that we have addressed what has been seen as one of the major issues in terms of that model, which is the surplus the number of auction units available for auction, from 45 million down to 21 million, and the consequence of that will be flowed through as we see that flowing through.

It is important that the ETS has the ability to do what it needs to do, and the key feedback that I have heard loud and clear from many participants across that is that they want stable policy positions in regards to that market place and they want certainty in terms of that. Those are exactly the decisions that this Government has taken in regards to the ETS, which allows it to then do the heavy lifting in regards to emissions reduction.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of topics, Minister, I’d just like you to touch on in the final few minutes, and a couple of important topics; one is around the emissions reduction plan.

I know that in July, the Government actually published the second emissions reduction plan, which actually outlined where we are in relation to the first of our two emissions budget targets out to 2030. I’m very keen, Minister, if you could give us an update on how we’re progressing around the second emissions reduction plan, and what feedback from stakeholders you have received on that plan: what are they saying about it, and how are they thinking that New Zealand is tracking?

Another really important thing, especially on a cold night like tonight, is energy, and there’s actually been, obviously, a very big cold snap. I was just down in Southland, and as I moved up, the cold weather also moved up the island, though I don’t think it’s anything to do with me! I think, obviously, energy is a really big issue on the minds of New Zealanders at the moment, but it’s also a big source of emissions—how we produce our energy—and we need to balance energy security and prices and emissions. It’s all quite a complicated equation.

I’d be very keen, Minister, if you could talk a little bit about how you’re incentivising the uptake and growth of renewable energy, because that is very important. We do have some wind and solar and hydro available, and, obviously, we do have an ability to actually have some great renewable energy projects here in New Zealand, so I’m very keen to hear about that. Then: how are you balancing those factors? Obviously, we want to reduce emissions, but we also have to worry about security of energy supply and also prices, and I’m just very keen to understand how you’re dealing with those.

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Climate Change): Thank you very much. For the member: one of the key pillars of the Government’s climate change strategy is to ensure that we have clean energy that is abundant and affordable, and that is clearly linked to our Electrify New Zealand policy, which is doubling renewables by 2050. I hope that warms that member up; I appreciate the chilly pathway he’s made to the House over the last week.

The context in terms of doubling renewables is a key element in terms of transitioning to a clean economy. It will allow the electrification of not only the transport sector but also industrial heat and, particularly, low and medium heat for industrial processes. That is a key focus in regards to this Government and it will make a significant difference in terms of the resilience of our broader energy system in terms of having more renewable energy. That’s wind, solar, but we’re also, obviously, looking at geothermal, which plays a key role in terms of 24/7, 365-day peak provision as well, which is important, and also, potentially, looking at other aspects in regards to hydro. That work is under way and it is a strategic priority for this Government, which will also drive economic benefits as well for our broader economy.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Well, if there are no more questions, we are not quite at the allotted time, but the Minister of Health is here. If the Minister of Health is available, we can move on. OK, we will move on.

Health

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Minister of Climate Change’s time in the chair has come to an end, and we now have the Minister of Health. The Minister, the Hon Shane Reti, is available to speak to that portfolio. We have an hour here; so we’re going to go from the Minister’s time in the chair for an hour. Have we got some questions for the Minister of Health? I’m sure we have.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Madam Chair, thank you. On behalf of Labour members, we welcome the opportunity to debate the health Estimates tonight, and in particular, I want to just recap some of the main milestones we’ve had about health budget 2024. You’ll recall on 30 May the Budget was announced, and we were aware at that time that the uplift in Budget 2024 was less than what Te Whatu Ora had sought. We knew that from the Health Committee, because officials had told us at the annual reviews that they were struggling with their costs for Budget 2024.

Later on from that, 22 July, the Minister and Prime Minister held a press conference about the financial situation at Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora. I just want to say, about this press conference, that I am struggling to think of a single claim made at that press conference that has been proven to be true. There have been claims from that press conference that have been debunked, there have been claims where no information has been presented to substantiate them, but I can’t think of one that has been proven to be true.

We had the claim about the organisational chart that was befuddling at Health New Zealand, but when asked for that chart by journalists, the Minister was not able to provide it. It appears that that did not exist. We had the claim about the 14 layers of management at Health New Zealand, which, when we sought to substantiate that, turned out to include the patient, the board, various people who did not appear in line management, and multiple levels of front-line staff. So that has been shown not to be true.

Now, that is embarrassing indeed—that these sorts of outlandish claims were not substantiated—but let’s remember why they were made. They were made to make a point that there was back-office waste at Health New Zealand. In the last few months, the Government has gone looking for that waste, and they’ve decided to can toast for women at Wellington Hospital, and then they walked back on that as well, but we haven’t had any other examples of back-office waste come to light. The issue is that this is being used to justify health cuts, and we have not had an accurate explanation of what the financial situation at Health New Zealand is.

There was a claim that Health New Zealand was on track for a $1.4 billion overspend. We on this side of the House have called for the accounts to be released. They have not. We called for the projections and assumptions that led to that figure being calculated to be released. They have not. Monthly accounts are not published by Health New Zealand. A small amount of information is published quarterly. With the commissioner in place, board meetings don’t exist; therefore, there are no public components to board hearings, nor are the papers published. Now, I remember, when I was the Minister, that the Opposition health spokesperson made a bit of noise about that, and I made sure they were published publicly.

The public of New Zealand values its health system greatly. They are very concerned about the idea that their health services are being cut. Cuts are under way at Health New Zealand, and yet there has not been a good explanation for that by the Government. Around the country, we are hearing of difficulty recruiting nurses, inadequate funding for general practice; essential programmes for training general practitioners and nurse practitioners have not yet been awarded their funding. That is why it’s so important that we hear from the Government their justification for those cuts, with some actual evidence, not just slagging people off and saying they’re financially illiterate and calling great public servants for New Zealand who were on that board names. That’s not what I mean—actually releasing some financial material that justifies that.

What’s more, it seems like there is a deliberate effort to limit transparency at Te Whatu Ora, and an unprecedented number—67 members of the executive leadership—are under non-disclosure agreements. Well, my question is: what has the Government got to hide about its agenda for cuts in the health system?

I do want to bring this to a very specific question, because we want transparency, and here is one piece of data that it would be very helpful if we could have this evening. My question is: what was the quarter four result in terms of surplus or loss for financial year 2023-24—it clearly impacts on this year’s Budget as well—for Te Whatu Ora?

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Kia ora, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to ask a few questions. I’d like to just outline a few questions and hopefully get into a dialogue with the Minister in response to what I’m seeking some answers for.

Minister Reti, in terms of Māori health, how are we tracking? What is our plan, and where are we going? What do you have in place to address the existing Māori health disparities, and what is the strategy moving forward? And what budget might you have allocated to address the ongoing, existing disparities between Māori—and, actually, add Pacific Islanders in there as well? I’m really keen to see when the Māori health plan will drop and become public, as it has been nearly a year and we’ve yet to see something come out publicly that we can review as a sector and as your parliamentary colleagues.

Further, in terms of Māori health again, I’m wanting to have a look at the data. What is our trajectory in terms of both the treatment of Māori patients within secondary care and then also narrowing down into our babies and immunisation. If you could provide some data around our immunisation outcomes, knowing that you’ve provided funding to date already. How are we tracking on the immunisation?

And then a further question on workforce: how is the Minister looking at our workforce? How are they feeling? How is the workforce dealing with the current stress and also those things in terms of the demands? I’m mindful of burnout and the current shortages that we have in the workforce. What does Te Whatu Ora have in place to understand and hear the voice of staff? And then, what are the strategies that the Minister and his officials are putting in place to deal with workplace wellbeing? Kia ora.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate tonight. I’ll address the member Ayesha Verrall’s first questions around health finances and transparency, and probably the most transparent way is to deal with formal reports from the Office of the Auditor-General.

Let’s look at the review of Health New Zealand, to the end of year 2023, from the Office of the Auditor-General and then come through to the deep dive tabled around about 9 April this year. The 2023 end of financial year report from the Auditor-General: “Management control environment: we understand none of the subcommittees of the board are reviewing the service performance of Health New Zealand against the targets that have been set. It would seem appropriate for the Finance and Audit Committee to regularly review the service performance information. Health New Zealand has yet to introduce a system to enable positive assurances to be provided to senior management and the board on the organisation’s compliance with legislative obligations. Financial information, systems, and control: we have recommended that major improvements be made at the earliest reasonable opportunity. Performance information and associated systems and controls: we have recommended that major improvements be made at the earliest recommended opportunity.”

Let’s take that through to a few months ago, then, when the Auditor-General, again at the request of the Health Committee, reviewed Health New Zealand, and this is what the Auditor-General said: “Health New Zealand has no performance framework that ties together its activities’ outputs with how the health system performs in terms of access to, quality, and effectiveness of services and the health outcomes being achieved. As a result, there is no clear performance story. Given the amount of funding and importance of health services for New Zealanders, that is problematic.” It was problematic, and that’s from the Office of the Auditor-General.

With regards to some of the other questions the member has made, clearly the member should ask any front-line person: the management lines between the patient and central decision-making here in Wellington were not improved under the health reforms. And, to address her last question, the quarter four result will be published in due course.

I will speak to the member down there, Hūhana Lyndon. She covered everything in the world to do with Māori health, so I’ll actually eat that in small bits. But I’ll take some more questions first.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask the Minister some questions, actually, as the MP for Taieri. I know that my colleague Dr Tracey McLellan will have some more infrastructure questions around other hospitals, but this is in relation to the new “southern region territory hospital”, which it will now be known as, certainly by the people in Dunedin, by the Mayor of Dunedin, and I believe the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), who had a meeting with the Minister today and informed him that they were reinvigorating the campaign to get the Dunedin Hospital happening—or the new southern region territory hospital.

Now, the Minister has apparently responded to say that he’s deploying additional negotiation resources in that exercise. That seems a really strange thing to do when the cost of delays to the Dunedin Hospital is around one small house every week that it is delayed. I have some questions around that, including his response to what Te Whatu Ora’s own advice was as reported in Newsroom that “Any scope reduction of any form is ill-advised. … It will increase ongoing operational costs, reduce clinical functionality, decrease the likelihood of us realising the patient flow and efficiency benefits of the new Dunedin Hospital, and lead to higher costs in the medium to long term for Te Whatu Ora.” That article also talked about the risk of fatigue and frustration from the clinical staff.

My questions are, first of all, when is he going to justify or show the assumptions under the spurious claim of the $1.4 billion overspend in health, because that is what he is using to justify the cuts to the Dunedin Hospital? Is he going to stand by the promises that Shane Reti made before the election of ensuring there would be $30 million spent to make sure that the hospital was fit for purpose? What is the cost of the new negotiating resource that he is saying that he’s told NZNO and the Mayor of Dunedin today that he is deploying to negotiate—in other words to “win” this battle, rather than putting it into the health sector?

What does he say to the people of the southern region, because it is the hospital for the whole southern region, not just Dunedin. I have been speaking to people in Invercargill and, actually, in Rakiura over the weekend—in Stewart Island—who are desperate for this hospital to get going and to be fit for purpose. Finally, is he going to dare show his face down there again? I can tell you that the people are really incensed and that the campaign will be going full throttle, so having some answers this evening would certainly help his cause.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Madam Chair. If I could speak to the member around some of the Māori health objectives and questions that she raised, firstly, the ongoing strategy for Māori health is as described under the Whakamaua action plan and Pae Tū.

The Māori health strategy will come forward before the end of this year, which will encapsulate both of those plans and a range of other things. Part of the key initiatives for Māori health, particularly out in primary and community, has been our ongoing progress with the iwi-Māori partnership boards, and very good progress has been made with the iwi-Māori partnership boards around them determining their community plans: what their needs are, their triage health needs analysis. I’m very pleased with that.

I’ll come back to other parts of questions that the member has asked, but just to speak to the last speaker, Ingrid Leary, we will build a new hospital in Dunedin. The petition I received today was a petition against her Government, started around about 2021-22, for the cuts that they made. If she wants to talk to that petition, good luck with that.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I’m very pleased to have had reinstated the full vision of Dunedin Hospital. What I do want to do, though, is continue to make sure that we hear answers on this side of the Chamber that the New Zealand public are also entitled to hear as to the financial performance of its health service. I want to repeat my questions which have not yet been answered, which surely will be released in official documents at some point, so I don’t know why it should not be answered this evening. What was the quarter four result in terms of cyclical loss for Health New Zealand?

Now, one of approximately 70 percent of Health New Zealand’s costs are staff, and, therefore, it is hugely concerning that efforts to cut funding at Health New Zealand will touch on our valued staff, particularly our valued—well, actually, all staff in Health New Zealand are valued, but that side of the House has made a particular promise around cuts to front-line services. Returning to our theme of transparency this evening, I do want to ask the Minister why there hasn’t been Government comment in terms of net staffing changes at Health New Zealand.

Why are we always hearing in response to concerns about nursing staffing that X number of nurses have been hired without saying how many have left, and can he confirm suspicions—which have been canvassed in the press multiple times when workers speak out about what they’re experiencing—that there is an effort to lower the number of nurses either across the country or in particular services, because I don’t think it serves anyone for this process that is going on at the moment to continue. Just to recount what that is, it is that people around the country—front-line health workers, but particularly nurses—have had vacancies approved to recruit to, and then they find out that the vacancy is cancelled. We’ve had instances of them disappearing off the website after they were approved. People are informally told that an offer is coming—applicants are told that—and then it doesn’t arrive. Business cases that were approved are revoked.

Look, if we listen to front-line workers, they are telling us that their health service is being cut, and yet there is no transparency or confirmation of that from the Government. I ask you, Minister, to come forward and say the truth about what is going on. Why so quiet, after saying that there’s a $1.4 billion overspend, about what you’re actually doing to stop it?

We’ve also heard from clinicians that they are finding vital support staff are being offered voluntary redundancy or, in some cases, are not being replaced if they take maternity leave or they resign for some reason, which, of course, in a very big organisation happens continuously. We heard a cardiologist making comment the other day about the fact that he is booking his own clinic. Well, what a waste of time for someone who probably earns over $200,000 a year. Also, what about the value we place on the importance of those people who help patients navigate the health system, like our booking clerks?

It seems to me that this attack of staffing in Health New Zealand is well under way, and yet we haven’t heard any confirmation from the Government about what they’re actually doing. The people of New Zealand are entitled to know about what is happening in their health system. Their health workers are desperately trying to tell them every day, and yet officials and the Minister just shrug that off, say that it’s operational, and talk about a gain in the last couple of months, but they do not actually say what the net change in staffing is. It’s time that the Government comes clean on the issue of its cuts to the health system.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions are very specific to Māori health. In front of the committee, the Minister has said that the money that was used by Te Aka Whai Ora has simply been transferred over into the health team at Health New Zealand, so therefore my questions are very simple. One, can the Minister confirm the allegations of delay in contract confirmation for Māori health providers across this country, which has—two—led to them releasing staff and then, furthermore, being unable to bring them back in to ensure that they can continue the services that they’re being contracted for, and, three, and finally, a very specific one about the statement made during the Estimates that the Minister has transferred that money from Te Aka Whai Ora over to where it is, the transparency around that money, what it’s being used for now, and whether or not there are any delays in reaching the front line for Māori health services?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Madam Chair. To answer the first member who spoke, as I have said previously, the quarter four report will be released in due course. Considering it’s only 10 weeks past the end of the quarter, that is a little bit early. Secondly, talking to health workforce, the largest number of nurses ever are currently employed. That’s what I have been informed. More than 600 nurses were offered jobs in June and July, and I understand that a significant number of senior medical officers were, as well.

To speak to the member and to continue to progress some of the Māori health questions, he had a question around immunisation for Māori. Immunisation for Māori still falls variably between 10 percent and sometimes more, depending on which immunisation you are looking at, for Māori compared to non-Māori. That is a significant problem, which is why, before Christmas, we enabled the $50 million immunisation initiative, which uses the things that hauora Māori can do that mainstream cannot. It goes further and reaches into vulnerable communities where mainstream cannot or will not reach. I’m very pleased with the success of that programme to date. The target was to be 10,000 vaccinations and 33,300 have actually been delivered, and a significant number of vaccines also from the smaller contributor, the direct hauora Māori providers, as well. That immunisation programme is having some benefit.

With regard to my colleague around delay in Māori health contracting arrangements, I’m not aware of any, but I will double-check that. I am not aware of any at this point.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to stand this evening and talk about breast cancer. Also I must mention that we currently have two colleagues, two members of Parliament, who are now taking leave because they have breast cancer, so just aroha to them and a speedy recovery.

Breast cancer, as we know, is one of the most common cancers for Kiwi women, and it’s the third most common cancer overall. I do note that it is Blue September, so it is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, but when we think about women’s health and cancer, it affects one in nine women over the course of their lifetime. We’ve got really high statistics around breast cancer: 70 to 75 percent of our women who are diagnosed with breast cancer, and 80 percent of women who die from it, are actually over 50. That’s fairly alarming, if you’ve just hit over 50, to think that actually your chance of getting breast cancer will increase after 50. And, in fact, breast cancer risk is higher at 70 than it is at 50, so we have an increasing likelihood of getting breast cancer from 50 through to 70.

I note that we, as a Government, have actually expanded the BreastScreen Aoteaoroa programme to offer free mammograms for women aged 70 to 74, which is an allocation in the Budget of $24 million over four years—I do have a question in just a moment for that. I do want to acknowledge those of us who have family, and women in our family, who have passed from breast cancer. My mother died at the age of 43 from breast cancer, so I do understand the journey you go on with someone in your home who has cancer. A very dear friend of mine—I’m going to name her because she has been an amazing advocate; she is a breast cancer survivor. She goes by a number of names, she’s a radio presenter—Lorna Riley, as I first met her; she was also known as Lorna Subritzky. She has been an incredible advocate for the Breast Cancer Foundation, so I just wanted to mention Lorna and the work she’s doing to raise awareness.

My question to you, Minister, is: can you explain why this age group in particular was prioritised for this breast-screening extension? What are you expecting those outcomes to be from expanding the breast screening through 70 to 74 in terms of early detection and reducing breast cancer mortality rates?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. To answer the member Jenny Marcoft’s very, very good questions: we wanted to increase the breast cancer screening age from 70 to 74 for a number of reasons. First of all, because a number of the countries that we benchmark ourselves to were increasing, or they had that as their criterion, and we don’t want to sort of be too far away from those that we like to compare ourselves to—so it was timely. We also, of course, wanted to reflect the more than 20 women who would benefit from screening on current uptake and the more than 60 who would benefit if there was full uptake.

It’s $24 million in operating and $7 million in capital, which makes up the $31 million for this programme. We’re very excited. It was in collaboration with NGOs—the Breast Cancer Foundation particularly, who have been calling for this for a while; they can see the benefits of this. I’m really pleased to be able to offer this as part of Budget 2024 as part of our management across the cancer spectrum, which, of course, also involves the cancer drugs that we announced in Budget 2024. It also involves some of the radiotherapy offerings, like the new linear accelerator in Whangārei, some of the replacements which we’re doing in Taranaki and in Auckland as another modality along the cancer management, and, of course, the surgical component, which is the most common part of cancer management—we attend to that through first specialist assessments, through our targets on planned care, and through our faster cancer target as well.

Across the cancer spectrum, we’re looking to make a difference, but this particular policy of increasing the eligibility for New Zealand women to receive free breast cancer screening—we’re very pleased with that. It does start to put us in touch with our international comparators and was long overdue. It had actually been part of discussions in this House for a significant period of time but just couldn’t seem to get over the line, so we’re pleased to hit the trigger on that.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a short request, if I may. I wonder if the Minister would be willing to table the last three peach-coloured Post-it notes he received from officials, please.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Are you seeking leave for them to be tabled? No, sorry, you can’t seek leave.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got a very quick question for the Minister, and it simply goes like this: will he commit to building a hospital in Nelson that addresses the Nelson needs, or is he content with his current plan that, from the looks of it, saves about 10 percent of the cost incurred in the original plan but actually produces a far inferior complex that also maintains two earthquake-prone buildings?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. To address that question, further work had been done on the seismic remediation at Nelson, and thus it was able to be looked at in a different way, which meant that some of the buildings had a longer life than was anticipated. We should be pleased that the $73 million, as I recall, of enabling works are currently under way; that’s a good signal of progress. Furthermore, the Nelson detailed business case at this point is looking towards the end of this year, so all the signals and all the indications for the Nelson hospital upgrade, I would have thought, are good.

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. Ki te minita e pā ana ki ngā take hauora Māori [To the Minister for Māori health matters]: Minister, I’m wanting to draw your attention back to hauora Māori, and I’m reflecting on your initial kōrero on iwi-Māori partnership boards.

I’m keen to understand in terms of how many iwi-Māori partnership plans have been signed off and how much investment has been made into the iwi-Māori partnership space to date to establish the teams to power up the iwi-Māori partnership boards. Have we made enough of an investment in that space to enable both the iwi and the operations teams to do the mahi? In the absence of having localities at place to support iwi-Māori partnership boards and inform them of community voice, what are the strategies being employed by the Minister, his officials, and also the iwi-Māori partnership boards to reach deep into communities and hear that community voice that is so needed in the planning of these hauora plans?

Then a final question for the Minister is in relation to the Māori health advisory committee. At what level does the Māori health advisory committee sit? Is it at your level as an advisory committee to you alone? Does that committee work alongside the commissioner, and was the Māori health advisory committee involved at all in the appointment of the deputy commissioners? Kia ora.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. If I can address the questions from that member Hūhana Lyndon, the funding for iwi-Māori partnership boards (IMPBs) was set out over a funding path of several years. That has not been changed in my hands; that has been maintained. Community and whānau voice is one of the attributes that we use to assess capacity and ability for IMPBs to proceed. The Hauora Māori Advisory Committee reports to me and has a direct operational relationship with the commissioner.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. Now, I appreciate the answer that the Minister gave to the prior question about Nelson Hospital, but in that he mentioned the fact that the business case should be ready by the end of the year, and also the fact that the infrastructure and investment plan should be ready by the end of the year.

A lot is hanging on this. I’m not quite sure how—when the infrastructure and investment plan that is going to be ready by the end of the year gives us a 10-year horizon about what new builds can be—there’s only $103 million put on budget for cost pressures within this Budget and no new money for the next three years. How can we have any certainty at all that the Nelson business case, whether it’s ready by the end of this year or not, is going to make any difference to the overall plans? I don’t think that the Minister is giving us any confidence at all.

Now, it’s $120 million, not $75 million, that was appropriated for design and enabling works, but no new money on Budget, and you keep referring to the fact that the people of Nelson can see a structured plan, but they can’t see a structured plan. I’d really appreciate a little bit more information about whether the Minister is actually committing to a hospital that the people of Nelson are expecting to receive, and whether the downgrade of this is going to be part of the $1.4 billion that he’s scrounging around for, and it’ll be at the cost of something that’s safe, that’s earthquake-proof, and is what the people are expecting.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. Yes, Nelson Hospital Redevelopment received $73 million in funding in 2023, as I said, for enabling business works. New demand modelling has been pushed out from 2038 to 2043, as I recall, and a detailed business case is anticipated by the end of the year.

Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities): Thank you, Mr Chair—thank you. I’d actually like to begin by acknowledging my colleague Jenny Marcroft and her moving discussion on breast cancer, and I’d just like to commend her, also, for organising the Blue September function next Wednesday night, which, I believe, Mr Chair, you and I are both ambassadors for, and, Dr Reti, I understand you’re the guest speaker. Jenny actually suggested to me, when she was selling it to me, that she was looking for men “of a certain age”, but I’m not quite sure about that!

I would like to touch on a couple of issues, though, one that’s been brought up already and one that hasn’t. In terms of the infrastructure, we have heard from the member from Taieri about the Dunedin Hospital. It must be absolutely galling to be on the end of a situation you’ve inherited, where chopping and changing the original 2021 footprint has put that business case into disarray, and you are to be commended for picking up those pieces; I’m sure it will deliver a fine hospital for the people of the South.

The other thing you have inherited, and just to actually take that on a fraction, this is a common theme; we are inheriting infrastructure programmes right across the Government programme that are having massive cost overruns. What is your strategy to make sure that—the Nelson Hospital, we’ve heard referred to; we know there’s Palmerston North. There’s others that are in the pipeline: Whangārei. There is a big pipeline of infrastructure that needs to be brought forward and established, and that is a big problem for us if we’re going to have these cost overruns. To me, we’re overcomplicating this. I’d be interested in your views. Building a hospital should be like building a G.J. Gardner home: you’ve got X amount of features that you want; there should be a template that we can roll out efficiently rather than all these bespoke bills that are getting us in all sorts of design and cost overruns. I would be interested in your thoughts on that.

The other thing that you have inherited that is problematic is the structural reform within Health New Zealand. Who would’ve thought it was a good idea to restructure the health system of New Zealand in the middle of a pandemic? You are to be congratulated for trying to pick up those pieces and direct this into a functioning, strong health system that we would all expect in a First World country like New Zealand.

The one thing I would like to pick up on within that system, as the Minister for Rural Communities, is rural health. I note a lot of talk about Māori health in the debate so far, but, actually, Māori health is rural health: 25 percent of rural New Zealand is Māori. It is a postcode lottery more than a race lottery, and the Minister and the Government as a whole is to be congratulated in focusing on need, not race. In rural New Zealand, we have need. I have had the privilege of going into a number of rural health centres and hospitals around the country over these last 10 months, and it’s not only a demographic challenge within the patient demographics; it’s also in the GPs. I’d like to hear the Minister’s take on that. This has been a long-running issue. When I was last in Parliament, the previous Parliament before last, it was front of mind then. No one seems to have done anything about it. Dr Reti, our hopes are on you.

I’ve seen some great initiatives as well; it’s not all negative, by any means. There is some heroic staff out there. They’re doing great work in the front line under significant pressure. I’ve seen things like in the Ashburton Hospital, where they’ve got a rural health training centre set up under the Otago University. They’re doing great things to get a rural workforce up and running and to really promote rural health as a vocation and a calling, and I have seen a lot of young people actually coming through that are really, really motivated to give back to their communities, and that gives me great hope.

I’m looking for you to steady the ship in rural health provision, and if you could give us some outline of how you intend to do that, please.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair, and I thank the member for his questions. Yes, clearly, Dunedin Hospital has many challenges, and they have been canvassed to some degree by a number of Governments. And yes, of course, there are cost overruns. Part of what we’re bringing to that solution involves significant external advice; greater collaboration, for example, with the ministry for infrastructure and the Minister for Regional Development; phasing so that we can, instead of having one great big vertical build coming up out of the ground and you cut the ribbon on day one and it all happens, a waterfall design methodology, if you like, building in phases so we can get people into new parts of buildings quicker while we then move on to building other parts of the overall project.

This also lets local contractors be involved, because it’s not such a big build all at once that might limit itself to large multinationals. When you phase a build, there’s more opportunity for domestic construction firms to be involved. And there’s standardisation, that understanding that, on one level, a patient room or a theatre is mostly the same—there might be some variations if it’s an ophthalmic theatre needing a bigger door to get the ophthalmic microscope in, but, fundamentally, a theatre is the same wherever you place it in a hospital, as is a standard patient room. Standardising those parts of the infrastructure will create opportunities for us.

To talk to the second point, structural reforms of Health New Zealand in the middle of a pandemic—well, no one thought that was a good idea, and now we’re sort of paying the consequences for that as we pick up those pieces.

Around rural health, a number of initiatives: Rural Unplanned Urgent Care is a project system designed in collaboration with ACC. It has the goal of developing a model to provide urgent and unplanned and emergency care to rural communities. The Rural Hospital Sustainability Project, which covers both independently run and Health New Zealand hospitals, is another model that’s being run. Adjuster funding, recognising that rural communities have greater expenses and differing costs, is also another component, and Health New Zealand has made $5 million available to sustain rural hospitals in the short term, understanding that they’re under increasing pressure just here and now. There are a number of initiatives, particularly for that rural environment.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): All right, members, we’ve got 20 minutes left in this debate. What I want to encourage now is short questions and quick answers; that’s the way we maximise the time left.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Yes, thank you, Mr Chair—that’s a great instruction. My question is: has the Minister seen Health New Zealand’s risk register? I’m sure the Minister, as I was, was a DHB member—it was routine to have a risk register. I’m just asking if the Minister has seen it. Secondly, what instructions has he given to officials in terms of the management of his expectations around the management of clinical risk through the cuts that he is seeking?

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. Now, the Minister just mentioned the fact, in relation to Dunedin Hospital, that doing smaller phasing builds that are more modular would give the domestic construction firms a bit more of a chance to be involved. Why is it that day after day after day we are reading stories in the newspaper that it’s the local plumbers and the local contractors who feel like they’re the ones that are going to lose their contracts in relation to the Dunedin Hospital build? It doesn’t kind of feel like that’s very congruent with what the Minister is saying. Has he given that any thought? Does he have any response to the situation that’s before him now—not just the hypotheticals that he faces in the future?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. Very quick questions. When can the House and the New Zealand public expect the next update report on the iwi-Māori partnership boards to be released? That’s the first question.

The second question is on the much-lauded efforts to immunise tamariki Māori and the investment made in that. To the point made by the member on the other side of the House, is the Minister able to tell us the number of Māori health providers in rural settings that provided those services for non-Māori?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): It’s important that we make sure we canvass all the issues around the financing of primary care tonight. My question is: will the Minister commit to the uplift for primary care recommended in the Sapere report, or is he merely exploring a reallocation of existing funds via a recalibrated capitation model?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. My instruction to officials to manage clinical risk during the reset has been to develop a monitoring framework that includes the Ministry of Health, Health New Zealand, and the Health Quality and Safety Commission.

The Sapere report: I have asked for briefings and a team to start making some work on the Sapere report, particularly how capitation might best align with where the morbidity, the intensity, where the work is done, where the resource is required.

The iwi-Māori partnership board next report: the iwi-Māori partnership boards are due to have their community health plans to us by 1 October. Not all will be ready by then. I understand maybe 10 to 12 may be ready, and some may be a month or two later. I expect some time after that to be able to bring that forward for further discussion.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Just some short questions for the Minister, please, given that he is the budget-holder for mental health as well. In terms of the organisations that we’re seeing falling over, such as Homebuilders up in Warkworth, who have had Oranga Tamariki contracts cancelled and yet provide mental health services across the board, we’ve had the Minister for Oranga Tamariki—the Minister for Children—in the Chamber saying that those funds will be made available through other Budget allocations, but we haven’t seen any indication of that. There are a number of these community groups who are very precarious. When is he going to fund those community groups to be able to continue to provide much-needed mental health services for our communities?

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): And along the same lines, given that the Minister holds the Budget for health, can the Minister confirm that it was him that directed that 200,000 bed nights should be reduced in Te Whatu Ora, and is that why Minister Costello is looking at reducing the services that home care and support are able to provide and increasing the fragility tests in the aged-care sector via that directive? Can you give us a little bit more information about that so that very worried people can understand a bit more about what’s going on?

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau): Thank you, Mr Chair. I was hoping the Minister could explain what happened in the whiteout at Whangārei Hospital recently, a shutdown—I think they called it a whiteout; actually, a white code was the right terminology—and whether there was any explanation. Was he aware of it? Then suddenly Kaitāia was also under huge stress, so then we had to send our patients, send our whānau, to other places far from Kaitāia and even from Whangārei because of this white code. My first question: did you know about that? Can you explain and speak to that a wee bit? I’d be keen to understand that situation.

Then, secondly, in terms of our Māori wellbeing—suicide prevention for young Māori men—I saw somewhere in the discussion of a programme that was funded. But, frankly, that programme will not reach and not be able to connect and engage with young Māori men in the way in which Mike King might think he can because he’s a great comedian. I’m interested to know what your understanding is and, hopefully, you can give us some insight and real plan and idea about what would work for young Māori men in suicide prevention. Kia ora, Minister.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair, and I thank the member for her questions. If she is meaning the emergency department at a glance—the traffic light rating, if you like—that was recently discussed. That has now been harmonised across the whole health sector, and it is just one measure of the acuity in an emergency room at any particular time.

Now, as it relates to Kaitāia, a number of patients somewhat regularly need to be transported from Kaitāia—particularly if they have radiology needs that are beyond what Kaitāia can provide and clearly if their level of clinical care is high enough that it needs to move to a base hospital. Those are just a couple of reasons why patients might need to move from Kaitāia Hospital.

The member also asked mental health questions. I will hold that over and am making a list of that and will seek to address that.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Just a further follow-up mental health question: regarding the mental health innovation fund, why were community groups not consulted about the terms of reference for that, including their view of whether they would have $250,000 sloshing around in a bank account to be able to contribute as a co-fund? Why are those tenders open to offshore organisations, including Australian organisations? Is he worried that some of our face-to-face providers and our smaller providers will fold because they have no access to that? Why did the Minister for Mental Health hold that out as if that was going to be the answer to their funding problems? And, finally, when will we see the workforce plan that is going to ensure that the 111 system that the police are phasing out will be fit for purpose and will be available in a safe way both for responders and for those who are needing the 111 service for mental health?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. There was a question around aged care directed to Minister Costello, and she’s able to address that.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health): Yes, I think there’s unfortunately been a bit of misunderstanding in terms of the aged-care review that is currently under way. No decisions have been made and we are engaging extensively with the sector.

There has been some discussion around the number of hospital bed stays per year, and the objective is purely that we are hoping to ensure that those that are frail but not necessarily needing hospital care are provided the suitable care they need moving forward, and that is the programme of work around the aged-care review. It is to ensure that our older people are given the best care, and sometimes being in hospital, exposed to a range of contagions that could make them sicker, isn’t the best place for them to be.

I’m very keen to move forward with some plans and implementing this review, working collectively, and, hopefully, getting some bipartisan support around the programme of work that we’re trying to achieve in this space.

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask a couple of questions of the Minister in relation to oral health. Just considering where we’re at, at the moment, in terms of oral health investment, I’m wanting to understand from the Minister: what are your highlights to date in terms of where your oral heath dollar has been spent, and are there successes to share with the committee?

Further, will there be any consideration of expansion of oral health services, particularly into rural communities and to those priority populations who may not already have equitable access to those services—Tai Tokerau, for example?

Then further, knowing that we have the directive from the Director-General of Health in terms of fluoridation of water supply in local government, is the Minister able to provide an update in terms of the progress of the fluoridation programme at a local government level? What support is being provided to councils for oral health promotion and promotion of the benefit of fluoridation into the water supply? Kia ora.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just to address a few previous questions, the draft suicide prevention plan was launched last week by Minister Doocey, and the team are currently consulting on the suicide prevention plan for the next three years.

To answer that member’s questions around oral health—a couple of things. The oral health promotion initiative, which is a toothbrush and toothpaste initiative for preschools—200 providers. They’re provided with toothpaste and toothbrushes, which also, actually, provide for the whole household. This initiative, I was reading somewhere, I believe, may have delivered up to 1.3 million toothbrushes and toothpaste through to August last year. Part of this is probably modelled on the Scottish Childsmile programme, which was structured toothbrushing assistance and education. It also actually had a fluoride varnish component to it as well, but this is mostly looking at preschool education in oral health with toothbrushes and toothpaste. This is all part of Health New Zealand’s oral promotion health initiative, which covers a number of things, including this particular initiative.

From a community fluoridation perspective, we remain supportive of that and would note that access to fluoridated water, once it’s been able to roll out through communities, will increase the penetration from 51 percent to around 62 percent. It is part of our oral health plan.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair—and if you should have a moment to look at Standing Order 107, I’d be most obliged.

I wanted to take a call because nobody has asked any questions about Pharmac or Medsafe. I thought that’s a real shame because, while the Opposition, whose job it is to ask the questions, may not be so interested in the purchasing agency of medicines for New Zealanders, or Medsafe, who screens medicines for approval to be used in New Zealand, I, as the responsible Minister, most certainly am interested in them. I think, possibly, the reason that the Opposition hasn’t asked about Pharmac or Medsafe is that it’s just going so well after this Budget and we have so much good news for New Zealanders. For example, $2.4 billion of additional funding over four years for medicines—$2.4 billion—

Tākuta Ferris: Is there a question coming?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: —an extraordinary amount of money. And the excitement that is coming out—oh, and Tākuta Ferris is asking, “Is there a question?” What Tākuta Ferris doesn’t realise is that I’m actually the Minister, which is not something he needs to learn about, because it’s unlikely to ever happen for him. However, as I was saying—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Mr Seymour, you will ask the Minister of Health a question. How we work is that, if it’s a question that he wants to defer to one of his other Ministers—that’s the way we work this, through the Chair, so I’ll be looking for a question from you, for the Minister.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, I’ve started—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I realise you’re feeling a little left out there, but that’s the way we’re running this, so I’ll be looking for a question quite shortly.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, Mr Chair, with respect, asking you to learn the Standing Orders doesn’t invite that sort of desultory remark. I wonder if the Minister would give me permission to speak a little bit about what the Government is doing for Pharmac and Medsafe. I’d certainly like to ask him that, and I wonder if he’d be OK with it.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. The very important role that Pharmac and Medsafe play, and certainly the ambitions we have for it, are well described and in the capable hands of the Associate Minister, and I would appreciate him fulfilling the committee of the whole House and giving more flavour as to exactly what that work initiative is.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. And so it goes on, and I thank the Minister of Health, who I think is doing a fabulous job.

It is true: $2.4 billion more spending, after the previous Government left this one with a terrible fiscal cliff, means that new medicines are being announced for funding at the moment almost every week. Morale at Pharmac has never been higher, because people at Pharmac—you know what they like doing? They love—they love—buying medicines that improve New Zealanders’ health outcomes.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Not for young Māori men, they don’t. Not for breast cancer.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I don’t know if there’s ever been a time when they’ve been doing more of it than right now. We’ve just heard, again, from Te Pāti Māori: “Not for breast cancer.” Actually, just last week, they announced the funding of a breakthrough new breast cancer drug which is being celebrated—celebrated—by the Breast Cancer Foundation.

Ingrid Leary: Point of order, Mr Chair. I was just contemplating and listening to that exchange and there was quite a lot of time wasted through some procedural stuff that was quite deliberate. Given that we did start this debate five minutes early, I wondered if we could perhaps have an extra five minutes of proper scrutiny.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): No, that’s not a point of order; that’s a Chair’s ruling. Carry on, Mr Seymour.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, thank you. I knew that the Opposition didn’t want to talk about it, because it is going so well. Not only is this Government taking a record amount of money to buy medicines for New Zealanders, not only are we funding new pharmaceuticals, contrary to the heckling from the other side—including for breast cancer as recently as just last week—actually, we are improving the way Pharmac operates, to be more collaborative with patients and clinicians and with those who are producing these pharmaceuticals, in order that they are seen as more of a partner than a combatant in the industry. That is wonderful, wonderful news for all of those who value medical technologies.

On the Medsafe side, we are making strong progress towards the “Rule of Two”. For too long, there’s been enormous delays getting permission to use the most ordinary things from overseas—they take so long to get permission to be used in New Zealand. We are working towards coalition commitment—of all three parties—to ensure that any medicine approved in two other countries will be approved in this country within 30 days. And that is the kind of pragmatic progress that New Zealanders look to when it comes to healthcare from this coalition Government.

I wanted to put that on record to thank the people, the good people, of the Ministry of Health and in Pharmac, and those, in particular, at Medsafe who are doing wonderful work for the patients and the people of New Zealand. I’d like to thank the Chair for allowing me to make this contribution, difficult as it may have seemed.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): I mean, writing a health budget is not easy, and there are a lot of difficult competing priorities. That last call did remind me of the competing priorities in Budget 2024.

I’m very aware that released Treasury advice showed that Treasury advised against that medicines commitment, and not because it is not worthy—it is of course incredibly valuable to purchase more medicines—but because of the opportunity costs. In particular, they were very clear that that investment would block the ability to invest in primary care. So, while there are more treatments available, we may face the continuing problem of New Zealanders being diagnosed with their cancers late because they cannot access the place where they are usually diagnosed, which is primary care. Of course, the Minister will be aware that perhaps 200,000 to 300,000 people in New Zealand are unenrolled, according to General Practice NZ. Many people will say that they miss out on getting primary care even if they are enrolled, because of cost and other barriers.

My question to the Minister is this: how did he make that decision? How did he balance the benefits of cancer medicines over the ability for New Zealanders to be able to get the primary care services they need when all around the country we are hearing that primary care services are on the edge of their sustainability? I do hope there’s a policy reason for this and it wasn’t just a political reason.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m really pleased to be able to ask a question to the Minister. This is around emergency department security. There is $4.1 million from the Budget—44 security staff across eight high-risk emergency departments. If you could, please, Minister, tell us what prompted this initiative, and how has this improved staff safety as well as patient safety in emergency departments. Thank you.

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. To answer the member Dr Ayesha Verrall’s question, we’ve wanted to improve cancer management for some significant period of time, and we’re very pleased with the response that we have had. Yes, indeed, balancing a health budget is a “What do you do, and what don’t you do?”—that is what happens—but we made a commitment as a coalition Government to advance cancer management through pharmaceutical means. As I’ve mentioned before, we’re also doing that through other modalities, but we made a decision to step-change cancer management.

I’d like to thank the member Jenny Marcroft for her very good question around emergency department (ED) security, because I’m sure we’ve all been concerned when we’ve heard of staff and patients who have been inappropriately accosted in emergency departments. We made a commitment through Budget 2024 of around $30.848 million operating expenses, to do a number of things. First of all, it was to employ 44 fulltime-equivalents across the eight high-risk emergency departments. It was also to employ surge capacity to have them available—for example, in some of the summer locations where they really surge because of summer numbers and, therefore, the risks in emergency departments go up. The third contribution to that funding pool in Budget 2024 was for trainers so that we can train not just the eight hotspot EDs but actually the whole sector on de-escalation—which is actually the fourth part, which wasn’t specifically included in this Budget. That de-escalation is an initiative and a policy setting that pretty much everyone in a hospital or associated with an ED will look at having as part of their standard operating procedures.

I’m very pleased with the response that we’ve had from the sector. They’ve been calling for it for a while. We were able, on short notice, when we came into Government, to very quickly bring up a response over last summer, but this is now more pervasive and locked in, certainly over this four-year budget, and we’re very pleased with the response.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Senior Whip—National): I move, That the committee report progress.

Motion agreed to.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Madam Speaker, I report progress on the debate. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2)

Instruction to Health Committee

Debate resumed from 12 September.

Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities): I would like to take the opportunity to provide some clarification around why the Associate Minister of Health has proposed to have the Health Committee report back by 31 October 2024. This bill is part of a wider programme of work to tackle youth vaping and, as stated when the bill was introduced, further work is ongoing on designing the regulatory regime for tobacco and nicotine products. On top of this, the Health Committee has already been considering youth vaping, although it has yet to report, so a significant body of relevant information and submissions are already available.

New Zealanders are asking for immediate action to be taken to curb youth vaping, and, ironically, the Opposition, who are railing against this time line, have also been railing for immediate action, so we’re going to deliver that for them, and having the Health Committee report back by 31 October 2024 does just that.

The Government has taken decisive action on those products that are most appealing to young people in ensuring that retailers are not continuing to openly market products to youth while also significantly increasing penalties to deter retailer non-compliance. This is an area that has been traversed extensively, and it is now time to act to ensure that these practical steps to limit youth vaping can be in place as soon as possible.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Thank you for giving me the call on this. I must say, it’s good to see that the member Mark Patterson is cleaning up after his Minister, who failed to give us any reasons whatsoever for this truncated report-back period. That’s just an indication that this Government doesn’t actually really know what they’re doing, let alone know how to run a Government and a parliamentary process—

Hon David Seymour: Why so angry?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No, that’s right—that’s absolutely right. That experienced member does know what he’s doing, so congratulations for that.

I must say, I was very concerned when I saw a letter from the Office of the Clerk in respect of this matter—in respect of this report back. This referral motion has not yet passed this House, and yet the deputy chair of that committee—Hamish Campbell over there, the member for Ilam—has second-guessed what’s going to go on in this House. He has already sent out a call for submissions with a two-week period. Now, I must say I find that arrogance beyond belief. The suggestion that this House has predetermined anything—that that member can second guess what’s going to go on in this House and how people are going to cast their vote—I find unbelievable, and I’m sure more experienced members wouldn’t do that. I can hear the heckling in the background there, and it just goes to show how uncomfortable members on the other side of the House are with that kind of behaviour, because this House is the place where decisions of that nature are made.

This bill requires full consideration, because these are matters of considerable importance. As the Minister Patterson just said, these are important matters that we support. I can tell you that there are a lot of interested parties out there that want a full and fair opportunity to have their say on this. The question is not whether we should do something about vaping; the question is whether we’re going far enough. Only the other day, I was speaking to a principal at Hagley College, who was interested in this very process—was interested to know what was going on in Parliament about vaping right now. I was pleased to be able to tell them that something was happening, but I wasn’t pleased that I had to say that the chances of them having a fair say—because they wanted to have a say—were limited by that Government; by that Government who doesn’t actually want to listen across the board.

These are important initiatives in terms of limiting the availability of vaping products, but it’s not simplistic: the interplay between the small businesses that are selling these products, which have got something to say—they’ve got a business to run and they’re not illegal—and the health issues. I was at the Speaker’s Science Forum—and I know some of the members on the other side were there the other day—hearing about the health impacts and whether it’s certain or uncertain. That’s the evidence the committee wants to hear—needs to hear—to understand whether the legislation is appropriate, whether it goes far enough, whether it’s technically correct, or whether amendments need to be made. It hasn’t been done, because we’ve got this ridiculously short report-back period.

Of course, the other thing about the referral motion, which frustrates me every time when I see one of these from the Government, is that they have the kind of tack-ons which are largely meaningless. So, “reported [back] by 31 October”—well, that makes sense at least; “the committee have authority to meet any time while the House is sitting (except … oral questions)”, I suppose that makes sense when we’re doing extended sittings; “during an evening on a day which there has been a sitting of the House”. Now, I’m no Winston Peters—I haven’t been here for ever, but I cannot remember a select committee ever sitting after 6 o’clock or after the dinner break. But you’ve got permission to do so.

The Minister, or another Minister, might want to clarify this: is there an intention that the select committee sit after the dinner break on a day when the House has been sitting or on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House? Is Katie Nimon going to sit on Friday? You know what, she doesn’t care about her electorate—she just wants to be in Wellington because the lattes are better! Ha, ha! I know they are, because I’ve had a latte in Napier and they’re pretty rough. This kind of fatuous routine, giving themselves powers which are totally unnecessary—and, of course, “outside of the Wellington area”. Now, if this committee is going to go and travel the country in the two weeks that the deputy chair has peremptorily set for submissions, well, good luck to them for that, because it’s highly unlikely.

In that kind of situation, I’ve got to ask the Government: if you’re going to put a motion for a truncated report-back time, why do you also give entirely unnecessary powers to sit outside of the usual hours to the select committee? It’s entirely unnecessary, and it’s actually an abuse.

Sam Uffindell: Mate, you’re not even on the committee. What do you care?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: And Sam Uffindell is there harping away. He wasn’t even in the House. He was off gallivanting in foreign shores. That’s why the deputy—

Sam Uffindell: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): I heard that. However, he was referring to the fact that you weren’t here. He’s not saying you’re not here now.

Sam Uffindell: The member also made an incorrect assertion that I was gallivanting around. I would like the member to withdraw that, please.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): I think the definition of a junket is something that someone else goes on, so we’ll carry on.

Hon David Seymour: Point of order. It’s been said you shouldn’t interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake, but can I draw your attention to Standing Order 112, which forbids tedious repetition or irrelevant references. I think some of these recent references about different MPs’ coffee and gallivanting would suggest the member may have run out of relevant material on this call.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Well, if the member would listen, each one of those statements has been either preceded or very quickly followed by a reference to a date. If you’re going to make a point of order, listen perhaps to several parts or several sentences. Carry on, Mr Webb.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you. That member knows a lot about tedious repetition, so I can understand why he wanted to talk about it a bit more. But, no, the main point of this is really how important this bill is and the degree to which ordinary folks, who might not usually take an interest in what’s going on in this House, can’t have their say.

Now, I know there are members in this House who talk about good lawmaking and the importance of consultation even if they don’t follow those rules themselves. They talk about it a lot, and people who talk about one thing and do another are not well liked, but, in this case, it’s a situation—

Hon Scott Simpson: Stop talking about your colleagues.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well, if the chief whip for the National Party was to stand up and take a call about doing one thing and saying another, go for it.

That Government talks a big game about hearing people, about having good regulatory processes, but the fact of the matter is that here they go again—and they’ve done this on repeated occasions—truncating a report-back period. It might be OK in respect of tobacco companies, large vaping manufacturers, and even lobby groups who rail against the smoking industry or the vaping industry, but, for ordinary folks who just want to have their say, who we really represent—I don’t represent big tobacco. I don’t represent the big players in town; I represent my constituency, who are concerned about what’s going on, and they have an entitlement to have their say. In this situation, this truncated report-back period, with these ridiculous further powers to sit on Fridays and to sit in the evening makes no sense whatsoever.

I must say I found it an affront to the dignity of this House that the Minister came in here last week, didn’t give any reasons, just said, “Here’s what we’re going to do” and didn’t give any reasons whatsoever. She had to have Minister Mark Patterson, decent bloke that he is, clean up the mess after her and give some reasons about urgency, and those urgency reasons just don’t stick. Sure, vaping’s an issue, but a few more weeks, or a month or so, so that people can actually have their say would really count in this situation.

I would implore the members on the other side to think carefully when they cast their vote on this motion, because it’s a motion which, essentially, deprives New Zealanders of their voice on an issue that really counts. They’re shortening the report-back period on what is actually routine legislation, whilst all over the place the Government is kicking the can down the road on important things, like evidence in sexual violation cases. They’re happy to kick the can down the road on that and have a bill languishing in the select committee for more than a year, but here, on this bill, today, you’re not happy; you want to have a short report-back period for no particular reason whatsoever—at least, no reason that’s apparent to me; no reason you’re happy to stand up and actually talk about in this House.

It’s offensive to this House, it’s an affront to the dignity of this House, and we can tell which way I, and we on this side of the House, will be voting on this motion.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Just a reminder that this is a narrow debate, and there has now been an explanation for the reason. That does narrow the ability of those opposing it to broaden it out.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Of course. E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. I would actually like to propose an amendment. I move, That the motion be amended to replace the words “31 October 2024” with “15 December 2024”.

I would like the Associate Minister of Health, the Hon Casey Costello, to seriously consider this amendment, and I invite other people in the House as well to weigh in on the reason for this amendment. I would like to speak on this amendment as well.

In terms of this bill, when we heard this bill in the last session, together with another bill, there was somewhat of a rationale why the other bill needs to have a shortened period, due to the expiration of a temporary permit being placed on that, but there was no reason for us to have this particular shortened select committee process. In all effect, we are not in any particular rush to push this bill through the Health Committee and through the House, other than the Government having to tick a list of key performance indicators off their list at the cost of genuine consultation from the New Zealand public.

Now, when we were talking about the bill, we were exploring the fact that, yes, although the bill looks at some elements of banning vaping, it doesn’t explore all possibilities of that. I think having a longer select committee process will give people who may have genuine expertise in this area, who are not sitting around at home waiting to submit on things with a six-week select committee period, time to submit. If we’re looking at the select committee process—now, understanding I am still reasonably new at this—you have the call to go out, opening the submissions. Then you have to arrange the submitters, and then afterwards you hear the oral submissions. You decide who to hear from, you hear the oral submissions, and then you still have to write out the report.

The actual period to hear from the New Zealand public, within that six-week period, is incredibly limited, and I don’t think that the New Zealand public—your ordinary New Zealanders—are sitting around at home waiting to submit on bills, with everything else they have to do in their daily lives, other than the people who know about this that are already waiting to submit on it. Some of those examples that have been mentioned previously by the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, so I won’t go too much into that.

When we are looking at this—again, you know, I expressed that I am reasonably new when it comes to the select committee process and the bill and the lawmaking process in general of the New Zealand Parliament, but at the same time I would have assumed that the fundamental element of it is to give as much time and to hear different perspectives; perspectives for which officials and Ministers and even MPs and select committees may not have the equipped knowledge. In this particular bill there are four elements, and I think for each one of them there will be people who are interested in weighing in on whether it goes too far or whether it goes not far enough.

Now, in terms of the date that I selected—15 December 2024—I understand there’s a lot of other things that are happening. I’m not saying that we need to have a full six-month submission or select committee approach; I think I am being incredibly restrained here by proposing a three-month rather than a six-week amendment period, with 15 December ending on the last or the second-to-last week of the sitting week for this year. That would then still give sufficient time for other things to take place. I think this date will provide sufficient opportunities for people to be able to submit, and, hopefully, it will also provide the Health Committee with sufficient time to be able to make those kinds of appropriate arrangements on top of everything else that the Health Committee needs to do as well.

I also understand from other speakers—other people who may want to weigh in on this particular amendment and this date—that this date may not be the most appropriate, and I acknowledge that, but I would really like to hear from the Associate Minister as well whether the Minister would like to consider this new date and whether this will work with other timings as well.

So, with that, I would like to hear from others in terms of my proposal to extend the report date from 31 October 2024 to 15 December 2024.

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

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave, notwithstanding Standing Order 98, to amend the motion to delete the words “31 October 2024” and replace them with the words “15 December 2024”.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): What I suggest the member do—I was giving you the call—is just move an amendment to the motion as part of your speech.

ARENA WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the referral motion to the Health Committee. I understand that my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall has a contribution to make, but I do too, and it’s about the importance of building cross-partisan consensus on this bill. This House has a proud history of building cross-partisan support through not only the Health Committee but also the Māori Affairs Committee. In 2009, the Māori Affairs Committee launched, on 23 September—which, for the members, would be on Tuesday next week—its Māori Affairs inquiry into the tobacco industry in Aotearoa and the consequences—

Sam Uffindell: Point of order. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I understand from the Standing Orders that another call can’t be raised when you have moved to put the question like you did.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): No, that’s not correct. The question I was putting was the amendment—what I was doing was actually putting the question so that we can debate the amendment. That’s actually what I did, so we’re now debating the amendment, not the substantive motion. Thank you for clarifying.

ARENA WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr Speaker—I’m pleased to speak to the amendment, which is supported by the Labour Party, and I thank Lawrence Xu-Nan for putting that amendment, which we look forward to having the opportunity to support with all members present. The reason we support it is that there is a proud history of using the time of select committees to build cross-partisan consensus on this issue.

As I was saying, in September 2009 the Māori Affairs Committee launched its inquiry into the tobacco industry and used that committee through till 29 January 2010 to build consensus on this issue. The members opposite may be interested to know a little bit more about how that cross-partisanship was achieved, because it wouldn’t have been possible in a two-week time period.

There were 260 submissions to the committee. This was over a Christmas period. People were incredibly interested in this issue and wanted to have their say. The committee received submissions from organisations and individuals that are all listed in the report. There were 1,715 letters, and the committee heard from 96 submissions orally. It’s relevant to the committee’s referral because they have the power here to visit other places in New Zealand, not just Wellington, and that committee did too. It built cross-partisanship by travelling the country to not only Wellington but Christchurch, Rotorua, and Auckland, and had the opportunities for the members to be able to debate those motions.

The members represented on that committee at the time were the chairperson, the Hon Tau Henare, who went on to make a number of really useful political contributions to the advancement of our tobacco laws in New Zealand; Simon Bridges—then not the Hon Simon Bridges—Kelvin Davis; Hone Harawira was the deputy chairperson—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): This is a narrow debate on the amendment.

ARENA WILLIAMS: —thank you, Mr Chair—the Hon Parekura Horomia; Paul Quinn; the Hon Mita Ririnui; and Metiria Turei was a non-voting member.

I list these members, Mr Chair, because in considering whether we should accept the amendment that Lawrence Xu-Nan has put forward, all on this side of the House want the impact of this law to be longstanding. We want the changes that the Government is trying to achieve in its bill today to be something that there is cross-partisan support for long into the future and that builds on the work of that 2009 committee. It needs the time to do that. It needs the space to be able to travel. It needs more than two weeks to hear from the interested members of the public on this, and we need to address this instruction from the select committee chair, which has already been published, which pre-empts the will of the House.

You could consider that these matters that are still being debated right now as something like the rules that apply under Standing Order 116 for sub judice, in that the House is actively considering instructions to the select committee already. It has not instructed that it needs to report back to the House by 31 October 2024, but that is what the select committee has told the public. That is wrong. This needs to be reissued, and if it were reissued next week with a longer report-back date, then the instruction which Lawrence Xu-Nan has put forward would allow time to do that. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): I move, That debate on this question now close.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to be able to take a call in support of my colleague Lawrence Xu-Nan’s motion to extend the time period for the report back to the House. There’s a very important reason why a number of us on this side of the House look very enthusiastic to take a call, and that is because some very important information is contained in the regulatory impact statement (RIS) which directly contradicts the reason that the Minister gave as to why a shorter report-back time was appropriate.

The Minister did give reasons and I want to—like many colleagues have said—pay tribute to Mark Patterson. He’s a great guy. We enjoy his company and we appreciated his reasons. The only problem is: do those reasons that the Minister gave actually stack up? I don’t think they do, and that’s why I think that Mr Xu-Nan’s amendment to have a longer report-back time is more than appropriate.

The reason I say that is because this regulatory impact statement puts into black and white exactly how little consultation has gone on in relation to vaping. It outlines things quite in contradiction to the reasons that Mark Patterson said for the original motion, which was to have a shorter report-back time. He said that there was a lot of work that was already in front of the select committee and that it was something that the select committee was engaged with substantively. If we look at the regulatory impact statement, we see a lack of consultation. The time frame in which this policy proposal was considered and agreed by Government did not allow for consultation beyond Government agencies. We see data or evidence limitations. Information available about the vaping market is incomplete—and this is the Government’s own advice.

A longer time frame could have allowed officials to consult publicly. This is directly on point. What we’re talking about here is allowing a short, two-week period for the members of the public to contribute to a select committee process. We’ve heard from the Minister, allegedly, that the select committee has done a lot of work—all the work has been done—and that’s why we don’t need a full select committee process. This contradicts that, and it says that a longer time frame could have allowed officials to consult publicly, including with groups most affected by youth vaping and other stakeholders.

This is why we have a select committee process. It’s because in instances where there has been an incomplete period of time for advice to be able to be provided by officials, members of the public and people with knowledge in this area can actually submit to the committee and provide Parliament, before they make a decision, advice on the best course of action in relation to a particular bill. This referral motion is really important and will actually determine the quality of the decision making that this House is able to make.

We’ve heard that that information was available; we see in the RIS that it’s not. Mr Xu-Nan has not suggested a full six-month period. We do actually agree with this bill—we agree that there needs to be action on vaping—so it’s not actually the substantive issue that we have a problem with, but we need to make sure. None of us in this House is perfect and none of our decisions will be made in the best way it possibly can be without our getting all of the information available to actually inform our decision making, so we do need a longer period of time to make sure we get some of these distinctions right.

There are things in this bill around the distances that vape shops need to be from schools. There’s a difference between the distance a vape shop needs to be from an early childhood education centre and a school. How do we know whether that is going to be the right determination in this very important bill to address a very important issue around vaping that is constantly raised with members of Parliament? We don’t, and that’s because we know that the evidence isn’t there. That’s why we need the select committee process, and to have a select committee process which is substantive enough to actually allow not only members of the committee to receive submissions from members of the public but also officials.

I think that sometimes we forget about the burden that these short report-back times put on officials. Officials are not magicians, and we see in this RIS that they are being really honest about the limitations of their ability to provide the information that the Government would need to make a good decision and that the select committee would need to make a good decision.

It’s really important that Parliament and our procedures are not treated like a tick-box exercise. There is a reason for the processes that we have and we should actually be considering this fully. Although I appreciate the reasons that Mr Patterson gave for why he thought that a short report-back time would be appropriate, I don’t think that that stacks up with the evidence, and I think that we should be supporting Mr Xu-Nan’s amendment to make sure we have a substantive amount of time.

I mean, this is one of the key issues facing young people in this country. It’s actually an unusual issue, which is that this bill that we are debating the report back on is actually being put forward as a means to change behaviour in relation to another activity. That’s actually quite a complex task for a piece of legislation. It’s so complex that the report-back time needs to be substantive to make sure that the decisions around implementing the policy will actually work.

The argument is that vaping will stop smoking. How do we know that those settings are going to be right if we haven’t heard from all the people that couldn’t be consulted that we’ve seen in the RIS? How do we know that? My argument would be that we don’t and that Mr Xu-Nan has actually suggested a very pragmatic suggestion that would allow us more time to get this right, and I for one, and the Labour Party, will be supporting his amendment.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Katie Nimon.

Katie Nimon: I move—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): No, doesn’t matter. Sorry, you’ve already spoken in this debate, so it’ll be James Meager.

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

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m also speaking to Mr Xu-Nan’s amendment, and I want to speak in support of that. I want to raise with colleagues a point I don’t believe has been canvassed yet.

We are in support of the direction of this bill. The bill contains an effort to ban disposable vapes, which we know are a form of vape favoured by young people. Youth vaping is a very important public health issue. The issue is that how you define a disposable vape is an incredibly complex task. The best way to do that is actually to talk to the people who use and make these things, but officials say they haven’t had time to do that. Officials have not had time to talk to the people who make vapes and use vapes; they say that in the regulatory impact statement (RIS). The Health Committee, under the Government’s proposal, will barely have the time to go into this.

The worst consequence of not taking the time to do this properly is that these rules turn out to be made a mockery of because the industry innovates around them, because we know they can change—

Sam Uffindell: What, like last year?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: —the shape of the vape. That’s exactly right, Sam Uffindell. That’s exactly the point, that we’re dealing with a very innovative industry and the technical specifications can change. Officials say in the RIS they haven’t had the chance to look into that, and now it appears the committee’s ability to explore that is at risk as well.

I know members on the other side want to make a difference on this issue. I have seen that in the select committee. I appreciate that, though colleagues come from other perspectives, that concern about youth vaping is genuine on the other side of the House. Well, do you want to be standing here in two years’ time debating the fact that our laws didn’t work because we didn’t take the time to get it right? That’s what’s going to happen if we don’t take time to hear from the people who hold the devices in their hands every day, who make the devices.

I want to implore the House to vote in favour of Mr Xu-Nan’s quite considered and pragmatic approach to giving us just a little bit more time to talk it over. You have heard from the Labour Party that we are eager to be able to support this but, of course, were we to come through the select committee process without the sense that we had had the opportunity to give this our consideration, well, our support would then be in doubt. I implore others on the other side of the House to take a responsible approach to making rules that we’re making for the sake of young people’s healthcare, rather than trying to get through a quarterly set of key performance indicators.

Face it; there is no other reason. This is not making laws in a pandemic, is it? There is no other reason to rush this bill. There really is not. It is just ticking something off the list. Give us the time to get this right, otherwise we’ll let young people down.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day, and I do note that we haven’t heard from any speakers on the amendment at this stage from the Government side. The House is adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10.01 p.m.