Tuesday, 22 October 2024

TUESDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2024

TUESDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2024

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

KARAKIA/PRAYERS

KARAKIA/PRAYERS

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

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

List MEMBER vacancy

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand—Darleen Tana

SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that the seat of Darleen Tana became vacant by application of section 55(1)(fa) and 55A of the Electoral Act 1993 on 22 October 2024. This is a serious matter and the first time that the provisions inserted into the Electoral Act by way of amendment in 2018 have been used to declare a seat vacant. It’s not a matter that I’ve taken lightly, since it affects the composition of the House. I’ve taken advice and carefully considered the law. I’m satisfied that the motion delivered to me by the parliamentary leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand complies with section 55C of Electoral Act 1993 and is accompanied by a statement that meets the requirements of section 55D of that Act. Accordingly, I’ve given notice that the seat has become vacant.

Urgent Debates Declined

Youth Justice Facility—Government Efforts to End Protest

SPEAKER: Members, I’ve received a letter from Willow-Jean Prime seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the Government’s efforts to end a protest at a youth justice residence. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. However, it does not reach the threshold of being urgent enough to warrant setting aside the business of the House today. The application is declined. Petitions have been—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Point of order—well, I’m on my feet, so let me sit down and I’ll be able to do it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, you’re moving on to something different now and I want to address the matter—

SPEAKER: No, I’ve done it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —you first raised.

SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s right.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: That’s why the point of order is appropriate now.

SPEAKER: Yeah, I know, but you don’t do it while I’m on my feet. I’m sorry to be pedantic but today is a day for getting everything right. The Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): Well, then, Mr Speaker, a pause between announcements would be how you do that, but here’s the point—

SPEAKER: I’m sorry, can you start—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —because they have communication with you—

SPEAKER: I’m sorry, I did not hear what the member just said. Can we have silence while there is a point of order being spoken.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I said a brief pause between each announcement, so that an appropriate point of order could be raised at the right time, would be proper, otherwise one has no opportunity to follow the Standing Orders and make a point of order at the right time.

SPEAKER: Well, look, I thank the member for again giving me instruction about how this job should be carried out. I resist offering similar advice to him.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Unlike others, we welcome all advice. Mr Speaker, just by way of inquiry, as the communication with you was somewhat private, was there an addendum from the Green Party thanking the movers of that legislation from 2018 that came to their help?

SPEAKER: Yeah, what’s the point of order, sorry?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, the point of order was: was there an addendum to their communication with you, thanking the party and the mover of the changed law in 2018 to revive the “waka hopping bill”, in gratitude for that interposition back then, that assisted them to be the first ones ever to use it?

SPEAKER: Well, the member will know, of course, that the Electoral Act was amended in 2018 and is very prescriptive about the process from this point. So any material that would be of historic nature, apart from material relating directly to the concerns expressed by the Green Party leaders, is not something that I’ve been supplied.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: So they didn’t say “thank you”, then?

SPEAKER: No, well, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, I’m sure that there’ll be appropriate thanks offered to you in due course.

petitions, papers, select committee reports, and introduction of bills

petitions, papers, select committee reports, and introduction of bills

SPEAKER: A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK: Petition of Jody Devine requesting that the House establish an organ donor register in New Zealand.

SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. Twenty-seven papers have been delivered by Ministers.

CLERK:

2023-24 annual reports of:

Air New Zealand

Department of Conservation

Department of Corrections

Education Review Office

Gambling Commission

Ministry of Health

Department of Internal Affairs

Ministry of Justice

Ministry for Women

Meridian Energy

Natural Hazards Commission

Office of the Ombudsman

Oranga Tamariki

Ministry for Pacific Peoples

Parliamentary Counsel Office

Public Trust Office

Southern Response Earthquake Services

Executive Board for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence

Te Puni Kōkiri

Ministry of Transport

Vote Business, Science and Innovation reports on:

non-departmental appropriations for the year ended 30 June 2024

the police portfolio

the regional development portfolio

the resources portfolio

strategic intentions for 2024-28 for the:

Ministry of Health

Department of Internal Affairs

statement of intent 2024-28 for the Ministry for Women

Government response to the Report of the Regulations Review Committee on secondary legislation made under the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Act 2023.

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

CLERK:

Report of the Education and Workforce Committee on the 2022-23 annual report of Te Pūkenga - New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology

reports of the Environment Committee on the:

Fast-track Approvals Bill

report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Erratum: A review of freshwater models used to support the regulation and management of freshwater in New Zealand

report of the Petitions Committee on the:

petition of Andrew Munro

petition of Louise Duffy

report of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee on the briefing on health and safety for road construction and maintenance.

SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading. The reports and briefings are set down for consideration. No bills have been introduced.

Motions

New Zealand Sporting Success—Congratulations

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister for Sport and Recreation): I seek leave to move a motion without notice to celebrate our sporting successes over the weekend.

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

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I move, That this House congratulate Team New Zealand, the White Ferns, the Black Caps, the Silver Ferns, the Paddle Ferns, Ally Wollaston, Hayden Wilde, and Liam Lawson on their exceptional sporting performances over the weekend.

As Minister for Sport and Recreation and on behalf of the Government, I would like to congratulate all of these athletes on a phenomenal weekend of sport for New Zealand. It was an epic weekend, one we haven’t had for a long time. The first win, of course, was Emirates Team New Zealand on match point, taking to the water against INEOS Britannia. As everyone knows, I think, Taihoro came out on top, 37 seconds ahead of their rivals. It was an historic moment for New Zealand, the first time any team has won the cup three times in more than 30 years. What an exceptional achievement.

The next sporting victory was the Black Caps, who won the first test against India, just our third win against India in India ever, and our first win in India since 1988—when some members of the House were not born, and I was just five years old. I’d like to pay a special congratulations to the Hutt Valley’s own Rachin Ravindra, Man of the Match, a century in the first innings, helping to chase down the target in the second innings. A great day.

Then, a brilliant game from the Silver Ferns, who took on the Diamonds in the Constellation Cup; 64-50 was the final score, the highest the Silver Ferns have ever scored against the Diamonds in regular time—a fantastic start to what I am sure will be a great series.

Something that didn’t get a lot of attention over the weekend from our media was the Paddle Ferns, our women’s canoe polo team, who were in China. They took out the finals, with a dominant performance against Italy, continuing its long line of excellence in this sport.

Then, of course, we had the White Ferns in the wee early hours of Monday morning, beating South Africa in the Women’s T20 World Cup in Dubai, our first world cup since the One Day International Cup back in 2000, in New Zealand, and Wellington’s Amelia Kerr was the star of the show.

To round it out, a terrific weekend for Ally Wollaston, competing in the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Denmark—not one but two gold medals, a bronze, and a fourth-placing, the most ever achieved by a single UCI track world champs by a New Zealand rider. Hayden Wilde won the series finale of the World Triathlon Championship in Spain. And there were many other outstanding performances: Liam Lawson, Auckland FC, the Breakers—I could keep going.

To all the athletes who did so well on the world stage this weekend, the House would like you to know, and the Government would like you to know, that New Zealand is very proud of you. To all the coaches, volunteers, family, and friends, thank you for everything you’ve done to help New Zealand shine on the world stage. On behalf of the Government and New Zealanders, we want to congratulate every single one of these outstanding athletes, and I hope you now get to have a brief rest and soak up the victory.

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

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to support the Government’s motion to congratulate the country’s sporting success over the weekend. Rarely if ever has one period of 48 hours brought so much success and joy across this many sports, and it is destined to be long remembered as perhaps the most glorious weekend in our sporting history. Congratulations to Team New Zealand on once again bringing the America’s Cup back home. I want to acknowledge Peter Burling, his crew, and the aptly named Taihoro, also supported by Ngāti Whātua—so, from my perspective, a sporting victory as well as a cultural one.

Nearly 8,000 kilometres away, the Black Caps won a test match in India for the first time in nearly 36 years, and for only the third time ever. India were heavily fancied to win this game before the Black Caps’ bowling attack got rolling, and eventually skittled India out for 46—their lowest total at home, ever. India did fight back to make the Black Caps bat again, but the Black Caps were not to be denied.

Not to be outdone, the Silver Ferns continued a great New Zealand tradition of beating the Australians. With the world champions arriving on our shores for a three-game series, game one on Sunday was meant to be close but the Silver Ferns put in an incredible performance to beat the Diamonds to 14 goals—a margin they haven’t emulated since 2010.

Speaking of world champions: congratulations—as the Minister’s already mentioned—must go to the New Zealand Paddle Ferns. A dominant victory over Italy and China means this is the second time the New Zealand team has won this particular tournament.

Truth be told, and without wanting to minimise all our other teams’ incredible sporting achievements, this weekend belonged to the White Ferns—what a story. After 10 consecutive losses in the build-up to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, no one outside of these shores thought they could do it. This was more than just an improbable triumph or a case of a miracle on the pitch. To chalk it up to just that would be a disservice to what they have truly accomplished. This was a team united and driven towards a common goal and shared values: namely hard work, a sound strategy, and a team-first attitude, all done with positivity and a hard-but-fair approach to the game. This success was not just incredible due to the fact that they won but also because of how they won; it should be an inspiration to each and every one of us.

It’s always difficult to single out an individual in a team sport; however, congratulations to Amelia Kerr, who snatched both player of the match and player of the tournament. Congratulations to her and the White Ferns on an achievement that should go straight to the pool room of New Zealand sporting success. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but with the Twenty20 cricket returning to the Summer Olympics in LA 2028, one can’t help but get excited.

A shout out must also go to Hayden Wilde, who won the final race of the year and came third in the World Triathlon series; and Auckland FC, who played in and won their first ever game in an A-League in a sellout Go Media Stadium in Auckland. On behalf of the Labour Party: congratulations to everyone who played their part in what was undoubtedly the most successful weekend ever in the history of New Zealand sport.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): It is an absolute privilege to stand here today in the House to acknowledge and celebrate this extraordinary weekend of sporting triumphs for Aotearoa. Our athletes have done us proud across a variety of disciplines, proving that Aotearoa punches well above its weight on the global stage. These sporting achievements not only highlight individual and team brilliance but also showcase the resilience and determination that New Zealand athletes consistently bring to the world stage.

Sport plays a crucial role in shaping Aotearoa’s identity. It teaches us a valuable lesson about the importance of teamwork. Sport’s also a reminder that it’s more than just competition; it builds a sense of belonging and pride for our nation. From grassroots to elite competitions, these wins over the weekend reflect the passion and hard work invested at every level of sport in Aotearoa.

Above all, it showcased the immense talent in women’s sport, with the White Ferns, the Silver Ferns, and the Paddle Ferns all excelling on the world stage. The triumphs of the women’s teams will inspire future generations of young women to see that they belong in sport and they too can achieve greatness. It’s a reflection of the very successful Strategy for Women and Girls in Sport and Active Recreation established in 2018 by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and sport and recreation Minister Grant Robertson, and we are reaping the benefits now.

Like the others before me, I do want to acknowledge the White Ferns, who stunned the cricketing world by winning their first ever T20 world cup in Dubai. Sophie Devine’s leadership, Melie Kerr’s all-round brilliance, and Suzie Bates’ poise under pressure led us to a 32-run victory over South Africa. It’s a demonstration that grit and belief can turn any situation around. That’s an inspiring victory, and it will give girls across the nation the ability to dream big.

We think about the Silver Ferns bringing their A-game to the netball court, defeating Australia 64 to 50 in the first Constellation Cup match. This is their biggest win over Australia in 14 years. Dame Noeline Taurua’s squad delivered a performance that not only restored pride but also opened the door to reclaiming the Constellation Cup, inspiring generations of netballers to come.

And the Black Caps defeated India by eight wickets in Bengaluru, achieving their first test victory on Indian soil in 36 years. Beating India at home is a monumental achievement in the cricketing world, demonstrating our players can succeed anywhere, under any conditions. The Prime Minister might want to take some lessons after his failure to achieve a free-trade agreement with India.

But the America’s Cup victory—winning the oldest sporting competition in the world—is no small feat, and to do it three times in a row cements New Zealand’s place in sailing history. I’m talking about the America’s Cup, because more than the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei waka, Te Kawau, that highlighted New Zealand’s rich Māori heritage and maritime traditions on the global stage, the outpouring of support from fans and the team’s Māori welcome on their return show the importance of Te Tiriti to our nation.

Let’s not forget the Paddle Ferns, conquering the world championships in Deqing, China, with a 6-1 win over Italy. This is their second world title, their teamwork another great golden moment for Aotearoa.

From cricket fields to netball courts, sailing regattas to canoe polo arenas, these victories are a reflection of New Zealand’s sporting spirit—gritty, determined, and full of heart. We’re proud not only of their trophies and medals but of the stories of resilience, teamwork, and pride behind every win. To our athletes and teams, thank you for representing Aotearoa with such distinction. You have given us all something to cheer for and have reminded us why sport is such a unifying force in our country. You have modelled the value of striving through blood, sweat, and tears to achieve our goals. We in the Greens salute you.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m proud to take this call on behalf of the ACT Party. We join with New Zealand in being full of immense pride in sharing with the incredible achievements of our national teams and individuals who represented us so well over the weekend across multiple sporting disciplines.

Team New Zealand secured their third America’s Cup victory in Barcelona. The Taihoro flew across the water and amazed the crowds, yet again. Liam Lawson, we know you had to be patient and wait for 18 Formula One weekends, but, boy, was it worth it. Converting a grid 19 start to a ninth-place finish is simply incredible. Our Silver Ferns then stepped up against the world champion Australian Diamonds in the Constellation Cup, delivering their highest ever score against their rivals in regular time: 64-50. The Paddle Ferns: a dominating display in the 2024 ICF Canoe Polo World Championships in China. That 6-1 victory over Italy wasn’t just a win; it was a clear testimony to all the athletes’ training and hard work. The Black Caps added to our glory with their historic test victory in India, our third ever on Indian soil and our first since 1988—man, that was good.

I would be remiss—and how could we forget the Bay of Plenty Steamers? Their victory in the National Provincial Championship semi-final against Canterbury wasn’t just any win; it was their most significant triumph since claiming the Ranfurly Shield from Auckland back in 2004. The victory and the buzz that has been alive in the Bay of Plenty following the extraordinary season from the Steamers shows that the spirit of rugby in the regions of New Zealand is alive and well.

Our White Ferns capped off this extraordinary weekend by claiming the T20 World Cup in Dubai, their first world cup victory since 2000. Sophie Devine’s leadership and Amelia Kerr’s all-round performance exemplified this fighting spirit that defines New Zealand cricket.

These achievements represent more than just victories, they embody the Kiwi spirit of punching well above our weight and never backing down from a challenge. What a great time to celebrate excellence, and what a great time to recognise it across a diverse area of sporting disciplines. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Mr Speaker, thank you. What a sporting weekend. It’s time for congratulations of all our athletes, the coaches present and past—the coaches who helped those athletes to develop over time—the management, the support teams, and the sponsors. I think we can all be—and this is why we have these debates in Parliament—proud, as fellow Kiwis. We are a small country, but we box well above our weight. We’ve already heard about the Silver Ferns, the biggest win over Australia in a very long time, and we wish them well. I think the next game is tonight, so I wish them well for that. The Black Caps, winning for the first time in a test match in India for 36 years. The White Ferns winning the 9th edition of the T20 World Cup.

I specifically want to focus on two other teams: Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ). The “three-peat”, as they say, is now complete. ETNZ has won five of the last nine regattas, and if you look back at it, at least three of the other teams that have won those regattas have also had an important Kiwi presence. I want to congratulate the team, the sponsors who stuck through it with ETNZ through many, many years, but especially to congratulate the boat designers, the team that designed the boats, designed Taihoro, led by a Briton—in this case, Dan Bernasconi—and the boat-building team led by Geoff Senior. Now, the America’s Cup is not just about athleticism, but it’s also very much about design and innovation. New Zealand, through the America’s Cup of the last few decades, has been very much a part of innovation in boat building and also how to present the sport on the TV and other screens.

While we celebrate the support and the sport and the creativity that’s involved here, let’s also remember we also need to back our creativity, our innovation, right across our country, right across our economic performance as well, because if we don’t do that, we’re never going to lift the productivity that we need to lift. If we want to box above our weight in sport, we also need to box at least to our weight in economic performance, because we can do much better there.

Now, I’d also like to say that most of these sports have had significant support from central or local government. And that in a way is why we can all say we’re proud of their performance.

I do want to finish with the Paddle Ferns. The Paddle Ferns, the women’s canoe polo team, the world champions who won the title, as we’ve heard, 6-1 over Italy. But they’ve had to do this the hard way. They’ve had to raise all their own money without local government or central government support. They’ve done their own fund-raising, getting individual sponsors. The parents have supported them as well, and so I think that they deserve a special congratulations. I know they’re a very close team. I know that at least in one round of that, they had to play through illness, and that was the one game that they lost against Germany in the final round of the pool play.

I also reflect that while New Zealand has won this title before, it was very much a different team. It was eight years ago in Poland. And so for most of the players who are there now—in fact, I think for all of the players who are there now—this is their first victory. I just want to particularly congratulate coach Andrew McFadzean and captain Kate Blincoe, a special shout-out to Georgia Wheeler, and the New Zealand Canoe Polo Association for all the work they’ve done—and, I understand, something like 30 parents and supporters, who were apparently the loudest group of supporters in the whole competition, who went to support them. I’d also like to say on behalf of the House, congratulations to the Paddle Ferns.

DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Kia ora e te Pīka. I’d like to make a short call on behalf of Te Pāti Māori and thank the Minister for Sport and Recreation for bringing this to the House. I think it’s really important that we start the week with something we all agree on.

First of all, I’d like to give huge congratulations to all the athletes involved, their excellence, the excellence and commitment of their w’ānau, the sacrifices and commitments of their wider sporting communities. Just to repeat the names, as we’ve heard today: the Auckland Football Club, who defeated Brisbane Roar by 2 to nil; Team New Zealand, who achieved their historic feat by defending the America’s Cup and becoming the first team to win the competition three times in a row on their waka Taihoro, which was rightly named and blessed by Ngāti W’atua; the Black Caps, which have made history by securing their best wins in nearly 95 years against India on Indian soil, as we’ve all heard—my understanding, the first time in 36 years; the Silver Ferns, who also beat world champions Australia; the Paddle Ferns; the White Ferns’ cricket win, which I understood was probably the real shocker for the weekend, defeating South Africa by 32 runs; Liam Lawson, Formula One, who finished 9th at the Texas Grand Prix; and Hayden Wilde, who I haven’t heard mentioned but also, in triathlon, he won the 2024 World Triathlon Elite Men Champion at the final held in Spain over the weekend.

It definitely shows what our nation is capable of, and a huge mihi to all of those who invest not only time but resources into our sporting fraternity. I unfortunately didn’t get to watch all of them, but I do want to do a little shout-out for our local Ngāti Ruanui sports festival, where there are at least eight disciplines and all the budding little athletes coming forward for some of the successful teams that we heard won in the weekend. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and especially our action to deliver modern, reliable infrastructure for New Zealand. I was absolutely thrilled on Monday to announce—alongside the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown—that work had started on our Government’s first road of national significance this week, which of course is the Hawke’s Bay Expressway. Roads of national significance have made a massive difference for local economies, whether that’s the Waikato Expressway or the Kāpiti Expressway, and now that’s coming to the Hawke’s Bay. The good news is that early works are starting now and that will bring forward the time of completion by 12 to 15 months, ensuring that the project is delivered faster so that Kiwis see the benefits sooner. It’s all part of our plan to rebuild the economy and get New Zealand back on track. And Mr Speaker, given the recent remarks, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the Thames Valley Swamp Foxes for their win in the Meads Cup on the weekend as well. Thank you. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: The House is just a little bit too rowdy.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why does a Minister in his Government calling somebody a “loser” for working late and telling him to “Take some wine and [eff] off” not warrant any formal sanction from him as Prime Minister?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I’ve said publicly, I was disappointed in the Minister’s conduct. It didn’t meet my standards; it didn’t meet the standards of what we expect from Ministers. But he has subsequently genuinely apologised, acknowledged the wrong, and assured me it won’t happen again.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is he confident that Andrew Bayly had not consumed any alcohol when he berated an export worker for the very fact that he was working, and, if not, will he commit to removing Mr Bayly’s ministerial warrant if it’s proven that he indeed was under the influence of alcohol when he behaved inappropriately?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Look, the Minister accepts that his behaviour was not acceptable and he accepts the overall account of the events. I understand the member has a fellow colleague who’s asking a direct question to the Minister and I’m sure he’ll give a fulsome answer to that question on notice.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That was not the question that I asked him. I asked him whether he was confident that Andrew Bayly had not consumed any alcohol and if it was proven that he had, whether he would remove his ministerial warrant.

SPEAKER: Well, if the question had been that precise it might have got a more precise answer, but Prime Minister might want to add to his answer.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I understand the Minister was not impacted by alcohol when he had the interaction with the individual in concern, but, again, the member has a colleague who’s asking a question of the Minister. I’m sure he’ll give a very fulsome account.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Had Andrew Bayly visited a brewery immediately prior to the business visit where he called a warehouse worker a “loser”, made ‘L’ signs on his forehead, and told him to “[eff] off and go home”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I’ve said, the Minister has accepted that his behaviour was unacceptable and fell short. He’s actually apologised to the person concerned. He’s apologised to me and reassured me it won’t happen again.

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

SPEAKER: Yeah—OK. I think—repeat the question.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Had Andrew Bayly visited a brewery immediately prior to the business visit where he called a warehouse worker a “loser”, made ‘L’ signs on his forehead, and told him to “[eff] off and go home”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m not aware of that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order. If you follow that question very carefully, it’s loaded with innuendo and it’s also confusing, because when he finished the question, you weren’t certain whether it was the first event he was talking about or the second one. A bit of straight common sense and logic would be very helpful for those of us trying to follow the question.

SPEAKER: Yeah—well, perhaps I’ve got a fuzzy logic, because I understood it quite clearly.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Did Andrew Bayly inform him that a formal complaint had been made about his conduct during an official ministerial visit when the complaint was received, or did he find out when the complainant distributed the complaint more widely?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: As I said, the Minister was—I’m notified that he’d caused insult and hurt to the person involved. He apologised immediately and thought the issue was resolved; clearly it wasn’t. The first I heard about it was on Thursday.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why didn’t Andrew Bayly apologise directly to the worker who made the complaint until the complainant raised the issue with the Prime Minister; instead, including his initial apology in a letter to the worker’s employer, thanking them for his visit?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, in that letter, when it was brought to his attention, he passed on his sincere apologies to the worker. He’s also subsequently sent a letter directly to the individual concerned, offering to meet either by telephone or in person. That of course is up to the complainant to determine whether they wish to accept that offer or not. What’s important for me is that he’s acknowledged that he got it very wrong. He’s apologised both to me and to the complainant, and, importantly, he’s given me assurances it will not happen again.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How can he have confidence in Andrew Bayly if he hasn’t even asked him basic questions about exactly what happened that led to a warehouse worker feeling “degraded, embarrassed, and deeply disrespected in front of my colleagues”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as the Minister has said, and as I have said, he has acknowledged the hurt and insult that he has caused. His remarks were wrong and that’s what we have talked about and we’ve gone through that account on Friday. He has apologised and he’s assured us it won’t happen again.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?

[Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?]

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes, and especially our action to unleash renewable energy through fast track. We know that New Zealand needs more renewable energy to unleash growth, to keep electricity prices down, and to ensure that we achieve our emissions targets. That’s why it’s so exciting—very exciting—that the fast-track bill includes 22 renewable energy projects enabling 3 gigawatts of generation, or about 30 percent of current capacity, for New Zealand’s grid. Those projects include seven wind farms, 10 solar farms, and five hydro schemes. The Greens say they care about climate change. We’ve heard the talk, now it’s time to walk the walk. Support the fast-track bill.

Chlöe Swarbrick: What, in the Prime Minister’s opinion, is the difference between running a company and a country?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: They’re completely different things.

Chlöe Swarbrick: What, in the Prime Minister’s opinion, is the benefit for everyday New Zealanders having public ownership of things like hospitals and schools and roads and public transport, infrastructure, and a bank?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Everyday New Zealanders expect us to be able to deliver an economy that’s raising their incomes, and we are doing exactly that. They expect us to restore law and order and they also expect us to deliver better public services, particularly in health and education.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Are the Government’s choices to under-fund critical infrastructure like our hospitals, our schools, and our ferries essentially just setting them up to fail to pave the way for an eventual sell-off of these crucial assets that we all own?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: The member is in a very dark and conspiratorial mood today. I just say, we have no plans to do any asset sales.

Hon David Seymour: Has the Prime Minister seen any evidence of conspiracy theories being spread in New Zealand, and, if so, what is the Government doing to dispel them?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, our Government’s very focused on what New Zealanders want us to be focused on, which is rebuilding the economy, restoring law and order, and delivering better health and education.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Prime Minister as to whether he thinks it’d be in any way principled to sell a ferry that you haven’t bought yet?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we are working very hard to make sure that we get a critical piece of national infrastructure on the strait so that we can actually keep our cargo and people moving across this great country.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Is the Prime Minister today committing to not selling off or partially privatising at all any of our State-owned assets, and, if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, that is not on our agenda. What we are focused on is our quarterly action plans. We take delivery and execution very seriously, on this side of the House. It’s a coalition Government that’s getting on with the task at hand and that’s what we’re working our way through.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Will the Prime Minister commit to not selling off any current public assets?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Again, that is not part of our plan. Our plan is to focus on our quarter four action plan. We’re working our way through it exactly so that we deliver for New Zealanders.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on Government finances?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Earlier this month, Treasury released the financial statements of the Government for the year ending 30 June 2024. These showed that in 2023-24, core Crown expenses were $139 billion. That is a big number. It means core Crown expenses are 73 percent higher than they were just six years earlier. This increase in expenses is far greater than the increase in revenue over the same period. The financial statements show core Crown revenue of $133 billion in 2023-24, an increase of 54 percent.

Stuart Smith: What does this mean for the operating balances?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Core Crown expenses were $139 billion, and revenue was $133 billion. This means there was a core Crown operating deficit before gains and losses of $5.8 billion. The Government’s headline operating balance indicator—the OBEGAL—is, however, a total Crown measure, which means it also includes revenue and expenses from Crown entities and State-owned enterprises. In 2023-24, Crown entities collectively made an operating deficit that was larger than the core Crown, at $6 billion before gains and losses. In terms of sectors, this was the biggest contribution to a total Crown operating balance before gains and losses (OBEGAL) of $12.9 billion.

Stuart Smith: What is behind the operating deficit from Crown entities?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: ACC is the biggest contributor by far. In 2023-24, its deficit before gains and losses was $4.1 billion. ACC is, essentially, self-funding, in that it funds its activities over the long term through levies. Given the size of its liabilities, however, its expenses can move around quite considerably—for example, when interest rate assumptions change—and this has a direct impact on the OBEGAL. Its deficit in 2023-24 was around a third of the total OBEGAL deficit.

Stuart Smith: What other decisions affected the OBEGAL deficit in 2023-24?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Budget 2023, which the previous Government delivered, had a significant impact on the 2023-24 OBEGAL deficit. Budget 2023 was a big-spending affair. The decisions announced in that Budget were expected to have an operating impact of $5.6 billion in 2023-24. Thankfully, the coalition Government made changes that pulled some of this back. Decisions made as part of the mini-Budget and Budget 2024 delivered operating savings of $1.1billion. The OBEGAL in 2023-24 was, therefore, $1.1 billion better than it otherwise would have been, thanks to this Government.

Stuart Smith: What is the Government’s objective for the operating balance?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The OBEGAL has been in deficit for five years straight. It needs to be in surplus. We recognise this will take time. The Government set out its intention in the fiscal strategy report to return to an OBEGAL surplus in 2027-28 by having very tight operating allowances over the next few years. The Budget update forecasts this to occur, although we know it is not a given and that many factors affecting this balance are outside the Government’s direct control. As Treasury noted in the Budget update, history suggests there is a 30 percent chance that tax revenue will be more than $11 billion higher or lower than what was forecast for 2027-28. The next economic and fiscal update will be the half-year update on 17 December.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by her statement that “The Government will continue to take swift action to rebuild the economy in the interests of all New Zealanders”; if so, why, after 315 days, has there been no decision announced on the Cook Strait ferries?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Yes, I do stand by that statement and I’m proud of the steps this Government has taken to rebuild the economy—in particular, our careful management of Government spending, which has helped take pressure off inflation. With regards to the second part of the question, Ministers are focused on getting the right solution for a safe, reliable, and resilient Cook Strait ferry service. An announcement will be made when Cabinet has made a decision.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Will she take responsibility for the loss of more than 50 jobs as a direct result of her decision to cancel the new ferries in 2023?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: As the member knows, State-owned enterprises make operational decisions independent of the Government. The Government’s decision was to not provide additional funding for the Project iReX. Operational decisions thereafter are the responsibility of the State-owned enterprise.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: When she convinced her ministerial colleagues to cut off the funding for the ferries, did she tell them it would add half a billion dollars to the deficit?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I’m not sure the basis of the number that the member has referred to.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Will she take responsibility for the economy declining, with the number of people on a benefit a new record of 391,224 people, or 12 percent of the working-age population, for the September quarter?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, as we have traversed in this House, we have inherited an economy that is very damaged and we are rebuilding it. After 12 interest rate increases under the last Government, we have seen a 75 basis-point reduction, we have seen inflation return—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s enough.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: —to the target band, and we have delivered tax relief to 3.5 million working New Zealanders. I stand by that record.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Will she take responsibility for the economy declining under her watch when liquidations are up 19 percent year on year?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: It is, I think, a stretch for me to take responsibility for six years of a Labour Government that cranked up Government spending to irresponsible levels, driving up inflation, causing the Reserve Bank to have to crank up interest rates to levels which have had a very damaging effect on the economy. We’re here now; we’re cleaning up the mess. Our plan is working.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: When will she take responsibility for the economy declining, when liquidations are up; unemployment is up; rents, rates, and insurance premiums are up; and there is a record net migration of Kiwis moving overseas?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I have taken responsibility for the actions that we said we would take to respond to a highly damaged and troubled economy. We said that what we would do is bring discipline back to Government spending, to take pressure off inflation. That’s what we did—inflation is now back in band. We said that in doing that, we would allow interest rates to fall, bringing relief for mortgage holders and business owners. That has been delivered—75 basis points down after 12 increases on their watch. We said we would deliver tax relief; we have. We’re getting on with the job.

Hon Chris Bishop: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Just before we go any further, that type of constant—constant—barrage across the House during the answers to questions really raises the question as to why we bother with question time. Now, it might be interesting for some people to, you know, bellow out their particular opinion on something, but they haven’t been asked the question and so should keep their interjections to rare and reasonable, and not the sort of barrage that we’ve just seen.

Hon Chris Bishop: Point of order. Mr Speaker, I wanted to wait until the end of the exchange because I didn’t want to interrupt the flow and it was quite enjoyable, actually, but the last three supplementary questions from the Opposition member there bore no resemblance to the primary question, which was about the length of time in relation to the Cook Strait ferries. So I would just encourage you to reflect on questions that don’t flow from what’s actually been asked and put down on notice.

SPEAKER: Well, with all due respect, the question does talk about swift action to rebuild the New Zealand economy. That is a very broad opportunity to ask questions, and, in the end, the Minister answered them.

Question No. 5—Transport

5. KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) to the Minister of Transport: What recent announcements has he made on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway Road of National Significance?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Yesterday, the Prime Minister and I announced that work has kicked off on our Government’s first new road of national significance, the Hawke’s Bay Expressway. In March, we announced the Hawke’s Bay Expressway as a new road of national significance. In July, we confirmed this project would be prioritised as one of our first seven new projects. Yesterday, early works kicked off on this critical project. Four-laning the Hawke’s Bay Expressway will unleash national and regional economic growth, reduce travel times, and improve safety, as our Government continues to move at pace to deliver infrastructure that enables Kiwis and freight to get where they need to go quickly and safely.

Katie Nimon: Why is the Government prioritising the Hawke’s Bay Expressway as a road of national significance?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the Hawke’s Bay Expressway carries 29,000 vehicles a day and links freight to one of New Zealand largest ports. The region’s growing population and economy means that the central section of this road is reaching capacity at peak times, and, as a result, motorists are often crawling in congestion. Four-laning the Hawke’s Bay Expressway as a road of national significance will enable motorists and freight to get where they need to go quickly and safely.

Catherine Wedd: What do these works mean for the great people of Hawke’s Bay?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, starting works on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway yesterday brings great news for the people of Hawke’s Bay. Starting early works now allows the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to maximise the 2025-26 construction season and bring forward the construction of this critical four-lane road of national significance by 12 to 15 months. NZTA is prioritising the Taradale Road to Pakowhai Road section of the Hawke’s Bay Expressway as it is the most congested part of the road and will reduce congestion and travel times for motorists and freight travelling through the Bay.

Catherine Wedd: Why is the Government moving at pace to build a new generation of roads of national significance?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, New Zealand has an infrastructure deficit and our Government is taking action to fix it. Kiwis voted for a Government that would get on and build the infrastructure that our country needs, and that is exactly what we’re doing: getting out there and getting things done. The roads of national significance are some of our country’s best highways. Kicking off work on our first new road of national significance within a year of becoming Government showcases our commitment to continue this track record and deliver for New Zealanders.

Question No. 6—Small Business and Manufacturing

6. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) to the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing: Does he stand by his statement, “obviously, people have different perceptions about what went on but I don’t want to get into who said what”; if so, what is his account of what happened between him and the worker on 3 October 2024 for which he has apologised?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): I accept the overall account of what happened between myself and the individual. I was certainly not drunk and I do not believe I swore. Regardless, I accept that I was wrong and that my actions caused hurt and offence, and that is why I’ve unreservedly apologised to the individual.

Arena Williams: Is he saying that he did not tell the worker to eff off?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: I do not believe I said that.

Arena Williams: Did he call the worker a loser?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Yes. I was wrong, but I intended the comments in a light-hearted manner; unfortunately, it has caused hurt and offence, and for that reason I’ve apologised unreservedly to the individual.

Arena Williams: Did he hold up the shape of an “L” on his forehead?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Again, yes, I did; but again, it was in the spirit of comments made in a light-hearted manner, and that is why I have apologised unreservedly to the individual.

Arena Williams: Will the Minister be clear with the House what part of the complaint he disputes?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: I’ve mentioned before that I do not believe that I swore at the individual, and also that I was not drunk.

Arena Williams: So had he had any alcohol at the beer garden or the winery he visited that day?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: No.

Arena Williams: Is he saying that he visited a beer garden and a winery, but the person fudging the truth about his drinking is the worker?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: They are unrelated. You asked me whether I had alcohol and I said no.

Question No. 7—Justice

GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie): E te Māngai o te Whare. To the Minister of Justice: What actions is the Government taking—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just hold on. No, just wait on. Wait—just wait.

7. GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie) to the Minister of Justice: What actions is the Government taking to ensure criminals face stronger consequences for crime?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): The Government is taking a range of actions to put more serious offenders in prison for longer and to prevent them from creating new victims. Fewer prison sentences have been imposed in recent years, and at the same time the prevalence of serious violent crime and sexual crimes has increased—which is why we are progressing a range of initiatives, including reforming the sentencing regime to impose tougher consequences for those who commit serious crimes.

Greg Fleming: How will reforming the Sentencing Act ensure that criminals face stronger consequences for crime?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill delivers on a range of coalition commitments and has three core objectives: to make sure that the punishment fits the crime, to strengthen the principle of personal responsibility for offending, and to better recognise victims by putting them at the heart of the justice system. It caps sentence discounts, prevents repeat discounts for youth and remorse, and introduces a bundle of new aggravating factors and a range of other initiatives.

Greg Fleming: Does the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill go far enough to restore real consequences for crime?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: We believe so—[Interruption] We believe so. However, the Government will be taking into consideration public submissions on the bill, which close next week. Following feedback, we will assess whether the reform does indeed go far enough. We know that in the year ending June 2024, more than 200,000 people have been victims of crime. No one should accept that as normal. If greater measures are required to restore confidence in our justice system, then the Government will consider such options. I encourage all to have their say at the select committee before next Tuesday.

Greg Fleming: What other actions is the Government taking to strengthen the sentencing regime?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: As per the coalition agreement between National and ACT, the Government is reinstating three strikes and has agreed to recommend modifications that will strengthen the regime. This work has been led by my excellent colleague Minister McKee, and is an important tool to reduce the number of victims of serious violence and sexual offending. It is clear that a very small number of prolific offenders create many, many victims. Three strikes will stop them—for longer—from adding more victims to their list.

Question No. 8—Immigration

8. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister of Immigration: What changes, if any, is the Government making to visa settings to support exploited migrants in response to the fourfold increase in migrant exploitation complaints over the last financial year?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Immigration): Migrant exploitation is utterly unacceptable, and the most important thing the Government can do to prevent exploitation is to limit the opportunity for it to occur. That’s why in April, in response to the Bestwick review and the surge in complaints, this Government made immediate changes to reduce the opportunity for unscrupulous actors to exploit migrants. This included introducing minimum English requirements and the relevant experience requirements for low-skilled roles. I also announced further changes last week to ensure migrants are not placed at further risk of exploitation by allowing them to remain in New Zealand for an extended period of time without employment.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does the Minister agree with the comments of the National Party immigration spokesperson, Erica Stanford, who told Radio New Zealand, one month before the election, that a National Government would give a three-year open work visa to exploited migrants; and, if so, why has she halved the amount of time someone can hold a migrant exploitation protection visa to just six months?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Well, now that I have a number of officials to advise me on the risks that are posed to migrants who are here on an open work visa, which is what we’re seeing now—numbers of people being exploited when they are not working for an accredited employer, those principal applicants—the advice given to me was to make sure that we are limiting the amount of time given for a migrant to be in the country without a job. I would note that six months is a reasonable amount of time for someone to look for work and gain meaningful employment with an accredited employer.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she agree with the unanimous recommendations that the migrant exploitation inquiry carried out last term, which received advice from immigration officials—and National MP Erica Stanford participating in—advising the Government at the time that the migrant exploitation protection visa should be extended beyond just six months?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: The advice that I’ve been given since I’ve become the Minister is that the migrant exploitation visa period of 12 months is too long to leave a migrant without work, especially without work for an accredited employer where we have oversight. They are in a difficult position. That leaves them open for more exploitation, and the moves that we’ve made in the last week are to make sure that there is an acceptable and reasonable period of time for them to find employment, and if they do not have the skills and experience to find employment after six months, then it’s time to leave New Zealand.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could the Minister confirm as to whether it’s a fact that the greatest percentage of migrant exploitation is being exploited by their own and that is the recent history of this country, sadly?

SPEAKER: The Minister can attempt to answer, but it’s not strictly her responsibility.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Yeah, the advice that I’ve had is that migrant exploitation is undertaken by many people or many businesses in New Zealand. The most important thing that we can do is to make sure that we’re limiting the time to a reasonable amount of time that someone can spend in the country on an open work visa, thereby limiting the amount of time that whoever is doing the exploiting is able to do that.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Why does the Minister blame the massive increase in exploitation claims on visa settings incentivising offshore agents to offer fake jobs, when her own Cabinet paper acknowledges that would only be 150 people compared to the 3,925 migrant exploitation claims?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: If I understand the question correctly, there are a number of reasons why migrants get exploited. Some of them are because they are exploited by an offshore agent who is selling them a fake job. Some of them are exploited here by people in New Zealand who run businesses. The point of this visa change is to make sure that both of those problems are solved by making sure that the people who are here are working for an accredited employer—which means we have oversight—and that they’re not here for an extended period of time being able to be exploited. It also means that there isn’t a long period of time to be on an open work visa, which gives overseas agents more of a tool to sell exploitation because of an extended period of an open work visa.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Did she talk to any exploited migrants, unions, workers’ rights advocates to substantiate those comments, or is she making those statements based off vibes and without information from the ground?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: My officials undertake communications with a range of different peak bodies and migrants. I also have a peak body that I speak to who give me information about the levels and rates that people are being exploited, and I take that advice on board when I’m making changes, and I did in this case.

Question No. 9—Prime Minister

9. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is he doing to address the staff physical bullying, staff smuggling drugs, sexual advance of youth offenders at Korowai Manaaki, as reported by Mana Mokopuna to the Government July 2024?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, the Minister’s taking very seriously the need to improve safeguarding and protection of young people at Oranga Tamariki. As you’d be aware, the Mike Bush review identified nine areas of focus, and there’s 40 actions. She’s been working her way through that. What happened over the last 24 hours was incredibly unfortunate, but what I’d say is, you know, we’ve had one rooftop incident this year; we’ve had 15 in 2023. So it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the Minister’s working hard through the action plan.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is he doing to stop the staff-initiated fighting amongst the offenders, as reported to the Government by Mana Mokopuna July 2024?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I just said, the Mike Bush independent review came forward with a series of 40 actions. I think about seven have already been completed, a number already pending and in progress, and the Minister’s working her way through that with her team.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is he doing to ensure youth advocates have access to the youth offenders, as reported to the Government by Mana Mokopuna in July 2024?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I said, there are nine focus areas, and there’s 40 actions. The Minister is taking each of those 40 actions coming out of that independent review very seriously. If the member has specific questions, I’d encourage her to address those questions to the Minister.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How does he justify the 133 percent increase in benefit sanctions over the last year when unemployment is the highest it has been in three years as a direct result of this Government cutting 7,000 public sector jobs?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’m actually proud that we’re actually enforcing rights and responsibilities in this country. What we’re making sure is that there will be sanctions on benefits for people who do not uphold their basic obligations to this country and to each other. The system works in a way where if you are needing help—and we all want to support people with a welfare net and safety net, but, actually, that means that you need to meet your obligations: have a résumé, meet with your case manager, show up for interviews. Not complicated—reasonable expectation.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What happens to the tamariki of the 1,029 beneficiaries with dependent children who have had their benefits cut in the last year?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as you’ll be well aware, we have a traffic light system that gives good communication. Most of our beneficiaries are working incredibly hard meeting their obligations and are in green and fully compliant, others are amber, and others are red. But we make no bones about it. It’s a very simple task. If you’re going to receive a benefit, which is funding from your fellow New Zealanders through the tax system, you need to be able to make sure you meet some very basic obligations: have a résumé, show up for an interview, and meet your case manager. It’s not difficult.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Is this Government upholding its Treaty obligations by removing Treaty provisions from 28 separate pieces of legislation?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: This Government is determined to do well for Māori. As we have talked about in this House before, it is utterly unacceptable that only 12 percent of Māori are ready to go to high school with their maths knowledge. We are determined to improve outcomes for all New Zealanders, Māori or non-Māori.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Will he front up to the hīkoi for Te Tiriti when it arrives at Parliament from Te Rerenga Wairua on 19 November?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m not sure what my schedule will be at that time; I have a funny feeling I might be overseas, but the point would be, very clearly, people are free to protest as long as it’s done legally and peacefully.

Question No. 10—Education

10. Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her statement that “We know it will take time to increase attendance rates but this government expects kids to be in school”; if so, how does she reconcile this with the closing of school bus routes across the country?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): To the first part, yes; to the second, bus route reviews are required to ensure eligible students can access school transport assistance, and the ministry comply with their statutory obligation under the Public Finance Act to ensure funding is spent appropriately. I’m advised that in September 2022, the ministry proposed a review of 950 bus routes to the then Minister to address a “significant number” of routes that were operating outside of policy settings and the appropriation. The Minister declined and paused proactive reviews for 18 months, coinciding with the election year. There is now a huge backlog of reviews to be undertaken, and the failure to do so will result in unauthorised expenditure. Reviews will ensure that eligible students can get to school.

Hon Jan Tinetti: In what way, if any, will closing school bus routes increase attendance rates?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Unlike the last Government, it is important that we are acting within the appropriation that we have legally, according to the Public Finance Act, which means that we have to do reviews of school bus routes. That is up to the ministry; it is something that they have to do. Luckily for the public of New Zealand, we also have a Government who aren’t prepared to just kick the can down the road. I have instructed my officials earlier in the year to investigate opportunities to improve the efficiency and accessibility and flexibility of school transport delivery, and they’ve been working on this since February.

Hon Jan Tinetti: How does she reconcile her expectation that kids should be in school with her decision to let bus routes close?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I haven’t made any decisions to close bus routes. As the previous Minister well knows, that is an operational matter for the ministry to make sure they’re operating within their appropriation. I have been advised by the ministry that they are quite sure that they are acting, well, not within their appropriation, which means that they are in breach of the Public Finance Act. That means that it is their legal obligation to make sure that they are doing these reviews. However, unlike the previous Government, we are proactively looking at what opportunities exist for us to have a more efficient, flexible, and accessible transport option for students. We are working on that at pace, and I will have more to say in the coming months.

Hon Jan Tinetti: What does she say to the Hawke’s Bay mother who, due to the cancellation of her local bus route near Kaiwaka, says that she has no other option but to allow her son to commit truancy?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I would say to that mother that it’s unfortunate that the previous Government didn’t look at the policy settings and acted outside the appropriation. It would have been far better if the previous Government, in the last six years, had looked at the policy settings and worked out whether or not we could have a more flexible and appropriate policy. Unfortunately, they didn’t do that. We have a tsunami now of bus routes that legally need to be looked at, which is what the ministry is doing. But we are working at pace on new policy, unlike the last lot.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: With respect to the last question, was that information from the Hawke’s Bay mother referring to Kaiwaka referred on to the Minister so she could answer it direct—and it would sort out the geography for a start?

SPEAKER: Well, at least part of that question can be answered.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I’m not sure if it was forwarded on to me, but I can have a look and get back to the member.

Hon Jan Tinetti: Does she agree with Federated Farmers, who said, “Cutting these routes would hollow out our rural communities, which would be devastating.”, and, if not, why not?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Well, I’m excited to say that Federated Farmers have met with the Ministry of Education transport division. The two of them have had a very informative discussion and have actually agreed on a way forward, and we’re looking forward to working with them on options for the future to make sure that those local people, with their students, do have access to flexible and efficient bus routes.

Hon Simeon Brown: Can the Minister confirm that between September 2017 and October 2023, there were bus routes that were stopped as they didn’t meet the eligibility criteria?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I can confirm that that happened under the previous Government. The unfortunate part was that they didn’t then look at the policy overall—

Hon Jan Tinetti: Was it 250 routes? Because that’s what we’re talking about.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Oh, the member says, “Was it 250?” The reason it’s 250 is because the previous Government decided over an election period to just pause for 18 months, leaving us with a tsunami of routes that legally need to be reviewed, otherwise we’re acting outside of our appropriation. The previous Government might like to work outside appropriations, but, actually, we like to follow the law.

SPEAKER: I’m sure that the excitement in the Government benches is because they’ve all just learnt something new, but it doesn’t help the Minister in answering a question when there is more noise coming from behind the Minister than the Minister’s voice itself. I’ll just send a bit of a warning that this has got to stop.

Question No. 11—Agriculture

11. SUZE REDMAYNE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Agriculture: What actions is the Government taking to support the primary sector?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Associate Minister of Agriculture): on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture: This week, the Government is progressing the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill through the House. This underscores our commitment to slash the tangle of red tape throttling some of New Zealand’s key sectors, including farming, mining, and the primary industries. When we came into Government, we recognised the urgency of making—

SPEAKER: Just stop—stop. We’re going to hear the rest of it in silence. It’s getting out of control. Finish your answer.

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: We recognised the urgency of making these changes and didn’t waste any time getting them into the House. Amongst other things, the bill will exclude the hierarchy of obligations in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management from resource consenting, repeal contentious low slope map and associated requirements from stock exclusion regulations, as well as speeding up and simplifying the process for preparing and amending national direction. These changes will reduce the regulatory burden that’s been holding back our rural sector and imposing unnecessary cost on farms and on our world-leading farmers. There is a lot more work to do, of course, but these changes are an important first step in our commitment to get Wellington out of farming.

SPEAKER: Good. OK. We’ll have a bit of a focus on brevity and conciseness in answers.

Suze Redmayne: Does the bill address uncertainty around discharge consenting?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: On behalf of the Minister, yes. Clarifications to discharge consenting provisions in this bill will provide certainty for agricultural and horticultural producers, making sure councils continue to manage discharge consents in a practical way. Recent High Court decisions on sections 70 and 107 threatened to make the law unworkable by reducing councils’ abilities to manage discharge from a range of activities. Without clarifying the law, these decisions may restrict councils’ abilities to issue or reissue consent for discharge from activities by industry, farming, meat processing, as well as waste-water discharges.

Suze Redmayne: What steps have been taken to give certainty to farmers on the national roll-out of freshwater farm plans?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: On behalf of the Minister, the Government is restoring confidence to the rural sector by pausing the roll-out of freshwater farm plans while changes are made to ensure the system is affordable and more practical for farmers and growers. We intend to table an Amendment Paper to the bill to pause the roll-out of freshwater farm plans in the regions where they have taken effect. Thousands of farmers around the country have been facing a ticking clock to get plans drawn up and certified, and this will provide certainty for them.

Hon David Parker: Point of order. The Minister’s just said that there are some intended tabled amendments coming today that we haven’t yet seen.

Hon Chris Bishop: They’ve been tabled.

Hon David Parker: Well, I’ve not yet seen them, sir—

SPEAKER: Please don’t interrupt a point of order.

Hon David Parker: —and I want to inquire whether there has been any ruling inquired as to—

SPEAKER: Just start your point of order again. That interruption was not acceptable.

Hon David Parker: Sir, in respect of these amendments that there were press releases about today, I accept the word of the Leader of the House that he says they’re now tabled, but we haven’t had the chance to see them yet. My question is whether there has been any inquiry of the Clerk’s Office as to whether they fall within the scope of the bill.

Hon Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order, the Amendment Paper was tabled this morning and the Opposition must have a copy of it, because the Hon Rachel Brooking has tweeted a photo of the Amendment Paper.

Hon David Parker: My question is—

SPEAKER: Just a minute—everyone’s got to be quiet.

Hon David Parker: —whether there has been—

SPEAKER: Sorry, no, would you wait a minute. OK.

Hon David Parker: Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question was—I think there are some serious scope issues here—whether there has been yet a ruling as to scope from the Clerk. If there hasn’t been, that’s a matter for debate. I’m just interested as to whether there has been a scope inquiry of these serious amendments.

SPEAKER: Well, if they’re tabled, I’d assume that they have been ruled as within scope of the bill. Is there another question?

Suze Redmayne: What steps have been taken—

Hon David Parker: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I have—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: No, just let me—for goodness’ sake! The Hon David Parker.

Hon David Parker: I have tabled many amendments, sir, without having advice from the Clerk as to whether they are within scope. So I’m not sure—

SPEAKER: All right. I’m not “Father Confessor” here. Sorry about your past.

Hon David Parker: No, sir. With respect, the fact that something has been tabled doesn’t mean to say that it has been checked as to scope.

SPEAKER: That’s right. But I said that that was my assumption, and I’ll certainly check it. I can’t do that from this position right now. Does the member have another question?

Suze Redmayne: Yes, thank you, Mr Speaker. What steps have been taken to give certainty to farmers and ratepayers on freshwater plans?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: On behalf of the Minister, this afternoon the Government has announced that we will also be tabling an amendment to the bill, which will restrict councils’ ability to notify freshwater plans before the gazetting of the replacement National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. The last Government’s national policy statement is extremely complex and expensive for farmers and councils to implement and, despite that, will not deliver improved freshwater outcomes. That’s why this Government is committed to reviewing and replacing it next year. We’re making this change to the law because ratepayers and farmers need certainty, and they don’t deserve to have their money wasted. Councils will still have an avenue to progress their freshwater plans in some circumstances, but we want to draw a line under the last Government’s failed attempt once and for all.

SPEAKER: Good, excellent—question No. 12.

Question No. 12—Justice

12. MARK CAMERON (ACT) to the Associate Minister of Justice: What announcement has she made about strengthening the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill?

Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice): I have recently announced proposals to strengthen the three-strikes law that this Government is reinstating. I’ve heard from many New Zealanders who want the Government to do more to hold the worst violent and sexual offenders accountable. I’m proposing that criminals who previously received strikes under the old three-strikes law will have those strikes recognised under the new three-strikes law if they meet the same eligibility criteria. I am also proposing adjustments to the qualifying sentence threshold to ensure serious offenders are captured earlier in their offending.

Mark Cameron: How would these proposals ensure that repeat violent and sexual offenders are held accountable for their past actions?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: My proposal to carry forward eligible strikes, accumulated under the previous three-strikes law, into the new regime makes it clear that offenders will face consequences for their past actions and they will not be able to continue harming communities under this Government. This proposal will mean that if criminals who offended under the last three-strikes law continue to offend, they will gradually receive longer prison sentences and be locked away from law-abiding New Zealanders for longer too.

Mark Cameron: Why has she proposed changes to the qualifying sentence threshold for offenders receiving their first strike?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I am proposing to lower the qualifying sentence threshold to 12 months for first-strike offences. This will mean that more offenders will receive a first-strike warning earlier. It will send a clear message to those criminals that further offending will result in longer prison sentences.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Why did she decide to subvert parliamentary process and announce these changes before the Justice Committee has reported back and on the basis of private emails to her office, rather than taking into account the overwhelming majority of public submissions to the select committee which opposed the failed three-strikes regime?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I don’t want to pre-empt the select committee’s report, but publicly available submissions show an overwhelming majority of support for what the Government is trying to achieve here. I’ve heard loud and clear the call to go even further to restore law and order, and that’s what these proposals to strengthen the three-strikes regime will do.

Mark Cameron: Has she proposed any modifications to the “manifestly unjust” provisions contained within the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: No, the “manifestly unjust” provision remains intact, ensuring that there is judicial discretion that can be applied when needed. This provision allows for flexibility in cases where applying a strike might produce manifestly unjust outcomes. It will ensure that only the most serious violent and sexual offending will be captured by the three-strikes regime.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: No, the question allocation has been used up. That brings oral questions to a close.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill and the Contracts of Insurance Bill.

HOUSE IN COMMITTEE

HOUSE IN COMMITTEE

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the House is in committee on the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill and the Contracts of Insurance Bill.

Bills

Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Resource Management Act 1991

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): We come first to the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. We come now to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 4 to 7, “Amendments to Resource Management Act 1991”—sorry, 4 to 27—and Schedule 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part. Could the members move away from the Table?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for clarifying just now that Part 1 is from clause 4 to clause 27. Now, why this is important—and this includes Schedule 1 as well in Part 1; Part 2 is Schedule 2 and some smaller clauses—is that we’ve had a number of Amendment Papers lodged this morning from the Minister the Hon Chris Bishop, and they are very significant changes and they will be in this Part 1 debate along with Schedule 1. I think it’s most important to start with this—with my contribution now—but I do want to then work through all of the clauses.

This bill does a number of things. Most of what it does is in relation to a whole number of resource management secondary legislation, so national policy statements and also regulations. That is why the bill works in its way. We just heard a different Minister in question time outline some of the different things that it does, and one of those things is to do with the national policy for freshwater management. We see that straight up at clause 4, “Interpretation”, but I don’t want to talk on that yet, because what I want to start my contribution about is the outrageous process that we have seen on this bill both this morning and, I guess, two weeks ago when the Primary Production Committee report came out.

This is quite a technical bill and, as I said, it changes secondary legislation and also changes how future secondary legislation is made. Those are the main amendments to the actual Act itself—the Resource Management Act—and they were what was consulted on in a shortened time frame and what most submitters submitted on. However, some submitters opened up the process and wanted to talk about discharge consents and an inability sometimes to get them because of some High Court action or some court action.

What Ministers must have done is speak to the Government members in the Primary Production Committee, which then recommended some changes to section 107 of the Resource Management Act. It’s very important to note—and I’ll talk about them more substantively later—that those changes to section 107 regarding discharge consents were not in the bill as it was introduced, and most people did not make submissions on them. Importantly, some organisations were allowed to make submissions on them and other organisations such as Forest & Bird—who have written to the Speaker to complain about this issue—were not allowed to submit on this issue that wasn’t in the bill when it was introduced, presumably because the chair thought it was out of scope. It is out of scope, yet somehow it’s in this bill as reported back today.

Then—that is not all—this morning we have two more amendments from the Government; from the Minister, Chris Bishop. One of them seems to be specifically directed at the Otago Regional Council that is planning to meet tomorrow to notify its freshwater plan. This amendment is to say, “No, no, Otago Regional Council”—democratically elected council that has been working on this for a long, long time—“you cannot notify that plan tomorrow.”

Scott Willis: Shameless!

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: This is shameful and I know many members will have more to say on that. I’m just introducing, at the moment, these terrible changes.

Then we heard as well, in the question just before, about another amendment that is to do with farm plans and pausing those farm plans. We have not had time to go through what that means; we haven’t had submissions on the importance of the changes to section 107. It is a disgrace and I will leave it there for this contribution before going through the issues more systematically, but I invite the Minister to try and explain why this urgency is needed.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): If I may, I would just like to pick up and extrapolate on the introductory comments from my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking, to provide those who are watching this with some context. There is indeed scheduled to be a large public meeting in Otago, which would have been at the Otago Regional Council offices normally but has moved to a public venue that is much bigger—the Hutton Theatre—so that people can watch the vote take place on this amendment that my colleague referred to, just tabled today with no input on the Primary Production Committee.

There is a huge deal of public interest in the Otago region, and what we are contending is not only anti-democratic because submitters have not had an opportunity to look at the amendment and to submit on it, but the actions of the Government to intervene in a matter of local democracy with a locally elected council is a gross overreach. It is no surprise to me to see that in another council, the Wellington council, we have similarly seen perceptions or a kind of manufactured story of chaos that doesn’t meet any kind of threshold where there is an overreach by the executive.

For context, the councillors who were democratically elected have been looking at this issue not only this term but for many, many years, and have done extensive consultation on the freshwater plan to the tune of 18 million ratepayer dollars. There is a seven-to-five split in the council in favour of notifying, based on the public submissions and the democratic process that has been followed. I have said to the Minister publicly in the newspaper many times: I think that she needs to stay in her lane because the ramifications of overreaching every time there is a disagreement with a democratically elected local council are huge for our institutions of democracy.

Now, some more context is that earlier this month I submitted a number of Official Information Act requests and a number of the equivalent requests, Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests (LGOIMAs), to the Otago Regional Council. When it transpired that the councillors received these, some of those who may have been the subject of having to declare that they had direct communications into Government Ministers unilaterally then informed the Otago Daily Times and said: yes, they had actually written to the Minister to ask her to intervene.

My perception is that would not have been transparent had it not been for the actions that I took. My instinct all along has been that this Government would continue to apply pressure, continue to use tactics via the minority on the Otago Regional Council, and, if it didn’t get its way, would overreach—which is what we are seeing today. The tactics I refer to are special meetings being called and urgent resolutions to vote on the notification—by the minority group who don’t want to notify—knowing that they would lose the vote but trying to create some kind of drama that Government Ministers could then allude to as chaotic or as shambolic. In fact, there were Ministers of the Government quoted on the radio referring to the council as a rogue council.

I’m providing you this context, Mr Chair, because we have not had a chance to hear this in the Primary Production Committee. This amendment has just been dropped after the select committee process, and I think it’s really important for people who are watching the debate to understand the context and to understand that this specific amendment may have ramifications for other councils but is specifically engineered to take that vote away from the council tomorrow and to legislate over the council so that the Government can get its way.

Now, that is not transparent. It shows there has been an agenda. I believe that Ministers have been in cahoots with the minority group of councillors. I’m really looking forward to seeing, in the fullness of time, the results of my Official Information Act and LGOIMA requests based on evidence and information that I have from many sources around the region which would suggest that there is a very cozy and inappropriate relationship. I’m going to end my contribution there and seek a call for the Hon Rachel Brooking to continue, but I just thought that was really important.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): If the member wants to continue a call, then call.

INGRID LEARY: Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Ingrid Leary.

INGRID LEARY: I would like to yield to the Hon David Parker, if I may.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I want to ask the Minister whether she continues to assert that the hierarchy—well, I’ll go back a step. Under the iteration of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) that was promulgated by the National - Māori Party coalition, the term “Te Mana o te Wai” was introduced into the freshwater management regime; it wasn’t an investment of the last Labour Government. The subsequent iteration of that made it clear that there’s a hierarchy of obligations towards water bodies. First is the environmental health of the river, the second is human needs like extraction of water for human purposes, and the third was commercial uses.

At the Primary Production Committee, the assertion was made by Government members on the select committee that this was an absolute hierarchy and that you couldn’t lapse down into the second or third priorities until the first priority was met. In other words, if the requirements as to long-term water quality, for example, were not met for a water body, there was a suggestion that there was an absolute prohibition on, for example, a discharge right for a council. This was an example that had been used, in that if the water body was already degraded it would be impossible to get a renewal of a water right to have a municipal discharge which degraded the quality of the river.

Now, at the Primary Production Committee, Opposition members asked officials as to whether that was a misunderstanding of the NPSFM, because the understanding of Opposition members, including myself, was that the hierarchy provided for in the NPSFM is not absolute. In some ways it would make it a nonsense to have all of the long-term provisions in there saying that where things are degraded, they ought to be cleaned up over an undefined period—a generation or so—and it was up for regional councils to determine how quickly they got towards the attributes that are set out in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.

The reason why I’m asking this question is this is what, as I understand it, lies behind the logic as to why this bill amends the resource management regime by saying that the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management hierarchy is not to be used in respect of a decision as to whether someone can get a resource consent to discharge to water or to abstract water. Now, if that is based on the understanding that was displayed by the Government members—which, in my view, and I think officials confirmed this to the Primary Production Committee that there isn’t an absolute standard—it seems to me that this provision is misconceived, because there was no absolute hierarchy.

I would like the Minister to confirm her understanding that the NPSFM hierarchy that I have described—those three levels of what we’re trying to achieve for water bodies—did not set absolutes that removed council discretion on consents.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Hon David Parker for his question. My understanding is that there have been varied approaches by different councils to this matter, and that in some instances the hierarchy had been considered as an absolute. The changes are being brought in to clarify that the hierarchy does not need to be considered either by the applicant or the consenting authority.

LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. If I understand the process so far that you’ve outlined and described, I’m going to be seeking clarifying comments from the Minister about these last-minute amendments that the Government has just put on the Table, but then that we will be stepping through the clauses of the bill in separation to that.

I really want to start by asking the Minister: why has the Government introduced these two last-minute Amendment Papers? They have a material impact not only on the democratic processes in local government, at the council level but also what is currently rolling out around the country when it comes to freshwater farm plans in their various ways that councils are actually rolling those out. Why I want to ask that fundamental question is that I’ve heard from the Minister previously that the intention of Government with these reforms is not necessarily freshwater improvement. The Minister made comments at the last scrutiny hearing at the Environment Committee that the goal with these freshwater reforms is actually to have, as she described it, workable standards that are not overly complicated, and that was with no mention of actual freshwater improvement. I’m really interested to hear from the Minister about how these amendments actually sit in with that.

Then, more directly, were these amendments introduced at this last minute to directly override the expected decision of Otago Regional Council, who are set to decide to notify their land and water regional plan tomorrow? Now, this is absolutely critical to understanding this in terms of their confidence in this Government that it is not just stepping in to override the democratically elected councillors, to override the wishes of community.

I would really like to hear the Minister’s statements on this, and I’d also like to hear how these Amendment Papers will actually impact councils—for example, where they already have a regional policy statement in place that upholds the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) and Te Mana o Te Wai. Now, there are these in existence. What does it mean when the Government is saying that these types of amendments and this bill will provide certainty to landowners, to consent applicants, to consent holders, when actually there are already aspects of the NPSFM, of Te Mana o Te Wai, that are throughout existing plans and policies; and how does that actually provide certainty? I am really keen to hear from the Minister about those. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair, and I thank the member for her questions. With regard to the freshwater farm plans, as the member probably knows, there is an amount of work that is going on within Government in terms of improving the system to finalise the freshwater farm plans, including ensuring that it is risk based and therefore able to react to both the risks in specific catchments and to the type of farming that is being undertaken.

The reason for pausing this is to ensure that that work can be undertaken and that those who might otherwise be required to come up with their farm plans are not doing it against the changes—or are doing it with the current legislation rather than what’s going to be changed. It’s to avoid duplication and to enable farmers to be working with the correct information.

With regard to the restriction on the notification of regional policy statements and plans, this is to ensure that that risk of duplication and additional costs to ratepayers does not occur while the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management is being developed. We are very mindful of the impact both in time and in cost to ratepayers and to the primary sector, and that is the reason for these amendments.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Chair. Sticking with Amendment Paper 127, which is the one about farm plans, can the Minister explain what she means by “risk based” and what her understanding is of the regulations? I know that’s not a word that this Government likes, but what are the environmental protections to stop pollution that will be in place whilst this pause on the farm plan happens? Those are important questions because, obviously, nobody has had a lot of time to go through this Amendment Paper that has not been in front of the Primary Production Committee. So that’s two questions on the farm plans.

We also heard the Minister answer, too, the Hon David Parker’s question around Te Mana o te Wai not requiring everything to always be declined because something might go wrong with the health of the water, when it’s applied to consents, and the Minister responded, “Well, there are cases on this.” I would like to know what cases the Minister is referring to, and what the outcomes of those cases were. My understanding is that the cases that some submitters referred to are ones where a consent would have been declined regardless of Te Mana o te Wai. That was because of the adverse effects they were having on the environment, regardless of the hierarchy in that test of Te Mana o te Wai.

Now, I’m going to come back to Amendment Paper 128, because I want to try and work through this bill in a methodical way. Other people might do so differently, but that is up to them. So we start at Part 1, on page 3, and there is a lot about section 32 evaluation reports being amended. And there are many sections here which relate to the making of national instruments. Those things are national policy statements (NPS) and national environmental standards, which can have very consequential effects for people using the environment, such as farmers. What the Government is doing with this suite of amendments is really enabling the Minister to do whatever they like, to have very little consultation and very little evaluation and analysis.

I would like the Minister to explain how it is that the environment will be considered—or not just considered but protection for the environment will be implemented and must be implemented by these new national environmental standards and national policy statements. Why I say that—my worry—is that Ministers will simply be able to make these national instruments, in favour of any sort of development they like. We did have a process like this in the past—now, it was under the Resource Management Act, which, of course, Labour amended to try and fix how these national instruments were met—with the plantation forestry rules. The NPS for plantation forestry was clearly driven by industry, and it caused a lot of detrimental environmental effects and also economic effects. It is not in the interests of our environment, of our nation, to have standards and regulations made that are just there for industry.

My final question on these national policy statements and national environmental standards is why the Government saw fit to get rid of the ability to have a board of inquiry process when developing these national policy directions. Now, I acknowledge that the board of inquiry process has rarely been used for these national instruments—it has been used for the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement—but it seems to be a good option, when there’s a tricky piece of environmental regulation to be done, for a Minister to put that to a number of very qualified people, in a board of inquiry, and with that board of inquiry process enable the draft regulations or national policy statement to be thoroughly examined.

That goes to my wider point of how, with really loosening up how section 32 works and reducing all the consultation requirements—what comfort can the Minister give to people reading the Hansard in the future and to us in the Chamber today, this afternoon, that this process will be used in a rigorous way and it will protect the environment rather than just allowing development?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the member the Hon Rachel Brooking for bringing the attention of the committee to the streamlining and simplifying of the process to prepare and amend national direction. I thank, also, the Primary Production Committee, who made considerable input into this in terms of setting the 20-working-days requirement for consultation, and other amendments which they contributed to around the transparency of the Minister making this decision and making the information public. The board of inquiry process, as the member has already noted, hadn’t been used since, I think, 2010 and therefore has been taken from the process to simplify it as one process that will be undertaken.

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I do have a number of questions, which I think we will have time to go over through this bit of scrutiny—this tiny bit of scrutiny we’ve got on a very, very sad day for democracy.

To begin, I would like to know more—and as has been sketched out by my colleague Rachel Brooking—about new section 46A, “Process for preparing national environmental standards and national policy statements”, inserted by clause 11. I am interested in understanding what that process is and how the process is aiming to establish this. I was particularly mindful of the process for the National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation, which set up a board of inquiry in 2010 that came back with the recommendations for a national policy statement, which also had recommendations for national environmental standards, and at that point they had to be implemented. The tricky thing there was that, of course, this happens through different Governments, and we didn’t see the full implementation of those national environmental standards. Although we got a national policy statement, we didn’t get national environmental standards.

I’m really interested in understanding what the process is going to be and how the Minister imagines this will run; how the Minister intends to make this work, because what we are seeing is a real mess, quite frankly. We’re seeing a throwing out of localism and something that looks very chaotic and disruptive and actually will create incredible uncertainty for environmental outcomes for our rural communities, for our businesses as well. I’d be really keen to have some clarification from the Minister on what that is going to look like, if there is a process, and how the public and iwi will feed into that, how we are going to hear. Today, for example, I’ve been fielding queries, concerns from iwi, from our local Otago Regional Council, from community members about this last-minute amendment that the Government’s put in. I’ve been fielding queries from a very, very concerned community that feels as though this Government not only has cut Otago adrift; it has disavowed the localism, the local decision making.

I would like to hear from the Minister about how people are going to be able to participate, how people will engage, and what that will mean, because I’ve heard that the Minister wants to work alongside councils, but at the moment this looks like an overriding of councils. It looks like a rejection of what councils have been working on for so, so long. How is the Minister going to consider local input, engage with iwi, ensure that local concerns are respected? How is the Minister going to do this through the process for preparing national environmental standards and the new national policy statement?

I think, just to come back to the point, if the Minister thinks that standards that have been developed locally are stronger than the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, why then would a council need to go back and change a plan that has already been developed? It would be crazy for them to do that, unless it was going to be forced by some Government that wanted a council to be more permissive and allow polluting practices to happen. Why on earth would anyone be concerned by a plan that can deliver outcomes for better fresh water, for rivers that would be swimmable, for places that we can fish and we can drink from? Why would the Government be concerned about that?

So, for the Minister, I would just like the Minister to come back to me to explain how this process is going to involve our local communities, iwi, and ensure that we have better fresh water rather than polluted, toxic waterways.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I too want to talk again about Amendment Paper 128, which I contend is beyond the scope of this bill, because rather than changing what’s in these planning instruments, it actually says they can’t be promulgated, which is a big change from the bill that’s been introduced.

I want to explain to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Penny Simmonds, in case she doesn’t know this history, as to how it is that Otago’s got themselves into the pickle that they are in. In 2018, there was a decision from the Environment Court on the minimum flow for the Tarras river. It actually didn’t please the environmental groups. The farming communities, who wanted a lower minimum flow, prevailed, and I respect that outcome. Indeed, even in respect of the other rivers in Otago that still don’t have a minimum flow, I’ve never expressed a view as to what the minimum flow should be, because I don’t know what it should be—I just know that there should be one.

In any event, in that 2019 decision of the Environment Court, Judge Jackson said that the Otago Regional Council plan was in breach of the Resource Management Act (RMA) because it, essentially, said the flow for our rivers should be what’s left in them after everything’s sucked out of them under mining privileges.

You have to understand what mining privileges are. The Otago region, and a little bit in South Canterbury, is different from the rest of the country because there were very old rights to abstract water that were granted originally to people who were sluicing for gold. They had a right to extract large amounts of water—larger amounts of water than they actually did extract, but they had the right to extract large amounts of water. Those were open-ended rights. They weren’t under the Water and Soil Conservation Act; they were mining privileges. They were converted to deemed permits under the Resource Management Act when it was passed in 1991 and it came into effect in 1992.

Now, because these deemed permits trumped a minimum flow and they weren’t subject to either the Water and Soil Conservation Act or the Resource Management Act provisions, there was a transitional period allowed for those water users and the councils to work out what should happen with them. The period that was allocated for the conclusion of that transition was an incredibly long 30 years. I get boraxed from the other side when I say this, but I know that the farmers in that area were aware of this, because I was a young lawyer—a lot younger than I am now—in 1992. I went to woolshed meetings of Mr Ian Rutherford near Ōtūrehua on the shoulder of James Kempster Guthrie—Jim Guthrie—one of the best water lawyers ever to have been in practice in New Zealand. Sadly, he died quite young a few years ago, but he explained to the farmers what the transition was for deemed permits into the Resource Management Act regime and explained that there was a transition—a long transitional period—to take place.

Now, unfortunately, the regional council in the subsequent decades didn’t do their job. It is wrong to say that the farmers in the area didn’t know of the law: firstly, they did—I know they did. Secondly, any who recently bought those farms since the Resource Management Act came into effect would’ve been advised by their lawyers as to the limits of their deemed permits, which were those old mining privileges. If they weren’t properly advised, all of those farmers will have paid too much for their farms and would have a right of action against their lawyers, and, of course, there hasn’t been any litigation because the lawyers in Central Otago already well understood the law and it was explained to the purchasers of those farms.

Thirty years later, the transition had virtually not been started by the Otago Regional Council, and, indeed, at the end of that 30-year period, they tried to, effectively, extend the effect of those mining privileges by another 30 years by granting RMA abstraction rights for 30 years, even though they didn’t have a minimum flow on their river. At that point, the Government intervened and Judge Skelton, retired Environment Court judge—one of the best Environment Court judges ever, in my opinion; very moderate man and a former commissioner in Environment Canterbury that had been put in that position by the National administration, so he’s no lackey of any political party. He went down and he said, “Look, we need to work these things through. We ought not to be giving permits for a 30-year period; we’ll limit them to six years—how about that?” The council agreed that they would just give six-year rollovers, easily—not a hard process; an easy rollover for six years.

Now, in the meantime, because their plan has been so inadequate, they’ve been preparing a plan in light of the advice from Judge Jackson—not what the Labour Government had done; in the light of Judge Jackson. In the meantime, the regional council was meeting its statutory duty to prepare a plan that did comply with the Resource Management Act, and they’ve been at that for years—they’ve been at that for years. I don’t know what it says—I haven’t read it—but they’re in a position now that they want to promulgate it, because their old plan since way back when has not been working.

The sad thing is, during that period between the start of the RMA and now, the position has got worse because the actual amount of water that has been taken under those mining privileges has increased, sometimes tenfold, because at the start of this period, 30 years ago, it was neither economic nor was the technology really there to lift water up from some of these quite deep rivers relative to the banks of the rivers. While theoretically there was a right to take water for these mining privileges, in practice it didn’t happen, except that during the last 30 years a lot more of it has been taken. These properties have increasingly been subdivided into smaller units, the farming practices have changed—there’s a lot more dairying, even in these desert-like regions of Central Otago—they’ve got a lot more reliance on water, and they’ve actually increased the takes from those mining privileges which became deemed permits in practice in the intervening period.

After this long period, more than 30 years after the RMA was passed, the regional council’s now got to the point where it’s got a plan that it wants to promulgate, and that’s why this provision, that is now, I think, outside the scope of the bill, but we’ll no doubt get advice from the clerk of the committee here, because nothing else in the bill until now has talked about delaying the implementation of the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPSFM)—all it said was that it can’t be applied to consents. Now they’re, effectively, through this amendment, through this new clause 21A, saying that no one can promulgate a new freshwater planning instrument until the earlier of the new NPSFM that the Government says they one day might promulgate—who knows if they ever will, we don’t know that, that’s the future; they might not have a political majority to do so within their coalition—or 31 December 2025, whichever is the sooner. So, against that background, how can the Minister pretend to be the Minister for the Environment when the Minister is frustrating the promulgation of a plan?

Now, the promulgation’s not the end of it. What happens after promulgation is the council has to have hearings, and generally in contentious matters like this they often go on appeal to the Environment Court—another step—as happened with the Lindis River, and it all turned out OK for the farmers. Why is it that the Minister thinks that after that history, which I have recounted there, after all of those decades of delay and millions of dollars being spent by the council—now, what have they been spending money on recently? One of the criticisms that was made by parties to that litigation was that no one knew what the natural flows of these rivers were, because so many abstractions into water races and other things had been taken out that no one knew what the natural flow was, therefore they didn’t know what some minimum flow should be related to those natural flows. They’ve done all that work—the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research did it—they’ve worked through some very, very difficult issues and they’re ready to promulgate a plan.

Why do you, Minister, after that history, think that it is responsible—if this is within scope, and I don’t think it is, but if it is within scope, why, Minister, do you think it is responsible for you to sit there and say, having spent those tens of millions of dollars and worked up these difficult issues, gone through them all, at last got to the point where they can promulgate something where there can be a discussion in front of a hearings panel, you come in on the day before their vote—sorry, not you, Mr—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Third person, please.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Sorry, the Minister comes in the day before the vote and tries to pass legislation saying “thou shalt not even publish a plan.”?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. The member essentially answered his question himself that the restricting of the notification of freshwater planning instruments is until either a new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management takes effect or 31 December 2025, whichever is sooner—despite the member somehow insinuating that this could go on for ever—or an exemption is granted.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I have a question for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Penny Simmonds, around clause 10, which amends section 44 of the Resource Management Act (RMA), which is around the restrictions of power to make national environmental standards. I want to specifically, at this stage, focus on subclause (3) of clause 10. I want to focus on subclause (3) first because I would like to sort of indicate to you, Mr Chair, that I would like to take another call around other sections, particularly around replacement subsections (3)(a) and (4).

I would like some clarification from the Minister around this subclause (3) in terms of the replacement that is being done on the power to the Minister when it comes to making changes to the national environmental standards. Now, the current RMA is very limited and very specific. In fact, of replacement section 44(3), inserted by clause 10, only paragraph (f) is in the existing legislation, which is “to make changes that are no more than minor in effect, to correct errors, or to make similar technical alterations.” However, under this bill, we have now introduced five additional ways that the Minister is able to make an amendment without public scrutiny or without any further advice or requirements from, for example, local government.

Just breaking down some of these sorts of areas in terms of aligning with New Zealand standards—to give an example to the committee, Minister—what sort of examples, when this was constructed, did the Minister have in mind, or what is the ministerial intent, when it comes to constructing some of these? If the Minister wouldn’t mind giving an example of each. And why did the Minister feel that this should be something that is included? My argument is that this is incredibly broad and covers a number of scenarios, particularly when we’re looking at, let’s say, replacement subsection 3(b), inserted by subclause 10(3), around New Zealand’s obligation under international conventions, protocols, or agreements.

This fundamentally comes down to the fact that Aotearoa New Zealand has a dualist system, in which case anything that we do sign internationally must first be put into domestic legislation before becoming law or becoming a part, under Aotearoa New Zealand. Would that mean, Minister, that when we’re looking at the international convention protocol agreement—which is signed without public consultations, and potentially without even going through the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—the Minister is able to, based on that signing of something overseas, make these sweeping changes to the national environmental standards?

Now, the other elements over here—for example, when it comes to extending the time frame, which is understandable, or to remove provisions in a national environmental standard—I would like some advice from the Minister on an example of how then the Minister determines when something is no longer required. Would there be a report being produced? Would there be a certain benchmark that must be achieved?

So, for all of these, particularly when it comes to replacement paragraphs (a) to (e), I’d just really like some clarifications around why the Minister has decided to include these elements when the existing section 44(3) of the Resource Management Act is incredibly minute and specific and limited in scope, and broaden it out to all of these. I think, particularly, I would like the Minister to answer in terms of the process when we are looking at when Aotearoa New Zealand signs any sort of international agreement, covenant, or protocols, and how the Minister would then, without any other form of consultation, be able to make these sort of sweeping changes to the national environmental standards.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. I would note that we have traversed some of this earlier, but, for the member’s benefit, I complimented the Primary Production Committee on the improvement that they made around the national direction changes in terms of strengthening the transparency of the reasons why the Minister might take that approach, the need for the 20-day consultation period, and also in terms of the information that the Minister—sorry, I’m just looking quickly here for it—will have to publish, in terms of the reasons why the decision was made.

Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities): Mr Chair, thank you for the opportunity to take this call on the Amendment Paper. I would first of all like to congratulate the Minister. There is a massive sigh of relief going around rural Otago today for this measure.

I would like to just pick up on some of the comments made by the Hon David Parker and get your clarity on this, because I think you reference he did actually answer some of his own questions. For my clarity, the example of the Manuherikia River and the minimum flow, would that be one of the reasons why you would be bringing this measure here today?

For those that don’t know, and probably it’s maybe an Otago-centric thing, for the river as it is now, there is a minimum flow, whether that’s in statute or the council expects it to be at 900 litres per second—is it the measure? The farmers actually voluntarily keep it at 1,100 and the implication is that, if this land and water plan is notified, it could be at a much, much higher level, which would place the economics and viability of farming in the Manuherikia Valley at absolute peril, putting in jeopardy the banking covenants and just throwing all sorts of—

Hon David Parker: But isn’t that why you have hearings?

Hon MARK PATTERSON: —uncertainty around this. If the former Minister says, “Isn’t that why we have hearings?”, well, that is exactly what would happen here, of course. If the plan gets notified, it sets off a whole chain of events that ends up in the Environment Court, which will be a very, very expensive process, only for presumably the Minister, who has well-signalled her intention to repeal and replace the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM)—the council will then have to go back into another process.

Can the Minister confirm that what she is trying to do here is cut off that chain of events, to seek what she has instructed councils fairly carefully—or guided councils probably is a better word—to pause their planning process till the central government has worked through its NPSFM and the various Resource Management Act reforms that we’re doing in this space? Of course, this very one that we’re amending today is part of that whole process. To me, that would be what the Minister is trying to do. The member opposite, in raising the issue of the Manuherikia, actually gave your—

Hon David Parker: I didn’t.

Hon MARK PATTERSON: Well, I’m raising it for you, Mr Parker. He’s actually giving an example of why this measure is absolutely required to give some certainty and stop what would actually be some chaos out there in terms of farmers in that region not knowing exactly where they stood, facing a very expensive process, only probably—and almost certainly—for the council to have to go back through the process again and just the massive uncertainty and complexity that that would bring. Thank you.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. The member is absolutely correct: the Government is reviewing and replacing the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM), for those who perhaps haven’t picked that up, and the time frame for that is an 18- to 24-month period. The Government has previously signalled to enable councils to have sufficient time to incorporate the replacement NPSFM the extended deadline to December 2027. Although most councils have picked up on that, some have not.

Absolutely to avoid the inefficiencies and the duplication of work, as councils might have to have had to amend their plans almost immediately once a new NPSFM is gazetted, we have now brought in this restricting of notification to avoid that duplication, to avoid that cost. Ratepayers quite sensibly do not want to have to be paying out again for amendments once the NPSFM comes into being. They would prefer that their councils waited so that they could incorporate that at the time.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Chair. Right, as you know, I’m working through the clauses, but I would remind the Minister that there’s a number of questions I asked that have not been answered yet. A couple were on the farm plans. What does “risk based” mean, and what regulations will remain to protect our environment from pollution?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Can I invite the member to actually ask questions and ask the Minister to try and get the system of question and answer which was always intended for the committee stage? I know it takes two to tango, but perhaps you could try it, and from the Chair, I’ll ensure that she does get the call, rather than having to go through a stack of questions.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: OK, thank you very much for that, Mr Chair. These questions related to farm plans and the Minister’s comments on how they’re coming in the future but they’re not here yet; they’re going to be risk based. Then my second question was: whilst we wait for these paused farm plans, what is there to protect the environment from pollution in the meantime? Then I had a further question on Te Mana o te Wai and the cases that the Minister was referring to.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. I don’t recall that I referred to cases. I said there was variability in how the councils had been interpreting the absoluteness or otherwise of the hierarchy. I don’t recall that, at any stage, I referred specifically to any cases. In terms of the freshwater farm plans in the short period between the pause and when the farm plan system has been improved, regional councils—many of the councils themselves—have localised regulations, and a number of the farming practices have changed considerably in that time. There are catchment groups across the country, so there is considerable work that has been going on that will continue to go on, and I would be very certain that farmers would not see this as a period where they can somehow go rogue. They are certainly very involved in the process of wanting to contribute to making sure farm plans are effective, and, therefore, the work will continue.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): That doesn’t answer my question, though, which was—the answer appears to be “Well, there are catchment groups now.”, and my question was: what regulation remains?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): I think I did answer it. I said about the regional councils.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): OK, so I heard the Minister say that some regional councils have been allowed to do their own plans—unlike, of course, the Otago Regional Council, which I will get to in a minute. In terms of the answer on Te Mana o te Wai, well, I’m not sure if the Minister said the word “cases” or not. What evidence has the Minister got? What analysis has the Minister got that Te Mana o te Wai was being used in resource consenting decisions and that aspect alone was blocking the granting of those decisions, not other additional matters, just the fact of the Te Mana o te Wai hierarchy? I presume, then, that there is no evidence.

My final question on my wrap-up questions was whether or not the Minister could give any comfort around national direction, actually, protecting the environment rather than just being a development jolly for the Government. No answer to that one either. Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for that.

It is very serious that the Minister refuses to give us any comfort around the fact that national directions will be about the protection of the environment and the stopping of pollution, because we’ve seen from a National-led Government in the past that these directions have been used for the betterment of industry—forestry industry in particular—and we’ve seen again and again these types of regulations coming out from this Government that do nothing to protect our environment, which, of course, is what the purpose of the Resource Management Act is.

Now, moving on, then, for me—I’m not stopping anybody else. I move now to clause 21, which is about the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity. The change here is that there’s a stopping of the identification of these areas—that is, areas where there is indigenous biodiversity. I would like the Minister to tell the committee if she has asked for it—is there any evidence on what the effect of pausing this identification of new significant natural areas will be? Of course, the committee heard from submitters that any delay could result in the loss of taonga species due to unmanaged clearing of native vegetation and delayed action for pest control, so we’re worried about what the effects of a pause would be.

I also want to know from the Minister: why is it that the identification of those areas has to stop? Surely that is work that could be ongoing, and you could separate out the controls around what happens to those areas once they are identified? That’s another separate question. I’ll see if the Minister wants to answer.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. The reason I didn’t immediately answer the member’s question about the national direction was the manner in which the question was asked. It assumed that there was no intent by this Government to protect the environment. There absolutely is. This Government has a suite of national direction instruments that are being worked on over the next few months with the intention of that very much being part of our second phase of the work that we are doing to reform the Resource Management Act.

There is considerable work being done by this Government. This Government has always said that our work is to ensure that there are improvements over time to, particularly, fresh water. What we have ensured is that the improvements we want to see over time are workable and are going to be in conjunction with the ratepayers and the users of water. The changes that will occur will occur in a way where there is consultation undertaken, and we will ensure that they are workable to improve fresh water.

LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m really glad that my colleague across the Chamber the Hon Rachel Brooking has brought up clause 21, because I’ve got some additional questions on that. Just for context about why this is so important, we know—and the Ministry for the Environment, particularly, is being really clear about the fact—that our ecosystems on which we depend are being degraded on multiple fronts. This isn’t just kind of the idea about how biodiversity is nice to have and this is just a bit of tinkering we’re doing. The biodiversity crisis in terms of species decline, habitat decline, ecosystem decline, taonga species—which has been mentioned—matters and we want to see, and the Government needs to be taking, action to actually address these things.

Now, I actually have an amendment up that proposes that clause 21 is deleted, and I want to refer to that. It’s about clause 21, which is “New section 78 inserted (Time-limited modifications to NPSIB 2023)”. This proposes to actually delete clause 21, which is on page 9 and line 17 of the bill. Why this is so important is that this clause directly impacts the effective and consistent identification, and therefore eventually steps to protect that biodiversity, and I wanted to step through and ask the Minister the rationale behind this clause specifically—first, to examine what the clause will actually do. It will essentially stop provisions for three years. It stops the provisions being a consistent approach to identifying significant indigenous vegetation and fauna.

This was one of the key issues. Biodiversity identification of these significant natural areas has actually been in place since the Resource Management Act (RMA) came in in 1991. One of the key barriers to why we’ve been unable to actually make gains in the biodiversity space is that there hasn’t been a consistent approach, so the fact that this is actually stopping the provisions that enable that consistent approach is simply nonsensical if this Government was actually serious about addressing our ongoing biodiversity decline. It stops territorial authorities in conducting assessments to actually identify these areas of significant indigenous vegetation and habitats of fauna.

I think what I’m really interested in hearing from the Minister is: why the stopping of the actual identification? We know the information itself would actually get us further in understanding our challenges, in understanding the actions and initiatives and incentives that landowners would need to be able to put in place effective biodiversity actions. It also stops the provision that councils must give effect to the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity 2023 (NPSIB) as soon as practicable, so they now would have until 2027. Now, is it right to interpret—and I’m concerned about this, Minister, so I’d love to hear your comments about this—that this is a delay tactic by the Government to actually stop protecting these significant areas of indigenous vegetation and fauna?

What I’m also interested in within this is that the NPSIB itself has a whole range of responsibilities which council has. This is everything from working with tangata whenua to the identification and protection of indigenous biodiversity to preparing a biodiversity strategy and monitoring these species. What impact does the removal of these provisions, if my amendment is not adopted by the Government, which I hope it is—what impact will it have on the rest of council’s roles and responsibilities in implementing the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. The significant natural areas (SNAs)—this should not be a surprise to the member. It’s in line with the Government’s 100-day action plan to begin to cease implementation of new SNAs and to seek advice on operation of the areas, so it was well signalled that this would be work we would undertake.

Contrary to what the member said, the suspension does not undermine or otherwise change requirements set out in the RMA—I believe section 6—with respect to the maintenance or protection of indigenous biodiversity. Any area of significant biodiversity identified during the suspension period, though, will not have the SNA provisions applied to it.

We have heard concerns that there are less significant areas that are being captured by the SNAs placing undue restrictions on how that land is used, so we are implementing the pause so that we can review the operation of the SNAs.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Now, members, obviously, there’s a very broad topic and there’s still plenty to go, but a lot of contextual stuff now has been said, so we’ll be starting to look for some specificity in the questions.

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD (Associate Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. My question for the Minister is whether the Minister can confirm this—a number of members on the other side have asked for specific examples of where the hierarchy of obligations has prevented the issuing of consents.

Now, I was wearing another hat at the time, but my understanding was that this was a major problem in Environment Canterbury, and there was a huge backlog of consents. There was a decision made by Environment Canterbury, or their opinion was that under Te Mana o te Wai, they were unable to grant new consents or renew consents where the river was overallocated. This would have had the effect of, basically, people who had been in business for many years, farming in these catchments—they would have, effectively, been unable to get a consent. It would have placed huge barriers on their ability to continue with their businesses and with their loans. It would have put everything at risk, and it created a huge degree of uncertainty in that region. I don’t know whether the Minister or officials have any further thoughts on that one.

The other point is the question around why we are delaying the farm plans. The Minister gave a number of good examples, but I’d also suggest that another reason for the delay is to ensure that we do not duplicate a whole range of existing farm plans and force farmers, where they already have industry farm planning tools, to do another one. We’re looking to ensure that for farmers—to quote The Lord of the Rings—we only have one plan to rule them all. Thank you.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chairman. I have tabled an amendment to clause 23A of the bill, but before I talk to that, I want to put to the Minister a complaint that we’ve received from a very senior lawyer—a King’s Counsel—who said that the Primary Production Committee undertook to her, while she was acting on behalf of Forest & Bird, that the amendment that’s now in clause 23A to amend section 107 would not be made in this bill.

She’s written complaints to the Government, and I wanted to ask the Minister whether she is aware that the chair of the Primary Production Committee has said that “We’re not contemplating that. Therefore, you don’t need to submit upon it.”, and, therefore, they didn’t. If that is the case—and I understand that to be the case—I have never ever seen that in my history in this Parliament, where an undertaking was made to a submitter that “You don’t need to cover that point, because we’re not covering that in this bill.”, only for the Government to, effectively, dishonour the undertaking that was made by a chair of a select committee to a submitter.

Now, I know that all of the other complaints that we’ve made about the appalling process around environmental legislation fall on deaf ears with this Government, so I’m going to make the assumption—notwithstanding the breach of that undertaking—that it has been recorded by Sally Gepp KC in correspondence that I think most, or a lot of, members have seen.

I just want to respond to something that the Hon Andrew Hoggard has said. I actually agree with Andrew Hoggard that there needs to be a period of adjustment so that things can improve gradually over time. I’m not sure if he’s heard me here, but the Hon Andrew Hoggard made the comment that there was a decision in South Canterbury which would have prevented farmers continuing to farm. My understanding is that he is referring to a report that was prepared by one of the groups there—it might have been a Ngāi Tahu - related group—who said that they should not be granting a consent. I actually disagreed with that report from Ngāi Tahu and I don’t think that that’s the decision that was taken by the regional council, and it is, in the end, their decision to take after they have received submissions from various parties. I agree with the Hon Andrew Hoggard that you have to adjust.

With the national objectives framework, the biggest risk to the farming community actually was in South Canterbury, and it was that we would have a maximum for dissolved inorganic nitrogen which couldn’t be met in South Canterbury. Because we didn’t want to inflict that upon the economy—because the Resource Management Act is about more than just the environment; it is about fair economic outcomes—we thought that that was too tough to go there, and so we didn’t. In the attributes that have to be managed for in fresh water, we didn’t have a maximum standard for dissolved inorganic nitrogen in the national direction. Councils could still have one, if they wanted, but we weren’t imposing it by way of regulation.

Now, my amendment to clause 23A(2A)—this is the amendment that sort of reinstates the ability of councils to have some flexibility to allow a renewal or a new consent if it imposes conditions and there are already adverse effects and the conditions are going to improve things. At the moment, the amendment in clause 23A to insert new section 107(2A) says that the consent authority has to be “satisfied that those conditions will contribute to a reduction of the effects described in subsection (1)(g) over the duration of the permit.”, and those are the adverse environmental effects that are already being suffered. I think that that’s too loose.

With respect, I think that it should be a meaningful reduction, otherwise you could have an insignificant reduction in adverse environmental effects, and it would, effectively, be given the tick-off through the amendment that’s being made through clause 23A of the bill. My amendment inserts the word “meaningful” before the word “reduction” so that the consent authority would have to be satisfied that those conditions will contribute to a meaningful reduction of the effects described. Otherwise, Minister, what can continue is where we have got undue levels of pollution ruining waterways, it could effectively be ticked off for ever. I ask the Minister to indicate whether she will support my amendment to insert the word “meaningful” before the word “reduction” in new section 107(2A)(c).

STEVE ABEL (Green): I actually want to bring the Minister back to an earlier line of questioning from the Hon Rachel Brooking. In the regulatory impact statement are the options for pausing the implementation of the freshwater farm plan. This is quite a specific question really. Is analysis done on the safeguards to environmental and human health? In that analysis comparing the status quo with the pausing of the freshwater farm plans, the existing time frames, if they remain, will allow councils to continue freshwater improvements as planned—which is self-evident, obviously. The status quo will be an ability to improve freshwater conditions as planned.

The time frames under the freshwater farm plan pause will mean that there’s a delay in when the system is fully implemented. It points out that there is a risk to fresh water in the short term, compared to the status quo, of potentially resulting in negative impacts on the health of waterways and people. My question to the Minister is quite specific: what are the negative impacts on the health of waterways and people that is risked by pausing the farm plans? What are the negative impacts to not just the health of waterways but also to the health of people, Minister?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): I have already covered that area—about the very brief pause between when the farm plans work has been done to improve that system and the fact that there are other local provisions. There is work that’s been done already with farmers, with catchment groups, so the period will be relatively short and the work that is being undertaken will continue on. In fact, many of the groups are actively involved in assuring that the farm plans address the sort of issues that you brought up.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back to remind the Minister of a couple of questions she hasn’t answered—then I will move on—one was about the indigenous biodiversity national policy statement (NPS) and why stopping the identification—she’s answered the implementation question that it was in the 100-day plan, and it’s had impacts that the Government feels are unreasonable on private property owners. But why stop the identification? That’s one question remaining.

The Minister the Hon Andrew Hoggard made a contribution and said, with Te Mana o te Wai—he gave some examples that he had heard about, presumably when he was the president of Federated Farmers; he said, “with another hat”—about when Te Mana o te Wai impacted on consents directly. Now, what I want to ask the Minister is: if that is true, if that is the case—I’m not saying it’s not the case; I’ve asked the Minister again for what advice she’s received on that issue—isn’t the best thing to do to implement plans so that, when somebody is applying for a resource consent, they don’t need to go to Te Mana o te Wai? How the resource management system works is that, if a plan has a rule and applies, you don’t need to go up the chain to the national instrument—if that national instrument has already been implemented. I would very much be interested in the Minister’s answer to that issue.

I now want to move on, though, to Amendment Paper 128, and this is the one about what feels to me, being the member for Dunedin, to be a specific attack on the Otago Regional Council, who was going to have its meeting tomorrow to notify its freshwater planning instrument. What this Amendment Paper does is say, “No, no, no, despite the Resource Management Act at the moment saying that you have to act as quickly as you can”—and Otago Regional Council continuing, then, on their work to be legal—“we’re going to change the law to say, ‘No, you can’t do that until either there’s the new policy statement”—and we’ve heard that’s going to take about 18 months—“or 31 December 2025.’ ”, which is quite some time from now.

Now, the Minister has said that we should all know that a new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) is coming. To that, I want to ask the Minister what she is so scared about in the Otago Regional Council’s plan—that hasn’t yet been notified; I haven’t seen it, I don’t know what’s in it—that will be against her new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management which, obviously, we haven’t seen. All I can work out—what would seem to be a reasonable presumption or assumption—is that the Minister’s planned new NPSFM will allow for more pollution than what she considers the Otago Regional Council’s plan would. Now, if that is not the case, it is very important that it is in the Hansard. If the Minister wants to answer—and I’d like to come back to this.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll refer again to questions by both the Hon David Parker and the Hon Rachel Brooking about why we’re taking the hierarchy of obligations away from the consenting process. I need to make it very clear that the Government wants to address concerns that it has about the way it has been applied by some councils. I mentioned that right at the start; that it’s been variable in how it has been applied. In some councils, it has been specifically that the applicants are being asked to demonstrate how their proposed activities adhere to the hierarchy of obligations and the impact this may have on consent decisions. It’s the variable way in which it has been applied and the fact that it has been applied as an absolute in some instances.

In terms of the restricting of the notification of freshwater plans—and, again, I’m repeating—this is to avoid inefficiencies. It’s to avoid duplication of work and costs to ratepayers, in terms of having to amend plans once the new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) is gazetted. It is a relatively short period until that work will occur—18 to 24 months—and therefore we gave that very clear signal when we provided sufficient time for councils to incorporate the replacement NPSFM by extending the deadline to December 2027. We are now making it abundantly clear that they should avoid those inefficiencies and duplication.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I want to ask the Minister to consider what’s the likely reaction to this reaction by the incoming Government, because the last Government took six years to work through these issues as to water quality, because they are difficult and we made a few mistakes—yeah, we did. I know the prior National Government tried to land fencing regulations, and we’ll come to that in a second part. They’re quite complex. Similarly, we tried to better deal with a matter we discussed last week, which was intensive winter grazing, but these regulations were improving and becoming more practical.

Now, what’s happening here is the Government’s effectively saying, “Look, the outcomes-based framework that sits at the heart of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management is not going to be given the time to work.” Minister, are you aware that as a consequence of fiddling around with an outcomes-based framework, you effectively drive councils and those in the community that are worried about degrading water quality to input controls? Because input controls are really simple. They’re really fast to implement, and that’s what is coming next if the continuation in the degradation of water is allowed to continue, because an outcomes-based regime is not allowed to be given the time to work. The time to work, under the existing legislation, is a generation, a generation to clean things up, because it does—and the standards aren’t some sort of political whim. They were set by freshwater scientists, and these were moderate people. These weren’t radical activists. These were long-experienced people who had a reasonable view as to what was necessary.

I’m asking the Minister: what would she say to the people who say that we should move to input controls? Input controls work, but they’re economically less efficient. Now, the Greens have been calling for years for input controls. I remember Jeanette Fitzsimons saying that we should have a limit on the number of cows in overly enriched catchments. The Government says they want simple regulation; they don’t want complex regulation and regulatory burden. Well, for the Minister, I tell you what: input controls are really simple. What would she say to that?

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Minister, for joining us this afternoon. I hope with your leave, Minister, we could actually talk about the slope maps and the changes to slope map rules.

Hon David Parker: It’s in the next Part.

MARK CAMERON: Is it the next Part, just for clarity?

Hon David Parker: Yes.

MARK CAMERON: Oh, well, we’ll come to that.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. Also, thank you, Minister, before, for pointing out the new edition of new section 44(3)(a) in clause 10. Now, I do understand where the Minister is coming from in that this is something that the Primary Production Committee has discussed and, then, that (3)(a) was added as an insertion. However, the Minister hasn’t really answered my question in terms of addressing the concerns that I have around the scope of new section 43(3) of clause 10 in the first place.

Now, the reason I wanted to raise this part in particular—like I said previously—was to do with the fact that this part is so vastly different from the existing legislation. Also, despite the fact that (3)(a) and particularly (3)(b) have been included around accountability and transparency from a reporting perspective, when a decision is made and how it’s reported is different from why or how the decision was made in the first place. To give an example to the Minister, let’s look at (3)(b) in terms of implementation of New Zealand’s obligations. When we are looking at any form of free-trade agreement (FTA), which, understandably, is considered an international agreement, and there are certain conditions in there, would the Minister then be able to bypass the process of section 46A in order to implement, or make changes to, the national environment standards on the basis of what is in an FTA?

Now, the reason I mentioned this specifically is because of the fact that—again, one of the situations we have in Aotearoa is the fact that the Government itself, without having any scrutiny or any proper form of scrutiny from the legislature, is able to make those kinds of international agreements. We’ve done it in a way to ensure that it is not binding in the New Zealand context. It’s only binding in the New Zealand context if it’s introduced in a domestic legislation. However, what we’re seeing here is the fact that the Minister, in fact, is able to make it binding by making adjustment or making changes in the form of secondary legislation to something on the basis of an international agreement. This is a significant deviation from some of the processes that we have come to when it comes to international agreements, protocols, and obligations. That is something that is of concern.

Minister, I also understand that potentially you could say that (3)(a) was introduced where the recommendation can consider what is more appropriate to follow the full process, and that is true, but what we have seen post - select committee adding this in is that there is no guidance or clarification of how a Minister is able to make that appropriate decision on whether 46A, under clause 11, should be followed.

Now, the other element that I wanted to check with the Minister, to get the Minister’s clarification on, is around (3)(e), which is about removed provisions in a national environment standard that is no longer required as a consequence of changes to the legislation. We have seen, as an indication, that the Government is intending on removing a lot of Te Tiriti clauses from a number of primary legislations. In this particular case, with the removal of Te Tiriti clauses from primary legislation, that is, in fact, a change to legislation. Does that mean that technically speaking—now, again, the Minister has the responsibility to determine the balance of whether 46A is needed, but the Minister, in fact, has the responsibility, or is able, to make those changes to national environment standards and remove any consideration to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, provided that that particular provision was removed in legislation. That is also something that I think is really concerning that requires the Minister’s clarification.

Lastly, with (3A)(a), considering it was introduced by the Primary Production Committee, has the Minister taken any advice from officials concerning the secondary legislation that if a Minister did not appropriately judge whether they will continue to use the section 46A process or make their own determination under (3), would that trigger either a judicial review or, potentially, something before the Regulations Review Committee?

GLEN BENNETT (Labour): Kia ora, Madam Chair. It’s been interesting over the last hour or so to listen to this debate, although it feels quite one-sided. I guess, as I come to my question—well, firstly, it’s really about the Minister feeling comfortable and explaining, herself, that she feels comfortable around allowing these two rather significant Amendment Papers to be dropped today, and if she can explain how she feels comfortable with Amendment Papers 127 and 128 being tabled by her colleague, the Hon Chris Bishop. The honourable member is the Minister for the Environment and their job is to protect the environment, whether it be fresh water, whether it be our soils, whether it be other parts of our environment, so my first question really is her explaining why she’s comfortable with this—if, as the Minister for the Environment, she can feel comfortable.

My second part I’ll get to is on the Amendment Paper, in new clause 40B, but it really is around the narrative that we keep hearing. It was when we had the second reading last week, members of the Minister’s own party made it really clear about getting Wellington out of farming. It’s an unusual statement.

Mark Cameron: What a good idea.

GLEN BENNETT: Well, it’s an ironic statement really, because if we used that for “get Wellington out of driving”, that wouldn’t be so good, I don’t think. Whether we talk about getting Wellington out of housing consents, I think we’d understand leaky homes in the situation, or do we get Wellington out of crime? What would that look like? I think it’s a false statement around getting Wellington out of farming, because the irony is that then they prescribe over the top of—as we’ve heard—regional councils like Otago.

Then, if we look at the Amendment Paper—and I want a really clear explanation because I don’t feel like we’ve had it yet this afternoon. If we look at Amendment Paper 128, on page 2, it’s about clause 40B, which is around the “schedule and the amendments to section 80A made by section 21A of the amendment Act apply on and from 22 October 2024 as if they were in force on and from that date.” I’d like to ask the Minister: why that date? I’d like to ask the Minister what is at stake for her as the Minister for the Environment if that date was to be moved or changed? Why does it need to be today? Why couldn’t it even be 22 November, 22 December, or further afield? I would like real clarity from the Minister on why that date is so significant and what it would mean if it was changed.

Going back to the original question I asked, which was really around how she feels comfortable, as the Minister for the Environment, to allow these two significant changes to be made today without any engagement with the public of Aotearoa?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll answer the questions from the Green Party member, Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan. The bill clarifies and expands the circumstances where minor updates to national direction can be made without a consultation and submission process, but before making a decision, the Minister is required to consider the appropriateness of using the full section 46A process. After making the minor update, the Minister has to be transparent about publishing the reasons for the update. In terms of judicial review, there is always a judicial review opportunity for decisions that are made within the Resource Management Act.

In terms of the member who has just taken his seat, Glen Bennett, I don’t think it’s of any interest to members of this committee or the wider community whether I am comfortable or not. There are amendments that have been tabled, and they are here for us to debate.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Chair. I note, Madam Chair, that the previous Chair encouraged me to ask questions and get a response from the Minister, so that is why I sat down before the end of my time before, but it has taken some time to get the call again, so I presume that you are taking a different approach?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No, I’m happy to take that approach. I just hadn’t had it indicated to me in the last call. If you indicate to me that there are more questions, we can roll with that process.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: OK, thank you very much for that clarification, Madam Chair.

I was on the Amendment Paper 128, and there was a response from the Minister in the chair, the Hon Penny Simmonds, that why we have this Amendment Paper is for efficiency. In response to that, I put it to the Minister that it is not efficient to stop a process that has been in train for so long unless—well, in particular, once plans are in place, then there is no requirement to rely on a hierarchy of Te Mana o te Wai in terms of consenting because you just go to whatever the plan rule is; that’s one reason. The second reason why the efficiency argument makes no sense to me is that it assumes that there will be major changes in the Minister’s new, yet to be seen National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM). There can’t not be a huge change coming, for her argument to be that is inefficient. I can see the Minister is looking at her papers, so I will continue.

We heard from my colleague Glen Bennett just then about new clause 40A, inserted by Schedule 1, in this Amendment Paper, and that is the retrospective application of clause 40B, which is the one that says you can’t do anything until the end of 2025. This is remarkable—we have had this Amendment Paper drop today with a retrospective clause. Of course, the Government knows that this bill can’t get Royal assent today—this is retrospectively referring to today, 22 October 2024. And we know—well, we assume—that why this date is chosen, which is what my colleague was just talking about, is because we know that the Otago Regional Council is meeting tomorrow on 23 October 2024 to notify their plan. This has been well signalled. We ask the Minister to confirm that this retrospective application of clause 40B is specifically to stop the Otago Regional Council from meeting tomorrow on 23 October 2024.

I also ask the Minister how she can justify the use of a retrospective clause. Does she understand, and does this Government understand, what a big constitutional issue it is when retrospective, any retrospectively—I can’t even say the word, it’s such an appalling concept. Does she understand, and does this Government understand, what a big constitutional issue it is when any retrospectivity is used? The justification of efficiency just makes no sense unless—unless—her next version of the NPSFM is going to allow more pollution.

Now, I will continue on with this Amendment Paper because, at 40B, we have some ability for the Minister to say, “Well, actually, some freshwater planning instruments can go ahead if it’s relating to a range of factors”, and that’s flood protection, natural hazards, progressing housing development, and some other issues are there as well. I can’t see anything on this list about pollution or the environment, and I wonder why that is and if the Minister would consider adding something about pollution or the environment. I also wonder if this clause—and if the Minister has any advice on what incentives it will make to regional councils to break up their plans into component parts that match the subparagraphs in this Amendment Paper. [Time expired] Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Hon Rachel Brooking.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Thank you. My concern, just looking at this today, this afternoon, is that this might incentivise councils to say, “Well, actually, we’re just going to do part of a plan that is just about flood protection, but we’re not necessarily going to integrate that with important work on housing.” Of course, all planning is integrated—we know that it’s not a great idea to build housing in a flood plain. I’m interested to know if the Minister has had any advice or has considered what this exemptions clause in 40B will do. I want to know how it can be that a retrospective application under clause 40A can be, unless her new environment National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management is just going to enable more pollution. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would remind the member that, while retrospective legislation is not the norm, it has been used before. In fact, the Labour Party will remember their own Sir Michael Cullen, who brought in taxation law that was retrospective. The next version of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) is going to occur over the next 18 to 24 months. There will be a considerable consultation period, and so I will not predetermine—and I think it’s unfortunate that the member is trying to predetermine—what might be in the next NPSFM. We will go through that in a fulsome process. The exemptions pathway is just that—there may well be a need to have exemptions, and therefore there is a pathway there that councils can seek to go down.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I’d like to take the Minister to clause 10(4), which inserts a new section 44(3), which describes the circumstances when a Minister, without going through a more fulsome process, can make a change to a national environment standard, is my understanding. In particular, I want to draw the attention to the one-sided nature of paragraph (d).

This went to the Primary Production Committee saying that “(3) The Minister need not follow the process referred to in section 46A if the Minister is recommending the making of an amendment for 1 of the following reasons:”, and then it lists the reasons (a) to (f). Paragraph (a) is “to align with a New Zealand Standard”—seems pretty sensible. Paragraph (b) is to implement international convention protocols—OK. Paragraph (c) is to give effect to a provision in an emission reduction plan—agreed with that. Paragraph (e) to remove provisions with the national environmental standard that are no longer required and they’re becoming redundant—seems fair enough. Paragraph (f) to make changes that are no more than minor or to correct errors—I agree with that.

Then we come to paragraph (d). It went to the Primary Production Committee saying, “to change the time frame for implementation of any part of a national environmental standard”—quite a wide power; a lot different to all of the other ways that you can change it. Now, not only is it a very wide power, it seems to me to be giving a workaround to the ability to have a decent process around change to national direction. It’s actually now only “to extend the time frame”—so, once again, one-sided. You can extend the time frame but you can’t reduce it. Not only can you extend it but you can extend it for any part of a national environment standard.

I want the Minister to explain how she could interpret that clause as being anything other than allowing the Minister to make an extension to the time frame for any part of it. For example, next time there’s a complaint made by the National Party as to some regulatory provision in any of these national environmental standards, the Minister could rely upon the new section 44(3)(d) to extend the time frame for implementation of any part of a national environment standard. And how can that loose amount of wiggle room that is allowed to a Minister to effectively render ineffective what could be the most substantial part of national direction—why should this Parliament agree to the Minister having that power?

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to ask a few questions in relation to Amendment Paper 128, because I think we want to really understand what the rationale behind these changes is. What we can see here is a last-minute amendment that really looks like it’s giving the middle finger to localism and to Otago.

I don’t think we can expect Otago residents, Otago councillors, and iwi to understand why this has been done at this time, unless the Minister can give a full account of why today this amendment has been dropped in here. I’m also interested in understanding why the Minister thinks the costs will increase because of duplication, because if standards that the local community, farmers, and iwi arrive at are more strict than legislated, then is that really an issue? Or is it simply localism at work?

What we’ve heard from one of the Otago regional councillors is that this amendment has made a nonsense of the idea that Otago has local decision-making independence—that’s Councillor Alexa Forbes. What would the Minister say to Councillor Alexa Forbes? Does this action by central government—by Wellington—over all the actions of our local council, of iwi, and of our community, give anyone any sense that we can divine and direct our own future in the deep South, or does it show an arrogant override of everything that we worked for in the deep South?

As has been canvassed, there will be a meeting tomorrow. It was to notify the planning instrument—

Hon David Parker: They still can.

SCOTT WILLIS: We can—and I urge the Otago Regional Council to hold that meeting tomorrow. We have seen Otago get out about the cuts to our hospital. We’ve seen 35,000 people on the streets. The Hutton Theatre only has 230 seats, so I’m hoping—and I will be putting the request out that they do hold that meeting tomorrow because local decision-making is critically important. It’s important for our environment. This is so important.

Another question that I have for the Minister relates to something that my colleague Lawrence Xu-Nan alerted us to earlier. What assessment has the Minister done on her actions in this bill—what assessment has she done on the impacts to the free-trade agreement with the EU? What impacts is this likely to have on our free-trade agreement and for our farming community—for their access to the EU to sell products? What impacts is this going to have?

I can tell the Minister, I was at an EU event last night and this action was discussed. This was an informal meeting—an event I was at—but I would be very surprised if there are not substantial consequences for our farming communities because of this Government’s actions. I think we can do better, but I would like the Minister to explain what assessments have been done to look at the trade implications of not just this last-minute amendment but the whole work that we’ve seen from this Minister. I have a number of other questions, but I’d like a response, please.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll just repeat the information that I have given previously that this restricting notification of the freshwater plans is in line with the extension of time that we gave councils to have until the end of December 2027 to notify and that the new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) will be undertaken over the next 18 to 24 months. The member somehow is conflating this restriction as an end to localism. The restriction is in place until either a new NPSFM takes effect or 31 December next year—whichever is the sooner. It is a relatively short period of time. It is to ensure that there is not duplication of effort, time, and money so that the council can take into consideration the new NPSFM.

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

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I’m going to take a call from Lan Pham, but we’ve been on this part for almost the best part of two hours now. When I came into the Chair, I had been listening and the previous Chair had said we need a get a bit narrower and more specific. I’m really expecting specific and new. Lan Pham, please.

LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate that, particularly because we are really trying to step through this bill bit by bit, and I appreciate that you’re saying that you want us to get straight to the point. I have two amendments on the Table with regard to Part 1 that I would like to speak to, Madam Chair, and I hope you will allow me to do that.

The first is with regards to deleting clause 23. Now, this is in Part 1 on page 11 of the bill and it’s titled “Section 104 amended (Consideration of applications)”. I’m really interested to hear from the Minister some advice on this, because this is the clause meaning that consent authorities will not have to have regard to the hierarchy of obligations in Te Mana o te Wai.

Now, why I’m really interested in this clause is that, for example, we know that—and, again, taking Otago Regional Council as an example, they have regard and clauses in their regional policy statement that actually uphold the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and actually upholds Te Mana o te Wai. I’m interested to hear from the Minister how this will be struck out when it’s actually in higher order planning instruments, and what effect that will have on the precise consent decisions that are made that come up application by application, and decisions actually have to be made on these applications.

Within that, I haven’t yet heard from the Minister what the Government’s intentions are with clauses like this that are throughout the bill. Is freshwater improvement an actual goal of this Government? I’m yet to hear it. I think it would be of great comfort to those who are watching, to those who are interested in these freshwater reforms, if that intention is actually part of this Government’s approach with the reforms and how it directly relates to these consent decisions.

I wanted to also touch on another amendment, which is to do with clause 23A, and this is on page 12 of the bill. This is the clause that actually removes the restrictions on discharge permits, and this is about the case that the Environmental Law Initiative took with regards to Ashburton Lyndhurst Irrigation Scheme. It was interesting hearing my Government Minister colleague assert that councils were declining consents as a result of this High Court case.

Now, what I want to talk about and draw attention to and hear the Minister’s thoughts on is the fact that in Canterbury—where this case took place and this High Court decision was made—there’s been assertions made that the council are declining consents. The Environmental Law Initiative have directly examined the consents coming out and being granted by Environment Canterbury and I want to quote them here. They’re saying, “Reviewing these, we have found nothing to suggest that the law has been made unworkable across a wide range of discharges, or even that any consents have been declined because of the High Court decision.”—

Hon David Parker: Really? That’s not what we heard from others.

LAN PHAM: —that’s not what we’ve heard from others, but that’s what the Environmental Law Initiative found—“In fact, we have found that ECan has continued to issue discharge consents across Canterbury including for a town stormwater network, stormwater from housing and industry, septic systems, spraying agrichemicals within and adjacent to … waterways in the Canterbury Region, and [for] farming activities.”

What this is telling us is that the rationale for this clause change that will massively impact fresh water not only in Canterbury but across the country—the rationale is not there. No one has the automatic right to discharge contaminants to water. While councils may expressly allow discharges, their powers to do so are not unlimited. What’s really concerning about this clause, and this proposed clause in the bill, is that it’s essentially accepting the degraded state of our waterways, especially in our most degraded areas. It’s saying just because they are degraded and that we’ve already declined them to a level where they are breaching—whether it be human health standards; whether it be nitrates or phosphorus or sediment—that people can continue to pollute without limits.

Now, I don’t think anyone in the country would be welcoming of that change, and that is not something that has been signalled. It is not something that came up at the Primary Production Committee that was entertained by the chair to actually be a substantive issue that they would then make recommendations of. I was there at the hearings when the chair very clearly said that changes in this clause were out of scope for this bill. Yet we’re seeing them here, we’ve got the amendments with the Otago Regional Council and stopping regional councils from actually undertaking their democratic right. It is not OK, and I’d really like to hear the Minister’s explanation for these things.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): I’m sorry the member did not hear before when I made it very explicit that this Government wants to see improvements in fresh water over time and that our Resource Management Act work will be towards that. In terms of the clarifications around the consenting discharges, again, there are matters there that were creating uncertainty that some discharges in degraded catchments while providing for improvement over time might be turned down. Again, it is about providing certainty that where there is an ability to manage the discharge and the improvements, that that should be able to be consented.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): I move, That debate on this question now close.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that debate on this question now close.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Point of order, Madam Chair. Now is the time when I invite the Chair to rule on the issue as to scope that I raised in respect of the amendment.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, so I have a Speaker’s ruling here, Speaker’s ruling 131/4, that advises me that the Amendment Papers posted by the Minister responsible for RMA Reform are in order. Amendment Paper 128 is clearly relevant to the bill’s subject matter. Whether or not a matter is new policy is not a concern for the Chair as long as it’s not inconsistent with the bill’s principles and objectives. The Minister’s amendments do not reach that high threshold. Thank you.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Amendment Papers 127 and 128 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to delete clause 21 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendment to delete clause 22 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to delete clause 23 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to delete clause 23A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The tabled amendment to delete clause 23A in the name of the Hon Rachel Brooking is out of order as being the same in substance as an amendment previously not agreed to.

The question is that the Hon David Parker’s tabled amendment to clause 23A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Other matters

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, we now come to Part 2. Part 2 is the debate on clauses 28 to 30, “Other matters”, and Schedule 2. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

STEVE ABEL (Green): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’d like to immediately speak to Schedule 2, the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. There’s an extraordinary proposal in this legislation that enables the intrusion into wetlands and removal of protection from wetlands to facilitate coalmining.

Now, to give some context for this, if the objective of the Resource Management Act is to protect the environment, then destroying one of the most valuable attributes of our environment and our ecosystem structure, which is wetlands, to facilitate coalmining, which is widely recognised as the dirtiest of the fossil fuels—though, it turns out liquid natural gas and other forms of gas, when you take into account future emissions, may actually be more polluting for the environment, but that’s what this Government’s going to do as well. When you’re facilitating the access to the densest, most polluting fossil fuel, coal, for the purpose of it being burned, whether locally or abroad—in fact, it would be probably burned abroad—you are undoubtedly doing significant harm to the environment.

To add more insult to injury in terms of this legislation facilitating the destruction of our wetlands, we have already lost 90 percent of our wetlands in this nation since human arrival, so we have this tiny fraction of those wetlands left. They are one of the most effective means of absorption of carbon dioxide. We are destroying the nature that is actually helping to absorb the emissions, and we’re doing it to access coal. It’s quite extraordinary that this is a credible policy position for an environmental legislation.

Glen Bennett: It’s not credible. It’s not.

STEVE ABEL: It is not credible at all. It’s outrageous. My question to the Minister, in the simplest terms, is: how can you possibly, as the environment Minister, with a straight face, seriously justify the destruction of native indigenous wetlands, which have an incredible value to us in terms of biodiversity, have an incredible value in terms of sources of species that breed and populate our rivers that come from wetland ecosystems, and are a rare ecological phenomenon in the landscape now, because they are so often the target of draining and of destruction for the purposes of farming and, in this instance, for the purposes of coalmining?

I have an amendment explicitly in regard to this clause, an amendment which would ensure that this particular part of the legislation was removed. That should be done because it is the most possibly—I mean, there’s many outrageous things in this legislation, but among one of the most outrageous things is the destruction of wetlands for coalmining. How does the Minister justify this with an environmental responsibility?

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. The member somehow implies that this gives consent. In fact, this aligns coalmining with other extractive industries. The same gateway tests would still apply. The management of significant adverse effects on wetlands and significant natural areas (SNAs) would apply. It is simply aligning coalmining with other mining activities. It is not giving consent to anything. It is aligning the consenting process, and there is nothing that prevents local rules and plans being established to provide additional protection—a prohibition status—for specific wetlands or SNAs identified at a local level. So it is simply aligning coalmining with all other mining.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Chair. On the coalmining topic, it’s good that we’ve made it to Schedule 2, given that we did not have a chance to discuss Schedule 1 before the debate was shut down and before we got into any detail on the inclusion of section 107 changes too.

Does the Minister understand that coalmining is different from other mining because coal is burnt and produces climate change emissions, and that is why there was an exclusion—or a specific “no more new coalmining”? I ask this question because many members in her party seem to say, if anybody ever questions a mine of any sort, they are a hypocrite if they have a cellphone. I am happy to say that I have a cellphone and that there is no coal in that cellphone, because, of course, coal is not a precious metal or anything of the sort. Coal is used to be burnt to produce heat, and it creates emissions.

I hear some heckling. I can’t hear it all, but if Government members want to explain how coal is in my cellphone, I’m very interested to hear about that. I appreciate that many minerals that are mined are in cellphones, but coal has been treated differently from other minerals for a very specific reason.

Hon Member: The energy used to make it perhaps?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I’m glad Government members have so much to say about this, and I look forward to their insightful contributions.

Now, we are on Schedule 2, and, of course, this involves both changes to intensive winter grazing and also to the stock exclusion regulations. I’ve also heard many members.

Hon Member: What about the clock?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, I’ve got lots of time here.

Hon Member: Shall we start the clock, Mr Chair?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I don’t see any need to start the clock! Now, we’ve heard from many people about intensive winter grazing, and the same sort of argument has been used as well for the stock exclusion regulations: that because there have been improvements—because of the regulations that this bill is going to get rid of—there is now no need for regulation. I see a flaw in that logic. And that, of course, is because the improvements have been made because of the incentives created by those regulations, and by removing these regulations, the incentives won’t be there any more.

What advice has the Minister received to say that this won’t be the case—that the removing of the regulations and the incentives will not lead to the behaviour that happened prior to these regulations? What is the Minister going to do to monitor the situation? And will the Minister make a commitment to this House that, if there are any backward steps in either intensive winter grazing or the stock exclusion regulations, she will jump with the urgency that we’ve seen today to stop the Otago Regional Council from meeting tomorrow to implement these incentives for environmental protections?

We are talking here about regulations that are to protect our environment—and also there are some animal welfare issues with the winter grazing—that is, to stop mud going into rivers. Sedimentation is a huge pollutant, and the stock exclusion regulations are, obviously, to stop stock both being around water bodies and also doing other things that stock do which might get into those waterways and increase pollution. I’ve asked the Minister some very direct questions that I’d like the answers to. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Chair. The questions from the member the Hon Rachel Brooking regarding intensive winter grazing—and she mentioned slope land, but I don’t know that there was a question in that—yes, there have been significant improvements made, and I think that the member does an incredible disservice to farmers to suggest that this was brought about only because of the regulations that were brought in, I think, in 2022. Farmers have been working on this for many years, fencing waterways, planting riparian planting, new and improved effluent systems, winter pads.

These matters have been at the heart of changes in management practice by farmers, and so I am disappointed but not surprised that a Labour member would somehow try and take all the credit and do such a disservice to farmers, who have been doing this hard work for many, many years. Intensive winter grazing, as we know, is primarily in the South Island, and so it is well known to both the member and myself. Those improvements have been incredibly obvious for a number of years, and this Government backs farmers to continue with those improvements, because farmers will always be trying to do the best for their land.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chairman. I want to talk about the stock exclusion rules, the fencing rules. Now, the last National Government tried to land fencing exclusion rules, and they’re quite hard to land properly. They got very close. Nick Smith wanted to do it, but in the end they didn’t quite get it across the line and there was a change of Government in 2017. We took that up, and I want to explain why it was that we got to the point where we thought they were necessary. Mark Cameron would be well aware of this.

The Kaipara is one of the biggest harbours in the world—magnificent harbour. It’s the spawning ground for most of the snapper on the West Coast of the North Island. It’s also the place for the juvenile white pointers—you know, quite a rare species these days. There is so much sediment now in the Kaipara that I was speaking to an underwater photographer who photographs white pointers, and he’s got to be a metre away from them before he can see them. I found that quite a scary thought, that he was brave enough to do that.

Now, the recent mudbanks—and I’m not criticising the vast majority of farmers here, but the recent mudbanks in the Kaipara are two—

Mark Cameron: They’ve been there for decades, David.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, the recent ones, Mark—the recent ones are two metres deep. I’ve been taken there as the relevant Minister with the local councillors and shown recent mudbanks close to where the Hōteo River comes in and where the Wairoa rivers come in, and every tide you see an extra film of sediment that’s settled on all of the boat ramps. These recent mudbanks are literally two metres deep.

What’s necessary to do that? Well, it’s a complex problem to fix, and, as a Government, we committed $100 million of taxpayers’ money to help with that clean-up, matched money from the councils, particularly Auckland Council—it’s a wealthier council than the Northland Regional Council, Auckland Council being a regional unitary authority covering the regional council functions as well—and really good input from farmers.

I went up there with the Prime Minister at the time, Jacinda Ardern, and met with a dairy farmer, a dairy farmer very proud of the clean streams accord in 2003, which led to the dairy industry largely and very effectively—in a way that I think reflects very well on the dairy industry—fencing most of its waterways. The dairy farmer took Jacinda Ardern and myself out the back and said, “Look, this is our side of the river that leads down into the Kaipara. It’s fenced. Look at the other side of the river there, which is unfenced, which is a beef farmer.” The difference from one side of the river to the other was that on the dairy farm the bank wasn’t collapsing into the river. The bank on the other side, which was exposed to heavy cattle—I think it was cattle in that case, but pigs and deer can do the same thing; not sheep—was collapsing into the river and was a major contribution of silt load into the Kaipara.

Now, this problem that we’ve got in the Kaipara will not be fixed without the likes of those things being fenced, so we came out with some proposals for fencing. They only ever applied to cows—you know, beef cattle, deer, and pigs; not sheep, which are lighter animals. The first iteration of it, I can remember the Hon Damien O’Connor coming up to me and saying, “How the hell did you get that so wrong?” The areas to be fenced were chosen on the basis of an average within a certificate of title, and I can remember sort of discussing with my officials and shamefacedly admitting to the Hon Damien O’Connor, “Well, we didn’t get that right, so we’ll have to do it again.”, and we did it again. The second iteration was a lot, lot better, and from memory there was more than 90 percent accuracy of the mats that were produced.

The one residual problem was that we still weren’t giving a proper exemption for low-impact, low-density farming where there are low stocking rates, in some high-country areas predominantly, where it’s a nonsense that we try and fence them. I agree that it’s a nonsense to fix them, but the answer to that is to improve the fencing regulations, not to abandon them. The problem that we have in New Zealand is more than 20 years after the clean streams accord, we’ve still got recalcitrant farmers, including that one that I referred to up north near where Mark Cameron lives—and this is no criticism of Mark, but it is the criticism of the people that are on the other side of that area there. The regional councils, they don’t want to have to develop their own rules around this.

Now, I know we’ll hear from the other side and they’ll say it should all be left to farm plans. Well, what’s the regulatory underpinning for a farm plan? What’s going to cause the farm plan to properly address that? What rule is going to be effectively implemented by a farm plan in the absence of any rule? Once again, what we have from the Government is “Trust us; we know what we’re doing.” when, in actual fact, we know that 20 years after the clean streams accord we actually had some pretty serious problems, and not just in Northland. It is a particular problem in Northland where it’s erosion-prone—and I’m not blaming the current farmers. The land was cleared 100 years ago. Then, you know, 50 years ago under Muldoon, there were incentives to clear land that should not have been cleared. I understand all of that.

That’s why we’re not sort of going around waving a big stick saying, “Fix it tomorrow.”, but fix it sometime we must, otherwise the Kaipara will never be fixed and the $100 million that central government’s putting in will be a complete waste of money, as will the matching money from the Auckland Council—that’ll be a waste of money. Some of the farmers up there who are doing the right thing will look across at their neighbours, like that farmer that took me and Jacinda Ardern and had a look over the background, and they’ll say, “Well, why the hell should I do it if that guy over there is not doing it?”

That’s what these fencing regulations are trying to achieve. They’re not trying to be punitive, and if there is a case to improve them, improve them—don’t ditch them. So, Minister, please justify and explain to the committee what efforts you made to improve the regulations before you thought you’d just throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): I would remind the honourable member that the requirements that apply to dairying and intensive raised beef cattle will remain, so the fencing requirements there will remain. The member will also be very pleased to hear that the $100 million that he started has continued under this Government, the $10 million a year for 10 years. Yes, this Government will say that farm plans are the best way to manage on a risk basis, but, again, I will remind everyone that is listening that requirements that apply to dairy or intensive grazed beef cattle for fencing will remain.

I would just note—and the ACT member may be able to correct me on this, but I understand there’s about 60 percent less dairying going on in Northland now, so some of these matters are going to be taken out of our hands, but, certainly, this Government has recognised the need to continue with the work being done in the Kaipara catchment and also to ensure that freshwater farm plans, when they are implemented, will be addressing these matters, and, again, that the requirements that apply to dairying and intensive grazed beef remain.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you, Minister Simmonds, for finally bringing some common sense. Thank you to David Parker for bringing up stock exclusion—I find it a fascinating subject. I’m interested, former Minister Parker: you brought up the Kaipara. You’re also a Minister that spoke ad nauseam, at length, about sedimentation in the Kaipara, and then increased its snapper fishery because the health of the snapper fishery was so good up there, so I find your remarks at odds with what is actually going on.

Let’s employ some common sense, sir. Let’s actually employ some common sense. Talking about fencing setbacks, now, former Minister Damien O’Connor and I have spoken about this as part of the freshwater accord.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Let’s talk about what submitters you let be heard.

MARK CAMERON: The freshwater accord—let’s talk about that. Fencing setbacks, five metres—five metres. Practically, I ask this committee: if you’re a farmer with a tributary, drain, stream, canal that drains into—the Kaipara was forementioned, so let’s talk about the Kaipara. How do you, practically, clean that? What does—

Hon David Parker: With a digger.

MARK CAMERON: What boom size do you have, sir? Because there isn’t a boom long enough to reach it. So, sir, you are talking about a nonsense.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Through the Chair, please, Mr Cameron.

MARK CAMERON: Absolutely, Mr Chair. The former Minister for the Environment is not practically employing any common sense. There isn’t a boom long enough to clean a canal that borders a buffer zone or a fencing setback area—that’s why former Minister David Parker got it wrong and Damien O’Connor got it right. Practically, it was a nonsense. We had a flooding event, sir, because of your earlier assertions. Practically, it didn’t work.

Another point: roundwood. I was formerly a fencing contractor. I find it comedic, this gentleman just saying, “Move all this fencing.” Roundwood, per post: 12, 14 bucks each. To do anything in real time—not sort of offer sermons, Minister Parker; actual, practical change—costs us tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sir, you come into this House and you offer priestly sermons about what we should do in rural New Zealand. We’re doing it because we don’t want our livestock falling in canals or rivers or drains and drowning. They’re exceedingly expensive. Why on earth—and maybe the Minister for the Environment can elucidate and illuminate this a little bit better for you, sir—would we not want to do that, anyway? We want to ameliorate the concerns about losing our livestock, so that’s why we fence the waterways off and, by virtue, improve environmental outcomes. Everything you said, sir, is something of a factoid—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Through the Chair, please, Mr Cameron.

MARK CAMERON: —nonsense. Coming back to fencing setback: practically, I believe, Damien O’Connor got it right when he suggested you make some adjustments to that. We’re already investing an inordinate amount of money to improve our environment and to protect our animals. We don’t need to be lectured when it doesn’t work, because it didn’t work, sir.

One final remark: I heard you talk, in the second reading speech, sir, about how we should plough a field to alleviate sediment loss. I said this in my speech—and maybe the Minister can enlighten you further—we spend millions of dollars, often on mortgages. Why on earth would we cultivate in such a way that we would inherently see sediment loss, intentionally? We didn’t need to be scolded by a Minister that didn’t do it. We try not to do it. Can you not see the correlation between causality, sir? That’s why I think this Minister’s got it right. I would celebrate anything that she can do to harness some practical common sense, and I thank her for it.

STEVE ABEL (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair, I appreciate it. I may have got just the solution for the member here and the member here [Gestures to Hon David Parker and Mark Cameron]—I’ve got this, guys. I have an amendment specifically regarding winter grazing. Winter grazing is a real challenge for us. We have had a grizzly winter in Southland this season—an absolute shocker. Vast volumes of water falling in the spring. There’s been a terrible death toll on the animals. We’ve heard terrible stories from both sheep and dairy farmers of things going very wrong and animals needing to be euthanised. There’s a slink factory in Southland—a slinky factory, as you like to call it—where 70,000 lambs were accumulated in the space of one month at one factory, 25,000 in one week. So, likely, the death toll—and this is terrible. No farmer wants to be dealing with a vast number of animals dying on their watch.

It is important to have a context of where you have a very high density of stocking in a region that frequently rains in the winter and where grass doesn’t grow, you have this serious problem, as my colleague to the left also points out, of how do you feed these animals? You get this intensive winter grazing, and when it goes wrong it goes very badly wrong. You get animals up to their udders in mud, you get animals stuck, animals dying, you get calves born into mud in the wicked winter weather, and you get sheep dying in mud.

Suze Redmayne: This is misinformation, Steve. You’re better than this, Steve.

STEVE ABEL: Pardon? What did you say, Suze?

Suze Redmayne: Misinformation—you’re better than this.

STEVE ABEL: Come on. This is reported in the Otago Daily Times—the 70,000 lambs. You don’t say that that many lambs have died? Well, you better talk to the Otago Daily Times about it. I can check on those statistics if you’d like, on the number of animals that have suffered in this miserable weather down South.

The point is that it is not good for the animals. It is also not good for the fresh water. That density, that volume of excrement and waste, that muddying of the soil means the flow of nutrients and the flow of waste goes down into the freshwater systems and the siltation. All of those things are bad for the environment. I do not know how the Minister—and this is the question for the Minister—justifies not having stronger intensive winter grazing rules.

I have an amendment that proposes the minimum setback for land used for intensive winter grazing of 10 metres. We had agreement on the committee—I’m on the Primary Production Committee with the very noisy member opposite, Suze Redmayne, and we had an agreement on that committee that there must be permanent vegetation on the five-metre setback; the committee agreed on that. I’m proposing here with this amendment that we have a minimum setback for land use for intensive winter grazing of 10 metres: “An area of land that is used on a farm must be located at least 10 m away from the bed of any river, lake, wetland, or drain (regardless of whether there is any water in it at the time).” That would replace clause 26, page 17, after line 3 with that proposal.

Schedule 2, the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020: this proposed amendment is that we delete the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 Schedule 2 on page 18, line 10. Now, the purpose of that is that the national policy statement is a very important part of how we get clarity on how we look after fresh water, and how it is that we are going to deal with the challenges we face in our freshwater environment. The proposal of this amendment is to do with the coalmining, which I mentioned earlier. We must not have wetlands destroyed for the sake of coalmining. Thank you.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): I am struggling to see how some of the members’ comments have anything to do with this bill that we’re debating, but I do want to make something absolutely clear: the 70,000 slink skins and 25,000 in one week that he talked about—70,000 over a month—were absolutely nothing to do with intensive winter grazing. They were because of a bitterly cold and wet spring. The winter was not wet; it was the spring that was bitterly cold and wet, and lambs died as newborns in the spring. Absolutely nothing to do with intensive winter grazing. Again, the Opposition seems intent on doing a disservice to our hard-working farmers that got out in that bitterly cold and wet spring every day to try and save as many lambs as they could.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The House is suspended. This debate is suspended. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

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

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the committee is resumed on the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. When we suspended for the dinner break, we were debating Part 2, clauses 28 to 30, “Other matters” and Schedule 2. Once again, the question is that Part 2 stand part.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Mr Chairman, look, thank you very much. It’s the first opportunity I’ve had to speak on this bill. This is the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. It actually goes beyond fresh water, but I’ll summarise it this way: be careful what you ask for.

There have been a number of so-called farmers’ champions over the other side of the House there, going on about how this is going to be nirvana and remove all—in fact, remove Government actors. They’ve got a petition: get Wellington out of farming. Well, in terms of fresh water, some might think there are some changes that can be made. In fact, we made some changes. We could take Wellington out of farming, biosecurity, food safety. Where would that leave the biggest export-generating sector of our country?

When it comes to fresh water, some will appreciate that, actually, water is the source of life. It’s certainly been the source of growth across agriculture through irrigation but also the ongoing reliable supply of water for farming systems and horticultural systems up and down the country. We’ve taken it for granted, and for a number of years now we’ve invested in irrigation. That’s the input side of it, knowing that water is really important and so get more, store it, and put it into the farming systems and generate more revenue. That’s great. Then we’ve also learnt that there’s an output side of it as well.

This issue is about the output side of it, for the most part, although some of the consents that will be affected or the operations that will be affected by the recent amendment that the Minister has brought in are both around inputs and outputs. But be careful what you ask for. The people on that side of the House, the bill itself, and the amendments trying to pave the way for easy farming will lead to a bigger challenge in the future as the reality of our farming systems bites home.

There’s been talk about the wonderful things that farmers do. In fact, it’s incredible, the things that we have learnt. As a farmer, I put effluent straight into the local stream. Thankfully, that doesn’t occur any more. We’ve learnt a lot. People used to chop the tails off cows to stop manure being flicked in their face in a herringbone shed. We don’t do that any more. We have a better level of understanding around animal welfare and of the environmental impacts of our farming systems.

Of course, this Government set out to have one quick win. In fact, previous Cabinet decisions have influenced this proposal, including an invitation to the Minister of Agriculture to provide papers on a quick win. If you read the regulatory impact statement (RIS) here, it is indeed very, very revealing. This coalition Government is good at quick fixes, quick wins, at trying to appease the people who were barking for—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): If I could just help the member to link it to Part 2.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: It’s fresh water and other matters, and it goes to—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): But specifically to Part 2.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: —stock exclusion and other things. I’m referring to the RIS, if I can. Mr Chairman, I appreciate your guidance on this, but the RIS has not been referred to and it’s a critical part of every part of this bill.

What I’m saying is that the proposals to take away some of these regulations—and the previous Minister sitting in the chair said, “Oh, you know, we’ve got some reassurances around some of the basic components of this.”, even though we’re taking away guidance for councils on what they should do, leaving the time lines way out into the never-never, if some of the members on the other side get their way. That is clear guidance for councils as to how we can better manage the output side of fresh water.

In Government, we had some proposals, and in spite of all the best intentions of the vast majority of farmers, there are some who will not abide by clear guidance or, indeed, just doing the right thing. Most of the laws and the regulations in this House are designed to protect us from the minority of people who want to do the wrong thing or who don’t want to do the right thing, to protect us from them or the environment from them. It is really important that we understand. Take the issue of bobby calves. I’ve heard a lot of—

Hon Member: Relevance.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Well, yeah, a lot of things have been said about, as I say, the great work the vast majority of farmers do. There was—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The member’s time has expired.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Mr Chairman, before the break, I had a response from Mark Cameron addressed to the Minister in the chair about what he said was the obvious case for no need for fencing, which is the fencing regulations repealed by this provision in Part 2. At the moment, we’ve got regulations that say, in some situations, farmers have to fence off their waterways.

He talked about the Kaipara and said there’s no problem with the Kaipara because the fish limit for snapper on the western side of the North Island has been increased. Well, that’s true, but it’s not because of the Kaipara. It’s true because the fishing pressure had been reduced on those fish by a cut to quota because they were being over-fished and they bounced back, so it’s a red herring, to mix my fish. But he also—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Well done.

Hon DAVID PARKER: —didn’t address the issue. I saw some members of the National Party nodding about the problem that they’ve got in the North for some sheep and beef farmers who really do have unacceptable practices close to waterways, that are collapsing the banks of these very silt-laden landscapes into the river, which is ending up in the estuary.

Then we heard from that same member saying, “Well, we ought to be just enabling all of the existing farm plans produced by the likes of Beef + Lamb New Zealand to be used, rather than having some other form of farm plan.” Now, the last Government actually agreed that we should be facilitating the transition of those plans into the farm planning system so that farmers didn’t have to do it more than once, but it did become evident that there are some farm plans that were inadequate. They’d have to be, if they were going to be a substitute for regulation, because if a farm plan is going to substitute for an environmental regulation which maintains a baseline, they do have to be robust and they have to cover off the right matters and they’ve got to cover all of the required farmers and there has to be some conditionality around using them. Otherwise, they can buy those same farmers who have ignored the need to fence those waterways that have evidently needed fencing for more than a decade, probably two decades—there has to be something in the system to give them teeth.

I found the answers that Mark Cameron, who chaired the Primary Production Committee—he didn’t address also the issue of the undertaking that he’d given submitters that a certain provision wasn’t going to be in the bill, but that is in the bill. Sadly, we haven’t heard from either the Minister of Agriculture or from him in respect of that promise that he made at select committee to submitters that has now been broken. Having not heard from the Minister to explain how it is that we can be assured about the likes of those farms that myself and the former Prime Minister visited in Northland, where the banks are crumbling into the river, which are adding to these enormous sediment loads in the Kaipara Harbour, how can we be sure that once these fencing regulations disappear, after two decades of inaction since the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord was adopted by the dairy industry so well—and I compliment them on it—the beef industry is not going to continue what they’ve been doing for the last 20 years, which is ignoring, in some cases, their environmental responsibilities?

As the Hon Damien O’Connor said, it’s not all farmers. We’re not saying this is all farmers, but there does seem to be a reaction that whenever there’s an environmental bottom line proposed for the rural sector, the sector clubs together. It’s almost like they’re insulted that one of their kind will be picked out and criticised for poor performance, but, sadly, the truth is some performance has been inadequate. There are some historical reasons for that that are forgivable, but there does need to be an improvement in practice, and without a push along, some of these people, the recalcitrants—and that’s the term that has been used by leaders from both Beef + Lamb New Zealand and the dairy sector at times, so they want the recalcitrants pushed along. How can we be sure, in the absence of any enforceable rule, that they will be pushed along? My understanding is that if this legislation goes through, we don’t have farm plans, and we won’t have fencing regulations.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I will leave it to my colleagues who understand the matters set out in Schedule 2 to discuss Schedule 2 in more detail. One of the clauses that hasn’t been discussed yet when it comes to Part 2 is clauses 29 and 30, specifically when it comes to the amendment to the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act 2019.

When it comes to clause 30, this clause replaces section 31(3) with what is following. One of the things that we see in this bill is the removal of the board of inquiry, and the issue we have here is in the existing version of this particular Act. It specifies that “a proposed national policy statement that directly affects ngā rohe moana must treat the environmental covenant as a relevant matter for the purposes of section 51(1)(e) of that Act.”, which is the Resource Management Act. Of course, section 51(1)(e) that is being referred to here is referring to the board of inquiry.

The question I have for the Minister, first and foremost, is: when we’re looking at the board of inquiry, it’s made-up of a collective of people and a panel of people, but with that being removed, what mannerism and what accountability would that person, as specified in new subsection (3), have to do in order to reach that benchmark of what is considered an environmental covenant when it is no longer there? That is my first question.

The second question I have—and this is sort of more and more curious if we’re looking at the broader context of section 31 of the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act 2019—is that section 31(2) refers to a board of inquiry appointed under section 14 of the Resource Management Act 1991. As we see in this proposed bill, that board will now be repealed. However, despite the fact that there is a replacement of section 31(3) with the removal of the reference to the board of inquiry, section 31(2), which specified the board of inquiry being appointed, has not been removed, as far as I know, as part of this Act.

My second question to the Minister is: does it mean that, in the context of the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act, that board of inquiry still remains, or is there another section—possibly in section 1, which I may not be aware of—where that particular area has been removed? It doesn’t look like it’s anywhere adjacent to clause 13 where sections 41 and 51 were repealed. So, yeah, that was more a point of clarification from the Minister. Under that particular Act, is section 31(3), pertaining to the board of inquiry, going to remain in that Act? Also, in terms of the newly introduced replacement section 31(3), with a person without that board of inquiry, what sort of benchmark or what sort of threshold would that person need to fulfil when it talks about how they “must consider the environmental covenant.”, when that board no longer exists and has been repealed by this Act?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Associate Minister of Agriculture): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the members for their considered questions. I listened very carefully to the member Damien O’Connor, though I couldn’t actually hear a question in there, but I think he wanted to talk a little about stock exclusion. Likewise, I think the Hon David Parker wanted to talk about stock exclusion as well. He was talking about unacceptable practices near waterways, collapsing of banks, and farmers who have ignored the need to fence, and farmers are clubbing together, and they were recalcitrant, and they needed a push along, which I felt was very typical language coming from that Labour Party when it comes to the attitude towards the agricultural sector.

I just want to assure those concerned members that the stock-exclusion regulations do regulate the access of livestock to waterways. We’ve felt very strongly that a map of low-sloped land currently acts as a land-based trigger for requirements to exclude non-intensively grazed beef cattle and deer from water bodies. Those requirements will come into force in July next year for existing farms, but we’ve always been concerned that the map and associated requirements were such that the one-size-fits-all approach that we saw in so much legislation that was passed by the previous Government would impose significant costs on those non-intensive farms.

Our view is that to address the concerns, the bill repeals those requirements, meaning the exclusion of affected stock types will instead be managed by farmers and by regional plan rules where they exist and, of course, freshwater farm plans when they are rolled out, acknowledging that the freshwater farm plans are not yet widely available, but they are intended to come very soon. The National Environment Standards for Freshwater allow for intensive winter grazing too, to occur as a permitted activity.

Just turning to the questions from the Green Party member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan about the removal of the board of inquiry, we’ve been very clear that removing the board of inquiry processes is to provide one clear default process for making and amending national directions. I think it’s already been acknowledged by the previous Minister that sat here that that board of inquiry process hasn’t been used in over 10 years. The member asked specifically about covenants as agreed by Ngāti Porou. The bill amends the Resource Management Act sections referenced in the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act. Clause 30 is a consequential amendment to uphold the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act. In fact, Ngā Hapū agreed to this amendment, and this change will ensure that their covenant is still considered in that national direction process.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair—just a very short question for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Nicola Grigg. In the bill commentary, regarding the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act 2019, it talks about how “department advisers consider that alternative process is not needed because, despite the removal”, but the clarification I’m looking for is: was there a reason why, then, section 31(2) of the Act isn’t repealed? Does that just naturally get removed?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Chair—sorry, there was a lot of noise there. Before the dinner break, I asked the Minister in the chair, the Hon Penny Simmonds, two questions that have not been addressed. The first one was about coal and whether the Minister appreciated the difference between coal, which is not a mineral found in our cellphones but instead is burned and produces climate change emissions—not answered.

The second question was in regards to both the stock exclusion regulations and the intensive winter grazing. The comments that we’ve heard since my contribution, about how farmers may do all the good things without any regulations—if that is the case, and I very much like it to be the case, I ask the Minister if she would confirm to the committee that there will be monitoring and review of what happens to the environment without these regulations. And I ask if the Minister would make an undertaking to come to this House with the urgency that we’ve seen today with the Amendment Paper around the Otago Regional Council, in bringing back these, or appropriate, regulations.

I note the Minister was just talking about the slope rules and the stock exclusion regulations—of course, they also are relevant in the intensive winter grazing—and I note the advice in the departmental report that “further degradation of freshwater quality due to stock entering water bodies could continue until plans are implemented. Smaller farms are also currently not required to have a freshwater farm plan, meaning stock may not be required to be excluded, even if there are environmental risks.” The advice is that there is uncertainty and definitely the potential for more pollution.

We’ve just also seen today a new amendment that pauses the farm plans. A lot of the evidence and the submissions that went to the Primary Production Committee, regarding changing these regulations and the intensive winter grazing, was based around farm plans. They are being paused and there are no transitional arrangements. Has the Minister considered, now with the amendment around the farm plans being paused, whether or not there should be transitional arrangements around these stock exclusion regulations that relied—the logic was that they were relying on these new farm plans, but now those farm plans have been paused. What work has gone into working out whether that change to farm plans requires changes to the stock exclusion regulations and some transitional arrangements?

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

LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I really appreciate you granting the time to really, properly, go through especially the amendments that are on the Table but just the existing clauses in the bill that we are yet to get an answer from the Minister on.

I want to pick up on the biodiversity aspect of this bill, particularly around the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity and the amendments that this bill proposes to that. Now, what I’m interested in hearing from the Minister—because one of the key aspects of it is this delay in the requirement for local authorities to actually notify any policy statement or plan changes by 31 December in 2030—is the proposed date. Now, I have an amendment on the Table that would amend Schedule 2—and so this is page 18, line 26 of the existing bill—and it would simply replace the date 2030 with 2027. The reason I want to do this and why I would like to hear from the Minister is about whether the Minister has actually sought advice about what the actual impact on biodiversity this delay would actually have.

This is across Aotearoa, but also I’d like to hear from the Minister what evidence has she actually seen to justify this delay when it comes to biodiversity outcomes; when it comes to a coherent framework and logical framework that landowners can actually use? What I’m really unclear about with this is that the Government keeps purportedly offering up certainty and clarity to landowners with this delay, but what isn’t clear is there are so many aspects of existing policy statements, of existing regional plans and district plans, that actually have biodiversity requirements in them that do implement the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity. How exactly is this providing clarity?

I wanted to pick up particularly the area of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity that this amendment is going to add to—where it adds this delay of the date—and just below that talks about the timing for regional biodiversity strategies. Now, a lot of councils’ regional biodiversity strategies actually rely on the identification and then protection of significant natural areas (SNAs) to be able to effectively implement these strategies and actually ensure that they are making biodiversity gains on the ground. What are the implications and how will that work for these regional biodiversity strategies?

Now, I’m anticipating the Minister’s response—because, again, we’ve heard it a lot from comments tonight—and this is about the sort of onerous nature of the fact that you would identify an SNA on a property. I just want to make it clear that throughout the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity and throughout all the messaging and actual information about it, it’s that existing activities can continue provided they don’t threaten the loss of native plants and animals. That is a baseline in the Resource Management Act that exists regardless.

The fact that we were going to identify these significant natural areas would have provided certainty, would have provided clarity to landowners in order to actually manage them to the rules. That’s what they were actually after. Going back on this in this very ad hoc, piecemeal way is not going to offer that certainty and clarity. I would really appreciate some enlightenment from the Minister of what’s intended there. Thank you.

Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Associate Minister of Agriculture): Thank you, members, for your questions. Yes, we can. As was announced today, the Government has announced that we will pause the roll-out of freshwater farm plans until work to improve the system is actually finalised. We see freshwater farm plans as a really important tool to support farmers to manage freshwater risks, but I think it’s been widely acknowledged around the industry that the current system has been too costly and it’s inarguably been not fit for purpose. We are going to continue to work with farmers and councils and other key stakeholders.

Indeed, I’d encourage any members who come from regions around New Zealand to get involved and ensure that they’re advocating strongly on behalf of their local farmers. You might learn a lot. But, look, we have always maintained that we believe that planning requirements need to enable more catchment-level solutions. If we don’t pause the roll-out, it’s patently clear that farmers in regions where the system is already live—for example, Waikato—would be required to submit freshwater farm plans for certification by early 2025.

I just want to address some of the questions raised by the Hon Rachel Brooking around the stop exclusion rules and whether or not there will be monitoring and the review of impacts on the environment. They’re very pertinent questions, but I want to assure her that this bill does not affect any monitoring required under the Resource Management Act (RMA) and that the state of environmental monitoring will continue as it always has. I’m sure the member will be very pleased and relieved to hear that.

The questions from the Green Party member around the National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity (NPSIB): let me just find my notes that I just wrote down very quickly, and I can’t even read my own handwriting here—I beg your pardon. Actually, I might take a moment—oh no, beg your pardon, Mr Chair. Here we go.

Look, it’s been again widely acknowledged, not dissimilar to the farm plan roll-out, that there’s been a real concern about the approach to identifying new significant natural areas (SNAs) and we’ve always felt—and, indeed, a lot of councils have fed back—that the definition was far too broad and it captured areas with less significant native biodiversity and we felt would overly restrict land use. We’ve all heard stories about farmers that would be adversely affected, and there was very little definition between what was actually in a wetland that must be preserved and what was, frankly, just a bog.

The bill suspends the requirements within the NPSIB for councils to identify those new SNAs for three years and it’s going to extend the implementation time frames out to the end of December 2030. That’s going to give time for review of all those relevant policy settings for protecting and maintaining indigenous biodiversity. I think despite what some members of Opposition parties feel, this Government is very determined to protect our native environment, so that work is actually already under way.

Other provisions within the NPSIB, like the consent pathways, will continue to apply. That’s the really important point here: we’re not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In addition, the existing RMA requirements to maintain and protect indigenous biodiversity remain. I cannot emphasise enough: the existing protections remain to ensure that councils can continue to protect those significant natural areas.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Very quickly, if I may, I just want to touch on some remarks by the former Minister for the Environment Rachel Brooking and pose the question, Minister, and I can present it to you because I’m sure you know the answer: what do stock units look like per bovine?

Now, I’m pretty sure that Damien O’Connor would be the only member of this House outside a few National members who will know that it’s 5.5 stock units per bovine. Minister, the question I have for you—and maybe you can litigate it for the committee’s illumination—is: if the silence is an indictment from the left that they didn’t actually know what a stock unit was, then how on earth, Minister, was a slope map requirement ever going to work as a prerequisite or a precondition for farming practices?

Sorry, but the people on the left don’t know what a stock unit is; I do. I know that it’s a stocking density, and it’s different per animal species. Without over-litigating the point, Rachel Brooking, if you don’t know that, how on earth can you assert that we need to have slope map requirements, because every animal farmed has a different practice—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): If the member can direct his comments to the Chair.

MARK CAMERON: Can the Minister please enlighten the committee as to what stock units would look like in terms of slope maps—i.e., their removal?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Associate Minister of Agriculture): I’m very happy to take a question from that member at any time, and I distinctly remember the informative education I had as a child from my own father about what exactly a stock unit was. Look, to illustrate to the committee, the approach that we’re taking is based in pragmatism. It’s based in practical reality. Therefore, our view has always been that regarding low-slope areas that are less intensively farmed, there should be a different approach applied than for more intensive farming practices, and I don’t think I can elucidate any more clearly than that.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Mr Chairman, thank you very much, and I appreciate you gave me some latitude in my first speech. I’ll stick to some questions for the Minister—keeping in mind the fact that, actually, most of the things that we’re trying to do here were laid down in 1992 by the National Government under the Resource Management Act. That was protection of the environment, protection of biodiversity—making sure that we didn’t degrade the water quality. All those things were laid out in 1992, and we failed to deliver in many measures.

There has been lots of speculation about the previous Government’s attempts to move us forward in this area. The reality is that, without regulations, we can’t protect the vast majority of farmers, good farmers, from those who don’t want to do the right thing.

Hon Member: Rubbish.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Oh, “Rubbish.”, he says. That man lives with his head in the sand. I have spoken to many farmers who say we need regulations to make sure that the person who, in intensive winter grazing, has cows with mud up to their bellies, who has water running off steep areas and soil running down into the waterways—they say we need regulations and clear guidance from councils.

When we introduced the requirement for resource consents for land over 10 degrees—because anything above 10 degrees erodes soil at exponential levels, relative to flat land; that is, it leaps up in the coming off. There were claims that 10,000 consents were needed and, in fact, 278 were issued. The question to the Minister, in terms of analysing that—because the regulatory impact statement (RIS) says, “No recent engagement has occurred on these proposals.” Can I ask the Minister: what was the analysis of that? Were they not needed, or did the vast majority of people flout the requirement to do so, to get a resource consent? That’s quite a valuable piece of information. Given the fact that we’ve limited information on current stakeholder and Treaty partner views—in the RIS—does the Minister have concerns that iwi and hapū may challenge councils when they do the monitoring and fail to take action, because the regulations are not in place to ensure protection of the environment? Has the Minister or has the Government done some analysis in that area?

The Minister referred to the fact that monitoring will continue. Well, what happens if there’s an identified failure to protect either indigenous biodiversity or water quality? Kicking the can down the road, as is being proposed by this Government, leaves councils ill-equipped to intervene. In fact, on intensive winter grazing, we had a taskforce, sparked by horrific images that went around the world of New Zealand pastoral farming systems—horrific images. In fact, North Island farmers who go South sometimes have had no idea of what is normal practice in Southland. Those images went out around the world. The inability of the councils to intervene gave rise to the Government’s intervention and attempt—it wasn’t perfect, as my colleague David Parker said—to bring in clear guidance and regulations for all councils.

Now, it’s not one-size-fits-all—and there were adjustments necessary—but, ultimately, kicking this can down the road, as is being proposed here, in both intensive winter grazing and in discharge into waterways, will mean that there’s likely to be a greater challenge when those standards are finally brought into place. Now, we will have national environmental standards for freshwater, but if they’re not being imposed, if they’re not being put in place, the degradation will just make it harder for future generations. The questions I have for the Ministers are the ones I’ve asked. Has the Government considered this? What will happen? What will councils be able to do when they clearly identify failure? And what is normal good practice that the vast majority of farmers will implement but a few or maybe more will not?

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

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): I would like to respond to some comments directed at me by both the Minister and the chair of the select committee. I think the Minister misunderstands my question, and I think the chair of the select committee did as well, because when I was asking about monitoring in review and transitional provisions, I was not arguing the ins and outs of carrying capacity; I was not arguing the ins and outs of slope angles. What I was saying is we have some regulations in place at the moment; they are going to be taken away. What work is being undertaken, what work will the Minister agree to and tell this House about, to determine, once those regulations are taken away, the effect that taking those regulations away has on the environment? I’m not asking about general monitoring in review provisions in the Resource Management Act. The Resource Management Act is very poor at monitoring and review and enforcement and prosecution, which is why we changed it with the Natural and Built Environment Act, which, of course, this Government has repealed.

My question is—there’s a whole lot of regulation being removed—what work will this Government undertake to see the effects, to measure the effects, to analyse the effects of the removal of those regulations? If that work is undertaken and if it demonstrates that there are worse environmental impacts, will the Government then undertake to put back the appropriate regulations with the appropriate carrying capacity and the appropriate slope angles to ensure that the environment does not suffer any further degradation?

Now, I’m also interested in the Minister’s response to questions from my colleagues about indigenous biodiversity, where the Minister referred to a bog. I’m wondering what a bog is and if by using the term “bog” she means that there is no indigenous biodiversity in there. If she could clarify that point, that would be useful, because over the years many people have called wetlands full of indigenous biodiversity “swamps”, and I’m sure some people have referred to them as bogs as well. The point of this National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity and the identification of areas of indigenous biodiversity is to do just that: to look in the bog or the swamp or the wetland and to see what’s there, because often our indigenous biodiversity is small, and people who are not ecologists might not recognise the life that is within them.

If she could clarify what she means by a bog—if she doesn’t mean it as a wholly pejorative statement but was just referring to the fact that there are some areas that may have no indigenous biodiversity or very low indigenous biodiversity values, and that’s what she meant by bog—that would be helpful. Thank you.

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

CAMILLA BELICH (Junior Whip—Labour): Point of order. I’m informed that the member who gave the closing motion has already taken a call in this debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): He can take more than one call in committee.

CAMILLA BELICH (Junior Whip—Labour): For a closing motion, Mr Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): That’s the advice I’ve received.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Motion agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Part 2 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Schedule 1 set out on Amendment Papers 127 and 128 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The tabled amendments to Schedule 1 in the name of the Hon Rachel Brooking are out of order as being in the same substance as an amendment previously not agreed to—that is Steve Abel’s amendment.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s amendment to Schedule 2 set out on Amendment Paper 127 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendment to Schedule 2 Resource Management (National Environment Standards for Freshwater) Regulations 2020 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendment to Schedule 2 Resource Management (National Environment Standards for Freshwater) Regulations 2020 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendment to Schedule 2 Resource Management (Stock Exclusion) Regulations be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendment to Schedule 2 Resource Management (Infringement Offences) Regulations 1999 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Steve Abel’s tabled amendment to Schedule 2 National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The tabled amendment to Schedule 2 National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 in the name of the Hon Rachel Brooking is out of order as being the same in substance as an amendment previously not agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s tabled amendment to Schedule 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendment to Schedule 2 National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity 2023 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 48

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

Noes 68

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

Amendment not agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 3

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Members, we now come to our final debate, clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on clauses 1 to 3—“Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Chair. First of all, I’d like to comment on clause 2, which is the commencement clause, which says, “the day after” Royal assent. There is some irony to that, given that we’ve just passed an Amendment Paper that has a retrospective clause in it so that, in fact, the commencement for that retrospective clause will be today. Perhaps there should be some amendment to clause 2.

Focusing on the title in clause 1, the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, well, there certainly are a number of other matters here. We’ve spoken today in this debate about the specificity of that Amendment Paper having a retrospective effect for today, and that is because the Otago Regional Council is going to meet tomorrow. Of course, this law won’t have commenced by tomorrow, because it needs to have a third reading, which is not going to happen tonight, and then, of course, it needs Royal assent—also not going to happen tonight. In fact, the Otago Regional Council can go ahead with its meeting tomorrow. I think a more reflective title clause now—

Hon David Parker: And they should.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: My colleague David Parker is saying the Otago Regional Council should go ahead with that meeting tomorrow, because they need to follow the law as it is, and the Resource Management Act requires them to act at pace. Perhaps this title should be the “Resource Management (Specific Amendments to Stop Democracy in the Otago Regional Council and to Put Up Rates) Amendment Bill”, because this is a very inefficient process that the Minister is inserting, and it goes just against so much work that people have done on that plan to be notified tomorrow—and I hope it still is.

Of course, the Minister has told us that a new national policy statement for freshwater is coming and that it would be inefficient to change anything until that happens in another 18 or 24 months, but that’s such a spurious argument, because of course consenting becomes much more efficient once you have a plan in place, because then the plan tells you if things are permitted or not permitted and you don’t have to go up the chain to national documents and to the purpose of the Act to make those decisions. It is the most efficient thing to have those plans in place. It’s the most efficient thing for the Otago Regional Council to notify that plan tomorrow, but the Minister can only think that it will be inefficient, because her changes to that national policy statement on freshwater are going to allow for increased pollution. Another suggestion for the title would be the “Resource Management (Increase Pollution) Amendment Bill”.

We’ve seen the Primary Production Committee say to one submitter, “No, don’t talk to us about section 107; that’s not in scope. Of course it’s not in scope. Why would that be in scope? It’s not in the bill as introduced to Parliament.” but then say to other submitters who have a financial interest in section 107 changing, “No, no, tell us whatever you like about this and we’ll listen to you closely and we’ll just slot it in the select committee report. We won’t have the select committee analyse what this change means.”

I have here the High Court decision. I didn’t get to talk about it in Part 1, but you can see that it’s a very large decision, likely to be appealed—doesn’t talk about whether or not the existing exceptional circumstances in 107 has been used or not. Some parties don’t get to submit on it and other parties do. This is a disgrace to our process, so a further title suggestion would be the “Resource Management (Skip Due Process Again and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”—that would be better. The “Resource Management (Override the Otago Regional Council’s Democratic Processes and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”—again. Or perhaps it could mention bogs, which one of the other Ministers is so interested in.

STEVE ABEL (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I do support those names from my colleague Rachel Brooking, but I want to remind the committee of a moment of extraordinary candour on the part of Minister Bishop when he first spoke to this bill. He very honestly described it as quick and dirty—quick and dirty—and we can’t do better than that.

I mean, we can take the Minister’s own characterisation of this bill and we can say that it very well describes what this bill does, because if anyone has had a look at intensive winter grazing, it’s pretty correct to describe it as dirty. It’s mud farming, which is what it could well be called, and this is a bill for facilitating that sort of mud farming, among other things, so it’s certainly dirty.

If we were to have a look at the dirtiest fossil fuel available to us, it’s coal, and this is legislation which facilitates the mining of coal through the destruction of wetlands. So there it is: the dirtiest fossil fuel—quick and dirty.

A truncated process—another truncated process—from this Government. Who would have thought? Who needs a full-sized select committee when you can have a short select committee, or no select committee at all? It has been quick—it has certainly been quick—and what’s the consequence of having large-scale intensification of farming, nitrate leaching, and all those things, and sediment getting into waterways? It’s dirty water.

What is the source of our drinking water? They’re getting rid of Te Mana o te Wai, the hierarchy of obligations, where even the principle that drinking water should be protected as a greater priority than industrial uses of water—no, they’re getting rid of that. Just to be clear, folks, your drinking water is now no longer—

James Meager: What number is it—what number in the hierarchy?

STEVE ABEL: It was number two in the hierarchy, and now there’s no hierarchy, so drinking water will not be prioritised—

James Meager: So it could be number one now.

STEVE ABEL: —over industrial uses of water, and do you know what happens? Well, listen, I’m happy to put forward an amendment to make drinking water the number one priority over industrial uses, but I’m sure that the Government wouldn’t support it.

What happens when you don’t treat drinking water as a priority? That is the reason the hierarchy was created, and it was created after the Havelock North event—the Havelock North event. To understand, Mr Meager, why protecting water and the health of fresh water should be first is that that is actually the way that you protect drinking water, because the source of our drinking water is rivers, lakes, and aquifers. If you do not protect that source water, you end up with contaminated drinking water.

That’s why we’ve got outrageous levels of rising nitrate in Canterbury—down your neck of the woods, Mr Meager. Perhaps you should take some care for the health of the water that your people are drinking, because the most exposed to nitrate-contaminated water are rural people on private bores. They’re the people who get exposed—

James Meager: How good is the drinking water in Auckland?

STEVE ABEL: —to nitrate-contaminated drinking water. The drinking water in Auckland is fantastic because we’re drinking rainwater. We’re not drinking—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): If I could bring back the member’s attention to clauses 1, 2, and 3, that’d be good.

STEVE ABEL: Quick and dirty—quick and dirty. I’m proposing that we call this bill the “Resource Management (Freshwater)”—no, I’m not. “This Act is the Resource Management (Quick and Dirty) Amendment Act” is the suggestion we have for it.

The final dirty part of this is the unprincipled, retrospective shutdown of democracy in Otago. It is dirty politics on toast. This is a Government that is very happy to override local decision-making. It has no care for the principle of localism, for having decisions being made there. I propose that this bill rightly be called: “This Act is the Resource Management (Quick and Dirty) Amendment Act 2024.” Thank you.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I just rise to make a quick point about this bill. The first is to invite Mr Meager, who seems to be so eager to contribute, to stand and take a call. He’s got plenty to say from the seats over there. If he’d like to contribute to the debate, I’m sure we’d all like to hear it.

I want to stand and propose a different name for this bill. It’s a name that has been inspired by some of the discussion that’s come through tonight. I propose that we call it the “Resource Management (Anything We Don’t Like We Call a Bog) Amendment Bill”. That’s because, to my astonishment as I listened to the debate tonight, I heard at one stage that the Minister in the chair—I’m not quite sure which Minister it was—had referred to wetlands as “bogs”; referred to them as “bogs”. Now, that type of language, I think, reveals a lot about what the Government have in mind with this bill. It says that anything they don’t like they will stick with a nasty name.

When we talk about “wetlands”, it conveys the idea that there is an ecosystem, that there are waterflows, that there is something of natural worth that is worth looking after and preserving, that it is something that counts and that matters and that needs to be taken into account when the land around it is being used; that needs to be taken into account when it comes to all sorts of matters, obviously around agriculture but also around urban development, around the development of all sorts of activities like that. Wetlands actually matter. But, if you can call them a “bog”, then they don’t matter. A bog is just a dirty, nasty stench. I mean, we all remember the “Bog of Incredible Stench” from Labyrinth, the movie. [Interruption] I know—there is a reason why we call things a bog; it’s to say that they have little worth. In fact, this is what this bill demonstrates from this Government: they think that fresh water, that wetlands, have little worth.

I suggest that they should at least be honest about their intentions with this bill, and I propose renaming this bill the “Resource Management (Anything We Don’t Like We Call a Bog) Amendment Bill”.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I think I too have some choice proposals that I would like the Minister to consider in terms of the title, in clause 1, but I want to first pick up what has been said before in terms of the deliberate attempt to undermine local democracy when it comes to what the Otago Regional Council is proposing.

I think, just, again, picking up from the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, around the fact of the lack of distinction between “wetlands” and “bog”—it is all so disingenuous. It would be so problematic and heartbreaking for the people of Dunedin, this very moment, who have just recently suffered a flood. If we were to mitigate it better through the use of wetlands, particularly in South Dunedin, maybe something like this wouldn’t have been as severe during a climate change - induced extreme weather event. I think, for the Minister probably to consider this—not just the Minister, but the broader Government parties—the “Resource Management (Hate on Otago) Amendment Bill”—I think that captures some of these particularly disingenuous attempts at undermining local democracy very appropriately.

However, one of the things we have heard as a running theme tonight, in terms of the committee stage, is the idea of what the governing parties perceive to be—erroneously, I might add—benefits to our rural communities and particularly to our farmers. We know for a fact that by having lower requirements, it puts our rural communities and it puts our farmers at harm—not only in terms of extreme weather events that might harm them in the future or, indeed, as we see it more frequently, this very moment, but also the fact that in a lot of our trade agreements, etc., there are certain environmental obligations that we must uphold. I would ask if the Minister would consider the title “Resource Management (Further Harm to Farmers) Amendment Bill”, because what is being proposed here absolutely will not be helping our farmers in the future. They are already under pressure and they will be under further pressure as a result of extreme weather events.

However, it does not surprise me that during the committee stage, what we are hearing from the Minister is the same response, going around in circles. When the Minister couldn’t respond to a particular question, we heard that level of grandstanding. This would not surprise me, coming from the Minister, who is the Minister for the Environment, that said that the balance has swung too far towards the environment. There was very little talk of environment and actual, genuine understanding of environment, our ecosystem, in that committee stage. So, finally, I would like to ask if the Minister would consider as a proposal the “Resource Management (Swung Too Far Towards the Environment) Amendment Bill”.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to propose that this be called the “Kamikaze Bill” because of the style of intervention from this Minister. I do have some serious questions—[Interruption] Great to see the other side so enthusiastic about it. The reason that I believe that it should be called the “Kamikaze Bill” is because of the roughshod riding over local democracy.

I want to speak to clause 3 and ask some questions around the commencement date, picking up off points made by my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking. As far as I am aware now, the vote that was due to take place tomorrow is no longer on the agenda of the Otago Regional Council. I do have some questions around that because it seems that the Government has not relied on urgency for the passing of this very eleventh-hour bill, and so my first question to the Minister is: was she expecting the vote to be taken off the agenda tomorrow? Did she have any communications with any of the councillors at the Otago Regional Council over the last week—so from last Sunday through to today—regarding any matters relating to this bill or the agenda? Would she consider communicating with the council and encouraging them to put the vote back on to the bill?

My next question is: if the council were listening to this and decided, realising now that they could still proceed with the vote, would the Minister—

Hon Mark Patterson: It’s not question time. We’re talking about the bill.

INGRID LEARY: Yes, but this is the purpose of this: would the Minister consider, then, asking the Leader of the House to put the House into urgency to pass the bill tonight if she thought there was a chance that the councillors—particularly those who are in favour of notifying—decided to get this vote on to the agenda tomorrow? Those are my questions and I do hope she takes particular care in answering the questions regarding communications with councillors.

As she is well aware, I do have a number of Official Information Act requests in and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests. I would also like to ask the Minister, since she is in the chair, just to save me a bit of time having to wait for those, whether she has had any direct text messages or other communications on this bill—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Can we focus on the title and commencement.

INGRID LEARY: —from the Hon Shane Jones; just so I can make sure that the information that comes back through the official information channels is correct. I’d be very grateful for the Minister’s responses.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): I can confirm to the member that just before lunchtime today, I rang the chair of the Otago Regional Council and informed her, as a matter of courtesy, that this bill was coming to the House.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): There are some deep ironies in this, aren’t there? It’s not so long ago that we had an election on three waters where the now Government, then in Opposition, was complaining about centralisation of these issues and how these issues were going to be taken off local government and regional councils and handed to a water regulator and a centralised provider of services. And, now, this bill, rather than actually upholding the principles of resource management, which do also include economic outcomes, which would have been considered by hearings on the Otago regional water plan had it been notified—or if it is notified; and maybe it will still be notified. I hope it will be. Even if this is passed, it could be notified and then just sit in abeyance because it wouldn’t be able to be progressed. Essentially, this is about centralisation. It’s not about localism. It’s not about applying the principles of the Resource Management Act. It’s about subverting them.

I would suggest that a better title for this, without being loaded, would just be “Centralisation”, the “Resource Management (Centralisation) Amendment Bill”, because that’s what’s going on. The power of regional councils to take their own decisions against the background where we have had a plan that is in breach of the Resource Management Act for over a decade is something that will not go down well in Otago.

Miles Anderson: It will go well.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, it might go down with some of your farming constituents, but the majority of people in Otago know that the industries, like tourism—the people’s own regard for the quality of their waterways, and the Otago Regional Council, which I know is on the periphery of your electorate, and you seem to prefer the interests of the area that you live in, which is not in the Otago Regional Council.

Miles Anderson: I think you are just making things up there, Mr Parker.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Do you think so? Well, you know, I think it is a tragedy—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Can you keep your comments to the Chair, and if you folks want to have a conversation, go outside in the hallway.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, thank you, Mr Chair. I would suggest that this would be better to turned into “Centralise”—I also lament the fact that this is going to have retrospective effect, even though the commencement clause pretends that it comes into effect on the commencement date. Its application is then retrospective even if that is the commencement date. I would suggest that this is not well described as the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

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

LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I am going to talk directly about the title and commencement. I think the commencement date is really wrong. I think it’s wrong in that it is having this retrospective effect on councils, and particularly Otago Regional Council. I will leave that there; that’s been stated.

I have an amendment on the Table about a change to the title of this Act. I would like to call it the “Resource Management (Delay and Degrade) Amendment Act 2024”. I want to do this because, you know, we used to have clean, healthy waterways across Aotearoa. That is a fact. I think, no matter where we are in this Chamber, we can all acknowledge that in our lifetimes, that’s changed—it’s certainly changed in my lifetime. That’s changed, unfortunately for the worse, and it’s changed in a way that has polluted our freshwater environments not only for ourselves but for our kids and grandkids. That’s something that, again, I know none of us across the Chamber actually want to leave as our legacy, actually want to leave for our kids and grandkids to pick up the mess.

Now, the problem with that is that to actually change that tide and to turn around that overall decline in our freshwater environments, we actually need to change our actions. Look, there’s a lot of, you know, critique about the way things have been done. No one and no effort has been perfect in any of this, but we really do need to change things.

I have had the privilege of working really closely with farmers across Southland, Otago, and Canterbury over a decade and a half, and farmers know this as well—they do. What’s really unfortunate is when bills like this turn that tide in a really, really unhelpful way, because we know that the future of Aotearoa, and actually the future of a thriving primary sector, is with strong rules and limits that work with our communities, that actually enable and support them to make the changes that we so desperately need now. Now, things like this are not helping us do that.

Why I’m talking about this “Delay and Degrade” title is because the elements in this bill consistently delay and degrade. We’ve got the delay of the identification and protection of significant natural areas. This delay will see less biodiversity protected and restored, and more indigenous significant ecology degraded and destroyed. Now, this isn’t necessarily purposeful; this comes about when—just the example we’ve been talking about—someone sees an area as a bog and thinks they can do activities to it, when actually it was a thriving wetland, it was a significant wetland, because we don’t have many of them left. These are the issues. This is exactly what the identification of significant natural areas was meant to address so that landowners knew very clearly where on their properties these significant natural areas were.

We’ve got the delay in the farm plan roll-out. We’ve got the degradation in terms of destroying wetlands and significant natural areas to allow for coalmining. We’ve got the removal of stock exclusion and intensive winter grazing regulations, and of course this removal of section 107, meaning that we’re risking setting inadequate conditions to actually meaningly improve the state of our already significantly degraded water bodies and protect aquatic life from significant adverse effects.

Now, the cherry on top with all of this, or perhaps the democracy at the bottom of the pole, is this democratic override. This Government can’t keep saying they’re about localism and then put through bills like this which not only directly override it but leave our environment in a much worse state.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I call Ingrid Leary. I’ll just remind members, I have been watching this debate and I’ll be looking for new material.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Absolutely. The reason I’m standing is to thank the Minister in the chair, the Hon Penny Simmonds, for her response to my last question, and, in a back and forth exchange, ask some more questions around the conversation that she said she had with the chair of the Otago Regional Council (ORC) today. This is relevant because this amendment did not go through a select committee process; it was dropped on the Table this morning. It is due to pass tomorrow, the same day that the vote would have taken place—

Hon Member: And still can.

INGRID LEARY: —and still could, except that it has been taken off the agenda. I think there’s a real public interest in understanding the level of influence this Government has had, and the Minister in particular, in getting the agenda item taken off the agenda and—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): In how it relates to the title and commencement.

INGRID LEARY: —her justification. This relates to the commencement, Mr Chair, because the commencement is, effectively, going to be retrospective, as has been alluded to by my colleagues—that’s in clause 3.

My specific questions to the Minister are: when she did ring the chair today, how would she characterise the conversation? What I’m seeking to find out here is: did she direct the chair of the ORC to take the item off the agenda, or did she suggest it, or what was the nature of the conversation? Also, in her view, what authority or appropriateness did she rely on to be able to reach out unilaterally and directly to the chair of a democratically elected council to have that conversation that resulted in that action? That’s one suite of questions.

My second suite of questions is—she did mention this particular conversation; I didn’t hear answers regarding other conversations dating back to last Sunday. This is all relevant to the commencement date, because the commencement is going to be retrospective—or not, if this item ends up on the agenda tomorrow, which is looking increasingly unlikely. I would like to hear a confirmation from the Minister that she had no other conversations, text messages, or digital communications or letters with any other elected member of the Otago Regional Council or any of its staff or contractors since last Sunday.

My last question is: did she receive any of those communications, as I’ve described, from any Minister of her Government, requiring her, directing, or suggesting to her that she take the course of action that she has taken today in terms of communicating with the Otago Regional Council? I will just put the Minister on notice that I will be doing Official Information Act requests on this. I would just like to use the opportunity of having time in the House to get these answers more quickly, given that there’s huge public interest in this, in the whole of the lower South.

MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki): I move, That debate on this question now close.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Motion agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The tabled amendments to clause 1 in the names of Steve Abel and Lan Pham are out of order as not being an objective description of the bill.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Clause 1 agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Clause 2 agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 48

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

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment.

Bills

Contracts of Insurance Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, the House is in committee on the Contracts of Insurance Bill. We come first to the debate on Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 3 to 9, “Preliminary provisions”, and Schedule 1. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m very honoured to get this call in front of my colleague Arena Williams, who, I know, has a lot to say on this matter. I have a number of Amendment Papers on the Table, as does my colleague Arena Williams and others in the Chamber. What I propose is to work through them pretty methodically, and, essentially, clause by clause. I must say—and I don’t intend to take my full call when we speak about this—the first thing I want to talk about is the purpose clause, that is to say clause 3.

Whilst the purpose is set out there—fine, in that kind of fine sort of way that the National Party does in terms of saying that we have an efficient insurance sector—what it doesn’t actually do is reflect the big improvements of this bill for consumers. My Amendment Paper, which is on the Table, suggests the insertion of a new subclause 3(c). I know that the Minister’s been busy today, but I’m hopeful that he will take every single one of these Amendment Papers with the gravity and seriousness that they deserve, because every one of them is a genuine improvement.

This suggestion is that we insert a purpose which actually reflects the important consumer interest in this bill, because this bill, as we will see later, carves off consumer insurance contracts and arrangements and makes special provision for them in a number of respects—some of them bear scrutiny as well. What we do need is a recognition that one of the purposes of this bill is to do exactly that. My suggested wording is that it’s a purpose of this bill “to protect the interests of consumers under insurance contracts when they are entered into, throughout their duration, and in the claims management and settlement process.”

Now, the Minister might want to put his own Amendment Paper in which changes that wording or perhaps even curtails it—it wouldn’t surprise me—but the overriding theme is that this bill is, in a large part, about protecting consumers’ interests. I do think, though, it is important to recognise that that protection isn’t just in the process of entering into the insurance contract, but also what you might call the claims management process where the insurer has to accept or reject a claim. For consumers, that’s a critical part of the insurance contract process. Also, the kind of claims management—that is to say the settlement aspect of the claim that the insurer comes to, in a timely manner—and I’ve seen the work the Minister’s done on reasonable time; different from the work that other Ministers have done, but still progress nevertheless—that’s also an important part of it.

I’d be interested in the Minister’s comments because he did have a good bill—a draft bill—earlier, and a member’s bill in this House which still lies on the Order Paper that, in fact, had a purpose clause that didn’t look a million miles from that. I’m wondering why he got his red pen out and said that that wasn’t a suitable part of the purpose clause, because, clearly, consumers are a critical part of this reform and that’s one thing we can absolutely agree on. I’d be interested in hearing the Minister’s comment on that.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you, Mr Chair, and for that contribution from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. It’s an interesting thing he’s raised. My comments are that the bill’s purpose statement already recognises and balances the interests of consumers and insurers with its focus, firstly, on promoting “confident and informed participation of insurers, policyholders, and other participants in the … market” and, secondly, by ensuring “that the [provision] included in contracts of insurance, and [insurance] practices … operate fairly.” I consider the framing appropriate and that an express consumer protection aim would make the provisions unnecessarily complicated and unbalanced.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Mr Chair. Before I come to the specific amendments that have been put to the Minister and have been on notice, there are only two which, really, the Labour Party has indicated it will die in a ditch over. The Labour Party has supported this legislation until this stage, but we have flagged at the first and second readings and in the committee that there are two issues which must be addressed in the current drafting. That is because consolidated insurance law in New Zealand is well overdue, and we must have law that makes it both clear and fair for insurers and consumers alike. The key to good law in this area, we can all agree, is good faith and that policyholders who make honest mistakes should not find themselves without cover as a result of those mistakes.

The two amendments, which have been published for some weeks now for the Minister’s consideration, are about these simple things: where policyholders who make a mistake with their disclosures should not be denied cover, and the changes that the Finance and Expenditure Committee has made to the bill that did away with the word “fraud” and used the less clear “dishonesty” standard. If the Minister can give a clear assurance tonight that he will vote in favour of the amendment which goes back to the bill as drafted—which used the clear “fraud” standard—then happy days; there’s support for that, because that was what was presented not only to the committee at the beginning, to the submitters who submitted upon it, but it was also what was taken to Cabinet. That’s the clearest standard, that’s what we can agree on in this House, and that’s what we should use.

The second point is that insurers should complete claims in a timely manner. As my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has said, this bill as it is currently does advance this somewhat. However, it is not fair, as it is currently drafted, to consumers, who are getting a bad deal out of a piece of legislation which could have solved a huge problem for very vulnerable insurance consumers. When there is a time delay, people lose money. They lose hope in the system—people who are homeowners who have suffered from really long delays in situations like the Christchurch earthquake—and so that is something which needs to be addressed. We should use the approach that is in the Amendment Paper in my name, which has been published now for a number of weeks, which everyone has been able to consider, which is a considered approach that would allow a proper framework for that. If those two things can be agreed, we would be happy to support this bill as amended.

Also, I want to acknowledge the very hard work that went into it from the select committee. A number of changes were made which do advance the position in some ways. We have some specific questions around the new powers around genetic testing. This was supported by Labour members at the committee stage, and I will elaborate on this a little bit later when we come to the appropriate part. I want to be really clear with people following along on this—because we know, as a committee, that there were a number of submitters who were very, very passionate about this issue—that what was reached was a compromise, to take a cautionary and safe approach to restricting the practice of genetic testing being used by insurers in New Zealand, similar to the UK model. However, Minister, things have changed since the select committee reported back. Australia has now moved to ban the use of genetic testing by insurers with a five-year period and then a review.

We will put questions to the Minister about whether his approach has changed, given the change in context globally, and the importance of this issue for a community of people in New Zealand who are watching this with interest because it is incredibly important to them.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just also to signal, too, Mr Chair, that when we are going through this bill—because this is quite a hefty bill, and it’s quite substantial—we will be taking this bill part by part and, to the best of our abilities within each part, subpart by subpart, as I’m sure we will go on in due time.

The first question I have for the Minister is around clause 5—and particularly when we are looking at the interpretation and definition. Understanding what the submitters were requesting and also what the Finance and Expenditure Committee has done in terms of adding additional specification to the definition of specified intermediaries, I’m curious to know—drawing on a later section, but I think it’s important to mention it here—under Part 4 clause 120, it gives specific definition to “broker”. When we’re looking at the concept of a broker also as an insurance intermediary, I wondered if the Minister wouldn’t mind clarifying why that definition—particularly when it comes to insurance intermediary—isn’t put earlier on, as part of clause 5, to encompass the entire legislation, as opposed to being left independently later on, in Part 4. And, of course, once we get to Part 4, I will have subsequent questions around brokers. I think that is one of the first questions I have: when we are looking at this idea of specified intermediaries and the interaction with other forms of intermediaries, particularly in the context of a broker.

Another thing that I want to mention—which I know the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has an Amendment Paper on, which I’m sure he will mention later on—is regarding clause 7, and particularly around the conflict of laws. Now, understanding that, as part of the select committee process—based on the information that is given at the beginning, in terms of the explanatory note—under subclause (2), there’s been a change from “contract of reinsurance” to “non-consumer insurance contract”. There is a whole section on whether a contract of reinsurance should be considered as insurance for the purpose of this Act—the contract of insurance in the first place—but I wanted to understand from the Minister: when we are looking at, in this case, non-consumer insurance contracts, has there been any consideration post this being brought to the House by the select committee—if the Minister has received any advice on the proportion between what would be applicable under consumer insurance contract for that clause 7(2) and what would be considered the proportion of non-consumer insurance contract? I would presume that by not having the consumer contract there, hopefully it is quite a small proportion of it. I would like to know if the Minister has any more details around that.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): I’m seeking to debate a series of short questions with the Minister. First, will he support my Amendment Paper 110? If the Minister can’t answer that, will he support my Amendment Paper 111?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Are we in the right part here?

ARENA WILLIAMS: I’m seeking an indication from the Minister, because that will impact the way that we debate Part 1.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Well, you’ll probably need to draw that out as to why this is pertinent to this part.

ARENA WILLIAMS: OK. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this. The reason why I have asked the Minister to indicate whether or not he will be supporting the Amendment Papers, which have now been published for three weeks for his consideration, is that these are make it or break it issues for bipartisan support for his piece of legislation. Bipartisan support for something this significant to New Zealand’s insurance law is important, but it was also an important part of the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s consideration of this bill, because there is support for reforming insurance law in New Zealand. For too long, it has been scattered across multiple Acts and in case law. When we debate Part 1, we’ll come to a number of things that Labour members do not agree with, and they would not have been the changes that a Labour Minister would have proposed to this House, and indeed were not the changes proposed by the member whose member’s bill this is a very similar bill to.

However, we can accept a package of changes which advances the position for not only consumers but insurers in New Zealand as a whole, and it is important to Labour members to have an indication from the Minister of whether not only what he brought to the committee but whether what he brought to his Cabinet colleagues is something that he will continue to support after submitters have lined up at the door and asked for their special interest changes. These are industry members, these are lawyers who represent the industry; this is the Insurance Council of New Zealand who have asked for special changes and they have arrived in the bill. I’m asking him, on these two points, will he commit to going back to what he took to not only the beginning of the committee process to this House, to the Parliament, but also to his Cabinet colleagues, or are we going to debate every single clause in Part 1?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you, Mr Chair. Unfortunately, I’ve got to inform the member that we won’t be changing and adopting the proposals from the member. You raised two substantive issues, and I acknowledge that—one around good faith and the second one is the use of the term “dishonestly” rather than “fraudulently”. I just want to deal with the second. Rather than just getting in a whole lot of discussions around various parts, I’ll just deal with the one around “dishonestly” rather than “fraudulently”.

The reason why we adopted “dishonestly” is that first of all, people don’t realise that the definition of fraud has a different meaning whether it’s in a criminal sense or whether it’s in a civil sense. The member may well be aware of that difference or that nuance, but many people are not.

The criminal standard of fraud describes crimes for personal gain or depriving someone of something with deceit. This implies criminal behaviour proved to a criminal standard of proof, which, of course, is a higher standard which would not be appropriate in this respect. The civil law standard of fraud, however, as we are focused on, is wider. In civil law, fraud is knowing a statement is false or recklessly not caring whether it is correct or not.

Now, like the bill, the UK legislation uses “dishonestly” to discourage deliberate wrongdoing. The UK Law Commission, I’ll remind the member, has advised against the use of “fraud” because of the confusion as to its different meanings, as I’ve discussed previously. “Dishonest” is a high threshold. It would require intent and not capture a consumer who has simply been careless or made an honest mistake. That is why we’ve adopted the approach of using the word “dishonestly” rather than “fraudulently”.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): That’s quite a lecture on dishonesty from the Minister there. He seems to know a lot about it. My question actually goes to the meaning of the contract of insurance—and I’m sorry if I’m keeping the Minister up late; I know he doesn’t like working late.

My question goes to the question of what it is to be a contract of insurance. It’s in clause 6 of the bill. It’s really one of those borderline issues around the line between what’s a proper, legitimate commercial contract and what is, essentially, a wagering contract or a gambling contract or something of that nature. We see all kinds of contracts, and there’s a lot of grey area, because if you think about what an insurance contract is, at its very core, it’s providing a sum of money to cover the likelihood of an uncertain event occurring.

Now, when that uncertain event is an earthquake which damages my house, it makes perfect sense. When it’s someone suing me for my own negligence, it makes perfect sense. But we get into some broader issues there where the contract of insurance might be the American dollar falling below a certain exchange rate. Is that a contract of insurance or is that some other kind of contract? Or if you’re the owner of the Auckland Football Club and it’s raining on a particular day or it loses a particular game. Now, what if you’re not the owner of that football club? Can you also ensure that the Auckland Football Club wins or loses? Therein lies the problem: that by degrees we move from perfectly legitimate commercial arrangements into a murky field of financial arrangements where what lawyers would call insurable interests aren’t clear, and then into arrangements where, of course, you cannot ensure that a football team wins or loses if you don’t own that team. Maybe if you own them you can, but, then again, that runs into different problems.

My Amendment Paper, which is on the Table, proposes a new clause 6(4), which, admittedly—because I don’t have the entire intellectual power of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment behind me, unfortunately—is only an estimation, perhaps, of what the best definition would be. It says that it’s not an insurance contract if it’s an arrangement in the nature of a gambling contract in which the policyholder has no interest in the outcome of an uncertain event other than by virtue of the contract. Then, it’s not a contract of insurance. Now, that’s tricky because there are a whole lot of arrangements—and the foreign exchange and futures arrangements are good examples of them—where you’re actually putting money on the table on the basis of movements in financial markets. That is extremely similar to a gambling contract and, arguably, part of some of the problems that our financial markets have in terms of the spirals, the vicious cycles, that they get into.

I’m interested in the Minister’s view on whether the definition of “insurance contract” actually is certain enough—and my view is it isn’t—to exclude arrangements which are either commercial but clearly not insurance or, in fact, tantamount to gambling and therefore should not get the protections afforded by this piece of legislation.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Well, thank you. I didn’t think we were going to be talking about US dollars and football, but I note the efforts of the Hon Dr Webb in his proposed clause 6. Unfortunately, I’ve got to take the wind out of your sails, Mr Webb, because this provision is already included in the bill. Just for his edification, clause 6 already incorporates by reference exclusions in section 7(3) of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010, which covers gambling. There’s no need to make this change. I know what you’re trying to achieve, but, actually, it’s already covered, and that’s why we won’t be picking up that element.

Also, I just want to return to Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s question earlier about clause 7, following on from clause 6. It’s unclear why this would be useful, what’s been proposed under clause 7. The existing wording is based on and is consistent with the existing provision in the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, as you’re well aware, and that provision has operated for well over 20 years with no problem.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to ask a little more about clause 7. I’m rather interested in this decision that’s been made to break with the tradition of allowing a forum conveniens, or a choice of forums. It seems it’s quite a sensible one, but I’d really like the public to understand what you meant by it. You’ve made a decision here for some contracts to be subject to that choice and other contracts not to be able to be subject to that choice. I presume it’s because of the power differential in that situation and that your consumers have a lot less power in that situation, and that a forum conveniens that was somewhere else would be actually impossible for them to resolve a dispute in, etc.

I’d quite like to tease that out in terms of that, because the public won’t really understand those clauses and yet they have become more and more common, and they have become a device for avoiding responsibility. An insurance company that enters into one where, in fact, there’s a place that is a long way away—that is going to become problematic for a New Zealand consumer. I’d love you to elaborate and tell us why that is there and why there is the distinction in that, because there was a recommendation, as I understand it, to separate off the non-consumer contracts and allow a choice of forum.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Mr Chair, thank you for the opportunity to now begin some questions on Part 1. I’ll take the Minister to clause 7 on page 13, and, as my colleague Helen White has raised, there are some issues with the conflict of laws provision. This is something that the Finance and Expenditure Committee dealt with extensively, and it will bleed into Part 2 because that is where the definition that is relevant here is to be found, but the questions that I have on the conflict of laws also relate to the reinsurance part of Part 1 and the intermediary parts, and so I’ll come to that in a minute.

Firstly, on the conflict of laws, I want to ask the Minister whether this amendment that happened at the select committee is clear enough for him to be comfortable with it being limited to only contracts of reinsurance by that amendment to clause 7(2), which limits subclause (1)(b) to non-consumer insurance contracts. The reason I ask is that, in this situation, it envisions that because reinsurance contracts are sophisticated commercial arrangements between commercial parties who will usually have quite long and well-negotiated commercial contracts, in their contracts they are well set up to negotiate which forum and whose law should apply to their contract. They might have a provision in there which says that the Singaporean or the UK law will apply, they’ll also pick a jurisdiction for any disagreements to be arbitrated in, and then they might pick another jurisdiction, if that arbitration fails, to then commence litigation proceedings, should the dispute not be resolved at that point.

Why I ask is because, while this was worded to say that the ability in a contract to opt out of having the New Zealand law apply was where it was very specific that that was only for contracts of reinsurance, we’ve now opened it up to non-consumer insurance contracts. I have asked the Minister whether he is confident that this will be limited to contracts of reinsurance, or is it his intention that it will apply to other sophisticated commercial arrangements between parties, because the select committee’s deliberations on that were unclear.

The next question is: what happens if two parties who are, say, parties to a reinsurance arrangement, or the kind of sophisticated commercial insurance arrangement that the Minister might otherwise be envisioning, have not entered into an agreement about which jurisdiction’s law will apply? Do the normal conflict of law provisions then apply? Will one party need to prove that their domestic legislation applies to suit them? Given that this provision has the sort of presumption here that if you are a sophisticated commercial party and clause 7(2) applies to you, then it won’t, the question is: does that put the commercial party based in New Zealand at a significant disadvantage, because the legislation now has a very clear provision that was intended to provide for arrangements that did negotiate which rule would apply? Are we now in a position where New Zealand insurers who do not include those provisions in their contracting terms are unable to prove or are somehow fettered in proving in a court—and it might be Singapore or it might be the UK or it might be New Zealand—that the jurisdiction that they prefer, which is probably the New Zealand jurisdiction, should apply?

I also wanted to ask him more about whether it is his intention that this provision will apply to sophisticated contracting parties who opt to have a different jurisdiction’s insurance law apply to them, and then where is the line between what will be considered in a consumer insurance contract for this and in a non-consumer insurance contract for this. Given that there is a definition that is set out in Part 2, the problem here is that this provision seems to stand alone. Clause 7 just assumes that every arrangement between these sorts of parties will deal with the jurisdictional issue, and that’s fine in a perfect world, where every commercial party comes to these negotiations on an equal footing, but not in situations in the real world, where they don’t.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you. Just addressing Helen White’s question and also the last member, Arena Williams’ contribution around clause 7.

First of all, I think it’s important to state that the bill is about protecting consumers and the view that commercial partners should be allowed autonomy to choose the law that governs the contract that they are operating under. We’ve received expert advice on this issue, and I just note that clause 6 specifically excludes, as the member will know, under subclause (3)(aa) “a contract of reinsurance”, which is referred to, because, of course, that’s a commercial nature and often that will involve international parties.

For that reason, under clause 7, which was obliquely referred to, clause 7(1)(b), it, again, “would be governed by the law of New Zealand but for a choice of law provision in the contract.” You will see in clause 7(2) that that doesn’t apply to “non-consumer”—i.e., commercial—“insurance contract.” It’s actually all there for the member to understand.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Mr Chair. I know the Minister currently holds some other portfolios which are relevant to this. Particularly, he’s referred to clause 7(2). That provides that the conflict of laws provisions do not apply to a non-consumer insurance contract. One of the challenges there that I’d like the Minister to answer is with particularly small businesses, because insurance companies aren’t all benign. When they do things like business interruption insurance, as a really good example—clearly commercial, but often held by very small businesses—if a choice of law clause in there says, “Subject to the law of Singapore”, then simply because they aren’t captured as consumers, they are then subject to a legal framework which, even if it’s legitimate and workable, is entirely foreign and puts them entirely on the back foot.

Reinsurance I get, right—that’s an international market and you should be able to assume the law and forum which is suitable between insurer and reinsurer, and there might be some other very large contracts: the New Zealand Government insuring its assets or a local council insuring its assets—hundreds of millions of dollars of assets, millions of dollars in premiums, choice of law there makes sense. But, when you’ve got a dairy owner who is insuring against material damage and business interruption, the suggestion that you’re going to get the law of the Philippines or the law or whatever jurisdiction the insurer chooses—because these are form contracts. No one reads them. We might have an expert on the law in the Philippines in the room, but that’s not likely for your corner dairy owner. That’s the first thing.

The second thing I’ll say about this is that I know this bill was handed over in pretty good shape to the Minister, but because of another bill in the House, he’s rushed it. There are a whole lot of drafting issues that still haven’t been picked up in this bill. Clause 7(1)(b) really just needs—and I’ve got an Amendment Paper on this—to be tidied up. It’s frustrating that it’s me doing the tidying up rather than him, but it really should say “would be governed by the law of New Zealand but for a choice of law provision in a contract which is enforceable.” Those three words at the end are quite important, because there are many situations where it’s actually not permissible—in a consumer contract at least, and certainly in most other contracts—to just randomly choose the law of Uzbekistan which has no connection with the contract in question. We’ve got to be careful about that.

Again, it’s just loose wording, Minister, that you haven’t really had the time or energy or attention to fix up. So if you’d tidy that up as well and pick up my Amendment Paper in respect of clause 7 that would be great.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Look, I find it fascinating—the member who’s just sat down. I think we need a dose of reality. Even in the example he quoted, there still remains a choice for non-consumer, i.e., commercial operators—dairy in his example—to choose who they will take a policy out with. The assumption is that they’re not sitting there having it forced upon them. They have a choice which policy or insurer they want to work with. I think the member is just divorcing himself slightly from reality, because that’s what happens when businesses enter into a contract with their insurer: they go through that process and they will be aware if they’re going to be subject to the laws of the Philippines or not. If they don’t want to be, they don’t have to be, and they’ll obviously choose an insurer that will provide them with the certainty they need.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East): I move, That debate on this question now close.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. If I could, Mr Chair, ask a point of clarification from you as we’re proceeding—this is pertaining to clause 8 of Part 1, which is in relation to Schedule 1. Now, Mr Chair, normally for schedules, we’re debating them under the part which they fall under, but may I draw your attention to Schedule 1. Schedule 1 pertains to a lot of other parts—like, clause 1 of Schedule 1 refers to Part 2 whereas clause 3 refers to Subpart 5 of Part 3. I was wanting to seek your guidance, before I ask the Minister in the chair, Andrew Bayly, some questions, on whether it is appropriate to debate Schedule 1 as the part comes up rather than jumping back and forth.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Yeah, well spotted. Yes, that can be debated under Part 1.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Thank you, Mr Chair. The question I have for the Minister—and this is following up on what the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has mentioned in terms of the purpose of this particular bill. Understanding that, when we’re looking at this bill, it comes from what was originally proposed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and it was under a Government bill under the previous speaker, I just want to strongly support Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment, particularly in terms of adding clause 3 and inserting clause 3C in this, especially around protecting the interest. Now, I understand the Minister has mentioned before that protecting the interests of consumers absolutely is a key part of this bill, and I would like to implore the Minister to consider this particular amendment as well when we’re discussing this further.

I also think, in terms of some of the other amendments, one of the amendments that the Minister has—which would be around clause 7(3), with the addition of 89(2), which is part of the amendment—tied in with the overall purpose and with the discussion that has been had around the purpose clause 3(a), around promoting the confidence and informed participation in the New Zealand insurance market. I would be keen to hear from the Minister, if he wouldn’t mind clarifying, how that confidence in the New Zealand insurance market ties into the other conversations that we’ve been having regarding other jurisdictions. Would that be something that works together well with the other clauses—and particularly clause 7 has been brought up a lot—or is that something that potentially is a lot more nuanced? I would like to hear what the Minister has to say for that. Once again, thank you, Mr Chair, for clarifying Schedule 1.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs for that remarkable explanation of subclause (2) of clause 7, because it is very unclear, and the reading, from my perspective, was that this was still about contracts of reinsurance. He has clarified that, no, this is an attack on small businesses. This is a rearrangement of contract terms so that small businesses who enter into contracts with large insurers cannot rely on the protections about large insurers opting to only arbitrate and then litigate disputes in Singapore or London.

My colleague the Hon Duncan Webb made a joke about the law of Singapore and he said, “Well, wouldn’t it be ridiculous if we chose the law of Uzbekistan?” It would be ridiculous, but what is more ridiculous is that it is completely ordinary, common practice for large insurers to have arbitration in Singapore and litigation in the High Court in London. What small business, Minister Bayly, can afford to bring a dispute about their insurance, about the timeliness of their insurance, about the payouts that they are entitled to, about the terms that they have signed up to? What small business can possibly afford to bring an arbitration in Singapore?

This is a huge departure from what this said originally, when it was only intended to apply to insurer-to-insurer contracts, where you have six lawyers in the room debating with each other for days about the terms of this contract. That is fair. It’s fair to say to the industry, “Yep, you hash it out. The Government has no place in this.” But small businesses—mums and dads around the country—will not be able to access the provisions that clause 7(2) had when it was introduced to this House, and that is a shame and we need the Minister to explain what his intention there is.

The second point that I have to make is about reinsurance generally. The Minister has clarified that section 6(3)(aa) excludes the contract of reinsurance from the meaning of a “contract of insurance” generally, but we still need some clarification about if we’re using the provisions that were intended originally to only apply to contracts of reinsurance here in these arrangements—is that then echoed elsewhere? That wasn’t the understanding that I had when we were working through this with officials.

I also want to understand, from the Minister, where did this change come from? Which submitters submitted to the Finance and Expenditure Committee? Which submitters made representations to him that large insurance contract provisions—the provisions which were intended to only apply insurer to insurer—should now apply insurer to small business? Who might it have been that came to the Minister and said, “Gosh, I will be losing out on my profits here if I have to look out for the little guy.”? Who was it that made representations to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Minister to suggest this change, and why did the Minister take that submission on board?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thank the Green member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan for pointing out that we’re on Schedule 1 as well as Part 1, which is the transitional provisions. In many cases, transitional provisions can be a bit ho-hum, but in fact in insurance contracts they’re anything but ho-hum, because of the long time lag.

One of the things we agree on is that the disclosure rules—the basis upon which an insurance contract can be avoided on the basis of a mistake made by the insured—badly need changing. Now, clause 1 of Schedule 1 is headed and captures what it means: “New disclosure duties apply to new contracts and variations”. The fact of the matter is that, in three months’ time, there may well be an insurance situation—life, fire, general—where three or four years ago there’s been a mistake made by a consumer. This is all very nice, this Contracts of Insurance Bill, but that disclosure duty is not the new disclosure duty. The measure of that behaviour under clause 1 of Part 1 is not the new disclosure standard; it’s the old one.

I mean, that’s prospective and insurers no doubt would bleat that if we said, “Oh, no; we’re going to change the law so that the disclosure duty in 2020 is the new disclosure duty.”, it’s called retrospective. I think there’s a good case for retrospectivity here, and seeing as this Government doesn’t seem to worry much about retrospectivity in respect of, say, three strikes or the marine and coastal area Act, it strikes me that there’s a very good case here to say the test applies in respect of any claim made after the Act.

Now, if you’ve got litigation and so on and so forth, or disputes going on now, if your claim’s been made, that’s classic crystallisation. Your rights are crystallised. It’s the law applicable when you made your claim. But in this case—because this has got a long, long tail; for example, misrepresentation of life insurance—those misrepresentations and mistakes could be 30 years old, so a mistake made today will have an impact on a death or a claim under a life insurance policy made in 30 years’ time. This rule will come into play very gradually indeed, and in fact its whole utility is wildly undermined for as long as insurers can go back in history and dig around and find a non-disclosure or other misrepresentation or mistake that was made prior to the commencement of this piece of legislation.

If ever there was a case, quite apart from the offensive pieces of legislation where retrospectivity is being used by this Government, it’s here, because we know the law as it currently stands is an ass. Saying, “Well, we’ve tidied it up. Now, we’re not going to interfere with claims that are made already, but if you make a claim after the Act comes into force, the new misrepresentation test applies, not the old one.”—that’s a far better transitional provision than one which will see people’s claims unfairly denied. That’s the key point—that it’s unfair. We all recognise it’s unfair—unfairly denied until the final tiny tail has disappeared, which could be 30-plus years down the trail.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I find it extraordinary that a person who has a Doctor of Laws is proposing retrospective operation under clause 1 of Schedule 1. The member must know that there’s a well-known legal principle that people should be able to hear court cases based on the facts at the time contracts were entered into.

I think the member needs to be aware and cognisant of the fact that by introducing a retrospective arrangement, as he proposed, it cuts both ways—it cuts both ways. It may work in the favour of a consumer, but it may also work in the favour of an insurer. I think it’s a dangerous precedent to be suggesting. That is why we propose lead time for the operation of this. We will hope to bring this bill in—as the Minister will have regulation-making powers to be able to bring in early parts of this—but we want to make sure that the arrangements come into force when people have time to consider it and the policies can be adapted. That is a key principle to it. I am very surprised about the suggestion from the member.

Secondly, I just want to go back to Ms Williams’ comment around clause 7, Subpart 2. I note that this change to this clause was unanimously agreed to by the committee, including the member herself. Secondly, expert submitters on conflicts of law advised that this was the best approach to allow commercial parties to have autonomy to choose their own governing law and which is consistent with international best practice. I am sure that the member listened intently during that process when she unanimously agreed with the rest of the select committee to that change. I find it quite surprising to find in the middle of a committee of the whole House that she is trying to relitigate something at this late stage.

SUZE REDMAYNE (Junior Whip—National): I move, That debate on this question now close.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair, for this unexpected honour. I just wanted to take a call because I—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Did the member not seek the call?

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: No, I did. I did. It’s still an unexpected honour, none the less. I always relish these calls. I felt like I had to take a call because the word “Philippines” was mentioned quite a bit. I wanted to make sure to be representing these issues.

I had a question around clause 6(2), the clause around the “uncertain event”. Now, I think the thing about uncertain events is that they’re uncertain by definition, but are there degrees of certainty? Is there some sort of matrix or some sort of sliding scale that makes an uncertain event more uncertain than others? And what is the threshold, basically? I ask this question because it’s something that we will have to deal with quite a little bit more with, I guess, the advent of climate-related events and climate-related natural disasters. I’m just wanting to acknowledge that there was one such event earlier during the month in Dunedin, and I think it was a time which was very sad for the city, but, in a sense, it was something that was expected but also unexpected at the same time. There are degrees of uncertainty, so what is the actual threshold? I think it’s really important that we consider this question and it’s really important that I’m wanting some clarity from the Minister on this, because I think it will help guide the interpretation of certain provisions in this legislation.

Another question that I had around this aspect of uncertainty is: what if there’s differing forecasts or differing kinds of prognostications? For example, if the regional council had one set of hazard maps—a shout-out to the Otago Regional Council—and, for example, the Natural Hazards Commission or central government had another set of hazard maps. If there’s an aspect of uncertainty and there’s evidence that kind of points both ways, is there a sort of hierarchy where certain types of information take more priority compared to others? I won’t belabour the point. I’m a Green member, so I think I’ll leave my contribution at that. I’m looking forward to an answer to this question. Thank you, Minister.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Mr Chair. Well, what a remarkable contribution to this debate from this Minister in the chair, Andrew Bayly, who is acting surprised about why Labour members are not supporting his bill. Let me briefly explain. This Minister has not been straight up with New Zealanders about the changes he intended. He took a bill to Cabinet, there were some changes, then he took it to the first reading of this Parliament and then there were some changes, and then he took it to select committee and then there were some changes, and then we’ve come to this committee and Labour members have said, “Look, at every stage you have introduced more changes which have punished the little guy, which have gone against the very intention of this bill, which was to protect consumers, and at every stage it has got worse and worse.”

We can support a package of changes which would revolutionise New Zealand’s insurance law, because it is well overdue, but we cannot support two things. I put those things to the Minister, and he refused to change them. Now, they were changing them back to what his Cabinet colleagues agreed to. They were changing them back to what this Parliament agreed to. They were changing them back to what was put to the hundreds of submitters who came along and gave us their opinions in select committee. That is why I am now asking him questions that he is uncomfortable with answering, about why he is putting small businesses through pain in his changes to clause 7(2), because small businesses will wear pain because of these changes that he has proposed, that are only to benefit large insurers.

I have two questions for him about that. Has he considered the effect of the very broad change that he has made on consumers for professional businesses that are really about consumers? The question here is about professional indemnities. When you insure lawyers or accountants, you’re really insuring the people who go to lawyers and accountants for their professional advice. These are really insurances for the littlest of the little guy, because in those situations you are very vulnerable. You are completely reliant on the professional advice of the person you are paying to give you advice. Insurance contracts in these scenarios make sure that the person who is giving the advice, the person with all the power in this scenario, is able to pay out if they have caused material damage.

Is it a non-commercial contract? Is it the kind of contract where the Minister has stood in this House and said, “No, these protections shouldn’t apply, because commercial parties should be able to negotiate amongst themselves.” If the little guy who goes to their accountant and gets dicked out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in their life savings, which happens over and over again in New Zealand, is that person, who might not be insured or might not be able to access insurance because of these provisions which this Minister has inserted into this bill at this late stage—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Look, I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to report progress.

Arena Williams: I was just getting started!

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): That was what I feared, Ms Williams.

House resumed.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE

REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. The committee has also considered the Contracts of Insurance Bill and reports that it has made progress on the bill. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is set down for third reading next sitting day, and the Contracts of Insurance Bill is set down for further consideration in committee next sitting day.

Amended Answers to Oral Questions

Question No. 6 to Minister

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek leave to make a personal explanation regarding the answer I gave to a supplementary question to oral question No. 6 today.

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

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: I was asked today, had I had any alcohol with—sorry, had I had any alcohol at the beer garden or the winery I visited that day. I took this to mean whether or not I’d had any alcohol prior to the incident that led to the complaint. Therefore, I correctly answered no. However, for the avoidance of any doubt, after the incident and at the end of the day, I had a small wine tasting.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.