Thursday, 13 February 2025

Volume 781

Sitting date: 13 February 2025

THURSDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2025

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

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

Speaker’s Rulings

Member Conduct

SPEAKER: Members, yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition raised with me the possibility of a connection between the actions of MPs outside the House and the prescriptive rules of the Standing Orders which relate to parliamentary proceedings. I received a letter from Tangi Utikere asking if Standing Order 418(t) might apply in this case—that case being the circumstances under which David Seymour advanced a Land Rover up several steps at Parliament, despite being told by organisers that they did not have permission to do so, and ultimately withdrawing once a security officer told them that it was the Speaker’s decision. May I thank the many email correspondents who’ve encouraged me to take a range of actions, none of which are permissible. I suggest they accept that the Standing Orders don’t currently anticipate responses to this situation. This was the case in 2003 and it hasn’t changed since then. Criminal law applies now, as it did then. But I note that when a prosecution was brought against Shane Ardern in 2003, the court said it was a waste of time and the proceedings were not carried on with.

If the Standing Orders are to be broadened to give the Speaker wider authority over MPs’ activities that are not connected with the proceedings of Parliament, then it should be the Standing Orders Committee that fixes or first examines those possibilities and considers any implications from those changes that might enable some of what has been requested. If those changes are agreed by the committee, then it would be for the House to enact. I am in an interesting position of many expecting an action without a sound basis for that to be undertaken. I’m interested in the application of Standing Orders that relate to the parliamentary proceedings and MP privilege as it relates to those proceedings. In my opinion, it’s not possible to prescribe broad enough orders that achieve both the protection of privilege and prosecution of stupid. This may be something the Standing Orders Committee is more able to clearly define. Accordingly, I’ll seek to convene that committee for the sitting week of 3 to 7 March.

The claim that Standing Order 418(t) might be applicable in this case does not pass scrutiny. It relates to orders made by resolution of the House, not administrative decisions of the Speaker.

Urgent Debates Declined

Mental Health—Funding Reallocation

SPEAKER: Members, I’ve received a letter from Ingrid Leary seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the decision by the Minister for Mental Health to reallocate funding to the mental health innovation fund. This is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. The big hurdle to overcome is whether the matter warrants setting aside the business of the House. Ministers sometimes make decisions that surprise officials and do not always act in accordance with official advice. It is a Minister’s right to do so, and they answer to the House for their decisions. I do not think the application makes out a case for this matter being sufficiently urgent to give it priority over the business on the Order Paper. The application is declined.

Business Statement

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Next week, the House will consider all remaining stages of the Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara/Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill, the committee stage of the Overseas Investment (Build-to-rent and Similar Rental Developments) Amendment Bill, and the second reading of the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill. And Wednesday will be the first members’ day of the year.

PETITIONS, PAPERS, SELECT COMMITTEE REPORTS, AND INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

SPEAKER: No petitions have been delivered for the Clerk to present. I present the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment entitled Estimate of environmental expenditure 2024/25: Method and results. That paper is published under the authority of the House. A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK: Report of the Regulations Review Committee on the Complaints about the Midwifery Scope of Practice and Qualifications Notice 2024.

SPEAKER: The report is set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of a bill.

CLERK: Employment Relations (Collective Agreements in Triangular Relationships) Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: That bill is set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Māori Development

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Taku pātai—

Hon Shane Jones: Tell the truth.

SPEAKER: Hang on—just a minute. Normally, if we were in the middle of yesterday, the member who just called out would be going. Do not speak while a question is being asked, and restrain any interjections that people might think are necessary.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Hang on. We’ve got a point of order. Sorry, Tākuta. We’ll just hear the point of order from the Hon Kieran McAnulty.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Apologies to the member. Is it the case that your clear directions to the House are cleared at the start of each sitting day so that they don’t apply with the same weight that they were given? My concern is that you made it very clear to the House yesterday that if members were going to disregard your clear decisions and instructions and call out during questions and points of order, you would be forced to take action. My concern in this instance is that not only was that disregarded, the content of the interruption—accusing a member of being untruthful—is surely in itself unparliamentary.

SPEAKER: To be quite honest with you, I didn’t pick up that.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: It was, “Tell the truth.”

SPEAKER: OK. Well, that makes it somewhat difficult. I’m not going to retrospectively look at things but will most certainly be very much vigilant from this point.

1. TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga) to the Minister for Māori Development: Does he believe this Government is upholding its obligations to Māori under Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Minister for Māori Development): Āna, yes. In the past week alone, we’ve seen many examples of this Government upholding the responsibilities under Te Tiriti o Waitangi—for example, Minister Goldsmith attending Kororipo Pā to encourage the return of Kororipo Pā to Ngāti Rēhia as a catalyst for the Ngāpuhi settlement; Minister Stanford announcing structured literacy and numeracy materials in te reo Māori out at Panguru; Minister Mitchell and Minister Watts attending Mātihetihe Marae, out at Mitimiti, to activate further funding for a climate change pilot project; Minister Jones announcing various Regional Infrastructure Fund support for marae up in Northland; Minister Seymour and other Ministers, old and new, from many sides of this House, attending the reopening of Tipene in Bombay and announcing it as a charter school. As kāwana, we won’t always agree with rangatira throughout the motu. We could all do better. But the key is to keep engaging respectfully, in the same waka, in a timely manner, to uphold the responsibilities of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

SPEAKER: Just let me be clear that interjection from the Government side is not immune to the same response that would come should it become excessive from the other side of the House.

Tākuta Ferris: Does the Minister believe that we would be having the current debate around the Treaty principles bill if elected members of Parliament were required to undergo elementary, basic history and Te Tiriti training?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: I am absolutely encouraging of all members, and in fact all New Zealanders, to have a very basic and fundamental understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi, a bilingual and bicultural document, which is the founding document of this great nation.

Tākuta Ferris: If the Minister’s party is truly opposed to the Treaty principles bill, why are his colleagues questioning and badgering submitters who oppose the bill during the select committee process?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order. This member is asking by way of a question a challenge to the select committee process, and he should be stopped in his tracks and asked to inform himself how this House and select committees are properly run.

SPEAKER: Look, I was about to say something when the member leapt to his feet, quite rightly. The point I would make is that the Minister is not responsible for what happens in select committee, nor is he responsible to the House for activities of his party; he is part of a coalition Government. You might want, without loss, to rephrase the question.

Tākuta Ferris: OK, tēnā koe. If the Minister’s party is opposed—

SPEAKER: No, no, you can’t start like that. He’s got no responsibility in this House for his party.

Tākuta Ferris: Kei te pai, ka haere tonu. [That’s OK, I’ll continue.] Can he guarantee te iwi Māori that the proposed changes to the Public Works Act won’t result in more Māori land being confiscated by the Crown?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: As I have announced in this Whare on many occasions, I can guarantee that my quest, and my parliamentary experiences now and into the future, is to ensure equality of opportunity and equal citizenship and to ensure that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is recognised as the founding document of this nation.

Tākuta Ferris: Would he support the establishment of a parliamentary commissioner for Te Tiriti o Waitangi to ensure that all future legislation is compliant with Te Tiriti o Waitangi; if not, why not?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: I am absolutely committed to ensure I support Minister Goldsmith and others in this House to progress the settlements for various many historical Treaty claims. That is what I am absolutely supportive of.

Question No. 2—Infrastructure

2. RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister for Infrastructure: What recent announcements has he made about going for growth in infrastructure?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister for Infrastructure): On Monday, the Prime Minister and I announced we’ll be hosting an international investment summit in March, with about a hundred of the world’s highest-profile investors in super funds, construction companies, engineers, and business leaders coming. At the summit, we will be showing that New Zealand is a country worth partnering with and is indeed open for business.

Ryan Hamilton: What is the purpose of the investment summit?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: As has been a theme this year so far, we have to go for growth, because it’s growth that provides the higher living standards that New Zealanders need. That means investment. That means being welcoming of foreign investment into New Zealand. It means saying yes to investment, innovation, ambition, and growth. We will be showcasing upcoming infrastructure opportunities for partnership and investment, as well as the Government’s long-term infrastructure pipeline, and that pipeline is very important to give stability and certainty so that people have confidence in investing in New Zealand. We’ll also be highlighting some changes to policies, regulation, and legislation to make it easier to invest here, and we’ve already seen some of the changes under way by my good colleague Erica Stanford and other Ministers already, and there’s more to come.

Ryan Hamilton: What other sectors will be involved in the summit?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: It’s not all about the Government. Actually, it’s ambitious Kiwi businesses and iwi who are looking for better opportunities for them and New Zealanders. So the summit will be covering some growth sectors that the Government is excited about: renewable energy, advanced transportation, cleantech future fuels, and, of course—and Minister Jones will be pleased about this—the resources sector and the aquaculture sector, which, unlike other members in this House, the Government sees as real areas for potential future growth. We’re also very excited that there will be a real feature on the Māori economy at the summit, and we have some exciting opportunities lined up there as well.

Ryan Hamilton: Why does New Zealand so desperately need this summit?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, saying no is easy. Actually, what New Zealand needs to do is say yes to more things. Our 30-year failure to embrace opportunities has produced anaemic levels of growth and lower productivity growth than we need to drive higher living standards. So this summit is about putting down a marker to the rest of the world and saying that New Zealand is here, we have fantastic opportunities here across infrastructure, across energy, across aquaculture, across resources, and we are here and ready to do business with the rest of the world, and we’re going to start saying yes to these opportunities so we can grow our economy.

Simon Court: What are the benefits of allowing public-private partnerships (PPPs) to finance infrastructure, as set out in the ACT-National coalition agreement?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, there’s quite a lot of myth-making about PPPs. PPPs are run of the mill procurement methods that help attract smart capital, discipline, and expertise to New Zealand projects. And I note that despite a bit of criticism from members opposite in the past, they very quietly rolled over a few education and school public-private partnerships during their time in Government because they were working so successfully. And that’s the point, is that they drive better performance from our assets and they have strong contractual incentives and requirements for on-time delivery service levels and asset maintenance. They’re not always the answer. They won’t always be the right thing to do but they’re a part of a procurement tool kit, and we’re determined to use them when appropriate.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: With the usual caveats, providing the premise is made in the same and providing the facts were made in the same, yes.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does driving a car up the steps of Parliament, after repeatedly being told that was prohibited, meet the standards that are expected of an incoming Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I think the answer to that question lies with the person three over to your right in the Speaker’s Chair.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Mr Speaker—point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: It’s OK. It’s one of those days. I forgot what I was doing before, too. So, yeah, by all means, point of order.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I actually think that, as Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has responsibility for all of his Cabinet Ministers, including his Deputy Prime Minister and including his incoming Deputy Prime Minister. My question was to the Prime Minister on whether or not he thought it was an acceptable standard.

SPEAKER: Yes, OK. Ask the question again. We did establish that boundary yesterday. Please, ask the question again.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does driving a car up the steps of Parliament, after repeatedly being told that was prohibited, meet the standards that are expected of an incoming Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: All the comments the Prime Minister wishes to make on this matter have been made. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: We’ll have silence for the question.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does advocating for a potential suspect in a murder investigation, thereby undermining the justice system’s independence, meet the standards that are expected of an incoming Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The reality is that the judgment being made on that standard is set against the actions of a sworn Minister of the Crown. In this case, they weren’t; they were made by a backbench member of Parliament, and the standards and criteria are massively different. I suggest you ask Willie Jackson about that because he’d be very knowledgable about it.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does directing a child sexual abuse survivor to speak with the ACT Party’s lawyer, rather than the police, after being abused by the ACT Party’s then president, meet the standards that are expected of an incoming Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It has been pointed out that the proper place of complaint lay elsewhere. But, you know, people have their own experience, they all learn, and not everybody’s a lawyer.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Will he loosen the rules to allow foreign non-residents to buy existing homes in New Zealand?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The reality is that that is not a matter that’s currently on the present agenda. The last time that happened, of course, was in 2002, when the Labour Party did precisely that in their free-trade deal with Singapore.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does he agree with Winston Peters that “English should be a basic requirement of anyone coming into the country, unless they are genuine refugees”, or does he agree with Erica Stanford that it’s insulting to expect that of migrants who are “worth millions of dollars” and that “we don’t need them to speak English”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, the reality is that those two Ministers were making statements about different matters. It’s an awful conflict when you have to choose between two geniuses!

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Is New Zealand’s worst ever rating on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index a result of perceived interference from the tobacco industry, the mining industry, the fishing industry, the real estate industry, the childcare industry, the pharmaceutical industry, or all of the above?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: With the greatest respect, and this is a more personal answer, the reality is that over many years the New Zealand rating was unjustified. Smack in the middle of the wine-box inquiry and the BNZ inquiry and every other fraud I saw, we were still rating number one and we’ve only slipped to number four.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, sir. Thank you, sir. Quite regularly on a Thursday, I raise the point of order about the requirement for Ministers answering on behalf of other Ministers to make that clear in their answers. Now, that hasn’t always been appreciated, and it certainly hasn’t always been followed. But when the Deputy Prime Minister is answering on behalf of the Prime Minister, and then includes content which is quite clearly related to him personally—in fact, he stated that himself—this is where it becomes unclear. So, moving forward, I think, for the benefit of the House, it should be a requirement for Ministers, when answering on behalf of others, to state that clearly in their answers.

SPEAKER: Look, I think that’s a fair thing. I think, though, as I understand it, the position has been—and I’ve been in that position—that when someone is answering questions in the House addressed to the Prime Minister, they answer those as the Prime Minister. I think the confusion comes here where there was a step away from that, in that last answer. Do you want to hear the answer again or rephrase it a different way, perhaps?

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Speaking to that, sir, it’s my understanding that when the Prime Minister is out of the country and when the Deputy Prime Minister is answering questions, they are then the Acting Prime Minister. But when the Prime Minister is still in the country, they are answering on the Prime Minister’s behalf. Clearly, there’s some misunderstanding there, and any clarity you could provide next week would be appreciated.

SPEAKER: Most certainly. I speak from my own experience of some years back, but I’ll certainly clarify that.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Thank you.

SPEAKER: Are you comfortable with those answers? Do you have another question?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The reality is that New Zealand is at number four at the present moment. The fishing industry has had the most comprehensive control regime set around it, announced the other day, and I’m shocked it got so little publicity, being the most comprehensive plan, and supported massively by people of this country who are concerned about the fishing industry. As for the tobacco industry, if they’re complaining massively about the changes, then they can hardly be guilty of any corruption—only someone who doesn’t understand how the world works would make those allegations now. The other thing I want to say is, when we were at the top of the so-called index, then the sharemarket crashed, of course—a period that member might remember—and of the world’s worst 10 we had the sixth, and of the world’s worst, we had all four. So here we go again with a judgment that was artificial all along, and rather than make these proud boasts, I think our country should be doing better to be a more corruption-free land.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Just seeking some guidance from you. I waited till the end of the line of questioning so as not to interrupt my colleague. But given one of the answers that we heard on behalf of the Prime Minister referencing the wine box, I’m just seeking your guidance: does this mean that the Prime Minister is now subject to a line of questioning in this House around the wine box, given he has, essentially, given an answer that was about the wine-box inquiry?

SPEAKER: Well, the Prime Minister can be asked about anything that occurs during his time here. I think the problem today is that the Rt Hon Winston Peters should have said at the start that he was answering on behalf of the Prime Minister, and then I’d make the point that Ministers can’t make personal statements—it’s probably a choice of words and sort of a pedantic point, but not something I’d get too hung up on. But I would say the Opposition is never constrained in putting questions down on the sheet, other than by what is accepted by the Clerk’s office.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Just a further point of clarification on the point of order, Mr Speaker. Absolutely accept your ruling, and not challenging that, but in terms of ministerial responsibility, it would be hard to say that our current Prime Minister had any ministerial responsibility for the wine-box inquiry, but now he is on record in this House giving an answer that references that inquiry. My question is: does that now mean that that is a line of questioning the Opposition can take with the Prime Minister?

SPEAKER: Look, that would be for the Opposition to decide whether they wanted to start talking about something that happened in the 1980s. It’s their choice. But what I can—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Well, it’s just a strange situation—

SPEAKER: Excuse me, I’m in the middle of speaking. Those statements were made on behalf of the Prime Minister in reference to a question about Transparency International’s view of New Zealand. It’s not unreasonable for a Minister, or the Prime Minister, or anyone acting for him, to reference historical events in support of their claim. Now, if the Opposition think that that means they should spend some of their questions in the weeks ahead digging into the depths of the wine-box inquiry, then that’s something that they are welcome to.

Question No. 4—Social Development and Employment

4. Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What recent announcements has she made about the new traffic light system?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Last week, I announced the addition of two non-financial sanctions to the traffic light system. Non-financial sanctions allow job seekers who fail to meet obligations for the first time to continue receiving their full benefit payments while still being required to complete activities such as the new Report Job Search, where job seekers must perform a minimum of three job-search activities every week for four weeks and report this to the Ministry of Social Development, and upskilling, where job seekers must attend and participate in employment-related training for at least five hours a week over a four-week period. It’s important that beneficiaries who can work are taking reasonable steps to re-enter the workforce or remain work-ready, and that consequences exist for those who don’t.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: Why is the Government introducing these sanctions?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: This Government believes that a stronger economy depends on more people being employed. By introducing these sanctions, we aim to reduce welfare dependency and increase the number of Kiwis entering the workforce and then sharing in the benefits of economic growth.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: What is the goal of adding these sanctions?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The goal is to hold beneficiaries accountable and ensure that they are making reasonable efforts to seek employment. The sanctions also aim to help individuals gain skills that will improve their chances of finding work so that they can be part of New Zealand’s economic growth. It also means, and I remind the House, that job seekers can retain the full amount of their benefit instead of it being reduced.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: How has the traffic light system been tracking?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: There have been some really positive early results. Between July and December, more than 33,000 people moved off the jobseeker benefit into work, a 22 percent increase compared to the same period in 2023. It’s also positive to see that 98.6 percent of clients are complying with their obligations, while only 0.4 percent are in orange and 1 percent in red.

Question No. 5—Social Development and Employment

5. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she agree with the Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report that “During 2024, access to hardship grants was reducing as Work and Income tightened eligibility for assistance, at the same time as the number of children living in families needing this assistance was increasing”; if not, what are her expectations for how applications for hardship assistance are assessed and granted?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Eligibility requirements for food and other special needs grants haven’t changed, and I have no plans to change them. As I said in the House yesterday, we have seen a reduction in applications, so I would encourage people who need help to get in touch with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), as there is assistance available. Times remain tough due to the cost of living crisis we inherited, and while we’ve worked hard to reduce inflation from 7.3 percent to 2.2 percent, and that’s helping to bring costs down and put more money in people’s pockets, we do recognise that some are still feeling the pain of the cost of living and high inflation. As interest rates continue to reduce and the benefits of this start to flow through, more New Zealanders will feel the positive impact of the hard work we are putting in. This will grow the economy and help more people into work.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she disagree with the Salvation Army, who, in their report, stated that “access to hardship assistance was [decreasing]”?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said in my primary answer, eligibility requirements have not changed, but I recognise that demand and the number of applications has declined.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is it acceptable for any family in need of immediate emergency assistance to be declined a hardship grant at the time they need it; if so, why?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said, I recognise that these times are incredibly challenging for some families, whether they’re in work or whether they are on welfare, but the eligibility requirements for food and other special needs grants have not changed.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she expect Work and Income to adhere to case law that special needs grants can be provided for situations of ongoing need and not just one-off situations?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The front-line MSD staff do an incredible job, and they have been responding to people in need. As I said, the eligibility requirements haven’t changed, and where there is the need for flexibility, they apply that.

Ricardo Menéndez March: What is the explanation for the increase in declines of hardship assistance?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I don’t have details on the declines. As I said in the House yesterday, I am concerned about the fact that the number of applications for hardship has gone down. And I would say, as I said in the House yesterday, to anyone who is finding it incredibly difficult in this tail end of the cost of living crisis, I would encourage them to go into MSD and seek assistance.

Ricardo Menéndez March: What does she say to Sonya Cameron, the food security manager at the Salvation Army, who said that “The government’s turning down people for food, they’re sending them to foodbanks. Now they’re not funding foodbanks. Foodbanks around the country are either overstretched like ourselves or they’re starting to close down.”?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I’ll reiterate to the House that the direct funding of food banks only came into effect during the COVID period. So, despite there being time-limited funding that would have meant there would be no ongoing funding for food banks, our Government decided to extend that in recognition of the fact that many households were very challenged by the cost of living crisis that we had inherited, and that is why there is funding available today.

Question No. 6—Social Development and Employment

6. Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: How many people are currently unemployed compared to this time last year?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Unemployment has been rising since 2021. In December 2023, 123,000 people were unemployed in New Zealand, and in December 2024, this figure sat at 156,000, in line with Treasury forecasts. Unemployment is always one of the last things to come after a recession, and, unfortunately, we’ve inherited a low-growth economy where unemployment was always forecast to increase above 5 percent. That’s why we have created a more active, proactive welfare system to support more job seekers into work, and it’s also why our Government is relentlessly focused on growth, so that the economy allows for businesses to have the confidence to hire staff and create better-paying jobs so that New Zealanders can share in the benefits of growth.

Hon Willie Jackson: Can I ask the Minister: has she discussed with Minister Paul Goldsmith why there is still no plan to support the media sector when hundreds of jobs have been lost in the sector in the past 12 months, and, if not, why not?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As that member will be aware, in a recession, unfortunately, there are jobs that are lost across a range of industries, and I’m very confident in the Minister for Media and Communications’ plan in that sector.

Hon Willie Jackson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was very specific to the Minister in terms of has she spoken with Minister Goldsmith about a plan with regards to the media. She’s in charge of employment. I would expect an answer, or even addressing the question, rather than just a waffle.

SPEAKER: Well, with all due respect, I think it was addressed.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Speaking to the point of order, I just would have thought that if the member wanted to ask a question about the media portfolio, he should ask a question to me, rather than to my colleague.

SPEAKER: Well, that may well be the Minister’s opinion, but it’s not a point of order. The question was addressed. Ask another question.

Hon Willie Jackson: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I ask the Minister: what is her plan for the sacked Te Whatu Ora worker—Health New Zealand—who has been reported to have said that “The public sector has been gutted, so every job that I apply for has hundreds if not thousands of applicants.”?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I’ve said previously, for any individuals who lose their jobs as a result of the economic conditions that we have inherited, it’s incredibly challenging. In order to address the cost of living and to get inflation down, we had to address excessive Government spending, so a rebalancing has been required, and that means that working Kiwis aren’t suffering on a daily basis in the struggle to put food on their tables. So I accept that it’s challenging for any New Zealander who’s lost their job, which is why our Government is focused on going for growth and ensuring that there are more jobs created across New Zealand for them to move into.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: As background on this question and for the public information, is unemployment—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: That’s not a question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, if you waited for five seconds, you’ll find it is a question, all right?

SPEAKER: The member does know the rules about not speaking while a question is being asked.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes, precisely. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: We were talking to each other, sir.

SPEAKER: Yeah, I know—and the rest of the room. Carry on.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is unemployment lower today than Treasury was forecasting when Labour left office, or is it higher?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: It is bang on what the forecast said.

Hon Willie Jackson: Can I ask the Minister: why did she scrap targeted population employment plans when Māori and Pacific unemployment is double that of the general unemployment rate?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, I’ve got good news for that member. When I referred to the 33,000 people that have cancelled their jobseeker benefit because they found work, disproportionately, in a positive way, Pasifika job seekers exited at a rate of 30 percent higher than the same time a year ago. So our work and our welfare reactivation is having great results for Pasifika job seekers.

SPEAKER: Supplementary question, the Rt Hon Winston Peters—[Interruption] Wait, excuse me! Mr Peters, just please wait until the House goes quiet. And there you have it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Minister, is it not a fact that the Treasury forecast was, as Labour left office, that this unemployment rate right now would be 5.3 percent, when in fact it’s down to 5.1 percent?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The employment forecasts by Treasury had always anticipated the unemployment rate would continue to rise, unfortunately, and they expected it would rise beyond where it is right now. Although it would be nice to say the pain has ended, it hasn’t. Unfortunately, we have inherited a path and a forecast of higher unemployment, and that affects every New Zealander.

Hon Willie Jackson: Can I ask the Minister: does she agree with Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters, who told workers at the Kinleith Mill last year that Kinleith Mill is the lifeblood of the Waikato and that targeted Government intervention is sometimes necessary to ensure the survival of a business and a community, and, if so, can the workers of Kinleith Mill have confidence that their jobs and livelihoods are secure, and, if not, why not?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I always agree with the Deputy Prime Minister. And I know very well how important the Kinleith employment is in that community, and that is why, as a Government, we are looking at options.

Question No. 7—Agriculture

7. SUZE REDMAYNE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Agriculture: What is the Government doing to support the New Zealand red meat sector?

Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Agriculture): Agriculture is the backbone of our economy, and this week for National Lamb Day, we celebrated 143 years since the first shipment of lamb left New Zealand shores. The Government acknowledges the hard work and resilience of our farmers, processors, and exporters, whose dedication ensures that New Zealand’s red meat sector remains world leading and ready to grow. You see, our farmers are world best, with food and fibre exports set to reach $56.9 billion this year, with sheep and beef farmers alone contributing the equivalent of $3,300 for every Kiwi household. I’d like to invite all members of the House to join me in thanking sheep and beef farmers for their significant contribution to New Zealand.

Suze Redmayne: What else is the Government doing to make it easier to farm?

Hon TODD McCLAY: The Government and the team of agricultural Ministers are laser focused on getting costs down and returning more value to the farm gate. We’re committed to supporting farmers, and already we’ve begun reforming freshwater regulations to ensure they’re practical and deliver results. We’ve slashed red tape that burdens farmers and just adds cost to their businesses. We addressed land-use changes, including rules around full farm-to-forest conversions. We’ve invested $400 million over four years in emissions-reduction technology that will increase production, not decrease it. We’ve passed legislation to remove agriculture from the emissions trading scheme so that we can work constructively with the rural community.

Suze Redmayne: How is the Government increasing farm-gate returns?

Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, our farmers produce the safest, highest-quality red meat in the world. Last year, we announced a partnership with the red meat sector to co-invest $8 million in the Taste Pure Nature campaign. This campaign aims to make New Zealand beef and lamb the number one imported meat choice in the Chinese market by focusing on the superior nutritional qualities of our high-quality, grass-fed red meat. We’ve also concluded two high-quality trade deals with the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries last year, which will eliminate 99 percent of all tariffs over time, including sheep and beef meat exports.

Suze Redmayne: How is supporting farmers key to economic growth?

Hon TODD McCLAY: Agricultural exports contribute the equivalent of $10,600 for every Kiwi. Without this contribution, as a country, we would be poorer. Farmers have done it tough over the last few years, but as farm confidence is improving, there are real signs of green shoots ahead. Already we’ve seen a lift in sheep meat prices over recent months with December lamb prices exceeding the five-year average, record high cattle prices, and rising demand for key red meat markets that could see an additional $1 billion in export revenue for our farms this year. The way to celebrate the hard work of our sheep farmers is for everybody to eat more lamb.

Question No. 8—Environment

8. LAN PHAM (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Does she expect environmental protection to improve or get worse under her tenure as Minister?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: The Government’s committed to improving New Zealand’s economy while also improving the environment. It’s possible to do both. Our current planning system is the worst of all worlds. It makes it hard to do development, it stifles growth, and it also doesn’t protect the environment very well at all. We are dissatisfied with the status quo and that is why we are reforming and, in fact, replacing the Resource Management Act (RMA) based on a regime based on the enjoyment of property rights.

Lan Pham: Is she concerned about the unprecedented step her Government is taking in allowing individuals and companies to cause significant adverse effects in our most vulnerable and polluted waterways through the resource management amendment bill?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No.

Lan Pham: Does she still stand by her statement that “the balance [has] swung too far towards environmental protection at the cost of not being able to get things done.”, and, if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, on behalf of the Minister, yes. If the member wants to think about a simple illustration of that, I invite the member to reflect on the attempted establishment of a McDonalds in Wānaka, which has gone to extraordinary hearings, public submissions, and has been turned down. Meanwhile, there are developments up and down this country tied up in acres and acres of red and green tape who are just trying to do something quite simple—use their land to build stuff. We have a simple view on this side of the House, which is that it should be easier to make use of your property to provide jobs and growth for you and your whānau.

Lan Pham: Is the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment correct that in the Minister’s response to an Official Information Act request, she admitted that she was “not provided any specific advice or evidence from any agency” to support her statement about so-called environmental imbalance, and that “the information requested does not exist.”?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, on behalf of the Minister, it’s difficult for me to comment about an Official Information Act request that I haven’t seen or, indeed, the response from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. I can just give a general comment, which is that, on behalf of the Minister, I have great respect for the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. He makes a very valuable contribution to public debate, but it doesn’t mean I always agree with him.

Lan Pham: How can New Zealanders expect environmental protection to improve when she has not brought one piece of legislation to this House to protect the environment, has made significant cuts to staff and funding of her agencies, and has disregarded the very evidence which could enable her to make better decisions in actually protecting the environment?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: On behalf of the Minister, I take issue with many of those comments. Firstly, we have the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill, which my good colleague the Hon Tama Potaka is proceeding through the House. The second point I would make is that, yes, there have been quite substantial staff reductions at the Ministry for the Environment, but in the last year the Ministry for the Environment has managed to lead a cross-agency team and establish the fast-track regime—the one-stop shop. We have already done one RMA amendment bill and there is a second amendment bill before the Parliament right now, before the select committee. So what it shows is that with some focused leadership and a clear plan of action, Government agencies can achieve an awful lot, even without bloated staff numbers. The third point I’d make is this—and it’s the point I made in the debate last night—which is that wealthy countries look after the environment better. That is a simple fact. So if we can grow our economy and grow our national prosperity, we can do all sorts of amazing things for our biodiversity and for our endangered species. Countries that are poor trash the environment; wealthy countries look after it.

SPEAKER: And we’ll just go for more concise answers, I think. Carry on.

Lan Pham: Does she stand by her statement that “What we do know is that an environmental problem deferred today can be both an environmental liability and a fiscal risk that will have to be faced in the future.”, and, if so, what message does she have for Kiwis about the liabilities that she is leaving for the public and future generations to bear the cost?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: On behalf of the Minister, I mean, in a general sense I agree, of course. It’s why we’re very focused on growing the economy, as I said before, so that we have more resources that can be spent on protecting our natural landscapes, improving our biodiversity, and looking after our endangered species. It is more difficult to do those things when you don’t have a growing economy. And it is possible to get the balance right between utilising our extraordinary, abundant plethora of natural resources that we are endowed with in New Zealand. And actually utilising those natural resources means we can look after the ones we really want to protect, like our kea and our kākāpō and our kiwi.

Question No. 9—Children

9. Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister for Children: How many participants in the military-style academy programme have reoffended since participating, and how many are currently in youth justice facilities?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): I acknowledge the interest in the military-style academy pilot and I am also aware of the impact of the intense focus on these nine young people and their families and whānau. I have considered the fact that this is a very small group of young people and they will be identifiable within their communities and I do not believe it is in the public interest to provide constant updates on their activities. However, in considering the balance between these young people’s privacy and their wellbeing and public interest, I can confirm that all nine of the young people are still engaged in the pilot. They are in a range of placements, including some in a youth justice residence. I also remind the member that there is a significant difference between alleged reoffending and proven reoffending, and that these matters could be subject to court proceedings.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How is it not in the public interest that eight of the 10 pilot military-style academy participants have allegedly reoffended, and that six are apparently back in youth justice facilities?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I’m not sure where that member has got those numbers from and I can neither confirm nor deny those numbers, because I am not going to constantly drag these young people down when they have come to this programme voluntarily to make their lives better. Parliament is not here to destroy young people’s lives; Parliament is here to support them and get behind them to succeed.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How is it not in the public interest to provide information when she is spending over $30 million of public money on military-style academies?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: We tried to be as open and transparent as possible when it came to this pilot programme, but then it became very apparent that the Opposition used that opportunity to drag these young people through the mud with venom, trying to make them be unsuccessful. Instead of asking questions that were relevant to their successes, it was always about whether they were going to fail.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, sir. The Speakers’ rulings are really clear when it comes to the issue of public interest, and it’s spelled out really clearly that it is a high bar to meet. It is not unreasonable for a member to ask a Minister to justify their decision as to whether to use that provision not to answer a question. Given that it is a reasonable question, it shouldn’t be used—like you’ve applied previously, with a straightforward and reasonable question—as an opportunity to make a political attack, as the answer was in that particular question.

SPEAKER: Yes, that would be fair, but I’m listening also to the questions, so I’ve got to say, I always get confused by the—I don’t know what the correct grammatical term is, but by saying, “How is it not”, I think it’s a difficult way to put a construct on the rest of the question; in this case, “How is it not in the interest of the public to get particular information or use particular information?” The answer that was given by Minister Chhour was the answer you’d expect from a Minister. I don’t think we’ve been in any particularly difficult circumstances here.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Speaking to that, sir, I agree the initial response was totally fine, but to then go on and use this to try and paint this into something that it is not—it was quite clearly a political point. I take your point about the grammatical structure. We’re of the view that that makes sense, but nevertheless we can disagree on that. But the point remains that it is reasonable for a member to ask a Minister to justify their decision to withhold information on the grounds of public interest as it is a high bar. Explain that, like she did at the start. The rest of that answer shouldn’t have been allowed.

SPEAKER: Yes, and one of the difficulties I’ve got at the moment is, despite my enhanced hearing capacity, I’m actually hearing a great deal more of the commentary that’s going behind those answers. And the person asking the question was asking a lot more questions as the answer was being given, and I was actually looking to see what was being said there. So I apologise for missing that, but I make the point that answers by Ministers to questions from the Opposition should not or are not an opportunity for political attack.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How can she say that it isn’t in the public interest to provide information when we’ve had 5,342 submissions on the boot camp bill and Save the Children have a petition demanding that you boot the bill?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I refer to my primary answer, especially around where there is a huge difference between alleged reoffending and proven reoffending. These matters may be before the courts, and we cannot be making these young people’s identities available to the public. It is a small group of people that will be easily identifiable, and we don’t make a habit of talking about youth who are before the courts.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How can the Government push through a bill to enshrine the military-style academy in legislation when it is not working?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I actually would say it’s too early to say whether the pilot has been a success or not. We are still in the middle of the pilot. That is why we are evaluating its progress and we’ll be releasing the first evaluation shortly. What I would say is evidence tells us that what we were doing was not working. Evidence tells us that youth crime was at an all-time high, and something needed to happen. It would be easy to say no to these young people and say we’re not going to put in the effort, but I am proud to be part of a Government that says, “Yes, you’re worth the effort that we are putting into you.”

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: In your own admission, just now, that you’re not sure whether it’s working or not, why would you then persist with such a bill?

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I think I just answered that. We can’t afford to do nothing. The evidence tells us that youth crime was at an all-time high, and we needed to do something different. I was saddened when I heard that youth justice was being used as a holding pen before Corrections, so we need to do something better.

Question No. 10—Commerce and Consumer Affairs

10. JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What steps has the Government recently announced to improve competition?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): In December last year, I launched an ambitious review of competition settings. The reason for doing this is that New Zealand lags behind many other countries when it comes to competition. This has led to low productivity, limited choice, and higher prices for Kiwis. The first component includes a fundamental review of the Commerce Act to see whether merger settings are appropriate. The second element is that I’ve commissioned an independent group led by Dame Paula Rebstock to look at the governance structures of the Commerce Commission to ensure it has sufficient commercial focus and is fit for purpose.

Joseph Mooney: Why is the review of competition so critical right now?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: The competition settings in the Commerce Act haven’t been significantly reviewed for more than 20 years. Over that time, market conditions have changed, with many sectors becoming more concentrated. We haven’t kept up with the change, and Kiwis have suffered. It’s vital that we review our competition laws to make sure that we don’t keep doing the same thing, leading to future market concentration in other sectors.

Joseph Mooney: What will the Minister focus on?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Within the next few months, I intend to make decisions on future merger settings, new code-making powers, and anti-competitive conduct, all with the aim of giving consumers more choice and better prices. Mergers are part of the economic landscape and often lead to better outcomes. However, the balancing act is to ensure that this merger activity can occur, but there is a need to determine at what point it is appropriate for the Commerce Commission to intervene when excessive market power becomes evident or likely to occur.

Joseph Mooney: What specific sectors is the Government interested in?

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: There is a comprehensive review that will look at lifting the competition across all areas of the economy, but Kiwis are well aware of where they’ve been hit the hardest. As the Minister for Economic Growth announced today, this Government is putting supermarkets on notice. This is an example of a sector where a handful of players have become too dominant because they haven’t had the right settings in place. I look forward to working with the Minister of Economic Growth to drive competition and lower costs in these sectors that matter most to Kiwis.

Question No. 11—Health

11. Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Is he satisfied with the Government’s performance in the health portfolio across the motu?

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: Yes. We know that too many Kiwis are waiting too long to be seen at emergency departments, receive first specialist assessments, and have elective surgeries. Our focus is on patients and delivering timely, quality healthcare for all New Zealanders. That’s why we’ve reintroduced health targets, so the system can deliver for patients. Already, we are seeing that our Government’s actions are putting the brakes on the steep decline in delivery seen in recent years.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Is he satisfied that the majority of children with terminal illnesses in this country right now are getting no specialist palliative care, and, if not, why are the two roles working to address this being axed?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: Our Government’s focus is on patients and ensuring access to timely, quality healthcare for all New Zealanders. Our Government has invested more in health than ever before: a record investment of $16.68 billion. The question in response to children—when you look at when the last National Government was here for immunisation, there was a higher rate of immunisations than now. [Interruption]

Hon Phil Twyford: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: The Hon Phil Twyford. And can I just say, this is a pretty serious topic, so some of the screaming across the House doesn’t—it just diminishes it, in my opinion.

Hon Phil Twyford: Is it true that in November, half of the shifts in Waitakere Hospital’s cardiac unit and a third of the shifts in the emergency department were below the agreed safe staffing levels?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: On behalf of the Minister of Health, I don’t have the answer to that. If the member would like to put that in writing, he’ll get an answer.

Tangi Utikere: How is the Government meeting the urgent health needs of those in the MidCentral region, when 852 people have had their colonoscopies paused and more than 1,600 are waiting far longer than the recommended clinical waiting time for their referral to be considered, putting them at serious risk?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: On behalf of the Minister of Health, surveillance colonoscopies are a really important tool for the prevention of bowel cancer, and I understand the distress of the community at the delays they are facing to access this procedure if they have a history which indicates they might be at risk of developing bowel cancer. I have been reassured that the initial pause has not impacted any patients who have symptoms of bowel cancer. The pause has been brought in to prioritise those who are unwell so they can be seen quickly. Health New Zealand has advised me that surveillance colonoscopies in MidCentral will definitely recommence from Saturday, 15 February, now they have the patient pre-work issues sorted.

Reuben Davidson: How will Health New Zealand’s plan to cut more than 1,000 roles and pause more than 100 projects in data and digital operations increase the efficiency of Health New Zealand given the result now means plans to automate the maternity booking system will no longer go ahead and bookings will remain in paper form?

Hon Damien O’Connor: Not in your notes.

Hon MATT DOOCEY: Not in my notes—ha, ha! On behalf of the Minister of Health, I’ve been advised that no decisions have been made on final structures, and Health New Zealand is currently considering staff feedback to the change proposal for the data and digital team. I’m informed that Health New Zealand is working through transitional arrangements and how it plans to implement final decisions once these are made. Senior managers are discussing potential impacts and mitigating actions with clinical and regional leadership teams. Most importantly, the National Clinical Quality and Safety Commission will be asked to endorse the mitigations and transitions arrangements to be put in place to ensure patient safety, privacy, and security is not compromised.

Ingrid Leary: How can he justify cutting $1.4 billion from the health system when people are waiting longer to see their GP, paying more to see their GP, and a practice like Dunedin’s Urgent Doctors and Accident Centre may have to close its day services unless more funding is provided?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: On behalf of the Minister of Health, if that member wants to talk about waiting times, under the last National Government 89 percent of Kiwis were waiting six hours in emergency departments. When this coalition Government took office, that was down to 67 percent. When the last National Government saw Kiwis waiting four months for first specialist assessment, 99 percent were being seen in four months. When we took office in this coalition Government, that was down to 66 percent. If we want to look at elective surgeries, under the last National Government 97 percent of Kiwis were being seen within four months. When this coalition Government took office, that was down to 62 percent.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. Speakers’ rulings are really clear that Ministers cannot introduce issues that are of their choosing. The question was very specific about justifying the cuts to the health system and linking to the wait times for GPs and the cost for GPs. The Minister shouldn’t use that as an opportunity to go off and make whatever point he wants outside of the issues raised in the question.

SPEAKER: Well, essentially, you’re right, except that there were two legs to the question. One was—I think the figure mentioned was a billion-dollar cut to the health budget. It’s not unreasonable, then, that a Minister makes some comparisons between what was being achieved for a previous amount as compared to now. But I would ask the Minister to bring it back to the final part of that question, which was around access to GPs. But make it snappy because it’s been going on a while.

Hon MATT DOOCEY: Well, this Government’s invested a record $16.68 billion into the health system and we would expect that to drive performance. That’s why we’ve returned these targets—to ensure people have timely access to care, such as GP practices, and that member might want to reflect on why her last Government cancelled the health targets and everything went south.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Will all of the money from the settlement between Health New Zealand and the Masterton District Council be ring-fenced solely for the Wairarapa Hospital?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: On behalf of the Minister of Health, I don’t have that answer. If he’d like to put that in writing, he’ll get a response.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. Whilst in normal circumstances that would be a reasonable answer for a Minister answering on behalf of the Minister, in this instance I don’t believe it is. This very question has been posed by numerous people to the Minister and it has not been answered. The very question has been posed to the previous health Minister and it has not been answered. If we are being instructed to put this question in writing with an expectation that it be answered, how can we have faith that it will be when it hasn’t been previously?

SPEAKER: All right, you’re putting me at a slightly disadvantaged position. Are you telling us that the question has been asked as a question for written answer previously?

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Several times, I’m informed by my colleague. I also know that there are media outlets that have asked this very question and it has not been answered. This is the opportunity for us to ask Ministers questions, and—

SPEAKER: Yes, it is. I think a slightly better answer might be forthcoming from the Minister.

Hon Chris Bishop: Point of order. The member asking the question has a legitimate question, but he himself acknowledges, in asking it, that we don’t have the actual Minister of Health here. We have a Minister on behalf of the Minister. Ministers can’t be expected to know every single element of the health portfolio when they are answering on behalf of the substantive Minister, or the real Minister.

SPEAKER: It’s—[Interruption] Sorry, I will read that piece of advice—I don’t normally, unfortunately. Well, I don’t really like that advice. [Interruption] Well, basically, the advice is that when the Minister says he doesn’t have the information, that has to be accepted by the questioner. The next part is that if the questioner’s not happy about that, he can complain in writing to the Speaker. So you understand my reticence. But let me just make it clear: it is a very serious topic, and it does get difficult when there are Ministers acting for someone else. I appreciate that a Minister coming in to act will be an associate health Minister and can’t know all of the details. But I would hope, if there is any written question asked following this afternoon, that it’s answered rapidly and with a sound answer.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, sir. May I ask it in a different way that the Minister may be in a position to answer?

SPEAKER: Oh, all right. You might save me a bit of time—go for it, yeah.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: In exchange, I won’t write to you.

SPEAKER: Oh, you’re on, then.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: In the instance where Health New Zealand settled with the Masterton District Council, with the original claim being up to $90 million for the purpose of addressing the deficiencies in the Masterton hospital building, would it be his expectation that the entire settlement be spent for that purpose only?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: On behalf of the Minister of Health, I don’t have that answer. If he’d like to put that in writing, it will be answered.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. How on earth can it be acceptable for the House that a Minister doesn’t understand his own expectation, and a member is invited to write to him so that he has time to understand what his expectation is? Surely, even when acting on behalf of the Minister, they should be in a position to explain to the House what their expectation would be in a clearly outlined situation.

Hon MATT DOOCEY: Speaking to that point of order, Mr Speaker, I’d just point out the primary question around the Government’s performance in the health portfolio across the country. Now, I accept individual MPs have got up and asked their questions about their respective areas, but if that member wanted to ask a specific question about Masterton, then maybe that could have been in the primary question so that the Minister could be prepared for that. And I suppose that’s the risk he runs when he asks such a broad primary question.

SPEAKER: I think, actually, when there is a broad question like that, the risk is on the Government, not on the asker of the question. But we’re clearly not going to make any further progress on this as regards to specifics in the answer.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, sir. The general point in this instance, sir, is that when the question asks what a Minister’s expectations would be, is it genuinely your ruling that saying “I don’t know; write to me.” is an appropriate response?

Hon Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order. Sir, this is a facile debate. If members want specific answers to specific projects about specific areas in their electorates, they can either ask them as written questions or they can ask them as primary questions on notice. You cannot come down to Parliament and ask a broad, free-ranging question and expect an Associate Minister, who’s not the actual Minister of Health, to answer very specific questions about specific hospitals. It’s just simple logic, and various Speakers have made rulings to that effect. If you want a specific answer, ask a specific question—they haven’t done that.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Speaking to that, sir?

SPEAKER: Yep.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Which is precisely why I rephrased the question, with your permission. Asking whether something specific is going to happen—I accept that when a Minister is answering on behalf of a Minister, they may not be able to do that. That is why I asked, in an instance like this, what would the Minister’s expectation be. He is a health Minister. It is entirely appropriate and reasonable to expect him to explain to the House, in the instance that I outlined, what his expectation would be if that played out.

SPEAKER: I think you answered, somewhat, your own question there. You can’t ask a Minister answering on behalf of someone else what is the expectation of the Minister, if the question is justified by the fact that it’s an Associate Minister; unfortunately, the question is not addressed to the Associate Minister. So we’re going around in circles here. We’ve got to terminate this fairly quickly. There’s a course of action that you can follow, notwithstanding the suggestion that you might not—it’s open to you, of course. I think we might move—is there another supplementary?

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. Yes, there is, sir, but just for absolute—because we have covered a bit of ground here: is it your expectation, in response to this, that the Minister, once receiving this as a written question, actually answers it?

SPEAKER: Well, that is always the expectation of any written question, insomuch as it can be answered.

Hon Peeni Henare: Thank you, sir. How can the Minister have confidence in Lester Levy, given the many shortcomings, some examples of which were provided just now by my colleagues, or will he finally take responsibility for forcing the health system into disarray by significant cuts, with no plan whatsoever to turn it around?

Hon MATT DOOCEY: On behalf of the Minister of Health, I have confidence in the commissioner that he knows this Government’s priorities, and that’s to focus on patients delivering timely, quality healthcare for all New Zealanders.

Question No. 12—Justice

12. TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) to the Associate Minister of Justice: What updates can she provide regarding consultation on the rewrite of the Arms Act 1983?

Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice): The initial consultation on the much-anticipated rewrites of the Arms Act 1983 is off to a strong start, with 577 submissions received as of today, and the accompanying discussion document has been downloaded 1,758 times, showing that many New Zealanders are taking the opportunity to have their say—an opportunity which they were not afforded in 2019. This Government campaigned on ensuring New Zealanders could have their say on the future of the Arms Act, and we are delivering on that commitment.

Todd Stephenson: What is the specific focus of the consultation?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: The consultation is primarily focused on gathering the perspectives of New Zealanders to inform Government policy going forward. The discussion document does not present draft policy proposals; instead, it seeks input from New Zealanders before any policies are developed. It is structured around seven key themes, including responsible possession and use, firearms products, and offences and penalties, to guide submitters in sharing their thoughts.

Todd Stephenson: Where can New Zealanders find the discussion document and other resources to help them with their submissions?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: The discussion document and other resources available to assist New Zealanders in making a submission are available on the Ministry of Justice website, with translations provided in several languages. The ministry can also send physical copies and documentation upon request. It is vital that New Zealanders engage with these resources to understand what it is within and beyond the scope of the review.

Todd Stephenson: Are there any specific guidelines on how submissions should be structured?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: While it is encouraged that submissions address the seven key themes outlined in the discussion document, there is no strict format required. Submitters can focus on the themes or the issues most relevant to their experience, and they are free to omit others. Alternatively, submitters may simply list their views if that is more straightforward for them to do. Submissions close on 28 February. I encourage everyone to take the opportunity to have their say by going to www.justice.govt.nz/firearms.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Does she intend to rewrite the findings from the Arms Act review, just as she did with the findings from the Firearms Registry review?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I plan on listening to New Zealanders and making sure that their views are heard, because what we have discovered in the past is that they never got that opportunity.

Privilege

Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee—Conduct of Tākuta Ferris

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Deputy Chairperson of the Privileges Committee): I move, That the House take note of the report of the Privileges Committee and its recommendation be noted.

I’m grateful for an opportunity to present that report to the House, as deputy chair of the committee, and to present that report regarding the member’s denial that he made a particular statement in the debate. On 24 September 2024, the Speaker ruled—you ruled—that the concerns raised by Jamie Arbuckle gave rise to a question of privilege. The concerns related to Tākuta Ferris’ denial that he made a particular statement during the general debate on 18 September, and you, Mr Speaker, ruled that Mr Ferris, by denying that he made the statement complained about, may have deliberately misled the House.

In his speech, Mr Ferris said, “A knowledge gap is a dangerous thing. It allows lies to be presented as truths. Politicians call this obfuscation—the art of making something unclear, intentionally vague, ambiguous, to conceal or obscure the truth, to confuse others. Lies, in other words. Many in this House are masters of it,”. The Rt Hon Winston Peters raised a point of order, saying that Mr Ferris “made the allegation that members of this Parliament are liars,”. It’s long been considered an offence against the House to call another member a liar. The House operates on the basis that members behave truthfully and honourably. The Speaker noted at the time that he did not hear the statement in question, and told Mr Ferris that if he did make the statement, then he should withdraw and apologise. To this, Mr Ferris said, “I haven’t made that statement.”

The question before the committee was, therefore, whether, in denying that he’d made the statement, Mr Ferris had deliberately misled the House. We reviewed the Hansard transcript of the exchange. We also asked Mr Ferris to provide written comment about the question of privilege, which he did. In that response, he stated that in his view, in his speech there was no “quote, statement or inference” of members of Parliament being called liars. We invited Mr Ferris to attend the committee to further explain his stance, but he declined that invitation.

Standing Order 418 sets out a non-exhaustive list of examples of acts and omissions that may be treated as contempt. This list includes “deliberately attempting to mislead the House or a committee (by way of statement, evidence, or petition)”. To be considered a contempt, there is a requirement that the attempt to mislead be deliberate, which requires a level of intent. Inadvertent misleading without intent should not be judged too harshly. Denying that a misleading statement was made may be quite different—it may involve a sustained course of action and judgment, rather than a single moment.

The committee found it difficult to reconcile the content of Mr Ferris’ letter with the plain meaning of words he used in the House. We considered that the ordinary meaning of his statement can be understood to mean that many of the members of the House are masters of lying, and we consider that Mr Ferris was aware of this. As a consequence, we found that Mr Ferris had deliberately misled the House. We want to reiterate that the House operates on the basis of members being assumed to behave truthfully and honourably, and the House must be able to rely on the truthfulness of its members in order to operate. We considered that in deliberately misleading the House, Mr Ferris had impeded the House’s ability to do so. For this reason, our conclusion was that Mr Ferris committed a contempt. We therefore recommended that Mr Ferris be required to apologise to this House, and I understand that that has already occurred.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister for ACC): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Parliament is, by definition, a place of words—of many words, of millions of words—and it’s a place where, actually, notwithstanding the observations of some members in this Chamber and also some members of the general public, words do count. So I rise, as a member of the Privileges Committee, in support of the address just given by the deputy chair of the committee, and I want to reiterate some of the significant points that the deputy chair has just made.

It was in his general debate speech on 18 September last year that Tākuta Ferris was given an opportunity by the Speaker to deny a particular statement having been made by himself, following the raising of a point of order by the Rt Hon Winston Peters. During that general debate speech, the words of concern that arose were as follows. Mr Ferris said—and I quote—“A knowledge gap is a dangerous thing. It allows lies to be presented as truths. Politicians call this obfuscation—the art of making something unclear, intentionally vague, ambiguous, to conceal or obscure the truth, to confuse others. Lies, in other words. Many in this House are masters of it,”.

As the deputy chair has just said, it has been a longstanding and deeply significant matter in this House that all members come to the House with good intent. Now, we may disagree with members of the House about how they seek to achieve the intent with which they come to this place, but we take them as being honourable members and we take their word as being sincere, honest, and truthful. So it has always been an offence in this House to call another member a liar, let alone call all members of this House liars.

The Speaker told Mr Ferris that if he did make the statement, then he should withdraw it, and that was after the Rt Hon Winston Peters had raised the point of order. Then Mr Ferris responded by saying, “I haven’t made that statement.” It was a very clear and absolute denial of having made the statement that he just previously had.

The committee, based on its review of the Hansard transcript, considered the facts of the matter, and we considered that the issue was clear. The committee asked Mr Ferris to provide a written comment about the question of privilege, which he did do. The committee then invited Mr Ferris to a hearing of evidence, and I want to note for the House that Mr Ferris then declined that invitation to appear before Parliament’s Privileges Committee.

In his letter to the committee dated 4 November, Mr Ferris denied that he called members of Parliament liars and rejected that he intentionally misled the House. He argued that any “average, normal person”, after listening to the dictionary definition of the word “obfuscation”, would agree with also defining obfuscation as “Lies, in other words”. Mr Ferris, in his written testimony to the committee, reiterated that he described many members of the House as “masters of [obfuscation]”.

The committee was tasked then with determining whether Mr Ferris’ denial that he made a statement during the general debate on 18 September amounted to a contempt of the House. In his letter, Mr Ferris confirmed that he stated many members of the House are masters of obfuscation, and he also confirmed his held view of what that term meant. His response suggested clearly that he was aware that the ordinary meaning of his statement can be understood to mean that many members of the House are masters of lying, and therein lies the rub.

When inviting Mr Ferris to appear before the committee, we let him know that we wanted to understand why he simply did not address the matter by withdrawing and apologising before the issue escalated to a question of privilege. We also asked Mr Ferris whether he had considered addressing the matter by making a personal explanation to the House. His decision to decline the committee’s invitation to appear before it made it difficult for us to understand his view that he did not mislead the House.

In short, Mr Ferris took sustained action in denying that he made the statement, both in response to the point of order that was raised at the time, and again, later, in his subsequent letter to the committee. It was evident to the committee that Mr Ferris believes that obfuscation is synonymous with the act of lying, and, as a committee, we agree.

The committee found that Mr Ferris deliberately misled the House. To call members of this House masters of obfuscation is an allegation that members of this House are liars. The House operates on the basis that members are assumed to behave truthfully and honourably. If it were not so, this House would be chaos—some may say that it’s chaos already, but it would be more chaotic than if that was not so as a basic premise of debate, argument, and discussion in this House. So, in deliberately misleading the House, Mr Ferris impeded the House in its ability to do its work, and for this reason, the committee found that Mr Ferris committed a contempt of the House.

Misleading the House is a serious matter. To have found that there was no fault in this matter would risk undermining the very fundamental principle of the operation on a day to day basis of this House, and, on that basis, we determined as a committee that Mr Ferris be required to apologise to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is on behalf of the Green Party in relationship to the question of privilege concerning a member’s denial that he made a particular statement in debate. I take note of the comments by the previous two speakers. I also take note of the report that I myself participated in the committee, and endorse the recommendations.

I think that particularly the aspect of description of events and what triggered this process to begin with should serve as a reminder to us all, including today, of the consequences of alleging that someone may not be behaving truthfully or honourably. So, with that, we acknowledge the mahi that went into creating this report, and particularly the staffers who helped guide us in the writing of this report.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): It’s more in sadness than anything else I take this call, because Māoridom has such high expectations that when the younger generation come to Parliament, they’ll not only bring the passion of the electorate they represent but they’ll bring enough humility to respect the House which reflects the inordinately strong traditions of our democracy, one of the longest unbroken chains of democracy in the civilised world. There are three legs to this offensive stool: number one, the committee must determine whether or not the words uttered were misleading; number two, members of the committee must determine whether or not the misleading statement was known at that time to be actually inaccurate; and, number three, it must have been the intention to mislead the House. Those three legs are laid out in our parliamentary encyclopaedia.

This young, inexperienced, largely unknown member has come to this House and levelled serious attacks against other members which caused our party, through our whip, to make a formal complaint. These decisions are not taken lightly, but, sadly, the complaint cannot deal with the deeper virus, and the virus is that that member, day after day, swaggers and shows an utter contempt for the obligations and duties that fall upon us as taxpayer representatives of the public.

Look no further than the surreptitious manner of that politician’s apology. An attempt not to offer the apology in both languages, and I’m saddened by that. I know that te reo Māori is one of our official languages. I know the member is allowed to use te reo. The people, however, who deserve the apology on the basis of a finding of contempt—they ought to have heard that apology in both languages of the Treaty. An unwillingness to offer an apology in English shows contempt for the vast majority of the New Zealand members of the public, who pay his salary.

Of course, this is a small element of seeking to deploy and weaponise tikanga and Māori culture to pretend that if you have Māori blood and you’re in this Parliament, you don’t answer to the same rules and regulations. I pray and hope that the New Zealand public at the next electoral experience deliver an appropriate response to that level of superciliousness. We cannot afford to have this ethnic warping of our democracy.

If you come to Parliament, you accept, along with your fellow New Zealanders, an obligation to uphold the duties of being a parliamentarian. If you do not want to uphold those obligations, get another job. Don’t come and deprecate, don’t come and take for granted, and do not trivialise the inordinate privilege that many other Māori members of the iwi community of this Tai Tonga community have sought to achieve the status of being here to replace—such people as Eruera Tirikatene, such people as John Patterson from Ngāi Tahu in the 1800s, such people as the All Black Tutekawa Wyllie. Do you really think that they would have thought there was any honour in giggling, trivialising, and demonising this Parliament through that display of not only committing an act of contempt but accusing my leader, Winston Peters, and others of being liars.

Now, there may be elements in our iwi community who think that this is a gross overreaction. This is not an overreaction; this is a level of the obligation that sits upon everyone because when we are here as parliamentarians, we have an indivisible duty, and it’s about time—and this report actually affirms the importance of not splitting rules to suit people who enjoy a different ethnicity.

Yes, he did make an apology in te reo. I’ve been speaking te reo since that guy was born, and I would have had no hesitation in offering an apology with humility to every single New Zealander who I have treated with contempt and I take for granted the money they pay every day for the handsome salary we enjoy as public servants. No, this member beats to a drum where he believes he’s impervious and he’s beyond any of this criticism because he’s blessed with some pure, “non-Muggles” Māori blood. Shame on you for bringing your own people into disrepute, shame on your leaders for not insisting you show whakaiti—you show humility—and shame on you for misrepresenting and bringing whakamā to the long list of leaders who have held the positions of the Māori seat.

There is no honour in this arrogant, no honour in this childish, no honour in this contemptuous display of disregard for what it means to be a parliamentarian, and I’m very proud to stand and give this speech and to stand with the architect of this report. Too afraid to turn up in the courtyard of Parliament’s highest committee—

SPEAKER: Yeah, no—look, you can’t mention—

Hon SHANE JONES: No, it’s in here—I can quote that the invitation was given. The invitation was not taken up by the very member who says that a number of us are too afraid in our political life to stand up and be counted.

So, to the committee who have come up with this report, sadly there are likely to be other instances. Let it be a lesson, for those of us who treat with absolute privilege that we are here, that this report is an indictment. This report is a very sad day, and, hopefully, there is the opportunity for the person in the wrong to learn a lesson that without whakaiti, there is no rangatiratanga. The rangatira who does not understand duties and obligations is whakahēhē, whakamanamana. These are Māori words that we know very deeply, and they call for a level of modesty, humility, and the tohu of a rangatira. Thank you very much.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to endorse the report back from the Privileges Committee. This is a serious matter where the committee found that Mr Ferris deliberately misled the House. It’s one thing in the heat of debate to make a regrettable comment; it is another thing to then deny that and refuse to apologise at the first available opportunity. That denial was what the committee was asked to investigate.

The committee worked constructively to investigate Mr Ferris’ actions to see what was said and what he was saying that he’d said. After reviewing the Hansard transcript, the committee agreed that the statements were an offence against the House.

What we could not understand was why Mr Ferris continued to deny what was said. It was there for all to see on the footage and it was recorded in the Hansard. Yes, the committee did invite Mr Ferris to front up and explain himself. He refused. He instead wrote a letter that the committee found contradictory and confusing.

Following the report back, Mr Ferris apologised to the House last night, at around 7.30 p.m. I trust that that statement was sincere and that Mr Ferris has taken some time to reflect on this breach of the tikanga of this House.

This Parliament cannot effectively operate unless its members behave truthfully and honourably. Just like maraes, temples, or churches have their own tikanga, so too does this Parliament, which must be respected. If we can’t take someone at their word, the trust and integrity of our democratic institutions will be eroded. Many great leaders, including from the member’s own party, who have been members of Parliament have understood that. They earned their mana and commanded a great level of respect from across the political spectrum, not by questioning the integrity of their political opponents, but by championing what they believed in while respecting the tikanga and rules of our democratic institutions, and it’s those democratic institutions which make us a great country. Looking across human history, looking around the world, we can say that we are very lucky to be one of the few societies where decisions are made based on a genuine contest of ideas. We must carefully guard that.

From time to time, it may be the opinion of some members that the rules of this Parliament are no longer fit for purpose. We have seen the rules of this place change over many years, adjusting as social, cultural, and political norms change, and I acknowledge that this process has to be a process that is conducted in a very careful and considered manner.

If MPs disagree with the rules, there is a process to change them. But until then, it is essential for the order of the House that the rules are followed in their existing form. As an example, a future change that MPs may wish to consider is how apologies are delivered to the House. It may be desirable that the apologies are delivered in the same language in which the original breach was made, and perhaps at the time when most MPs are in the House—for example, before question time. That may or may not be appropriate, but it is something to think about. Thank you.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Matarau—Te Pāti Māori): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Just to seek some clarification, I understood that once the apology is provided, it doesn’t go to a debate. I’m not sure and, honestly, I’m happy to get that direction clearly from you—and, particularly, to the detail and the measure in which it’s been provided in the speeches that I’ve heard so far—in your clarification, please, sir.

SPEAKER: There is a report from the Privileges Committee that’s being debated, and so the reference to the apology can be in the context of the report. The reflections on the content of the apology cannot be questioned, but what has been raised is the issue of it being delivered in the two languages of Parliament, or otherwise. Now, in the debate, that’s not an unreasonable point to raise, in my opinion.

I’ve been listening to this debate carefully to ensure that there was no questioning of the apology that was delivered last night, which has been accepted by the House. So I think that this is just part of the situation we’re in, where there is going to be an increased use of te reo Māori in the House, and Dr Parmar has just put a suggestion that might like to be considered by the Standing Orders Committee at some point in the future. But these comments are made in the nature of a debate.

I want to make it very clear that I’ve heard no questioning of the apology that was delivered. There was quite a lot of lecturing about how people might like to think about things, but that’s not uncommon in this House.

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Ahau, he tangata kua roa i runga i ngā marae o te motu. Āta whakangungua ki tōku marae ki te kāinga. Ahau tētahi, kua oti i ahau te tuhi i ngā tohu paetahi e toru. Kua oti e ahau te tuhi i te paerua. Ehara i te tauhou ki te reo Pākehā me te whakatakoto kupu ki te reo Pākehā, mārama pai. Ehara hoki ahau i te tangata karo i te kupu whakatika. Ki te whakatikahia ahau i runga i te marae kei te pai noa iho. Ka tū ahau, ka whakarongo, ka whakahokia he kōrero. Taku whakarongo ki ngā kōrero i roto i tēnei whakawhitinga kōrero, he hanga tutū te puehu. Kei te pai tēnā. Engari mēnā ko koe te kaiwhakatutū i te puehu ko te tikanga ka noho mai koe ki te whakarongo ki te kupu whakahoki.

Nō reira ehara i te mea ka tōroahia ēnei kupu āku, kua rongo au i te whakahau o te kōmiti. Kei te pai. I hāpaingia i whakamanahia taua whakatau, i heke mai ki konei ki te whakapāha ki te Whare, kei te pai. Heoi anō ki te whakaiti i ahau me tōku whānau, e kore au e whakaae. Nō reira ko te tangata nei e kaha karawhiu i te kupu kātahi ka rere atu, kei te pai, tāria te wā. Tāria te wā tāua i runga i ngā marae o te motu.

Heoi anō, ka tahuri au ki te reo o te whare nei.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have long stood on the many marae of the country. I was trained on my marae, at my home. I myself have completed three degrees. I have also written a thesis. I am not new to the English language and composing my thoughts in English; I am well versed. I also do not avoid words of correction. If I am corrected on the marae, then I accept it. I stand, I listen, and I reply. However, as I listen to the words discussed here, I hear words that stir the dust. That is OK. But, if you are the one stirring up the dust, then you should stay and listen to the replies.

I am not here to delay proceedings as I have heard the order of the committee. It is fine. That decision was adhered to, I am here to apologise to the House; it is fine by me. However, should someone belittle my family and me, I will not accept that. So, to the person who spoke recklessly and then left, it is fine, your time will come. Wait until we cross paths on one of the marae of the land.

For now, let me turn my attention to the House.]

I’m not afraid of consequence or anything like that. I made some statements on the day; I wrote the speech. I’m the holder of three undergraduate degrees and a Master’s degree; I’ve written plenty of stuff. I know the nuances of the English language and I know what I wrote, and that’s the view that I had on the day. It’s the view I maintain. There is a—

SPEAKER: I’d just suggest that the—we’re debating the report itself. It’s not the right time to go into a justification that might suggest that the report is wrong. I don’t mean to interrupt the member, but there’s a point where we have to move on, and it’s that what comes before us that’s more important than what has happened some time back. So can I just suggest that in the remaining time, the member concentrates on the process—you don’t have to use all the time, by the way—and not get into a position where there is now contest from the member about the event for which he has apologised to the House.

TĀKUTA FERRIS: Kia ora. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. I’m not offering any contest; I accept the ruling. I accept the ruling, and that’s fine.

I understand that the House is uncomfortable with me, and I think that’s fine, too. Te iwi Māori have long, long fought to be heard appropriately, and our presence here is in that vein. I come here, yeah, as a younger Māori than Shane Jones, but I’m a man of 46 years. I have three children. Two of them are grown, and they’re nearly all out of kura. We’ve been doing this a long time, and we understand it well, and we know that our position will agitate in this House, but it is a position that our generation was born into—raised, taught, and developed into—and it will not be going away. It’s not disrespectful. Ehara au i te tangata whakaiti tangata. Ehara au i te tangata whakaiti kawa. [I am not one to belittle others. I am not one to trample another’s procedures.]

What we are doing is not disrespectful, and as I sit here—well, I was sitting upstairs, actually—someone was suggesting that the mana of te reo Māori may not be enough and it may not suffice in this two-partner House. I’m not too sure about that, and if deeply, truly, this Whare believes that an apology in te reo Māori may not be enough, I can guarantee you this: my apology in te reo Māori means more than my apology in English.

So I’ll leave it there. I’m OK with the ruling. I may not be OK with some things that were said, but we’ll wait for an opportunity on a marae somewhere in the future. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Kia ora koutou.

SPEAKER: Before I put the question, I just—in respect of that—want to make it absolutely clear that there is no question that the apology delivered by the member last night is accepted by the House. There were debating points raised; that’s what you get. The question is that the House take note of the report of the Privileges Committee and its recommendation be noted.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill

Third Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I move, That the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

I am pleased to be leading this bill through its final stages of the House and to acknowledge the work that got us to this point. In particular, I want to thank the people and organisations who shared sometimes very personal experiences in the hope of creating better experiences for others in the future.

The amendments in this bill strengthen the courts’ statutory powers to protect victims of litigation abuse in family proceedings. Just to outline just what we’re talking about here in terms of litigation abuses, it is when somebody uses the court system to harass, contact, and control their victim, rather than to resolve legitimate disputes. This can include making false allegations and filing excessive documents with the intention to hurt their victim in some way.

I’d like to pause for a moment to reflect on that. Our courts are places that are designed to help people to resolve issues when they have not been able to do so in the context of the Family Court. Instead, court participants sometimes use the court to prolong conflict, to waste time and resources, and to inflict harm, and that is not acceptable, especially in relation to family proceedings, which often involve children.

The bill is focused on providing the courts a way to identify and address this behaviour. Now, the purpose is to strengthen the court’s statutory powers to respond to litigation abuse. It does this by amending the Family Court Act, District Court Act, and Senior Courts Act to include a new judicial power to protect the party from litigant abuse in family proceedings. The bill will apply to a range of family proceedings, including care of children and relationship property cases. It allows the court to make an order protecting parties to the proceeding if the court is satisfied that one party is engaged in litigant abuse. This includes where they are exhibiting conduct intended to harass, annoy, harm, or psychologically abuse.

The bill sets an appropriate threshold that someone is required to meet before they can access the protection. It allows for a wide range of behaviour to be the grounds for an order while also recognising the seriousness of abuse experienced by victims. The protections of the bill are intended to be accessible to victims. It’s why it uses the words “harass” and “annoy” to describe the intent of the behaviour and leaves it to judges to have the last say in whether an order is appropriate. The intention is to give judges broad ability to make an order when the situation requires it.

Now, at the Justice Committee, we heard that “harass” and “annoy” may unintentionally trivialise the impact of litigation abuse. The bill has, therefore, been amended to include psychological abuse and harm in the description of the intent of the behaviour that’s being exhibited. These terms indicate the serious nature of behaviour and acknowledge the impact on the victim. Their inclusion is not intended to make it more difficult for the victim to access the protection.

The bill also makes it clear that litigant abuse can be a one-off event or a pattern. Being aware of the harm being done as part of a pattern is in line with what we know about family violence. In deciding to make this order, the court’s required to look at all the relevant information so it can assess whether there is harm that should be stopped. Together, these changes avoid the court being caught up on technicalities that exist in the current law.

Finally, if the order is made, the court will require a party to seek the approval of the court to take any further steps in existing or new family proceedings for up to three years. A longer order of up to five years can be made if the court considers there are exceptional circumstances. This will give the court the tools to protect victims that are being abused through the court process.

Finally, the bill comes into force 12 months after the date of the Royal assent. Ultimately, this is a Government that is focused on reducing the number of victims of crime, and that is a broad swathe of what we’re doing in the justice sector. We’re also interested in ensuring that the court processes are efficient and operate in a way where the victims of crime are dealt with appropriately, and that, in instances such as the Family Court where, more often than not, it is trying to come to an agreement and deal with disputes and arguments, that is done in a way whereby the court isn’t used as a means to make the situation worse. Fundamentally, what Parliament is doing with this legislation is giving the court some extra tools to push back against people who use the court system to victimise others. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise today in support of the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. This is a crucial piece of legislation that ensures that our justice system is not misused as a weapon of control and coercion. This bill strengthens judicial powers to protect those victims from further abuse of litigation. Litigation abuse is an insidious tactic used by abusers to continue harassment long after a relationship has come to an end.

Let me be clear about what litigation abuse is. It is not about people seeking legitimate legal remedies; it is about abusers manipulating the Family Court and its processes to wear down victims, forcing them to respond excessively and unnecessarily dragging them through repeated court appearances, and using the law itself as a tool of control against others.

Victims of family violence often leave abusive relationships hoping for safety, hoping for peace, and hoping to get a fresh start in life, but litigation abuse ensures that abuse does not stop. Instead of physical violence, abusers use the court system to continue their campaign of intimidation on others. They file excessive documents and force unnecessary court hearings and use legal technicalities to engage their victims in endless battles. This is not justice; this is abuse.

This bill is a necessary step to respond to a longstanding problem. It strengthens the courts’ ability to take a look at this behaviour, to identify it, and to stop litigation abuse by requiring judges to take a broader view, not just of those individual applications but of a pattern of what is occurring before the court and an overall pattern of a person’s conduct in court. It ensures that if an order is made against an abuser, any future attempts they make to engage their victim in legal proceedings will be reviewed by the court before they can indeed proceed any further. This will reduce the ability of abusers to continue their harm through legal means.

I’m proud that this bill was introduced under a Labour Government, and I’m proud that it forms part of our philosophy of putting victims of crime first and taking real and active steps not just to keep our community safe here and now but also to break the cycle of crime. It is a reflection of our commitment to ensuring the justice system serves victims, not their abusers, but we must acknowledge that this piece of legislation is just one piece of a far greater picture. If we are serious about keeping our community safe, we must do more than just respond to crime. We must also prevent crime from occurring in the first place, and this bill is a small step in that direction.

This is where the Government goes wrong here. The coalition Government’s failure to have a plan in crime prevention is a real concern for New Zealanders, and the one bill we have that does some of this work was a hangover from the previous Government.

You’ll hear from the members opposite in their speeches that they are focused on law and order, but the real truth is that they have no plan to break the cycle of crime. Their approach is reactionary. They will throw people into prison and claim they are making our streets safer. They will cut funding for essential services then feign surprise when crime rates increase. They will take away support from the most vulnerable and act as if harsher sentencing alone will solve the problem of reoccurring crime in New Zealand communities.

Let me be clear: if we do not address the root causes of crime, the cycle will continue. If we do not provide victims with the support they need to break free from violence, they will remain trapped. If we do not invest in prevention, we will only ever be responding to crime after the fact.

When we were in Government, we recognised that tackling family and sexual violence required more than just legal changes. This bill today is one part of that. It required investment in support services, prevention programmes, and victim protections, like this bill does today. That is why we boosted the Victim Assistance Scheme and made an estimated 10,000 more grants available to victims of serious crimes. We knew that words alone were not enough. Victims needed real, tangible support to recover and rebuild their lives, and that is why we tripled the level of funding for the Victim Assistance Scheme and doubled the level of funding for Victim Support.

Contrast that with this Government. Since taking office, they have made the wrong choices. They have pulled police out of family violence and mental health without putting any additional funding or resources into those areas. They have cut funding to Oranga Tamariki, leaving vulnerable children and families with fewer protections, and offered up boot camps as a solution. They’ve appointed a Minister responsible for the prevention of family and sexual violence who says she is only responsible for coordinating things, rather than taking any real action in this space. Where is the plan to prevent violence and where is the commitment to victims?

Labour took a whole-of-Government approach for tackling family and sexual violence and I’m pleased that this bill is progressing. In 2018, we established the joint venture, a collaboration of Government agencies with collective responsibility for addressing family violence and ongoing abuse in communities. We knew that a siloed approach would not work and we needed justice, health, education, and social services working closely together.

We backed our approach with real investment and allocated funding for family and sexual violence, and we did this Budget after Budget. We understood that times of crisis increase the victims and over COVID, more funding was given when families were locked down. We ensured that services had the ability to respond when they needed to. In 2020, we invested $183 million in family violence services. I don’t think that’s wasteful spending; I consider that to be saving lives.

We allocated $131.9 million over four years for prevention programmes in communities, prevention programmes that save lives and enable whānau to be able to come back after traumatic events, and then Te Aorerekura, but Te Aorerekura was not just a policy document; it’s a 25-year plan, a commitment to tackling the root causes of violence in our country. It was developed in partnership with survivors and it was developed with advocates and front-line workers. It took a cross-agency approach, ensuring agencies work together. Under this programme, we are seeing some real changes, and it’s great to see this bill today which is going ahead and the continued work that Te Aorerekura does in this space, but it’s a real shame that it received no additional funding in the previous Budget.

It’s really important that we understand the context in which family violence operates, and this bill, in identifying litigation abuse, is an important part of acknowledging that family harm goes wider than just violence; it’s psychological abuse and control over others. It is incredibly important that we must keep examining the fact that this Government has no real answer to the ongoing problem of the cycle of crime, no long-term strategy, no vision for safer communities, and no interest in structural changes that need to stop violence before it happens. They have talked about harsher punishments, but they have said nothing about prevention. They’ve cut funding for front-line services and yet they have still no claim to care about really keeping people safe.

This bill is a step forward. It ensures our justice system cannot be used as a weapon against victims, but if we want real safety in our communities, we need to do more than just respond to crime. We need to stop it from happening in the first place. That means investing in families and education and social services and the kinds of protections that this bill represents.

This bill sends a clear message that the Family Court is there to resolve legitimate disputes, not to enable further harm, but we must go further. We must continue to invest in prevention and in Victim Support and in breaking the cycle of crime in New Zealand communities. That is what we in the Labour Party believe in and that is what we will continue to fight for. I commend this bill to the House.

KAHURANGI CARTER (Green): I rise in support of the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. It’s a positive day when all parties agree on the new legislation that makes our society safer.

Today, we are coming together to protect and empower victims of family violence, and to say that we heard you and we are going to do better for you and for every generation afterwards. To all the submitters and contributors and people who did not have the protection from harassment and abuse that this legislation will bring, this is for you. To those who’ve had to endure continued abuse through the courts for what you and your families have been through, this is for you.

The mahi of many people from both sides of the House means that we are moving forward together for our shared goal: the goal that we can and must prevent family and sexual violence from ever happening in Aotearoa. We are saying that we do not accept family violence—whether it be stalking, physical violence, or psychological pressure—ever happening, and this is a step towards that shared vision. Our mokopuna and future generations deserve our continued commitment to this goal. Together, we can and must create a world where everyone can live free from violence, with dignity and peace, so that all of us can flourish, and this is one step in the right direction. This bill amends the Family Court Act 1980, the District Court Act 2016, and the Senior Courts Act 2016, which will strengthen the courts’ powers to protect the victims of litigation abuse in family proceedings.

Today, we are using the word “victim”, and I just want to acknowledge that many people do not relate to that term and relate more to the word “survivor”. When I’ve spoken with survivors of family violence who have experienced this continued abuse through court proceedings, there are harrowing stories like those of mothers who are raising their kids and want to have safe and secure environments for them. Parents just want the best for our kids, and we need to ensure that our laws reflect that and that our laws support every parent’s ability to provide safety and stability—something that all our tamariki need and deserve.

Any court procedure brings an element of stress and the nature of family violence procedures means that there is often a huge emotional toll, and this law will help reduce this by ensuring that people are free from abusive conduct inside and outside of the court. This bill will take steps to address the issue of people using the court system to harass victims and survivors of abuse, which has been a persistent problem for far too long.

I heard from a mother who suffered because we didn’t have this law in place. She was navigating the court system while trying to retain a sense of normality and stability for her kids. At every milestone during the court proceedings, she felt relief that she was moving closer towards the end of this harrowing process, but this relief was short-lived when more unnecessary documents and accusations arrived to her lawyer. Every new document that arrived compounded this continued harassment. She described a funnel above her head of everyday pressures like rent, work, bills, getting kids to school, helping them with homework, and juggling all of these things. This funnel above her head with unnecessary documents was weighing her down. Rent, work, bills, kids, juggling homework, pets, and then pages and pages and pages of unnecessary court documents—court document, court document, court document. These documents were stifling her ability to flourish and thrive.

As a mum, I understand these everyday pressures, and I know we are just doing the best with what we have. She was doing the best with what she had. She and her children are now thriving. She has finished a degree and has a fulfilling job, and through her resilience, her kids are flourishing. As a survivor of family abuse and continued abuse through the court system, she reflected that her healing journey and the healing of her kids would have been different if this law was in place when she needed it.

In the first reading of this bill, the Hon Marama Davidson spoke of the need to balance the right of victims to be free from abuse in our justice system with maintaining a fair process, and, as such, she strongly recommended the scrutiny of the select committee on this bill. When we speak on behalf of victims and survivors, our goal is to uphold justice and fairness, not to undermine them. The court cannot be used in a disruptive way, without any real intention of seeking justice, but just to further traumatise and harass survivors, who just want to live their lives with peace and aroha.

I want to also draw attention to the themes of some submissions, including that of Community Law and the Backbone Collective. Whilst speaking in favour of this law, they did raise valid concerns that some victims often need to make multiple applications to the Family Court before their case is heard, and their concern was that the introduction of this legislation would prevent victims, who have been so brave in coming forward, from being able to use the court system to bring proceedings. The committee noted this and said that with regard to new section 12, in clause 5, the committee was satisfied that this would protect in these circumstances, and I also want to acknowledge the point of monitoring and reporting, which was brought up by many members in the first reading of this bill.

Tragically, we know that in Aotearoa, most violence is not reported, and nearly all sexual violence is not reported at all. We aim to increase reporting while reducing the prevalence of violence.

Now, we know the way forward on this, and that is Te Aorerekura, which is a 25-year plan, an across-Government-agencies plan, that the Hon Marama Davidson worked so hard to champion and bring in. I want to take this opportunity in the House, while we’re talking about family and sexual violence, to implore the Government in the strongest possible terms to honour Te Aorerekura and work collaboratively, because that is what survivors have been asking of us. They were part of creating Te Aorerekura. This centres survivors’ voices and experiences, and it includes working together across Government. I believe in all of our ability to do that, and to centre victims, rather than party politics.

Te Aorerekura was agreed to by all parties, and a pivotal and important part of Te Aorerekura—which came from survivors—is prevention and education and rehabilitation, because if we prevent these things from ever happening, then our country will flourish and the people in it will thrive. In the Greens, we have a vision where everybody has the things they need to do the best that they can with what they have. Now, if everybody was able to live that flourishing life, imagine what our next generations could achieve. I implore everybody here to read Te Aorerekura and take this with you into the rest of time—there we go!

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Mr Speaker, thank you. I will keep my remarks quite short given that we’re in the latter part of the afternoon. I think it’s fantastic that we have cross-party Parliament support for the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill in its third reading. I think it’s a testament to the work that we can all collectively do as parliamentarians. I want to acknowledge the former Minister of Justice Ginny Andersen in her role in bringing this legislation, and I acknowledge the too the current Minister of Justice, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, who’s the Minister shepherding this bill through the House in its third reading. So congratulations to both those members for being instrumental in this part of this journey in terms of where this legislation now sits in front of the House.

I will just canvass a few of the main provisions in the bill for the sake of further clarification. The Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill will strengthen the courts’ statutory powers to protect victims of litigation abuse in family proceedings. Evidently, this is an ongoing problem that the courts have highlighted. Recent case law has highlighted that current legislation and inherent powers held by judges may not be sufficient to stop litigation abuse in family proceedings. This is something that the former Minister and the current Minister are now cognisant of. The bill will make amendments that strengthen the courts’ ability to identify and respond to instances where an individual attempts to use court systems to harass, annoy, harm, or psychologically abuse another person. When a person applies for an order, the court is required to look broadly at that said person’s behaviour in and outside the court proceedings, focusing on the intent of that behaviour to determine whether there is, you might say, unwanted abuse.

The bill carefully balances the objective of ensuring the court is not misused to perpetrate harm, with the right to access justice—and natural justice is obviously something that we all care deeply about as parliamentarians. The bill will make amendments that strengthen the courts’ ability to identify and respond to instances where an individual attempts to use courts or Family Courts and proceedings to harass, annoy, harm, or psychologically abuse another person. As formerly stated, when a person applies in an order to a court, it is required to look broadly at that behaviour. As I’ve rightly said now a couple of times, evidently this is a problem.

I think this is a good piece of legislation. I don’t want to over-litigate the issues. I think we’re all of the same determination that the abuse of people that are in front of the courts has been a problem. As I formerly mentioned, both the former Minister and current Minister are aware of it. And the fact that this legislation is now in its third reading and has unanimous support across the House speaks to the wonderful work that this piece of legislation will now ameliorate. Hopefully, out the other side of this, we will have a better court system protecting the victims of family violence. I commend it to the House.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Police): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to, again, speak in support of the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill.

The sad part of the reality of our system is that it is almost overwhelming in the ways in which persons with ill-intent can create victimisation of vulnerable people, and the sad tragedy of the process by which you can use the very system which is put in place to provide protections to further victimise the vulnerable is tragic in itself. This is an important piece of legislation, because the saddest thing we can see in the abuse of the court system is that anything that would deter vulnerable people from reaching out to the system that is supposed to protect them, or deter them from having faith in that system, is just sad and tragic in every aspect. This is an important piece of legislation that will work towards breaking the bonds of control.

I had hoped to make a very short submission, again reflecting the time of the day and the week that has gone ahead of us, but I think it is important to actually recognise the effort this Government is taking to reduce not only the impacts of crime but the number of victims of crime, encouraged by the fact that public opinion is now recognising that law and order is being addressed and it is now not the most prevalent issue facing communities, which is why we now can focus on economic growth. It has been suggested that this side of the House does not have a plan to reduce the victims of crime and actually address crime, and I would suggest that everything that was outlined by one of the previous speakers in terms of the investment in families, the investment in education, the investment in prevention is exactly what this side of the House has been doing and why this Government is so committed to growing the economy, to ensure that the hardships that are facing families can be alleviated, and also that we have the funds and the ability to do more to support the social initiatives that will help in terms of housing, in terms of health, and in terms of building a better social system that takes care of our vulnerable.

It is with great privilege that I stand on this side of the House to recognise that, yes, this is one piece of legislation, and it is encouraging that we all agree on putting these protections in place—but also that I stand with pride about the work that is being done to address not only the drivers of crime, the impacts of crime, but, actually, to recognise that it isn’t about how much money you put into an issue; it is actually the impact of the work that is being done—and great work is being done. I am very privileged to be commending this bill to the House. Thank you.

TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I don’t have an awful lot more to add on the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill, because, thankfully, this is one that all parties around the House today are going to be supporting, and for good reason.

There are some points, as I’ve been listening to the debate, that I was hoping to bring to light on this bill, and it’s that we have a court system that is supposed to deliver justice. We know that that is not the way that a lot of victims who go through our court system feel. Often, they spend a lot of time emotionally, mentally, legally, physically preparing for that long-awaited day in court—that long-awaited day that can sometimes take many years to get to—where they hope to receive justice. And justice can look different to different people. It’s not always an imprisonment. It’s not always a court sentence that victims are seeking. Often, it is just accountability—accountability for the harm that has been caused to themselves and in their lives and for that to be recognised and on the record—but often that court process and that day in court can be retraumatising, because, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who know how to use the court system to further their abuse of the victim.

Our courts and the justice process that is supposed to restore justice for people who have experienced family violence or sexual violence often serves as another form of violence, whether that’s in the pursuit of protection orders or, perhaps, the defendant trying to make excuses as to why they think their harm is excusable. Harm and violence is never ever OK, and it’s important, on the one hand, to have a justice system that actually provides justice; we also have to be careful that we continue to allow people room to provide a defence. It’s always balancing this very sensitive balancing act of how we ensure these processes aren’t used to abuse and also ensuring that people who are defending themselves also have access to natural justice and justice before the courts.

This bill is about reducing abuse of litigation, and, as many speakers before me have much more eloquently put it, abuse of litigation, in simple terms, is people who use the court as a weapon and use it to further harm and further victimise the people before it. It made me think about other places within our justice system where abuse of litigation can happen, and it happens so often particularly for women who are victims of sexual violence. There are always these arguments around, “She wanted it”, “She was asking for it—that’s why it happened.” One recent high-profile case was, in the murder of Grace Millane, where there was a rough-sex defence, where Grace Millane’s family had to listen to months and months and months of her murderer saying that her death was a consequence of rough sex gone wrong.

In the UK, they have banned that as a defence, because, again, it leads to abuse of litigation. It is re-traumatising. It means that the victim of that harm becomes the focus of the court case. Their behaviour, their actions, what they were wearing becomes the focus of that court case, as opposed to the actions of the person who has caused the harm and the accountability that is being sought. Any steps that we can take to make sure that people who have been the victims of sexual violence and family violence do not have to stand there and defend themselves when they’ve been waiting so long to get that justice and have been denied it because we have a court that prioritises things that should not be the focus of our justice system—I’m happy to support this bill today and hope that more improvements will come to our court system, because they are much needed. Kia ora.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for the South Island): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to support the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. It’s supported across the House, and it will pass. It’s a job well done by the Justice Committee, but it is frustrating to hear again and again across the House about how the Government’s not focusing on addressing the causes of crime.

Of course, anyone who has sat in the Justice Committee for the past 12 to 14 months knows that’s exactly what the Government’s programme does: it is addressing the causes of crime, the impacts of crime, and the victims of crime, the consequences of crime, and what we do to rehabilitate individuals so that we don’t end up with more crime. I can only point to bills like the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, which, along with capping sentences, puts a focus on victims’ rights, victims’ advocacy, and implements that into the statute.

I can point to the work of the Justice Committee on the upcoming regulatory systems bills that we may get to today, which talks about how we can make small changes to speed up the court system. I can talk about the Justice Committee’s focus on scrutiny of the courts and access to justice and timeliness and modernising the court system. I can talk about the upcoming multi-agency cluster approach, scrutiny approach—interrogation of Justice, Police, Corrections, all of the justice agencies, who are supposed to work together on a pipeline approach to solving our justice problems—that the Justice Committee will be looking at.

I can also talk about many, many other things, but what we’ll talk about today is one small change, supported across the House, that is to limit the ability of abusive litigants to use the court processes and the legal systems to terrorise innocent victims of abuse, innocent victims of crime themselves—to use the court process to delay and to harass and to intimidate and to otherwise obstruct access to justice.

We support this bill. It’s supported widely across the House. I’m glad that the Parliament can agree on this one, and I look forward to much more agreement as we move through our justice programme later on today. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to be able to stand in support of this bill today.

The Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill was first introduced on 22 August 2023, and it seeks to protect victims from litigation abuse in family proceedings. For a lot of people, the concept of litigation abuse might be something that they’re unfamiliar with. It’s not necessarily part of everyone’s everyday life. It’s not necessarily something that people who have never found themselves in these terrible situations actually pay much attention to, but certainly for the people who do find themselves in these situations, it’s an incredibly sinister and pervasive means by which to not only control somebody but to have at your disposal the levers and the machinations of the justice system and to be able to weaponise that as a tool, which I think makes the abuse particularly difficult to swallow.

Litigation abuse, as I said, is a sinister and cruel way, and it’s often something that’s overlooked, as it plays out, as another aspect of family violence, which in and of itself is often behind closed doors. We know that over many decades, and certainly in my lifetime, watching that play out from something that was considered to be, you know, behaviour that was just part of normal life that was covered up, and, often, even police intervention was difficult to get and to have and for people to see the relief that, somehow, the State or any other aspects of the State would come to their defence.

For this more modern iteration of family violence, it’s something that this House should stop sooner rather than later. As one commentator commented, it’s an aspect of family violence that extends the suffering of victims from beyond the home, from beyond those closed doors, and into the courtroom. That should be a safe place, and there should be no means or mechanisms by which someone acting in bad faith can use that system to further punish someone. It’s become disturbingly common, I think, for perpetrators to misuse the legal system, not only to harass people but as another form to control them. At its base, intentionality, I suppose, it’s just another form of intimidation of victims. This manipulation of the justice system leaves victims, I think, not only emotionally shattered and harmed in various different ways but it also creates financial considerations and can leave them financially drained. They’ve got abuse and they’ve got this harassment and this form of intimidation and control coming at them from all different directions.

The bill is not only timely—and as I said, it was introduced in 2023—it’s an essential part, and, I think, an essential part if we’re really serious about restoring fairness and restoring protection in our legal system. We heard some personal accounts during the process from people who told us about the devastating impact litigation abuse has had on their own life, describing how their particular abuser had weaponised the legal system and, in some cases, had gone to huge lengths, and were clearly people who were well versed, or who had learnt how to be very well versed, in the legal system—and that in itself creates another power differential—filing these baseless, baseless applications one after the other to remain in control long after the relationship had ended. It’s that relentlessness of the harassment that we heard about from people, that it really had driven them to the brink of despair. We know that those stories and those accounts that were shared with us during this process are not isolated cases but are actually part of a larger, more systemic issue, and it demands, rightly so, the attention of this House today.

This bill directly addresses this problem and empowers judges to identify and to stop those legal actions that are intended, for no other intents and purposes, simply to cause harm and to harass victims and that, essentially, amount to psychological abuse. If we equip the courts with this authority, we can prevent perpetrators from continuing this behaviour and from actually turning our legal system into a weapon, and that should be something that’s within everybody’s interests. This is a necessary step to ensure that our justice system actually serves its true purpose, which is to protect victims and to deliver justice.

We also heard from advocacy groups who have strongly supported these measures. Victim Support have emphasised that litigation abuse is not only another form of domestic violence but it’s also played out in the courtroom, but also, given the high, high prevalence of intimate partner violence in New Zealand, they argue that it is really a top priority for us to remove those barriers and to ensure that there is no further harm. This bill represents a critical step, I think, in making Family Court systems safer and more equitable for those that need it most.

There are other bills that are doing that—it would be remiss of me not to take the opportunity to talk about my own bill, which is about giving evidence in the Family Court and making sure that the people in the Family Court, as they are in other courts, are afforded the ability to do so at a distance or behind screens, given that the Family Court, as we all know, or we should know, is quite an informal setting, and therefore the informality of that setting in and of itself can be another form of intimidation.

This bill represents and is indicative, I think, of Labour’s work in the past to protect survivors of family and sexual violence. Some of that work has included the biggest ever investment in family violence and sexual violence prevention and support services. That’s something on this side of the House that we’re very proud of and that a lot of people worked hard on to make sure that it was implementable, it was sensible, that there was good grounds for the policy, and that it serves people well. Also, the introduction of family violence leave may seem like a small step and may seem like a small measure, but for someone who finds themselves in a situation where they’re in turmoil and they’re balancing all of these other considerations—and the thought of losing your job, which may be the only thing that tethers you to normality whilst you’re going through all of this upheaval, by simply not being able to take a couple of days off to move to safety and to do all of the necessary things to regain that independence—it is, I think, a really good investment. Also, the introduction of new offences like strangulation better reflect the severity of family and sexual violence.

As I said in the beginning, it’s certainly within my lifetime that domestic violence and violence within the household was not even considered a crime. It was considered a relationship issue, something to be worked out behind closed doors, something for society and the police and neighbours and communities not to cast an eye over, as if they were casting aspersions over the relationship itself. I think that this is another part of that puzzle, and there’s still certainly much, much more to do. Of course, introducing this bill to provide the courts with greater powers to stop litigation abuse is part of that puzzle as well.

We heard from the previous contributor that there was some dismay at this side of the House suggesting that the Government doesn’t appear to have much of a plan in so far as tackling crime and tackling the drivers of crime, and I stand by that and I reiterate that today. I don’t see much of a plan. It’s one thing to talk tough about crime and it’s one thing to rattle off a list of things that are happening in the Justice Committee, but whether they are efficacious or not, whether they’re grounded in decent policy formation or not, or whether they’re just a signal to people to emphasise the fact that the Government thinks they’re tough on crime is a whole other conversation. I don’t think that the Government should be worried about that conversation—if they’re confident in their efforts and if they stand by their actions to date, then they’ll be regaling all of the things that they’re doing to be tough on crime instead of just moaning about being held to account for the things that they’re not.

On this side of the House, we don’t think that the Government is doing enough to address the drivers of crime, the stressors and the drivers of crime, and, therefore, for anybody put under those situations, the Government, whether we see the increase in unemployment, whether we see the continuing bite of the cost of living—all of those things impact crime. It’s not enough to rattle off a list of simplistic solutions without looking at the bigger picture. Having said that, with this particular bill, we are happy to recommend it to the House.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It must be painful sitting on that side of the House and not being able to imagine a world where you can do more than one thing at once and where you can address both the drivers of crime and address those that have committed a crime. It must be difficult for those who have left these benches because they weren’t effective at doing anything, to see effectiveness on this side of the House. It must be difficult to hold two truths: that we are dealing with the drivers of crime at the same time as looking after and supporting victims of crime, because as much as we do to address the drivers of crime, the reality is there are still people out there who are undertaking and doing crime, and New Zealanders elected this Government to get tough on that and sort it out and make sure that victims were recognised in the process.

The bill that we are about to turn into law, the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill, is doing just that. It is ensuring that we put focus on victims. There were five key points that we addressed through the submissions, the hard-working Justice Committee that is doing that work, to get and restore law and order in this country. We made sure that we were recognising that this is frequently occurring in family violence issues and needs to be addressed. There were a number of issues relating to access to justice rights that were touched on, and the bill balances the objectives that were being affected there. Approximately one-quarter of submitters raised various concerns about the bill’s impact on children, and the select committee made amendments in that regard. Submitters expressed concern that provisions could harm victims, and there were safeguards put in place to address that. Submitters also highlighted the need for systemic change, and many of these suggestions we are taking into account in our wider policy programme.

This is a Government that can do more than one thing at once, and I commend this bill to the House.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to come back to the start of this bill. The bill started, actually not in this House—

Carl Bates: In the dying days of the Labour Government.

RACHEL BOYACK: It started—maybe listen—with victims going to talk to MPs, like myself and like many in this House about the situation they faced. The guy can heckle if he likes, but actually I’m going to tell some pretty tough stories that I heard as a local MP. That’s up to him if he wants to listen or if he wants to just—

Hon Member: Heckle away.

RACHEL BOYACK: —yeah, heckle away on such a serious matter. In 2022, I was approached by two women in Nelson—one Adele Keefe, who’s part of an organisation called Mana Wāhine, and another woman who I won’t name. I have permission to share her story, but I’m going to keep her name secret. The reason I’m going to keep her name secret is that, when she actually spoke about her story on her Facebook page and the police said that she hadn’t committed any crime in doing so, her former partner actually took legal action against her.

This woman has suffered serious health issues as a result of the family violence she experienced for a number of years, and she came to talk to me about it. She suffered emotional abuse, physical abuse, a lot of financial abuse, a lot of not paying child support in particular, but also litigation abuse in what we often will call vexatious litigation. She came to see me in 2022, this woman and Adele Keefe. I organised a meeting with the then Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, Marama Davidson, who had a meeting with them.

I also talked to Dr Emily Henderson; I want to acknowledge her. Emily Henderson had a list of things she wanted to fix in the Family Court, and I went and wrote on her whiteboard “litigation abuse”. As a group of MPs, we talked about this and many other issues. This is one of many issues because there were many other stories like the ones I’ve just told that came to MPs from across the House to raise this issue, and it became apparent also from organisations like Women’s Refuge that this was something that we needed to fix.

I want to acknowledge Ginny Andersen, who was the Minister who introduced this bill into the House in August 2023. I will put on record my concern that it’s taken until now for this bill to actually work its way through. I appreciate there’ve been some changes, but for the people who have been at the end of this abuse, it has cost them so much of their lives. It’s cost them time with their children. It has cost them money. The point made by these two women who came to see me was that often the people taking this type of vexatious litigation self-represent. They go to court on behalf of themselves, which means they are not racking up a bill, but the people who are having to respond are racking up a massive legal bill.

My best friend lost her house because of this. She lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because her ex continued to take her to court. When the house was sold, she lost everything. There’s a real impact on the people who are on the receiving end of this type of abuse, and their children, and all of society. I look at this particular woman whose story I’m sharing today. I’ve been reading through some of her statements again today. The impact on her health and wellbeing has been astronomical. I’m not going to go into the details, because I’ve promised her I won’t share her name or anything that identifies her, but I sent her a message today to say this bill is finally passing, and she is absolutely delighted.

I want to thank all members of this House who are voting for this today, and the Justice Committee for doing the work that they did. I want to go back to that work, that whiteboard of ideas that Emily Henderson put together. We need to keep working through the rest of the parts of that list. I know she’ll probably be sending us all emails with the next thing she wants us to do. We need to do those things, because we need to ensure that we end family violence in this country, and actually taking steps like this today is one way we can help to do that. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an honour to speak in support of the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill.

Many speakers have mentioned the abuse, and the nature of that abuse, that’s perpetuated by people in family situations and in other forums, but it all comes down to intimidation and control. Understanding the many multitude of ways that people that have that kind of attitude, that kind of entitled feeling that they are able to control others, where that comes from and where that originates is probably a multitude of ways but, often, it’s their own trauma—and I’m not excusing that, but I’m just saying that this is often a cyclical thing that happens.

If we want to address the causes of crime and violence and family harm, we need better education systems, we need our families to be strong, and we need to have higher incomes so that stress on families isn’t as great. Everything that this Government is doing—everything that we’re doing—to support children through the education system and help them to learn, everything that we’re doing to boost and grow our economy, is so that we can make people’s incomes better, we can reduce the stress of the cost of living, and so that we can actually help families to thrive.

This is about supporting mainly women, and I think that this, along with other bills that we’ve got coming through, like stalking, is really going to help. I’m really proud that our Government is finishing this off, and I commend the bill to the House.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): This is actually the first time I’ve spoken on this particular bill. I’m really pleased that it’s gotten to this stage, that it will go through the House today with unanimous support.

I’d like to commend the Hon Ginny Andersen, the Minister from the Labour Party who brought it to this House before the election with the support of many in the House, and I’d like to commend the Minister of Justice from the National Party who carried on the work and has ensured that this bill has gotten right through the process. It’s good to see—people sometimes don’t believe that parliamentarians agree on things, but there are times when we actually do get together and agree on things because it is the right thing to do. I’m grateful to all of our colleagues right across the House who have worked on this bill.

There are a couple of names that I want to highlight in terms of this particular bill, the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. One has been mentioned already, and that was Dr Emily Henderson, who is our former colleague from Whangārei, who spent a term in Parliament and took a courageous decision to stand down because she said, “Actually, this is not really the place I want to be in.” She did a great job as an MP, and I think that’s kind of an interesting thing for someone to do—to say, “Actually, I’m going to go back to what I was doing previously.”

The interesting thing is that what Em was doing previously was working in precisely this area, working around the areas of family breakdown, of family violence, and working in the court system to work with women and children, and not just working in cases, but also operating at the level where she was advocating for more work to be done. This was something that Dr Henderson very much wanted to see happening—that people could no longer use the court system to carry on their abuse. This is a win for our former colleague, Dr Emily Henderson.

It’s also a win for The Backbone Collective, whose name hasn’t been mentioned yet today. The Backbone Collective is a group of women and organisations who are fighting for the cause of addressing family violence and addressing some of the legal barriers around family violence, and really working to overturn some of the systemic things that perpetuate violence in this country. There is so much that needs to be done in this space, and people have addressed some of the work that needs to be done.

I am just going to refer to something that my colleague Ginny Andersen mentioned—and it is quite distressing—and that is the extent to which police are no longer able to go to family violence calls. That is worrying. That, alas, is the bottom of the cliff; we actually want to stop the abuse before it gets there. This bill is part of stopping the ongoing abuse.

The Backbone Collective have advocated for a long time that we need to get rid of litigation abuse. They formed in 2017 and they’ve worked and worked and worked towards that—so, again, a win for The Backbone Collective today.

But there is more work to be done. There is all the material that was on Dr Henderson’s whiteboard that my colleague Rachel Boyack referred to. There’s one I particularly want to refer to because it’s not necessarily a matter of legislation—it may not be able to be fixed from this House, although it can be fixed from the Government and at least worked on from the Government—and that is the education of judges.

Our judges are highly educated in the law and so on. We have many, many excellent judges, and I think most of our judges are excellent most of the time. Of course, none of us is perfect, and some of the time—well, all of us make mistakes some of the time, or perhaps have blind spots some of the time.

There’s a phenomenon, an alleged syndrome, called parental alienation syndrome. The idea is that a parent—a couple that’s separating or whatever—may influence the children in such a way that they are separated from the other parent, that they are alienated from the other parent. Commonly, and it’s pretty common, a woman who claims—I’m going to use that word “claims”—that a child has been physically or sexually abused and that her ex-partner was the perpetrator will be warned not to pursue that in the courts because it is viewed as her attempting to alienate the children’s father from them.

Now, all the research shows that there is actually no such thing as parental alienation syndrome. It’s been dreamed up. But as it turns out—and we can see this in some of the judgments given by some of our judges, because everyone makes mistakes—some of them seem to believe in this. There’s education work that needs to be done with our judges in that area around this alleged parental alienation syndrome.

Also I’m going to argue there’s education that needs to be done now around this litigation abuse. We are passing the law. We are asking the judges to do something different. Now, the funding needs to be allocated so that judges can spend a bit of time getting up to speed with this, getting to understand it, and getting to really recognise those patterns of domestic violence.

We know that try as they might—and I know our judges do try with good faith—try as they can to be fair, sometimes they do, perhaps, not get it as right as they could. You can see I’m trying to be very careful—I don’t want to criticise our judiciary, because they are, by and large, wonderful, and I’ve met marvellous judges who are doing brilliant work—but this is a space where more work and more education needs to be done.

It is a good day, that we are getting this piece of legislation through. We should feel pleased about the degree of agreement across the House on it, but we shouldn’t pat ourselves on the back too much. There is much more to be done in this space, and I hope that people right across the House are committed to getting more work done in this area.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. There have been many speeches given this afternoon on the importance of this legislation, and I commend members from across the House for their delivery on this.

Having the opportunity to rise as the final speaker on the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill before it becomes law is a real privilege. It’s going to make some serious amendments that will strengthen the courts’ ability to identify and respond to instances where individuals attempt to use the court system to harass, annoy, harm, or psychologically abuse another person—that is, quite clearly, never the intention for why things should go to court. It’s not the place for those things to be taking place. They shouldn’t take place anywhere in New Zealand, frankly.

It gives me great pleasure to commend the bill to the House, to allow it to go into law, and to ensure that New Zealand is continuously improving as a nation. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill.

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

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I move, That the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

I have heard from many New Zealanders that the current regulatory regime for anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AMLCFT) is overly burdensome and, in some places, confusing for businesses trying to meet their obligations. The bill is one step towards delivering regulatory relief to people in New Zealand and removing the red tape that is holding productivity in this country back.

It was prepared alongside the justice regulatory systems amendment bill package, which should soon have its first reading. This means that the amendments this bill contains are focused on addressing legislative gaps and ambiguity, removing unnecessary red tape, and making continuous improvements to justice regulatory systems.

This bill makes 26 amendments that will improve the effectiveness, the efficiency, and consistency of the anti-money laundering regulatory regime for the benefit of Kiwi businesses; support the better functioning of the responsible agencies; and improve New Zealand’s compliance with international standards. This is important to help us maintain our international reputation in our next financial action taskforce assessment in 2029 and to ensure smooth access for New Zealand’s businesses to the international financial system.

The Government is introducing these changes following a financial action taskforce evaluation of our anti-money laundering regime and a subsequent review of the Anti-money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act—AMLCFT Act. This is one part of a broader work programme being progressed by the Ministry of Justice, which will build on these amendments and further improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the AMLCFT regime. These changes include a new single-supervisor model, the introduction of a levy, and a wider regulatory package of reforms.

This bill responds to the conclusions of this review of the Act. For example, it reduces unnecessary compliance costs to businesses through amendments that clarify existing obligations and terminology, making the Act easier to understand and easier to apply in the real world. These changes address key difficulties for many low-risk businesses who are currently required to undertake onerous checks even when there is clearly very little risk. These are part of the Government’s plan to make the AMLCFT system work better, with less overly prescriptive requirements, by allowing businesses to take measures in line with the actual risks that they face. This bill will support that change in approach by clarifying the statutes of guidance on risk so that businesses are equipped to make the call on the level of risk involved.

I won’t go through each amendment one by one, but I would like to highlight some specific changes that will clarify obligations and offer some relief for New Zealand businesses. Firstly, we are relaxing the requirements for businesses to conduct customer due diligence for low-risk trusts. Trusts can be vulnerable to being used for money-laundering and terrorist financing, but in New Zealand, there are a large number of trusts that present a low risk, such as many small family trusts. Currently, businesses must apply the same enhanced customer due-diligence requirements to all trusts, regardless of the risk, costing them unnecessary time and money. This bill will allow for the application of standard customer due-diligence measures for low-risk trusts that are more proportionate to the risks that they represent.

Another amendment in this bill is the removal of the requirement for people to submit a border cash report if they have received cash from someone who physically moved the cash into New Zealand. This requirement is nonsensical, considering that the person bringing in the accompanied cash must also complete a border cash report. This duplication is unnecessary, and that is why this Government is going to get rid of it.

These changes and others will support a better functioning anti-money laundering regime. They are also part of a wider work programme to improve the regime and will support delivering on this Government’s promise to install confidence in Kiwi businesses to meet their money-laundering obligations whilst helping to rebuild a thriving economy. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise today to speak in support of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill. Many of the initial changes for anti - money-laundering (AML) came through under the previous John Key National Government, and I remember working on those and identifying where the weaknesses were in the New Zealand system in order to make some of the changes that closed loops and made it harder for organised criminal groups to exploit New Zealand as a way of cleaning dirty money.

There’s some key areas that we need to be aware of that New Zealand is vulnerable to. Shell companies have known well that New Zealand is an easy place to set up a shell company—a relatively easy company registration has been exploited by criminals in the past. The other area that we’ve seen, from my experience, is also real estate. When foreign buyers were able to purchase properties in New Zealand, we saw substantial residential homes being purchased for cash and kept empty for a number of years, and then on-sold. With the reconsidering of opening up our property market to foreign buyers, we need to also be vigilant that we’re not opening up opportunities for New Zealand to be exploited.

We support the legislation and we support the slight relaxing of some of the areas in here, but we do err with a word of caution in terms of what we’re facing globally now. In the past year—roughly a year, year and a half—we have seen an exponential increase in the prevalence of methamphetamine in our waste-water testing. We have the highest levels of meth coming into New Zealand that we have ever seen. That methamphetamine is sold, and that money must be cleaned, and so we need to be watching where organised criminal groups are taking the profits from the record levels of methamphetamine in New Zealand, and how they are cleaning that. It’s good that we’re making it easier and going for productivity and all that, but, at the same time, what’s the point of taking a gang patch off someone if you’re enabling them to peddle meth and clean that money in a dirty business?

In terms of the main changes that this bill does, it relaxes the customer due diligence requirements for low-risk customers, and it’s important that we understand exactly how we are establishing those criteria for what is a low-risk customer, because one of the many ways that criminal operatives work is that they specifically identify “cleanskins”, or someone without a previous criminal record, to be able to use that individual to complete a transaction to launder money, and police are well aware of those behaviours.

In saying that, in terms of identifying cleanskins, I should acknowledge that police do an amazing job, through forensic accounting, of following the money through, putting through complicated systems of how money has passed through various different bank accounts, structures, many of them offshore, and having to work with international counterparts, to identify where that money is coming from and how New Zealand is being utilised in those international networks. We don’t want to be seen as a soft touch in the South Pacific. We want to have a reputation for being a good place to do business, and part of that is having integrity and things like our company structures, like our real estate purchases, and those other institutions that we rely on.

This legislation also modifies the definition of a trust and a company service provider. It enables a risk-based approach for identifying politically exposed persons, and it clarifies businesses’ obligations under the Act. The reason why we do support the bill is that we’ve heard from businesses and organisations that the AML countering financing of terrorism (CFT) compliance has been onerous to some, and that time frames can be prohibitive. I understand there are some changes, particularly around the number of days to make it a bit easier for doing business.

We know that we need an AMLCFT programme that works effectively, and it shouldn’t be cumbersome. It needs to be operating well, but we want to make sure that it’s still protecting us and protecting our international reputation and integrity. We know we’ve taken a hit in terms of those rankings recently; we don’t want to see that happen again. It’s important that you submit at select committee if you have views on this bill. We want to be able to consider those all rigorously over that period. I commend it to the House.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I also rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand in support of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill.

I think the previous two speakers have mentioned some of the context behind this. The last big update of this particular Act was in 2017, and since then two major assessments have been completed, one of them by the Financial Action Task Force in 2019-21 as part of some of our agreements and obligations under the mutual evaluation of New Zealand. Also, most recently, we have seen the statutory review of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Act, which was concluded in 2022; ergo, we come to the bill today.

I think the previous speakers have also mentioned some of the areas, in terms of the amendments that are made by the bill. I think the key here that is particularly pertinent as part of the review, and particularly when it comes to the statutory review in 2022, is around having a flexible, risk-based approach to the way that we look at this. I think the previous two speakers have already mentioned a number of instances, such as trusts, such as smaller businesses, that potentially have had the same level of scrutiny and the same level of administrative and compliance burden being placed on them. I think it is important to have that level of risk-based approach.

A couple of things I would like to mention in addition—the first one is the fact that I will be interested, as we’re going through the select committee process, in why certain parts and certain recommendations that were conducted by the statutory review weren’t included as part of this amendment bill, and I think some of them may possibly be incorporated into this. The other thing that I’ve noticed in particular, in terms of the amendment that is being presented in front of us, although it’s good and some of these are needed, is it’s still very much focused from the perspective of businesses.

I will just say that, in terms of my personal dealing with this Act previously, working in international education and helping international students, an incredible burden has been placed on international students when opening a bank account in the first place as a result of this Act. The burden has been placed around, in particular, the proof of address process, which I’m sure maybe some of the submitters would be submitting on.

I am also interested, as part of the process, as we’re going through select committee, in whether we can look at elements that go beyond what is going to be beneficial and provide that support for businesses as well as providing things sometimes on an individual level, and particularly as we see that this Government is also interested in drawing in more international students. One of the biggest barriers we see for international students when they first come here is that initial barrier of setting up their new life here in Aotearoa New Zealand, and all of the elements of manaakitanga that’s supposed to come along with that. Part of that, like I mentioned, is around this bill and the impact it has on opening a bank account.

The last thing I want to mention—that, again, I would like to have seen included as part of this bill, and this was mentioned specifically in the statutory review—is around sanctions obligations, and particularly when looking at financial sanctions to combat terrorism funding and financing. Now, we have seen previously, in the past, that we are looking at sanctions, particularly for countries and areas that have contributed to warfare and to genocide, in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war. I’m also interested, in terms of when we’re looking at this bill, in the role that this bill plays in the ongoing support and ongoing support for domestic businesses in carrying and managing that risk and understanding the material risk of sanctions obligations, and particularly in areas such as what we’re seeing with the Israel-Palestine conflict as well.

Overall, the Green Party does support this bill and we are looking forward to submissions and people who understand the ins and outs of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Act, as part of the select committee process, but, like I said, there are definitely a few things that the Green Party will be keeping a very close eye on as part of that select committee process. Thank you.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. As a relatively new member of the Justice Committee, it’s exciting to see—

Hon Andrew Bayly: A valuable member.

TOM RUTHERFORD: A valuable member, Mr Bayly. It is great to see new legislation coming to the really hard-working committee, which had plenty over the last 13, 14 months. The workload just keeps ramping up. This is actually really fundamentally vital. Members who have spoken previously, the Minister who was introducing the legislation, and then Labour and the Greens both have thrown their support behind the bill—it’s really positive to see.

It’s about updating our legislation, particularly around anti - money-laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, to ensure that New Zealand is where it needs to be in 2025 and moving forward. It’s critical for safeguarding the financial system and protecting our communities here in New Zealand. These amendments that we’re making through the legislation—and I’m looking forward to seeing what the submissions are from those out in the general public. I would welcome your submissions to the Justice Committee. There’s many out there who will be subject-matter experts on this topic.

We’ve proposed some amendments that are based on extensive reviews and international assessments to ensure continuous improvement. Therefore, I commend it to the House and look forward to hearing the submissions to the Justice Committee.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this first reading of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill. It’s a mouthful, just the title of this, also known as the AMLCFT for short. Like our previous speaker, I support the bill to the select committee. I think the submissions that are received on the bill will be something that the committee will be informed of. There are a number of aspects that I’ll talk about shortly, that are quite a surprise, about what’s actually happening or can actually happen through the border.

This bill amends the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009, and that’s the principal Act, to strengthen New Zealand’s regime against financial crimes. This amendment bill responds to two pieces of work that we’ve already heard about from other members—the Financial Action Task Force that was held between 2019 and 2021, and, secondly, it’s a statutory review of the original Act; that is, the 2009 Act. The intention of this bill is to clarify the obligations, reduce compliance costs, enhance enforcements, and align with international standards. Those international standards are something that we need to make sure are at the correct settings.

Criminal and terrorist networks are evolving, as we know, and previous speakers have talked about that. They are also using stored-value items. I must say, reading through this legislation, that people in the general public probably do not realise things like casino chips, pre-paid vouchers, and, obviously, now gold being of such a high value—and also our Minister Shane Jones getting the mining industry going, obviously the gold is getting more and more valuable. Those casino chips, in particular, and pre-paid vouchers—it was something that kind of just stunned me a little bit how people try to get around those logical things through the border, probably passport and cash, where now it’s people trying to find other ways, the grey, dark areas, of actually avoiding the transaction of cash, but if you can bring in a voucher or those casino chips, it’s a way of getting past the system.

In the clauses here, 17 and 21, it’s around the cash reporting. I think that’s something for the committee—around those stored-value instruments, that will be very, very helpful to get more information on. This legislation will, obviously, modernise our regime to keep pace with the international standards while protecting our economy and our community.

There are numerous reasons why New Zealand First supports this bill. It, obviously, closes those loopholes that I’ve just discussed—especially around our border areas. It strengthens enforcement. Obviously, at the moment, there’s a lot of paperwork happening, but it’s actually the enforcement that we want to strengthen. It protects taxpayers and businesses, and it is our businesses that do suffer, especially in the cases that we’re talking about, the vouchers and those casino chips. It upholds our global reputation and futureproofs our laws.

New Zealand First is committed to putting New Zealand and New Zealanders first, as we know, and we will support all common-sense policies which do the same. I commend this bill to the House.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui): Thank you, Madam Speaker. New Zealanders are sick of the anti-money laundering requirements that just go too far. Everyone appreciates the need for ensuring that New Zealand meets the requirements of our international standards, and this bill will ensure that we continue to do that, but it also recognises that we just need to wind the clock back a little bit, make it more practical for Kiwis, for businesses, for small businesses, to get on and do the things that actually create wealth in this country, that drive productivity, and make this country tick. I commend this bill to the House.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): This week, New Zealand lost its coveted first place, not in a sporting event but actually in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, and we dropped from first to fourth. There were some really surprising remarks, actually, from the Acting Prime Minister, Winston Peters, saying he thought we didn’t actually deserve the first place in the first place, which I found quite astounding. We’re really keen to get back up to first place, and this legislation will go a little way towards doing that.

I would temper my remarks, though, by also referring to remarks made by the Transparency International New Zealand chair, Anne Tolley, who said that to really safeguard our interests from this kind of terrorism and money-laundering threat, we need to do three big things. The first is a public register of beneficial ownership. That’s important because, as I’ll come to later in my contribution, the beneficial ownership has been clarified as being a target of the bill. Without a public register, I am wondering about whether that will be achievable.

She also mentioned the financial transparency of political parties. Now, that is top of mind for a lot of people at the moment with some of the shenanigans we’re seeing around this place and with some of the legislation, including things like the fast-track bill. So we would welcome, I think, financial transparency of political parties, and I do see that as part of the broader framework that’s needed.

The last one is transparency around lobbying, and we have also seen some debate in this place over the last two parliamentary terms, when it comes to the revolving door of lobbyists. Certainly, we’ve seen that this parliamentary term with questions of the influence of big tobacco on current legislation.

That is the framework that Anne Tolley suggests, and this transparency bill, the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, would go some way towards doing that. When I look at the bill itself, it is something of an omnibus bill. It mainly looks at the primary legislation, but it does have some input into regulatory systems, courts, tribunals, and occupational regulations.

A bit of a summary: I have mentioned the controlling interests, and really what the bill is trying to do is to look at the controlling interests and to target those who control these nefarious activities, rather than the middle people. The bill does go some way to doing that, but it also looks at the beneficial parties—so those who directly benefit from the activities. I think that’s good in terms of achieving the bill’s objectives, which are around efficiency and effectiveness. Often when we look at efficiency and effectiveness, they seem to have a tension between them, but in this case, I think it is really about targeting, and the bill does seem to go some way to do that.

The last thing I’d like to mention is just the politically exposed person, because when we’re looking at beneficial owners—and I’ve mentioned that the benefit doesn’t necessarily flow through under this Act—companies and organisations are not caught, which I query, but the beneficial owners could be politically exposed persons. I just wanted to contribute a little bit about what that might mean, because there is a common understanding in the financial world about who politically exposed people are. It doesn’t mean that they’re involved in nefarious activity, but it does mean that they could be regarded as being of higher risk, and so, therefore, there is now a duty of care on handling those interests to make sure that they have a proportionate framework.

I think the flexibility in the legislation seems to do that really well, because there will be different politically exposed people with different levels of risk attached to them. They are considered higher risk because of their conspicuous position or because of the connections that they have globally. The Financial Action Task Force in New Zealand defines them as including people like Government officials, senior executives, relatives of those people, and, of course, politicians.

My final contribution, really, is from my experience in Fiji, where there was money-laundering. There’s a report from 2016 from Transparency International that talks about how most of it relates to narcotics. We don’t want to see that happen in New Zealand. Ginny Andersen has also mentioned that we are starting to see some of the corrupt big business in New Zealand with drugs and narcotics getting involved in money-laundering. This bill will go some way to protecting us and some way to helping us get back to our number one spot on the index.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s an honour to rise and speak in this debate on this bill. Anti - money-laundering should be something that we all agree is a bad thing. Money-laundering is a bad thing. Yes, we all know that.

Hon James Meager: Money-laundering: bad.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK: Money-laundering: bad.

Hon James Meager: Yeah, terrible.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK: Yes, it’s a terrible thing, but in doing this process of making it harder for money-laundering and for crime, we’ve made it harder for businesses, we’ve made it harder for everyday New Zealanders just to get a loan, just to get a mortgage—

Suze Redmayne: Try being a farmer.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK: Yes, for farmers, it’s absolutely painful. Try being a director of a company. Try being someone who has tried to buy a property through a trust. Any of these things are absolutely tedious. Changing this and making it simpler for business is one more thing we’re doing to make it simpler for business, one more way we’re getting rid of red tape, and I commend the bill to the House.

GLEN BENNETT (Labour): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. We make laws in this Parliament to protect people.

Carl Bates: Good start.

GLEN BENNETT: Yep. Do you want me to carry on? We make these—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please carry on.

GLEN BENNETT: We make laws to protect people, to protect our communities, and to protect our businesses, and I believe that red tape is important, but as was just said by the previous speaker, Dr Vanessa Weenink, at times we need to consider that.

The good thing about doing statutory reviews of legislation is that we can look, we can tweak, we can critique the different pieces of legislation that may have been around for a short time or may have been around for a long time. It’s good, as I read up and look at this piece of legislation, that work has been done over recent years to consider: is this stuff appropriate, is it an enabler, or does it slow things down? Does it actually provide the protections that it says it does, or is it actually just making things harder for some businesses and those who are wanting to look at different situations?

Now, as I looked and read, back in 2022, the statutory review began, and it’s good to reflect and see that it is thorough and that we actually spend time. Often, from the outside of these walls, people think—and, again, I guess occasionally, some groups do slap random laws in. But there’s a lot of work that’s been done behind the scenes to reflect, to review, and to see what is working and what is not working. There’s consultation; there’s feedback asked for; and this bill, as it stands today, has had a thorough process long before it’s made it into this House this afternoon.

The 26 proposals that are in this were looked at from the 2020 review, which was including internal and external connections and recommendations that were made. There were people like Crown Law Office, Department of Corrections, Department of Internal Affairs, Inland Revenue Department, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, just to name a few. Then there was feedback, which we looked at as the work was done, in terms of where does this fit, is it working, is it not working, what are the barriers that were put in place? That’s where we have feedback from people like the Chief Victims Advisor, like the Financial Markets Authority, like the New Zealand Police, and the Public Defence Service.

It’s good when we can stand in this House and support a piece of legislation that has evidence behind it; when we support a piece of legislation that has gone through a process to say, “OK, we did some settings. We set some things up a number of years ago; those things, are they relevant today? Well, actually, there’s some things we could do to simplify, to make it easier for the process.” When it comes to anti - money-laundering, when it comes to countering financing of terrorism, there are some things that we can do. As the Minister who introduced this bill, the Hon Nicole McKee, said, there will be 26 changes that will be made, which have come from conversation, from consultation, and from reviewing where it’s at.

Now, I look forward to this moving forward and going into the select committee process, because, as the Government—they love a good select committee, and, hopefully, they’ll love a good, fulsome six-month select committee, where it takes its time and it goes through the process of allowing the public, allowing engagement from those who are at the front line of this. You look at people like sole-trader lawyers, sole-trader real estate agents. For them, we look forward to hearing their reflections on it, because some of the big businesses, they can suck up a lot of the work, the cost that goes in, but you think of some of those lawyers out in the provinces, some of those real estate agents out in the provinces who are just trading by themselves and have said, “Look, there’s just too much red tape in this piece of legislation. How can we actually make it work better for ourselves, which actually works better for our country?”—because that’s the thing with productivity.

This is law that we support, and we look forward to going to select committee, putting it out there for the people of New Zealand to continue to have their say—as they have since 2022, in terms of the review of this piece of legislation. Madam Speaker, on this side of the House, the Labour Party supports this bill.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for the South Island): Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’re now talking about the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, or AMLCFT, as it’s known to my friends.

We support this bill. The intention behind the Act, when it was first introduced a few years ago, was of course to prevent money-laundering. It has worked relatively well, but probably too well in some instances, and has caused some issues which have gummed up the system. Our job now is to un-gum it. The select committee will do its best to make sure that the bill gets thoroughly scrutinised and that the Act that comes out is well and truly un-gummed.

I worked for a unnamed law firm, which—I hope I don’t breach privilege; oh, well!—had to do anti - money-laundering on a very large Government department, and that doesn’t make sense. Hopefully, sensible changes like this mean that we don’t have to go through those absurd steps but we can still protect our country and our nation from things like terrorism and the activities that nefarious actors undertake with money-laundering.

With that, I commend the bill to the House and look forward to its passage to the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Bills

Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill

Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill

Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill

First Readings

Hon NICOLE McKEE (Minister for Courts): I present the legislative statements on the following three bills, the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, and the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Those legislative statements are published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I move, That the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, and the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bills.

I am very pleased to introduce these three regulatory systems amendment bills to the House today. These bills will improve legislation and deliver on key priorities of this Government. Together, they will strengthen the quality of existing regulation, improve court timeliness, and enhance access to justice.

The three bills make 63 substantive changes across 24 Acts. This long list of amendments will deliver positive impacts to a wide variety of people and sectors in New Zealand. The amendments included in these bills range from addressing legislative gaps in ambiguity, to removing unnecessary red tape and making continuous improvements to justice regulatory systems. It is important that we progress these bills as they will help to ensure New Zealand’s regulatory systems remain up to date and also fit for purpose. I’m pleased to have worked closely with Justice Minister Goldsmith on these bills to deliver these improvements for Kiwis.

I will now provide a quick summary of each of the three bills and the benefits that they bring. The Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill includes amendments that will increase operational efficiencies for regulators, reduce compliance burdens to regulated parties, and strengthen the regimes by addressing gaps that could harm consumers. This bill makes 17 amendments across the three occupational regulation regimes that are administered by the Ministry of Justice. Firstly, in the lawyers and conveyancers regime, we are looking to increase the efficiency of the lawyers complaints system, address an ongoing issue regarding the enforceability of conveyancers undertakings, and ensure the Act is up to date and functional.

We are also making changes to the real estate agents regime to reduce the compliance burden on real estate agents and increase the ability of the Real Estate Authority to fulfil its functions and better protect consumers. For example, the bill loosens the current, strict timing requirements around renewing licences for real estate agents. This means that if a real estate agent misses their licence renewal date, they can have up to 12 months to renew rather than needing to go through the extra steps involved in the new licence application. This will allow flexibility and reduce the compliance burden for those who miss their renewal—for example, when we experience unforeseen circumstances such as the severe weather events in the North Island in early 2023.

Lastly, in this bill, we are amending the Prostitution Reform Act. We need to make certain that people who are convicted of serious offences are disqualified from being licensed to run prostitution businesses. In this respect, the bill corrects a number of cross-references to offences in the Crimes Act 1961.

The second bill in this package, the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, makes amendments to improve the operation and efficiency of tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies. These amendments will reduce barriers to accessing justice, simplify the appointment process to tribunal bodies, and resolve inconsistencies in the legislation governing their operations. They affect the disputes tribunal, the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal, the tenancy tribunal, the Private Security Personnel Licensing Authority, and the Parole Board.

One of the amendments we’re making in this bill will complement the increase to the financial jurisdiction of the disputes tribunal that the Minister of Justice introduced in November last year. This change will allow referees to order the respondent to pay the filing fee to successful claimants. This will enable people to recoup the costs of enforcing their legal rights at the disputes tribunal.

Another change is to the Private Security Personnel Licensing Authority, which licenses people to work in the security industry and disciplines licence holders. The Department of Internal Affairs currently investigates licence applicants and complaints against security personnel, and the bill makes this function explicit. In order to fulfil this function, we are granting the department an information-gathering power. This will be accompanied by an associated offence and penalties for not complying with the notice for information. This power is consistent with the original policy intent for the role of the department, and it should improve compliance and enforcement in the private-security sector.

The final bill in the package is the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill, and it is targeted at improving the efficiency and the operation of the courts. It supports this Government’s priority of improving court timeliness and boosting the access to justice. The Government recognises the very real impact that court delays have on people, whether they’re victims, defendants, or others that are involved in court proceedings. Delays in court processes can prevent people from moving forward with their lives and getting the closure that they need. This bill addresses the issues that impact the efficient operation of our courts through a suite of amendments across the criminal, civil, employment, family, and coronial jurisdictions.

For one, this bill will improve timeliness and access to justice in the Family Court. Judges will have more time to progress complex cases, because of the changes in this bill, to better utilise Family Court Associates to take on a wider range of responsibilities. The bill also makes permanent several of the temporary courts-related amendments that were made during the COVID-19 pandemic. These amendments will improve and provide greater flexibility in the administration of jury selection—for example, by enabling the selection of large jury panels to occur outside of the court precinct in certain situations.

The bill also makes amendments that will relieve administrative burdens on coroners. As an example, currently the Coroners Act 2006 requires evidence to be put into writing and read over by or to the witness. The bill amends the Coroners Act to allow evidence to be admitted if the coroner is satisfied that the evidence is accurate. This change will relieve the burden of these requirements and enable a broader range of evidence to be admitted to the Coroner’s Court, such as CCTV footage. Other amendments in the bill will enable coroners to better direct their resources to where they are most needed, and in doing so, they will be reducing wait times and uncertainty for grieving families.

To conclude, the diversity of issues covered in these bills clearly shows that the justice system touches the lives of many. That’s why these bills are delivering on this Government’s commitment to improve access to justice, court timeliness, and the quality of existing regulation. I’m confident that this will have a positive impact on the lives of all the people who have contact with New Zealand’s courts and the wider justice system. I commend this bill to the House.

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

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on these three bills. It’s an absolutely impossible task to cover everything that is covered in these three bills in five minutes, so I won’t attempt to do that, but I will say that we will be supporting these bills through to select committee.

These regulatory systems bills are really designed to fix problems that can get cross-party support, and to make all of our systems in New Zealand—specifically in relation to courts, tribunals, and a few different particular occupational groups—work more efficiently. This is not a new thing to have in Parliament; this has been done by previous Governments as well. I thank Minister McKee for her much more fulsome explanation than I will be able to give on the content of these bills, but I did just want to make a few comments, before resuming my seat, on some of the thoughts that I’ve had when assessing these three different bills. Obviously, they do have a relationship with the anti – money-laundering bill which was previously discussed, and I understand it will be referred to the Justice Committee.

Just in terms of the courts and tribunal ones, first there’s a number of comments that the Minister made around access to justice. This is a very important principle that we in the Labour Party share, and it’s heartening to hear the Minister talk about boosting access to justice, because at the moment we are seeing a number of other policies in different areas actually impeding that. It is good to see that this is a value that she too shares with us.

The Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill covers some changes to jury selection and balloting, which has always been of particular interest to me. I was always deeply upset that as a law student and then a lawyer, I would not be able to be selected for a jury, and, unfortunately, I don’t think this bill addresses that issue; I don’t think they’re particularly keen on MPs either. That’s maybe something for the Minister to consider in another bill perhaps, but anyway.

The main bill that I focused on when I was preparing to comment on these three bills was the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill, and that’s because I’m Labour’s spokesperson for workplace relations. I did read this bill through in great detail and looked at all of the components of it. You might ask what a lawyer, a prostitute, and a real estate agent have in common. The answer to that question is they are all affected by the contents of this bill.

Hon Member: I thought it was getting interesting there!

CAMILLA BELICH: That is probably the most interesting thing I can say about this bill. No, I mean, not to diminish the importance of these bills.

I was recently speaking to someone who asked me what we did in Parliament, and I made the comment that actually, a lot of the legislation that goes through is via consensus, and that’s because there are many things that we do in Parliament that are about making sure that the wheels turn in New Zealand and that things keep working. This is an example of that: three bills that look to make pragmatic changes to ensure efficiency of things that are already happening in New Zealand and will have a big impact, I think, especially in relation to the three occupational areas that I mentioned, especially the conveyancing section, and real estate agents as well.

I just wanted to add that the select committee will be going through these bills in detail. They are big bills. They cover lots of different areas. They cover many different Acts. They cover different regulations. It is really difficult in first reading to say that we will definitely agree with all of these changes moving forward. I think one of the beauties of our system here is that we do have the opportunity to scrutinise these bills at select committee. I am not on the Justice Committee, but I have huge confidence in the ability of my colleagues and other members of that committee to really go through the details of all of these bills that they will have time to scrutinise and to really ensure that the purpose of these bills, which is general cross-party consensus on efficiency in relation to regulatory systems is achieved by this. Anything that goes further than that, that is more of a policy change, would be of concern to us.

I have to mention before I finish that it was concerning to me to read—in what is meant to be a very technical bill that goes through without any really huge political moves—some comments that were made by the Minister and, in some of the introductory statements of these bills, that talked about the Government’s view of removing red tape and making sure that the regulatory burden is eased. That is not how we would describe regulation. We all want good regulation, we all want regulation that works, and so I don’t think this is a time for politics—just to leave you with that thought.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on this particular suite of bills. In this particular case, we’re looking at the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill, the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill.

First of all, I want to echo the previous speakers: when we’re looking at a regulatory systems bill, this is not a new concept that only this Government has introduced; this is, in fact, something that has always sort of happened on a regular basis in order to make the improvements in effectiveness and efficiency of a regulatory system, in general. They are supposed to be more about the technical changes in the statute amendment bills, and also the continuous improvements, repair, and maintenance of our regulatory system. This is not something that is just happening now; it has always happened. I think that is something that is really, really important to mention here.

To start with, I think, in terms of the previous two speakers, they have covered the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill quite substantially. That’s not one that I will be speaking on substantially. I want to draw the House’s attention to the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, and this is specifically around one of the amendments that it’s making to the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act 2010. This is particularly around a new offence that has been introduced regarding non-compliance with a requirement to provide information to chief investigators in the Complaints, Investigation and Prosecution Unit and the potential fine that is attached to it.

I think that, while the Greens are always sceptical in terms of any sorts of increase in fines, because we believe in a restorative justice system and not a punitive justice system, it is understandable in this case why certain requirements were introduced in terms of a measure of accountability and regulations when we are looking at this, because when this bill was introduced, someone has recently passed away, sadly, as a result of being choked by a bouncer. I think, overall, the compliance and quality assurance around the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act is something that is worth mentioning and is important to note.

I now draw attention to the last one, the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. I think this is the one that is particularly deserving of some attention. I think, in this case, what we have seen is a concern for the Greens, that part of what this bill has introduced removes the sanctions for not completing a compulsory professional development course. This is to do with the powers granted by section 15 of the Real Estate Agents Act 2008.

As was mentioned by the previous speaker, something like a regulatory systems bill—the idea that we have this restrictive scope is the intent to ensure cross-party support and is meant to be improving efficiency and effectiveness of the regulatory system; it is not meant to be a politically charged mandate through these systems. However, we believe that this removal of the sanctions for not completing a compulsory professional development course is politically motived as a result of certain real estate agents refusing to take mandated and compulsory courses around Te Tiriti o Waitangi and who are subject to section 15 and also the sanction and the deregistration under section 54 of the Real Estate Agents Act 2008. It is not effectiveness and it is not improving efficiency of the regulatory system; it is a political positioning, so it is disappointing. The Greens are disappointed at the fact that the Minister is using a regulatory systems bill to try and score political points on something that is currently happening.

Although the Greens would be in support of the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill, we cannot support the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill. Considering it’s considered as a package of bills, we will not be supporting this.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 18 February.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 5.55 p.m.