Wednesday, 2 April 2025
Volume 783
Sitting date: 2 April 2025
WEDNESDAY, 2 APRIL 2025
WEDNESDAY, 2 APRIL 2025
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Karakia/Prayers
Karakia/Prayers
TEANAU TUIONO (Assistant Speaker): E te Atua kaha rawa, ka tuku whakamoemiti atu mātou, mō ngā karakia kua waihotia mai ki runga i a mātou. Ka waiho i ō mātou pānga whaiaro katoa ki te taha. Ka mihi mātou ki te Kīngi, me te inoi atu mō te ārahitanga i roto i ō mātou whakaaroarohanga, kia mōhio ai, kia whakaiti ai tā mātou whakahaere i ngā take o te Whare nei, mō te oranga, te maungārongo, me te aroha o Aotearoa. Āmene.
[Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the King and pray for guidance in our deliberations, that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom and humility for the welfare, peace, and compassion of New Zealand. Amen.]
Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills
Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills
SPEAKER: A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.
CLERK: Petition of Stiffany Adanza requesting that the House urge the Government to exclude chronic myeloid leukaemia from immigration instructions about medical conditions deemed to impose significant costs.
SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. A paper has been delivered for presentation.
CLERK: Government response to the petition of Social Justice Aotearoa.
SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House. A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.
CLERK: Report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Monetary Policy Statement, February 2025.
SPEAKER: That statement is published under the authority of the House. No bill has been introduced.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Question No. 1—Justice
1. DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast) to the Minister of Justice: What actions is the Government taking to ensure the victims of crime are put at the heart of the justice system?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): Well, the Government is taking a range of actions to prioritise the needs of victims over those of offenders. Today, the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill will go through the next stage in Parliament. This bill addresses two longstanding issues with current settings for sexual violence by stopping child victims of sexual violence being questioned about consent in most circumstances and by changing name suppression settings to empower victims.
Dana Kirkpatrick: What changes is the Government making to name suppression settings?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: In the case of sexual offending, the court will no longer be able to grant permanent name suppression to a convicted adult offender unless the victim agrees. This is a significant change, but if we are serious about putting victims first, we have to do things differently. With present name suppression settings, victims can’t speak about their experience or warn others if permanent name suppression is granted. This changes that.
Dana Kirkpatrick: Why is the Government making these changes in the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, in 2023, permanent name suppression was granted to 76 convicted offenders of one or more sexual offences. Many more tried to get it and expose victims to retraumatising delay. Going through the courts is a long, arduous, and retraumatising experience for victims, and we want to change that. We also recognise concerns this may place on undue—well, there’s been concerns raised about the undue pressure that this may place on victims, and I want to make it clear to the House that the legislation is clear that if a victim does not want to make a decision around name suppression, then the court will.
Dana Kirkpatrick: What other actions is the Government taking to put victims at the heart of the justice system?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, this Government has progressed on a number of actions. We’ve appointed the Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime, which is delivering practical recommendations. Last week, we passed the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Act, which strengthens real consequences for crime and improves the trust that New Zealanders have in the justice system. Our target is to reduce the number of victims of serious crime by 20,000 people. We want fewer victims of crime and we’re making great progress on that.
Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Was the Minister putting victims of crime first when he used statistics from a tweet to erroneously claim reductions in violent crime, rather than the official New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey statistics, which show no substantial progress?
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, I think the member will find that the next iteration of the New Zealand Victims of Violent Crime Survey is showing continued great success towards our target, and in contrast to the previous Government—
SPEAKER: No, no—we don’t need to do that.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: But I’d like to make that contrast, sir.
SPEAKER: Thank you—that’s good. Question No. 2, the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins.
Question No. 2—Prime Minister
2. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he stand by his statement that the quality of a person’s life is driven by the quality of their health, and nothing is more important; if so, why is he allowing patients in Nelson to suffer through emergency surgeries which could have been avoided if the Government had allowed hospitals to hire the doctors and nurses that they need?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, there is no doubt about it, we have some real longstanding challenges in our healthcare system. That’s why this Government is spending an extra $17 billion, it’s why it’s actually hiring more workforce, it’s put back in place targets, and with respect to Nelson, it’s been fantastic to see a rapid response from the Minister to put a clinical team in there to actually work out how they can work through the issues that they’re experiencing with the massive wait-list backlog that’s existing there.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why should the people of Nelson have confidence in the answer that the Prime Minister just gave when one of the things contributing to the current crisis in healthcare in Nelson was his Government’s decision to stop hospitals hiring the doctors and nurses they need?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I disagree. There are more people being hired into the healthcare system than there has ever been, there is more money being pumped into the system, and there is a massive backlog on wait-lists, and that is why this Government has reinstated targets, that’s why we’re putting more money in, that’s why we’re hiring more people. But, importantly, with respect to Nelson—where we’ve had longstanding backlogs on wait-lists for some time—we have a clinical team that has arrived there to work through how they can use resources in the private system; how they use resources at neighbouring Blenheim hospital; how they can actually reschedule; how they can do weekend clinics, rescheduling theatre time; and, most importantly, using private capacity too.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Has his Government’s hiring freeze on doctors and nurses in hospitals made the wait-lists in Nelson shorter or longer?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: There is more money, there are more staff, and there is no hiring freeze.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why should New Zealanders have confidence the health system is improving under his leadership when half of the GPs surveyed by New Zealand Doctor say they feel more pessimistic now than they did before he appointed Simeon Brown as the Minister of Health just a few months ago?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, the Minister is doing an exceptionally good job clearing up a botched merger of the health system that the last Government left behind, and New Zealanders can have faith that this Government will sort the mess out—as we are many other messes—because we are investing $17 billion more, we are hiring more staff, we have 2,000 more nurses in the system than we did when we came to power, they are paid well—relative to their New South Wales counterparts—attrition is low, and importantly, we’ve set that target so that everybody in the healthcare system is very clear about what we’re asking them to deliver. Now we need to see an improved Health New Zealand organisation.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Well, was the GP wrong when he told New Zealand Doctor, in response to Christopher Luxon’s Government’s policies, “This is popularist and lobbyist policy over common sense. We have felt no benefit or support from the change, nothing has been done for GPs, and we remain in a precarious position which cannot be fixed by soundbites.”?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I’d just say to that member is the wait-lists in Nelson are unacceptable and they have ballooned across the whole country. But four months for an elective surgery—waiting more than four months—went up 2,500 percent under the last Government. Waiting more than four months for a first surgery—for a specialist appointment, went up by over 6,500 percent. So we are dealing with a challenge around wait-lists that we have inherited, and we are working our way through it very well.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: So what does he say to the general practitioner who said, “GPs are demoralised and sick of it and are being made sick by all of these political manoeuvres. Well done, Simeon. In just a few short weeks, you were able to break this previously relentlessly optimistic GP. Hope you are proud. If you find this response puzzling, Mr Brown, you’d better find out why you don’t understand in a big hurry. You have an awful lot to learn.”?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’ll just say, I am very proud of our new Minister of Health because he’s doing a great job, and I’d just encourage the member: go check out what was announced two weeks ago as part of our primary care package to make sure that people can get access to their GP in their community. And think about the 100 doctors that we’re actually expediting so they can actually practice as GPs. Think about the 400 extra places we’re making available for nurses to become nurse prescribers or nurse practitioners. Think about the $285 million going into GPs with respect to making sure that they can take more people on to their rolls. And I’ll just say to you, we are doing what we can, as fast as we can, to fix a botched system that we inherited from the last Government.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why does he dismiss the concerns of general practitioners, such as the one that I just quoted, when another GP told New Zealand Doctor, “Now I hate it. I wish I never went to medical school. I wish I never became a GP. I feel on the verge of tears going to and from work most days.”, under his Government?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, again, in terms of primary care where there has been no investment from the previous Government, no action from the previous Government, this Minister, in a matter of weeks and months, has put together a very comprehensive plan that we are proud about. We know there are longstanding challenges in the healthcare system. We’re putting more money in, we’re hiring more workers, and we’re being clear on patient outcomes. We want a higher-performing organisation. We want more productivity in the sector so we can deliver better outcomes for patients. And that is why we’ve actually added 100 placements for overseas doctors so they’re not sitting there like Uber drivers as they were under that last Government’s administration. That’s why we’ve hired 400 extra graduate nurses to make sure they can do nurse prescribing and nurse practitioner work. That’s why we’re spending $285 million to incentivise doctors to open up their rolls and get resources into their GP practices. And that’s why, from 1 July, we’re offering a 24/7 digital access service to make sure that people can access their GPs in quality, timely access to healthcare. We are patient-focused, unlike the last administration, which was actually just reorganising decks on the boat and not caring and delivering outcomes for New Zealanders. We’re going to deliver outcomes, and you may wish to gaslight and you may wish to do revisionist history, but we are getting the job done. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Right, that’s enough—absolutely enough.
Question No. 3—Education
3. TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga) to the Minister of Education: How does the proposed removal of Resource Teachers of Māori funding align with the Government’s commitments to te reo Māori revitalisation and improving Māori student achievement?
Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): I want to make it very clear that the proposed removal of these roles is to reinvest this funding directly into our Government’s commitments to te reo Māori revitalisation and improving Māori student achievement, and we have an extraordinarily strong track record in this area already, where we have funded literacy and numeracy resources in te reo Māori for the first time across the country, along with professional learning and development. We launched a world-first phonics check in te reo Māori, we’ve refreshed Te Marautanga o Aotearoa, and we’re developing purpose-built tools to monitor student progression. The proposed reinvestment of the Resource Teachers (RT): Māori resource will be directed back into supporting te reo Māori and Māori achievement.
Tākuta Ferris: Can she guarantee to all the Māori communities out there of immersion schools that she is talking about Māori immersion teaching and not Māori in mainstream teaching?
Hon ERICA STANFORD: Well, to that point, it’s really interesting that the RT: Māori role that we’re looking at disestablishing is, in fact, extraordinarily inequitably dispersed across the country, in that many of the roles are attached to schools that are not funded for any Māori immersion learning at all, and that’s the very problem we’re trying to solve. We are trying to make sure that that resource is directly invested into kura kaupapa Māori, into Māori immersion learning, and into mainstream schools where there is Māori immersion happening. And that, at the moment, is not always the case.
Tākuta Ferris: If the Resource Teachers: Māori roles are disestablished in 2026, as is being proposed, what specific alternative support—specific alternative support—will be provided to ensure that Māori-medium teachers receive the necessary guidance to deliver high-quality programmes to levels 1 and 2 Māori immersion students?
Hon ERICA STANFORD: The member will need to wait for the Budget, because many of those decisions will be made through the Budget, but can I say that already what we have done in this area to ensure that we are raising the achievement of Māori learners and ensuring the revitalisation of te reo Māori, is to ensure that there are tier 2 structured literacy staffing entitlements available in kura kaupapa Māori and Māori-medium settings as well, along with all of the resources we are providing that are consistently available free across the country for the first time ever in literacy and in numeracy as well, along with all the professional learning and development, which goes directly to making sure that we are revitalising the language and raising Māori achievement.
Tākuta Ferris: Why has she relied on reports from 2008 and June 2012 to justify disestablishing Resource Teacher: Māori positions, while failing to acknowledge the Matarau report, which was developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and provided clear recommendations to strengthen the service?
Hon ERICA STANFORD: I’m actually relying on a 2014 Ministry of Education report which found quality issues, including inconsistent practices across the service, the fact that the service was not equally distributed, and it found insufficient evidence of the impact based on current data reports, which means that we can’t evidence a lift in student achievement. And, to that end, that is linked into the fact that, for example, we have five RT: Māori teachers in Southland, three in Invercargill, where there is only one kura kaupapa. Two of them are in Mosgiel, in English-medium schools with no Māori language funding. What are they doing there? We are making sure that this resource and the money that’s put into this resource is directly impacting tamariki Māori in Māori immersion and kura kaupapa settings, and currently it is not.
Question No. 4—Māori Development
4. DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister for Māori Development: He aha ngā kaupapa kua tautoko mai koe kia whakatipu haere i ngā pakihi Māori?
[What initiatives has he supported to continue development of Māori businesses?]
Hon TAMA POTAKA (Minister for Māori Development): Hurō! Inanahi rā, e koa ana taku ngākau ki te whakarewa i te rautaki tōnui Māori hei ara tautoko i ngā mahi whakatupu i te ōhanga Māori. Ka haere ngātahi ngā ringarehe a te Kāwanatanga i te kaupapa Going for Growth.
[Hooray! Yesterday, my heart was happy to launch the Māori prosperity strategy as a support pathway for the activities growing the Māori economy. Government experts will collaboratively progress the initiative, Going for Growth.]
Our Going for Growth With Māori framework has three focus areas: increasing infrastructure investment to drive jobs and sustainable growth, accelerating Māori business exports, and further unlocking the potential of Māori land.
David MacLeod: Why focus on Māori economic growth?
Hon TAMA POTAKA: We will only become a small, advanced leading economy if the Māori economy grows, prospers, and sustains. The Māori economy is experiencing considerable growth and diversifying its assets into sectors like professional services, tourism, commercial property, and scientific research. However, it also faces challenges around infrastructure deficits, accessing finance, and unproductive land laws. This Government’s accelerating of Māori economic growth will benefit Māori communities and New Zealand, whether it’s in Rangitīkei, Kaikōura, or Kirikiriroa.
Hon Shane Jones: No, Kaitāia.
SPEAKER: Overdone. Carry on.
David MacLeod: How does this complement the Government’s broader strategy for economic growth?
Hon TAMA POTAKA: Our focus on growing infrastructure, supporting trade and exports, and simplifying business rules aligns with the key pillars of the Going for Growth kaupapa. We will increase targeted infrastructure investment to boost jobs and to sustain growth. For example, the investment alongside the exemplary Parininihi ki Waitotara Incorporation to explore the potential of a large-scale solar farm that can serve 8,500 homes. And the recent mahi tahi led by the Prime Minister with iwi and Māori leaders at the Infrastructure Investment Summit in Tāmaki-makau-rau to attract co-investors to help fund and finance, ultimately, the country’s severe infrastructure deficit.
David MacLeod: What action is being taken to help unlock economic potential of whenua Māori?
Hon TAMA POTAKA: Whenua use and development of whenua Māori plays a crucial role in iwi, hapū, whānau, landowner, trusts, and incorporations to achieve their aspirations and contribute to positive holistic outcomes across society, community, culture, and the economy. We have proposed some targeted improvements to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to simplify planning and related processes, encourage greater development opportunities, and reduce red tape. To progress this mahi, Te Puni Kōkiri, with the Ministry of Māori Development, has released a public discussion document that invites ideas from whānau and also to generate feedback on improving Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993.
Question No. 5—Social Development and Employment
5. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she stand by the Minister of Finance’s statement that “Our priority areas will continue to be hardworking everyday New Zealanders, and the frontline services like health, education and Police you rely on”; if so, what is the Government doing to support community-led services?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Yes. Our Government’s priority has always been everyday Kiwis and front-line services, which is why we have prioritised funding for the front line instead of unnecessary bureaucracy. The Government also supports many community-led services across a range of portfolios, including social development and employment.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why is the Government saying that New Zealand not-for-profits make a significant contribution to the community, when the Minister of Finance is actively looking to tax them on membership subscriptions that help run their services?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: In terms of my responsibility as the Minister for Social Development and Employment, many of the not-for-profit services provide wonderful services on the ground, and it is important that when Government is funding those organisations, we know that they’re well run and that the public has confidence in them.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: What should local returned servicemen associations—or RSAs—do, who could face higher taxes, increasing membership fees, and thereby reducing support for veterans?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As the Minister for Social Development and Employment, I don’t have responsibility for revenue and tax measures.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, Mr Speaker. This question was transferred from the Minister of Finance to the Minister for Social Development and Employment. She is not answering on behalf of, which is a slightly different issue to the one we have here. Speakers’ rulings are quite clear that if the Government chooses to transfer a question, then that Minister is expected to be in a position to answer supplementaries.
SPEAKER: Up to a point. The question is transferred to the Minister for Social Development and Employment, and that is the breadth of portfolio responsibility that can be answered in this question.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. That cannot simply be the case. The Government cannot narrow the range of potential supplementary questions to a question lodged by the Opposition simply by transferring it to a Minister who doesn’t have the full breadth of responsibility for the question that was asked.
SPEAKER: Well, the point is that the decision is made based on the primary question which was asked, which is: does the Minister agree with the statement made by the Minister of Finance? The answer to that was clearly given; the idea that then the Minister should know everything that the Minister of Finance knows is not reasonable.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. You’ll find that the supplementary question that was just asked, bearing in mind that this question has been reworded—it was not lodged as written on the sheet now. It was a direct quote from the Minister of Finance being asked of the Minister of Finance, and the second part of the question is about Government support to community-led services. The question that my colleague Barbara Edmonds has just asked is directly related to a matter that the Minister of Finance is currently consulting on—or is one of the Ministers currently consulting on—that will have a direct impact on community-led services. It is absolutely in scope of the question as asked, and the Government shouldn’t be able to narrow the scope of the question as asked by transferring it to a Minister who doesn’t have responsibility for it.
SPEAKER: Well, the Government didn’t necessarily do that. It was my decision that the question had been answered, but we’ll just not get into the pedantics of an argument. Ask the question again—I’m sure it’s quite easily answered.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: What should local returned servicemen associations—or RSAs—do, who could face higher taxes, increasing membership fees, and thereby reducing support for veterans?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As the Minister of Social Development and Employment, when there are discussion documents that the Government puts out, I encourage people to submit appropriately.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: What should local vegetable community co-ops that provide cheap vegetables to everyday New Zealanders do, who could be taxed more and may have to close their operations?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Our Government is very clear about the value that community organisations provide to the Government when the Government provides and purchases services from such organisations. But where there are discussion documents, even if issued by a different member or Minister in our Government, I’d encourage people to submit.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: How much revenue does the Government expect to rake in from the proposed tax on RSAs, Working Men’s clubs, Lions clubs, Rotary clubs, vegetable community co-ops, credit unions, friendly societies, and other not-for-profit organisations?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said in my answer to this in the first supplementary question, it is really important that the New Zealand public have confidence in the not-for-profit sector and charitable organisations, especially when those organisations are funded by central government using their tax. So it is important that we have a system where it is clear that those who should pay tax are and that those charities are robust and acting with integrity.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why is the Government looking at hiking taxes on 9,000 not-for-profit organisations while handling a $2.9 billion tax cut to landlords?
Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Speaking on behalf of the Minister in my area of social development and employment, I think I’ve been clear about why it is important that when taxpayers’ money goes into service provision, we need to ensure that those who should pay tax are, and that people can have confidence in the not-for-profit sector when they are delivering services to New Zealanders. As I would say, where there are discussion documents out for consultation, they are just that. We want to consult; we want to listen to what people have to say.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. There’s been a few instances recently where a question directed to a Minister is referring to a direct quote from the intended Minister. It’s subsequently been transferred, which we don’t dispute—that is the Government’s right. But when it is specifically a direct quote from the intended Minister, it has caused some problems. Would you at least reflect on that particular type of question and whether it is appropriate to transfer instead of just getting a Minister to reply on behalf of the Minister in an instance where they might not be available?
SPEAKER: I’ll do that.
Question No. 6—Prime Minister
6. Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: E tautoko ana ia i ngā kōrero me ngā mahi katoa a tōna Kāwanatanga?
[Does he stand by all of his Government’s statements and actions?]
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes.
Hon Marama Davidson: Why are Auckland Council, Downtown Community Mission, and Christchurch City Mission all reporting significant increases in rough sleeping following his Government’s changes to emergency accommodation?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I said to the member yesterday, I’m incredibly proud of the progress that this Government has made on emergency housing. In answering the last part of her question, the reality is this is a Government that has taken 5,000 people off the State house wait-list, this is a Government that has taken 2,500 families out of squalid motel rooms, and this is a Government that has taken 2,000 kids out of motel rooms and got them in proper homes.
Hon Members: Where are they?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m proud of that track record, and I would hope that that member thinks that that is a great achievement and a good outcome for those individuals and those families.
SPEAKER: Before the question’s asked, there may be answers that people don’t like, but it doesn’t mean that they can pose other questions by way of interjection—they must be rare and reasonable.
Hon Marama Davidson: Is rough sleeping on the rise under his Government?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we don’t have strong, centralised data on homelessness. But what I’d say to the member is that it’s really important that—
Hon Member: That’s a yes.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Nothing has changed. People who need help with accommodation can come to the Ministry of Social Development and get the support and the help they need. But what I am proud about, and I will not take lectures from the Opposition on this—
Hon Kieran McAnulty: That is not true.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —is that we have delivered a solution in emergency housing that—
Hon Member: Not true.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —sees 2,000 kids out of motel rooms into proper houses. What that means is they’ve got housing security, they can go to school, their school attendance is up—there’s a whole bunch of upstream benefits of that. I would have thought the other side would have thought that was a good thing.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: None of that was true.
SPEAKER: Well, just a point here. That interjection is offensive to the House and the member knows it, so stop making it. Two members particularly have made that interjection, and if it happens again they’ll be going off for an early afternoon.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Prime Minister, when tens and tens of thousands of people—Māori and non-Māori—have stayed on a marae, why would someone describe them as “rough sleeping”?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: All I can argue for is the fact that I’m proud of the fact that we are helping people who need houses and we are getting them out of emergency accommodation, which has been an abject failure policy from the Labour and Greens Government of the last administration.
Hon Marama Davidson: Why do front-line homelessness organisations say it is near impossible to get homeless people in dire need into urgent accommodation under his Government?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I disagree. Nothing has changed. If people need support for accommodation and housing, they can continue to reach out to the Government. We will continue to support and help people get off streets and into housing. But I just say to both the Labour and the Green Party, the ultimate solution here is we need to build more houses. We haven’t seen support for fast track—that would free up 55,000 new houses—and we haven’t seen support for the Resource Management Act reforms. So I look forward to seeing that. [Interruption]
Hon Marama Davidson: If support is available—
SPEAKER: Just wait. Quite a few people over here are a little unsettled. Obviously, a lot more supps to come.
Hon Marama Davidson: If support is available to those who need it, why has there been a 53 percent rise in rough sleeping in Auckland City over the last four months?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: As I’ve said in my previous answers, there will always be support available for people who need it. Nothing has changed in that regard. But I am incredibly proud of the fact that we have taken 2,000 kids out of motel accommodation and put them into proper, dry homes. I am incredibly proud that 2,500 families that were previously in motel accommodation are now in proper houses. And I’m really proud of the fact that 5,000 people who were on a State house wait-list—that went up four-fold under the last Government—are now off that list because they have housing being met.
Hon Marama Davidson: Why didn’t his Government listen to officials, who warned that these changes to emergency accommodation risked more people sleeping on the streets?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I disagree completely with the characterisation of that question, as I’ve explained before. There is no change. If people need accommodation support and help, that is available to them. But what is a fantastic result, that I would hope all members of this House would celebrate, is that through focus, we have been able to prioritise families with kids and get them out of motel rooms and get them into proper houses in the private rental market, in social or State housing, and that’s really important.
Hon Tama Potaka: Do those with severe housing deprivation, including many who are homeless, have a number of pathways to seek support in housing, including Housing First, rapid rehousing, transitional housing, social housing, housing support products, and emergency housing for those with a genuine need in most towns in this country?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes. And that’s why I say there will always be Government support for people who need housing and accommodation support. There is no change.
Hon Marama Davidson: If his Government doesn’t have centralised data on rough sleeping, will he accept that front-line organisations reporting an increase in rough sleeping is correct?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: As I have said before, front-line organisations, people who find themselves without housing or in a homeless situation, can continue to come to Government to get the support they need. But I do want to make very clear that when you have taken 5,000 people off the State house or social housing wait-list, that is a good thing. It means those people now have houses. When you have taken 2,000 kids that were happily—
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Utterly disingenuous.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —left in motel rooms under the last Government—
Hon Kieran McAnulty: He knows that’s not the case.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —and, actually, we’ve put them into proper homes and houses, and 2,500 families that were previously living in motel accommodation—
Hon Kieran McAnulty: He’s standing up and he’s not being up front.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —are now in proper housing, that is a good thing. We’re proud about it because we care about New Zealanders. We care and we take action to get the problems fixed and solved. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: I’ll just say to just say to a member to my left that there is a general debate coming and that sort of comment that was coming through then might be best left till then.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Thank you. I’ll do that.
Question No. 7—Building and Construction
7. DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) to the Minister for Building and Construction: What is the Government doing to crack down on cowboy builders, and how will this make building easier in New Zealand?
Hon CHRIS PENK (Minister for Building and Construction): We’re taking decisive action to make building easier and quicker in this country. That will benefit Kiwis with homes that they can afford. At the same time, though, as reducing the compliance burden from those with a good track record in building at scale, we also need to ensure that the small minority of builders who are careless and cut corners are held to account.
Dan Bidois: What changes did the Government announce today?
Hon CHRIS PENK: Another good question. The four key areas that we’ve announced to rein in cowboy builders include: (1) giving more tools to the statutory boards for builders, plumbers, and electricians, allowing them to initiate investigations; (2) making information public when a builder has been suspended for disciplinary reasons; (3) introducing a waterproofing class for licensed building practitioners so that Kiwis can have confidence in those vulnerable wet areas of their homes; and (4) establishing codes of ethics for key trades so that disciplinary action can be taken in the event that tradespeople engage in deceptive practices.
Dan Bidois: What impact will these changes have for Kiwis?
Hon CHRIS PENK: It’s about consumer confidence. Kiwis need to feel assured that they will have quality, safe homes. But I would also point out that the building sector itself has also welcomed the changes that we’ve announced. The majority of tradies in this country are reliable, honest, ethical people doing a great job, and they don’t want to be tarred with the same brush as the relatively small number who are letting the side down, and we’re acting accordingly.
Dan Bidois: Are there more changes planned to tackle cowboy builders?
Hon CHRIS PENK: Yes, indeed, there are. These will include increasing penalties where appropriate, but also tackling that longstanding problem of phoenixing, whereby dodgy builders and unethical people seek to avoid liability simply by creating a new legal entity. We’re excited about the possibilities this will open up in terms of our granny flats policy, for which I’ll give due acknowledgment to our friends and colleagues of New Zealand First for their advocacy. Kiwis deserve to have confidence in their tradies so that we can be more trusting of those who are doing good work, and it’s part of the Government’s overall plan of making building easier and more affordable, growing the economy, and lowering the cost of living for Kiwis.
Question No. 8—Health
8. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement, “No more excuses. We measure success in one way: better outcomes for patients”; if not, why not?
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): In the context it was made, yes. We know that too many Kiwis are waiting too long to be seen in emergency departments, receive first specialist assessments, and have elective procedures. Our focus is on patients and delivering timely, quality healthcare for all New Zealanders. This starts with bringing back our critical health targets to drive accountability and to ensure better outcomes for all New Zealanders. This has already led to key initiatives, including Health New Zealand’s elective boost, which will deliver an additional 10,579 elective procedures by June to reduce wait times.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: If there are to be no more excuses, why are Health New Zealand officials appearing on TVNZ to dismiss concerns raised by Nelson doctors that women are deteriorating while they’re on wait-lists and needing emergency hysterectomies rather than timely planned care?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: As the Prime Minister said earlier, Health New Zealand has a team in Nelson to address the concerns that have been raised, to ensure that patients are being put first in the Nelson region, and to get on top of the wait-lists. That will include taking action such as ensuring that outsourcing is happening. I’m advised that, in the Nelson region, outsourcing has not been taking place as it has in other regions, and that is something which is being worked on. Bringing surgeons in from Blenheim to carry out more procedures in Nelson, getting teams in from other parts of the country to help get through first specialist assessment wait lists—there is a number of actions being taken to address the concerns in that community, and I look forward to further reports from Health New Zealand officials as they work through these issues.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: What excuse can he possibly have when his Government froze hiring in public hospitals, causing the number of people seeing a specialist within four months to fall from 66.3 percent to 61.2 percent within a year?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: I reject the premise of what the member is asking. If you look at Nelson Hospital, there has been an increase in clinical staff at that hospital since we came to Government. What we are focusing the system on is ensuring that we are delivering more, and I acknowledge that there is more work to do when it comes to wait-lists, both for first specialist assessments and elective treatments. That’s why we have done the elective boost, which is about making sure we can get more treatments done for New Zealanders faster, and I hope that the member will support such initiatives.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Is it acceptable that women with gynaecological conditions so painful they cannot go to work are being told to wait a year for treatment, and, if not, will he give Nelson permission to fully staff its hospital?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: I acknowledge that there are too many Kiwis waiting too long for treatment, and if the member looked at the track record of her Government, she would realise that this is a problem which has grown over time. What we are focused on doing is ensuring that the focus goes back on the patient, that we are delivering more treatment, and I hope the member will support the elective boost, which is about making sure we get more treatments done by working across both the public and the private systems so we can get more done for Kiwis.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: If there are to be no more excuses, why is he blaming the last Government, when Dr Claudia Hays, head of the Nelson obstetrics and gynaecology department, is saying on television that they’ve never seen wait-lists as bad as they currently are?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: The wait-lists have grown over a period of time. I have been appointed as the Minister of Health to address these issues and to make sure that patients are being put first in the system, so that we can get on top of it. And that’s why Health New Zealand is undertaking the elective boost, which is about maximising the number of elective treatments across both the public and private systems so more patients get the care they need in a timely manner, and I hope the member and the Labour Party would support such an initiative.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Will he respond to vascular surgeons in Nelson Hospital who are saying people on the wait-lists are having unnecessary emergency amputations because of the lack of surgeons, and will he allow Nelson to fully staff its hospital?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: There are more clinical staff working at Nelson Hospital today than there was when she was the Minister—there are more there today than when she was the Minister—and what I would say to the member is that is why we have put a team into Nelson Hospital to work with the local staff and to make sure there are teams working across the Nelson-Marlborough region to get patients the treatment they need in a more timely manner. I do not accept that the patients in Nelson are getting the timely treatment they need. Those wait-lists are unacceptable, and that is why we are taking action.
Question No. 9—Workplace Relations and Safety
9. CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What recent announcements has the Government made about delivering on the ACT-National coalition commitment to reform health and safety law and regulations?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): The ACT-National coalition commitment set the ambitious task of reforming health and safety law and regulations. We’re only halfway through the week, but I can tell you that this week is a week of health and safety announcements. So far, I’ve announced that Cabinet has agreed to: a carve-out for small, low-risk businesses from general health and safety at work requirements; free up land for recreational use by ensuring landowners will not be responsible if someone is injured on their land while doing recreational activities; clarify the distinction between governance and operational management, health and safety responsibilities, to reduce directors’ fear and risk of over-compliance; make critical risk the primary purpose of the Health and Safety at Work Act, and clarify the boundaries between the Act and regulatory systems that already manage the same risk; and set up a hotline for reporting excessive road cone use. This is just the start of the reform programme that will be over the next coming months.
Cameron Luxton: How do the announced changes respond to feedback received from the health and safety roadshow?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Last year, I travelled the country from Whangārei to Bluff, hearing directly from businesses, workers, and iwi about their experiences with the health and safety system. I had the privilege of talking to everyone from farmers to tradies to road workers. I heard that while larger businesses may be able to afford to hire dedicated health and safety professionals, small businesses in particular can struggle to get the information they need to ensure they are compliant, and can also struggle with the costs of compliance. I also heard concerns that the scope of workplace health and safety obligations is creeping into unintended areas of life, from hiking to Santa parades. My announced changes will reduce tick-box health and safety activities, and give workers assurance that their workplaces are prioritising the right actions to protect them from harm.
SPEAKER: Conciseness in answers would be useful.
Cameron Luxton: What differences will workplaces that are small, low-risk businesses experience as the result from these announced changes?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: I know the struggle small businesses face in dealing with red tape and regulation, and this change will help them focus on what matters most. What these changes mean in practice is that businesses would no longer need to worry about putting up signs warning workers that the water coming out of a hot-water tap is hot, or that they should hold on to the stair banister. If a worker is working from home, businesses would no longer need to have a plan for how to deal with the risk that the worker might get lonely. I want to see small businesses focusing on the critical risks: dangerous machines, hazardous substances, and other risks that can cause serious injury, illness, or death.
Cameron Luxton: How will the announced changes reduce excessive use of road cones?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: WorkSafe will be manning a hotline for the public to report on excessive road cone use. It will then be WorkSafe’s job to provide confirmation and guidance on instances of road cone over-compliance, to help the New Zealand Transport Agency bed in the new risk-based traffic management guide. Having WorkSafe focus on this pilot for 12 months will be a culture shift for the agency, but it signifies the broader direction this Government is taking the health and safety system.
Cameron Luxton: Supplementary.
SPEAKER: Yes, good, and then we’ll have a concise answer.
CAMERON LUXTON: Thank you. How will the announced changes improve access to land for recreational use?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: This week, I announced that Cabinet had agreed to the legislative change that landowners will not be responsible if someone is injured on their land while doing recreational activities. I’ve heard from a wide range of representatives of the Kiwi public, who believe these changes will improve access to land for their particular recreational hobby, from deerstalkers to the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand. I expect that hikers, trampers, fishers, deerstalkers, people who love the great outdoors will have more access to it.
Question No. 10—Climate Change
10. Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) to the Minister of Climate Change: Is he committed to New Zealand staying in the Paris Agreement?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) on behalf of the Minister of Climate Change: Yes.
Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Who represents the New Zealand Government: the Prime Minister, who said pulling out of the Paris Agreement is “the fastest way to make New Zealand incredibly poor”; or the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who said Paris “is an international agreement that National went and signed up to … and nobody knows why”?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: On behalf of the Minister, what I can confirm for that member, who was a previous Minister, is that this coalition Government is completely committed to its international and domestic climate change agreements.
Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Does he agree with David Seymour, who said that the zero carbon Act is wrong and the Paris accord is wrong?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: On behalf of the Minister, what other parties say about policy or their own ideas is their business, and I have no responsibility for that.
Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Does he agree with trade expert Stephen Jacobi, who said calls for New Zealand to leave the Paris Agreement are “completely mad” as it would mean the loss of market access and would come with significant economic and reputational cost?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: On behalf of the Minister, I want to reiterate this coalition’s commitment to the international and domestic commitments that we have signed up to, and the member asking the question well knows that.
Hon Dr Deborah Russell: What confidence can New Zealanders have in this Government’s climate commitments, which are integral to our trade agreements, when his coalition partners are attacking their foundations?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Well, I’m not sure whether the member has been listening to my answers, but I want to reiterate that this coalition Government is firmly committed to its international and domestic obligations, and I’m very confident that we can continue along that path. There is still work to do; lots of progress is being made.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question.
Hon Willie Jackson: Oh, here he is—add him into it.
SPEAKER: And there it will be goodbye to that member too, very shortly.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it not wise, Minister, for any smart, intelligent political party—or, dare I say it, a Government—to constantly re-examine the premise on which former policy was made to ensure that the principles on which decisions were made are still accurate and still working?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: The Deputy Prime Minister makes a very good point, because, surely, New Zealand is the only country on the planet that is transitioning from gas to coal.
Question No. 11—Commerce and Consumer Affairs
11. Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What recent steps has the Government taken to unlock data and increase competition?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Last week, the Government passed the Customer and Product Data Act. That’s an Act that provides a framework for open banking, open electricity, and open other economic sectors as well. This is a piece of legislation that will increase competition by giving Kiwis more control and power over their data currently held by other entities with whom they trade. So the idea is that they will ultimately be able to get a much better deal, increase competition, and Kiwi customers and Kiwi consumers will be the better for it.
Dr Hamish Campbell: How will these changes impact Kiwis?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Kiwis deserve to get the best bang for their buck. The change that this legislation enables will mean that there is a better sharing of consumers’ data with, of course, their consent and that will help them more easily shop around for best deals.
Dr Hamish Campbell: What next steps is the Government taking in this space?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: The framework now being in place means that the first cab off the rank in terms of the open sector framework that this is providing will be the banking sector. This is done through what’s known as open banking and it allows people to share their bank data with other apps or services to get better, more tailored financial options.
Dr Hamish Campbell: What do these changes look like in practice?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Well, very good question from the member. An example of open banking from our good friends in Australia is an app called NextGen ApplyOnline, and that’s a service that speeds up home loan applications for customers while also reducing fraud risk. And another example is Rocket Money from the United States, which finds forgotten or unwanted subscription services and helps customers cancel them. I’m hoping to see similar services on our shores soon.
Question No. 12—Workplace Relations and Safety
12. TEANAU TUIONO (Green) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What are the current costs of workplace deaths and injuries in Aotearoa, and what is the modelled impact, if any, of her health and safety reforms on this cost?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Officials inform me that it is difficult to reliably estimate the costs of workplace deaths, injuries, and illness in New Zealand. By that, they mean it’s hard to establish causation. Basically, you can’t predict the future of such a wide range of individual human actions. I am aware, however, that the Business Leaders’ Health and Safety Forum has estimated the total burden of workplace harm at $4.9 billion in 2024. Given the difficulties in estimating costs and drivers of harm, my officials have not modelled the impact of health and safety reforms on this cost, but it has been clear, from my roadshows and consultation, that a lot of effort is going into ineffective paper-based compliance which doesn’t reduce the harm. My reforms focus on real actions to reduce harm.
Teanau Tuiono: How does she justify weakening health and safety protections for workers in small businesses when ACC data suggests that workers in small businesses are 57 percent more likely to suffer an injury than their counterparts in large businesses?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: I’m not weakening health and safety; I’m refocusing health and safety on critical risks. One of the clear parts of my consultation came back saying that small businesses are spending a lot of time on paper-based compliance. They’re not sure if it’s actually having any effect on reducing harm, but what we do know is we want people to focus on those critical risks that are causing death, serious injury, and illness in workplaces. And that’s what this Government is committed to doing.
Teanau Tuiono: Does she accept evidence from WorkSafe that musculoskeletal harm, such as back injuries, are the number one cause of workplace harm in New Zealand, and, if so, will she include musculoskeletal harm in her definition of critical risk?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: The member will simply have to wait for the legislative drafting of the bill to come back with the definitions of critical risk.
Teanau Tuiono: Does she accept that the second-biggest cause of workplace harm in Aotearoa is mental harm, associated with around 40 work-related suicides each year, and, if so, will she include mental harm in her definition of critical risk?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Like I said, the member will simply have to wait for the legislation to come back, and he can have a say at select committee on the specific definitions. But what I will say is we are seeing far too much compliance cost. We want people to be focused on those critical risks of serious injury and death at work. Businesses have far too much red tape and regulation, and they need our help as a Government to clarify the law on where their focus should be.
Teanau Tuiono: Since she and the Prime Minister have committed to “all Kiwis returning home safe after every working day”, will she resign as Minister if her reforms result in increased workplace deaths or injuries?
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: Unfortunately for the member, I’m not going anywhere.
General Debate
General Debate
Hon SHANE JONES (NZ First): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.
In 1867, the first four Māori came into our Parliament: Patterson from Ngāi Tahu; Mete Kingi from the West Coast of the North Island; Nene Russell, the nephew of the great Tāmati Wāka Nene; and Te Moananui from the Tai Rāwhiti. They came with a sense of reverence, respect, and a total acceptance of the privilege of standing to be a member on behalf of Māoridom in this House. Oh no, not those masqueraders—oh no, not that crowd over there. They have absolutely no respect, no desire, and no acceptance of the obligations of being a member of Parliament. Throwing it around in the media that if you belong to the Māori Party, you’re possessed of a superiority complex. If you belong to the Māori Party, then the rules that define this House, based upon the bedrock values of mutual respect, transparency, democracy, service—no, not to that crowd.
They hope, based on their own threats, to rock this institution and destroy the foundations upon which it sits. The conceit of such an assertion, the shame that they bring on the hundreds of people who have sought to come to Parliament and represent—in a credible, legitimate, integrating way—the Māori face of New Zealand. But, no, this crowd beat to a different drum, because what they don’t tell you is they’ve achieved nothing. They made promises to the Māori voters of New Zealand and they’ve turned it into an exercise all about them individually.
Where were they when the real work had to be done? They’ve never had a chance to form a Government, and, if I had my way, in a thousand years they never will.
What has our side of the House done: $60 million worth of geothermal energy will flow from Māori land, in many respects. Who fixed up Waitangi, announced on Waitangi Day by the Minister of Māori affairs—$10 million? Who dedicated overdue money to Rātana Pā? The Minister of Māori affairs, on the day of the Rātana celebration. Who went into the heart of Taranaki and made an allocation of pūtea—of money—to Parihaka? The Minister of Māori affairs. Oh, the list keeps going—the list keeps going.
Hon Willie Jackson: How much was it?
Hon SHANE JONES: There’s nothing as loud and ugly as unwanted envy, Willie.
Let me keep going. What about the Māori marine farmers, and the extension of all their rights until 2050? New Zealand looked to this side of the House; that’s where the answers are.
I want to finish this brief contribution by identifying what my colleague has said: as a consequence of the Labour Party, we are the only nation in the world that is transitioning from gas to coal. Look no further than our friends from the Green Party who, with their poison pen letter-writing exercises, are condemning us to economic Armageddon. But, New Zealand, your lights will stay on because this side of the House realises coal and gas have a key role to play to ensure that we have sustainable flows of energy.
Not for us shallow virtue-signalling, pronoun-entanglement politics. That belongs at the margin of New Zealand politics, and if anyone doubts the seriousness with which we are treating the natural resource estate, look no further than the words on this potae. [Member holds up a cap] I shall read it out: “Drill, baby, drill. Make New Zealand great again.” There’s one party who has consistently worn that as a badge of honour, and that party sits as part of this Government: patriotic, nationalistic, and not afraid to call out foreign, alien, unacceptable political practices. We want the sunlight, we want lightness, we want the torch of democracy to shine on everyone who stands against me. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: I call—just a minute. Hang on—we’ll be quiet, all round.
HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato): Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mō Te Pāti Māori i te rangi nei, mō ngā take nui e pēhi ana i ngā whānau o te motu, arā ko te kai, arā ko ngā kai i roto i ngā kura e pēhi nei i ō mātou tamariki ki ā mātou kaumātua.
[Greetings to the Speaker, and all in this House. I stand to voice the opinion of the Māori Party today about the issues oppressing the families of the land, that is food; food in schools that burden our children and our elders.]
As a Māori electorate MP—bearing in mind that Māori seats cover up to nearly six to eight general seats, so you could just imagine the long list of various constituent cases that we face. As a 22-year-old, it’s been a bit of hefty work, but one of the biggest issues that we have heard is the access to food. Not just the cost of living but the cost of surviving and being able to put food on their plate every meal. From kaumātua, pakeke [elders, adults] to tamariki, Māori and non-Māori.
Recently, as a party we have realigned our portfolios that align with real issues of today, and one of my new portfolios is access to food. Now, that may not seem big for other parties; however, for us that’s one of our biggest priorities. So while some people are currently talking about whether or not our stance in resistance to our country’s founding document—where this coalition broke the tikanga of this land by introducing a bill like the Treaty principles bill—we’ll be focusing our platform and light on the public having access to food.
This coalition has made it hard for everyday Kiwis putting food on their table, from lunches, grocery prices, GST. Just over three days ago, we saw the survey announcement of more than half a million Kiwis accessing food banks every month. Aotearoa has some of the highest kai prices in the OECD. In January alone, our food prices rose from 1.9 percent. Despite these high prices, our largest two supermarket chains have reported record profits in recent years. Foodstuffs reported $52 million in profit in 2023.
When I think of school lunches, I have had over 400 responses, and the disappointment of—I quote—“the delivery of bugs and hair in kai. Kai is frozen, kai is scalding hot, kai is late, kai cannot be identified, and kai is not safe for consumption.” From dedicated advocates for children, and community principals like Chris Patel at Kopuarahi School in my electorate of Hauraki, who for the last 45 days at least has continued to scorecard this Government’s school lunches programme.
These are the problems—and there are many—but our solution’s from my co-leader’s member’s bill in the GST off kai. Some may think $50 is nothing, but for many of us that’s an extra two meals that went on GST. This was an original initiative from the Māori Party to me introducing the first kai sovereignty policy, which was developed in my work with the Ministry for Primary Industries rolling out a pilot programme where low-income communities could grow kai. This pilot programme now feeds hundreds of that community all year long.
So even in my electorate of Hauraki-Waikato—now, don’t get me wrong, I’m quite pōhara, but I’ve actually built whānau-built pātaka kai in every rohe of my electorate and we provide kai and female sanitary essentials, and we’re having to top this up weekly because that just goes to show the extreme need for it.
Even though this does not completely solve kai being at every person’s plate at every meal—
Hon Judith Collins: Oh, for God’s sake!
HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE: Oh, OK. So Judith Collins is moaning about me talking about kai, and my community and my electorate not being able to have kai, and I’ve actually provided that out of my personal money to—
Hon Judith Collins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. For the member to say that I’m complaining about her talking about kai, I’m actually not. I’m concerned with the fact she can’t give a speech without having to read the whole thing.
SPEAKER: It is never wise to respond to any interjections in the House. But it is also a rule of the House that, generally, members don’t read speeches unless it’s a Minister delivering a first reading speech which may eventually be referred to by those who sit on the bench. But the member will carry on.
HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE: Was my time stopped exactly?
SPEAKER: Yeah, no, that’s when the—
HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE: Nō reira, ko ngaku tino whai take i roto i taku rohe o Hauraki-Waikato ko ngā take pēnei i te kai me te mea anō hoki ko ngā supermarket duopoly chains, koirā tētahi wāhanga tino pai mō tōku iwi, Waikato-Tainui, ki te uru atu ki tērā pakihi. Nā runga anō i te mea kō ngā ohanga Māori, ko tērā pūtea, kei te pūtea o te tahi rau rua tekau mā ono piriona tāra i tēnei wā tonu. Nō reira kei te tino anga mai tēnei ohanga Māori. Me te mea anō hoki, toru ki te whā tau toku iwi ake e mahi ana i tēnei momo mahi mō te kai.
[The relevant issues to me in my electorate of Hauraki-Waikato are issues such as food, including the supermarket duopoly chains, that is a major issue to my people, Waikato-Tainui, to venture into this business. This is because the Māori economy at present is worth $126 billion. This Māori economy is taking notice. And because my own tribe has been working for three to four years in the activity of supplying food.]
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): When Chris Hipkins sauntered into the first meeting of the Labour Party this year wearing jandals, he was sending a clear signal—not the signal that I think he thought he was sending, which was “I’m cool” or “I’m a man of the people” or that he’s a sausage roll - eating man of the people wearing his jandals. No, the message that he actually sent was that this is going to be the year of the flip-flop. And he has demonstrated that that is indeed the case.
He started off in the way that he meant, and a classic example that we’ve seen of that this year has been in response to Tamatha Paul’s long-running and outrageous length of things that she has thought about criminal justice and the law. Remember when our friends from the Greens stood up and said that having police around the place made people feel unsafe and it was a bad thing and we don’t need all these patrols around the place, and then Chris Hipkins stood up and said, “Yes, that was a stupid thing to say.”? It was a stupid thing to say, he said. And then, lo and behold, he reflects on it for a little while and changes his mind. We point out to him that it’s a funny thing: Mr Hipkins can say how stupid the Greens are, but when you look at the voting record it’s exactly the same. They vote exactly the same when it comes to justice. They don’t support anything that the Government has done. We pointed out that slight contradiction, and then, lo and behold, over the weekend, what does he say? “I think, subsequent to what were some strident comments at the beginning, the Greens raised some legitimate issues.” Oh dear, oh dear—one week they’re stupid, the next week we’ve had a bit of a think about it and now perhaps they’ve raised some legitimate issues!
That’s the point: when it comes to the justice system, the previous Labour Government, helped by the Greens, was all about trying to reduce the prison population irrespective of what was going on in the community. Lo and behold, what we saw over those six years was an increase in violent crime and real public concerns about law and order. This Government has changed that. We’re no longer focused on reducing the prison population come what may. We want to have fewer people in prison, but only when our streets are safer and people are committing less crime. Our focus is on reducing the number of victims of crime. And so it makes no sense for “Mr Flip-flopper in Chief” to stand up there and say, on the one hand, Tamatha Paul is stupid for talking about the police making people feel unsafe, and, on the other hand, he’s voting alongside the Greens against the gangs legislation, which is making a real difference; voting against the sentencing legislation, which is restoring real consequences for crime in this country; voting against the three-strikes legislation, which, again, is bringing back significant changes; and voting against taking the funding away from cultural reports, which had turned into a cottage industry, costing millions of dollars and not getting anywhere ahead of things. The inconsistency is dramatic.
Our friend Ginny Andersen is, of course, one to emulate Chris Hipkins, and she watches him and follows him very closely. I thought it rather entertaining to see her flip-flop when she said that the gangs legislation was going to be a disaster—“Oh my gosh, if you take the patches off the gangs, that’s going to be terrible. They’ll get upset. The police are going to be made a fool of. It’s not going to work. It’s going to be a shambles. We’re going to have chaos everywhere.” Lo and behold, it’s worked very well. Lo and behold, over the summer, people have found that they’re not surrounded by gang patches everywhere. And even old Ginny Andersen was able to flip-flop enough to say, “Oh well, actually, it’s worked better than we anticipated.”
I fully expect, in a few months’ time, she’ll be rocking up to the House and saying that the sentencing bill is actually working better than she thought. It’s amazing: if Parliament sends a clear message that we want to see real consequences for crime when people are committing crime and that message gets through and actually we see people being a little bit more judicious about what they do, it leads to continuing progress towards our goal, which is to see fewer victims of crime in this country. And that’s where we’ll get to.
So there we go: we’ve got the Mr Hipkins—he wanders in, he’s wearing his flip-flops, he’s trying to send a message, and the message that he’s sending is that this is a Labour Party that nobody can be sure exactly what they mean and what they don’t mean. But one thing we can be sure about: if they ever get near the halls of power again, they will be relying on the Greens, and the Greens, unfortunately, when it comes to law and order and when it comes to the justice system, are away with the fairies and they will lead us into a real mess in this country. So my message to New Zealand is: if you want to keep on restoring law and order, steer clear of them and stick with this coalition Government, which is making real progress. Thank you very much.
Rima Nakhle: Thank God—finally!
SPEAKER: That’s totally unnecessary.
Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour): That member over there—Rima Nakhle—said, “Finally!”. She’s really happy to hear from me at the end of Paul Goldsmith’s speech. Paul Goldsmith’s so predictable. Here they are in an absolute mess—shambles. The coalition of chaos are trying to pivot, trying to redivert attention on to the Opposition. There’s only one mess in this place and that is the threesome sitting on that side of the House.
I was looking back on my social media posts from 1 April a couple of years ago, yesterday. I posted up about the 1 April changes that year, acknowledging that—even then, on 1 April in 2023—times were tough, and it was important that we extended support to those who were struggling to make ends meet. That year, we increased student allowance and student loan living cost payments by about $20. We increased the Best Start payment to $69 per week, the family tax credit to $136 per week. The minimum wage was lifted by $1.50 per hour. That was a Government who cared about New Zealanders. That was a Government who recognised that when New Zealanders were struggling, they had a responsibility and a role to play in providing reprieve for New Zealanders who needed a little bit of additional support.
But what did we see yesterday on 1 April from that side of the House? We saw bugger all. That’s exactly what we saw. We saw 35c. Thirty-five cents is all that we saw for the minimum wage per hour going up. Not even enough to keep up with the cost of living. These are the people that are working in our essential services. Only a few years ago, we were all so reliant on our supermarket workers—those that were working to get food across the country during times that we couldn’t even make contact as Kiwis. We’re always so reliant on those people that clean buildings like these, many of them—not all of them but many of them—working on the minimum wage, and that Government doesn’t even have the respect to give them a pay increase that matches the cost of living increases that they’ve experienced. So what does that mean for them? It means, effectively, they go backwards.
Now, it’s important we make this point because when they were campaigning to get into Government in the last election campaign, they promised New Zealanders the world. They promised Kiwis that they would provide support for those struggling with the cost of living expenses. But have they done that? Well, clearly not when we look at the minimum wage lifts that we’ve experienced over the last two years. They couldn’t prioritise these hard-working Kiwis that earn the least amount of money in this country, but what they could prioritise are the landlords of this country by giving them $2.9 billion worth of tax breaks.
Now what does that say about that side’s priorities? Do they care about the hard-working Kiwis who are getting up, before the sun has even come up in some instances, to get out there and work, to put food on the table for their families, who work a hard day’s work every day, and are on the minimum wage? No, they do not care about those Kiwis. Who do they care about? They care about the landlords that already own homes, and they decided that those people needed $2.9 billion worth of tax breaks. They care about the tobacco industry and thought that it was appropriate to give them $216 million worth of tax breaks.
I think that Kiwis are looking at that Government and feeling a deep level of remorse, particularly those that made the decision to give their vote to National, ACT, or New Zealand First at the last election. This is not what they signed up for. They didn’t sign up to be further impoverished because of the lack of support from that Government. They didn’t sign up for the issues with the health system that are plaguing the whole country. They didn’t sign up for the housing issues that have become significantly worse under that side, and they didn’t sign up for the ever-worsening unemployment rates that are occurring under that side. That side has not delivered, and the country is feeling remorseful.
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for the Environment): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As a Government, we’ve always been very clear, and we’ve argued, that economic growth can go hand in hand with care for the environment. We have farmers and growers who have dedicated themselves for generations as stewards of our land. They know that farming success goes hand in hand with protecting the environment. Farmers understand that a thriving environment is essential for thriving agriculture. They are not virtue-signalling greenies; they are realistic environmentalists who go out and get their hands dirty, digging holes to put trees in, putting fences up, actively restoring ecosystems, improving soil health, water quality, and biodiversity, because they know that is their responsibility for future generations.
We’ve recently announced public consultation on proposed regulations to help manage farm plastics. These can be an issue for our farmers—the bale wraps, the big containers that chemicals come in—but this Government backs farmers to be able to find their own solutions to those challenges. This proposal is an industry-led initiative from the agricultural sector, bringing a couple of voluntary schemes—Agrecovery and Plasback programmes—together into a single national recycling system to make it more simple and to make it more fair for all farmers to be able to dispose of those farm plastics that can be an issue for them.
Our Government backs farmers and growers as hard-working Kiwis who are the backbone of our country. They are the people that get up early, that do the long hours, and that put food on our table and the tables of 40 million people across the world. And they are the best farmers in the world. Their skills, their innovation, and their sustainability practices are admired by others across the globe. New Zealand is a leader in not only producing top-quality food but also in caring for the land at the same time. New Zealand farmers, of course, don’t have subsidies. They produce that high-quality, safe, sustainable food and fibre without subsidies, earning the respect of people right across the world. And they are the most carbon-efficient in the world. This Government supports their success so that they can continue to stay ahead of the game and be regarded as some of the best in the world.
We know that the primary sector drives the economy of this country. That’s why we’re out getting new trade deals, investing in research and development to try and cut farm emissions, making it easier for farmers and growers to access the tools that they need, because they are the ones that will implement the changes so that they can succeed.
We had a recent review that found that cutting the approval times for new agriculture and horticultural products could generate $272 million over a 20-year period. That’s why we should be reducing red tape, because it saves this country money and it makes it easier for our farmers to do what they do best. And because we know if our farmers are doing what they can do best, then it will be more jobs in this country, it will be better incomes for all in this country, and it will be better public services being able to be provided.
And we’re seeing the results. Federated Farmers had a confidence survey recently, which shows that the sector had surged by 68 points since July last year—the biggest jump ever since they started measuring it. Farmers are feeling positive again because they are feeling backed by this Government. They know that we are cutting red tape, we are allowing innovation, and we are supporting rural communities, and we know that farmers will do the best they can for our environment at the same time. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We have seen the problem that has been created as the result of this Government’s cheapening of the Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme, the school lunches programme. We have seen news article after news article of the myriad issues as a result of the changes that this Government has made. We have seen the liquidation of one of the major providers of our school lunch programme, and, worst of all, it seems like it wasn’t something that the Government and the Cabinet collectively care enough about to keep each other in the loop on what is happening right now in terms of the school lunches and what’s happening to our tamariki on a daily basis.
We have seen that this renegotiation and repackaging of the programme was doomed to start. We have seen that when the negotiation was happening, the bottom line was $3 per student, and they’re willing to sacrifice and compromise on everything else, including the quality, the nutritional value, including the variety. Basically, everything that we have seen that’s gone wrong with the school lunch programme is something that they, the Government, knew about going into negotiation.
We have seen thousands of jobs being lost and local businesses that went under as the result of the centralisation and the corporatisation of the school lunches programme. We have seen, through our post-hearing questions when we did our scrutiny with the Ministry of Education, that the evaluation of the programme was fundamentally around the value for money and the cost-benefit analysis. It’s just the dollar figure, but not, broadly speaking, on the essence or the purpose of the school lunches programme, which is to feed our hungry tamariki. We know one in four tamariki in Aotearoa live in households where food runs out, and sometimes often. That is not normal for a country like Aotearoa as part of the OECD.
We now have a choice. We can either continue down the path of cheap, low-quality lunches for our hungry tamariki or we can actually step up and invest in the future of our children. We know that the achievement of our tamariki, of our ākonga, at school depends on the nutrition our tamariki receive on a day-to-day basis. We hear from the schools that despite the reducing quality, this is something they still want to keep, because at the end of the day, they can’t bear the fact that their students and their local communities are going hungry.
Having good-quality and warm and nutritional kai for our tamariki in school is not just a social policy. It is not just simply a public good but it’s also a smart economic choice, because we know that well-fed kids learn better and they stay healthier and it doesn’t put burden on other parts of our system. It is not something that operates in silo. We should be able to have warm and nutritional kai for our tamariki, more so than what is currently being made available.
One of the things that I hear when I visit schools who have internal models is that when they have internal models, they’re able to ask the children and interact with the children on a day-to-day basis and ask them, “How was lunch? Did you enjoy that lunch?” This allows our children to have agency in knowing that they are part of the decision making of lunches at school, and that is only a good thing. We can have jobs for our local communities, and we can build local resilience. So I have full hope and aspirations for our school lunch programmes because I believe in our future.
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise today to talk about health and safety as part of the ACT-National coalition agreement to reform health and safety law and regulation.
When I set out on this project, I had the option of just doing normal Government consultation or doing things a little bit differently, and I decided that it was important to go right around the country and talk to as many real-life Kiwis as possible about their experiences with our health and safety system. I travelled from Whangārei to Bluff, talking to tradies, road workers, farmers, building and construction, people who work in manufacturing—the people who get up every day and go to work, who don’t usually get the time to meet a politician and tell them exactly what they think about the laws and regulations that underpin their work. And the conversations and travels that I had around the country confirmed that there was a need for change.
There is too much red tape and there is too little clarity in our law about what business owners and workers need to do to comply to keep people safe but, importantly, to comply with the law. And because there is a lack of clarity, there is a huge amount of fear in our small businesses. We have heard from the small-business owners and workers that for the big companies out there, they have HR departments, they have people whose whole role is to understand how to comply with Government. But for the small businesses, they are struggling and they are asking for our help.
I had one person talk about how they work in the admin part of their department and at the end of every month they actually laugh together about “Has anybody hurt themselves with a stapler? Because our bosses upstairs need to know that they’ve got some paperwork trail in case things go wrong.” We’ve got too much paperwork and focus on compliance and not on actually reducing real harm and risk at work. That’s why this Government is committed to refocusing our health and safety system on critical risks, things that will hurt people, cause death, serious injury, and illness, and less on sweating the small stuff.
If you think of a couple of the small businesses I’ve recently visited in my Tāmaki electorate, there’s a new Pilates studio, there was a couple of real estate agents, a photography studio, a couple of cafes. There is a local hairdresser. They’re all doing very vital, important work in our local community, but they’re not big, risky operations, so they shouldn’t need to comply with the same standards. That’s what this law is about. It’s for those small retailers and small businesses.
I want to touch on another area, which is land ownership. Now, I travelled around the country and talked to a lot of people, including farmers and iwi, and I really want to express my thanks for their welcome on the land, in particular to Te Arawa. One of the things that I heard was that they have a deep sense of connection to their land. They want to share it with people, but they’re also exceptional business people. One of the decisions that has come out of the WorkSafe decision to prosecute at Whakaari / White Island was that we have a ripple of fear for land ownership across this nation.
I want to open up our great outdoors again for Kiwis. We want farmers, we want iwi, we want council and the Department of Conservation to feel like they can welcome Kiwis without fear of prosecution from WorkSafe so that all of those deer hunters, fishers, people who hike, who tramp, who kayak—I hope that this law change will allow more access to our great outdoors and we remove fear from landowners up and down New Zealand that health and safety law will start creeping into everyday life.
We need to find our way back to common sense and self-responsibility. Yes, we need to focus on harm, real harm, at work, which is why we’re focusing on those critical risks that can cause death and serious injury. But we should also go back to the good old Kiwi way of life, the way that I grew up and the way that my parents grew up and their parents grew up, that we actually have some self-responsibility in our lives.
There is a lot more to come. This is only the first tranche of our reforms. There are months still to come and I cannot wait for people to see what this Government will do for health and safety.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): What we’ve been hearing from the Green Party over the last few days has been—to use their words—“irreverent” and “absurd”, and disgusting, frankly. Without trying to state the obvious, the Greens have lost their way totally. Remember Jeanette Fitzsimons, remember Rod Donald talking about the environment? When was the last time you heard those people talking about the environment? No, these days, they’re focused on basing themselves around the likes of, “I’m a professional protester”, maybe Minto for the last 15 years, that’s all he’s been doing. They’re frothing at the mouth about Gaza, de-funding the Police, the communist economic manifesto, and advocating—and I quote—“puberty blockers and surgery for children on demand”. That’s what that Green Party’s been out there advocating, and all of a sudden, they’ve been found out.
You know something, they’re trying to explain to New Zealand what the term “bussy” means, along with what the blue spiral emoji is, and how an eggplant emoji is—to use their lousy explanation—“just the way the Rainbow community does it”. Oh no they don’t! That ain’t true. We have been emailed and messaged constantly over the last few days from members of the Rainbow community saying they back us, and they are totally disgusted with what Chlöe Swarbrick is trying to say and to justify and to involve them in. Those are the facts. The Greens suffer from the same ignorance as the Māori Party does. They think they speak for Māori. No they don’t! The Green Party thinks they speak on behalf of the Rainbow community. Oh no you don’t! We will not be cowering from asking them the hard questions and finding you out, and very shortly.
New Zealanders are sick of this insipid cancer of “woke” that has crept into our society. New Zealand First declared a war on woke and we are on the front line of it. We will not put up with your bulldust any longer! I got news for you, and it’s all bad.
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Try waking up.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: You’re not getting away with shouting now—
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: OK, I get it sunshine.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh no you don’t! No you don’t! You’re going to be here, gone tomorrow, I’m telling you. You’ll be here like a flash in the pan. I’ve seen your type a thousand times: come today, gone tomorrow, totally forgotten. Look, we packed the James Hay Theatre last weekend, 800 people and more in Christchurch, and they’ve had enough too. When did they ever pack a hall? Couldn’t even pack a telephone booth!
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: I won my seat, how about you?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I won three seats, sunshine, and I’ve been around for decades. You’ll be gone next time! Especially with that loud mouth—especially with that loud mouth. All those protesters and empty shells need to ask themselves a question: do they want to be part of the solution or are they part of the problem? And if you’re part of the problem, then our message to you is pretty clear: get out of the way! Get out of the way!
It’s a disgraceful act for the Greens to say that New Zealand First is—they claim we are fanning the flames about this police matter and a guy called Doyle. Now, you know, we asked a simple question: have you told the police? And guess what! They had all these complaints about threats, but they’d never told the police. How do you like that? Then they decide the best course of action to stop all these complaints being duplicated was to tell the public. Never told the police, just told the public. That’s why it’s a fraud, and it’s not going to be defended! And when we find out what’s on those posts, when we find out what’s criminal about those posts, there’s going to be a day of reckoning. That’s what this is all about. We’re all caught by the same rules here. The Green Party—
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: E noho, koro.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, “E noho.” she says. What a prize toheroa—do you know what toheroa is? Do you know what toheroa is? A long tongue—and you’ve got it. Toheroa, keep quiet.
This is how deluded the Greens are, you know? How deluded the Greens are. How are Doyle’s own social media posts, that he posted himself, suddenly “disinformation”? It’s his post, and the Greens explain that as being disinformation. How is that possible when it’s his posts? Well, there are new things called “self-inflicted disinformation” now. Come on! The fraudulent defence knows no bounds. But you’re not going to win. The Greens are going to be found out! Your high point in politics has come and gone, that’s the reality. What a mess they’re in, the number of people they’ve sacked, one after the other. And as soon as the investigation goes into this guy, when he turns up back here, and he can use all the pronouns he darn likes, our pronouns begin with T and V, they’re truth and verity, that’s what we’re going to have here.
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: New learnings—wake up.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Listen to that, shouting out down there. You know that woman there? She said that she won her seat; no she didn’t. The number of frauds committed by the Green Party in the last election know no bounds. Straight out lied. Straight out got a man called Henare, a respected name, they cheated him of his seat and they’re going to be found out the moment the authorities start doing their jobs. So our conclusion is very, very clear: the public have a right to know who and what they’re voting for, and very shortly they will.
ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is not a Government that is dealing with the cost of living pressures on ordinary New Zealand Kiwis. We’ve got New Zealand First here who are completely distracted by these issues when New Zealanders need advocacy in the supermarkets that are taking $1 million of profit every day out of the pockets of ordinary New Zealanders. This used to be a party that campaigned on the supermarket duopoly and the way that it should be changed. But, instead, we’ve got the party of big business and a party distracted who are the ones who are doing tough talk to any industry that they can get their hands on. They’re saying that the cozy pillow fight is over, that the party’s over, that we’re going to put them on notice again, and again, and again.
The problem with that tough talk and the lack of action is this: New Zealanders are telling their politicians that the cost of living is their number one priority. When they go to the supermarket checkout their groceries are costing them too much. When they are paying their electricity bills, they are too high and under this Government they’re going up this month. Students will be paying more on their student loans. The minimum wage is not keeping up with the cost of living. What does this Government do? It takes a year and a half to ask them what to do.
I’m going to speak directly to the National Party MPs here today who represent the constituents who are being done over by the supermarket duopoly. I’ve got an example here of the Taupō electorate compared to my electorate in Manurewa. New World Tūrangi is one of the many New Zealand supermarkets that has a monopoly over the geography in its catchment. It’s about an hour’s drive to the next competitor of any size, so people are basically captive in that supermarket zone. In a recent survey, University of Sydney researcher Lisa Asher compared a basket of fresh produce and dairy products from New World Tūrangi compared to Pak ’N Save Manukau. At Pak ’N Save the basket of goods was $75.35 and at New World it was $94.82. People in Taupō are paying $20 extra for a small basket of top-up goods every time they go to the supermarket, compared with the competitive market that exists in Manukau where there is choice. That’s because they are forced to choose from a smaller range of products on offer at that supermarket and the prices are higher.
This is an electorate for every MP to deeply care about. This is affecting New Zealanders far more than any tax cut could possibly give them relief. Every time New Zealanders go to the supermarket checkout, they are paying into a system which is taking money straight out of their back pockets over and above the cost of doing business and they need Government intervention. It’s a year and a half to ask for information that this Government’s solution is, when Labour has laid the groundwork for reform. Without the Grocery Commissioner publishing those reports, without the ability to monitor what is going on in the market dynamics in New Zealand, there would be no ability to do this reform. But we have the ability to do it now.
The Government needs to take serious action on the cost of living and this is one thing it could do. And its plan of cutting, cutting, cutting services—to actually help New Zealanders with the costs that are being pushed on to them in their household budget when their wages won’t keep up with their rising costs and they have no solution for their rising rents and rising housing prices in sight. The meetings that Labour will be having in those electorates will make it very clear that National MPs who are concerned about this and the ACT MPs who seem like they won’t support these measures are representing electorates where their people are being fleeced. Small to medium sized businesses who are the suppliers to the duopoly are also being squeezed.
We need politicians who represent these areas to actually want to take action and actually see this through to regulatory change. Because the cost of living is biting for ordinary Kiwis. This month, National’s making life even harder for so many people in our communities. Tens of thousands of workers are, effectively, taking a pay cut because the minimum wage is only rising by 35c, which is below inflation.
We’re talking about working parents when we talk about the effect that the cuts to the school lunches programme are having. These aren’t people who are on benefits; these are people who have had another $150 every week added to their household budgets, like the mum who sent me her breakdown of costs to feed her six children on her one salary. It meant that she was feeding them with basically a sandwich, a fruit, and a muesli bar at lunchtime, and dinners had changed to noodles and two eggs each. That is what ordinary working families are feeding themselves with now in a time when New Zealand produces food and should be somewhere in the world where we can eat well and eat healthily. The supermarket duopoly needs to change. The Government needs to take action right now.
TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’m going to bring some positivity and optimism to the debate this afternoon, unlike the negativity we have just heard for the last five minutes. I want to take colleagues and those watching at home on a tiki tour of the beautiful Bay of Plenty electorate. It’s a powerhouse of growth, innovation, and opportunity leading New Zealand forward. Let’s start with the Port of Tauranga. I took Minister Meager there, alongside my colleague Sam Uffindell, the MP for Tauranga, on Monday. The Port of Tauranga handles nearly half of New Zealand’s exports, but it’s not able to bring in ships big enough because it’s been held up in the Environment Court for nearly seven years.
Under our watch, that will change. We will enable them to have their berth extension and to do the dredging so that we can increase exports in this country, so that we can double them over the next 10 years. That will be great news for the Bay of Plenty, and, actually, it’ll be great news for New Zealand.
Part of my electorate includes Pāpāmoa, and one of the exciting projects we have going on at the moment is the Pāpāmoa East Interchange. I have been working diligently behind the scenes with both the New Zealand Transport Agency and the Minister of Transport to see if we can get one or two of the off-ramps and on-ramps on the Pāpāmoa East Interchange opened early, and I have received good news that that is likely to happen a year in advance of the interchange opening. This is, again, great news for the local Bay of Plenty electorate, where we take cars off already log-jammed roads and enable things like the interchange to have on-ramps and off-ramps opening early. It is a good outcome.
Our Government is turning the tide on crime. For the first time since 2018, violent crime in New Zealand has fallen—
Hon Ginny Andersen: It has not.
TOM RUTHERFORD: —after a 51—oh, it’s ironic to be heckled by Ginny Andersen, the person who oversaw a 51 percent increase in violent crime between 2018 and 2023. We’ve now seen it drop in 2024. Our police are getting back to the basics: 40 percent more foot patrols. Let me be clear to the New Zealand public: foot patrols are a good thing. Seeing your police on the beat is a good thing. We do not want to abolish the police like the Green Party and their mates in the Labour Party are suggesting they want to do. We are simply saying that New Zealand police are a good thing in this country and we want to see them. Our changes with the gang patch ban have been positive for the New Zealand public. We are relentlessly focused on restoring law and order, and these are contributing to us doing that.
Regional Deals. Regional Deals is exciting for both Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty, and it’ll be a good thing. I’m pleased to see that our combined councils of Tauranga City, Western Bay of Plenty District Council, and the regional council have got their things together and got one in, actually. It’s a good thing to get it in on time so that you are in the hunt, and so it’s looking really, really positive.
The Takitimu North Link, a road of national significance, has reached over the halfway point, and this is positive news for the electorate and constituents in the Bay of Plenty, connecting Tauranga and Te Puna; 2,000 people have worked on this road of national significance, moving 1.5 million cubic metres of earth already. It’s not just about concrete and steel, though; it’s about connecting communities. It’s about saving lives by providing safer travel options and driving economic growth in one of New Zealand’s fastest growing regions.
On a lighter note, Pāpāmoa in the Bay of Plenty electorate was recently named New Zealand’s choicest suburb. In Trade Me Property’s People’s Choicest campaign, we received an impressive 42 percent of more than 136,000 votes. The achievement has brought a smile to many constituents in my electorate, and as a proud Pāpāmoa local, I’m delighted but I’m not surprised. Our community offers the perfect balance of coastal lifestyle with urban convenience, and it is the place to be.
In the Bay of Plenty, we don’t just grow kiwifruit; we grow New Zealand’s prosperity. We don’t just export goods; we export opportunity. We don’t just build roads; we build pathways to a safer, stronger future. This is the best job in the world, and it is a privilege to work on behalf of the community in which I have grown up. I’m committed to seeing through this vital work, ensuring the Bay of Plenty’s voice is heard and our potential is realised. The community’s trust in me to represent our beautiful region is something I never take for granted.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is so telling that the National Party members are choosing to use their general debate slots today to launch their re-election campaigns and to put forward their spin and their lines for the next campaign. Paul Goldsmith spent his speech trying to scaremonger about a change of Government. Tom Rutherford is quite clearly worried about losing his seat and is using his general debate slot to campaign for re-election. No confident Government does that. No Government that is proud of their record uses a general debate speech to launch a campaign. But it’s telling, because their record is nothing to be proud of, and it’s so poor and so damaging that they have to make stuff up to try and make it look like they are actually delivering.
This Government has claimed to build 5,000 houses. How many have they built? Zero. They have funded only 750 houses. That doesn’t kick in till the next financial year. Why are people in the Government claiming to have done something that hasn’t happened? It’s because their record on housing is abysmal, it is shameful, and it is causing people to live on the street. Now we have a situation where front-line providers are saying to New Zealanders that this Government’s policies are leading to an increase in homelessness, and we had the Prime Minister stand up today and say that nothing has changed—nothing has changed, he claims. Both can’t be true—both cannot be true. You can’t have front-line providers, using real-life examples—every single day, they say, they are getting people that are coming in, in genuine need, desperate for housing. They go to the Ministry of Social Development and either they get declined or they are told that, because of the Government’s changes in policy, there’s no point in applying. So they’re being prevented from applying or they get declined if they do apply. That is what they are saying.
Let’s look at the proof: a 53 percent increase in homelessness in Auckland in four months; a 37 percent increase, in Wellington, of rough sleeping and a 40 percent increase in homelessness in the last year. Those are the facts. Those are the facts that were outlined not only by the City Mission but by the Salvation Army as well. It would seem to me that they are telling the truth. So why is the Prime Minister saying that nothing has changed? That’s interesting. He’s claiming, in the House, that nothing has changed, except it’s his Government that changed the policy. Those two things don’t marry up. I wonder if he may want to come down to the House and correct his statement, because it is a fact that things have changed, it is his Government that has changed them, and it is his Government that has led to people living on the street. They are living on the street, they are living in cars, they are living in tents, and they are living in garages because this Government isn’t letting them into emergency housing. No one is saying that an emergency housing situation is ideal, but it’s a hell of a lot better than sleeping rough. But that is what’s happening because of this Government.
Let’s look at some more facts: this Government has stopped the expansion of Kāinga Ora homes. They have only funded community housing providers for 750 houses for two years—so 1,500 between two years. That doesn’t kick in till next year. They have changed the criteria, which is preventing people to get into emergency housing, and homelessness has increased by the hundreds since they came in. And the Prime Minister stands up and says nothing has changed. To quote Winston Peters in his general debate speech today, which was allowed to be said in the House, “straight out lies”—that’s a quote from Winston Peters in his speech. If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. “Straight out lies” is what he said, and I would argue that we’ve seen a few today. We have seen a few, and it is outrageous. Why can’t the Government just be upfront with New Zealanders and say, “We don’t believe it’s the Government’s job to provide emergency housing—
Jenny Marcroft: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Just for clarification, the member opposite just made an allegation that Winston Peters was lying.
SPEAKER: No, he didn’t; he referred to the fact that Mr Peters used the term “straight out lies” describing a situation. He then claimed that it was OK for him to use the same terminology for a similar situation. Look, the language in the House changes from time to time. I make the clear distinction between saying to an individual member in the House that they have misled the House with a mistruth as compared to referring to some information that might be put to the House, not necessarily belonging to the member. It’s quite different. Please carry on.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’m not surprised they want to shut me down through points of order, because I think I’m hitting a nerve. Isn’t it interesting? I say, “straight out lies” and they don’t like it. Well, maybe they should face the facts. Your policies, I say to this Government—their policies—are making people homeless. They should be ashamed of themselves. They should be honest with New Zealanders as to the reason why.
Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Over the weekend, I was at Hawke’s Bay Better Home & Living Show. I must say the engagements that we had there—because we had our ACT stall—were great. There were a lot of people coming through and giving us their supportive feedback, and I want to thank each and everybody who stopped by at our ACT Party stall to provide their feedback on how we are doing in Government.
In those conversations, there were conversations about my new bill, which is the Education and Training (Equal Treatment) Amendment Bill. The support for my bill was also huge, and I must tell the House as well that I’ve drafted this bill because I’ve received so much correspondence from students, from parents, even from staff members. I remember when I raised the issue of Auckland University of Technology (AUT) staff members and students getting additional points for their ethnicity if they are Māori and Pasifika to travel to attend a conference or present at a conference. Since that time, a lot of staff members have been in touch and they have been sending their frustrations and experiences, and sharing their experiences with me.
I know that there are a lot of people frustrated about such policies where universities allocate resources on the basis of students’ and staff members’ race. That’s why I have come to this conclusion that we need a legislative mechanism to resolve this issue. So what this bill does is to ensure that public funding for tertiary institutions is race-neutral. But what it allows is allocation of funding and resources on the basis of other factors such as a student’s merit, a student needing academic support, a student’s geographic location, a student’s economic status, a student’s disability.
The other thing which is important to note in this bill is that this bill doesn’t prevent if a private organisation comes along and wants to give money for a particular sector of students. For example, if an iwi comes along and says they want to give scholarships only to Māori students, that is totally fine because that is private money. What this bill does is it just ensures that public funding is allocated in a way that is race-neutral.
There was a lot of positive feedback because we don’t want to see our tertiary institutions allocating funding in a way which is limiting other students from progressing. We don’t want students to be judged on the basis of their race.
While I was receiving this positive feedback, I actually received a stark reminder of why my bill is so important when I saw a social media post. This social media post was from an academic from the University of Auckland, Khylee Quince. She posted on social media. This was citing a headline in one of the media that reported my member’s bill—the title in that media outlet was “ACT MP launches bill to stop universities offering race-based services.” Khylee Quince came on her social media platform and said, “Alternative headline: ‘Immigrant forgets where she lives.’ ” So she decided to attack me on the basis of me being an immigrant. Now, seeing this, I felt quite sad. I felt it’s quite unfortunate for the Dean of Law at AUT to put this kind of comment and attack me because of me being an immigrant.
Now, another concerning thing about this is that the AUT campus—if you go there, you will see so many students from migrant families. And I wonder if they are being shut down by her if these students have differing views—views different from her views. I also want to seek assurance from the Vice-Chancellor of AUT that all voices—voices of all students, including migrant students—are valued at the same level as students of other backgrounds or ethnicities who are considered to be non-migrants. It’s really important to get that kind of assurance.
It was not just one academic who commented; there was another academic from the University of Auckland, Wiremu Tipuna. He is a cultural adviser—that’s the title: a cultural adviser. He referenced my status as an immigrant—totally fine—and then he says, “Stop being the lapdog of my ballhead masters.” These are the kind of comments that these academics are putting on social media. There are a lot of questions to be asked about these people because they are public-facing academics. They’re dealing with these students; many, many students are those who are from migrant backgrounds.
We need to stop this nonsense, and that is what we will do. We all are migrants, and I’m sure that Adam and Eve were not born in New Zealand. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.
Bills
Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill
Second Reading
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I move, That the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill be now read a second time.
Our society abhors sexual violence in all its forms. Our justice response to this and to all forms of serious violence is to be clear about our denunciation of it, through real consequences in sentencing and by protecting our society from the worst offenders, combined with a wider effort to provide programmes to treat offenders and to change attitudes. Our focus as a Government is on the victims of crime, and these two proposed changes will help ensure victims of crime are put at the heart of the justice system, so I’m very pleased to present this bill to the House.
Victims of sexual violence are particularly vulnerable because of the invasive and traumatising nature of this kind of violence. The violation of a person’s body, mind, and spirit causes long-term damage to their sense of self and wellbeing. The court processes can cause further harm, and we’re committed to improving this experience.
The bill addresses two longstanding issues with current legislative settings for sexual violence: the relevance of consent in cases where the child is a victim, and barriers that name suppression presents to victims speaking out about their experiences. In short, the Government has amended the bill at the select committee stage to ensure that convicted adult sex offenders will not get name suppression unless the victim agrees.
The first part of the bill is focusing on amending the Crimes Act to stop, in most cases, child victims of sexual violence being questioned about their consent. The Crimes Act includes sexual violence that is applicable to the general population, as well as some that are specific for offending against children and young people. For example, the core offence of sexual violations can be charged no matter how old the victim is. The offence of sexual connection with a child, on the other hand, only applies to a victim under 12. These two offences are where this bill makes necessary changes to better support child victims.
Under the offence of sexual connection with a child, consent is not relevant. In fact, the section clearly states consent is not a defence. Under sexual violation, lack of consent and lack of reasonable belief in consent are key elements that must be proved. This means consent is highly relevant in the courtroom, and children can be cross-examined about what they wanted, asked for, or even enjoyed in the sexual activity. Most would agree that this is unacceptable, but that’s how the current law works.
The bill addresses an unintended consequence of a previous amendment that created a discrepancy between the charges. We’ve heard heartbreaking stories about the impact on some of the most vulnerable victims. Sexual offending against children should be subject to the same penalty as offending against adults; certainly not a lesser one. To address the issue, the bill makes two complementary changes to the Crimes Act: it amends the sexual connection with a child charge so that the maximum penalty is 20 years, and it amends sexual violation—where consent is highly relevant—so that the offence does not apply if the victim is under 12 years.
These changes, together, will stop in most cases, child victims facing harmful lines of questioning when giving evidence or being cross-examined. Asking, suggesting, or even implying that vulnerable children consented to sexual activity is not what New Zealanders expect, and that’s why this law should be changed.
The second part of the bill amends the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, to clarify and strengthen name suppression settings for complainants in sexual violence proceedings. Name suppression plays a role in supporting and protecting a victim’s privacy during a deeply personal and difficult time. It’s crucial for the law to continue protecting victims of sexual violence, and it’s also important to recognise that not everybody wants protection in this way. Silencing victims who wish to speak out publicly can lead to increased isolation and exacerbate existing trauma through the further removal of control, and denial of personal agency. Some victims want others to know what happened to them; providing victims with choice and autonomy can empower victims.
The bill supports this autonomy in three areas. It specifies in law both the importance of protecting complainants’ privacy and of supporting their autonomy, and it broadens victim automatic name suppression to include all offences of a sexual nature. Thirdly, it requires the agreement of victims for permanent name suppression to be granted to persons convicted of sexual crimes.
So let’s just go through them. First, the bill clarifies the process of lifting automatic name suppression. The Criminal Procedure Act allows eligible adults to apply to have their automatic suppression lifted, and complainants have the right to know what their options are in this regard. Unfortunately, very little information is available about how this actually works. A lack of information is disempowering. We know that some victims have paid for expensive independent legal advice to help them through the process, which is an additional burden to them and their families. This bill addresses that burden. It creates a simpler, streamlined, and accessible process. The bill requires all applications to lift the automatic suppression to be made in accordance with the criminal procedure rules, which set out a new step-by-step process for doing that.
Name suppression can be a useful tool to support victims. However, it’s only provided to victims of a small range of specified crimes. This means that other victims of crimes of a sexual nature are not automatically protected. Crimes that relate to intimate visual recordings offences fall into that category. This inconsistency means that some victims of sexual violence crimes have to apply to the court to have name suppression. This can sometimes cause distress and worry that they may be publicly named without their knowledge or agreement. The bill seeks to change section 203 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 so that victims of all types of sexual offenders will be given automatic name suppression.
The third area is a change to the bill that will provide autonomy to victims in relation to permanent name suppression. Data shows that in 2023, permanent name suppression was granted to 76 individuals convicted of one or more sexual offences, and of course many more fought long and hard during the courts to achieve that and didn’t succeed but in the process added substantially to the trauma for the victims. Permanent name suppression for perpetrators can provide victims with privacy. However, it can also further traumatise victims. Currently, the court decides whether to grant permanent name suppression orders for convicted persons, although they must take the views of the victim into account.
We know that sometimes these permanent orders are made even though the victim does want to speak out. Permanent name suppression of convicted sexual offenders does not enable the victim to talk about what happened to them with other people, for fear of breaching that name suppression. It doesn’t enable them to warn others, and victims and their advocates have told us that not being able to talk about what happened to them and to warn others is a terrible position to be in. It makes victims feel silenced, it imposes a stigma that they have to carry, and it can drag on for years.
I acknowledge that this is a significant change and may be perceived as limiting judicial discretion. However, we believe it’s justified and we believe that we do need to do things differently in this space. If we’re serious about being a victims-focused justice system, I think this is the sort of thing that we need to consider and do. This bill places the power in the hands of the victims to decide whether name suppression will be allowed.
We’ve heard from victim advocates that placing this autonomy in the hands of victims will help with the healing. It will empower victims by putting their views first and ensure the openness of court proceedings and hold people convicted of sexual account offences to account. Now, a number of people have raised the concern “Well, would this put unwanted pressure on victims to have to make such a decision?” So we’ve been very clear in this legislation, as it’s drafted, that no victim has to do anything if they don’t want to. If they don’t want to have to make that decision, they don’t feel comfortable about it, and they don’t respond to questions about it, that’s fine. Then it will revert to the current process where the court decides on name suppression. So it’s only for those who want it. But we think it’s an important message to send that if you’re convicted of a serious sexual offence, part of the punishment is that people will know about it and you’ll have to face the consequences of doing that. It is only if the victim has actually agreed with the idea of permanent name suppression.
I’m proud to bring this bill to the House because I think of what it means for victims. I want to acknowledge those who have provided their input, particularly victims, their families, and advocates who have shared their stories so we can improve our system. I want to thank the Justice Committee for all the hard work that it’s done. Thank you very much.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Labour stands in support of this bill because it aligns with our fundamental commitment to protecting victims, particularly children, ensuring that they’re not subject to further harm or distress within our criminal justice system. This bill will fit squarely into our view that we need to continue to strengthen the rights of victims in New Zealand, particularly victims of sexual violence. It builds on our strong track record of making sure that we have those supports in place for victims of crime. We boosted the Victims Assistance Scheme, providing 10,000 more grants to victims of serious crime; we doubled the funding of Victim Support; and we also established Te Aorerekura, New Zealand’s very first action plan to get rid of or reduce family and sexual violence. Along with this, we also increased legal aid access for over 93,000 people, removing some of those barriers to accessing justice.
This bill started out as a Labour bill and it’s had some add-ons in it as it’s moved through the Justice Committee, but it is another bill ensuring our justice system serves and protects the victims of crime and does not, hopefully, retraumatise them through the justice process.
The bill makes two big amendments that I will speak to briefly. The first one is protecting child victims from further trauma. This was an issue that was raised by members of the women’s caucus in the last parliamentary term when it came to light, through a court case, that the defence of consent could be used where there was a sexual violation trial that involved a child—someone 12 or under. We found this absolutely abhorrent and took action to make changes so that the law did not enable this defence to be used in New Zealand. Currently, the offence of sexual violation under the Crimes Act 1961 requires the issue of consent to be considered even when the victim is a child under 12 years. We consider this to be unacceptable and we commend the Government on continuing to pass this legislation. This bill amends the law so the offence is instead classified as “sexual connection” with a child, eliminating any requirement for the child victim to be questioned about consent. It’s quite alarming that our law still had this in it, to be frank. This change ensures that the focus remains where it should be: on holding offenders accountable without subjecting young victims to unnecessary and traumatic cross-examinations throughout the court process. Additionally, the bill increases the maximum penalty for this offence to align with that of sexual violation. This sends a clear message that offences against children will be treated with the utmost seriousness, and we support this strongly.
Under Part 2 of this bill—in the current law, complainants of sexual violence cases are automatically granted name suppression to protect their privacy. While this is important, it’s also of note that some victims do not in fact want this protection. And as the Minister of Justice has noted, for those who want to speak out, the process of lifting name suppression can be slow, difficult, and costly. This bill proposes to give complainants more autonomy by making it easier to lift name suppression if they chose to do so. It also extends automatic name suppression to all victims of sexual offences, including victims of intimate visual recording offences, to ensure consistency and to prevent further distress. It also requires the views of the victims to be paramount when the court considers suppressing the name of a convicted offender.
Currently, the court makes the final decision on whether to suppress the name of a convicted sex offender, taking into account the views of the victim. However, this bill changes that and it essentially, almost, gives a veto right to the victim on that name suppression. We do have some reservations about that because we hear from victim advocates that there are some concerns about the weight or the pressure placed upon a victim, particularly given the bill doesn’t have any minimum age for that, so it could be quite a young victim of a sexual violence offence who has then been given the ability to choose on name suppression. There have been concerns raised within advocacy groups that this potentially places too heavy a weight on a victim of crime.
Also it’ll be interesting—and I hope things go well—particularly in cases where there are multiple victims of sexual violence. We know, through the courts, there can be one sexual offender and multiple victims. Those victims can even be from the same family group in a small town in New Zealand. There may be instances where some of the older victims wish for the offender to have name suppression lifted, but some of those younger victims may not, and it is unclear in this bill whose views preside and how we work through those issues, if it’s unclear. It’s important to put victims at the centre of our justice system, but not to put undue pressure or weight upon them in a process that is already incredibly traumatising for victims of crime.
Despite these concerns, we believe that the positive impact of this bill far outweighs any potential drawbacks, and we support the bill because it prioritises victims’ rights while addressing the most urgent issues in the legal framework.
I’d like to conclude by saying that the best way to reduce victims of both family violence and sexual violence is to make it as easy as possible to report crime. We know that roughly 20 percent of family violence and sexual violence currently gets reported. The best way to increase reporting is to make sure that when someone reaches out for help, it is there and available. Currently, we have defunding of some front-line services that provide those supports. We also have police stepping back from attending family violence unless there’s a risk to life or it’s at a very high risk. The real problem with the approach taken by the Government is it disincentivises people to report, it disincentivises more help to be provided to people who need assistance, and it stops families from getting early intervention in situations that may potentially escalate further. Also, just having a blind target of reducing victims of crime without providing support services is not a great way to go about reducing victims of crime. It essentially looks at sweeping things under the carpet instead of actually providing the adequate and needed support services to increase the 20 percent reporting rate that we currently have now.
So while we commend the Government for passing a bill that started with us, there’s a long way to go from those on the opposite side of the House before we actually start addressing some of the core drivers of family violence and sexual violence that continue to exist within New Zealand.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to also support this bill in its second reading, the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. I would like to acknowledge the fact that this particular bill was introduced by the previous Government and has been taken up by the current Government as well because it is an important thing to address.
I know that quite a few people have already mentioned—in terms of the context of this bill, but just to reiterate—that this bill has two broader components to it. The first part is around amending the Crimes Act 1961 to address issues relating to children and consent, and the second part is to amend the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 to modify provisions relating to automatic name suppression for complainants.
In terms of the select committee process—I know that this is a second reading, so we do tend to talk about what happened during the select committee. During the select committee stage, we received 50 written submissions and also eight oral submissions, and I would like to thank the Justice Committee for their continued sensitivity around really emotional, really traumatic topics such as this. Broadly speaking, we have received a lot of support for this bill. We received 43 submissions that support this bill, and a number of people have commented on the specific details of the bill as well, which we can address in due time.
Considering the content and context of this bill, I would really like to acknowledge our first Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, the Hon Marama Davidson, as well as the introduction of Te Aorerekura: National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence, as an important step to address this incredibly serious and actually quite systemic and endemic issue in Aotearoa New Zealand. I’d also like to thank our colleagues in the Labour Party and also Te Pāti Māori for the support around this strategy in the last term. Also, we look forward to the reiteration and the continued improvements of Te Aorerekura by the current Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence.
In terms of the context of this bill, the first part is around the Crimes Act. It is a concern right now, particularly when we’re looking at a victim-centred approach around how we do not traumatise and retraumatise complainants. I think, in the first part of this, the bill is aiming to address, in terms of section 132 of the Crimes Act, the offence of sexual violation: that it cannot be charged if the victim is under 12 years old. Instead the charge will be sexual connection with a child. This would reduce the risk that the child must undergo questioning about sexual consent while giving evidence in a court. I think this is an incredibly serious issue for the right of the child and also in terms of our international obligations as well.
But I would like to speak predominantly around the second prong of this, which is the automatic name suppression for complainants. As we’ve heard from some of the speakers already, we’re looking at—particularly in the case of domestic and sexual violence—a case of power dynamics as well, not only in terms of traumatisation but how do we empower the victims to be able to do what they need to do.
I think, as we see in the departmental report, that this particular automatic name suppression under the Criminal Procedures Act 2011 wasn’t done as intended. It was with the very best of intentions; it’s supposed to be a mechanism that protects the complainants, but instead it actually has the counter effect of people who would like to go through the process of lifting name suppression being burdened by some of the processes and bureaucracy that we see in the current system and the implication when it comes to lifting such name suppression.
As we’ve seen in other cases in this House, particularly when it comes to family and sexual violence, there’s been a number of pieces of legislation that the Greens have actually supported because we genuinely believe they take a very victim-centred approach. For example, in the bill that came up last year around litigant abuse, this was something that the Green Party very much supported because, again, we understand that when a complainant makes a case, particularly towards domestic or sexual abuse, often there is a power imbalance with that. That particular legislation around addressing litigant abuse is a very important step towards ensuring that we have the same equitable access to justice as required, basically, by our rule of law and the very basis of our judiciary system.
But, just again, on the automatic name suppression, I think that in the context of this, although this was brought to the House for its first reading in 2023, we have seen global movements around the empowering of complainants when it comes to them being allowed to waive that name suppression. I really want to highlight and acknowledge Gisèle Pelicot from France in terms of the case that went through the French court last year, as someone who has faced horrendous abuse by her ex-husband—you know, severe abuse—and the courage and the bravery it took for her to waive that name suppression, for her story to be told, for her to regain her dignity. I think this is the crux of the bill that we are looking at here, which is why this is something that we support and we think it is important to address.
Finally, I think that when we’re looking at this there are definitely parts of this bill that we are looking forward to engaging with the Minister of Justice on, during the committee stage, in terms of some of the specificity. Again, these are some of the areas that came up in the select committee process. We would like to sort of look at and have that genuine discussion with the Minister around ways of clarifying, but also elucidating, the intent of the bill and how some of the things are going to be working in a way that ensures that by removing one layer of barriers to a victim we don’t unintentionally bring in another barrier to the victim again. The original purpose and intent of this bill that was brought forward was because the original intent of automatic name suppression—which has the best intents and purposes—didn’t perform as intended. So we just want to make sure that something like this has those kind of checks and balances in place so that we don’t have to come back in a few years’ time to relitigate something like this because we have found that the processes that were put forward have somehow inadvertently traumatised or retraumatised complainants.
Finally, I would like to touch more broadly on some of the elements when it comes to access to justice and the way that we address issues of domestic and family and sexual violence more broadly within our criminal justice system. I think there’s been a lot of really important work that’s been done recently both by legal academics and researchers but also by grassroots community organisations around the fact that we do need to look at the way that we address this. Because our current legal system may not be fit for purpose and may not provide the kind of protection for victims and does not necessarily have the right settings to actually ensure that offenders and perpetrators understand generally our pathway for rehabilitation without actually seeing it as something—and being defensive about their actions and actually worsening a situation. This is something that we have seen in our court system as a concern by complainants in the way that they make those complaints in the first place.
I also just want to finally touch on the fact that we are still seeing that there is this inaccessibility to justice through things like sufficient support to legal aid, because a lot of the complainants in these situations may not be in the financial situation to actually go through the incredibly expensive court system.
So there is definitely a broader conversation to be had, but we are really happy to support this bill and we look forward to the committee stage.
LAURA McCLURE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise, for the ACT Party, in support of the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. It’s not often that we are all on the same page in the House, but today is one of those days. Firstly, I’d like to thank the Labour Party for bringing this bill forward in the previous Parliament, and it’s here today. Not always do they cuddle criminals; sometimes, there are actually times when we’re wanting to put the victims first.
The main provisions of this bill—I guess, one of the first main provisions that stands out for me—is that we are actually amending the Act to include or to have a maximum prison time of 20 years, which actually brings it in line for that of sexual offending against an adult. I don’t know about you, but I’m actually horrified and I can’t believe that sexual connection with a child was considered potentially a lesser sentence. I’m absolutely appalled every time I open up the news and I see some kind of sexual offending against our children, if not some of our most vulnerable people.
I just want to highlight some headlines, and this is a bit of a dark side of New Zealand, in a way, you can say. Five days ago: “Palmerston North man jailed for sex abuse, sentenced to seven years”. Two days ago: “Serial sexual predator jailed for child sex abuse in Auckland after acquittal in a dog indecency case”—then sentenced for sexual abuse of a six-year-old child; two years’ imprisonment. This person is a registered sex offender with 45 years of offences—two years is absolutely disgusting, and it must stop. A couple of years ago: “Northland man jailed for 13 years of historic abuse of six boys”—six boys, and only 13 years. Imagine those six lives that are completely and utterly changed for ever. A man jailed for sex crimes in Timaru last year—for two brothers—3½ years only. I know Mr Meager is in the House, and I remember actually forwarding this to him and being outraged at the time. Yes, this happened when this offender was in their youth, but 3½ years—for those two brothers, that is their lives that are completely changed for ever.
So, firstly, I think the fact that we are now going to be sentencing based on a maximum penalty of 20 years is a good start. But we want to actually see those sentences. The New Zealand public out there want to know that the victims are actually being put first, and we want to make sure that they’re relevant for the crimes. So it’s a really important piece of this bill and how it actually works.
Broadening the automatic victim name suppression to include all offences of a sexual nature—and I think this part is really important, too—because there are times when a victim may not be identified and actually that part of evidence may be used and they may not even know that they are involved with this, which is actually quite scary. I think about the case that Lawrence Xu-Nan was talking about earlier, in France. Imagine if you didn’t know that you were one of those victims and you didn’t have any name suppression and you’re watching the news unfold and it turns out you know that person and you are potentially one of those victims. The fact that, at the moment, you actually have to go and be granted, or apply, if you are knowingly a potential victim is absolutely outrageous. I think to do that automatically is a really good change to the law.
Look, I think this has been well litigated. My point here would be that the ACT Party always supports the victims first when it comes to crime. Yes, there is opportunity for rehabilitation, for prevention, but when we’re talking about sexual offences and we’re talking about our kids, as a parent and as a person, I cannot think of anything more damaging that could happen to one person in their life and that would just carry on throughout. So I think we need to really think about our sentencing and how we actually take that into account—the whole picture, the whole damage, the whole lives that are actually affected by this type of offending. Thank you.
Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Police): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. I think first we have to pause with a degree of tragedy and sadness that this type of offending is not only prevalent but it is victimising younger and younger victims, and our ability to stop it is requiring us to be a lot smarter, a lot stronger, and a lot more decisive in our policing actions.
It highlights, again, how important our police service is, because anyone who deals with this type of offending, you are forever traumatised by it and it takes a special level of skill and compassion and capability for those police officers to have to deal with this. To deal with the victims is a tragedy. To deal with the offenders and walk away feeling whole is even harder because the nature of investigations of this is that you do have to build a rapport with your offenders and you do have to try and get into their minds and it’s a dark, dark place to get out of.
As the Minister of Customs, I’m also aware of the prevalence of the intimate visual recording, and the team that is involved in policing that offending is also a very special unit of enforcement people who have to be given full credit for the nature of what they deal with on a daily basis.
But I’ll take us back to the bill and the importance of this piece of legislation to, first of all, provide some consistency around the offending and recognising that the fact that a child cannot consent should have been taken as read. It is an anomaly that urgently needs to be fixed, and I applaud the members across the House for taking immediate action to get this under way, and also recognise the work of the Justice Committee to use this as an opportunity to tighten up a range of issues that this bill has identified.
It allows us to bring some consistency, bring some protections and, yet again in this House, highlight how important it is to drive accountability for offenders—that this is important that we protect victims, but it is equally important that we have ability to protect our communities from these predators that have lost humanity when they are prepared to victimise such young children, which is too regular an occurrence.
The name suppression component is, I think, one of the areas where, having dealt with a number of victims—the sense of being able to take control of your destiny, to be able to determine whether you choose to be held in the dark on this or whether you choose to stand up and shine light on the abhorrent behaviour. And we’ve seen a number of cases in New Zealand as well where victims have chosen to not hide in the shadows; to speak out and to put the shame where it should lie and offload the shame from themselves. That is an incredibly brave and important action, and the fact that this legislation will put that power squarely in the hands of the victims is something that we in New Zealand First applaud and recognise the important work that this committee has brought to the House today.
There is a lot of work still to be done in this space, and as we on this side of the House—where we try to put the victim ahead, this is just another step in the right direction. I think that we have an opportunity here when we recognise these pieces of legislation, with support across the House, that we can achieve really powerful things in the protection of our victims in New Zealand. But more importantly, how much work we have to do to make sure that those that commit these offences are not only held accountable, that our communities are protected from them, and the lengthening of prison sentences is a reality. It is something I have said repeatedly in the House: that sometimes we have to have penalties, not because we think they’re a deterrent but this is a nice political thing to do. But sometimes we have to protect our most vulnerable from predators who will continue to make more victims unless we keep our society safe from them.
In concluding, I would like to acknowledge first those that work in this enforcement space—those hard-working and dedicated detectives and investigators that are constantly out there dealing with the very worst of society, and that they are the ones that help combat this battle, and that this piece of legislation will allow us to contribute to better outcomes for our victims in New Zealand. I commend the bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call between Te Pāti Māori and Te Pāti Kākāriki.
TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau): E te Pīka. Matua, Tama, Wairua Tapu me ngā Anahera Pono me te Māngai hei tautoko mai, aianei, ake nei, āe. E te Whare, ka nui te mihi ki a koutou katoa i konei e whai wāhi ana ki tēnei kaupapa hirahira. Ki a tātou kaitautoko i tēnei Pire, tēnei te mihi. Ka huri hoki ki a tātou kaitaua, ki a rātou e mate ana i raro i te kino o te tutu moepuku. Tēnei te tangi, tēnei te mihi aroha.
[I acknowledge the Speaker. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Faithful Angels, supported by the Mouthpiece, Amen. To the House, I give special thanks to all gathered here participating in this important topic. I thank all the supporters of this bill. I turn my attention to the brave ones, those who suffered at the hands of the immoral manipulators. I cry, and send my sympathy.]
I stand today on behalf of Te Pāti Māori, as the member of Parliament for Tāmaki Makaurau, in firm support of the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. It is deeply troubling that in Aotearoa in 2025, we are still amending laws that have historically done more to protect predators than their victims.
There is no good reason why a child under 12 years old should be questioned in a courtroom about whether they wanted or asked for what happened to them. The extension of automatic name suppression to all victims of sexual offences just makes sense, but what I commend the Minister of Justice for today is the amendment that gives victims the power to determine whether their predators are granted permanent name suppression.
This is significant because heinous sexual crimes such as those committed, as I understand, in the 1990s—which a political party and leader in this House were alerted to in November 2022—were kept silent. The leader, who is soon to be Deputy Prime Minister, referred the victim’s family to a lawyer of his choosing and remained silent while this criminal, Tim Jago, continued to serve as the president of the ACT Party. Tim Jago’s identity was kept secret—a secret for 737 days—following his conviction in January 2023 for fear of swaying the electoral result, depriving New Zealanders of the right to be informed about who was leading a political party in this House—
Simon Court: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think this matter has been well canvassed outside this House. I’d just like to ask the Speaker for his guidance. Given that that matter was subject to court orders and that the ACT Party—which the speaker referred to—had no influence and took no part in influencing those court orders, I’d like the Speaker to consider whether the ongoing description of that as being associated with the ACT Party, while it’s certainly not true, is helpful to the debate and the maintenance of the order of this House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I’m just going to take some advice on that. Thank you very much for the point of order. I acknowledge that a lot of this has already been in the public domain, so that is acknowledged. But I’d also draw the House’s attention to Standing Order 121, “Personal reflections”, where it says that “A member may not make an imputation of improper motives against a member, an offensive reference to a member’s private affairs or a personal reflection against a member.” So, as the member continues her speech, may I ask her to stick to the confines of the bill. I think the point the member was making has been made, and I would encourage the member to use that time accordingly.
TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This legislation can’t come soon enough and will disincentivise those gross criminals from pursuing permanent name suppression and further destroying the lives of their victims. It is a stain on this very House and on the political party for betraying the trust of New Zealanders and for exploiting laws—
Simon Court: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Given that you’ve just provided direction to the House and to the specific member about Standing Order 121 not to reflect by imputing improper motives against a member’s private affairs, this member was speaking—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The point is taken. I understand the point of order.
Simon Court: Right. So I’d just ask that you—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yes.
Simon Court: —enforce your direction now.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): So if I can ask the member to continue to—the point has been made around the information that is in the public domain. But, as I said on Standing Order 121, I ask the member to refrain in the remainder of the speech in terms of connecting it to the imputation of improper motives to another member of this House.
TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP: Protecting our tamariki is our fundamental duty—
Tom Rutherford: Stop reading.
TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP: —yet the system has failed them, allowing children to be questioned as if responsible for their own abuse. This bill ends that injustice. A child under 12 cannot and should not be asked about consent, because consent is never a factor in their lives.
For too long, victims have been silenced. This bill ensures their voices are heard and protected. Automatic name suppression safeguards their healing, shields them from public scrutiny, and allows them to reclaim their stories on their own terms. This bill is a step in the right direction, but is it is only the beginning. Te Pāti Māori will always stand with survivors, we will always challenge the laws that uphold colonial systems of silence and suppression, and we will always demand better from this House.
This is about our mokopuna, this is about the survivors, and this is about ensuring that we put these laws in place to protect whānau. Ka tika te whakataukī, “Ka whati te tī, ka wana te tī, ka rito te tī.”
[The proverb that is apt here is “When the shoot is destroyed, it sprouts again, and it thrives.”]
Though we have seen harm, we now have the chance to rebuild and strengthen. To every survivor, to every whānau affected, and to every advocate who has fought for this change, mea tātou hei whakatika—it is on us to make this right. Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Just before I take the next call, I just want to draw members’ attention to Speaker’s ruling 52/6: “Where possible, members should not read speeches. However, no member, other than the Speaker, may interrupt the speaker who is speaking to suggest a breach of this convention,”. So when you speak up and say that someone’s reading a speech, actually, I can see that that’s happening, but that can be considered to be disorderly.
TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): E te Māngai o te Whare, thank you for allowing us to take a call on this, and I will be supporting this bill on behalf of Te Pāti Kākāriki. But I do want to acknowledge the speaker before me, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, for her insights and for her honest and raw kōrero. I know that it can be confronting for some to hear, but I’m glad that you are speaking truth to that, given that victims weren’t able to speak truth to that for a long time during the election.
So in terms of this bill, this is about people who have been victims of sexual violence. When reading about the bill and following it through, it reminded me of a time in 2020 when I supported a large group of women here in Wellington who had been sexually abused by a prominent musician group in our city. That was really hard because so many of those young women didn’t want to speak up because they wanted to protect their own identities. Some wanted to go through the court system, some didn’t. Some just wanted accountability. Some were afraid of accusing people with big names of the sexual harm that they had caused, and that was a blockage to their path towards the justice that they wanted.
So very much aware of the barriers that exist within our justice system for victims of sexual violence who are pursuing different pathways of justice. When we talk about victims, there’s not one solitary kind of uniform path that all victims want to take. Sometimes it is in the courts and sometimes it’s not. But I can understand why a large number of victims of sexual violence do not choose to go through the courts, and that’s because of the scrutiny that they’re subjected to. It’s always, you know, “What were you wearing? What were you doing? What did you do to encourage someone else to violate your rights?” That, to me, is wrong.
But it’s even more wrong and sinister and cruel to do that to children, because their brains are still developing, they’re still trying to understand the world. They see everything in those positive lights, and to cross-examine a child about something that happened to them—of such a disgusting, just inexcusable nature—is wrong. So I’m glad that we are supporting this bill today, so that children don’t have to defend themselves in courtrooms for violence that happens towards them.
I wanted to also note a case that went through the courts in October last year, which was between ACC and a woman who had been sexually abused during her childhood from the age of two to 17. At the time last year, if you had been the victim of sexual violence as a child, you weren’t able to be compensated for that violence and for the loss that it caused you in your adulthood if you didn’t report that violence as a child. Thanks to this brave woman and her legal team, in particular Beatrix, one of her lawyers, they appealed that decision by the courts. They took it to the Court of Appeal and now any survivors of sexual violence who were violated as children are able to be compensated due to that. And that could look like 100,000 people being eligible for support from ACC to the sum of $3.6 billion. So that’s a really great thing that is also happening to support victims of sexual violence.
I just wanted to conclude our support for this bill by acknowledging some local organisations here in Wellington who made really great submissions on this bill. It wasn’t an easy topic to hear about at all—discussions of consent in children and their experiences in the courtroom. It was really difficult to listen to. But I’m grateful for the advocates and the experts from TOAH-NNEST, from Thursdays in Black, and from Wellington Sexual Abuse Help, who helped to inform this conversation.
Finally, I want to say thank you to our Labour whānau over here for bringing this bill to the House in the first instance and for making these discreet changes to our legal system which will protect survivors and make sure that, especially, children aren’t re-traumatised and re-victimised in their pursuit of justice for them. Kia ora koutou katoa.
TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I welcome Helen White to take the call if she would like—I see her rise to her feet—but I suspect she’s probably next, would be my assumption.
I do want to reiterate some of the comments made by previous speakers. This is a bill that was brought forward previously by the previous Labour Government, picked up by the Minister of Justice, Paul Goldsmith, and continued on. So it does show the support of the bill from both sides of the House, previously led by Labour and carried on by the National Party, and shows that there is some agreement around what is actually being done through this legislation.
The bill does seek to secure and strengthen legislative safeguards for victims of sexual violence when they participate in the court process, and it is focusing on two particular pieces of legislation, the Crimes Act 1961—probably before you were born, Mr Speaker; I’d hate to make an assumption of your age, but easily quite considerably before you were born that legislation was there—and the Criminal Procedure Act 2011. Not so sure on that one, Mr Speaker; I’d hate to make any comments regarding that, but it is focused on those two pieces of legislation.
For the Crimes Act 1961, it’s to address issues relating to children and consent. To the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, it’s to modify provisions relating to name suppression and it’s that that I want to focus on in particular. The changes being made as the part of the bill around the Criminal Procedures Act 2011 are to clarify and strengthen name suppression settings for complainants in sexual violence proceedings. It specifies in law both the importance of protecting a complainant’s privacy, and of supporting their autonomy, and also broadens the victim’s automatic name suppression to include all offences of a sexual nature and requires the agreement of the victim for permanent name suppression to be granted to persons convicted of sexual crimes. That’s a good thing. It puts the power of the decision making around name suppression in the hands of the victim rather than leaving it to the person convicted of the crimes.
That’s a positive step to ensure that those people who commit these heinous crimes can’t hide behind the secrecy anymore. If the victim of the crime is comfortable to say, “Yes, I want to waive the right of permanent name suppression.” for them as the victim, then it should be the exact same thing for the person who was convicted of committing these heinous, heinous crimes in New Zealand. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.
HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you. The member Tom Rutherford, who just spoke, is exactly right. I was leaping up to take a call, inspired by the speeches in the House, from every side, in support of this piece of legislation. I picked up the family and sexual violence portfolio for Labour, and it was a very heavy portfolio to pick up. I have known people who have been affected by sexual violence, and that’s not a surprise, because one in six New Zealanders is affected in this way.
The issue of violence and sexual violence towards children—and that’s what it is—is one that I think we do need to acknowledge has a special element. It doesn’t mean that anything that’s happening to adults is anything but terrible, but when this behaviour occurs, the very nature of childhood changes. You take away a child’s childhood when that happens to them.
It is astonishing that we had a law that suggested that sexual connection with a child was a 14-year sentence, whereas there was a more serious crime, which involved looking at whether there was consent and really begged the question as to whether you should charge under the other Act so that you could get a 20-year maximum sentence. It did suggest that we were not treating one of these crimes as serious or as seriously, and it surely is. It’s surely a terrible thing.
The legislation that comes before the House today is legislation that was thought of as part of a whole group of reforms, and that framework is something I’d like to talk about for a minute, because it was part of a group of reforms called Better Outcomes for Victims, and it involved a New Zealand pilot—actually, three New Zealand pilots—that started in July of 2023. One of those is actually happening until, I think, the end of this month at Manukau District Court, and two are at Whangārei.
The one at Manukau is a real collaboration between the Ministry of Justice, the Police, Oranga Tamariki, and community groups, and it seeks to wrap around a victim and provide things like the capacity for the victim to have the evidence heard in a child sexual case. They can do that outside of the courtroom setting. The one in Whangārei involves looking at bail, it looks at speeding up things, and it looks at safety plans around the victim. All of those trials wrap up in the next month, and there is a report on the results, as I understand it, that has yet to be published.
We will see the outcomes from those trials, and I will be making sure that I know what the Government is going to do with regard to those trials, because from what I can see, it sounds like they have been successful in many ways. The idea of this legislation was that it was part of a strengthening process for victims. These trials are really pivotal to making that real for victims beyond this. I urge the Government to make sure that they keep the feet to the fire of their Minister with regard to those trials, because changes in the law only work if they’re part of a framework of changes in our courts as well.
The legislation is an interesting change. We’ve talked about the one which is about really making sure that children are no longer subject to any kind of inquiry about consent. But there are also changes here to suppression orders. I take the point made by others that it’s a real balancing act, trying to create the kind of autonomy that people need, who are victims, to make their own decisions. But there is also a point that’s made in the Labour Party’s report after the select committee that there’s a concern that we can’t be too foolish about the nature of some of the stresses on children, for example. If a child is being asked whether they consent to a suppression order, they do it within a context, so it’s going to be really important that we don’t put weight on children, which is inappropriate to them being children, because, as I said at the beginning of this speech, the very acts that they have been subject to have taken away so much childhood, and to treat them as mini adults in that way and ask them to have that weight is really asking a bit much, so I think we have to be very careful about how we pursue that one. It’s just simply not easy.
There’s also the issue of multiple victims, because, in many of these experiences, a predator doesn’t just create one victim. The predator will continue to act in that way because they have crossed some line in their own head that justifies this kind of action, and so it’s really important that people in this situation accept that there’s more than one victim and that there will be different victims out there who might want this treated differently as well. One victim in a family might well wish to have the name of the perpetrator out there. Another one may, for all sorts of reasons, not wish that to be. While I take the point made by the New Zealand First speaker tonight that there is an issue where we should be celebrating people’s lack of shame when they come forward and are willing to say that this has happened to them, it’s not their shame; that’s a really important point.
The other issue with regard to that is we should respect how much harm this does to people and we should respect their wishes. There is bravery in any action to stop this kind of behaviour and hold people to account. That is not an easy process. We have a duty to make it a lot better than it is, but I would not be judging anyone who decided that they did not want to share the information in this way. I hope I’ve made my point that the Labour Party takes this issue very seriously.
This is legislation I can be proud to say started under the Labour Party. It’s part of a wider context. There is, actually, a very good report that came out, and it was the Green Minister who headed that, on sexual and family violence. It’s been updated recently. Everybody within the Parliament does seem to be more aware than they have been about how serious this is for our country and how many victims there are, but we have to make sure that it isn’t just about words and it isn’t just about changing our laws. It’s about making sure that we resource our people, our victims, and our court system enough to make sure that when we go through these processes and when the victims of this kind of behaviour go through these processes, we are truly taking a different approach from the one we have taken, because the one we have taken for many, many years has failed. In fact, it’s ingrained some terrible crimes. It’s meant that perpetrators have continued to exist and do more harm.
I just want to go back to honour the victims of this kind of behaviour and acknowledge that we’ve also had the abuse in care report this year, which is a devastating report in terms of the harm that has happened to our children under the care of this State. This is one of the issues that, I think, this Parliament can deal with. I think we are capable of dealing with it, but we can’t cut the budgets of people who are helping victims. We have to adequately support our courts, and we have to pass legislation like this. They are all part and parcel of the same thing, and it is our job as the legislature to do that. I commend the bill to the House.
RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to add my support to the Victims of Sexual Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. We’re in the second reading and, as has been touched upon previously, this bill was introduced, in the previous Government, on 10 August 2023, with the first reading taking place on 29 August 2023. I thank the Labour Government and Ginny Andersen for introducing this bill back then. I’m glad that National has been progressing this legislation—of course, following some significant improvements through the select committee stage. I’m very privileged to be part of the Justice Committee.
As we’ve heard, but I’d like to reiterate for those who have just entered the gallery—welcome to your Whare—the essential purpose of this bill is that we’re amending two, what we call, principal Acts. The Crimes Act 1961, and this is where we’re making amendments around the issue of our tamariki, our children, and this awful thing called “consent”—awful when it comes to compelling them to talk about it. And the second principal Act that we’re amending is the Criminal Procedure Act 2011. And that’s around improving and clarifying the provisions around name suppression, which we’ve heard about this afternoon.
If I can just home in on the protecting children from inappropriate questioning. We have heard some very profound statements made today around that, and that’s what I’d like to, if I can, just put a bit of a focus on. Essentially, what are we trying to achieve here? We’re trying to avoid retraumatising our tamariki—the victims that are tamariki—by questioning them about consent, about whether they consented to this deviant sexual behaviour. Part of the changes that we’re making under this heading—because the other heading has been spoken about—is that the offence of sexual violation will no longer apply where a victim is under 12 years old. Instead, the charges will fall under “sexual connection with a child”. And we’re increasing the maximum penalty to 20 years.
A lot of times in the House, we just say parts of legislation, and, you know, I think about someone at home who isn’t necessarily, maybe, versed in the law. They hear these terms, but do we actually know what field they delve into? I know this is going to be quite triggering, but when we talk about “sexual connection with a child”, that’s defined as “connection effected by the introduction into the genitalia or anus of one person, otherwise than for genuine medical purposes, of … a part of the body of another person; or … object held or manipulated by another person; or … connection between the mouth or tongue of one person and a part of another person’s genitalia or anus”, etc. This is quite confronting, but we need to hear these things so we can understand how important it is to maximise the penalty and to make sure our children are truly protected from this type of disgusting and abhorrent behaviour. With that, I commend the bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call.
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As the member across the House noted, this was largely a Labour bill that the National Government has picked up, and it just demonstrates that we do agree on some important matters.
The Minister of Justice introduced an Amendment Paper which essentially gives a victim a right of veto to an order of name suppression. What I want to do, really, is just identify how difficult that is and the challenges that that poses.
This is the final order, so ,first of all, I want to recognise that a victim who has not reported a matter to the police and where charges haven’t been laid in court is free to speak about what’s happened to them. They have an absolute liberty to tell the truth to whomever they want. When a matter then gets charged in court, it is quite common for a defendant to immediately seek an interim suppression order, and the victim can no longer speak. In some ways, that kind of seems strange to us, and I think it’s on that kind of premise that this idea has come. But I think it’s too blunt a tool, because one of the things that the courts have made clear is that publication is part of the criminal justice process, and if you’re convicted of a crime, publication of your name forms part of that punishment. Suppression is, essentially, the judge taking into account if it would be a wildly disproportionate punishment to have your name published.
So that’s the first thing to note. I’ll just observe that the ministerial papers show that this decision, this Amendment Paper, goes against advice for a number of reasons. I want to touch on them: firstly—that’s one—if we take the Fitzgerald case; the mentally unwell person who kissed someone in Cuba Street. That was a sexual assault, rightly charged, rightly so, but to then publish that person’s name in every instance could conceivably be a disproportionate punishment. That’s the first thing.
The second problem is about who is a judge, because if publication of name is part of punishment, we generally expect judges to hand down punishments and to be the adjudicator of what that punishment should be. This reform will make the victim the judge, and that’s a significant shift—a very significant shift—in our criminal justice system, so we need to think about that.
But much more important than either of those, which are perhaps a little philosophical, is whether it’s actually good for victims. First of all, there’s the problem of multiple victims. Now, the Minister will say that where there’s multiple victims, each victim kind of has ownership of the offending that occurred to them. But the fact of the matter is, where victims are related—either were at the same party and everyone knows that there was an incident there, or they’re members of the same family and everyone knows there’s a family member who’s a perpetrator—name suppression of the offender in respect of one set of offending and not the other actually makes no sense. It’s impossible to work through in a practical way, and so that’s hard on victims. The other way it’s hard on victims is this: sexual offending, sadly, often happens in family contexts or in friend-group contexts. If the victim has the power to say yes or no, there’s a real risk that pressure, real pressure, will be brought to bear by friends or family on whether or not that veto should be exercised.
This was put into the bill at a late stage, and we don’t think there’s been enough thinking around it. If we need to change the needle on name suppression—and there’s a good argument that we should—then let’s have a discussion about that. But this is a blanket reform and a very blunt instrument. We think there’s a real risk that this will harm victims more than it protects them, and we will certainly take those reservations to the next stage of this bill.
DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): The topic we are discussing today, sexual violence, is one that clearly unites this House, even more so when it involves children. Like all parents, nothing disgusts me more than sexual violence against children. I recall these stories that my colleague Laura McClure mentioned in her speech and the raw emotions that I felt when I heard those on the news and the disgust I felt as a result. So I support the kaupapa of this bill around strengthening the rights of victims of sexual violence.
I’d like to acknowledge the previous Labour Government for bringing this bill to the House; the hard-working Justice Committee—and how good was that speech from Rima Nakhle before, by the way?—for looking at this bill in its entirety; the current Minister of Justice, Paul Goldsmith; and the submitters. As we’ve heard, it would have taken a lot of courage to submit on this bill, so I commend them for their bravery.
As has been mentioned, this bill seeks to make changes to two Acts, the Crimes Act and the Criminal Procedures Act, and introduces new charges. It increases the penalty from 14 to 20 years. What hasn’t been mentioned in this House, and I would like to mention it, is that the recent reforms that we’ve made to the reformed Sentencing Act will mean that more offenders will feel the full consequences of those 20-year sentences. That is a good thing. It’s a good thing for New Zealand, and a good thing for victims. Along with that, as my colleague has mentioned, it does make changes to name suppression. It gives the victim the right to veto name suppression for the convicted offenders, and that is also a good thing. So I just want to say this is a good bill and I commend the committee’s work for this and I commend this bill to the House.
Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think that most of the main points have been made, so by way of summary I’ll keep my contribution brief. Labour is supporting this bill. Most of the work had been done and introduced under the previous Labour Government. We’re very pleased that the current Government has seen fit to be able to carry this forward. It’s important—I don’t think many people would disagree with that.
The bill amends the Crimes Act 1961 in two main ways. The first being that children under 12 can’t be questioned about consent, which several contributors today have expressed some sort of discomfort about the fact that we haven’t done that sooner as a Parliament and as a society, so it is good that that is done now. And it empowers victims by making it easier to lift automatic name suppression.
Taken as a pair of adjustments, those things outweigh our concerns that we have with the bill, so we will be supporting the bill. But I do also reiterate and acknowledge my colleagues’ previous contributions about some of the potential fish-hooks with the latter change, given the emotional burden of the name suppression decisions and the legal complexities around that not necessarily being as simple and straightforward as it might sound on a two-dimensional piece of paper. I implore and I hope that the Government will remain agile and flexible in terms of making sure that works as intended.
Labour supports this bill because, ultimately, anything that protects children is good and gives victims and survivors of sexual violence any kind of greater autonomy or any bigger part of the process to help reclaim themselves and reclaim some power back from what is a horrible, horrible situation. We will continue to advocate for a justice system that empowers survivors whilst also protecting their wellbeing through some of the potentially unintended consequences, but that is our job: to remain vigilant of those. But we commend the bill to the House.
CARL BATES (National—Whanganui): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to conclude the contributions on this bill at this stage. I just want to acknowledge that we are talking about a stage in the legal process that only occurs given the good work that our police men and women do across this country in order for these cases to go before the courts. It may surprise people listening into this, this afternoon, that the police do play an important role in ensuring law and order in this country, and we have a Government that is tough on law and order, and this bill goes another step towards ensuring that we deliver on our promise to deliver law and order for New Zealand. I acknowledge that this bill started under the previous Government, but it is the coalition Government that is delivering this in the House this term.
While we talk about law and order and being tough on people who do things in this country that they should be held accountable for—and the police play a key role in ensuring that happens; and I cannot emphasise that enough, given some of the rhetoric that we have heard during the course of the last week—this bill specifically focuses on another part of that, which is important to this Government, and that is the role of looking after and protecting victims.
I wanted to particularly touch on the protection of children from inappropriate questioning. That is a key aspect of this bill. It is to avoid re-traumatising child victims by questioning them about consent, and I don’t know if other parents listening to this this afternoon would be, like myself, as a parent, surprised that a child under the age of 12 could be questioned about whether or not they gave consent in terms of sexual violation. It’s just completely mind-boggling that, currently, that is the case, and we need to remove that from the statutes by passing this bill.
Instead, these charges will now fall under sexual connection with a child, and they will have a maximum penalty increased to 20 years, aligning that to those of adult sexual violation. A child is often smaller, younger, littler than an adult, and it is the view of this Government that even though a child is smaller, littler than an adult, the penalty should not be smaller or littler than that which would occur in the case of adult sexual violation. On that note, I commend the bill to the House.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Bills
Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Bill
Third Reading
Hon CHRIS PENK (Minister for Building and Construction): I move, That the Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.
I’d just like to start by acknowledging the debate that we’ve had previously in this House, including in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, about this legislation. I’d like to thank all who have supported it, which is, in fact, all the parties around this House. I think it’s important, where possible, that we have a bipartisan basis to legislation. It is so important to the wellbeing of Kiwis, and I acknowledge and thank all those who have contributed to that, who have contributed positively by contributions and discussion, including that fundamental question around liability, as was traversed at the select committee process. I’d like to thank the submitters. I’d like to thank the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), who provided high-quality advice to me and to others and enabled us to be now at the stage of the third and final reading, such that we can pass this into law now.
A lot of the detail has been traversed already, and I don’t intend to go over that ground again. In my comments on this, the final reading, I intend to briefly set out what, why, how, who, and when this policy will come into effect.
First, on the subject of what the policy does, it’s already the case that some 90 percent—that’s 9-0 percent—of building products in this country derive from overseas, so, in a sense, actually, it is a red herring to think about this as encouraging the use of overseas products. To the extent that that already happens, it could hardly be more than it is. Perhaps that percentage will tick close to even 100 percent, but, actually, there is encouragement for our local manufacturers and suppliers as well, and I will explain that shortly. Really, what we’re trying to do is make it easier for products that are already coming into this country and that currently face a very burdensome process to obtain approval through a number of different existing routes so that they will be able to be used in New Zealand homes, commercial buildings, and infrastructure too, for that matter, where it’s relevant. So that’s what the bill is aiming to do.
Why it needs to do it? Well, first of all, we have an affordability problem in this country regarding building materials and, of course, the cost of construction more generally. It has increased some 40 percent since the year 2019, and, in fact, over time before that too, it’s fair to note that the cost has been steadily increasing beyond even inflation over the last few years. So, for the purpose of introducing more competitive pressure and, therefore, putting downward pressure on the cost of construction materials but also thinking about the value we have of greater resilience in the event of supply shocks when overseas materials come from only certain overseas origin points, and also in the name of innovation for all the reasons that we want to encourage not only sustainable building practices but also other ways that we can have buildings of better, higher quality delivered much more readily and, therefore, affordably—so, for all these reasons, we say that the bill will be a useful addition to the tool kit, almost literally, of the builders. When I say “builders”, I mean tradies, designers, and architects, of course, and all those who administer the control system.
As for the how—the way that this operates—as we’ve heard previously, there are three main levers that we’re able to pull. One is to make it easier to use products that meet overseas standards, and these are standards by design that will be equal to or higher than those that exist already in this country. It’s not an exercise in lowering standards. Second, this is streamlining the citing of overseas standards and also requiring the acceptance of products that are certified overseas. There are whole schemes that we are able to adopt, and we will do that on the basis of standards and certification systems from jurisdictions, be it whole nation States or on a State by State basis, that are credible and comparable. “Credible” means that they have good, high-quality building standards—no less than those that currently prevail in New Zealand—and “comparable” means that they are like New Zealand in the key ways that relate to the building products, be it in relation to UV light, be it wind or sea spray zones for coastal areas, or be it seismic strength as that relates to the structural integrity of the products, and so on.
Rima Nakhle: Reasonable.
Hon CHRIS PENK: Thank you. My colleague and friend Rima Nakhle says that’s reasonable. I’m inclined to agree—I agree with her agreement.
As for the question of who; well, the decision maker in this case is a combination of the chief executive of MBIE and the Minister for Building and Construction, and, obviously, that person and the person who is the Minister—currently me, but, obviously, at some future date that will be someone else. I’m not necessarily going to continue this role for ever, but for now, that’s who we’re stuck with. But that decision maker, whoever it may be, will have access to high-quality advice: a combination of the public sector through MBIE, industry—of course—and academia. We’ve got lots of ways of determining where the appropriate line is drawn in terms of the supplies that we are able to regard as trustworthy in this country and can certify automatically, accordingly.
Other key players in this space include the New Zealand manufacturers, who will actually have a benefit from this legislation. I know that that might sound counter-intuitive in terms of making it easier for overseas standards to be met. But for the Kiwi manufacturers, who, in many cases, are doing a great job innovating and producing products for our local market, to give them an opportunity to measure their work against overseas standards like, for example, large jurisdictions like the European Union, or large, single national markets like, for example, the UK or Australia, or states in the US, for that matter—if they are able to measure their New Zealand, good old Kiwi, products against those, then immediately they are export-ready and export-attractive to those other markets. So we hope and expect to see a benefit for them as well as, of course, the Kiwi consumer, with whom we are very interested.
The other key players that I do want to mention in all of this are the building consent authorities. Roughly speaking, at the moment that is some 66 different councils, along with the outfit known as Consentium, which does the work for Kāinga Ora. For all of these, at the moment, they face, if not through the CodeMark route of product acceptance, and maybe with reference to the Building Research Association’s appraisal—they otherwise have to determine, each and every one of them, facing liability of a joint and several nature in the event that something goes wrong. It’s a determination of whether products meet New Zealand standards, and that’s a huge burden for them to bear. It’s an accountability, it’s a responsibility, and it’s a liability that they bear on behalf of their ratepayers. I think it’s actually not particularly fair to them—and I’m pleased to have, I think, some nods of support from the former Mayor of Wellington.
Local government around New Zealand, I think it’s fair to say, is united in wishing for the issues of liability that pose such a burden to them to be resolved. That’s a larger piece of work that we are engaging in. We know that something must be done in that space for the benefit of all concerned. But for the purpose of this bill and this regime, as was pointed out by the select committee, we need to make it really clear that councils will not be on the hook for the failure of a product that’s approved in this way, provided that it’s installed correctly and it is the right kind of product for the right kind of purpose, and, through the building consent system, they will have the opportunity to determine that.
Finally, the question of when. On the passage of this bill, which I think will be not much more than an hour or so—I’m thinking it will be following the dinner break, but not much beyond that, hopefully—there will be a law under which there will be a framework with regulations able to bring in certification standards and regimes that will be, effectively, a rolling maul approach. So initially—and it might be as soon as, for example, June of this year, or maybe July, but certainly from that point onwards—progressively, it will be possible for regulation to be set out, published on the MBIE website, and notified in the Gazette, where people can see what is allowed in this country.
There will be tens of thousands of new products available very soon. I’m grateful to everyone who’s worked hard to bring this policy to fruition and, indeed, to pass it into law shortly, and I commend this bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Labour supports this bill because we support competition in the building supply sector and cost reduction for homeowners. This is all about trying to pass on the benefits of overseas imported products into New Zealand to New Zealand consumers, as well as the builders who use them, without unduly burdening local manufacturers. The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has delved into those questions very deeply. We had the benefit of considering a number of really useful and well-thought-out submissions from the industry, and so came to a position where everyone in this House could see a benefit in making this move.
Making buildings cheaper and making the thing that costs between 16 percent and 24 percent—which is the building materials—cheaper will, we hope, have flow-on effects not only to homeowners who are trying to build new houses but also to the small suppliers. Now, with these rules in place, I guess the onus is on the Government and on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), who will be working through these building system changes as system changes, to make sure that there is this long-lasting effect not only on competition but on prices coming down and, if we are increasing the number of products available in the New Zealand market, that they are working well, and I’m going to step through those.
Because this is something that Labour really supports and because this is something that Labour wants to see working and driving affordability without compromising on safety or quality or local jobs, it’s important that we canvass here what we will be looking for to satisfy ourselves that this is a change that continues to work. So I’ve got three questions in my mind that I’ve used to judge this. The first is: does the change lower prices for consumers, and not just for the profits of big importers? It was really useful to engage with the Minister for Building and Construction in the committee stage about this because the Government’s argument around this—and certainly what’s been published online and is available to participants in this process as the bill has worked its way through Parliament—is that opening access to international standards and groups of products will improve competition and reduce prices. So I think that that will have an effect.
This was something, though, that the Government considered in the previous term in response to the Commerce Commission’s market study, and at that time officials advised the Labour Government that these changes were not necessary and would not make that change. So we’ll be looking really closely at whether that market impact is something that we see bearing out, but we do want to give it a go because anything that drives competition and lasting competition in the sector is absolutely worth trying if the right kinds of safeguards are in place to make sure that we’re not compromising on quality.
Those savings, as well, need to be passed on to homeowners. So what I would be looking for in this as a system change is whether this creates not only a different sort of market dynamic between importers, because we have two very large building companies in the New Zealand market that are vertically integrated and that will be part of the existing market structure and will be able to use these rules, and then we have little importers around the sides, and in a market that’s structured in that way, for the little importers to gain the benefits that they would need to be able to compete with the larger players, there would need to be a significant lift in their ability to compete because of their new ability to bring in different products. So there is going to need to be significant change in the rules, then, and we don’t know that yet because we haven’t seen what the regulations say. We haven’t seen which standards we will be able to use, but that is something that we will be paying close attention to.
On the back of that, I will be looking for whether this doesn’t, in fact, do the opposite thing—it might entrench the market power of those two players that are established in our industry, and that would be the worst possible outcome for competition. You would have big importers that were able to import a bigger range of products and a bigger range of cheaper products but that would not be passing those savings on to consumers, because there wasn’t the market dynamic that incentivised them to do that.
I want to know, and still don’t know, how the Government will be continuing to monitor what happens to prices in the industry. We had a great back and forth with the Minister in the committee stage about the role of the Commerce Commission and the role of MBIE and its monitoring, but it’s not something that the New Zealand Government is well set up to do, which is to continue to play monitoring roles on prices for consumers in an industry that is specialised in this way, and so it’s the Commerce Commission’s remit to do market studies. It’s something that allows them to do that, but this Government has not launched any market studies and I don’t think that will be the way that they will use to monitor this, and so we will be paying close attention at home.
My second question is: does this change maintain high standards of quality and safety? It’s got to be a bottom line for New Zealanders who are building new homes and the builders—especially the small builders—who are engaging with these changes in really good faith, that the quality standards and the safety standards aren’t compromised. We really support this because that’s not what we understand the change to be. We’ve heard multiple times from officials that the standards being used in the new rules will be equal to or better than New Zealand’s building standards, and, in fact, in many respects many parts of the building code in New Zealand have lagged behind the rest of the world. So there is real opportunity to, in fact, improve the standards of products that are brought into New Zealand with these new standards.
The third question is: are local manufacturers getting a fair go? And I hear the Minister when he says that being able to use more standardised, more internationalised rules will help New Zealand manufacturers who are exporters to export their products and to innovate for an international market. But in a New Zealand market where 90 percent of materials are already imported, most of the New Zealand manufacturers, of whom the actual bulk of the number of manufacturers are manufacturing for the New Zealand market—they’re not competitors on the world stage. We’re thinking about those manufacturers that have already gone through the compliance in New Zealand not having to face further headwinds with products that haven’t needed to go through a New Zealand process, or those manufacturers who are in the process of going through the compliance process having to sort of do something from the start again, and so I’ll continue to be meeting with those manufacturers.
They’re doing a great job. There are so many great instances of Kiwi innovation in building supplies, especially those manufacturers who are building and are recycling, and are building in innovations like using New Zealand’s materials that we have here that other countries don’t have to make better products than anybody else does. We need to make sure that it’s them that are able to enjoy the benefits of further competition in the industry because if we get this right, with the competition dynamics of the large-scale companies will, the market power there is something that they won’t be able to exert over those smaller manufacturers.
There’s still these structural issues in the building system. This isn’t a silver bullet, but it is a really, really useful change. It’s a useful change, and it fits with Labour’s vision for a competitive and high-quality building sector, because we want to bring the costs of building down. So bringing the costs of materials down is a key part of that, but we need to keep in mind who we’re doing it for. We’re doing it for the first-home buyer and we’re doing it for those people who are on the receiving end of new homes in New Zealand. We want them to be warmer, we want them to be drier, we want them to be better quality, and we want them to be more affordable, and so if these changes don’t do that, or if these changes make it worse, we should be willing and quickly back here to make sure that the market dynamics in the building system are working properly.
We also have to look at the long-term competition impacts here and make sure that, actually, we’re building out a system where, in New Zealand, we can get things built and that these chokeholds in the New Zealand economy of the duopolies and monopolies that exist within many of our supply chains aren’t holding us back from being able to realise the growth that we should be experiencing. So Labour agrees with this, but it needs to go along with strengthening our domestic manufacturing sector and the prefabrication of housing, and we also need to support innovation and ensure competition. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand in support of the Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Bill. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Building Act 2004 to remove barriers to overseas building products being used in Aotearoa’s building products market, but I think, to look at it more broadly, I first want to touch on some of the key aspects that we discussed during the committee stage. Again, we would like to thank the Minister for Building and Construction, the Hon Chris Penk, for this particular bill, for being, as always, very engaging and very informative in the discussion during the committee stage.
There are just a couple of key themes as a part of that. One of the first and foremost observations on this bill is that a lot of the bill actually ties into how secondary legislation is going to present itself. It is by the nature of that secondary legislation that we are able to see how beneficial this particular bill will be for communities and also for businesses, and also just for the everyday, ordinary people of Aotearoa. I think that is something that is quite important to mention—that, although the primary legislation that we have seen in front of us is reasonably robust and we’ve had a very robust discussion, we are looking forward to seeing the secondary legislation and how that will eventuate.
In terms of this bill, there are a number of aspects that we discussed substantially, and the first one is around the very focus of this bill, which is what sort of international opportunities this is going to be presenting by being able to look at some of the overseas standards. We discussed in depth clause 4 of this bill and clause 6, and particularly the certification process of overseas products, and one of the things we had a discussion with the Minister on was around how this will look in terms of some of the overseas requirements and compliance with New Zealand requirements when it comes to things like sustainable building practices, which I will talk more about later. But I think, fundamentally, as the Green Party’s trade spokesperson, I was really interested in how this particular legislation is interacting with existing but also prospective trade agreements, and the one that I highlighted in this case—and, with the Minister, we had a very good discussion around this—is the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability and how this would, potentially, interact with the environmental goods section of that particular agreement.
One of the other things that we did also discuss quite a bit was around competition and, potentially, some of the nervousness that local communities may experience as a result of this bill. It is true that we are looking at broadening our ability to have more internationally aligned standards and recognised standards and schemes. But, again, there have been discussions during the committee stage, as well, as we saw through submissions that local providers are interested, I guess, and also, in some ways, nervous—and, hopefully, they will be reassured by some of the conversations we had with the Minister—around the opportunities that this will have for local communities and local providers and what it means for their livelihoods, because there was a genuine concern that they would be outpriced or undercut by some of the overseas competition as a result of this.
Simon Court: We hope so—that’s what we’re hoping for.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: I think it is really important for us to always remember that we are in this House, first and foremost, for the people of Aotearoa and for the people of Aotearoa’s livelihood. It is important for us to know that there are genuine livelihoods at stake over here, and I would assume that certain parts of the party who is sitting next to me—builders, etc., who very much may be affected by the results of this bill—would be sensitive and recognise too that particular fact. This is something that we have heard during the committee stage, and I think it is really important for us to highlight that.
The other part that I would like to highlight in terms of the committee stage is around how this would work with local government, and particularly when we’re looking at the Building Consent Authorities, or BCAs, and whether there is going to be consistency with BCAs and how they would, potentially, accept some of these standards, particularly for organisations and for, I guess, the workforce, and how they will be able to navigate the two different schemes. Indeed, this is something we heard both from the submissions from local government but also from submissions from other potentially peak bodies within the community. I think in this case that there was an amendment that was proposed by the Hon David Parker which I think would have clarified very well some of these points we were discussing during the committee stage, and even the Minister himself during the committee stage—we had a very fulsome discussion around this. Hopefully, the essence of what the Amendment Paper proposed would have been taken on board. But I understand that there’s still possibly some uncertainty around that, but it is an amendment that the Green Party of Aotearoa—Te Pāti Kākāriki—supports.
This brings me to my final points from the committee stage, which are around the sustainability and the healthy homes elements. Again, with legislation like this, one of the conversations that we did have during the committee stage was, for example, what this means in terms of the interaction with the Green Star rating, both for commercial buildings but also for residential dwellings, and how this would allow us to really enhance and also expand on sustainable building practices, as well as being able to have healthy homes, and, hopefully, based on the responses that we have received, there is going to be some consistency with existing practice around this. The Minister has in many ways reassured us at the committee stage that some of these are very much in consideration, so we are interested to see how that would eventuate, as well.
Finally, in terms of that, this is probably something that my colleague—just jumping the gun slightly—will also mention, probably, at a later stage. It is that when we were looking at new section 25B in clause 8 around building product specifications, there were questions that we had in terms of what sorts of things it would allow for. There are some really amazing domestic industries, and I’m looking at the wool industry, in particular, when it comes to how they can be a part of this particular creation and co-creation of the standards. I think that is something that really deserves highlighting, particularly from a rural development and regional development perspective, which I’m sure some of my colleagues will talk a little bit further about later on.
Just to finish up, in terms of the broader conversations we had during the committee stage, there were a number of nuances that we were seeking clarification on, particularly around how the chief executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, in this case, will approve certain things and how they would also be able to review certain standards—particularly overseas standards—as they come up or as they change on the international stage.
Finally, we would like to say that one of the reasons that Te Pāti Kākāriki supports this bill in the context of Aotearoa is because of the fact that we genuinely would like to see more warm and available housing for the people of Aotearoa, not just in terms of owning but also in terms of renting. We often forget renters as part of this conversation, and as we see that more and more people in Aotearoa will be renting in the near future, this is something that is very much top of mind. We have yet to see and we are looking forward to seeing some genuine, tangible solutions and tangible manifestations of some of the Government’s housing initiatives, because it’s all very well painting a picture and just saying “We are building X number of houses.”, but the fact remains that a lot of people in our communities are still without a home to live in. That is the very nature of this situation that we’re dealing with.
For those who are lucky enough to be renting, or to be even more privileged and be owning their own home, we’re seeing that this is not necessarily affordable, particularly for young people. One of the definitions, although crude, is that people should not be paying more than 30 percent of their gross income on their housing, whether it’s in rent or it’s mortgage, and we are not seeing that reflected in our communities. So, to finish, we would like to see a bill like this genuinely—genuinely—contributing to making our homes cheaper and also more affordable but, at the same time, warmer and also safer because all of that is important.
CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, it’s nice to hear that the Green Party understands profit, in some ways. It’s just a shame they think that you get it by protectionism.
ACT is welcoming the passage of the Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Bill. It delivers on something that ACT campaigned on throughout 2023, and can I say well done to the Minister for Building and Construction for picking up such a brilliant idea, and also, across the House, thank you to everybody in this House for seeing some common ground on how we can actually improve the building industry’s affordability in this country.
We have been oppressing the building industry, in a way. We’ve been saying, “This is what you can build with and what you can’t.”, and every different town’s going to have a different rule. But what we’re doing tonight is liberating builders and tradies and designers, and the materials that they will be able to choose from and find from places around the world and overseas.
I have been in the building industry for some time, and I’ve met many people who reached the end of their careers too early because they were sick and tired of the red tape and nonsense they were going through, trying to get products approved to be used in New Zealand. These are good people who cared a lot about the products they were supplying to the community and knew that they wanted to use the right products, but they also just lost a little bit of the passion. When you get designers saying, “Look, here’s my design, but right now this will not include any requests for information coming back from the council, because I know I’m going to get them. I know it’s going to keep coming, and the costs are going to keep coming in.”, the prices just blew out of control, and I can think of a designer friend of mine who left the industry just out of sheer frustration with what we were going through.
What I think this bill will do—well, it’s not what I think, but what this bill will do is allow some innovative, effective, and affordable products into New Zealand in a scheme that is not wildly different. We will not be running two different schemes, as we’ve heard tonight. There is a recognised certification scheme in New Zealand that has been deemed to have been met when it’s used in the correct manner—the building code—and that is CodeMark. There are already schemes that we have in New Zealand that are already operating in the Building Act, and what we’re doing here is allowing the Minister to recognise schemes and certification methods, and the chief executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise to recognise certain products from overseas and say that they will comply with our building code.
Now, I just wanted to touch a bit on the building code. This is something that is not in-depth stuff, but, basically, when you bring in a product, it has to comply with specific elements of the building code, and our building code has things that you have to comply with if your product is to do something. So, for example, when we have a plasterboard crisis and you want to replace like for like, you have to be able to say that it applies with durability, perhaps—I think it’s clause B2 of the building code. If it’s in a wet space, you might have to deal with the wet area, for which, I think—oh jeez, I’m not going to go off the top of my head, but this is the sort—
Hon Rachel Brooking: Come on!
CAMERON LUXTON: Oh jeez, I don’t want to get caught on that one. But I think this is the sort of thing that we will be complying with. Things like the famous clause H1, which we’ve been traversing in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, about how the Minister has amended some of the changes to clause H1. These are the sorts of things in the building code that products need to comply with, and new building products that come in from overseas will need to comply with the building code. This is not a relaxation of the standard, and that is what the Minister has reiterated tonight.
This recognises the fact that New Zealand is a trading nation and we should be trading for high-quality goods so that tradies, designers, and people who buy the eventual product of a house or a renovated building—the people who go on to live in it, either it’s renting or buying, can have affordable housing so that New Zealand can start going towards being the country that we expect it to be: a landowning, liberal democracy, with products that match our acceptable solutions.
This is a great change. I am sure it’ll be applauded on building sites around the country, as tradies sit there and eat while on their smoko and talk about what a great thing it is that this Government is doing for this country. Thank you.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, the time has come for me to leave the House for the dinner break. The House is suspended until 7.30 p.m.
Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Members, when we broke for the dinner break, we were debating the Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Bill. We are up to call No. 5, the New Zealand First call.
ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak in this debate, especially when it’s one where, essentially, there is unanimity across the House. I think we have all said that we want the same thing. We’ve all said that we want warm, dry homes for everyone, Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan said that we wanted warm, available homes, and we all recognise that housing supply is an issue—we need to have enough quality housing to house adequately a growing population.
Actually, it’s interesting just to reflect on the growth of our population over the last few years. Until 2019, six of the seven highest ever net immigration levels were in the years between 2014 and 2019—six out of the seven—and then, of course, 2023 was stratospherically the highest, at 4½ times the long-run average.
Anyway, leaving that aside, not only do we want homes, but we also want homes built as part of well-designed, connected, supported communities with good infrastructure, because it’s not just about building homes; it’s about building in the context of a wider community and a place that’s good to live. They’ve also got to be not just warm and dry, but they’ve also got to be affordable, because we can have fantastic homes, but if nobody can afford them, that is not going to get us anywhere, and that’s true of whatever part of the housing spectrum you’re on. Whether it’s private housing, whether it’s social housing, or whatever, they’ve got to be affordable to somebody, because there is no magic money tree, and, as a country, we need to make sure we get good value for money out of all of these things.
I was interested that Cam Luxton—it’s always good to talk after Cam on building issues—made the point about our being a property-owning, liberal democracy and that being really, really important, and I agree with that 100 percent. But it was interesting to see the reaction from the Green Party, which almost questioned that, and I’d just like to say that the value of being property owning as opposed to property renting is really, really important. If we think about our ageing population, we’re now expecting twice as many people entering retirement to be living, potentially, on superannuation alone, with the hope that somehow people in that situation are going to be able to afford either rent or a mortgage, and that’s a ticking time bomb and it’s ticking quite fast. So having a property-owning, liberal democracy is really, really important.
We also need to think about creating community, as I said, and I think it’s far, far better when we have people who are an anchor in a community, and the longer you stay in a community, it’s generally the better. Now, whether that’s a long-term rental and a secure rental, or whether that is owning a property, I think that gives you a lot more commitment to a community.
But back to affordability: the fundamental problem here is that our housing construction is very, very expensive. We heard from the Minister for Building and Construction—at least when he was introducing this bill a few months ago—that it is, roughly, 50 percent more than across the Ditch, and that is really, really significant. Our materials are expensive—that’s what this bill is all about. Our labour productivity, he has also said, has not improved since 1985. Now, if you look at the things that people build with these days compared to what they built with in 1985, some of them have changed. They must have improved productivity, and yet, somehow, our regulatory processes have squeezed that productivity gain out so that the net is our building industry has not improved in its productivity since 1985. Cam Luxton, again, talked about liberating the building industry from red tape, and I would echo that and support that.
Regulations: our regulatory regime often does not help. The way those regulations are administered often doesn’t help, and we’ve all heard stories about a building site where building activity has had to shut down to wait for the building inspector to turn up at some point in time. That time really is money, not only to the builder but also to the clients, at the end of the day.
Our land is expensive. Our infrastructure to support housing development is also often expensive. As I said, there is no magic money tree, and if you start making a magic money tree and borrowing from someplace or subsidising from someplace, that is also a cost to someone, whether it’s a ratepayer, a taxpayer, or whoever else it might be.
This Government is trying actively to reduce costs, but there is no silver bullet. This is one of many things that the Government is doing. This is about reducing the cost of materials and increasing competition in the product market. There’s also work being done on speeding up consents, especially that disruptive asking for more information on prefabrication, although I note that Fletcher’s has got a bit of a problem recently and they are not continuing with some prefabrication work that they were doing previously, so they’re changing what a factory does. There is modular construction, the granny flats initiative—which, of course, came from New Zealand First in the first place—Resource Management Act changes, and also getting realistic development charges so that we don’t overburden but we also don’t cross-subsidise.
Why is getting house building costs down important—because there have been some people who’ve just said, “Look, what we want to do is we want to drive the market down, because if we can reduce the cost of existing houses, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Well, actually, if you look at the numbers, what you can see is that the market peaked at the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022, and at that point in time we also had about 51,000 new houses being consented. The market subsequently has declined at the bottom at about 16 percent, and, now, at about 14 percent, but what’s happened also is there’s been a slide in the number of building consents applied for, which has been going down from about 51,000 to about 31,000. I think that those two probably mirror each other in some way or are related in some ways, so trying to, essentially, hope that house prices drop when the cost of building the houses is actually increasing is a recipe for not building more housing. If we want more houses, that is not going to be the way that solves it. As the Minister said, the cost of construction is up about 40 percent since 2019, so those numbers don’t work.
Fundamentally, we have to get the cost of building down, so this is about the building product part of that. It’s about having more competition from a greater diversity of products, which is expected to reduce price, give greater diversity, and give greater choice. The Commerce Commission, as we’ve already heard, noted the lack of competition in some parts of the building product market, and they believe that having greater competition will benefit consumers. Of course, the Commerce Commission is doing some great work across a whole range of different areas at the moment, and so I think we should hear that message.
This bill establishes a new, easier, quicker compliance pathway for the approval of new products and product groups from internationally certified products and product lines. It’s not just picking things off the shelf from whichever country it might be, but it’s saying, “Hey, this is a country whose certification process we trust.”, and it’s adopting those, and it’s a quicker pathway to adopting those certification processes.
The bill anticipates adopting products and product lines only from countries where we have confidence in these certification processes. We’ve already heard that 90 percent of something or other—90 percent of building, whether it’s products, product lines, or the different products that we’ve got on the lines. I don’t think it’s the value of those products, but if it’s 90 percent of something, we’re already importing a very large number of building products and we use them in our construction, so this just makes it easier for some more to come into our market.
But the really important thing is that it is really essential that the quality of those products is as good as what we already have. The Transport and Infrastructure Committee worked really, really well on this, as we normally do—our very collegial select committee. We talked about the safeguards and the processes that are there—and I traversed this comprehensively in my second reading speech—because we all remember the leaky building crisis. We do not want to go there again. That was painful for everybody and very expensive for everybody, but what we heard through the select committee process that processes are now much, much more robust with, of course, the changes to legislation as well, and we also have the safeguard of a highly skilled and qualified building advisory panel for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and for the Minister.
What’s good is that this bill does that but also it includes protections for local government, who can use these products which come through this scheme in good faith. If the product fails, it’s not local government’s fault—it never was with leaky buildings, and it shouldn’t be now—and now, at least, they’re indemnified against that. They’re not indemnified against a failure to make sure that it’s used properly, but they’re indemnified against the product failing. What it doesn’t do—and I raised this in my second reading speech—is provide safeguards to the end-user or end-consumer should the product fail, and this is a place which I hope the Government would stand behind and say, “Look, something’s failed. We certified that. We approved that. We let that come in. We will help you with that and with getting things put right.”
Just to finish off, this is a good bill, and I think there’s unanimity around the House. It’s shortly to become law. It is part of a multifaceted response by this Government to New Zealand’s housing challenge, and I commend this bill to the House.
MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a short call on this, and I made some comments through the committee of the whole House just around my own experience in that and what it means to build affordable homes and what it means to use your own product.
It used to be that you’d go into Aupōuri Forest and use your own trucking teams to bring your houses from Awanui to Te Kao—experiencing very similar outcomes, too, in places like Tākou and Ahipara. I raise these names because they are small Māori communities. They’re tribal communities and they have their own solutions. So if this product—this safe and better-quality product—comes true, then we’re going to pick it up and go with it and make good of it.
We support this—we support this. Maybe I just want to make this final point, though, which is to say that none of what we’re doing here interferes with the solutions that go on in terms of, say, the small communities that I’ve just referred to, because we got to build 16 homes without any interference—or not too much interference, let’s say—from anyone else. When the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, Andy Foster, referred to the select committee and said that it is a good committee—I’m not on it any longer, but we wouldn’t want to mistake collegiality for agreeing in wholeheartedness on what comes through certain select committees. So I just wanted to say we tautoko tēnei take [support this matter]. Tēnā koe e te Speaker.
SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. We are also in support of this bill, but we do have some concerns and questions, Madam Speaker, and if you’ll indulge me, I want to tell a bit of a story because I have been involved in the construction of alternative buildings in the past.
In 2019, while running an NGO, I did work with a whole lot of volunteers and a whole lot of sponsors to build New Zealand’s first climate-safe house. The purpose of this house was to address a very real issue of somebody who was living in a caravan in a garage who had been flooded multiple times, whose own home had lost insurance and who needed somewhere to live. This was a situation of real hardship, and it was thanks to the Otago Polytechnic, actually—who wanted a good project to work on—and some creative people that we hatched this idea of building a modular, transportable eco-home that was self-sufficient and that could be moved when this particular part of the village becomes uninhabitable, because it has flooded so many times.
The idea of that was to use new building techniques that were low-carbon construction and low-waste, and there were fantastic donations from Formance—who produce structurally insulated panels and uPVC windows, and are based in Christchurch—Otago Polytechnic, the Dunedin City Council, Eclectic Home Design, Naylor Love, DS Building, Fulton Hogan, Dave Littleton Engineer, the Building Research Association of New Zealand, Fisher & Paykel, Dunedin Roofing Systems, Logic Group, etc. Lots and lots of people donated to make this happen. The thing that we were doing, however, was using new materials that the building consenting team at Dunedin City Council didn’t know how to deal with, and the polytech teams of aspiring builders didn’t know how to build with this new material. This is a real concern because we want to make sure that the new systems are understood.
SIPs—structurally insulated panels—are a structural system. They are useful for the primary structure of the building, and therefore everyone in it, and any short cuts in certification or any poor understanding of how it can be constructed can lead to problems. So, alongside access to new materials, we also need training schemes, and I’ve been really impressed with Formance who have worked to help train people up on how to use SIPs, but are we going to have all of those training schemes provided for all the new materials that come in? Are we going to have systems to help our building consent officers to understand how things work? This bill makes great sense when we’re thinking about claddings and linings, but we also need to be very much more careful if we’re thinking about structural components, which need a different level of certification and compliance.
I really want to make this point about structure: if we want to think about the Maslow hierarchy of human needs, the hierarchy has a structure, and if we get it wrong, then there are problems. There are costs, there may be lives lost, etc. So I want to make sure that when we’re working on this, we’re not doing it with short cuts and we’re also thinking not just about the cheapest houses we can build but what is the lifetime cost, because we don’t want cheap and nasty. We want affordable but cheap to run, affordable to run—a lifetime cost.
So I’m really, really heartened that in the regulatory impact statement, the Commerce Commission has looked at strengthening CodeMark, for example, and at convening a critical minerals task force, the build-ready scheme, building product information requirements, product substitution guidance, etc. These are really good recommendations. We want to make sure that we have we have products that are understood and that we have the skills in our community to make sure that they are used and employed appropriately and quickly.
DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): Today is a good day—it is New Zealand’s liberation day, and, no, I’m not talking about liberation in terms of tariffs. I’m talking about liberation from not being able to use overseas products for the building sector. It’s a good day for tradies, for developers, for manufacturers, for those wanting cheaper, warmer, drier homes and buildings, and for our economy.
There’s just been a report on the news that after this bill is passed, it’s forecast that 12,000 new building products will enter New Zealand’s market. That is going to make it cheaper and easier to build in New Zealand.
As has been mentioned in this House by the Minister for Building and Construction, it’s not just about compromising standards—the products to be allowed in will need to reach New Zealand’s standard or better—but it will mean a more competitive sector and a more productive sector. That is what we want in this country, because the Commerce Commission has made it very clear that we have an unproductive building and construction sector. Much like many different other sectors in New Zealand, whether it’s airlines, whether it’s energy, or whether it’s the grocery sector, the banking sector, or the insurance sector, we are in desperate need of more competition across the board.
We are going for growth in this Government. We’re going for growth in houses, going for growth in productivity, jobs, and economic growth. I wish to thank Minister Chris Penk for bringing this bill to the House, my fellow colleagues on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for shepherding the bill to this stage, and officials. As has been mentioned, this is just one tool in the toolbox and it is a good tool, at that. So I wish to end my speech and commend this bill to the House.
Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Today is the sort of day that I wish more New Zealanders saw. In Parliament, we’ve just seen a bill that started under the previous Labour Government and was finished off by this one, now we’ve got a bill that builds on the work that was done by the previous Government, and with the way things are going in politics around the world, it’d be nice for people to see this a bit more. But it actually happens more in Parliament than people realise.
This bill makes sense. It is fair to say that the construction sector in New Zealand has had artificial constraints upon it. It has not been a competitive market, and the Commerce Commission report identified where those constraints were. This bill won’t solve all of that, but it will help, and it’s very timely because today is the day that the annual consent figures have been announced. They showed that the number of building consents that were issued over the last 12 months were the lowest since 2012, and it actually should be of concern to all of this House that the construction sector in this country has had a massive hit. That is in part because we have seen a pause on Kāinga Ora builds, a slow-down in community housing builds, and a slow-down in residential builds. We’ve seen more than 13,000 people that work in the construction sector lose their jobs, many of whom have gone to Australia. So the previous speaker was right to say that this bill was not the silver bullet but that it will help. It will help because so often the cost of construction is linked to the cost of materials, and the cost of materials is linked to the variety of materials available, and so often we’ve seen constraints in the market such as consenting authorities dictating that a particular type of building material be used, even when there are alternatives available. That sort of behaviour does not help in terms of trying to keep the cost of building as low as possible.
Whilst we support this, it’s important to point out that we talked to the Minister for Building and Construction during the committee of the whole House stage and sought his assurance that the regulatory powers available to him would be used, if required, to preserve local manufacturing, because, at the end of the day, this bill allows products that are manufactured overseas and certified overseas to be used with equal application in this country. Part of the reason that local manufacturing has struggled is because it hasn’t been a competitive market. Now, yes, this will provide more options, but more overseas options. It’s important that the Government takes that seriously because there are local manufacturers who produce building products who haven’t had a fair run, and we need to be assured that they will get a fair run under this and that it won’t simply be overseas manufacturers getting access to the market and have such dominance of the market that they will drown out or strangle local manufacturing. That would be counter-productive.
It’s important that consumers get a broader range, if possible, when it comes to building supplies, but it’s also equally important that those supplies aren’t all manufactured overseas. Now, that is on the Minister, whoever that may be in this Government and in future Governments, and we want to put on the record that that is a concern of ours. We obviously support the bill, but it’s important that that be acknowledged and monitored, because if this bill, in providing consumers with more options, is to the detriment of local manufacturing, that is counter-productive. Nevertheless, we’ve said that we’re going to be monitoring that ourselves, and the Minister assures us that he believes that the bill has enough provisions in order to preserve that. We’re not fully convinced of that. Ultimately, it comes down to what regulations they bring in and what powers are available to the Commerce Commission; nevertheless, this is important. The New Zealand construction sector is struggling. We all know the reasons why, but this is a positive move and we support it.
STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to speak on this bill, actually. New Zealand has a black belt in red tape, and a “could do much better” in actual productivity in a number of sectors—particularly in this sector—and it’s not down to the people involved in it; it is all the rules around it that make it quite difficult and slow.
My colleague Dan Bidois said earlier that there were 12,000 new products likely to come, and I think that’s a good thing. But, as the previous speaker, the Hon Kieran McAnulty, mentioned, New Zealand building product producers will, I’m sure, compete. We don’t know how good they will be at competing, because they really haven’t had much competitive tension in some parts of the market for products, so this is going to be a great thing.
We often think that New Zealand is unique because we have strong winds, so we have to build structurally to account for the wind, and there are seismic risks that we have in New Zealand, but that’s not unique. That happens everywhere around the world, so I think the fact that under this bill—and I remember hearing the evidence in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. That doesn’t mean we’re lowering our standards—not at all. We’re just opening the market up and allowing other people to bring it in and not be held up by all the processes.
So I had a look at that and that’s great, and the Minister for Building and Construction mentioned consenting, so I actually am going to refer to that because I have here the median time for a building consent to be issued. I won’t call out all the councils, but one of mine is not doing very well. Marlborough District Council takes 12 days to process a building consent, whereas at the other end of the scale—also on my patch, at Kaikōura—is half that, at six days. So how can a very small council actually process those consents in half the time? I don’t know how that is, but certainly there are some good lessons to be learnt around the place.
Every day costs money, and it’s not just this part of it, but all of those little inefficiencies in the process add cost and frustration and it’s time these things were brought to an end. That’s why this bill is so important, and I commend it to the House.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to take a short call on the Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Bill—that is quite a mouthful. But we have heard some good speeches on this bill this evening, and it’s good to see sensible legislation being considered in thoughtful ways by members from around the House.
I want to just touch on a couple of things. We heard from Labour’s building spokesperson, Arena Williams, that when she was involved in going through the select committee process and the committee of the whole House process, she was looking at this bill with three different questions in mind. The first was: is this going to reduce the price for consumers, rather than simply leading to a profit for people importing the new materials? We’ve just heard from the Hon Kieran McAnulty that it’s very important that that is monitored. That’s something to keep doing after this bill passes.
Another issue that Arena Williams was focused on is that health and safety and quality issue that the previous speaker, Stuart Smith, just referred to. The advice that was given during this process was that it will not be compromised, and that’s very important.
The third issue is: are local manufacturers of building products getting a fair go? We know and we will have heard in many of the debates about new products such as saveBOARD, which I’m interested in because it’s made from recycled materials, and, of course, here on precinct we have a good example of it out the back of the building, protecting us from the work that is going on in that building site just next door to us. It’s good that we have these manufactured products in New Zealand, because whilst the previous speaker was saying New Zealand is not unique, we are uniquely far away from everywhere else, so it is very important that we have building materials here in New Zealand, and we might be able to make use of some products that other countries can’t.
But what is so important about this point is the settings that will be made in secondary legislation, in the regulations. We need to make sure that these regulations don’t favour the international products over our locally manufactured projects, and I think the Hon Kieran McAnulty put this very nicely when he said that they need to be getting a fair run. That’s important and I’d ask the Minister for Building and Construction to make sure that he does do this through the regulations and the regulatory settings—and also, of course, the Government Ministers who will be involved in the development of those regulations—and Labour will be watching that closely. But on that note, I do want to commend this bill to the House and congratulate the Minister for bringing it here.
MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This very welcome piece of legislation has been introduced to the House by our very own “Mr Fix-it”, the Hon Chris Penk. While Minister Penk may not be Bob the Builder, he is, however, rebuilding our legislative framework, one plank and one nail at a time. This rebuild will actually have a significant and positive impact on the building and construction sector in this country because we know that right now we’re facing a market where the competition of the building products isn’t working as well as it could and should be and we have barriers that are preventing high-quality overseas products from entering our market. So this bill is about removing those barriers, increasing competition, and giving builders and homeowners more choice and, ultimately, driving down costs.
This bill will recognise overseas standards and certifications, streamline the use of international standards, and accept overseas certifications for building products. Simply, this bill provides for more competition, which means more choices, lower prices for building products, increased resilience to supply chain disruptions so we can get products from more countries, and a quicker building process with fewer barriers and faster consenting.
To sum it up, this bill is about improving the competition, lowering costs, and making the building industry more resilient. This is just one part of our ongoing work to reform the building and construction sector to meet the needs of all New Zealanders. Can we fix it? Yes, we can. Will we fix it? Yes, we will. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I listened to Mr Foster’s contribution and agreed with much of it. I think New Zealand has come a long way in reaching cross-party consensus as to what are the main ingredients of a more affordable, long-term housing market for both people who own their own house and people who rent. I want to respond to some of the comments that Andy Foster made.
When we came into Government, land supply was terribly, terribly constrained in New Zealand, and there was an agreement within Treasury and, I think, within the outgoing National Government that the artificial scarcity of building opportunities was flowing through to the price of all houses, new and old, because markets clear at the marginal cost of the new increment to supply, and if the new increment to supply is held falsely high in its price, that flows through to all of the prices of the second-hand goods, as well. Therefore, one of the main problems that we had in New Zealand was tight land supply, which was not just driving up the cost of a new house but also pulling up the price of all second-hand homes in New Zealand, or previously owned homes in New Zealand.
So what did we do about that? Well, we massively increased building opportunities in New Zealand. In truth, some of the work had been done through the Auckland Plan process that Rodney Hide had led the legislative framework for, and so there were more medium-density houses provided for in the Auckland market.
We then took office, and we did three main things: we introduced a national policy statement on urban development which vastly increased supply and made illegal some things that were driving up the cost of supply, including excessive rules relating to car park requirements and the like. We then, at the same time, had a piece of fast-track legislation which was enabling the consenting of lots of subdivisional opportunities to come forward in a way that would not have otherwise come forward. We next—working, actually, in concert with the National Party under Judith Collins—legislated for what was called the medium-density residential zone directly through an amendment to the Resource Management Act (RMA), and that also forced councils in high-growth areas to change their plans to bring forward more housebuilding opportunities. Then, through the RMA reforms, we introduced spatial planning to give a signal to the private sector as to where the investment was likely to go next, and also to make some more rational decisions for the expensive trunk infrastructure like new roads and railways, and schools and hospitals—where those things are likely to be placed—in order to give some direction as to where investors should invest next.
We started to reform infrastructure funding and financing, because that’s a big part of the costs as well, and it’s pleasing to see that that work has continued also under the current Government, with Chris Bishop recently announcing how you can have a levy for generalised infrastructure costs that are going to be imposed by a new area of development which, if not paid for by that development, is, effectively, putting the cost to the council and other ratepayers, and that’s wrong—you need to get those costs properly internalised to the subdivision, where possible. Now, I know that the RMA reforms that we passed have since been repealed, but the Government is continuing with that part—the spatial planning reforms—because they are a necessary part of the picture.
Then, in respect of housebuilding costs, you obviously need a workforce. We doubled the number of people who were being trained for apprentices and other trades courses, mainly in the construction sector, and that helped. We also built a lot more State houses because one of the things that you need in any Western country is a mixture of private-sector housing but also some social housing, and that can be split in ownership between the Government and the housing providers that are non-governmental.
It’s a little bit galling for us on this side to hear the Prime Minister today claiming that all these people came out of the motels and have been placed in housing, because we on this side know that those houses were actually built by the Labour-led Government, who introduced more new public housing than any Government had done since the 1970s, and, of course, that record is to be contrasted with the last two prior National Governments, which decreased public housing stock in total numbers but they also particularly reduced the numbers that were owned by the Crown—and I know, Madam Speaker, that I’m doing exactly as Andy Foster did: recounting all of the complex things that need to be done to bring a housing market under control.
Then, in respect of the housebuilding costs, you also need to address the cost of components for housing. That’s what this bill addresses by making it more easy to bring in products from overseas, creating a system for the specification to be registered and the mode of use of those new products to be brought forward.
If there’s one disappointment that I have here, it relates to how you actually make building consent authorities within council allow the incorporation of these products in a way that is not too time-consuming or expensive. I’d proposed an amendment at the committee stage, which I was disappointed the Government did not support, because we know, and I think all of us in this House know, that one of the problems that we have in council planning departments—and this is caused partly through the incentives that they face because of the legal risk they face, but it’s only partly that. They are requiring more and more and more paper, or the electronic form of paper, to be filed in respect of each consent application, and even where a product has been approved for use, the practice has become prevalent in Auckland City, and, I’m sure, in some other consent departments around the country, where they require the method of use as well as the underlying specification for those products to be filed in every building consent application, rather than just referring to the product that has been approved. Now, that is wrong, because there are already obligations on the architects and the licensed building practitioners to use those products properly if specified, and they should not have to put all that additional detail in.
Now, the answer that the Minister in the chair gave was that that’s not required by law. Well, it’s not required by law, but you can’t beat city hall, because when the city hall asks you for those documents and you’re the architect or the builder, what are you to do, because the only way you can beat city hall in that situation is through judicial review, which would cost tens of thousands of dollars and would cause delay.
Therefore, the architect or the builder is, effectively, forced to do what the council unreasonably asks—the council building consent department—because they go to the back of the queue, have a fight that they’re not going to win anyway, and they end up paying the extra $300 fee for the extra information that the council has sought and has charged them another hour of their own time for, and they give up. They give in on every occasion, because if they don’t, they face those additional costs and they go to the back of the queue, and that causes further delay and costs to themselves and to their clients. So it puts up the costs that are charged by the council to the applicant, it puts up the applicant’s own costs through delay, and it also puts up the costs that are being charged to the applicant by the applicant’s advisers, be they builders, architects, or engineers.
I had suggested an amendment saying that where those documents had been filed, the council couldn’t ask for them to be filed again. I think we actually have to do something pretty directive here, because otherwise councils will do what they are currently doing under the current law, and they’ll continue to do it. So I was a bit disappointed that that very practical amendment was not favoured by the Government members, because we actually had an opportunity not just to introduce these products in a way that is efficient that is provided for in the book here, in an authorisation of those to be products to be used—as we did with GIB substitutes—but to go further and strip out this ridiculous repetition of what’s being required by councils to be filed at great cost.
I repeat again that, just coincidentally, in the last week I had a very experienced architect with 50 years’ experience—Malcolm Walker, who I know well—come to me and say that the architects in Auckland and the builders are just tearing their hair out at this ridiculous waste of cost with the council intruding into what really ought not to be their purview. None the less, we support this bill as being a helpful addition.
Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s an honour to be the final speaker in this third reading of the Building (Overseas Building Products, Standards, and Certification Schemes) Amendment Bill. As many have traversed through this evening, this is an excellent piece of legislation that will allow greater competition through the introduction to the New Zealand market of a new variety of building products and other systems. This is going to be supported by the regulatory schemes that go alongside it. This means that the standards of the products coming in will be as high, if not higher, than others.
One of my colleagues across the House mentioned a building manufacturing company from my electorate called Formance, which make structural insulated panels which are excellent. Apparently, it is harder to get consent for them to be used in Dunedin than they would to be used in Christchurch, which is yet another of the crazy problems that we have in New Zealand, where there’s a huge variation between regions of what is acceptable. So this is another area that we’ll be attacking with different legislation, but under this piece of legislation, we will be massively increasing the options for the building companies and for the architects and designers. This will make a tangible difference to the costs of building in this country, which, as we’ve discussed, has been far too high for far too long. It’s slowing down our economic growth.
This is something that is a part of our plan for going for growth, and we will fix it. We will get it done. I commend the bill to the House.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Bills
Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill
In Committee
Part 1 Amendments to Parts 1 and 2
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Members, the House is in committee on the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill. Members, we come now to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 4 to 40, “Amendments to Parts 1 and 2”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to ask the Minister of Police, I guess, for his advice. But also to clarify that I’ve got three tabled amendments on this bill—two of which I will speak to in this part, one of which will be part of a later part. But I will speak to my first amendment because one of the things that we have seen in the context of this bill is the Attorney-General’s section 7 report in terms of consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The three amendments I have drafted here are hopefully done in a way that is consistent with the purpose of this bill, while also moving towards consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.
The first one I would like to address is on clause 15. This is to do with the section 20 replaced and this is specifically in reference to section 20. One of the things that we do see that is being changed in terms of this is the reporting requirements from the existing bill and the existing registry around the fact that the registerable offender must report any anticipated change—and this includes having a relative with children arriving at their place of residence—at least 48 hours before.
However, one of the things that we note—and this is something that has been alluded to in the Attorney-General’s report as well—is this severely limits the ability for close relatives with children to spontaneously visit the registerable offender, even if the kids are supervised the whole time, which has the adverse effects to both isolation of the registerable offender and also being an impediment to their rehabilitation. Our amendment, on one hand, would say that rather than saying “at least 48 hours before”, it’s “as soon as reasonably practicable but no more than 24 hours after”, which still has the requirement of reporting, but it allows certain instances where there’s spontaneous visits. In this case, it does also, in some ways, limit in terms of the current legislation of 72 hours. So it’s, in some ways, a more restrictive approach as well.
However, just also wanting to check—drawing the Minister’s attention to the replacement of section 20(4)(b). If the interpretation of that and the prevalence of (4)(b) allows for those kind of spontaneous visits anyway, then potentially it is already consistent with my tabled amendment, but I would like to seek the Minister’s advice on that.
I guess the two questions, then, would be: would the Minister consider my amendment, which is done in a way that still fulfils the purpose of the bill but moves it towards a more consistent way? And also: if the Minister doesn’t, then would the Minister clarify if what I’m proposing in this amendment is already covered under section 20(4)(b) of the legislation?
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Look, I’m interested to know a little bit more in and around the name suppression. We’ve had some quite good information come through the select committee in terms of the amendments to the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Act, and there’s been some very good points in terms of tightening up those requirements and making sure they’re compliant overall.
I’m interested to hear from the Minister of Police as to what was identified as those gaps and weaknesses. We know that the sex offender register has been operating reasonably effectively. There are no reports of there being any issues. But the main purpose of these changes has really been to enable a tightening-up of any lags and of any alerts in order to prevent children or young people being subjected to any unnecessary risks.
I also understand that one of the ways that this is happening is that there will be less of a reliance on postal notification and a higher ability to be able to use email in terms of transferring information. Coming with email, I’m just interested to know if there’s been any analysis done on what happens if it’s not received. We know that there’s a lot of spam these days in our email boxes. This is quite important information that’s going to be conveyed back and forth, and I’m just really wanting to know what types of verification, in terms of email address, and what types of assurances the Minister has had that if you’re giving this type of heavy information, via email, that has an impact on when people are being notified about quite sensitive and really important information, how has he been informed that this will be ensuring that the information reaches the designated person?
I’ve also got an additional question. I noted in the regulatory impact statement that the paper proposes technical or minor amendments to the existing Act, and it doesn’t alter the policy intent legislation or the implications for the Treaty of Waitangi. I do note there’s been a general trend under this Government to remove Treaty of Waitangi references, and I’m wondering how this one squeaked through. The amendments will not significantly alter the existing impact of the legislation for registered offenders who are Māori, but there are no implications there at all. So I’m wondering if there’s been any other advice received, specifically on the implications that come under the Treaty of Waitangi, noting that it’s recognised that some of the required personal information provided by a Māori individual on the register must be treated as taonga and the personal information relates to a person’s whakapapa. It also notes that mātauranga Māori is not generally considered to be owned by the individual concerned but held by them as a kaitiaki on behalf of past, current, and future generations. It’s nice to see that those provisions have remained. I’m just wondering—there are other pieces of legislation that we’ve discussed recently, in other areas, that haven’t left those parts with Treaty of Waitangi implications with them. I just wonder if he’d had responses as to why they’d remained here.
It’s also important to note that there will always be a retrospective part, I understand, to this legislation, and I’m really interested to know if there’s been any additional information that the Minister received in and around implications to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We know that, by introducing these changes, they not only apply to those offenders who are yet to be registered on the sex offender register but also to all of those who are already on the sex offender register. And so it would be really interesting to know if the Minister had any additional advice as to any potential legal challenges that he may foresee coming as a consequence of this or whether he’s had adequate information and advice to think that that’s not a risk for this piece of legislation.
I’d just like to wrap up. So the questions I had for the Minister were to get down to the email delivery and, secondly, the implications under the Treaty of Waitangi and then, thirdly, the retrospective provisions that are entailed within this legislation.
STUART SMITH (Senior Whip—National): I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. I just have to clarify now what we are going to be talking to. The question is now that Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 stand part.
Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3
HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to ask—it does stretch a few provisions—about the times that have been chosen for notification. I can see that, if you have a child that is coming to the house, there is a time frame that has been chosen, of two days, and then there is another time frame that has been chosen if you are leaving the country, in terms of notification. I would like to know from the Minister of Police how those times were chosen, and how robust are they, really? I can see there has been quite a lot of consultation with various groups as part of the review, so it is a work in progress, but I wondered how those particular times had come to be the picked amount.
I would also like to know a little bit more—we have got a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issue, but there has been a decision that this is a proportionate response. I wondered whether the Minister could actually just talk about the nature of that balancing act and why, in this situation, we have decided that this is a proportionate response. It’s fairly obvious that it’s about the impact and the risk to children, so I think it would be good for the public if there was an elaboration on that point. Thank you.
Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, firstly, I just want to say that it’s nice to see that, as a committee, there is broad support for the bill, because what we’re trying to achieve is protecting our most vulnerable, and that’s our kids. To the doctor from the Green Party in relation to his tabled amendments, in relation to the tabled amendment relating to clause 11, where a registrable offender is reporting information in good faith, they’ll be complying with their obligations under the Act and will not commit an offence. The register works closely with registrable offenders to help them comply with their requirements. It is only when a registrable offender knowingly provides false or misleading information that they may be charged. This amendment is not required, but thank you for raising it and thank you for taking the time and effort to actually try and improve the bill.
The second amendment, relating to clause 15: the purpose of this amendment is to provide better protection for children and young people. This amendment already provides an exception where it is not practical or possible in the circumstances within the 48 hours before resigning. That one also is not required.
In relation to the issues that were raised by the Hon Ginny Andersen around the email, of course the changes that have been made to the bill need to modernise and reflect the fact that, you know, there are more efficient communication systems available now, which includes email. That is why it has been put in the bill. I’ll get more information if I can around it, but I’d expect that that email system, like any Government email system that requires reporting, will have robust processes around it to make sure that information is received.
In relation to the Treaty of Waitangi, well, that’s not really an issue, is it, because it’s there in the bill. Thank you.
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, the main thing I’d really like the Minister of Police to address head on is the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act stuff, because you have got a report from the Attorney-General that says that this bill is not consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The main reason for that is that this sex offender register and reporting requirement is seen as part of the kind of sentencing process and part of the punishment. There’s a pretty general rule, and it’s pretty common sense, that Parliament doesn’t change punishments retrospectively for sentences that have already been handed down.
Now, we know that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is not absolute. It says there in the bill itself that where it’s justified in a free and democratic society that limitations to those rights, including the right against double jeopardy and retrospective penalties exist. But it’s got to be a pretty high bar. Now, I guess I’m asking for more than just a reassurance, a commitment from the Minister, if you like. The police have come and said, “Look, this sex offender register genuinely keeps children safe.” Overseas studies have said, “Look, this is just making communities feel safe. It doesn’t actually have the effect of reducing child sex offending.” And that’s a concern, right? It’s even worse to feel safe when it’s not having the effect desired: not only is it an unnecessary restriction on freedom but it’s giving a false sense of security.
So I guess, Minister, I’m really inviting you to stand up and address front-on this issue and, you know, give us a reassurance that the work that the police are doing on actually assessing whether the Child Sex Offender Register is implemented and operated in New Zealand is effective, and that there are, you know, fewer incidents than there would otherwise be.
Look, I don’t think—I’ll sit down at this point because that’s my question in a nutshell, and I won’t drag it out. But I would appreciate it if you stand up and just say, “Look, yes, the Attorney-General’s report says it’s in breach, but this Parliament wants to proceed in the face of that because … and in the future, we will continue to monitor this New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issue.”
Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Well, I can accommodate the member the Hon Dr Duncan Webb and say that, yes, the bill has attracted a section 7 report from the Attorney-General which is consistent with every bill of this nature—attracting a section 7 report. The reality of it is this: sometimes legislation in this House will attract a section 7 report, because we decide that sometimes people have to give up some rights to protect others. In this case, we’re deciding that child sex offenders are going to have to forfeit a couple of rights to make sure that we protect our kids.
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Chair. In the spirit of exchange, I fear that the Minister of Police has fallen into a trap, because it’s very easy to accord human rights to people who aren’t criminals, and it’s very easy to take them away because they are criminals. But one of the hallmarks of a civilised, democratic society is that human rights and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act rights are accorded to everyone. I’m a little alarmed that the Minister just stood up and said, “Well, these people are sex offenders, so we took rights away from them.” Sure, you can take liberty away from them—that’s what sentencing does—but the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act sets out a framework which says, “Look, be very careful.”, and I actually invited the Minister to not just stand up and say, “We don’t like these criminals, so we’re taking away their rights.”, but to give a reasoned justification for the retrospective nature of these penalties and for increasing the penalty that a previous court had imposed by changing the law under their feet.
Now, we’re supporting this bill. I’m actually trying to give the Minister an opportunity to stand up and say, “Look, we’re convinced that children are better protected by this.”, and I’m asking you whether you will continue and endorse the police’s continued work to assess and improve this system, to show that it doesn’t fall into the trap of overseas systems which impose restraints on sex offenders but no with benefit to children?
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I think with what I was about to contribute as well, I think the Minister of Police may be able to tie it all together into a response.
I’m going to say thank you to the Minister for addressing some of my amendments, but I think the one on clause 11, it does deserve some sort of fleshing out because I agree with the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, around the section 7 report being of a quite serious nature. Because sometimes the Government—any Government—or this House introduces legislation that does limit rights, which is what section 5 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is supposed to do—it looks at things on balance, whether the right is meant to be or is ought to or is justifiable in terms of being limited. But in this case, it was considered by the Attorney-General that it wasn’t. One of the things, as we see from a previous ruling in terms of D v Police, is around the fact that section 25(g) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is considered a fundamental right in terms of not having lesser punishment.
I was really reassured by what the Minister said in terms of that the punishment or any consequences, in terms of the relevant personal information, would only be for on the registerable offender if it was deliberately misleading or giving wrong information. I think that’s actually really reassuring.
I guess, in the context of this, one of the things we’re looking at is under section 35 of the principal Act, the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Act 2016, it sets out different lengths that a person is meant to be on the register, which is in brackets of eight years, 15 years, and lifetime, and for someone to be having to do all of these—which is understandably important, but also very bureaucratic in some ways of having more reporting requirements on very specific details—the concern that would be highlighted by the Attorney-General is on the onerous nature of that reporting. So part of my amendment was around possibly what the Minister has clarified already, that in some ways we do take a benefit of the doubt that people genuinely want to do the best they can in terms of the register and give as accurate information as possible. But sometimes they may not fill out a form correctly because people make mistakes and that’s sometimes OK.
What I want to check, then, with the Minister is sort of the broader idea that, with the additional requirement to the reporting, would we be looking at a comparable amount of resources that are going into supporting people on how they can register their relevant personal information in the best way possible without having some of those—you know, like potentially missing out on certain information?
I guess the checks and balances there for me are: what additional resource does the Minister expect to support the rehabilitation effort of people when they genuinely want to put in that information, and how they can best fill out the form in a way—or report on these details or register this information in the most accurate way?
Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Yeah, I’d just like to read into the Hansard around the issue around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, because it is an important issue. Of course, we try as parliamentarians, as a Parliament, and as an executive to be as compliant as we can to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. But the fact of the matter is this: as part of an organised society, you have got responsibilities. If you don’t meet those responsibilities or you decide that you’re going to offend, especially against the most vulnerable part of their community, then, actually, the consequence of that is, sometimes, you lose some rights.
The retrospective application of the administrative amendments is necessary to ensure that the information needed to effectively protect children from harmful sexual behaviour can be collected from the over 4,000 registered offenders currently on the register. Of current registered offenders, 66 percent will remain on the register for life. Without ensuring that the new provisions are retrospective, registry staff would be unable to identify or manage the risks presented by one group of registered offenders to the same extent as the risk presented by the other group, even though those risks might be comparable.
For example, an existing registerable offender will not be required to notify registry staff of the presence and details of a child living at their address until 72 hours after they have arrived. In contrast, registerable offenders placed on the register after the commencement of this bill will be required to report this information at least 48 hours before the child arrives. Exempting this considerably large and stable cohort from these new requirements would reduce the effectiveness of the risk-management approach, and that is why this approach has been taken in the bill.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that explanation from the Minister of Police around the retrospectivity, which does clear up one of my amendments and I acknowledge the position that the Minister has taken. I just want to clarify, if the Minister could answer my question, the support for registrable offender in this case, under the new requirements under clause 11 of this bill, that “Section 16 and cross-heading above section 16 replaced”. Because of the fact that there are now more requirements, is there going to be equitable or improved access to support to ensure that those registrable offenders understand fully when and how they are going to be able to register the new requirements for the relevant person information?
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clauses 11, 14, and 15 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 49
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.
Noes 68
New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 15, new section 20, amending subsections (2) and (4) and the heading be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 49
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.
Noes 68
New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to Schedule 1 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 49
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.
Noes 68
New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
Bill to be reported without amendment.
House resumed.
CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.
Motion agreed to.
Report adopted.
Bills
Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 1 April.
Hon ANDREW HOGGARD (Associate Minister of Agriculture): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s good to be here for the second reading of the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill. As has been covered by the previous three speakers on this bill, it is very much a technical bill looking to correct the odd spelling mistake, the odd punctuation mistake, and also small changes and evolutions over time in the agricultural sector.
I’d just like to probably speak on three parts of this bill that relate to my work and just thank the Primary Production Committee for some of the amendments and changes they have made. First of all, this bill contains a provision to provide a regulatory mechanism for the recognition of methane inhibitors. Now, this was something that, previously, the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act (ACVM) did not recognise. Obviously, when that bill was passed, these were a new thing, not known about, and so we had no place to register these to judge whether they were safe for food.
This is particularly important because these inhibitors are often chemical compounds that are, in effect, changing the biology of animals, adding a compound to animals that naturally may not occur to try and get a lower methane response from the animals, but this poses a risk of contaminants left in products. So it’s very important that we have a framework that we can judge as to whether or not these products are safe.
Now, there had been an Order in Council back in 2022 placing these methane inhibitors within the ACVM. This bill was intended to be the fix-up for that sort of temporary situation. We recently had to extend that Order in Council because it’s taken a little while to get this bill over the line, so it’s good to be here on the second reading, and hopefully we can quickly get this bill finished. So that’s a good aspect of this bill.
The second point I’d like to talk to is that within this bill, we had an introduction for the ability to have a temporary food standard or a New Zealand - only food standard. Now, this is obviously important in terms of the fact that, you know, we’re part of the joint food system with Australia. It has many benefits. It enables our processors and producers of food to be able to export to Australia and vice versa not needing to change labels, not needing to change compositions. If it’s good on one side of the Tasman, it’s good on the other side of the Tasman. This provides a lot of benefit to our food producers and exporters here in New Zealand. However, of course, there may be things that we want to do that are very unique to New Zealand that the Australians may not be up for doing a standard on. So having this ability is important to New Zealand, because since we’ve gone into the joint system, we haven’t had the ability to create our own independent food standard.
Now, obviously, there was some concern that was raised as to whether or not this signalled a lack of interest from us in the joint food system, so there has been a change made to clarify that this is only for the situation where there is not an interest from the Australians in pursuing a joint food standard, that we would first work through the joint system to see whether or not there was that agreement. If we’ve explored that option and the Australians aren’t interested, then we have that ability, just to give confidence to not only the food sector but to our trans-Tasman neighbours that we are committed to the joint system.
Finally, I just want to talk on a change to the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act (NAIT Act). Now, there was going to be initially in this bill an ability for more data sharing from the NAIT system. This would’ve been useful in terms of, for police, being able to find stolen animals. Also, I can think of several situations where heifers escaped, ran up the road for a couple of kilometres, and ended up in someone else’s paddock and they are left not knowing who these animals are. Being able to ring up the database and say, “Who do these belong to?” would’ve been particularly useful. Thankfully, a Facebook community group came to the rescue on that day. So there was a value in having this, but, obviously, there was a concern from some in the sector around privacy matters. I think it’s really important that farmers have confidence in the NAIT system that their data is secure, that it is important, because NAIT is particularly important in terms of that traceability of being able to contain any diseases. So having that strong confidence from people is important. I guess, you know, the Ministry for Primary Industries will work on how we can proceed better in the future with that data-sharing capability and will work with the industry to come up with solutions there.
So I’d just like to commend the Primary Production Committee for their fine work on this bill, and I commend this bill to the House.
JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First. We are pleased to support the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill. As we’ve heard, it’s a bill that fixes up a number of different Acts, lots of bits and pieces in different Acts. This tidy-up will make some statutes redundant and fix inaccuracies in existing legislation. New Zealand First is focused, and we’re committed to delivering support for our primary industries. These industries are, as we know, the backbone of our economy, and we support, and have always supported, attempts to streamline regulations for sectors like the primary industries. New Zealand First wants sectors like agriculture, forestry, and fisheries to be both competitive and efficient, delivering to the world, as they do for us.
In 2014, the Productivity Commission called for legislative maintenance, and this bill finally addresses that call. Our party is committed to a strong economy that grows from the foundations set by our productive primary industry. The New Zealand First coalition agreement with the National Party and our friends over on our right, in the ACT Party—we wanted to look at the different reviews around regulatory blocks and addressing them. So that goes forward in our coalition agreement, in addressing regulatory blocks. We are also about reducing those regulatory burdens for our primary industries. This bill modernises a series of laws managed by the Ministry for Primary Industries, making them work better and cost less for the taxpayer. The small but key changes the bill makes will help the Government agenda to trigger economic growth, and that is what this side of the House is about—economic growth and fostering more sensible rules to govern regulation.
Finally, in one bill, what we are dealing with here actually goes across 17 different Acts and actually repeals five of them. This bill actually does a lot in one go. Plus, one aspect I did just want to talk on quickly is one of my portfolio areas around horticulture. The New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Act—there’s a small change here where, in circumstances where you would want to give an exemption or a waiver or a refund, especially for our exporters in times of disasters, and if we just think of Cyclone Gabrielle, people couldn’t export for a year, this actually allows the ability to give that waiver, that exemption, or that refund, where, previously, you couldn’t do that. So I again will commend this bill to the House and fully support it.
SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Speaker. We are also in support of this bill; it’s not a particularly contentious bill. It is something that makes sense. It’s something that is tidying-up, fixing up little bits and pieces, which is all very valuable.
I do note that the member opposite who spoke just prior to myself, Jamie Arbuckle, talked about this as improving economic growth. Of course, economic growth on a finite planet is a nonsense and we do not support that sort of one-eyed focus on economic growth. We particularly prefer the idea of economic resilience and ecological restoration and social justice. These are things that are much more important and shape a whole world view rather than a simple fixation. So just to address my colleague’s point about economic growth and the myth and the magical thinking that we hear from the other side.
But not to rest on that, this bill is a very simple bill that addresses some small things, but we do have a few issues of concern—the Forests Act amendment to allow for the milling of indigenous timber felled before July of 1989, for example. We’ve got a few concerns. I would like to know how we are going to regulate that. What are the difficulties that might be presented in regulating this? What are the impacts of the nutrient decay within the immediate environment? How do we make sure we have a functioning forest with strong biodiversity? So that’s one concern that we have noted.
Another one is the Fisheries Act amendment, the removal of the Māori Land Court hearing requirement to establish taiapure instead of marine reserves. Replacement section 183 inserted by clause 160 allows for the Minister to recommend a declaration of taiapure-local fishery if satisfied that the relevant grounds have been met. We see in this that there are some potential Treaty implications and wonder whether this has been considered or what the Government will be doing to ensure that there’s no breach of Treaty here.
We’ve written to the Minister of Agriculture regarding both of these concerns. So if our concerns are resolved, we certainly will support further readings. But I want to make the point that this is important. We support the bill, but we do not support it wholeheartedly because we have concerns that we have asked to be addressed, and we are hopeful that the Minister will reply and will address our concerns and come back to us. I’ll also note some positives in the legislation that we do particularly approve of. I’m supportive of the provisions to enable service by electronic means to a body corporate, for example, which is just a simple way of ensuring that we don’t have to deliver everything by letter and is aligning things with what other agencies are doing.
So on the whole, this is pretty straightforward, but let’s not run through it without addressing some simple things. I’ll just repeat very simply: the two points of concern we have are the Forests Act amendment to allow for the milling of indigenous timber felled before July 1989, and the Fisheries Act amendment which sees the removal of the Māori Land Court hearing requirement to establish taiapure instead of marine reserves. So those are our two concerns that we have written to the Minister regarding, hoping that the Minister is going to address these concerns. If they are resolved, then we will be supporting this further. So those are the concerns we have. We’re in general support. We would like to be in full support. Kia ora.
MILES ANDERSON (National—Waitaki): It’s a pleasure to stand tonight and talk about the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill. Before I start, I’d just like to thank the Primary Production Committee. It was unanimously passed by the select committee, so the previous speaker, Scott Willis, should, I guess, reflect on that. The select committee went through this at the time, so we were in unanimous agreement around this bill.
Look, regulatory systems bills, as we’ve heard endlessly tonight, come around time to time, and they really do just act as a tidy-up for various bits of legislation. Some of these pieces of legislation have been identified, quite some time ago, as troublesome or inconsistent, so we’re clarifying and updating statutory provisions to give effect to the purpose of various Acts and their provisions, and we’re addressing regulatory duplication, gaps, errors, and inconsistencies in drafting, etc., and ensuring that regulatory systems remain up to date and relevant. I’d also like to point out just one—there’s so many of them, but one—example, I guess, which the previous speaker spoke about around horticultural levies and the ability, now, for those that are impacted by weather events or such like to have fees either returned or waived so that they’re not hit with a double whammy, if you like, when they’re in crisis mode. With that, I think it’s a pretty good bill, and I commend it to the House.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Mr Speaker, look, thank you very much. I’m just going through the bill for the second time. I wasn’t on the Primary Production Committee, but I have been familiar with the process, which is generally a tidy-up and a request to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to ask whether there are any pieces of legislation that need an adjustment and an improvement. For the most part, they are non-contentious, and I think the select committee has dealt with this really well. But I do want to go through each of them because it is a core part of our wealth creation—arguably, the most important areas of our economy from a wealth-creation, economic-activity perspective—so it’s important that we get it right. I’ll just work through, as I can, the notes that I’ve made.
The changes to the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act: there’s one here that amends the definition of “inhibitor” substances. The definition includes “agricultural compound applied … to plants or animals or [are put in] land”. There has been a proposal from a Dutch company to have a nitrogen inhibitor that has been applied, actually, to animals and it reduces the methane—something that we’re all looking for. They haven’t actually applied, but they’ve been saying, for quite a while, that we should have this in New Zealand. But there has been a problem with the definition of “agricultural compounds”, and so it’s, effectively, a fertiliser put on the land. It might or might not reduce methane, but the inability to run the trials has meant that we’re kind of stuck, and this bill will address that issue. Some might say it’s great, but we have to be somewhat careful, because the company has been very enthusiastic about this. There have been some trials in pastoral systems around the world, but it’s still uncertain outcomes, and whether we end up with a residue in our milk or in our meat products is something that should be looked at. So I hope and I trust—and in the committee stage of the bill, I’ll probably ask some more questions here to get an assurance—that the select committee did look carefully at that issue and that allowing this substance—I think it’s Bovaer—to be used in New Zealand, or trialled at least, won’t actually result in some adverse or unwanted residues in our meat and milk.
Can I move on to amendments in the Animal Products Act. It’s dealing basically with who verifies—as I say, it’s not too contentious there, but it’s really important that we do get these things right. The ability to export products that are not going out for sale but are going out for testing is a sensible adjustment, and, as I say, there are some complex regulatory issues that we have. There’s been much made of growth on the other side of the House. I do want to remind the House—the whole House—that, actually, when it comes to economic growth, as my colleague David Parker reminded me, economic growth under Labour Governments has been far greater than that under National Governments, on average, since World War II. Now, I wasn’t here and neither was Mr Parker, but that is a fact. That is a fact, and we can stand quite proud here and say that, when in Government, we managed higher levels of economic growth than those on the other side of the House. These adjustments are to help drive that growth, and I’m sure, even with these improvements, the National-led Government still won’t catch up to us. But, anyway, we’ll work on that.
Having poked that bear, can I come back to the Animal Products Act. One of the adjustments here—and these might seem like technical issues that are quite boring, but they are actually critical when it comes to selling safe, assured, high-quality products offshore into our markets. One around the Animal Products Act empowers regulations prescribed in relation to verification of animal material. The point is that, sometimes, the market requirements will be greater than the assurance programmes run in this country, and this will enable MPI to put in place and require that the products being exported might not require assurance programmes here, but they certainly require verification, and if we just sent them off without that, we would put our markets at risk. These are, as I say, technical issues. I’ll be asking questions as to whether the parameters of that have been accurately assessed by the select committee.
I’ll go forward on to other areas. There’s one around the draft codes of animal welfare, and they were basically developed by the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC), an independent organisation, and generally they have to be notified when they’re in draft form so that people can give feedback on that. It’s a good process. The old regulations said that you had to do it in these certain newspapers, and we’ve moved on from that. These regulations will change the way that NAWAC and MPI notify. Good move forward, I say.
Moving right on to the Biosecurity Act, where changes have been made, and we have import health standards. They are very strict and quite complex processes of enabling products to come into our country that might pose a risk to any of our primary production systems or industries, and so this will enable some flexibility because sometimes it does take years—literally years—to develop an import health standard that is robust. Once it’s locked in place, if there’s a need to change it, it’s quite a complex process. This adjustment will allow some technical changes and then the reinstatement of an import health standard from the right places with the right adjustments, as is appropriate to keep on with our growth perspective.
Can I just come on to another. It’s clause 88. It’s off the back of Mycoplasma bovis, when the suspected pathway for M. bovis coming into the country was being investigated—and it won’t be the only case. Inspectors, or those investigating, were very limited in their ability to seize information that might add to the case to either prove the pathway or take legal action against the person who might have imported or contributed. This adjustment here will make it easier for that information to be gathered.
I’m not going into every other area—Mr Speaker, I know you’ll be very pleased to know that—but can I just move on to one area, which is the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act (NAIT Act) area. There are adjustments to the NAIT Act. This is the Act that requires farmers to track and trace or to identify and then to notify all animal movements. And this was a nightmare, a particular nightmare, when it came to eradication of Mycoplasma bovis. Federated Farmers, in their wisdom or otherwise, had campaigned against NAIT when it was proposed in 2007, or thereabouts, and pushed back on it to the point where it wasn’t implemented. The incoming National Government did implement NAIT, somewhat reluctantly, in the knowledge that, actually, the world was moving in that direction. But that reluctant implementation meant that farmers didn’t really understand the why and hadn’t put NAIT in place as it should have been.
So when it came to MPI trying to track and trace animals for Mycoplasma bovis, it was a nightmare. The system has been improved. Farmers understand now why they need to do that, but there was a clause in this piece of legislation making technical adjustments that would have allowed the transfer or the sharing of some of the information gathered in the NAIT system to other Government agencies—a sensible proposition, I would have thought. But there’s always been paranoia, unreasonable paranoia, by those in the farming sectors, led by Federated Farmers in the past—I’m not sure about now—saying, “Well, if you give that information to the Government, they’re going to use it and abuse it.” This is information about the number of animals they have and where they shift them.
In my view—and there will be future incursions—the ability to share that information is critical. The select committee has obviously heard from submitters—I’m not quite sure who—that this is unreasonable and it impacts on our privacy, our ability to keep that information to ourselves. This Government will rue the day that it has changed this provision. With the proper protections, that information must be available across Government agencies when it comes to a foot-and-mouth or another Mycoplasma bovis incursion. So I’ll be asking, in the committee stage of the bill, why the select committee, as a whole, decided to pull that out.
There are many other issues, and most of them made very good progress in this bill. But there are some questions that need to be answered, and I’ll be asking them in the committee stage. Kia ora.
MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This omnibus bill aims to make our regulations more efficient and more effective, benefiting our primary sector—so what it’s about. As we’ve heard, there are about 250 changes to 17 different Acts. Those changes might be small, they might be technical, or some of them, in some cases, straightforward, but they actually do make a big difference. We’re talking about fixing drafting errors, clarifying procedures, and making various tweaks—big and small—that the industry has been waiting for. It’s a bit of a spring clean and a bit of a tidy-up, as we’ve heard. Like a small boat in the ocean setting big waves in motion, those big waves—that’s our primary sector, who are leading the charge for our economy.
The Primary Production Committee have had a key role in examining this bill thoroughly, going through every detail and unanimously recommending all the amendments, and that’s a big deal, showing that there’s a willingness and broad agreement to make those changes. So I commend and thank the select committee for all their efforts.
A few highlights from the bill: the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act 1997 has a clause inserted to allow for applications to register a trade name product if there’s an end date for its exemption from registration. Another one, the Biosecurity Act 1993: this Act now allows for oral declarations at the border and gives authorised persons the power to seize unauthorised goods, containers, or packages. The Food Act 2014: new amendments require the Minister to check that certain conditions in New Zealand justify issuing domestic food standards before doing so, and definitions are aligned across various Acts.
Those are just some of the changes, but, in essence, this bill represents our commitment to maintaining a modern, efficient, and effective regulatory system. It shows our dedication to supporting our primary sector and fostering economic growth without imposing unnecessary burdens. I commend this bill.
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Look, can I say what a treat it is to stand up and talk about our primary sector. As the MP for Christchurch Central, their largest open space is Hagley Park, and there are not a lot of sheep there. I was at Kirwee the other day, at the South Island Agricultural Field Days, and had a good walk around and a good old yarn. I saw the National Party tent miserably poked in the corner there with no one talking to them, but that was all right. I was having a good chat to everyone, and they were very happy to talk to me.
But, look, can I just say that this is actually what regulatory stewardship looks like. It is the function of Government to go through and make sure that all of that legislation—technical legislation listed here in this bill—is up to date, fit for purpose, and future-focused. Going after Damien O’Connor, who has a prodigious knowledge of this area, I’d never be able to match it, but if this Government could focus on this kind of regulatory stewardship instead of worrying about road cones and red tape hot lines, we’d get a lot further.
The Ministry for Regulation does do some good work, but it’s been hived off on a little project of David Seymour’s when what it should be doing is scanning the statute book for the best and quickest wins we can get in terms of tidying up things like the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act. If we can make our agricultural industry more effective by those small tweaks in an omnibus bill like this, where everyone wants to get together and say, “Yes, look, that’s a good idea.”, and, of course, officials—this is the stuff that officials love. There’s someone at a desk deep in the Ministry for Primary Industries who is overjoyed that finally, after years and years, we’re solving the problem that’s been causing them the headache for all that time.
It’s good that the Primary Production Committee—I hear it’s a fun committee. It’s great that they’ve done their work as well, because there is real value to be added on this kind of legislation, which is making sure the legislation is up to date and actually does its work. What we’ve got is the Labour Party, true to form, saying we’re the party of workers, we’re the party of industry, we’re the party of agriculture, and we’re the party of primary industry, and saying—[Interruption]
Hon Member: Comedy hour.
Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well, there’s a wry chuckle in the corner—in the far-right corner—but the fact of the matter is: look at the record. Look at what we did in Government. Look at what we did with free-trade agreements. Look at what we did with Mycoplasma bovis. The primary sector did really well under the Labour Government and the Labour-led Government.
So, look, we’re very happy to see this bill passed through the House to tidy up these regulatory standards to make sure we have legislation and a regulatory framework that works for everyone. It makes New Zealand better, richer, safer, and more competitive.
KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): Gosh, it is wonderful to have so many people just throwing all of their love for the primary sector out tonight. Look, as the MP for Napier, which is a large rural seat, just shy of 10,000 square kilometres—Wairoa district, Gisborne district, Hastings district—
Hon Member: Where is it?
Hon James Meager: It’s in the Hawke’s Bay.
KATIE NIMON: Not the Hawke’s Bay, James Meager; Hawke’s Bay.
Anyway, look, I think, as my colleagues have rightly mentioned, 250 amendments to 19 pieces of legislation just goes to show just how much impact there is across our legislation on the primary sector. This is the latest in a long line of regulatory systems amendment bills that we have brought through this House this term that tidy up a whole lot of things that, as you will notice in some of the points that have been made, really just delegate authority and change names. It’s all futureproofing. It’s futureproofing so we don’t have to come through with every single piece of legislation here and write a new law and make a new amendment.
So with that, I say this is a very, very practical bill that’s going to back our farmers. It is going to get New Zealand back on track. With that, I commend the bill to the House.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill. Now, it’s very good saying that if there is a problem, fix it. This is a good regulatory process where problems are being identified and they’re being fixed. So well done for everybody who’s involved in that fine, fine work that we should be doing in this place. I want to talk about two different aspects of this bill—[Interruption]—if anyone can hear me, Mr Speaker. The first is a little bit of history around walking and the second is some changes to the Food Act.
We see in the Primary Production Committee report that the Walking Access Act 2008 is going to change what is the Walking Access Commission to the Outdoor Access Commission. It’s not all about walking, it appears, and I just want to note some whakapapa that I have to this agency. In the olden days, there was the New Zealand Walkways Act 1975, and there have been great discussions about access to private land in the Queen’s Chain.
There was a press release on 4 August 2005 announcing a group chaired by John Ackland—members here might know his daughter-in-law Kate. It was an eight-member panel and, talking of daughters, my father was a member of this panel as a rural historian, and that—
Miles Anderson: Kate’s not his daughter-in-law.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I said daughter-in-law—oh, not daughter-in-law?
Miles Anderson: No.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, I’m being—I apologise for that. I thought she was. Is Miles Anderson going to correct me?
Miles Anderson: Niece-in-law.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Niece-in-law? Niece-in-law. Thank you for that—good Canterbury farmers there.
This group of individuals were sought to seek to clearly establish concerns of interest groups and the extent to which agreement can be reached on measures such as clarifying existing public access rights along water margins, establishing the location of gaps in the Queen’s Chain and how they might be remedied, the establishment of a code of conduct, and protecting the security of landowners. The work was reported back in February 2000, and then from that we have the Walking Access Act 2008 and the commission that was established. So that is some involvement of my family in that particular issue.
I want to move now to the Food Act. Part 9 amends the Food Act, and specifically clause 234 says that the Minister may issue domestic food standards. This is something that I’m sure we will traverse in the next stage of this bill, in the committee of the whole House stage. But I do note this clause allows for a food standard where it’s not part of the Food Standards Australia New Zealand for either of two reasons—being both new section 404(1)(a) and (b) of the Food Act. And (a) is the standards “have been or are being developed under the Australia - New Zealand Joint Food Standards Agreement for inclusion in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, but New Zealand has chosen, under an annex of the Agreement, to opt out of the standards;”. And then, or (b) is that there’s no such standard.
I just want to pause here because I think I heard Minister Hoggard say before in his second reading speech that this change would only apply where the Minister for Food Safety is satisfied that there is no joint interest for such a standard to be developed, but that only applies to (b), not (a). And (a) is when New Zealand has specifically chosen to step out of those agreed standards. So there’s no requirement there for there to not be a joint interest because obviously there is a joint interest and New Zealand has opted out.
There has been a recent opt out of those standards, and I think it would be useful to traverse that and to inquire with the Minister whether this change is actually quite a substantive change and illustrate some policy direction from this Government that they want to do more opting out of that standard.
Of course, it is possible to opt out already, but that is an important policy discussion to have and it goes beyond simple fix-ups and tidy-ups of the legislation. So that’s an important issue that we should discuss in the committee of the whole House.
But as I said at the start: if there is a problem, we should fix it. There are many problems that this bill addresses and fixes. So I thank you for listening to my speech.
DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to stand as the 12th call, or the 14th speaker, on the second reading of this bill itself. I wasn’t actually involved with the select committee process, but I do want to talk about that process. I do note that the bill was introduced to the House in the previous term, in June of 2023, with the first reading actually happening this term here, on 27 March last year. I also note that there were two submission periods that were brought forward, and that was as a result of, in the middle of the first submission period, 28 amendments brought forward, and, of course, it was appropriate for that to go back out for submissions on those amendments as well.
The bill is all about making sure that we have an efficient and effective regulatory system. As I said previously, it’s repealing five Acts, but it’s also making 250 amendments on 17 other Acts. Obviously, a lot of work was put into this by the select committee, and it looks like a bit of an A-team when I look at the Primary Production Committee. I thank them for the work that they’ve done on this, and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.
Hon JENNY SALESA (Labour—Panmure-Ōtāhuhu): Labour supports the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill. This legislation may seem technical on the surface, and I must admit it actually does seem technical to me, because I do not know that much about primary industries. However, it is an omnibus bill that is really important for the health, wellbeing, and safety of all of our people, our economy, and, of course, our environment too. This legislation is about fairness, it’s about responsibility, and it’s also about protection. All of these values are values that are dear to us on this side of the House.
This bill will ensure that those who operate within New Zealand’s primary industries do so with accountability and with integrity. This law, once passed, will strengthen the safeguards that we rely on to keep our food safe, our animals well-treated, and our borders secure. It is in many ways a testament to the duty that we owe not only to each other but to the future generations of Aotearoa New Zealand.
This bill is also about ensuring fairness and accountability in food and animal product regulation. One of the key amendments that we support in this bill is the provision under the Food Act 2014 and the Animal Products Act 1999, which allows the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to withdraw services from those who fail to pay their debts.
Now, to be clear, this is not about punishing those who struggle; it is about fairness. Regulatory services are really crucial for making sure that the food that we eat and the animal products that we export meet the highest of standards. So when some businesses fail to pay for their services, the burdens then fall on other businesses, and it is fundamentally unfair for responsible, hard-working businesses to subsidise those who do not uphold their end of the bargain.
Now, in terms of strengthening our biosecurity, this is a matter of national interest, because biosecurity is not just about protecting our economy; it is also about safeguarding the very foundation of who we are as a country. This is why the clarification on notices of arrival of a craft or boats that must be given under the Biosecurity Act 1993 is really important—an amendment that this bill makes. We live in a world where biosecurity threats are increasing, whether it’s foot-and-mouth disease, or fruit fly infestations or invasive species—and the Hon Damien O’Connor also covered this earlier on—that threaten our unique biodiversity, and a world where whoever is in Government spends millions and in some cases billions to address those issues. So, therefore, timely and clear reporting on the arrival of a craft is not just a bureaucratic exercise; it is a front-line defence, and Customs, together with MPI, also has a huge role to play in this. It ensures that our border agencies can act swiftly, preventing the threats before they take root in Aotearoa.
We also strongly support the amendment that expands MPI’s powers to seize containers, to seize packages, or anything that has held unauthorised goods. Too often, biosecurity risks do not come in obvious forms. Pests and diseases do not arrive in our country neatly labelled. They hide in the unforeseen corners of containers. They hide in packaging that is discarded carelessly or in residues that are left behind. So giving MPI the power to seize not just the goods themselves but the vessels or the containers that they come in is, indeed, a logical and necessary step.
This bill is about fairness for responsible businesses. It is about protection of our people and our economy. It is also about accountability for those who are operating within our borders. It strengthens the systems that keep New Zealand’s food safe, our farms thriving, and our environment protected. We commend this bill to the House.
Bill read a second time.
Bills
Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill
Third Reading
Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): I present a legislative statement on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I move, That the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.
I’m pleased to lead this bill into its final stage in the House, and I’m proud to reflect on the journey that it has taken to get to its third reading today, but, more importantly, to reflect on what this will mean for the most vulnerable children and young people in Aotearoa New Zealand. I’m proud to stand here as the Minister for Children, delivering on exactly what I promised when I became the Minister—that is, to ensure that the system we trust as a nation to take good care of vulnerable children and young people is focused on safety and wellbeing above all else. This bill reaffirms the coalition Government’s commitment to the care and safety of children in care.
Let me remind you of some of the important context. Section 4A of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 requires that the wellbeing and the best interests of the children or young person are the first and paramount consideration in the administration or application of the Act. And yet I’ve stood in front of you and in this House multiple times to share stories from caregivers and Oranga Tamariki staff and people who deal with Oranga Tamariki whose experience has highlighted that section 7AA of the Act has been misused and potentially put children in harm’s way. Many shared that section 7AA has led to decisions that were not in the best interests of the child in cases where the race of a child was prioritised over their safety and wellbeing. Similar stories were echoed through submissions on the bill.
While section 7AA was well intended, it also resulted in children being put second. We can no longer accept or excuse this. We can no longer deny that section 7AA has led to confusion and conflict in a system that cannot afford to get such a crucial care decision wrong. What happens now? What happens in practice to these young people matters. These children’s lives are not lived in theories or in the comfort of academia or privilege. The harm that comes their way is not academic; it is real. That is why I make no apology for repealing section 7AA from the Act to remove any confusion for people on the ground making decisions on a daily basis to keep children and young people safe.
I introduced the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill while I was in Opposition and the Government of the time denied it going through. I then introduced the bill in the House in May 2024 and nominated the Social Services and Community Committee to consider this bill. Once again, I thank the committee for its consideration of the bill. I thank members of the public and the thousands of submitters who put time, effort, and heart into having their say on the bill. I’m especially appreciative of the lived-experience perspective from submitters with a history in care and the protection system. This included those who were in care as children or young people and those who have crucially supported the system as caregivers, strategic partners, social workers, social sector partners, and many others.
By majority, the Social Services and Community Committee recommended to insert provisions related to strategic partnerships between iwi and Māori organisations and Oranga Tamariki, alongside other duties of the Oranga Tamariki chief executive. As I’ve said throughout the journey of this bill in the House, the work that the 10 strategic partners have done to prevent young people entering care and to improve the outcomes of those already in care cannot be overlooked. I was very clear that I wanted this work to continue. I have read and heard what members of the public have said, and I’ve heard from the committee, and I listened.
Hon Mark Mitchell: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise to the Minister. I am trying to listen to the speech. This is a Minister delivering a speech on what is a critically important piece of legislation. I cannot hear her, because there are two members of the Māori Party there who are chipping away at her constantly. There are members of the Labour Party—I cannot hear what she’s saying.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Point taken. Interjections must be rare and reasonable, so I would like members to take that into account. I do want to acknowledge the interest in this particular bill as well, but members need to be heard and Ministers need to be heard.
Hon KAREN CHHOUR: Thank you, Mr Speaker. As I said in my second reading speech, I commend the committee’s majority recommendation that the strategic partnership provisions remain in the Oranga Tamariki Act. This commitment in legislation, rather than as an operational prerogative, is an important one. However, what I want to make clear is that this bill does not negate the importance of cultural connections for children and young people. I have no issue with looking to whānau, hapū, or iwi as a solution for placements when appropriate, but safety must come first every single time.
I recently received feedback that section 7AA supports decision-makers under the Act to have regard to the cultural connections of Māori children and young persons. Their concern was that this would no longer be available for reference after the repeal. This is not the case. Section 5 of the Act requires anyone who exercises power under the Act to be guided by the concepts of mana tamaiti, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga. The bill does not remove this requirement. What the bill does do, however, is remove confusion between the safety considerations in section 4A and cultural considerations in section 7AA. The bill creates clarity in decision making so that the safety is indeed the paramount consideration for each and all children and young people.
I would just like to finish off by thanking all those who have supported me through this process and also to all those staff who go out every day to make sure that our children and our young people are safe, loved, and cared for. I want to reiterate the Government’s commitment to renew the focus of Oranga Tamariki to be on the safety and wellbeing of children in care arrangements. This bill and the repeal of section 7AA will go a long way to ensuring that. I’m pleased to commend the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. This is a travesty. Let the record show tonight—or tomorrow, when this bill ultimately passes—that political ideology has driven this repeal and that vulnerable Māori children will be the ones who pay the price. Let the record show all of our descendants who in this Whare supported the repeal of the provisions to ensure the implementation of the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi—let the record show who is supporting that. Let the record show who supports removing the legal obligation, the statutory requirement of the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki, to have policies and practices that reduce disparities for tamariki Māori. Let the record show—let the history books show—these tamariki who could be the subject of a future royal commission into abuse in State care, because this is the very sort of thing that the royal commission that we recently had inquired into and reported on.
Here we are in this House tonight, repealing a section of the Oranga Tamariki Act that was put in place to address the very issues that that royal commission has reported on. The Minister for Children said she is proud. Shame on her. This has been her political agenda from the day she arrived in Parliament, and tonight—tomorrow, when it passes—she finally gets her opportunity to pass law that is based on political ideology and no empirical evidence, and she makes no apology. So let our mokopuna know who it was who did this to them—to them, not for them. To them.
Now, the first thing I want to start with is to quote a survivor of abuse in State care. Tupua Urlich spoke about the damage caused to him by being removed from his whānau and culture, saying that “it is going to take generations to undo that harm. So when the Government turns around and fails to acknowledge our rights, it’s [like] another stab in the back.”
What I will remember is a Minister who was so disrespectful that she would not front before the Waitangi Tribunal to provide our experts with the evidence that supports why this policy is needed in the first place. So disrespectful, so close-minded. She already knew what it was that she wanted to achieve. What I will also remember is a weak and desperate-for-power Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, the leader of the National Party, agreed in the coalition agreement to repeal section 7AA, which was something that the last National Government put into law. It means absolutely nothing. Totally disrespectful to his colleagues and colleagues in the previous Government. Anything is up for grabs. Desperate for power. Weak.
What I will also remember are these words from the officials. Now, the Minister, last night in the committee stage, talked about a few cases that she believes provides the evidence to repeal this entire section, which is going to have huge impacts for tamariki Māori, who make up two-thirds of the care and protection system. And you know what they said about the cases that she raised? Oranga Tamariki notes that there is no empirical evidence to support the notion that section 7AA has driven practice decisions that have led to changing in care arrangements. Her own officials were telling her there is no empirical evidence to support the cases that she is using to justify this case. Closed-minded, doesn’t care, never cared from the beginning.
But what I really want to focus on in this contribution is the fact that everybody in this House—the Minister and everybody that is still in the House tonight—is on notice. We have all been warned in the regulatory impact statement right from the beginning of this debate and this journey that the Minister talks about, that there is a risk that this will do real harm to tamariki Māori.
It’s not just an academic conversation that the Minister thinks that we are having. This is from experts; this is from people with lived experience; this is from our strategic Māori partners and providers who are at the front line. This is from our health professionals, our social workers, and so many submitters. The majority of the submitters said there will be adverse impact on holistic wellbeing when tamariki and rangatahi Māori are alienated and disconnected from their culture, and the issues that they have highlighted—now listen up—will be an increased risk to physical, mental, psychological, cultural, and social distress due to the shift away from prioritising familial connections, identity, and cultural understanding in care placements, practice approaches, and access to appropriate cultural supports.
That disconnection from whakapapa, whānau, identity, and language has serious and long-lasting negative impacts on tamariki and rangatahi Māori, including intergenerational trauma. Why would anybody inflict that on a vulnerable Māori child; an innocent Māori tamaiti? Why would anybody agree to that in the House tonight? How can you all sleep at night is my question to you.
As I have said, there is no evidence to support this. This is all political ideology. There was no consultation. This impacts only Māori children—no consultation with Māori, no consultation with strategic partners. Not a single strategic partner supported this repeal. It is a clear breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, as identified by officials, as also found by the Waitangi Tribunal, and the reports all say that this will cause harm.
In my final time that I have, the other thing that will always sit with me from this process has been those who took the time to make the submissions on this bill. They poured everything they had into their submissions. As I mentioned at the second reading, grown men were crying in front of the Social Services and Community Committee because of the impact they know that this will have.
But the other one I wanted to highlight was the māmā who themselves grew up in State care, who have suffered from that disconnection to their culture and who are raising their own children while they are trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together for themselves and raise their next generation and e tangi hotuhotu ana te manawa o ērā māmā mō ā rātou tamariki [the hearts of those mothers sob for their children].
We saw it with survivors of abuse in State care presenting before our committee. They told us the impact that this will have. We saw it from the māmā telling us the impact it’s had on them and for their pēpē. And yet here we are tonight. None of that mattered. It’s still going to be repealed anyway. Shame on all of you.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Kākāriki to strongly oppose this bill because this is a bill that is hard to justify. There is no justification on why this bill needs to be introduced into this House in the first place. We have seen and heard throughout the select committee stage, throughout the committee stage, of the harm that this will cause to our tamariki for generations to come.
But let’s look at the bill first. One of the fundamental protections and bottom lines that is being removed as a result of the repeal of section 7AA is the reporting requirement by the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki. There is a reason why that responsibility and that reporting mechanism need to be there in the first place—because our tamariki, our mokopuna have been hurt in the system. There needs to be some form of accountability. There needs to be some form of transparency.
We have heard from the Minister for Children that those reporting mechanisms will remain. But that is not what we have seen and that is not what we have been told from those on the ground, because one of the fundamental aspects around reporting on disparities will not be reported on because there is now no longer a legal obligation for the chief executive to report on that. That is a problem.
We have heard from the Minister—over and over again—anecdotal evidence, singular evidence, but not empirical evidence. Never once did she address the opposition to this bill from countless people, from legal experts, from those who have been harmed in the system, from community organisations on the ground who are working with these people, or from strategic partners. Their opposition to this bill was never mentioned once. Even in the anecdotal evidence that was presented and was reported to us, we have heard that those are not even section 7AA cases. They are not relevant to the bill that we are currently even talking about. That is not genuine. We are supposed to be an evidence-based House. When we are talking about bills, they are based on solid empirical evidence and that is not what we have seen as we’re going through the reading, as this bill becomes law.
Throughout the committee stage we have questioned, over and over again, what is our Te Tiriti obligation? We’ve heard the fact that this repeal fundamentally misunderstands the role of tikanga Māori, fundamentally misunderstands the relationship that our tamariki and our mokopuna have within te ao Māori, within the ecosystem of the Māori worldview. All tamariki are considered taonga. In Chinese culture, from my area, we have a similar term; we call our tamariki 宝, which literally translates to “treasure”. The idea of tamariki, of our future generation as taonga, as treasure, is a universal concept. We know for a fact that when we are looking at Aotearoa, when we are looking at the system that is presented to us, we know what is good for Māori is good for everyone else. This bill does nothing to reflect that.
We have heard from multiple colleagues in this House when they were questioning the Minister for Children on what the role of whānau and hapū and iwi is in this, that there is a fundamental misunderstanding as well around what that strategic partner meant. We heard from our colleagues of the beauty that could come out of that strategic partnership, and we are worried that the repeal of this section will see the diminishment of some of that collaboration and much-needed healing from generations, from centuries, of trauma.
We have heard from multiple sources—from legal experts, from the Waitangi Tribunal—that this bill fundamentally breaches Te Tiriti o Waitangi. [Interruption]
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Can I ask members to not have conversations—apologies to the member. I would like members to not have conversations across the Chamber.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. What is our vision for the future of Aotearoa? I would have thought that our vision is to protect our tamariki—our vision, collectively, is to protect our mokopuna. We have heard from the report on abuse in State and faith-based care. We have heard, like the Hon Willow-Jean Prime just mentioned before, about grown men breaking down, talking about the experience they had in our care system. One of the things that’s fundamentally addressed as part of that is the strained or broken whakapapa and the violence and the ill treatment that we have seen in the system. This is one of the reasons that section 7AA exists in the first place.
We have seen for too long stolen lives and marked souls as a result of our system, and Māori have been disproportionately affected by that system. When are we going to stop sacrificing our mokopuna and our tamariki for a capitalist system that they did not ask for? When we are looking at the system, it has been far too often that we trade the hopes and dreams of our future generation for a quick buck right now. Shame.
Hon Members: Shame!
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Shame! Why do we need to do that? Why do we need to sacrifice our mokopuna as a result of this?
It is not just the repeal of section 7AA. It is the shocking quality and substance of our school lunches. It is the allowance for us to continuously commercialise and privatise our early childhood education system. It is the deprioritisation of Te Tiriti in section 127 of the Education and Training Act. It is the removal of Resource Teachers: Māori and resource teachers literature. It is all of these things—underfunding of kōhanga reo, of kura in this system. These things do not operate in isolation, and it is one particular party that we’ve seen over and over and over again that is willing to sacrifice our mokopuna for a quick buck, willing to sacrifice our mokopuna for their capitalist gains, for their monopolisation, for their commercialisation of everything that is supposed to be a public good.
An institution is never a home. A home is within a whānau, hapū, iwi, the belonging of taonga in safe and loving whānau.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.