Tuesday, 8 April 2025

TUESDAY, 8 APRIL 2025

TUESDAY, 8 APRIL 2025

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia/Prayers

Karakia/Prayers

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

Annual Review Debate

Procedure

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for the 2023-24 annual review debate to be arranged by portfolio rather than by sector, despite Standing Order 357/2.

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

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

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

SPEAKER: Five petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK:

Petition of Hakepa H requesting that the House replace Guy Fawkes Day with National Parihaka Pā Day

petition of Hakepa H requesting that the House amend the Policing Act 2008 to require all uniformed sworn police officers to have body cameras recording

petition of Nic Mills requesting that the House remove surcharges for contactless payments

petition of Carin Robinson requesting that the House require mandatory vet examinations with supporting radiographs for all retiring race horses

petition of Hakepa H requesting that the House review the parliamentary petition process to enable petitioners to connect with other petitioners and implement a minimum number of signatures.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee. A paper has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK: Government response to Report of Justice Committee on Inquiry into the 2023 Election.

SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House. Seven select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK:

Report of the Environment Committee on the petition of Chlöe Swarbrick

report of the Justice Committee on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill

report of the Petitions Committee on the:

petition of Brian Webb

petition of Kylie Whellan

report of the Primary Production Committee on the briefing on the New Zealand Hemp Industries Association

reports of the Regulations Review Committee on the:

complaint about the Professional Examinations in Law (Tikanga Māori Requirements) Amendment Regulations 2022

complaint about the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Admission Regulations 2008.

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

CLERK:

Immigration (Fiscal Sustainability and System Integrity) Amendment Bill, introduction

Education and Training Amendment Bill (No 2), introduction

United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes—and can I also just acknowledge, while I’m on my feet, the retirement of David Parker. Can I say, while we may have disagreed on different things politically, that you have huge respect across the House, and that, actually, we want to thank you for your service to this House and to this place, and importantly, also, for the intellect and the passion. We want to wish you well for your future—well done.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s very nice. Can we go to question No. 2 now, or—

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Ha, ha! Supplementary, Mr Speaker. Does he agree with his Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs’ statement, with regard to the previous National Government signing New Zealand up to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, “They’ve never told you what the target is or whether it’s capable of being met”; if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I know is that it’s important and in our national interest to meet that commitment, and that’s what you’ve seen this coalition Government do. The farmers that I’ve talked to up and down this country, they tell me, very clearly, they don’t want multinational companies or competing countries kicking New Zealand products off the shelf. We want farmers doing exceptionally well in this country, and we want this economy pumping.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he agree with his Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs’ statement with regard to China’s, India’s, and Russia’s membership of the Paris Agreement, which questioned “why on earth we’re doing this when other countries are not doing this”; if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: This is a coalition Government that is going hard on economic growth because it is in our national interest to do so. We are always going to put Kiwis first, and that is going to be primary in all of our decision making. As I said, we’re not going to punish our farmers. We want our economy growing, and that’s why we meet those commitments.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he agree with his Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs’ statement that honouring our Paris Agreement obligations will result in “Transferring $22 maybe $32 billion out of our economy in the next few years to try to satisfy our woke ambitions is just catastrophic.”; if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I can reassure the member that we won’t be doing that. What we are doing is making sure that we are keeping our commitments, because we know that it punishes our farmers. And our farmers tell us that multinational companies and competing countries would love nothing more than to have New Zealand products kicked off the shelf. That’s why it’s in our brutal national interest to do so. We want agriculture pumping. We want the economy growing.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Is he comfortable that international media are now reporting that the New Zealand Government is considering pulling out of the Paris Agreement because of statements his current Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs has made, and statements that his next Deputy Prime Minister has been making?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’ll just say that is not, as I understand, what the Deputy Prime Minister has said, and that is not how I would characterise that position. I think everybody understands that it is in our brutal national interest—that’s why this coalition Government has said that we will meet our commitments, and that’s why we are staying in Paris, because we want our farmers to do well. We are not going to punish our farmers, and we’re not going to send farming out of this country, like the last Labour - Green Government was proposing to do.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Can he name one major policy change his Government has made that has actually reduced New Zealand’s climate emissions; if so, what is it?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I can name several of them. But I would just say to that member: we want to end the oil and gas ban; we want that member to support fast-track legislation—but they didn’t. Why? Because 22 projects enabled a 30 percent increase in renewable electricity—that’s a good thing. But if the member really cared about these issues, instead of pretending that he does, he would have backed the fast-track legislation; he would back ending the oil and gas ban and a number of things that this Government’s doing to get the country growing.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister not think it’s just axiomatic that if China, India, the United States, and Russia were signed up—that’s almost 60 percent of the emissions in this world at the moment—then targets could be met?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think the Deputy Prime Minister understands that we are doing everything we can to meet our commitments, but we are not going to bankrupt New Zealand by running our farmers down, by not having them sell their products internationally, and we are making sure that we get agriculture pumping and the economy growing.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he think it enhances or diminishes New Zealand’s international reputation as a clean, green economy when his Minister of Foreign Affairs indicates that New Zealand was wrong to sign the Paris Agreement, travels to the Pacific—one of the regions of the world most affected by climate change—and questions the global scientific consensus on climate change, and his Government dismantles almost all proactive action to reduce New Zealand’s emissions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We have some crocodile tears from the Leader of the Opposition, because I am incredibly proud of our foreign Minister, and he is out there in the world doing the business for New Zealand. He is hugely respected by everybody in the foreign affairs community, and I am very proud of the work that he’s doing. I just would compare and contrast his record versus your record in Government.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Gerry was a good foreign affairs Minister!

SPEAKER: Yeah, but I wasn’t part of your Government. There—I’ve broken my neutrality, how bad’s that? Chlöe Swarbrick.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

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

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

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Is climate change one of the biggest threats facing Aotearoa New Zealand?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, the major one that we’re facing right now is actually economic growth. That’s why this Government is prioritising economic growth above and beyond everything else, because we want working New Zealanders to be able to work hard, to get money in their back pocket, and to do well.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Why did his Government choose to cut $2.4 billion on climate mitigation when the New Zealand Defence Force themselves have identified climate change as one of the biggest risks we face to national security?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I don’t quite understand the member’s question, but what I would say is: who are the people that show up in climate-related disasters and emergencies across the Pacific? It is our defence force. They are the people that show up in the helicopters helping the Pacific Island nations, helping New Zealanders that are desperately in need. So I would hope that that member gets in behind supporting the defence plan that we signed off for yesterday. I note that the Labour Party has said that they are up for more defence spending. I’ve heard the “defund defence” narrative on top of the “defund the police” narrative from the degrowth Greens, but actually it is the defence forces that show up and look after our people and the people in the Pacific because of their abilities and their capabilities and the assets that they have.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister understand the difference between responding to the climate crisis, and active investment and policies to prevent the climate crisis getting worse, which his Government has cut?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: As that member would be well aware, we have our Emissions Reduction Plan 2 Budget and plan, which suggests that our Government is actually on track to deliver Net Carbon Zero potentially six years earlier. So we can meet our commitments but, most importantly, we are going to grow our economy, because right now—and just the events of this week underscore yet again that economic growth is the way that we look after New Zealanders and we set them up for a great future.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Can the Prime Minister explain why his social development Minister said it was “unrealistic” to spend $3 billion to lift 80,000 children out of poverty, yet his Government has found $3 billion a year for military spending?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’ll just say to that member, you and your party were part of a Government that had put 23,000 more kids into poverty in the last year of your Government. Our Budget last year identified that it would lift 17,000 children out of poverty. I just would say it’s all rather sanctimonious to talk about values, but you actually have to follow it up with actions, and that’s what we’re doing with our defence plan.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Why will the Government bend its own self-imposed fiscal management rules to spend billions and billions more on military capability, but refuse to do the same to guarantee that everyone has a safe future, like with expenditure on healthcare, social development, and education?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We are not doing that. That is a mischaracterisation in that question of our position. But what we are doing is making sure that we can secure prosperity through security. It’s actually important. If you have a set of values, you don’t just go around the world talking about them; you actually show up and actually do your part and pull your weight. We are doing that with this investment in defence. Again, I just say to that member: go talk to people in the Pacific, talk to the Pacific Island leaders that have come out in support of our defence plan, because they understand what that means in climate-related weather events that actually cause havoc across the Pacific. We are actually making sure that we’ve got the assets to respond to our own New Zealanders in need, and people in the Pacific too.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour) to the Minister of Finance: What recent advice has she received about the potential impact of global uncertainty on New Zealand’s economy?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Earlier today, I hosted a briefing about the Government’s latest assessment of what the United States’ new tariff regime, and the global response to it, means for the New Zealand economy. I am receiving ongoing updates from Treasury advisers about this unfolding situation. Though unwelcome, the tariffs that have been imposed on New Zealand are likely to be modest in comparison with the impact for many other countries. The most significant impact for New Zealand of the current uncertainty will be through disruptions to the global economy.

Cameron Brewer: How could New Zealand’s economy be affected?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: New Zealand is strong and resilient, but ours is a small, globally connected economy. When big international events happen, they affect us too. There remains a high degree of uncertainty about what will happen in coming weeks and months. The Asian region, including Australia, accounts for 70 percent of New Zealand’s international trade. There is a risk of slower growth in the region because many economies there have significant exposures to the new US tariff regime. We could also anticipate trade diversion effects and impacts on supply chains. All of these factors create risk for the New Zealand economy, just as we have been gathering positive momentum and recovering from an earlier period of high inflation and high interest rates.

Cameron Brewer: What does this mean for Treasury’s Budget forecasts?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Treasury is currently finalising its forecasts for the Budget 2025. It usually bases its forecasts for world growth and inflation on consensus forecasts. At the half-year update, trading partner growth was already forecast to be modest—at around 2.5 percent in the June 2026 year. Following the recent tariff announcements, Treasury’s initial assessment is that partner growth will be closer to 2 percent in the 2026 year. Similarly, at the half-year update, global inflation was forecast at 2.5 percent in the June 2026 year. Treasury’s current assessment is that global inflation could rise by as much as 0.5 percent in that year. Slowing global demand is likely to reduce demand for our exports and lower business investment.

Cameron Brewer: How is the Government responding to this?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: While there are risks to our economy, there are also reasons to feel confident that we have the right settings and policies in place to get through this period of uncertainty. The Government plans to stick to our fiscal strategy, including remaining with our intention to endeavour to return the books to an operating balance before gains and losses excluding ACC gains and losses surplus in the 2027-28 fiscal year, and to continue our efforts to reduce net debt. We do not intend to exceed the operating allowances forecast at the half-year update. We were already preparing Budget 2025 to be a growth Budget, and that remains the case. The past week’s global developments will make our recovery harder, but our goal is to steer our economy through these choppy waters in a way that limits the damage for New Zealanders. We will continue to provide responsible economic management that supports job creation, rising incomes, and a more affordable cost of living for New Zealanders.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by her statement, “So yes, there are global headwinds but actually New Zealand’s pretty well positioned to navigate our way forward”, and what is the expected effect of the United States tariffs on the New Zealand economy?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Yes, I do stand by that statement, which, I note, was made before the United States outlined its new tariff regime. New Zealand’s economy is recovering from an earlier period of high inflation and high interest rates. The past week’s global developments will make our recovery harder. There will be direct and indirect impacts on our economy, such as exporters being affected by tariffs that make it harder for them to sell into the US market. The most significant impact will be through disruptions to the global economy, potentially seen in slower growth in the Asian region, trade diversion effects, and impacts on supply chains.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: How can New Zealand exporters trust her “stay the course” plan in relation to US tariffs when the Government’s position is that it “could have been worse”, and that they have not corrected the assumption that New Zealand imposes a 20 percent tariff on US goods based on our GST rate?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I can assure the member that our diplomats are in fact engaging with the US administration to make clear our position that that is not our effective tariff rate. I would also say that we are humble enough to know that there are some global events that we can’t control. Our focus is on that which we can control. The member can also be assured that we will continue to fight for our exporters—both in terms of their access to the US market but also through increasing their access to other markets—by continuing to pursue trade agreements throughout the world, building on the work of successive Governments.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she stand by her assurance, in February of this year, that New Zealand will not be directly affected by tariffs; if so, how can the New Zealand public trust her judgment today?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: As is sometimes the case with that member, I would have to check that paraphrasing of my comment in the context in which it was made to assure that she is actually accurately representing my statements.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she regret cancelling and delaying housing, hospital, and school builds, which has caused the collapse of the construction sector and the deepest recession seen in 30 years?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: To make a few facts clear, the New Zealand Government delivered more classrooms in the past year than were delivered by the previous Government in the year prior to that. We have continued to commit significant funds to health infrastructure, and Kāinga Ora have continued to add to the stock of social housing, continuing a build programme which is adding to the number of social housing places in New Zealand.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: As a matter of education, if the economy is growing at 0.7 percent or annualised at 2.8, how could you possibly describe that as being a recession?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The Deputy Prime Minister makes a good point, which is that on our watch we have seen inflation return to the target band, interest rate reductions occur, and we have seen in the last three months of last year a return to growth above that which was forecast by consensus economists.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Is the Government going to use US tariffs and worsening global economic conditions as an excuse to hide their economic mismanagement, given there will be deeper cuts to the public services that Kiwis rely on, record migration out of New Zealand, and a collapsing construction industry?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: No. We don’t do excuses. We take responsibility for the actions we can control.

Hon David Seymour: Would the Minister of Finance characterise the significant and dramatic and sudden changes in US tariffs as an “excuse”, or the biggest thing to hit the world economy in a long time that is creating turmoil in every market in the world?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Minister Seymour makes a very good point. For members opposite to characterise our response to what is a global economic event as an excuse, I think entirely underestimates the gravity of the series of world events that are currently unfolding. And while members opposite may wish to be ignorant of that and pretend that New Zealand is somehow immune from global events, that is not a course of action we will be taking.

Question No. 5—RMA Reform

5. CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: What announcements has he made about granny flats?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Over the weekend, Chris Penk, Shane Jones, and I announced Government will be making it easier to build granny flats. In fact, we’ll be going further than previously announced. We consulted on 60 square metres without building or resource consent; we’ve decided to increase that to 70 square metres. We’ll be amending the Building Act and resource consenting system to make it easier to build granny flats, or, as they’re known in the legal parlance, minor residential units.

Catherine Wedd: Did submitters on the Government’s consultation on granny flat changes ask for the size increase?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yes, indeed. There was public consultation in June and August last year. Many submitters said the 60-square-metre limit should be increased—some people said 65; some people said no limit at all. We’ve gone for the pragmatic option of 70 square metres. Homeowners were supportive of the granny flat policy. Many submitted that it would make it easier to facilitate intergenerational living and, of course, help ease our housing crisis.

Catherine Wedd: Why is building granny flats a potential game-changer for the housing market?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: People who want to build simple stand-alone dwellings on their properties need a building consent under the Building Act, and, in many cases, a resource consent as well. Changing that is a Government priority suggested through the New Zealand First - National coalition agreement, and we are very pleased and proud to acknowledge it. Making it faster and more affordable will give us more housing options, particularly for grandparents, people with disabilities, young adults, and workers in the rural sector. Increased housing availability directly translates to lower living costs for our communities.

Catherine Wedd: How does the Government plan to implement these changes?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: There will be an amendment to the Building Act in the middle of this year which will exempt granny flats from needing a building consent if it meets the building code and has a simple design, if it’s carried out by authorised building professionals, and if people notify their local council before the building is completed. We’ve carefully considered the feedback and we think this criteria strikes the right balance between enabling housing growth and managing risks. We’ll also be developing a new national environmental standard under the Resource Management Act to make sure no resource consent is required.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: In the interests of the nation’s understanding, could you please describe who’s the informational genius behind this brilliant policy?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Success has many fathers, but in relation to this case, the Hon Shane Jones has been the driving force behind this excellent policy, because he’s seen the impact of small units in the Far North and what an impact it can have on families, and it’s been a real game-changer there. And we look forward to cutting that red tape and seeing more of them around the country.

Question No. 6—Health

6. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statement that “Timely and quality access to healthcare for the people of Tairāwhiti is a priority for our government”; if so, why has the vacancy rate for Gisborne Hospital’s Senior Medical Officers increased from 35 percent to 44 percent under this Government?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): In the context it was made, yes. I acknowledge that too many New Zealanders, including those in Tairāwhiti, are waiting too long to receive care. However, I also acknowledge the great work of our health workforce in Tairāwhiti, who have achieved a 92.8 percent result against our shorter stays in emergency department health target for quarter two 2024-25, which exceeds the milestone and is well above the national average. Our priority remains delivering access to timely, quality healthcare for all New Zealanders, including the people of Tairāwhiti. I’m advised the current senior medical officer (SMO) vacancy rate is 38.55 percent in Tairāwhiti. I’m further advised there has been an increase in fulltime-equivalent senior medical officers from 49.1 in December 2023 to 55 at the end of March this year, in Tairāwhiti, after a steep decline from 57.2 in December 2022 to 49.1 in December 2023.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: What specific action is being taken to address reports from senior doctors that people are losing their vision for want of seeing an ophthalmologist at Gisborne Hospital?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Health New Zealand is actively recruiting for senior medical officers in Tairāwhiti. An active national and international recruitment plan is under way, with all recruitment requests approved. In the pipeline, Health New Zealand has 11.1 fulltime-equivalent senior medical officers who have accepted offers and are preparing to start work in Tairāwhiti. A further two fulltime-equivalent roles have been offered, three fulltime-equivalents are at the interview stage, and recruitment is actively under way for 21.3 further fulltime-equivalent roles.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Does he admit that the Government’s response to the clinician’s August letter that reported daily delays and impediments to care that were direct results from vacancies and the ability to recruit new staff was inadequate, and that the vacancies have still got worse?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, if the member had listened to my primary answer, she would have noted that the vacancy rate increased substantially in 2023. Since we have come to office, the number of senior medical officers has increased. We have an active recruitment campaign under way. All vacancies are currently going through a recruitment process. As I said, there are 11 SMO fulltime-equivalents who have been recruited and are about to start work. Two have been offered roles, three are in the interview stage, and recruitment is actively under way for 21.3 fulltime-equivalent positions. We are taking action to ensure we have the front-line staff in place in Tairāwhiti to ensure they can get the care that they need after a significant drop under the previous Government.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Does he agree with Dr Shaun Grant, who heads Gisborne Hospital’s children’s ward, who said, “because of a reduction in … administrative support people, I am doing more administrative tasks now”, and, if so, is it a good use of resources for a senior clinician to fill out paperwork rather than treat sick children?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, as I said, we are actively recruiting for a range of senior medical officer roles at Tairāwhiti. We acknowledge the need for the hiring. We’re investing the money. The vacancies have been approved for recruitment. There’s 11 which have already been appointed and are about to start. We have an active plan in place following the significant decline of senior medical officers in 2023 when she was the Minister.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Will he commit to monthly public reporting of hospital vacancies and action taken by management to ensure that this issue gets the priority that it deserves and that the progress he indicates is under way actually happens?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, as the member knows, there is already regular reporting of health workforce data, and what I would say is there was a significant reduction, when she was the Minister—

SPEAKER: No, that’s enough.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: —of senior medical officers in Tairāwhiti, and we’re fixing it.

SPEAKER: Don’t go there.

Question No. 7—Health

7. TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) to the Associate Minister of Health: What actions has the Government taken to increase New Zealanders’ access to medicine?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health): Many—most notably, filling in a significant fiscal cliff in Pharmac funding last year and then boosting Pharmac funding by around $600 million. However, we’re also taking actions on consenting of new medicines by introducing a policy known as the “Rule of Two”. This is a policy that all three coalition parties campaigned on in the wake of COVID, and, in essence, it means that if two other recognised countries have certified a particular medication, the expectation is it will become legal in New Zealand within 30 days.

Todd Stephenson: Why is the Government progressing the Rule of Two pathway to speed up the approval of medicines already recognised overseas?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: There’s always been an absurdity in New Zealanders waiting long periods of time—in the case of one recent asthma medication, 16 months for Medsafe to tell the New Zealand people it is safe for them to use a medication that is already widely used and legal in countries such as Australia, the UK, United States, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, and Singapore—all countries that have a very strong track record around their health systems and their management of pharmaceuticals. I’m not aware of any time in New Zealand history where New Zealand has had Medsafe reject a medication able to be used in one of those countries and they realised they’d made a mistake. We are simply duplicating work by insisting that we overdo our consenting of new medicines when they’ve already been consented in multiple other countries.

Todd Stephenson: How will the bill improve New Zealanders’ health outcomes?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, it’s absolutely critical that medications that are consented in other countries are available to New Zealanders. We aspire to have First World living standards and First World healthcare. If I look at a medicine such as Ozempic, which has huge potential, it remains unconsented for some uses, and I believe it could be of great benefit to a lot of people. The question is: why should New Zealanders wait, perhaps indefinitely? The manufacturers of pharmaceuticals see New Zealand’s consenting regime and its small market size, and they wonder why on earth we are duplicating processes that they’ve been through elsewhere.

Todd Stephenson: Are there other countries that have a verification pathway like the one proposed?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, yes, indeed. I prefer New Zealand to be leading the world wherever possible, but in this case, we’re very much trailing countries such as the United Kingdom. Countries such as Singapore also routinely take advantage of other countries’ consenting of new medications with policies that you might compare to our Rule of Two. We’re not blazing a trail, but we’re certainly ensuring that New Zealand policy keeps up with best practice worldwide. The United Kingdom and France, for instance, is one of the fastest consenters of new medicines in the world.

Question No. 8—Defence

8. TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato) to the Acting Minister of Defence: What steps has she taken to boost the capability of the New Zealand Defence Force?

Hon CHRIS PENK (Acting Minister of Defence): Yesterday, the Prime Minister and I released the Defence Capability Plan 2025. This is the Government’s multibillion-dollar plan for a modern, combat-capable New Zealand Defence Force that pulls its weight both internationally and domestically. I want to acknowledge all the Government parties for their work in this space, as well as those on the Opposition benches who have expressed support thus far. The 15-year plan focuses on critical investments within the next four years. We regard it as a starting point—that is to say a floor, not a ceiling—and we note that it will be reviewed every two years.

Tim van de Molen: How much is being invested into the New Zealand Defence Force?

Hon CHRIS PENK: The Defence Capability Plan outlines planned commitments of $12 billion over the next four years, including a $9 billion increase to baseline funding. The plan will raise New Zealand’s defence spending from the current level of approximately 1 percent of GDP to 2 percent of GDP within eight years. Over the next four years, significant investments include the maritime helicopter and 757 fleets being replaced, enabling our army to communicate securely and work effectively with our partners, acquiring uncrewed systems such as drones, and also upgrades to the Defence estate.

Tim van de Molen: Why is this investment so important?

Hon CHRIS PENK: New Zealand is part now of a very different and inherently more dangerous world than was previously the case. As the Prime Minister noted earlier today in question time, there can be no economic security without national security. As a global trading nation, of course we rely on a stable regional and international system underpinned by collective security, open trading relations, and governed by transparent rules and norms that reflect our values. We’re a Pacific nation, and as such, we sit within the Indo-Pacific region. We have a vast maritime environment featuring the world’s fourth-largest search and rescue area and the eighth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. Recognising the risks within the region, this is a plan for the world as it is, not that which we would wish it to be.

Tim van de Molen: How will this Defence Capability Plan support the growth of the New Zealand defence industry?

Hon CHRIS PENK: An astute question. This requires a strong partnership with industry, which is why a defence industry strategy is now being developed following the release of the plan. Doing so will support the Government’s economic growth agenda as well, including by promoting innovative and advanced technologies and fostering exports. New Zealand companies are already exporting some of those products to other markets and it makes sense that they be enabled and encouraged to do so to New Zealand as well. For that reason, we’ll continue to partner with industry to ensure they have certainty on where we’re heading and therefore that we can provide the support our defence force needs.

Mark Cameron: How will this new funding directly benefit the Kiwi men and women who serve in the New Zealand Defence Force?

Hon CHRIS PENK: Our people are committed, well-trained professionals, and this plan will provide them with the support that we know that they need to deploy safely and effectively both at home and abroad. I note, in particular, that investments in the Defence estate will enable the conditions and the environment in which our people need to live, work, and train. The overall message sent by this Defence Capability Plan is that our brave Kiwi women and men of the Defence Force know that they are supported to do the important work that they do on behalf of our country.

Question No. 9—Prime Minister

9. 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 is the Ministry of Social Development turning down 31 percent of emergency housing applications?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I’ve said to that member last week in a similar line of questioning, we are very, very proud of the progress that we’re making on emergency housing. It has been fantastic to see 2,000 kids come out of motels and actually put into safe, dry homes, and 2,500 families, as well.

Hon Marama Davidson: Is rough sleeping increasing under his Government?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I can say is that there are 2,000 kids that are no longer in motels; they are in proper houses. There are 2,500 families that are now out of those motels and in proper houses. They’re in the private rental market, they’re in State housing, and they’re in social housing with community housing providers. We’re very proud of that track record. This was a blight on the previous Government, and we’ve fixed it.

Hon Marama Davidson: Does he know where the over 90 people who are denied emergency housing every month end up sleeping?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I know that there are 2,000 kids out of emergency housing and I know that there are 2,500 families out of emergency housing, and, importantly, we know that 80 percent of the people that have left emergency housing now have proper homes to live in. As for the other 20 percent, nothing has changed: people are able to access the accommodation supplement and housing support through our normal services. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just a bit of calm would be good—shouting across the House is not particularly useful in elucidating any answer.

Hon Marama Davidson: Can he guarantee that any person who leaves their home due to family violence will be given access to emergency housing?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I can say is that our Government’s support has not changed, and if there are people who need housing support, they will be able to access it.

Hon Marama Davidson: Does he stand by his statement that “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.”, and, if so, why were 507 emergency housing applications declined just in February this year?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: In answer to the first part of the question, yes.

Question No. 10—Social Development and Employment

10. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she stand by her employment action plan that states, “We will support people—across different population groups, different regions and facing different challenges—to use their skills so that people can lead happier, healthier and more productive lives”; if so, why?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Yes, absolutely. That’s why our Government is relentlessly focused on growing the economy and supporting more New Zealanders into jobs. Our economy is stronger when more people are working. As we unleash economic growth, it is important that as many Kiwis as possible share in the benefits. The Employment Action Plan articulates a number of work programmes by different Ministers, to ensure we are working together to provide greater opportunities for more New Zealanders.

Hon Ginny Andersen: How does the loss of 230 jobs at Kinleith Mill in the Waikato, and a further loss of another 230 jobs at Winstone Pulp in Ruapehu, contribute to her Employment Action Plan goal to “Grow regional economies by improving resilience and increasing productivity.”?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I’m very aware that for those people who have lost their jobs or are in the process, given the changes in Kinleith, it’s incredibly challenging, which is why I’m proud of the Ministry of Social Development’s Early Response Team, who are already working on the ground, very directly, with those who are impacted or potentially impacted.

Hon Ginny Andersen: How does the loss of hundreds of regional jobs supplying locally sourced healthy school lunches—such as Gisborne’s Black Fig Catering & Events, which has gone from producing 1,200 meals daily to zero—contribute to the Employment Action Plan’s goal to “Grow regional economies by improving resilience and increasing productivity.”?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I’m proud of the Employment Action Plan, where we have multiple Ministers working across to ensure that we are getting traction and supporting more Kiwis into work. If that member has a question more specifically about an initiative, she needs to direct it to the Minister responsible.

Hon Ginny Andersen: What support did her Employment Action Plan offer the business owner of Loaded Nutrition in Northland, that was forced to close after losing their school lunch contract, who stated, “All of our employees had been on benefits, including someone who would likely never have been employed as she had no work experience, but we gave her a chance and she was amazing. She absolutely loved it.”?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I’d invite that member to put the relevant question to the relevant Minister.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Why has she promised, in her Employment Action Plan, that it will enable Kiwis to “share in New Zealand’s prosperity.”, when her Government has increased unemployment, given tax cuts to landlords, and cut regional jobs, in favour of corporates such as Compass?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I absolutely refute the comments that that member makes. I think her view of history is a little tainted, so let me just take the House back a step. The unemployment numbers of 5.1 percent are exactly what was forecast by Treasury under the previous Government. Unfortunately, we are dealing with the realities of high Government spending, inflation, high interest rates that lead to a recession; it leads to higher unemployment. None of us in the House want to be in that position. But our Employment Action Plan means that, across the House, across the three parties in the coalition, we are taking constructive, deliberate action to support more Kiwis into work. Our Going for Growth action plan is very much focused on how we ensure that we have more jobs and higher incomes and more money in Kiwis’ pockets.

Question No. 11—Police

11 GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland) to the Minister of Police: What feedback has he seen on the Community Beat Teams?

Hon MARK MITCHELL (Minister of Police): Last week, the Prime Minister and I joined our outstanding Wellington Community Beat Team. We got to see the positive interaction between our front-line police officers and the public. They know their patch and they build strong, trusted relationships with the entire community they serve, whether it be rough sleepers, our retail workers, or those coming into the inner city for work or pleasure. I’m proud of the work they do, and the result of a recent Stuff online poll shows that most Kiwis are as well.

Grant McCallum: Has he been out on the beat with the Wellington team before?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes, I have. I was with them last year. We visited several businesses and I got to hear the positive feedback from shop owners and their staff, and in one store, as a result of the work police had done with the staff, they were able to reopen a second entrance that had been closed due to theft and safety concerns.

Grant McCallum: What has the Wellington Community Beat Team achieved?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: They’ve made a massive contribution towards making Wellington safer. Last year, alongside a 54 percent increase in foot patrols, aggravated robberies in the Wellington district dropped by 33.6 percent. Being visible is a critical part of successful policing.

Hon Chris Bishop: Has the Minister received any positive feedback about the Wellington Beat Team from the member of Parliament for Wellington Central?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Unfortunately, no.

SPEAKER: OK. That’s enough. Sit down.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: Well, it better not be in the same vein.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is it the Government’s policy to “defund da Police”, and, if not, why not?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, hang on. Sorry, what was that question? I didn’t—[Interruption] Mr McCullum, would you like to leave the House or not? Don’t make a noise while a question’s being asked.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is it the Government’s policy to “defund da Police”, and if not, why not?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: No, it’s not this Government’s policy to defund the Police.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Our Government’s policy is to invest in the Police. Our Government’s policy was to make sure the Police had the powers they needed and a Government behind them to go out there and start to deal with the massive increase in violent crime that this country has experienced. And they’re doing an outstanding job in doing that.

Grant McCallum: What message does he have for our Community Beat Teams?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: I want to acknowledge and thank all our Community Beat Teams for their dedication, hard work, and the passion they bring to keeping our communities safe.

Question No. 12—Media and Communications

12. REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East) to the Minister for Media and Communications: Does he stand by his statement that the Government is taking “immediate action to support New Zealand’s media and content production sectors”, and, if so, how many people in the news sector have lost their jobs in the 281 days since he made that statement?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Media and Communications): Yes, which is why I moved swiftly to introduce the Broadcasting (Repeal of Advertising Restrictions) Amendment Bill to repeal restrictions on Sunday advertising; why the Government made changes to eligibility criteria for the screen production rebate, which saw shows such as Shortland Street benefit as a result; and why the Government’s currently consulting on proposals for a media reform package to progress changes to modernise regulation and content funding arrangements. In response to the second part of the question, based on news reports I’m aware of, approximately 71 jobs have been lost at New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), 48 at TVNZ, four from The Spinoff, and 27 from Whakaata Māori. All of those people have our sympathy. Everyone’s aware that the media landscape is very challenging, given the combination of changing audience habits and a tough economic environment. The Government’s focus on growth is the best response to that latter change.

Reuben Davidson: What, then, is his message to the nearly 100 NZME journalists who have lost their jobs since he became the Minister, and what immediate action did he take to prevent the loss of those jobs?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, ultimately, decisions about private companies’ hiring of, and the amount of workers that they have in their businesses, are for those private companies. What the Government can do, of course, is deal with inconsistencies across the regulation and legislation, which is why we’re making changes to the various pieces of legislation that I’ve discussed before and why we’re consulting over those changes—which I would point out the previous Government didn’t get around to. But, more importantly, of course, many of those companies rely on advertising revenue, and that’s why a strong, growing economy is the best response.

Reuben Davidson: What is his message to the 50 journalists and staff at TVNZ who lost their jobs on 7 November last year, and what immediate action did he take to keep those people employed?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, my message to those people is I wish them all the very best in their next opportunities, and that TVNZ is a company that is doing well to adjust to a rapidly changing situation. I don’t think any person in this House would be confused when they look and see the dramatic changes in the way that people get their information and they get their news, and that companies such as TVNZ, and all media companies, have to adjust, which is what precisely they’re doing.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister if the Government had the millions that were spent on the failed merger available, could they have kept some of those journalists still in employment?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well—

Hon Willie Jackson: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Yes, when I call you.

Hon Willie Jackson: Well, the question’s the wrong question—

SPEAKER: Excuse me. Hey. Look, hang on; wait on. I haven’t heard you. I haven’t called you. Wait until there’s a bit of silence. Point of order, the Hon Willie Jackson.

Hon Willie Jackson: Thanks very much, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Good.

Hon Willie Jackson: The question is the wrong question. There was no merger. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Listen. No, no. We’re not going to get into points of order over—

Hon Willie Jackson: There’s no merger, Winston. Sit down.

SPEAKER: Sorry, Mr Jackson, quieten down or leave. The question’s been asked. Is there an answer?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes. Well, it would be, obviously, a huge help to the country to have $20 million available that had not been wasted in a failed effort from the previous Government.

Reuben Davidson: Who is taking more immediate action in the local media sector: the Hon Paul Goldsmith or foreign billionaire Jim Grenon?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I think the member needs to bone up on his questions. Ultimately, an independent person engaging in changes in an independent company is up to them, and that’s something that I’ve got every confidence that NZME’s shareholders will be able to cope with. But what we’re focused on is doing what we can to create an environment where the media can continue to succeed. Part of that is having a strong, growing economy where advertising revenues pick up, and the other part is dealing with some of those imbalances that have been around for a very long time and the previous Government didn’t get around to.

Reuben Davidson: Does he agree with Myles Thomas that “Melissa Lee said she could not do anything. Paul Goldsmith is saying he won’t do anything for a little while longer.”, and, if so, how long does he expect it to be before he gets fired for inaction and incompetence, just like she did?

SPEAKER: No, the Minister doesn’t need to respond to that question.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Appropriation (2023/24 Confirmation and Validation) Bill.

Annual Review Debate

In Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the House is in committee on the Appropriation (2023/24 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. This is the debate on the financial position of the Government and the annual reviews of departments, Officers of Parliament, Crown entities, public organisations, and State enterprises, as reported on by select committees.

This is a 10-hour debate. The time for this debate has been allocated to parties on a proportional basis. New Zealand National has three hours and 59 minutes. New Zealand Labour has two hours and 46 minutes. The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand has one hour and 13 minutes. ACT New Zealand has 54 minutes. New Zealand First has 39 minutes. Te Pāti Māori has 29 minutes.

Specific Ministers will be available each day to respond to specific portfolios. The Government has indicated that the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Education, and the Minister of Housing will be available today together with Associate Ministers to respond to members’ questions. Each debate will be led off by the chairperson or another member of the committee that considered annual reviews most closely related to the Minister’s portfolios. The Minister of Finance is here first for one hour to respond to members’ questions.

The question is, That the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the annual financial statements of the Government for the 2023-24 financial year be noted.

Finance

CAMERON BREWER (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee): It gives me great pleasure to stand on behalf of the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) and take the committee through the five reviews that the FEC oversaw for the financial year leading to 30 June 2024. Just to give this some context, the financial year was half of the last Labour Government’s, effectively, and the first six months that the coalition Government inherited. So it’s important that we give it some context—that we are looking back and we are looking back at the time when the coalition Government walked through the door.

The economic activity overall, as the Minister of Finance told us at the FEC at annual review time, softened considerably. The Reserve Bank official cash rate was at 5.5 percent throughout the year, and interest and inflation continued and continued to constrain demand. The Minister of Finance, looking back at that annual review period, 2023-24, described it as a difficult year for the economy, with high interest rates, as I’ve said, and low or negative economic growth. She’d also alluded to our report on the Government’s financial strategy that New Zealand’s fiscal position had deteriorated over the previous six years, and the difficulty she presented in turning that around.

But in saying that, she pointed to a number of policies and processes that the Government was working through. One of them was achieving cost savings. The target that was set for those Government cost savings was achieving $1.5 billion worth of savings and tasking the Government agencies with either 6.5 or 7.5 of their baseline budget. The Minister of Finance made it clear that the exercise had already been successful and will deliver—given the environment that she inherited—$23 billion worth of savings over a four-year period. Because of this initiative and essential action, the deficit is $1.1 billion smaller than it would have been without those savings.

So just to look at some of the numbers, as of 30 June 2024, at the end of this period, net core Crown debt reached $1.75 billion. The Minister also made an important point that because of that increase in debt that we’ve seen in previous years and interest rates, the financing cost of that core Crown debt was to rise to $8.9 billion, up from $1.9 billion. She compared that to imagining all the front-line services that could have been funded if this Government hadn’t incurred so much debt when it walked through the door. So we heard from the Treasury. We heard from the Natural Hazards Commission, formerly the Earthquake Commission. We heard from Inland Revenue who actually said that tax revenue for 2023-24 was at $115.4 billion, 10.5 percent higher than the previous year. We look forward to now seeing how tax revenue is tracking for this current financial year.

So the annual review period that the Finance and Expenditure Committee looked at reinforces that this Government’s fiscal strategy and going for growth plan is not only essential but we are absolutely focused, we remain focused on returning to surplus, on not extending our operating allowances forecast at the half-yearly period, at returning to 40 percent debt per GDP, that we continue to promote exports, and that we continue to promote investment and inflation. So I put those reports to you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I start, I just want to acknowledge Caralee McLiesh, who was Secretary and Chief Executive to the Treasury and who finished her term during this financial year, which the annual report speaks to. So I want to acknowledge Caralee, particularly for the work that she did during COVID to support the then Minister of Finance, and, obviously, with her Treasury team during the change of Government.

Where I want to begin my questioning is around the major fiscal models that Treasury referred to in the annual report. This is particularly in relation to the pre-election fiscal update. Treasury, in their annual report, talked about the fiscal models and the types of checks and balances that they input into their forecasts. For example, they refer it to an external panel of experts for quality assurance. They have their senior leaders check the correctness of their forecasts—the underlying judgment and the assumptions into that—and also they’re doing some work around the main fiscal project models as part of the long-term fiscal modelling that they’re doing, and the fiscal strategy model. Given the Minister of Finance’s earlier comments around that the Treasury had the pre-election fiscal update wrong, I would just like to ask the Minister: given the checks and balances that Treasury have done previously and which they’ve set out in the annual review, what further checks and balances has she asked Treasury to put in for future forecasts?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, as is very apparent in the world right now, forecasters must always work with the best information they have at the time, and their forecasts are always subject to revision in hindsight, which demonstrates that assumptions that they have made have turned out to be incorrect. In the case of the pre-election fiscal update, there were a number of factors which Treasury now acknowledge they were over-optimistic about, including trends around revenue collection, including the way that they accounted for future labour productivity, and, overall, this had the effect of flattering the outlook at the pre-election update in such a way that what it forecast was in fact wrong, as I have previously said.

In addition to that, Treasury are always beholden to the Minister of the day, and they have considerable discretion as to how they decide to treat the fiscal initiatives which they support. In the case of the pre-election fiscal update, there were a number of fiscal cliffs—that is, funding provided for initiatives only in the short term, whereas the public would have expected there would be ongoing funding for them. That has the effect of requiring a future Government to find those funds as new money. Two very pertinent examples of that are, firstly, Pharmac funding, where it became clear after the Budget that without considerable uplift in funding for Pharmac, they would have been left to delist medicines, which is an extraordinary position for the previous Minister of Finance to have put in the pre-election fiscal update. Another pertinent example is the school lunch programme, which, again, had not been funded into out-years, even though Labour campaigned on continuing that programme.

Treasury are always fettered by the Minister of the day, but they will always strive to put forward their best forecasts. As I’ve said previously, their forecasts at the pre-election update were proven to be wrong. It’s not the first time forecasters have got it wrong. Their job would have been a lot easier if they’d had a fiscally responsible, disciplined finance Minister.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): So given that the Minister advised that fiscal risks is one area that she has asked Treasury to relook at, what are the other areas and checks and balances that she’s required of Treasury to ensure that their forecasts—yes, their forecasts—are more accurate, given her belief that the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update was incorrect?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, as you’d expect, I have regular engagement with the Treasury in which I test their forecast assumptions, query how they are learning lessons from mistakes made in the past, and how they are projecting those forward. In addition, I’ve previously shared with the House that I will be proposing a series of amendments to the Public Finance Act.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you. The Minister has referred to the Public Finance Act amendments, which I note the annual report does refer to. When can the House expect the amendment bill on the Public Finance Act?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Soon.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you. The Minister has referenced the fact that she does her own quality assurance. What is that quality assurance?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I think the member mischaracterises what I said. What in fact I said was that I engage with Treasury officials to understand the assumptions that are feeding into their forecasts, to compare their forecasts with those of other bank economists, and to understand how they are making judgments and what goes into those judgments, and I think that that process of engagement is constructive both for me and my advisers. I think it’s entirely appropriate that when forecasters get things as wrong as they turned out to be at the pre-election fiscal update, they take the opportunity to look back, analyse what went wrong, and take the utmost steps to prevent it happening again.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Treasury, in the annual report, said that they have begun work to collect more detailed information about the changes in their forecast during the production in order to better assess the accuracy of Budget forecasts. Can the Minister elucidate what extra or more detailed information she has asked Treasury to do, or what are Treasury looking for?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I’m sorry, I missed the first reference in the member’s question. Could she repeat it?

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Just to repeat, in the annual report, Treasury has stated they have begun work to collect more detailed information about changes in their forecast during their production of the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update in order to better assess the accuracy of Budget forecasts. Has the Minister asked for any particular detailed information, and what is this information that Treasury are asking for, given she has a lot of engagement with them?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Look, I think what that reference refers to—but the member would have to put it to the writer of the annual report themself—is a situation that occurred in the lead-up to the last Budget, where, as members of this committee may be aware, the Treasury needs to conclude a series of different forecasts in the lead-up to the Budget being agreed and published. They first do their economic forecasts, which they feed in their assumptions about things such as global growth, inflation, and other things from the context in which the New Zealand economy is operating. Matters which I’ve commented on today are in a state of flux. As part of those economic assumptions, they also feed in some assumptions about what the Government’s fiscal strategy will be and, therefore, the relationship between that strategy and the economic strategy. What became clear during the preparation of the last Budget was ensuring that the economic forecasts take into account changes that an incoming Government may make to the fiscal assumptions that can be relevant to the accuracy of those economic forecasts, and that is something that the Treasury is endeavouring to ensure is more joined up in the future.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. Minister, I’d like to ask a series of questions around fiscal strategy, and, in particular, I want to draw your attention to a couple of pages in the select committee’s report, which I’m sure you’ve perused closely. On page 5, of the financial statements of the Government’s financials—the report on the Government’s financials—it talks about the fiscal measures that Government might take. As I recall, that was in response to questioning around the structural deficit that has been identified.

If we go to the annual review of the Treasury, on page 9, talking again about that structural deficit, here’s an interesting thing: “The Treasury said that challenges previously described as medium-term are no longer off in the future; they are occurring now and getting stronger by the year.” So there’s a whole lot of challenges there, and, notably, these challenges have been referenced just last week in the IMF’s report, when it talked about the need for a much better way to—we’re needing broad tax reform, in particular, looking at the way that we’ve got a good efficient consumption tax—that’s our GST—but we have a relatively high corporate income tax and, more importantly, uneven capital income taxation. In terms of addressing the structural deficit, is the Minister considering addressing that issue of uneven capital income taxation?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, I agree with those who identify that the New Zealand economy faces medium-term risks, and that is why it is so important that we have economic and fiscal management that is prudent in the here and now so we are better prepared for those events in future.

The alternative course is that which was taken by the last Government, which chose to be incredibly fiscally imprudent, taking debt from less than 20 percent of GDP to more than 40 percent of GDP. For the benefit of members of this House, that is an addition to New Zealand’s debt of $100 billion. The question I think New Zealanders were left with at the end of that period was: what do we have to show for that debt? If the member could put forward a case that said that that $100 billion resulted in very good resilience-enhancing infrastructure, new productivity-enhancing roads, new hospitals, then she might have half a leg to stand on, but the simple fact is that that debt was accumulated and frittered away.

So the approach of our Government is to consolidate the Government’s finances in a gradual way by ensuring we are more disciplined about our spending choices. As outlined in the Budget Policy Statement, there are three key ways in which we are doing this. First, setting a higher bar for new initiatives in our Budgets to ensure that they actually deliver on New Zealanders’ most important priorities. That means we won’t be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in consultancy reports, in light rail projects that go nowhere, in policy analysts to develop jobs taxes that are dumped in the rush of an election campaign.

Our second strategy is to find savings beyond those already found, because we believe that just like businesses and households, the Government should hold itself accountable for identifying areas of expenditure that are no longer offering maximum value to New Zealanders.

Finally, with a small number of expectations, we believe that Government departments should expect to receive no additional funding for their core services in the Budget, beyond, of course, those required for front-line services in our schools, our hospitals, our police, and other areas. The name of the game is: be careful about your spending now so you’re prepared for the rainy day tomorrow.

I would note that while the member is always happy to impose new taxes on New Zealanders to steal from them today, she is not ever advocating that that be done in order to improve our fiscal position. In fact, the arguments we hear from the other side of the House are always about how that money could be spent. I would be clear with the member that the way to actually get ourselves into a stronger position for the future is to get disciplined about the spending.

I’d also note that there’s clearly been a big development in the tax war happening on the other side of the Chamber—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I don’t think that’s part of—

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: —whether it’s a capital gains tax or a wealth tax; I take David Parker’s resignation as a sign it’s a capital gains tax—here we go.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No, the member will not make any more comments along those lines during this process.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I just want to follow up on what the Minister of Finance believes is prudent or not. From the way that the Minister was speaking, she referenced being a prudent Government and that turned out to be cutting services and cutting costs all around the place. Of course, that is one definition of prudent. But Minister, I put it to you that it’s also prudent to consider future revenue streams to address the structural deficit that has been identified by the IMF, by Treasury, by a number of agencies. Can the Minister consider what might be prudent on the revenue side?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Prudent: let me count the ways. Here’s one example: instead of delivering classrooms at a cost of $1.2 million, appoint a prudent Minister of Education who says, “We need to make the dollars go further”, gets the cost down to more like $800,000, and is able to deliver more classrooms than the previous Government did—in a year. Prudent: instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on consultants and contractors delivering reports that gather dust on shelves, make a clear edict to the Public Service that we expect them to deliver that advice wherever possible from within their own resources. Prudent: in our first Budget, finding $23 billion worth of reprioritisations to ensure that we could fund fiscally neutral tax relief for New Zealanders who had been assaulted by a cost of living crisis. To the member, I again make the point, and I urge her to engage with it: it is not enough to simply say, “We’ll tax them more”, because if all you’re intending to do is to spend that tax on new things today, then you’re no better prepared for the challenges that you will face tomorrow and, at the same time, you are sapping the blood of an economy that relies on investment, that relies on business, that relies on New Zealanders facing good incentives to employ people, to pay them, and to grow. You don’t get that by slapping economies with new taxes.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, the Minister didn’t answer my question, which is: what’s prudent in terms of revenue? However, I wish to shift to another aspect of prudence, then, and I want the Minister to consider our debt levels. Now, in fact, the Minister told us—I think it was the Minister who told us—that in terms of debt servicing we need to consider the opportunity cost of debt servicing. This is sitting in the financial statements report here. It’s a good point. Why then is the Minister committed to $12 billion more of defence spending?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, that’s from the “didn’t expect it” file. We now have a position from the Labour Party, different from that enunciated by Chris Hipkins yesterday, in which they oppose New Zealand making the contributions required to our defence force to ensure we are ready to contribute to global peace and security, that we are ready to deploy when natural disasters occur in the Pacific, that we are ready to provide our defence men and women with the equipment they need to do their job well. Well, I would put to the member: the world has changed; you need to observe it. If your argument is that we shouldn’t be investing in defence, then I’d invite you to sit closer to Chlöe Swarbrick.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I actually really want to get into the weeds of some of the things that the Minister of Finance was talking about before with regard to particularly the fiscal strategy model. I’d appreciate the Minister’s ear on this because I would actually like a meaningful back and forth on this, because I think it is relevant to the people of this country. The Minister, just before, was talking about how she questions and challenges the assumptions that are being fed into the forecasts and the modelling that Treasury is providing her. I want to ask a very specific and direct question, which I hope the Minister can provide an answer for, which is: what specific assumptions is Treasury presently making when it comes to forecasting productivity and the impact that Government spending or Government spending cuts may have on that model, and does she have any issues with the way that Treasury is currently inputting those assumptions or is she completely fine with it?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, there are two separate parts to the question. First, in terms of its productivity assumptions, Treasury has looked at historical trends of where labour productivity has been and, long story short, it’s a bad and sad story, which is that labour productivity in New Zealand has been falling for many years and has been below par for where we would need it to be to be the productive, growing country that we want to see. So Treasury looks back on those assumptions, and then they feed forward, test that against other assumptions about the economy, and then provide their best estimate of future labour productivity.

The second part of the question was about what impact spending changes have. This flows through into the Budget documents in a couple of ways. The first is, of course, that when you make a spending reduction in one place, it affords the Government an ability to make a bigger investment in another place. So, for example, even within narrow operating allowances, our Government was able at the last Budget to put significant new investment into our schools, into the New Zealand Police force, and into a number of other coalition commitments.

The other effect it has is when the Government is disciplined about its own spending, it reduces the need for the Reserve Bank to compensate for over-stimulatory policy with high interest rates. We have lived that reality in recent history, where the Government of the day—the Labour-led Government—chose to put its foot down on the spending accelerator, and that helped drive inflation forward, meaning that interest rates had to rise very quickly, eventually having a crushing effect on our economy.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): The Minister answered the first part of the question—which I really did appreciate—which was that there are massive issues with regard to the way that Treasury currently projects and forecasts productivity and potential productivity growth in this country, which she herself has explicitly said is reflected in the work that we’ve done whereby Treasury’s fiscal strategy model assumes a relatively constant rate of productivity growth, or extrapolates, as the Minister was saying, from past trends. But that is a real problem if we are currently trying to get any meaningful sense of the efficacy of Government spending and policies reflected through into the kind of productivity that the Minister is telling us she wants to get out of her Government Budgets.

I guess the question that I am asking the Minister is: how does she then hold out the Government’s spending choices and the Government’s cuts choices and try and evaluate the efficacy of that spending? Because, again, I’d bring us back to the promise that was made in the coalition agreement that decisions would be made based on data and evidence. So if the Minister herself is saying that Treasury is simply modelling those projections extrapolated from the past, how then does she seek to get a sense of an understanding of the efficacy of the spending or the cuts that she is making in the context of these Budgets?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, that’s a very confused argument from the member Chlöe Swarbrick, because it makes two wrongful assumptions. The first is that all Government spending is good spending, and I would invite the member to consider that the trade-off for a single dollar that the Government spends is always this: that dollar could have been spent by mum or dad or the residents of Auckland Central in their own household. So we must always make judgments about where that dollar is best used for ultimate productivity, and I would put it to that member that the last Government did a very, very poor job of those trade-offs.

The second assumption that the member has made is that the only way that we drive productivity forward is through our spending decisions. Well, in fact, what we’re demonstrating in this Government is that the regulatory reforms you make are fundamental. Moves like making sure that people don’t have to jump through red tape and hoops to put a granny flat in their backyard are actually a way of enhancing productivity. Getting rid of the productivity-sapping Resource Management Act, which has been weaponised against development, against investment, and against housing, will be good for productivity.

We’ve published a document—and the member should read it—called Going for Growth, which summarises a number of actions across five key themes of activity which we are taking to drive productivity forward. They are not all spending initiatives, and nor should they be. Some of them are legislative and some of them are regulatory. They cover five major themes: education and skills; overseas investment and trade; research, science, and technology; competitive business settings; and delivering infrastructure for growth, and our Government believes that all of these measures are needed to drive forward productivity. I welcome the member’s new interest in this because I have never seen from the Greens an agenda which would actually drive this economy forward, would allow it to grow more, and, lo and behold, would allow some of our businesses to be more profitable.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I just want to make note that this is not about the Greens’ policy; we can make some reference. But questions from Chlöe Swarbrick.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): To be clear, Madam Chair, I wasn’t actually doing that. I was actually—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No, no; it wasn’t you I was referring to.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you. Respectfully to the Minister of Finance, I was trying to have an actual, meaningful, and in-depth discussion about the assumptions that are being made on modelling. Like, I get that this is a political tit for tat, or whatever we’re engaging in at the moment, but I actually think that it’s kind of useful for the New Zealand public to understand the evidential basis that we are making decisions on and the efficacy of those decisions. I think that that’s a valuable question that should be asked of whoever is in that chair about the assumptions that are being made that we evaluate ourselves against so that we are able to meaningfully compare certain decisions that different Governments are making.

So, I guess, this is where, again, to some of the other points that the Minister has made, I’d just like to actually point out, because she frequently will jump down the throat of myself or any other member who dares to mention the likes of what we have heard from the known degrowth Marxist institutions like the IMF and the OECD, who, in recent missions, have pointed out, in the 2024 economic survey from the OECD—and I quote—“Shares, land and owner-occupied residential property are tax-favoured. … To ensure the tax system is not overly distorting saving and supporting broader growth,”—that is the thing that the Minister tells us that she wants to see more happening—“capital gains taxation reform should be done as part a wider review of tax settings for saving. New Zealand’s tax settings remain an outlier in some respects in international comparison”.

I thought that this was a Chamber of debate in which we were supposed to have meaningful discussion in an evidence-based manner so that we can progress things. But I guess my final question to the Minister asks whether she is at all willing to ever meaningfully engage in the evidential basis for how so profoundly distorted our tax system is to see people continue to plough capital into housing, which is deeply unproductive and counter-productive to everything that she says she’s trying to get out of our economy.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I entirely reject the claim that I’m not interested in evidence, because, actually, in six years of a Labour-led Government, which her party supported, we have very clear empirical evidence of what happens when you have a “spend, borrow, hope, and tax” policy.

Here’s what happened: we had a cost of living crisis that was intergenerational in its significance, with inflation blowing out to 7.3 percent, strangling many families and putting many of them in significant pain. We then had a Reserve Bank that was forced to drive up interest rates—which, by the way, member Swarbrick, have a significant effect on those wishing to enter the housing market, because when interest rates are very high, it’s pretty difficult to afford a loan—and we then had the crushing effect that those high interest rates had on economic activity, and a significant economic slowdown. My point is that the evidence is that the approach that the member promotes has resulted in economic damage to New Zealand.

The second point that the member raised was around my interest in tax settings that encourage productive investment and that encourage savings. I can assure the member that, yes, I am interested in competitive tax settings that encourage investment. I can assure the member, also, that I am interested in policies which promote savings.

I would also point out to the member that the facile simplification which, sometimes, this debate is reduced to, forgets the fact that in New Zealand, we do have land taxes; we just call them rates. Rates are charged on those who own property and landholdings; they are not charged on those who do not own land and property. Rates are used to fund a significant amount of activity in the New Zealand economy.

I’d also point the member to our Going for Housing Growth policy, because if you genuinely care about the generational problems that have built up due to a lack of housing and a lack of housing affordability, then you would engage seriously with the debate that says we need more competitive land markets, more sophisticated infrastructure funding and financing, and we need to make it a lot easier to build houses in this country. Our Government is grappling with those difficult policy questions, and I’d let these members know: there’s a few of your members who are quietly congratulating us for it.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just going back to the end of the June 2024 documents, I know the Minister initiated a cost-saving initiative of around 6.5 to 7.5 percent. I wonder if she could elucidate on—obviously, that was a baseline average—whether there were some sectors or departments which actually yielded greater savings, what areas they were and, in fact, whether there were any unexpected areas or surprises or insights that had been budget allocated that actually, through that process, you were surprised by, or whether there were actionable insights, or what it revealed going through that process and any indications of potential further savings going forward.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, thank you for the question. What we conducted was an exercise that was very successful and instructive. We set public agencies with clear targets for the savings we expected them to deliver. They put forward a range of propositions and then, as Ministers, we evaluated those proposals before finalising them in our Budget. We’ve been completely transparent about those range of initiatives. We published a summary of initiatives, which included every single savings initiative, demonstrating how we got out $1.5 billion worth of savings from the public agencies.

What surprised me was this: that, actually, despite publishing all of those documents, members opposite have really struggled to identify why it was wrong to ask public agencies to trim the fat and tighten their belts. We found that there were enormous areas of spending that were generating very little productive value. There had been a habit of putting lots of money into the policy work needed to support go-nowhere initiatives such as Lake Onslow, such as Auckland Light Rail, such as the income insurance scheme, and once we had the clarity to stop those initiatives, there were significant savings that were delivered.

What we also learnt during that exercise is that agencies will be motivated—and I congratulate them for this—when they know that when they make savings, those dollars go to a better purpose. That purpose in our Budget was actually making sure that New Zealand households had more money in their bank accounts and that we had the money needed to invest in education, in health, and in police. When you get your priorities right, it’s amazing what savings can be found.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. My question to the Minister is: does she expect Treasury to revise its unemployment forecasts, given the recent US tariffs?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): That will be a matter for Treasury and that will be a matter that we update at the Budget when it’s published on 22 May.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Since she has taken office, the economy has plunged into recession, 22,000 more Kiwis are on jobseeker, 33,000 more are unemployed, the construction sector has lost thousands of jobs, building consents are down 7.2 percent, front-line health services are struggling or even closing across the country, and in Wellington, homelessness has risen by 37 percent. Does the Minister still think her Government’s policies have had nothing to do with this?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, that was a string of poorly evidenced assertions in lieu of a question. I found many assertions that were wrong in there. First of all, the member has already been corrected in this House on her use of data when it relates to construction jobs, where she uses a selective measure that Stats NZ themselves say is novel, and she ignores the stat which shows there has actually been increases in construction jobs.

Second of all, as I have laboriously highlighted to her senior colleague Barbara Edmonds, the unemployment forecasts that we currently have are exactly the same as was presented by Minister Robertson at the pre-election fiscal update. So to conflate current unemployment with decisions made by this Government is wrong-headed and, frankly, she needs to study the books a bit harder.

Finally, when it comes to housing, I am very proud of this Government because one of the things that really affected me when I was in Opposition was learning of how many New Zealanders were living their days in motel rooms for months on end, raising their children next to gang members in situations that, frankly, sometimes were Third World. Now, what we did was we set a clear target to reduce that and we prioritised those families for social housing, meaning that many kids now are in a permanent home, whereas the previous Government was prepared to let them languish in motel rooms. That has freed up money that was otherwise going to inflated rooms in motels to be actually invested in durable social housing.

I’d also put to the member this: I think the most objective measure of housing need is the social housing wait-list. On the watch of the last Government, that wait-list, which determines those who are in need of social housing support, quadrupled. On our watch, that social housing list is reducing, which reflects the fact that we have been effective in making sure that more New Zealanders are able to access appropriate housing.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): I just want to pick up a few of the comments the Minister has made, in particular in responses to questions by the member Chlöe Swarbrick, particularly around productivity. We’ve discussed a number of times in this House the choices that all Governments have when they come into power. In particular, the interest deductibility—the reinstatement of it—had a price tag of $2.9 billion, and yet the Minister is talking about incentivising productive assets and the investment into productive assets. Why does she believe that a $2.9 billion interest deductibility—reinstating it—would help to incentivise more productive investment into the productive side of the economy when it’s quite clear it’s giving residential housing investment a bigger lift because now they’re able to deduct the interest deductibility from it?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, two things: first, I reject the way that that member perpetually characterises interest deductibility. Interest deductibility has been a rule in our tax system for many decades, under successive Governments, and the principle has always been that it should be equally applied to different asset classes, lest we create significant distortions in the economy—so all we have done is restore things to a tax principle that had long been the case.

Actually, the reason we did that brings me to my second point, which is that the member’s argument seems to be, in stark contrast to that of her junior colleague Ginny Andersen, that houses are not a productive investment—that, actually, we would prefer not to be building houses; that we would like our tax system to distort incentives so that landlords don’t want to build homes for the very homeless people she claims to be advocating for. Actually, we want an economy in which people face good incentives to build more homes, and the reason we want that is that that eventually puts downward pressure on rents and is a boon to housing affordability.

It is clear that when housing supply is constrained, that puts pressure on rents, as tenants are forced to compete for a landlord. Well, I’m pleased that progress is mounting under this Government which shows that that burden is reversing and that, increasingly, landlords are having to compete for tenants. We need more housing supply to sustain that dynamic.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I just want to help the Minister with her understanding of interest deductibility. I know she had to get people in to explain provisional tax to her recently. So the rule in the Income Tax Act is quite straightforward. A person may claim a tax deduction to the extent to which they earn income. Of course, a large amount of the income on residential rental properties is capital gains, which are currently untaxed. Therefore, there is no good reason to have the interest deductibility. Be that as it may, other countries as well have removed interest deductibility on residential rental housing. What the Minister also didn’t seem to understand was that the Government, when we were in Government, retained interest deductibility for new builds, for new houses, for houses that added to the housing supply. Could the Minister please clarify what her Government has done to increase housing supply?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): It’s a delight to get a lecture from the previous tax lecturer, and I look forward to hearing her lectures in the future on why New Zealanders should be taxed more and how that’s somehow going to drive our economy forward and support job and income growth. Here’s a spoiler alert: she’s not going to be able to do that.

The second thing that I would say is that in terms of driving housing supply, as I articulated in a previous answer, our focus has been getting at the underlying constraints which have prevented houses being built at scale and pace in New Zealand. Now, there are a range of reforms. It is, firstly, around competitive land markets and ensuring that the Resource Management Act and our zoning restrictions don’t overly restrict where houses can be built. That requires supporting policies in terms of infrastructure funding and finance. It’s also about the consenting process. It’s about ensuring that when people are applying for building consents and when they are incurring construction costs, we minimise the red tape that drives up those costs.

Our Government has been progressing a significant reform agenda there, highlighted last week, when we said, “Actually, you don’t need to jump through those hoops anymore. If you want to put a 70-square-metre granny flat in your backyard so that your teenage son doesn’t have to have unaffordable housing, so that your kaumātua can continue to live with your family, and so that your community has more affordable housing to it, we say, ‘Cut the red tape; make it happen.’ ” We are a pro-housing Government, and we resist the facile arguments of the members opposite that suggest that by somehow lashing landlords, New Zealand will have more affordable homes.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I want to move to an aspect of the Treasury’s work programme, and, in particular, I’m looking at page 11 of our report on the annual review of the Treasury, in which we asked the Treasury whether it was going to produce another version of the Climate Economic and Fiscal Assessment. At that stage, Treasury said it had not been commissioned by the Government to do so. I ask the Minister: is she prepared to commission Treasury to give us another Climate Economic and Fiscal Assessment?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, what I can confirm is that we will continue to do the Climate Economic and Fiscal Assessment process, which is the examination, at the Budget, of the impact that Budget policies have on our climate objectives.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Just to be clear, then, for the Minister, there will not be a specific Climate Economic and Fiscal Assessment from Treasury?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, I think I have addressed the member’s question.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): OK. I want to pursue a little further in terms of the climate change commitments because they were quite an issue in our discussion of the Government’s financial statements. I want to see if I can clarify from the Minister—we know that the costs of meeting our international obligations are going to range from somewhere between $3.3 billion and $23.7 billion. It’s quite a substantial sum of meeting our international obligations—quite a substantial commitment. How is the Government going to meet that commitment?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, the member is suffering from a grave misunderstanding. The numbers that she is presenting are a dated estimation of what it would hypothetically cost the Government to purchase emissions credits, hypothetically, if it didn’t meet its targets by a hypothetical amount and if, hypothetically, there was a legal obligation to meet those costs.

What I would say simply to that member is I’m not going to engage in hypothetical arguments, but I will say this very plainly: we are not a Government that is going to send more than $20 billion overseas into a carbon market to wear a hair shirt for New Zealanders, because, if your argument is somehow that that’s going to prevent global climate change, then I’ve got another tree you can climb up, because, actually, the better investments that we should be making in this country are around ensuring that we are resilient to what are likely to be more frequent climatic events, which is why the Regional Infrastructure Fund, which Matua Shane is leading, is investing in stopbanks and flood protection. Those are practical investments of New Zealand’s income to ensure that we are better protected against climatic events.

The alternative course is to wear a hair shirt and pretend that somehow, by spending $20 billion overseas, Donald Trump’s going to change his mind on the Paris Agreement. Well, pull me another one!

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I think we need a serious clarification here. The Minister described the agreements under the Paris accord as being hypothetical. She also talked about not actually doing anything around climate change ourselves. She said, “Why should we put on a hair shirt? Why should we make any effort here?” Is the Minister committed to meeting our Paris obligations?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, the member, yet again, mischaracterises me. This Government has published an emphatic emission reduction plan for the second emission reduction period, which demonstrates very clearly our ability to meet our domestic emission requirements, and, sensibly, we’ve aligned our international commitments for the future with our domestic efforts, because we don’t subscribe to the school that James Shaw and your merry band of mates subscribe to, which is, to say, a big dramatic thing offshore that goes well beyond what is required by our domestic law in order to make us feel good at a climate change conference.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Madam Chair, otirā kōrua ko te Minita. Ka huri ināianei ki te ōhanga Māori.

[Thank you, Madam Chair; indeed, both yourself and the Minister. I’ll now turn to the Māori economy.]

We’ve heard excellent results about the growth of the Māori economy recently. What targeted initiatives does the Minister of Finance have to support this growth, and has the Minister done any forecasting about the impact that tariffs will have on the Māori economy?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I think those are questions more suited to the annual review. I’m reminded by my colleagues that I’m taking up a lot of speaking time. We are, through our officials, doing sector-by-sector analysis of the impacts that tariffs will have for exporters. I’m mindful that many of our Māori businesses are exporting products which will be affected by global tariffs, whether that’s in our primary industries, in forestry, or in other industries. We have published an economic strategy for the Māori economy. It is our view that that is a very exciting part of our economy because growth has outpaced growth in the broader economy. We believe that many of the initiatives that we are progressing will support that growth to continue into the future.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): I just wanted to clarify some of the pretty astounding things that we’ve just heard, particularly around the Paris Agreement and our nationally determined contribution (NDC) out to 2030, in particular. For those who may not be in the weeds, following along at home, our Paris Agreement NDC out to 2030 has been foreshadowed, actually under successive Governments, including the last Government, to not be met—they are not capable of being met—by domestic efforts. So we are going to have to engage in purchasing offshore credits.

The Minister is probably aware that our Associate Minister of Finance and our Minister of Climate Change are offshore internationally, trying to help facilitate memoranda of understanding with other countries to be able to pay them to reduce their emissions, which, in turn, helps us meet our NDC. We had Treasury and the Ministry for the Environment in 2023 tell us that the bill that we were potentially looking at paying—the constructive liability—was anywhere between $3 billion to $24 billion, but the floor was $3 billion, and the orders of magnitude would be determined by how much effort we were to make domestically. So am I hearing correctly from the Minister now that she believes, or she thinks, that we will meet our 2030 Paris Agreement target—our nationally determined contribution out to 2030—solely domestically?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Yes, I can confirm that the member’s gotten it wrong again—(1) we will honour our obligations under the Paris Agreement; (2) there are a range of ways that that can be achieved; and (3) Minister Watts was sitting opposite me at a Cabinet committee this morning, so I’m not quite sure what her reference to the Minister of Climate Change was.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): My reference to the Minister of Climate Change is that he is internationally responsible for and chairing negotiations with other countries to facilitate what it looks like to purchase offshore credits. We’re hearing from the Minister that there is not an intention to purchase those offshore credits, yet we simultaneously are getting press releases from the Minister of Climate Change about memoranda of understanding that are being signed internationally that will count towards our nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement. These are very genuine and legitimate questions that we should be engaging in meaningful debate upon, but, again, we’re just kind of confronted with this post-truth belligerence.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): First of all, I commend the Minister on his efforts. I think it makes sense for New Zealand to be engaging in those constructive international conversations, and I repeat that there may be a range ways that signatories to the Paris Agreement work together to address their commitments. It is, I think, a significant assumption to then equate that that will require $20 billion worth of purchases of credit by New Zealand. That is the assumption that I have rejected. As I’ve said, feeding into that assumption are all sorts of things about (1) the quantum of how far short of our Paris commitment we will be; (2) what the cost of credits would be internationally, and, in fact, whether they could be purchased; (3) whether that is the mechanism by which we would meet our obligation; (4) that other bilateral or multilateral agreements aren’t made; and (5) this really all goes to prove that the Minister of Climate Change is doing the right thing by pursuing this in real rooms, and it is wrong for the member to infer that she has a better idea about what’s going on in those rooms than he does.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): I find it slightly disconcerting that time and time again we are hearing from the Minister of Finance, both today and in previous oral questions and in other parts where we get to actually question the Minister, around her continual debunking of forecasts, reports, and pre-election fiscal updates, which are all prepared by either independent organisations or are forecasts that are done by Treasury. The Minister of Finance should know that the Public Finance Act requires Treasury to use its best professional judgments in preparing all of those forecasts. Yet we’ve heard in the House again today when I questioned her on what exactly she is asking them for the additional checks and balances, she goes to this high level of saying, “Fiscal risks. Fiscal risks.”, or she’ll go to a political level of asking particular things. But I’m actually asking in-depth questions, which the Minister of Finance should be able to address.

But then the next question, which members on this side of the House have asked her about, which is around the estimations of those nationally determined contributions; those have come from an actual report, the Climate Economic and Fiscal Assessment 2023, and that’s where those numbers are coming from. This side of the House is not just picking them out of thin air for the Minister of Finance to stand there and say, “Well, that report is wrong. That member’s wrong. Actually, Treasury is wrong.”, because it seems like everybody is wrong except for the Minister of Finance.

So my question, then, is to the Minister of Finance: what reports should the Opposition and members of the public depend on in order to get forecasts, in order to get accurate estimations or estimations of what our future obligations will be? At the moment, all I hear is that it’s just the Minister of Finance was right and every single body else is wrong.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, I actually find that mischaracterisation of my statements characteristic of the member, but it also demonstrates she hasn’t been listening because I have said that I do think that Treasury has used its best professional judgments in assessing forecasts, that I do think they use the best data available to them in delivering their forecasts, and that I do have confidence in the methodology they use to create them. But two things can also be true. It can also be true that sometimes, just like every other set of forecasters in the world, they get it wrong. That is the nature of forecasts. They are a best estimate of future events. It is also true to characterise that Treasury, along with others, got their forecasts prior to the election wrong. That is not to question the professional judgment of Treasury; that is to simply point out a matter of fact.

Finally, on the matter of whether we should listen to reports, yes, read the report. It doesn’t say $20 billion. It says that there could be a range between $3 billion and $20 billion and that there are a range of other factors to be considered. So my advice would be, when you’re asking about your advice on how you should interact with reports, read them more thoroughly.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I would like the Minister to answer the question posed by my colleague the Hon Barbara Andersen—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Edmonds.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Edmonds. Good combo—with Ginny Andersen—OK. I noticed that the Minister hasn’t actually answered the question: which reports can we, as the Opposition and members of the public, in her opinion, actually rely on? She’s trashed the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update. Are we going to be allowed to rely on the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update in that case?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Well, again, I reject the characterisation of the member’s question. There are a range of reports available to members, which they should read thoroughly, noting the many caveats that those reports often contain. Barbara Anderson is apparently a New Zealand fiction writer, so she does have something in common with Barbara Edmonds.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No personal attacks, thank you.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): So, Barbara Edmonds—also the name of “Babyface” Edmonds’ mother, who passed away a number of years ago. But speaking to the Minister’s point, if it’s mischaracterisation of the dependency by the Opposition and the New Zealand Government on the forecasts by Treasury, why, then, did she say earlier, in her response to one of my earlier questions around forecasting, that Treasury is beholden to the Minister given the Minister is also supposed to be independent of the Reserve Bank—and the Reserve Bank, post the Governor resigning, all of a sudden has a capital requirement rule change. Is she saying that, basically, the New Zealand public should trust her as the Minister of Finance, should trust the Minister of Finance rather than the forecasts of any other professional agency, any other report writer, because the Minister of Finance apparently knows best?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): I wish to state very plainly and clearly for the record that I reject the perpetual attempt by members opposite to mischaracterise my statements. I continue to have confidence in the independent forecasting of the Treasury. It is also true that Ministers of Finance always face choices about the fiscal treatment of their initiatives. It is not questioning the independence of Treasury to point that out, and to simplify it in those terms I think is misleading and I would urge the member to reconsider that approach. I respect the independence of the Reserve Bank—have done, will do, always will do.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Hon Dr Deborah Russell. Just before the next question, I’d just ask Minister Jones to perhaps—if the Minister wants to sit in the chair and help this Minister, that’s fine, but some of the comments are probably going a bit far.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I just would like the Minister of Finance to clarify the words—because I wrote them down because I was so astounded by them—right at the start of the debate. Can she clarify exactly what she meant when she said, “Treasury is always beholden to the Minister of the day.”?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): What I meant by that was while Treasury—and particularly in New Zealand, actually, and to our credit—has an independent forecasting function, which I think is respected by Ministers, it is always also the case that the Treasury has the Minister of Finance as its responsible Minister and, therefore, is beholden to that Minister when it comes to decisions, for example, like how big the operating allowance should be. It’s not Treasury’s fault that Grant Robertson chose outlandish, extravagant operating allowances. In fact, it was probably the advice of the Treasury at the time that that was a very bad idea.

My point is that the Treasury’s advice can only go so far as Ministers will take it. Sometimes it will be appropriate for Ministers to reject the advice of Treasury dependent on what they believe is in the New Zealand public interest. But two things can be true. You can have an independent forecasting function and also have a Minister of Finance who, lo and behold, actually has some impact on what ends up in the Budget. This should not come as a revelation to members opposite.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Is that, then, the explanation for why we have the sudden appearance of a new fiscal measure, operating balance before gains and losses, excluding ACC revenue and expenses?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): That matter is traversed extensively in the Budget Policy Statement, and I invite the member to read it.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK. Members, our time with the Minister of Finance has ended. The Minister of Transport is now available for one hour to respond to members.

Transport

ANDY FOSTER (Chairperson of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee): Thanks, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to stand and talk in this debate. First of all, I just wanted to, as chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, thank all of the members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. It’s a very good committee that works very collegially. I think that what is really good is that everybody across the committee, doesn’t matter which party they come from, is asking good questions and trying to get good answers out of the agencies, and that’s what I like to see.

Secondly, I wanted to thank all the agencies who appeared before us. We didn’t quite get through the list that we would have liked to get through. In fact, we heard from the Electricity Authority last week because they had some issues that they wanted to deal with which they needed the time to get to, and that was beyond the time frame that we had. We’ll hear similarly from the three gentailers on Thursday this week, so I’m looking forward to that. But we did hear from Air New Zealand; from City Rail Link; from KiwiRail, from Crown Infrastructure Partners, as it was then; from the Infrastructure Commission; from the Ministry of Transport; from the Airways Corporation; from Civil Aviation; from Transpower; and from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA). So we got a really good picture across a range of very, very important organisations to this country.

I’m just going to make a few comments, if I can. The first one I’ll make is regarding the comments made by the Infrastructure Commission. They’re working on their next five-year strategy—they have a 30-year strategy; theoretically, they do it every five years, but they’ve actually brought this one forward. They will go out with a draft strategy in June 2025. They’ve done a lot of pre-engagement already to give them a good picture of what is going on, and they expect to have that strategy delivered by December.

The interesting thing is that they have said, both years that we’ve had them in, that they are pretty confident that we are actually investing the right amount, roughly speaking, of our GDP in infrastructure; what we’re not doing is we’re not getting good value for money from that. There are three reasons for that: one of them is that we don’t have a clear pipeline at the moment; secondly, our regulatory processes are very, very expensive; and, third, some of our delivery processes are not particularly good.

So we discussed with them the potential for getting good consensus, and we have talked across this House about the potential for getting consensus on infrastructure. They very usefully broke that down. They said, “Well, look, roughly 60 percent of the infrastructure budget should be going on maintaining and looking after the existing assets.” That is one place that we are falling down. We’re spending too much, they were saying, on building new stuff, as opposed to looking after the stuff we’ve already got. So, as I said, if you start from there, that’s a good place to go.

The second place is the infrastructure which generates its own revenue. If you look at the electricity sector, for example, it tends to be looked after better than others. The third one they mentioned was repairs following natural disasters. The fourth one, which was the area of problem, is those areas, particularly in the central government and local government sector, where there is no direct nexus between revenue and the cost of maintaining and looking after those assets. So that was a very, very useful discussion with the Infrastructure Commission.

The second area that I will go to is NZTA and the Ministry of Transport. There, we heard from both of those agencies that there is a very, very large funding gap. The amount of money which is projected to be spent is way in excess of the amount of revenue which is able to be generated by those sectors. So we talked about how those gaps might be addressed and the different funding streams that might be there. The NZTA, in particular, was very enthusiastic when I asked them about the potential for value capture which they can get, as opposed to just local government—which local government can get at the moment but central government can’t. So we asked those questions there. We also—and it’s good to see the Minister of Transport arriving, as opposed to the Associate Minister, so I will tack on a question there.

One of the issues which did arise—Minister, I’ve just mentioned that the Infrastructure Commission said that we should be spending more of the infrastructure budget on maintaining assets, as opposed to building new ones. Particularly in the roading area, we heard, last year, only about 50 percent of the actual amount that should be being invested in road maintenance was. Obviously, the pothole fund has improved that significantly, but we are still well under-investing. We’re seeing around the country that the funding assistance rates are not keeping up with the amount of money that needs to be invested.

I’m going to run out of time here, but I will raise one other thing, which was that under the aviation area, Air New Zealand talked to us about the work that they’re doing to make sure that the Q300s—they’re sorting those out. But the one area that was a real concern was pilot training. They were very, very clear that in the education sector, we are not supporting the investment that needs to be made in pilot training and that is going to leave us with a significant shortage of pilots. It’s already occurring and it’s going to get worse over the next two or three years. I will bring that up in the education portfolio debate.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I haven’t been a regular member at the select committee, but I have sat in on it, and it is a very important one, and, actually, I was quite tempted to stay sitting down because the chair, I think, was making some very, very good points about the committee’s work in this area. Look, for someone who rides a motorbike like I do, the journey is the most important—far more important than the destination. And we’re talking about the journeys here. That is how we get from A to B, how New Zealanders move around the country, and how our economy gets goods and services shifted around.

The New Zealand Transport Agency will focus on transport, mainly here. Waka Kotahi and the Ministry of Transport are two critical agencies here. The chair of the committee pointed to one of the core issues here—well, two key areas. One is the funding on maintenance versus the funding on new projects. In fact, it was pointed out that an insufficient amount has been spent in terms of repairs and maintenance. The second critical area that we have to keep coming back to is that, actually, there’s a $6 billion shortfall in what is needed in the land transport plan—at least $6 billion. How is the Minister going to fund that? There is a lot of speculation, but this is an opportunity for the Minister to answer that.

If I can just step back to one of the frameworks for the road maintenance, there’s a couple of key things that were pointed out to the select committee here, and one was that we have seen declining standards of road maintenance, but we’ve seen improvements in road safety in terms of accidents and death on the road. But I fear that the Government’s shift in the Government policy statement is going to actually exacerbate the road maintenance issues because we have “roads of National Party significance” or 17—actually, I was looking forward to the previous Minister being in the chair, given that 15 of those projects are in the North Island and only two of them are in the South Island. Look, there are many questions, so I’ll just start out. The first one to the Minister in the chair is: how can he ensure that there is an adequate amount of funding going into road maintenance instead of sucking money from there into the “roads of National Party significance”? And the second one is: can he explain what his ideas are for how he will cover the $6 billion shortfall?

We were making progress in Government and moving down the right path. There are indications of that. Changing Government policy statements, we fear, will reverse that. The Minister has the right, now, to answer some of those queries.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Thank you, Madam Chair. There’s a few pejorative remarks there, which I’ll carefully ignore from the Hon Damien O’Connor, starting with his last remark about the alleged “roads of National Party significance”. I mean, it’s interesting to hear that the Labour Party is now opposed to the various different roading projects that are being advanced by this Government.

It’s somewhat incongruous because his own colleague Rachel Boyack, member of Parliament for Nelson, spent most of the committee stage of the Fast-track Approvals Bill desperately trying to make sure the Hope Bypass, which is one of the roads of national significance in the South Island, was included in the fast-track bill, which was also a bit weird because Labour then voted against the fast-track bill and said it was a disaster and they couldn’t support it. So having lobbied endlessly to include the Hope Bypass in the fast track, Labour then voted against it. We now have her colleague, who’s also from the South Island, not far from Hope actually, criticising the Hope Bypass project and calling it a National Party—well, I just say good luck telling that to the people of Nelson and the wider Tasman region who are in support of that project, like they are in favour, for example, of the Northland Expressway project, a four-lane road from north of Auckland through to Whangārei—the single best thing we could do to unlock growth in a deprived or somewhat deprived area of New Zealand. So I’ll take those remarks as responded to.

In relation to revenue, the member does make a good point around funding pressure on the National Land Transport Fund. That is true. One of the things that has happened over the last 20 years or so—actually, 17 years—is it’s become more pronounced since 2008, when the Clark Government, the fifth Labour Government, merged the New Zealand Transport Agency, Transfund, and the Land Transport Safety Authority into one agency: the New Zealand Transport Agency. There has been continued pressure on the fund such that the Crown now contributes separately from road-user charges and petrol revenue. The Crown now contributes a large amount of money into the fund. Revenues are not keeping pace with expenditure, such that the Crown has to top it up. So the member does make a good point.

The current Government’s attitude towards that is to broaden the range of funding tools. We have said, for example, that the starting point for all of the new roads we build around the country will be to use tolls. The reason to do that is to make sure that the users of roads end up paying for the roads, and that is important. We’ve already made decisions around tolling three new roads—like Penlink, for example, and a couple of other roads where we have made the decision to toll those roads. That is a starting point for future roads that will be funded.

Tolls are not the answer to everything. There is a bit of a view out there that if you just chuck a toll on it, you can pay for the whole road. That’s not true. They are a tool, but they are not a whole funding solution. There are not that many roads in New Zealand with the vehicle volumes and the numbers that would recover huge amounts of money such that can be put towards the cost of the roads. But they are a tool that we want to use.

The other thing I should say is we have made a decision, as a Government, to use value-capture tools—or value recovery or cost recovery; whatever you want to call it—for new State highway but also public transport projects. That was announced a couple of months ago. Legislation is still to come as part of the wider local government funding and financing reform programme that we are undertaking across housing, transport, and infrastructure—my portfolios. What that will mean is that the beneficiaries of public investment in roads or public transport—i.e., landowners—will help recover the cost of paying for that investment. So State Highway 29 is an example. There are plenty of other projects that people can think of in which the Crown is going to invest, or potentially invest, a large amount of money that will result in an uplift in the value of land. That means you can do more with it. It stands to reason that if you build a four-lane State highway through a piece of land, the value of that land is higher than what it otherwise would be—likewise, with the brownfields and public transport projects as well.

Our view, as a Government, is that you should recover some of the cost of that public investment from a tool. We’ve had quite a bit of a debate. We’ve had quite a bit of discussion about the exact mechanism to do that. There are lots of things done overseas. What we’ve landed on is using the existing tool, which is the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act, which was passed under the last Government in 2020—but work goes all the way back to 2015 and 2016—to, essentially, put a levy on land that could help contribute to State highway projects. That hasn’t happened yet, but we’ve made a decision to do that. We have to legislate for it, and, obviously, the projects have to come to market to do that. But that, I think, does speak to his point around broadening the range of revenue tools available.

If we just take a simple example, the City Rail Link (CRL)—which is not a State highway but is similar in concept—is, essentially, a State highway for trains. It’s the easiest way of thinking about it. I think if we were doing the City Rail Link today, 10 years on from when it was first, essentially, funded and construction started, we would do it very differently. For example, we are building the equivalent of—Ms Genter will correct me if I’m wrong—14 or 16 lanes of State highway traffic on to the Auckland rail network. Thousands—hundreds of thousands—of people are going to use that, and it’s going to be phenomenal for Auckland. But it has created an enormous value uplift in the areas around the stations, and we have captured none of that value as a Government—none of it. That’s not what other countries do. It’s not what Sydney’s just recently done. It’s not what Singapore does. I was there last week. It’s not what most countries do. It’s not what London did when they built the Elizabeth Line. We’ve done none of that. We did none of it, and that is a real missed opportunity.

Now, I don’t blame—there are lots of reasons for that. We’ve been immature in our approach as a country to these issues. We’re changing that, as a Government, and building on some of the work that started under the previous Government. We are changing that, so things will be different. If we did CRL again—and I hope that we will do similar projects in the future—the funding approach would be very different.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Look, I thank the Minister of Transport for that, and it’s also a good opportunity to go back to the Clark Government. Actually, that was the first time, I think, that all roading funding had gone back into transport, but the incoming National Government did two things—and, actually, that Minister was an adviser to the Minister of the day. What they did was they increased the weight of trucks across the network, and, at the same time, they chose a programme which was called “sweat the assets”, which was to squeeze as much out of the roading network as they could with as little maintenance. That has continued to affect and downgrade the network, which is the issue that we’re addressing here, and the New Zealand Transport Agency’s progress towards achieving its overall outcomes was mixed, with the trend of worsening for the condition of State highways, but improving in terms of a lower number of road deaths and serious injuries.

To come back to the Minister having set the scene for ever-increasing pressure on repairs and maintenance on our roading network and the Minister acknowledging the $6 billion - plus shortfall, he referred to tolling, and so there are a couple of questions around tolling. The principle in the past was that you would only toll where there was an adequate alternative so that people didn’t have to pay the toll, and that was the principle.

So the question to the Minister is: will that still be the principle applied, so that those who either can’t afford it or who choose to go off the toll road can do so in a reasonably efficient manner? The second question is: if the projections of that toll income are not sufficient, is the Minister going to increase the road-user charge (RUC) and the excise and the fuel levies, or whatever mix there will be in four or five years’ time?

These are questions that we need to have some indication of, because people are making decisions about investing in their transport options—be it trucks or cars or bikes or whatever—into the future, and so they need to know or to have an estimate of what the cost will be. So maybe that’s something the Minister can answer—that is, what happens to the shortfall in tolling income, will we see an increase in the RUC over time, and is there a principle still applied that there must be a safe, efficient alternative to a toll road?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): The short answer in relation to tolling is, yes, there needs to be an alternative. In relation to tolling revenue, I’d just repeat what I said before, which was that it’s not the answer to everything, but it can make a contribution.

There’s a bit of a view out there that once you’ve built a road, it’s paid for. That’s true up to a point, but, of course, you’ve got to maintain the road that’s built, and ongoing tolling revenue from users of the road allows you to maintain the road, which means it’s not money that has to be funded from other things. So that is a potential revenue source into the future for the type of maintenance that the member is talking about. We’ve made a commitment as a Government not to increase fuel excise taxes or road-user charges in this term. That was a campaign commitment, and that remains the position as of today.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Hon Julie Anne Genter—

Hon Damien O’Connor: Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Oh, is this a supp?

Hon Damien O’Connor: It’s a continuation.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, I’ll take one more continuation, and then I’ll come to Ms Genter.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Look, it is in reference to a provocation from the Minister—or perhaps he might see it as an answer—regarding the “roads of National Party significance”. The fact that there are only two, and one of them, yes, is the Hope Bypass—there’s no four-laning to Ashburton, which was something, I think, the National Party campaigned on, actually, in the lead-up to the election. So there’s an omission there, and the Minister for the South Island, hopefully, is lobbying his colleague to get a bit more in the South Island.

I come back to it because the issue of road maintenance, given the absence of new projects in the South Island, is absolutely critical. If you move around the South Island, question No. 4—and I’m sure my colleague will ask this on behalf of the councils—is: how can we get enough funding into the South Island? That is where one would say that, actually, we have the biggest wealth-creation part of the economy, in Canterbury, Southland, Otago, the West Coast, and Nelson, where we generate incredible amounts of wealth, but the roading network is under huge pressure. So can we have an assurance that there’s an adequate level of repairs and maintenance funding going into the South Island to assist those councils—which I’m sure my colleague will follow up on.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Well, the member can rest assured that the Minister for the South Island is a strong advocate for the South Island, and no one is in any doubt about his views. But it’s not just him; there’s a whole cadre of South Island National and coalition MPs, including the Hon Mark Patterson from New Zealand First, Penny Simmonds, and other members.

In terms of road maintenance, I did just want to address that because I neglected to do it initially. I’m advised that in the National Land Transport Plan, road maintenance funding was approximately $2.8 billion over three years, from 2021 to 2024. It is $4 billion over the three years that we’re in, from 2024 to 2027, so there’s been a sizable uplift in road maintenance, split between pothole repairs and operations to maintain the roads. We set a target as a Government—this came in in July 2024, under my good friend and colleague the Hon Simeon Brown, my predecessor—of 95 percent of pothole repairs within 24 hours for high-classification roads and 85 percent within 24 hours for lower-classification roads. All targets have been met to date. We are making great progress, and I’m looking forward to seeing the future, ongoing results.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you, Madam Chair. I have limited time, so I would like to just focus on two areas that were considered by the committee. I have a series of questions for the Minister, so I’m hoping we can get a back-and-forth flow.

The first area is to do with road safety, but specifically the setting of speed limits rule of 2024. We heard from the Minister of Transport—and this is on page 6 of the annual report of the Ministry of Transport, or page 139 in the volume—that the Minister had provided specific advice on factors including that speed is a contributing factor to deaths and serious injuries and that reversing speed limits would increase average speeds and would, therefore, increase the risk of crashes and the severity of those crashes.

In the coalition agreement, they had agreed to reversing speed limit reductions where it was safe to do so, so I wanted to ask the Minister if he believes that speed limit reversals will only happen where it is safe to do so, and whether the Minister has received any advice from the New Zealand Transport Agency—or Waka Kotahi—on what the impacts of the setting of speed limits rule of 2024 will be on deaths and serious injuries?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Well, I’m in a slightly difficult position in relation to this because—well, it is me, actually; I’m having legal action taken. Well, it’s against the Minister of Transport, which happens to be me at the moment. For the setting of the speed rule, there’s a judicial review under way, so it’s difficult to comment publicly beyond matters which are already on the public record.

As the member knows, the rule came into effect on 30 October last year. It requires RCAs—Road Controlling Authorities—to take a balanced approach to ensure travel time impacts and the views of local communities and road users are considered. The member is very familiar with the rule.

I would point out that it does require safer speeds around schools. Most submitters supported the reversal of the speed limit reductions under the previous Government, so that is the position, as it stands, and Road Controlling Authorities are now getting on with implementing the rule. It’s difficult to comment much further than that, as it’s subject to legal action.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you very much for that. Can the Minister tell us how many of the Road Controlling Authorities and local councils who submitted on the rule opposed some part of the rule?

Hon Chris Bishop: I don’t know but I—

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I’ll carry on while the Minister is waiting for that.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Carry on. Yeah—ask another question.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Will the Minister consider an exemption for communities who express support for the speed limits as they are; or will he carry on with the rule as it is, which is forcing councils to spend money to put speed limits up in areas where they know it will increase risk of serious death and injuries, including in Wellington, in the community of Berhampore, where there’re more people walking, cycling, taking public transport, crossing the road, than there are driving, and where the rule is apparently going to force speed limits back up for a couple of hundred metres at a section on Adelaide Road next to two aged-care facilities, a hospital, two early childhood education facilities—South Wellington Intermediate School and Berhampore Primary School?

Will the Minister allow there to be an exemption where communities have demonstrated strong support, and there’s no evidence of time savings for motorists, but there is very good evidence of increased risk of serious injury or death to those communities?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Well, I thank the member for her spirited advocacy on behalf of her constituency. As the Government, we’re always interested and open to receiving our feedback, particularly that expressed passionately.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I acknowledge the Minister. In this debate today, I’m interested in the shift in position from the previous Minister, particularly their style of politics. I understand that the new Minister has framed himself as being an urbanist. So I think that’s great, particularly when you look at our largest city in the country, Auckland, Tāmaki-makau-rau. But there are some concerns and I think at the heart of it for this Minister of Transport in front of us is the $6 billion funding shortfall that he has to achieve the programme of work that he has promised. Particularly of concern to us on the side of the House is that it is a “roads, roads, and roads” focus for a city that desperately needs solutions to addressing our congestion problem.

So my series of questions this afternoon will be particularly framed around that, but I do want to continue around, I guess, asking the Minister: how does he see addressing his debt challenges in front of him to fund his programme of work other than tolls? What will he be doing to do that? What was the shortfall in revenue that came as a cancellation by this Government to the regional fuel tax in Auckland, and how has that impacted the programme of work that he needs to achieve? What feedback has the Minister had from Auckland Council and Mayor Wayne Brown to that shortfall, and what impact has it had to the bottom line for Auckland Council and Auckland Transport to be able to achieve their programme of work, given that they have relied on central government funding in the past? I’ll hold there, and I’ll come back.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Look, I don’t have anything hugely more to say to what’s already been said publicly about the Auckland regional fuel tax. The member still holds a candle for it, obviously. We took two successive elections repealing it. There is more money going to Auckland Transport notwithstanding the Auckland regional fuel tax’s abolition as of 1 July last year. There is more money in this National Land Transport Plan going to Auckland than before. I haven’t actually had any conversations with the mayor about it, but I’ve only been the transport Minister for 2½ months or so. I have had many productive and engaging conversations with His Worship, but we haven’t actually talked about the Auckland regional fuel tax. There are lots of other things to talk about—many things. So that deals with the Auckland regional fuel tax issue. If the member wants to campaign on slapping a tax on Aucklanders again, well, he’s welcome to do that; I suspect that he actually won’t.

In relation to the debt challenge, I think it just means the funding challenge, although the member is right that there is a funding challenge around transport infrastructure in New Zealand. In my conversations with the Hon Damien O’Connor, it adverted to that in my remarks. There’s a range of different things the Government is looking at in order to address that. One is tolls; the second is value capture. The other is, you know, sort of alternative funding and financing techniques. So there’s a range of different things that we are looking at.

One way to get more bang for buck is to reduce consenting costs and reduce some of the enormous scope that comes with projects. So looking at lower-cost, higher-value alternatives or particularly around the conditions that are set when it comes to building new projects. The previous Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, has made it clear, and I would reiterate as well, that gold-plating is something we need to strip out of projects. We need to deliver good value-for-money projects, not just in terms of the actual projects we decide to build but also in terms of the actual delivery of those particular projects, all of the sort of bells and whistles that come with particular projects. By having a strong focus on value for money, you can do more with the same amount of money, and that is a strong theme of this Government more generally.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): The Minister hasn’t answered my question. The question, and I’ll reframe it for him because I am interested in the revenue side of how we are going to achieve the transport infrastructure that we desperately need in Auckland. The figure that I have—and the Minister didn’t mention the shortfall to investment in Auckland—is $564 million. Maybe the Minister would like to clarify that, given that he is saying that more money is going into Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland. Can the Minister please articulate whereabouts is that in anywhere else but roads, and where does he expect that revenue to be generated from other than the tolls discussion that he has been having?

In addition to that, given that the Minister of Transport is an urbanist, then I would like to clearly hear his view on public transport and what his commitment to this is, because it’s desperately woeful in Auckland’s transport plan, and that he has in fact prioritised his National Party’s roads of significance. So I’d like him to outline which projects in particular he is investing in in public transport. What are the impacts that he has seen as a result of the National Government’s repeal of the half-price public transport and free public transport for under-13s? What savings has that provided back to the Government, and where has he reinvested that money? I’ll hold there, and I’ve got a few more thereafter.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Well, we can get the numbers around some of the public transport concession savings. I don’t have those to hand, but if the member puts them in a written question, we can get that for him in due course.

We’ve got a strong focus on public transport, particularly in our major metro cities: Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. There’s a massive investment going into Auckland. The City Rail Link (CRL) is the most obvious example, which spans the last two or three Governments, and quite a lot of focus is now going into getting the network ready for the onset of CRL when it eventually opens next year.

The rail rebuild programme that KiwiRail is undertaking in Auckland is very important, because it’s all very well to just finish CRL and open it, but there is a massive amount of work required to get the network ready. It will be transformational and a game-changer for Auckland once it opens. But I want to stress this: there is a significant amount of work yet to do to optimise the network. That includes ongoing investment in the metro rail network in Auckland around maintenance and renewals. There is a significant amount of catch-up investment required in both Auckland and Wellington, which the member will be aware of. The starting point for much of what we do should be to look after what we’ve got. Oftentimes, that has not been the case, so looking after the existing assets that we have and maintaining them is very important, and that has not been true of our metro rail networks for quite some time. So that is something that I am pretty focused on, as Minister, because making sure we get absolute value out of our metropolitan rail networks in Auckland and Wellington is very important.

The other point I’d make is in relation to level crossings. If I could just be political for a little moment, one of the challenges I’ve found in coming into the portfolio—and I know the Hon Simeon Brown found this as well—is that we started CRL around 2014-15, and everyone went, “Oh, this is great.” The City Rail Link Ltd got on with it, and, in the meantime, I think we took our eye off the ball, and I think the previous Government is guilty of this, if I could just be a little bit political. The previous Government took their eye off the ball in not thinking about the future-state requirements of the network.

As it transpires, to really get the best bang for buck out of CRL and the $5 billion or $6 billion or $7 billion worth of investment we are making alongside the council, you’ve got to get rid of the level crossings, because, otherwise, the trains will be running through and people will be waiting for many, many minutes. Everyone agrees we need to do the level crossing work; very little, if anything, to be honest, has been done in the last six or seven years on the level crossings. We’ve now put in $200 million as an initial kind of down payment. The council has chipped in the equivalent. So that’s a good start, but there’s more required, no doubt about that. That will allow us to get on with the ones around Takanini and Glen Innes, which I’m advised have the best benefit-cost ratios. Everyone, essentially, accepts we need to do them, but there are many more we need to do as well.

It is, to be honest, an enduring source of frustration that no one has been focused on this inside the system, either in Auckland or, frankly, in central government for the last few years. It may be that people knew about it, but no one did anything about it. That is pretty frustrating. So we are now going to have to go through—as we always do in New Zealand, or as we often do—a process of playing catch-up, and that is going to be pretty frustrating. So I’m doing some thinking about how we get the governance of the level crossing removal programme right. We want to optimise and get the best bang for buck and we want to do it in a sequenced way that makes sure that you don’t completely stuff the network while you do it. But there is no doubt that we’re going to have to spend a lot of money on the level crossings and we are pretty focused on that.

In relation to public transport, making sure we get good usage of public transport in Auckland is a priority for the Government. CRL is the most notable example of that, but, of course, the CRL investment will also allow us to leverage a whole lot of different bus networks and active mode transport connections linking into the CRL stations as well. So it is a strong priority for the Government and I know the member is keen on that as well.

Suffice it to say, the growth of public transport in Auckland over the last 20 years, particularly the rail network, has been extraordinary. That has come from successive Governments continuing to invest in the Auckland rail network. To be honest, it’s not so much about the concessions. You can give people discounts to ride public transport; that doesn’t really move the dial. What moves the dial is reliable, efficient services that turn up on time that people can rely on. Then, once you build that, that’s when people start using public transport, and they will pay for it. You can do concessions, but frankly, that’s around the margins. The actual thing that drives public transport uptake is reliability and efficiency.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Minister of Transport’s earlier answer answers to my questions, though I don’t think I’ve got one on how many of the road-controlling authorities—

Hon Chris Bishop: I don’t know.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —submitted and how many—OK, I’ll put down a written question on that. I thought maybe the officials might have that answer for you.

So on public transport funding, it’s noted in the annual review of New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi that the new National Land Transport Programme for three years did not approve funding for the majority of the public transport infrastructure projects that were proposed by public transport authorities. So I’m just wondering: does the Minister have any plans to address this, particularly given that there were projects that affect, for example, train stations in his electorate not being able to get their new roofs and improvements that are desperately needed?

I know the Minister is very interested in value for money. So if a whole lot of really high-value public transport projects could be funded for a small percentage of the funding that has been committed to some of the urban roads of national significance—and, in fact, they’re higher value for money, the public transport projects, and they deliver more for housing than the highway projects do—will the Minister consider prioritising the higher-value projects that do more to help people get around the area and do more for housing?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Very briefly, I mean, in relation to public transport infrastructure activity class, there are always more bids for money than there is money available—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: But there are literally none funded.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: —there’s no doubt about that. This was true under the previous Government—well, there’s more money for public transport in Wellington the member talks about in this year’s National Land Transport Plan (NLTP) than there was in the previous three years. There are always proposals for things that councils want to fund that don’t always get funded. That was true under the last Government and the Government before that, and it’s true under this Government. People will always put their hand up and say, “We want extra cash.”, unsurprisingly.

In relation to value for money, the Government’s approach is to take a balanced and blended approach when it comes to investment. We need to invest more in public transport, our rail network, and our bus network, which do the heavy lifting in many cities. We need to continue to invest in our roading network both locally and nationally as well. So reasonable people can disagree about whether or not we’ve got the balance right. We’re pretty comfortable with where we’re at, but there’ll be another opportunity to do a new national land transport programme in 2026 moving into 2027—here we go again on the cycle of our NLTPs—and I’m sure the member will put up spirited contributions towards that.

One thing I am keen to do, while I think of it, in answering this question, is we are keen to move towards longer-term transport funding pipelines. This constant three-year merry-go-round of NLTP and consultation, and regional land transport plans and consultation all done by the councils and everyone having a bun fight about sometimes often niche amounts of money is unproductive, inefficient, and drives everyone demented. So we are keen to move towards a 10-year plan and we’ll be doing that in the context of the 2027 NLTP. But for now, it’s just time to crack on, get some stuff done, and build it.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): So can I take it then that the Minister will not be enabling funding of the public transport infrastructure projects that were applied for by the Greater Wellington Regional Council, even if they are high-value and important projects, because of the constraints on the funding due to the promises around the roads of national significance?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Well, as the member knows from her time as associate transport Minister, I don’t make funding decisions around those things; they’re made by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) board. We set the activity classes, we set the overall funding envelope, but the individual project decisions are made by the NZTA board. So I don’t have responsibility for that.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): But the Minister does clearly set a direction through the Government policy statement on transport funding, and it is within the Minister’s ability to amend the Government policy statement so that it would be possible to fund these projects. If they are projects that are high value and leading towards the outcomes that we want when it comes to housing and public transport, why would the Minister not take that action?

REUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East): Thank you, Mr Chair. The good news for the Minister of Finance is that this is not a question about a bun fight for niche funding; this is a question about a lifeline piece of bridge in the electorate of Christchurch East that’s still waiting for a meaningful—

Hon Member: South Island.

REUBEN DAVIDSON: —contribution of funding. Yes, and as the member next to me points out, if you’re not sure where that is, it’s in the South Island, so this is the Pages Road Bridge.

The specific questions with this project—and I’ve stood in the House and asked these questions of the previous Minister of Transport, and he was able to tell me at that time that $13 million had been committed towards that project. Now, the only issue there is that it is in fact only $6.5 million that’s so far been committed to the project. It’s an $80 million project. This bridge is not a nice-to-have; this bridge is the vital lifeline that connects New Brighton to the city, so this is a vital piece of infrastructure that is required for people to get out in an emergency should they need to, and this is a vulnerable coastal community.

So my questions for the Minister specifically are: is the Minister aware of the current rating of the strength of that bridge? When is more funding coming? How much more funding is coming? When is the last time that the Minister met with the mayor or councillors in Christchurch to discuss that specific project? When will New Brighton get the bridge that it not only deserves but that it also needs to give people the certainty that they can get in and out of that community? And will there be a toll for it?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): To answer the member’s questions, no, I was not aware of the rating of the bridge. Well, I am now, so thank you for bringing that to my attention. This is the Pages Road Bridge I believe the member’s talking about, in New Brighton. When have I talked to local MPs and councils about it? I haven’t. It has not been raised with me and now it has. I note that I haven’t had any correspondence from the member in relation to the matter either. I can’t speak to the Hon Simeon Brown. He may well have written to the Minister of Transport in the previous year, but he certainly hasn’t written to me, to the best of my knowledge.

How much money has been allocated? I’m advised $13 million in this year’s National Land Transport Fund, so the project is funded. I hear what he’s saying that that’s not enough to fund the whole project, but this goes to the point I made before about these three-year funding envelopes, right? We go through this process of a bit of money being allocated, and everybody knows there’s going to have to be some funding into the future, but there’s a degree of anxiety which the member is expressing. I could name dozens of projects around the country where we go through this process of councils putting their best foot forward and it’s a clearly important project that people agree has to be done, and half the money is allocated or 60 percent or 30 percent, whatever the number is, and then we all know that there’s going to have to be some funding into the future. That’s my point around the 10-year funding envelopes.

Here’s the crazy thing: we make councils do 10-year long-term plans. As a Parliament, we make the councils—you know, 2027 to 2037, work out what your operating expenses are, work out what your capital expenditure is, work out your asset maintenance plans, work out what you’re going to invest in. We don’t hold ourselves to the same standard. We go through this merry-go-round of three-year funding cycles and it gets worse once you’ve changed the National Land Transport Plans after elections, which always tends to happen. Phil Twyford did exactly the same thing. We’ve subsequently changed it.

So it does lead to oscillation and it does lead to funding discontinuity, which is problematic. So we accept that and we’ve got a whole range of work under way to change some of that. But in answer to the member’s question: yes, the project is funded and I hear what he’s saying around how important it is to the people of New Brighton.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Yeah, look, thank you. It was good to hear that, because before you came into the room, I started off talking about what the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have been doing in terms of the reviews, and the consistent message which we had from the Infrastructure Commission is the need for long-term pipelines of investment. I’m going to flick to a specific thing there: one of the other things that they said—and, actually, that came through not just from the Infrastructure Commission but from a range of different organisations; I see the New Zealand Transport Agency here as well—is that we’ve tended to under-invest in the maintenance of existing assets vis a vis building of new assets.

I want to pick up on one particular area, because I had the pleasure of—we’ve talked about the South Island a bit, but I had the pleasure of being down in Southland a month and a half or so ago, and the point that they were making: very, very long roading network, but it’s a roading network which is going backwards. They literally cannot afford to seal the roads that are currently sealed, so they’re starting to become unsealed. They cannot afford to fix the bridges, and those bridges are bridges that carry milk tankers, etc., and they box way above their weight in terms of their contribution to exports and to GDP.

So the point that they’re making is they actually generate—there are more road-user charges and fuel excise duties generated in Southland than is spent in Southland. So it’s, effectively, saying they are subsidising the rest of the country. This is the part of the country that is earning way above its weight in terms of GDP and in terms of export revenue, and yet they can’t afford to maintain the assets, and if they can’t afford to maintain the assets, it means that the dairy trucks have got to go round the long way. They can’t get as much value out of them, it costs more, etc.

So my question is: given that the Infrastructure Commission has said we need to spend more on maintenance, have we got the structure right? They won’t be the only ones; it won’t be just Southland, but have we got the structure right so that we’re actually making sure that we actually do look after the assets we’ve already got in a way which works for our economy as opposed to the new stuff?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Well, as I said before, there is a substantial increase in maintenance funding in this year’s National Land Transport Programme, from $2.8 billion to $4 billion, so that is very important. The member makes an interesting point, and he might’ve been talking to the Southland mayors, who made this point to me a week before when I was in Invercargill speaking to the planning conference. They made this point strongly to me. I mean, to state the obvious, it would be a radical change to divvy up transport funding regionally on the basis of GDP—that’s, as I understand, how the member is suggesting—or even done on distance or kilometres travelled.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Not GDP; wealth creation.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: That will—well, I hear the member saying wealth, or contribution towards wealth.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Exports.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Export wealth—well, that’s another metric. I mean, members, I hope, can see the challenges with that. That would be a drastic change, and it’s not one the Government is contemplating at this point.

The member does make, I think, a really interesting point around the importance of asset management and asset maintenance, and that is something that the Government takes seriously. Led by the Infrastructure Commission, which has given me a number of reports on this, we are doing quite a bit of thinking as a Government around how we improve asset maintenance. I’m intending to lead a programme of work over the next 18 months or so around that, and once we’re in a position to make announcements, I and we will do that.

Shanan Halbert: You love announcements.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I do like announcements. It’s a busy Government; there’s lots happening.

The member is right to say that there has been an under-appreciation of asset maintenance. It’s not just on our roads, by the way. We have done a poor job around our schools, our hospitals, many parts of our public infrastructure. We have done a poor job when it comes to asset maintenance, and there are lots of different reasons for that and they span lots of different Governments as well. I am determined to try and make a difference, and so I’ll be leading a bit of a programme of work around that. There’s lots of things that can be done, and there’s lots of things that are much more complicated to do. So, anyway, once we’ve done the work on that, I’ll announce it.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chairman. Before I get on to the other issue—another highway—firstly, can I ask the Minister of Transport who was an adviser to the Minister of the day when they lifted the weight of trucks. The question is very simple: what’s the calculation on the impact of the roading network at that time—the one that is still being used now—and has it been reviewed, given the reality of places like Southland, where those roads are going backwards very quickly because of those heavy trucks?

The next question I’d ask, while the Minister is getting his answer and getting some advice on that, is the blue water highway. That is the one that runs between North and the South Island, and I appreciate the previous member from Wellington—passionate Wellington member Andy Foster—caring about the South Island. If you want to get from one place to the other, you’ve got to go over on the ferries.

Now, I’m not going to relitigate all of that kind of disastrous decision-making process—we seem to have a solution. The question is about a billion dollars that was spent by KiwiRail through that process and I’m not sure—and I don’t think the Transport and Infrastructure Committee got an answer—as to how much of that will be useful investment going forward. Indeed, will KiwiRail continue to invest in consultants, as we’ve just recently seen, in trying to tidy things up? So of the billion dollars, how much is useful investment in the long-term project?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): In relation to the issue around the heavy trucks, just to correct the member the Hon Damien O’Connor, I’ve never worked for the Minister of Transport as a staffer before entering Parliament. So you can’t blame me for that—you can’t blame me for that. It’s factually inaccurate. I won’t invite the member to make a personal explanation and correct the House, but it doesn’t matter. He’s made it twice now, so he’s clearly interested in it, but it’s not correct.

I think the member makes an interesting point around heavy trucks, and there is potentially an opportunity to have a look at that. I don’t have the exact answers to the questions. If he puts it down in writing, we can have a look at that through written questions.

In relation to the ferries, I’m not sure he’s accurate about the numbers of $1 billion spent already on the ferries. He himself said he didn’t want to get into the disastrous decision making, which was pretty good for him because I could spend the next four minutes of this contribution going through the disastrous iReX procurement process from the previous Government in a series of cascading and unfolding series of dumb decisions made by the Cabinet of which he was a member. But I won’t do that, because I’m in a friendly mood and I don’t want to embarrass the member. So I’ll just not do that.

I think we’ve got a solution. The Minister for Rail, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, is leading that work. I think we’ve got a pretty good solution. It’s going to result in the Crown spending far less than the failed iReX project.

In relation to the consultant cost, all I can do is agree with him. I found that figure outrageous when I learnt about it, and the Ministers of the time—before I took on responsibility for transport—I think have made that clear. The number is indefensible and unjustified, and I agree with him.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Can the Minister of Transport give us an update on the estimate that KiwiRail or the Government will have to pay for the cancelled contract, and what that compensation might be?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): I could, but I would be breaching commercial-in-confidence negotiations. So I won’t.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Can I—perhaps there’s another way. Is it greater than or lesser than half a billion dollars?

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. The Minister hasn’t spoken to the Mayor of Auckland City. He is focused on roads, just like the last Minister. He isn’t so concerned about the increase in public transport fees to users. Congestion charging: I know that he’s been undergoing a bit of work as a continuation from the last Government, and I acknowledge that. I’m interested in his thoughts around what advice and feedback he has had, both from his officials and from the council and the public, in regard to particular tools that enabled congestion charging or the transition—things like half-price public transport, investment in critical public transport infrastructure, which enable people to take alternatives if they aren’t able to take their car.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): That will be considered in due course. Let’s get the legislation through first. The first congestion pricing report was in 1993, I think, by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, so we’ve spent the better part of 30 years debating this. We know what the economics say, which is that when you make something free, people overuse it. It’s free to drive—I mean, you pay through petrol tax, but, essentially, at the point of use, it’s free to drive on roads. It costs you nothing. Unsurprisingly, at peak periods, people overuse the roads, and the normal rules of economics apply. The normal response of markets is to price things better in response to that, and that’s what congestion pricing and what time-of-use pricing does: it means that people have to face a price signal, such that they weigh up driving at particular times when they use the roads. That’s literally all it is. I think I’m right in saying that we have a bit of a consensus around that now—it’s taken a bit of time to get to that point, but that’s OK—and there’s a debate to be had about the model and the balance between central and local government, and I’m looking forward to hearing what the select committee has to say about that.

I do hear a bit of criticism from people saying that it’s got to be a locally led scheme, which is fine, except for the fact that the distinction between local roads and State highways is, frankly, pretty arbitrary. I mean, people don’t really know what they drive on, they just drive on a local road and then they go on to the next road, and it happens to be a State highway. So our system is not particularly distinct. The roads are roads, for people. Only geeks like me and probably you, Shanan, drive on a road and are interested in the particular designation of it. So that’s why we’ve gone for a scheme that encompasses central and local government.

There’s a debate to be had about the balance, which we’ll have during the select committee process. But I do think it is a priority, because, basically, every country or jurisdiction that has implemented congestion pricing, it’s been bumpy on the way through and then it’s worked, and people go, “This is amazing. This is really good.” You do have to think about the countervailing investment in public transport to make sure people do have alternatives. That’ll be part of the negotiation around the revenue that’s raised as a result of that. Those are all questions and issues and debates for another day. Let’s get the legislation in place and then have those debates. But even just getting the legislation in place would be a gigantic step forward for reducing congestion in our major cities, and it would be a good legacy of this Parliament. So I invite the member to come on the journey with us.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): To that point, the Minister said, “Let’s get the legislation in place.” Does that mean he’ll consider the impact on low-income workers after the legislation is through?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Yes, of course.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Mr Chairman, thank you. Look, I want to go to the Government policy statement and a couple of laudable targets there that the Government’s put in place. First, emissions reduction plan: 41 percent reduction in transport emissions by 2035 and decarbonising, enabling the shift to zero-emission vehicles. How’s it going, Minister, given that the transition and the uptake of low-emissions vehicles—electric vehicles—has slumped since the change in policy of the incoming Government? Are we going to get to these targets; if so, how?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Well, it’s a long-term game—it’s a long-term game—as the member knows, when it comes to climate change. I’m an electric vehicle (EV) evangelist—we are a two-EV family—and I know many, many members of the Government are as well. It’s a long-term game. The price of the stuff is really clear. The economics speak for themselves, and people are increasingly working that out. Over time, it’s cheaper to own a little Nissan Leaf or a Hyundai IONIQ, or whatever it is people own, and that’s where the market’s going to go, because petrol prices are going to rise, and electricity is a great comparative advantage for New Zealand. We have cheap, abundant renewable electricity. We’ve got to sort the planning system out, to make sure we can take greater advantage of it. But EVs are the way of the future in New Zealand, and it’s a pretty exciting future, but it’s a long-term game.

We did get rid of the Clean Car Discount, because it, essentially, resulted in tradies and farmers paying more to subsidise middle-class and wealthy people in Remuera and Wellington, like myself. Although, ace in the hand: I was an early adopter. I got my Nissan Leaf before the Clean Car Discount, so I’m not a taker of it. But the reality is that it was a wealth transfer—it was a regressive wealth transfer—from lower-income people, who can’t afford to buy Teslas and all the rest of it, farmers and tradies. It was a wealth transfer from them to people who could afford to buy it. So we did get rid of it, and we stand by that decision. It was poor public policy, and we got rid of it.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): Did the Minister get a discount on his second electric vehicle?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): No.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. Speaking of bridges, this afternoon, I guess it would be important for me to ask as the only representative in the Chamber asking a question around the Waitematā Harbour crossing to the Minister: what is your investment, in this particular period, in the Waitematā Harbour crossing, how does it differ to the plan that Labour had in place, and what costings has he done as opposed to what Labour did in their time?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport): Well, again, we’re running out of time, but this is comical stuff. I don’t want to be too mean, but, basically, Labour’s plan was a fantasy dreamt up in the dregs of the election campaign in order to give Michael Wood and Chris Hipkins a photo op at the Hilton Hotel with the Harbour Bridge in the background, where they could say, “We’re going to build the second harbour crossing.” And then it turned out there was no plan, there was no funding, there was no solution, and there was no options analysis. They didn’t really know what they were going to build when, where, and how. There were literally no answers to any question. It was the height of policy made for a photo op during an election campaign, or what was about to be an election campaign. There were pie-in-the-sky figures of $60 billion. If you thought the $700 million cycleway across the harbour was bad—that never got built; eventually they decided that was a dumb idea. Then there was the Auckland Light Rail—and they thought that was dumb. It was like the nadir of stupid policy-making on the fly in order to get Chris Hipkins a photo op where he could pretend that he was doing something for Auckland transport, and it failed.

What we’re doing on the Auckland Harbour, the additional one to the Harbour Bridge, is we’re actually doing the work. There’s a barge in the harbour right now doing the geotechnical work, and we’re undertaking market soundings to actually go and talk to the people who go and build this stuff and finance it, to work out what’s actually deliverable, to try and come up with a solution that is fundable and deliverable, and that actually meets the needs of Auckland. So we’ve committed to an additional Waitematā Harbour crossing, but there have been successive generations of politicians—the last Government being the worst at this, which stood up and said, “We are going to build a second harbour crossing.”, and then were unable to answer every question after that. So I think, frankly, Aucklanders are kind of over that. What they want is a plan, but they want a plan that’s deliverable and fundable, and that people actually can understand and that’s realistic. So we are working hard on that plan.

There’s money in the National Land Transport Plan for investigations as part of that. The barge and the harbour will be funded through some of that. We can get the member the exact numbers, but there’s no funding for delivery in this National Land Transport Plan. You wouldn’t expect that. Frankly, it’s a sort of project where, once you’ve got a solution and you know what you want to do, the whole Parliament should back. It’s so—

Dan Bidois: Yes, I think Labour backs it, no?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, it’s a bit unclear, to be honest. I mean, it’s like all things, a bit unclear.

It’s a multi-generational project in which you are going to want to have some degree of consensus across the Parliament. Once we’ve got a plan and a solution, we’ll come and talk to the Opposition, which by the way is—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The Minister is not showing any sign of finishing.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, I was just going to make one more point—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Minister! Our time with the Minister of Transport has ended. The Minister of Health is now available for one hour to respond to members’ questions.

Health

SAM UFFINDELL (Chairperson of the Health Committee): Well, thank you, Mr Chair. It’s very good to be able to stand up and discuss health in New Zealand and know that this is a Government focused on delivery—focused on delivery to the patients, making sure that we have got targets back in our health system. We’re focused on faster cancer treatments, on increasing immunisation rates, on shorter emergency department wait times, faster first specialist appointments, and faster treatments.

We have put a record spend into Vote Health, a significant increase over the three next Budgets of $16.68 billion. That’s an additional $3.44 billion into hospital and specialist services, an additional $2.12 billion into primary and community care, and an additional $1.77 billion to clean up the Pharmac mess that we inherited. This is a Government that is relentlessly focused on improving delivery for patients.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Could I just remind the member that, as the select committee chair, the Standing Order is that this is a non-political five minutes on what the committee has done. So just a reminder that that’s the case.

SAM UFFINDELL: Absolutely, thank you for that direction there. Just outlining some of the broader themes and initiatives of this Government and things that we have considered in this annual review. One of the things that stood out when we took this on and looked through the annual report was that staffing and workforce was a considerable challenge. I know the former Minister over the other side of the Chamber will acknowledge that. I’m pleased to report in this annual report that Health New Zealand has said that its workforce has “grown dramatically, by the thousands.” That is a very good outcome because there are more doctors and midwives and nurses available to make sure that Health New Zealand can deliver for New Zealanders.

There’s been a number of other things that have focused on improving the healthcare system. We’ve seen improved radiology facilities. We note the improved immunisation roll-out. There’s been an additional—and I think I read it in here—47,000 people able to receive immunisations, 60 percent of those being Māori, and that was part of the Government’s $50 million package to Māori providers. We also note that there are now 200 further pharmacists trained to provide immunisations, and Plunket have been extended in their ability to provide vaccinations as well.

A safer healthcare environment: we had heard some challenges around that space, but there was an investment there to make sure that there are an additional 200 security staff available over those hot summer months where tempers can get a little bit frayed, to make sure that that safety was there.

Addressing the workforce shortages: there have been other things that have taken place, such as a memorandum of understanding with Waikato University to make sure that we can address critical doctor shortages with a long-term solution. There’s been increased access to PET and CT scans—1,000 more per year to be publicly funded—a crucial cancer diagnostic tool. It relates back to that target that I mentioned at the start that is noted around improving access and treatments on cancer. There’s been mobile breast screening rolled out in Counties Manukau, expected to reach 6,000 more women per year, an extension in the number of people who can receive breast screening, with 70- to 74-year-olds now included in that cohort.

Flu vaccination rates: going back to immunisations and those targets, 65 and over are now available to receive those free of charge. What I would just reiterate is that when we came into Government, the health spokesperson Dr Reti acknowledged that the biggest challenge that we faced was workforce. This Government has been very clear on making sure that those workforce numbers are increased, and I’m very glad to see that that is reflected in this report. I can see the members over the other side of the House, smiling, knowing that with more people working in the front line, New Zealanders will be able to get—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Under Speakers’ Ruling 147/3, this report is a non-political report back to the committee on the select committee.

SAM UFFINDELL: I’m trying to—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Just a reminder.

SAM UFFINDELL: I note your comments there, Mr Chair—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Well, I’m pleased you’ve noted it, because it’s the second time I’ve had to remind you.

SAM UFFINDELL: So you won’t have to remind me again, Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Note it and act on it.

SAM UFFINDELL: I’m trying to be as neutral as I can but just noting down some of the key parts that are in this report. We asked about a number of items, and I just want to thank all members of the Health Committee for their hard work. We’re all dedicated to improving patient outcomes in New Zealand.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. Can I just thank the Health Committee, led by the member Sam Uffindell, and all members of the Health Committee, for their work on the annual reviews. I’m just going to make a few opening remarks, and then I look forward to engaging with members from across the House in regards to the annual review of the health portfolio.

Our Government is focused on delivering better health outcomes for all New Zealanders, putting patients first, and ensuring timely and quality access to healthcare. We acknowledge the many challenges that New Zealanders face, particularly with significant wait-lists in order for them to receive the healthcare that they need in a timely and quality manner. As has been highlighted in this House, wait-lists grew substantially under the previous Government, which removed the health targets and left many thousands of New Zealanders waiting far too long to get the care that they need. That is why we’re getting back to the basics, ensuring our hospitals are focused on front-line service delivery, reducing bureaucracy, and making sure that we have health targets that clearly put patients at the forefront of our health system.

We’re focused on what matters: shorter wait times, faster access to treatment, and a system that works for patients. The system is delivering more, but there is more to do. The most recent quarterly—quarter two—data for the health targets highlight that, whilst more is being delivered, people are waiting too long, and that is why there is more to do, particularly around elective treatment and, also, first specialist assessments. That is the work the Government is doing around the elective boost, working across both the public and private system, to ensure more patients are getting access to the care that they need.

The heart of our plan is a record investment in our health system. Over three Budgets, we are delivering an additional $16.68 billion investment in health, ensuring our hospitals, doctors, and nurses have the resources they need to provide access to timely, quality healthcare. Ultimately, if you’re not measuring it, you’re not managing it. The last Government failed to measure, failed to manage, and we are fixing the problems left behind and the thousands of New Zealanders who are waiting too long. That is why we’ve brought back the health targets—so we can focus the system back on the patient and make sure that we are delivering more for them. This Government is committed to getting health back on track, putting patients first, and I look forward to hearing members’ questions.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): I’m surprised that the Minister of Health’s or the Health Committee chair’s remarks did not canvass what was absolutely remarkable about the Health Committee’s annual review of Health New Zealand. That included that the financial reports were public for Health New Zealand, were published only a day before the committee’s hearing, and when they arrived, oh boy, $300 million attributed to the wrong financial year. Health New Zealand had tried to present the costs of redundancies for jobs that hadn’t even been cut to make it look like they were turning their books around. The Auditor-General was having none of it and made Health New Zealand revise its accounts. If that isn’t cooking the books, I don’t know what is.

But their accounting mischief was not all that Health New Zealand had to hide. Let’s remember those demonstrably and unbelievably false accounts were being prepared with 70 staff under non-disclosure agreements—a highly unusual arrangement in our Public Service. Not long afterwards, we said goodbye to the chief financial officer, who appears to have been pushed out, and Lester Levy helicoptered in his own staff, including someone who had been censured for their failings as an auditor.

What was the Government’s plan to find enough savings or cuts in the under-resourced health sector so that the finance Minister could pay for tax cuts that she couldn’t afford? You’ll recall the manufactured crisis about the health system having too many nurses, and it’s patients that are paying the price for this. There was a false claim that there were 16 layers of management at Health New Zealand, but there demonstrably wasn’t. No one in the Beehive was able to back up that claim. There were denials that there was a hiring freeze when people on the front line—staff, good nurses and doctors—were telling us every day they weren’t able to recruit to vacancies.

The whole debacle should have been stopped when it became hard to find actual savings. But no: Health New Zealand pressed on, cutting Milo and toast for new mums at Wellington Hospital. For months beyond that, they pressed on with chaotic cuts to support staff, and data and digital. Hundreds, if not thousands, of staff have left. Just part of the year under review, $33 million in redundancies were paid out. An employee told Newsroom that the process has been brutally managed and left Health New Zealand barely functioning. They said Levy’s staff don’t understand healthcare and yet they have a massive say in what stops and what continues.

Let’s just go through the body count. The Director-General of Health, the director of public health, the board of Health New Zealand, the chief executive, the chief financial officer, half the executive leadership team, and we even see reports of tier 3 and 4 leaders in mental health. The result is a culture described as “broken”. There is too much chaos happening at the top of our health system and not enough focus on the things that actually matter: doctors, nurses, hospitals, and the patients that they care for.

New Zealanders deserve to have confidence they can get care when and where they need it. The Government has brought in a commissioner, Lester Levy, who failed to deliver on the change he promised, and the health system has suffered cuts and destabilisation. I am pleased the Minister has said he intends to return a board to Health New Zealand. That is a start in putting this right.

My questions for the Minister are: will he commit to monthly publication of papers and financial statements, as was occurring before the election? Secondly, will he commit to a public part to board meetings? Thirdly, can he commit, in his role as Minister directing Health New Zealand and in the practices in his own office, to make sure that the select committee has all of the annual review documents a week before its hearing next time?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): Well, I appreciate the member the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall’s comments but that speech from the Opposition spokesperson for health—in fact, being a former Minister—I think sums it all up. Worried about the bureaucracy, worried about the personalities rather than about the patients and about delivery. Nothing in there about wait-lists, nothing in there about elective treatment, nothing in there about actually making sure we get the system delivering more for patients. That is why—and nothing about the targets. Nothing about the targets, and the reason why we’ve put them in is so we could focus the system on what matters most, which is about actually making sure we’re delivering more for patients.

Now, I’m not sure if the member’s actually read the Deloitte report into Health New Zealand’s financial management review. I suggest the member takes a read of the issues behind the financial challenges at Health New Zealand, which can all be sheeted back to the former Government and the decisions that they made. It says here—the key finding—“The decline in financial performance … was primarily due to Health NZ losing control of the critical levers that drive financial outcomes.” Moving to a single national system eliminated district governance and management controls such as boards, finance and risk committees, and chief financial officers. The move to national structures reduced local oversight and connectivity and the ability to see, plan, and respond to risks and events as they happened in real time in regions and districts. That is the problem the previous Government left behind in our health system—

Hon Member: And created.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: They created that problem. They centralised the health system. They put a new logo on the top and said “job done” and walked away. That’s what they left behind for this Government to have to fix up.

So, yes, we are making sure we are fixing Health New Zealand. We are focusing it back on the basics. We’re putting back in place the financial systems and tools that are needed to ensure that it can deliver within its budget, and deliver more for patients, and that is what this Government is doing and that is what I, as the Minister, am incredibly focused on. So I don’t take the lectures from the former Minister of Health, because her Government created the problems that we are now having to address and now having to fix.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Just all members, we’ve had sort of three pretty good speeches. The whole idea of this, if we could get it down to questions and answers—rapid-fire—I think that would extract the better facts that we’re looking for here today. So we’ll try and see if we can have that.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): In that sentiment, Mr Chair, why did the Minister of Health just express so much concern about the restructuring of the health system when in private—while he’s planning to hock off our hospitals to foreign investors—he’s happy to sing the praises of a centralised health system?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): The Hon Dr—the Hon Peeni Henare.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Doctor.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): No.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Whoo! Thank you very much—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Just don’t ask for an allowance.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Ha, ha!

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I want to jump straight into the questions. I note in the annual review—and also in the Minister’s opening salvo around focusing on targets—that there was talk around the immunisation targets. We also note a 7 percent increase in vaccine hesitancy rates. Speaking directly to numbers here, my questions are direct to the Minister in this respect, and that is: did the targeted funding that was spent on increasing Māori immunisation rates achieve the target that it was set out to do? Where in this does the Minister, as per the annual review, get the figure of a growth of 7 percent vaccine hesitancy? It’s obviously a big challenge if you look towards the targets that are set for the immunisation rates for Māori, and to keep the community safe moving forward.

I’ll leave those questions to the Minister now before I move on to Iwi Māori Partnership Boards, and signalling that to the Minister.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): I’ve got another question about immunisation which it may help to put up at this point. So the committee heard a lot about the restructuring of data and digital, and part of that, we have subsequently learnt, is the work on the Aotearoa Immunisation Register—or AIR—which was an important piece of digital technology to help health providers see who was and wasn’t vaccinated, to enable initiatives to target those people better, including outreach initiatives; some of which the Minister, we’ve already heard today from the Government, they have funded. So what I’d like to know is what is the status of work to improve the Aotearoa Immunisation Register? Has the Minister been advised of any additional funds that are needed to make sure that the full value of the Aotearoa Immunisation Register can be realised?

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I have questions to the Minister—and I’d just like to run them in quick succession—relating to the restructures of the National Public Health Service and the impact of the destabilisation of a workforce, whether it’s Māori health, Pacific health, and even, still, for data and digital.

What does the Minister know in terms of the workforce morale and staff satisfaction? Despite the fact that we’ve now seen that the restructuring has been abandoned recently, the devastation and the destabilisation of a workforce has been felt throughout. So what is the plan to uplift the staff morale—particularly for those impacted in the proposed cuts that have now been disestablished or abandoned for now?

But further, in terms of Budget and appropriations, I’m wanting to understand from the Minister plans around Kahu Taurima, the programme and comprehensive care: is it going to continue? As well as targeted funding towards—the Te Aka Whai Ora funding, in particular for GPs, in terms of closing the gap and creating a space where there is access and equity.

Further, on top of that, localities—all that work that was budgeted for, and the commencement of establishment. What is the plan in terms of elevating Iwi Māori Partnership Boards, commissioning—for real—in terms of services, but also the intelligence and all the information that has already been garnered through the locality space? What is the plan of the Minister today?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): I thank the members for their questions. One of the themes there is around vaccination rates, and, of course, this is one of the priorities for the Government. Under the previous Government, vaccination rates for two-year-olds dropped from 92.4 percent to 77.1 percent, and I think all members across the House would agree that we need to be increasing immunisation rates rapidly to ensure that our children are protected from a range of diseases. Making sure that they have those immunisations is a critical part in doing that, so that’s why we’ve put the target back in. That’s why the previous Minister of Health announced two-year funding, $50 million, towards the Immunising our Tamariki initiative. I understand there’s been many thousands of vaccinations done through that initiative. That’s why we’re also working with Plunket, who are rolling out nationwide sites where they’re taking childhood vaccinations.

The key message to all parts of the health sector system is that immunising our children is a top priority for this Government and that the work that is undertaken on the front line is hugely valuable in delivering it. Whether it’s GPs, whether it’s Plunket, whether it’s Māori health providers—all have a role in order to deliver that.

In regard to the question around the data and digital team, there are proposals around restructuring. I have asked for assurances to ensure that front-line service deliveries are not affected through that proposed restructure. That is a critically important enabler in our health system, is our data and digital tools. I do note that when it comes to funding, one of the things that the previous Government did do—when they made some cost savings just prior to the 2023 election—is they did reduce some of the funding set aside for data and digital. It was one of the last things that the last Government actually did. I think it’s important that that is noted here in this Chamber.

In relation to the National Public Health Service, I understand that Health New Zealand have concluded their proposals there and have come to a conclusion with the Public Service Association in regards to the proposed restructures of the National Public Health Service. There’s ongoing work around the role of Iwi Māori Partnership Boards. This Government’s been very clear that their role is not to be involved in commissioning, but they do certainly have a very important role in terms of engaging with their communities and putting forward their plans around what’s required to meet the health needs aligned with the Government health targets for their people.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I acknowledge the Minister of Health’s response with respect to the immunisation rates and—agreed—we must get them lifted. I did ask a very specific question about how they came to the 7 percent increase in the vaccine hesitancy numbers over the past year as reported in the annual review. So I’ll leave that one there with the Minister.

I indicated that I’d asked specifically about Iwi Māori Partnership Boards (IMPBs), and so my question to the Minister is very straightforward: how many, as directed by the Government, community health plans have been submitted, accepted, and progressed by this Government in the past year? For the money that was allocated for the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards, can the Minister confirm just exactly how much of that has been spent? A percentage would be helpful. My initial read of it is that that money hasn’t been fully allocated yet, but I’d appreciate the Minister’s response to that question.

As per the statements made by the previous Minister of Health, the Hon Dr Shane Reti, on these matters and supercharging IMPBs, I’m curious, following on from my questions about the allocated funding for IMPBs, off the back of the submission of the number of CHPs—or community health plans—that I’ve already just asked about, whether or not the Minister has a view towards increasing that funding. I’ll leave that one on the table for the Minister to answer.

Just finally on IMPBs, my question to the Minister is: he and his predecessor made clear around the expectation that IMPBs won’t be having a commissioning role; can the Minister confirm that is still the stance of this particular Government, and whether or not in the recent announcements with respect to Whānau Ora that somebody like the National Hauora Coalition, who has now been accepted as a commissioner with respect to Whānau Ora, may see that role expanded for them moving into the future?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): I thank the member for his questions. The first question around vaccine hesitancy is a question I am happy to come back to the member in regards to, if you put it in writing, as well as the question around how much has been spent on Iwi Māori Partnership Boards (IMPBs). If you can put those in writing, I can provide an answer to the member on that. But in terms of the issue around vaccine hesitancy, my view is quite clear that we need to actually move on from that term and we actually need to focus on the target and actually making sure that we are not leaving any stone unturned when it comes to making sure that we are reaching the target on childhood immunisations. To say that vaccine—and, yes, we’re obviously conscious that there have been challenges post-COVID, but, actually, we need to be making sure we’re reaching that target and not taking that as an excuse. So that has been the expectation I’ve made very clear to Health New Zealand: I’m not going to accept excuses which are using that terminology. I want all funded parties that Health New Zealand fund to deliver vaccine services, to be doing everything they can to be making sure they are reaching the health target when it comes to vaccinating our children. That is the perspective that I take on that issue.

In terms of IMPBs, my view is the same as the former Minister,

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): I have a set of questions about patient safety, and we discussed some of these at the annual review hearing, as well. As politicians, we all get correspondence from people who have had terrible outcomes in the health system. I am well aware, as a former doctor, that we only hear from a minority, some of whom, we have to acknowledge, have had very bad experiences, and the systems for supporting the safety of patients in our health system are tremendously important.

I had some confusing responses from Health New Zealand on some of these patient safety matters at annual review. We did learn through the hearing and post-hearing questions about a new framework being set up by the Health Quality and Safety Commission, which is interesting, and my first question to the Minister of Health is: when will we see the monitoring done under that framework be published?

The second question, though, is not just about the selected measures in that framework. District health boards have traditionally dealt with the matters of risk to patients by also having a risk register. At the Health Committee, at annual review, we were told that there was a risk register and that some work was under way on that, but then, when I asked for that under the Official Information Act, I was told that no such register exists. That would seem to be a major problem, if no such register exists. So could the Minister please tell the committee whether or not Health New Zealand has a risk register for tracking and responding to and managing and, hopefully, eliminating major risks to patient safety?

SAM UFFINDELL (Chairperson of the Health Committee): Thank you, Mr Chair. Around the health targets, the removal of the national health targets significantly reduced transparency in the health system, and without clear benchmarks, tracking becomes more challenging. So my question on that is: what has the Minister done in this regard, and how is he addressing these gaps to improve healthcare delivery for patients?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m just seeking clarification from the Minister of Health with respect to his comment about continuing to support the stance of the previous Minister. My question is specifically about the commissioning role, and so I’ll leave that for the Minister to reflect on and just round up my line of questioning around the iwi settlements.

The annual review spoke specifically about the obligations that Health New Zealand have with respect to iwi settlements. My questions are: is the Minister confident that there is enough money to make sure that they meet those obligations in the iwi settlements, and, two, how has the conversation with Ngāti Hine gone around the land matter that’s been raised with them—how far progressed is that? It’s been a specific matter that’s been in front of Health New Zealand for some time now, and so, with respect to the previous year, my questions are related to that.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): In regards to the questions around health quality and safety, obviously that is a key priority for the Government and for Health New Zealand. As the member Dr Ayesha Verrall outlined, whilst there are tens of thousands of interactions with our health system every day, with GP clinics, specialist appointments, surgeries, and emergency department presentations, there are, unfortunately, things which go wrong, and so the work that is under way around health quality and safety is critically important.

Health New Zealand, on 27 March, released its review of the health quality system, with recommendations and the work programme it has under way in regard to that. In terms of the risk register, the roll-out of the national risk reporting system will be happening over the next 18 months, which is what I have been advised. But, as I’ve said, this is an area where it is important for all Governments to make sure that there is both monitoring—and that’s why we also have the Health Quality and Safety Commission and the Health and Disability Commissioner, whose role is to also independently monitor these functions.

In relation to the member the Hon Peeni Henare’s question around Iwi Māori Partnership Boards (IMPBs), what I said was that the position around commissioning—my position is the same as the previous Minister of Health, which is that IMPBs should not be commissioning services.

TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Just a few questions I’ll just fire out to the Minister, on behalf of Te Pāti Māori. The Government claims to be investing in Māori health, yet the dissolution of Te Aka Whai Ora has centralised decision making back under Crown control. How can Māori trust this Government when their health sovereignty has been stripped away? How does the Government plan to address the ongoing healthcare workforce crisis, particularly in rural and Māori communities where shortages are most severe? Māori life expectancy continues to lag behind Pākehā, and, despite repeated promises, there has been little progress. How does Health New Zealand plan to close this gap, beyond the tokenistic strategies?

Lastly, a mental health question: with growing demand for mental health services, how does the Government justify the current level of funding, and what additional resources are being allocated to meet increasing pressures? Kia ora.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. In regards to the member the Hon Peeni Henare’s last question about the Ngāti Hine land, the advice I’ve received is that the subdivision is progressing, that work is progressing. So that’s just an answer to your prior question.

In relation to the issue around health equity for Māori, of course this is an issue which is of importance to the Government, and that is why we’ve put in place the health targets: to make sure that we are ensuring New Zealanders are being seen faster through emergency departments, that we are seeing faster cancer treatment, that we are making sure we have targets around immunisations, and that we’re focused on our wait-lists. That benefits all New Zealanders and assures that all New Zealanders can get access to the timely, quality healthcare that they need and deserve. The reality is, a focus on wait times and a focus on outcomes will benefit Māori and will benefit non-Māori. That is why we are focused so much on those health targets as a Government, and on delivering against them.

In relation to your question on mental health, I will ask the Hon Matt Doocey to address that.

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Just to acknowledge the health Minister and wish him a happy birthday—

Hon Simeon Brown: Oh, thank you.

Hon MATT DOOCEY: I couldn’t think of a better present: to spend your birthday on the annual health review! And so happy 18th. Very good.

In response to the question about mental health, I suppose—how do we protect the budget? This year, we will spend $2.6 billion on the mental health and addiction ring-fenced funding. That was an uplift of $200 million, from Budget 2024. We have been very clear, as has the Commissioner of Health New Zealand, that that is protected. But not only that; what we want to do is make sure that we spend that $2.6 billion wisely and ensure it delivers results. I’m sure that member will agree: the issue in New Zealand is we need to ensure we have timely access to mental health and addiction care. That’s why this Government announced New Zealand’s first mental health targets—to hold us to account, as a Government, to ensure New Zealanders get a guaranteed level of service. Three of those targets are around access: 80 percent of Kiwis to access primary mental health and addiction services within one week, 80 percent of Kiwis to access specialist mental health and addiction services within three weeks, and 95 percent of Kiwis to be either admitted, discharged, or transferred through emergency departments for mental health and addiction issues within six hours. That’s how we protect the budget and ensure it’s delivering for Kiwis, to ensure they get access to timely mental health and addiction care.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you. While the mental health Minister is on his feet—hopefully—I have a few more questions picking up on some of his answers. The first one is regarding the ring-fence. The Minister has given us some numbers. Could he please confirm whether those amounts do equate to 11 percent of the ring-fence being for addiction, and 33 percent being for mental health, or have they gone down in terms of the total Budget allocation? That’s my first question.

The second one is in relation to the targets that he spoke about. Why are Māori and Pacific users not monitored to the same extent as other population groups and why did the under-25-year-old cohort not reach any targets in any regions within the last 12 months in terms of that three-week segue into specialist care?

I have a question around the associate psychologist role. Why is he insisting on continuing with that when many of the psychologists themselves don’t agree with it, and find it dangerous? It doesn’t compare to the two UK models at all. Australia hasn’t adopted the same model. Will he stop that, given that psychologists are concerned they won’t be able to oversee the associates and that somebody may get hurt? Is there any link with the timing of the fact that that is happening while there is consultation on the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act, and will he confirm that no other associate roles will be created as a result of the review of that Act?

Regarding the suicide action plan, why was that delayed? Why did Cabinet ask for further consultation? There is no date yet, but Cabinet asked for that to come back October 2024. What date will we see that, please, Minister?

The other one is around psychiatry. What is the plan to increase the psychiatry workforce? And 111 calls: we’ve had a lot of evidence come through this House and through the media to show that the police have already withdrawn to a certain extent. We have the date of phase two coming in on 14 April. Given the concerns, will he pause phase two until there are better safety mechanisms in place for workers, and will he make the district command centre information available regarding complaints that have happened, so the public can be fully across the health and safety issues that are currently facing the mental health workers?

Minister, we have had a stabbing in Rotorua, a high-profile stabbing. There was an Auckland emergency department closed down over the end of last year. This is where police have decided not to send crisis teams in. Is he satisfied that Te Whatu Ora and the health workers have had enough input into the plans that are currently being rolled out by police? Where are the associated workers who, in the plans, are supposed to be supporting mental health workers? Because that seems to be part of the plan. So answers to those questions, please.

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health): Oh, look, what a list. I suppose that’s what you get when you do your research on talkback radio. Let’s start with the 111 response. The member asked whether the service was there. She might want to reflect, when her Government came into power in 2017, the first thing they did in mental health was cut the mental health co-response pilot teams. So, because of that, we’ve lost six years where we could have been building out that new service. That is a vital service, because I’m sure many will agree, in New Zealand today, when you call 111, you get a criminal justice response, and what this Government wants is a mental health response. Yes, the police will still commit to going out when there is a need for them—a person at risk or their surrounds—but we want to make sure we get a better mental health response, and that’s what this Government is committed to.

The member also talked about the associate psychology role. She made a comment that someone might get hurt. What about the Kiwis today who are getting hurt because they can’t get the timely access to mental health and addiction support? Some of that issue is to do with workforce. So if the member really wanted to make a difference, under the last six years of the Labour Government, they would have published a mental health and addiction workforce plan, which they didn’t. The Auditor-General was highly critical. That’s why, in the last year, this Government published New Zealand’s first stand-alone mental health and addiction workforce plan. It did talk about an associate psychology role.

Yes, some specific psychologists are a bit concerned about a new role; whereas, actually, most I talk to are very supportive. The associate psychology role will have students in campuses at the start of next year. They will be entering the workforce at the start of 2027. Their role there is to support—not replace—clinical psychologists, to work under supervision, to work within scope of low-intensity patients, and work within a multi-disciplinary team.

So, actually, what this Government is going to do is not only commit to doubling the amount of clinical psychologists through the internship placements but invest into a new registration. It’s not good enough that people are stuck on wait-lists because of workforce vacancies, and we’re the first Government to take that seriously.

The final point I’d make in response to the Suicide Prevention Action Plan: it is on track and it will be delivered in the time frame that it needs to be delivered. But what we did was go out to the public for public consultation and say, “The last five years under the last Government—what did you think of their Suicide Prevention Action Plan?” The public consultation said there were no clear roles and responsibilities, it wasn’t targeted, and they couldn’t actually measure whether it was making a difference. So those three things will be embedded in our Suicide Prevention Action Plan.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Further question to the Minister: is the reason for the delay—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Sorry, which Minister?

INGRID LEARY: To the mental health Minister. Is the reason for the delay due to official advice that there were concerns about resource constraints for the Suicide Prevention Action Plan? And a subsequent question: does he have any plans to review or cut back on the Access and Choice programme?

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health): Look, I’m excited to announce to the committee, there will actually be increased resources into the Suicide Prevention Action Plan, because that’s an issue we, quite frankly, need to do a lot better in New Zealand responding to.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): Thank you, Mr Chair, and, to the Minister of Health, sorry to drag you back on to this topic. I did try and get a question earlier. We’ve heard in the annual reviews that Health New Zealand’s financial situation was significantly worse than expected, doubling from a $500 million deficit to a billion-dollar deficit in 2022-2023, and then it was a $722 million reported deficit in 2023-2024. This raises really serious concerns about the financial sustainability of the healthcare system following the previous Government’s reforms, so, given these substantial financial shortfalls, does the Minister believe it reflects the previous Government’s failure to grasp the true costs of these health reforms?

While I kind of have some time, I’ll just ask my next question: given the significant deficits outlined, what specific initiatives or system-level changes have been implemented through the health delivery plan to improve financial sustainability and address those underlying issues contributing to Health New Zealand budget blowouts?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): I thank the member for his question. The reality is, as outlined at the Health Committee, there have been some significant financial challenges which this Government has inherited. As I outlined earlier, the Deloitte report into the Health New Zealand Financial Management Review is, I think, a report that all members should read and see what the result of the previous Government’s reforms has left this Government and the challenges that we are now having to address around the financial performance of Health New Zealand.

The reality is that the health system needs to deliver. It also needs to deliver within its budget, and that’s a position which all Governments have held when it comes to the health system. But what we saw is that when the previous Government restructured the health system, as has been outlined in this report, they moved to a single national system, eliminating district governance and management controls such as boards, finance and risk committees, chief financial officers. All of these things were removed, which led to the financial breakdown. As the report highlights, whilst they changed the letterhead for Health New Zealand, when they put the letterhead on, the previous Government left the system running on an Excel spreadsheet. The financial system was running on an Excel spreadsheet. So we had to come in and fix these problems. So Health New Zealand is working through a process to ensure that it’s delivering within its budget.

Hon Peeni Henare: Cooked the books.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: I know that the members opposite get very, sort of, uppity about the problems they left behind, but if I could just give them one piece of advice—one piece of advice: if you’re going to restructure the health system, it pays to do a little bit more than just change the letterhead. A little bit more than just changing the letterhead is probably a good idea, and so I just suggest the Opposition members take note and focus on actually what’s required to deliver.

So there’s a range of initiatives under way to ensure the financial systems are under proper management. A process to integrate savings programmes with internal budgets for the upcoming financial year. Regional district financial control oversight and decision making is being put in place. There’s a much clearer set of leadership accountabilities being rolled out and will be fully implemented later this year. Standard budgeting and planning tools are being implemented. Core financial reporting across Health New Zealand is now on a single Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning system—that actually helps, rather than an Excel spreadsheet. So that’s been put in place.

This is back to basics. It is back to basics for Health New Zealand, and not just around the financial management but also around the delivery so that more New Zealanders can get the care that they need. I know they’re all feeling rather embarrassed about what they left behind, because—

Hon Member: As they should.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: As they should—I agree; as they should. They should be feeling embarrassed about what they left behind, because through a pandemic, instead of focusing on patients, outcomes, wait-lists, all of those important things which people actually care about, they were worried about changing a letterhead. That was their priority.

So we’re now focused back on the basics: back on patients, and also making sure basic financial controls and management processes are put in place at Health New Zealand.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Chair. Primary care was one of the areas that we discussed in committee during this review. We all know that primary care, in fact, is the gatekeeper to our health system. None of us can deny how important our general practices are in our local communities, as they are the first port of call for many. What efforts, for the Minister, have been made to improve access to primary care? We’ve heard a lot about the delays in getting an appointment to see your local GP, and, therefore, what role can multidisciplinary teams play to help alleviate that pressure on a practice, and will this have a positive impact on wait times?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): Thank you for the question; I thank the member for the question. Primary care absolutely plays a critical role in our healthcare system. It is one of my top priorities as Minister of Health to ensure that we are supporting primary care, supporting our primary care doctors and nurses and health practitioners to be able to deliver more, because we know that if they are delivering more and their working with their patients, they’re able to keep people out of hospitals and keep them healthier in their communities.

So the Government is very focused on that, and we’ve made a range of announcements already this year about how we can support more doctors and nurses into primary care and overseas-trained doctors to be able to be to get their practising certificates in primary care. There are a hundred places for that. More doctors are being trained in our universities on an annual basis. There is more funding for nurse practitioners and nurse prescribers. Even today, the Associate Minister of Health David Seymour and myself just announced changes to the Medicines Act, which will allow nurse practitioners to be able to prescribe more medicines, which, as the member said, will play a critical role as part of the health workforce working in general practice to support patients so they can have more access to timely, quality access to healthcare.

Now, I acknowledge Kiwis are waiting too long to get appointments. So that is why Health New Zealand’s committed to an increase in funding for primary practice from the middle of this year to support primary practice to be able to have faster access for appointments to open their books so that more Kiwis can be seen sooner in primary care and so that they’re not then ending up in our emergency departments, where they end up turning up later and sicker, and that’s not what we want as a Government. We have a very significant focus on primary care, and we’ll continue to do that.

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I wanted to ask a question of the Minister, in terms of him sharing with members of the committee what are the key initiatives from his Government, there, right now, examining the way in which we can close the life expectancy gap between Māori and non-Māori—being around seven to eight years? What are the keys initiatives, through Health NZ, that are being delivered right now, with that key, targeted focus? But further, in terms of IMPBs—or Iwi Māori Partnership Boards—in the Pae Ora legislation, it reads that “Health New Zealand must support and engage with iwi-Māori partnership boards”.

Now, in terms of that, your engagement with Iwi Māori Partnership Boards is to help determine kaupapa Māori investment—so how is that progressing? You’ve said previously, Minister, that Iwi Māori Partnership Boards are not for commissioning, and yet there is a requirement for Health NZ to work with Iwi Māori Partnership Boards on the commissioning of investment into kaupapa Māori services.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just in light of the comment that was made by the Hon Peeni Henare, I’d just ask the Minister: do you have a definition of “tangata whaiora”?

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, during the annual review, we heard a lot about the Pharmac situation that the Government inherited—and then there was an additional $1.77 billion put into that. Obviously, medicine is crucial to ensuring people get access to the treatment they want, and I’m just curious whether the Minister could give us some information about what is happening in that space.

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): I thank the members for their questions. As I’ve outlined earlier, in regards to independent Māori partnership boards—

Hon Peeni Henare: Iwi Māori.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: —sorry; Iwi Māori Partnership Boards—we are focused on making sure that they are working with Health NZ. They are not to be commissioning agencies themselves; they are to work through and support the work that is being delivered by Health NZ. That is something which I have been very clear about, and that is something that the Prime Minister has also been very clear about.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): Minister, you’ve talked a lot about reducing the wait time for GPs. We also heard, during the annual review, about the wait-list for elective surgery. What plans does the Minister have to actually address that issue that we’ve heard so much about during the annual review process?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): Well, absolutely, in terms of the issue around wait times for GPs—and we’ve been very clear about what we need to do there, which is to ensure we are providing more funding for general primary practice and general practice to make sure that they are getting the funding that they need, but we also need to make sure we are training more doctors and more nurses and making those opportunities available to work in primary practice. We’ve already announced a large number of specific initiatives this year to support primary practice—whether that’s more training for doctors. We’ve increased, over the term of this Government, the number of doctors being trained in our universities by 150 last year, 25 this year, and 25 more next year. That means we’ll be training 100 more doctors through our universities each and every year to make sure we’ve got the pipeline of doctors that New Zealanders need.

In terms of other initiatives, we’re providing funding to support nurses to be able to be employed in general practice. There are additional incentive payments for those GP practices in rural communities to be able to hire those nurses into those practice clinics. That’s really important to make sure we’re increasing accessibility in our rural communities. Also, funding more nurse practitioners and nurse prescribing positions is critically important so that those nurses in those practice clinics are able to do more to support the patients in their care. If you look at many of those more rural communities, access to a nurse is incredibly important to be able to access primary care. This work is all about access; it’s all about making sure that patients can be seen sooner. We’re doing that both across making sure that there’s more funding but also making sure we’re training more doctors and more nurses to work in those environments.

Hon MATT DOOCEY (Minister for Mental Health): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just in response to that question by Cameron Luxton about “tāngata whaiora”, that term is quite commonly used in mental health as well for those who identify with lived experience, and I’m calling “peer support, lived experience”, the quiet revolution in New Zealand. It’s not new, but, boy, are we picking up speed now. We announced the rolling out of peer support, lived experience workers through our emergency departments. They’re already enrolled, delivering vital, timely support for people who come into emergency departments in a time of mental health and addiction distress. We’re just about to start the roll-out of crisis cafes with peer support, lived experience workers. I’d like to see more peer support, lived experience in our eating-disorder services and in our addiction services as well. So there’s a real opportunity, and it’s brilliant that we announced the $1 million fund to fund more peer support, lived experience workers to get their level 4 certification as well.

Just in response to Ingrid Leary, who asked about the Access and Choice programme: in fairness to the last Government, they made a significant investment to roll out health improvement practitioners and health coaches within GPs. But, once again, the legacy of the last Government—it’s all good to announce things, but it’s actually about the implementation. The reason I say that is that the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission released their report recently, the five-year report. The target was to see 325,000 people a year. It’s only delivering to 207,000, so it only hit two-thirds of its target. Under this Government, we’ll ensure that that plan actually hits the target it set to deliver.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Members, that concludes our time with the Minister of Health. The time has come for us to suspend for the dinner break. When we resume at 7.30, the Minister of Education will be available to answer questions from members.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Education

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, the committee is resumed. When we rose for the dinner break, we had concluded our time with the Minister of Health. The Minister of Education is now available for one hour to respond to members’ questions.

KATIE NIMON (Chairperson of the Education and Workforce Committee): Madam Chair, thank you very much. As the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, it has been my great privilege to chair the hearings and scrutiny that we have held for education. Of course, we are responsible also for workforce and other areas, but we spent substantial time scrutinising the education sector. This included the Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). We have had some smaller review briefings with Education New Zealand; Education Payroll Ltd; Network for Learning; and, to come, Education Review Office and New Zealand Qualifications Authority. Of course, we’ve also heard from the Ministers: the Minister of Education, Erica Stanford; Associate Minister of Education David Seymour; and also Penny Simmonds for tertiary education.

To take you through some of the topics—of course, a big part of what we do is financial scrutiny. We get the annual reports, we go through those, we have our questions, and a number of questions are raised during scrutiny. We spent considerable time with the Ministry of Education, which, no doubt, will be central to the topics of conversation today. Of course, audit results, we have a good record, but to talk about the topics and what we covered—more detailed—of course, we really talked about the ministry as a system leader.

One of the really big key interests for the Education and Workforce Committee was on transitions between early childhood to primary, primary to intermediate, intermediate to high school, high school on to tertiary, and, of course, what the Ministry of Education is doing to lead those transitions. Readiness for school and readiness for the change in education is a big part of what we have heard, as well as curriculum and the curriculum refresh. So we heard a lot about learning support for children. As I mentioned, the curriculum for primary and secondary schools—the curriculum refresh, particularly—and the expected curriculum levels were something that was well traversed by the Education and Workforce Committee; as well, as mentioned, the early childhood education area and the transitioning readiness for primary school. We talked a lot about NCEA and achievement at secondary school; that was something that was again well covered by the select committee. We, of course, talked about expanding it and supporting the teaching workforce.

The things that we talked about in detail, as well, included challenges affecting achievement, because, of course, achievement was raised and the targets and where we’re aiming to go as a Government. A part of that was out-of-school factors as much as good school culture, student wellbeing, and then inevitably covered within that area was attendance and truancy. We heard a considerable amount about the target to increase student attendance, what was involved in that, and the school attendance services as well.

Further topics covered were school property and procurement. We heard a lot about that and the improvements made in that area—the value gained, and some considerable interesting areas that we were covering about what’s been able to be delivered since the change in Government.

Further things that we considered as well was the ministry’s personnel—of course, that’s naturally topical for all areas covered over annual reviews; communications about political neutrality, given the time of this annual review; revising school accountability requirements; school transport; home schooling; and Ka Ora, Ka Ako. Noting, of course, hearings with the Minister of Education and the Associate Minister of Education and their various delegations across those topics.

Touching briefly on the Tertiary Education Commission, this obviously goes on further from the transitions between the different areas, and ages and stages of education. We heard about TEC’s operations, and course completion and retention was something that was well covered by the Education and Workforce Committee; careers advice for learners and that connection between high school and tertiary education; and, of course, managing and coordinating change in the tertiary sector; compliance and monitoring of providers, which was something that was very topical, including universities and the success of universities; as well as, naturally, the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga, how that’s been progressing, and what future plans were expected at that time.

We then heard from the Minister of tertiary education and skills at the time. Many questions were pointed, and obviously there because the delegations for tertiary education fell solely with that Minister at the time.

And then, as I mentioned, some smaller pro forma, following review briefings for Education Payroll, Network for Learning, Education New Zealand, the Education Review Office, etc. With that, I will pass it back to the committee.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a Government that has put student achievement back at the heart of the education system. I remember coming into my ministership and reading, in the briefing to the incoming Minister, that we were “not delivering excellent or equitable outcomes in education”. That’s a pretty grim thing to read in a briefing to an incoming Minister. But over the last 13-14 months, we have put in place a significant reform package to raise student achievement and to close the equity gap in this country. I’m enormously proud of what we’ve achieved in that short time.

We have our six priority areas that we have been focusing on, and the first is the curriculum. Underpinning everything that we do is our world-leading, knowledge-rich curriculum based on the science of learning—the geeky stuff about how the brain learns—a year-by-year knowledge-rich curriculum that sets out exactly what must be taught and when.

Now, we used to have—up until this year, because it’s been implemented, the new English and maths curriculum—a curriculum that was delivered in phases, leaving learning to chance. So it mattered where you went to school, it mattered which part of the country, which classroom, which school you were in, as to what curriculum would be delivered. I’m pleased that, as of term 1 this year, we now have a curriculum that is consistent across the country. No matter where your child goes to school, they are getting access to a world-leading, knowledge-rich curriculum now.

The feedback has been phenomenal. The level of detail in those curricula have been well received by the sector. The feedback that I’ve had around the country is that teachers are enormously grateful for the work that we put into this. Of course, at the end of this year, we’ll be out again for consultation if there are any further tweaks we need to make. We have also just recently released the English and maths curriculum that go all the way up to year 13 as well.

One of the biggest changes, though, in the past 14 months, has been the introduction of structured literacy. We have a literacy crisis in this country, or have had. But mandated this year, every child who goes to school and learns to read will learn through structured literacy, underpinned by the science of learning, integrated into the curriculum, with world-leading providers who are helping upskill our teachers through a programme of professional learning and development where we have trained—or are in training—18,000 primary school teachers, with another six to come in the next tranche.

Now, in everything that we do, we hold ourselves to account, and I have been incredibly careful to make sure that the Education Review Office (ERO) are watching everything that we do. I’ve specifically asked them to make sure that when we are implementing these changes that they are keeping an eye on us, because if anything isn’t going to plan or isn’t going right, we will hold ourselves to account and make changes. Not only am I going to the sector and getting real-time feedback but ERO are also keeping an eye on what we’re doing.

I’m pleased that, just today, they’ve given me their very early findings into their review of the implementation of structured literacy. They have reported that almost two-thirds of teachers—or 64 percent—report that structured literacy approaches have already changed their teaching practices a lot. Half of teachers report structured literacy approaches have improved student engagement a lot. Three-quarters of teachers say structured literacy approaches have improved literacy for most students. There’s much more to it, but it is extraordinarily positive. On top of that, this year, we have delivered over half a million maths books, course books, textbooks, and guides for teachers over four different providers that they get to choose from. Those are curriculum-aligned, world-leading resources to help implement the new curriculum.

Now, everything that we have done in maths, and everything that we have done in English, we have made sure that those teachers who are teaching in te reo Māori are not missing out. One thing I always remember in Opposition were those who are teaching in Māori medium and kura kaupapa saying, “We are always an afterthought. We might get resources if we’re lucky, years down the track.” I always knew, in my mind, that we would ensure that everything we did was mirrored in te reo Māori as well. I’m very proud that we have delivered te reo decodables that are consistent across the country, for the first time in this country’s history.

We’ve done exactly the same in mathematics. The mathematics textbooks, workbooks, teacher guides have been developed by te reo and Māori academics and specialists, and have been delivered to Māori medium and kura kaupapa across the country. Not only that but we’ve also devised our phonics check, which is available in mainstream but now also in te reo Māori as well. That is a world first: four checks over a tamariki’s first two years at school to make sure that they are on track with their reading. We will continue to ensure that everything we do in English medium we are mirroring in Māori medium when it comes to resourcing of the curriculum when we make changes. Not only that but any assessment tools will also be provided.

There’s been a huge amount of change in the last just under 18 months. I just want to finish by saying that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to our principals, our teachers, our teacher-aides, our support workers, because they are on the ground implementing this world-leading change. Mark my word, it is world leading. I have been to conferences around the world, and other countries are coming to us because what we are doing is world leading. Our six priority areas and all we’re doing in Māori medium is world-leading. I want to thank every one of those teachers, principals, and support workers who are helping on the ground to get this embedded, because it is a big change, but, in the end, those tamariki in our schools are the ones that are going to benefit from this world-leading education system.

So I just wanted to finish by saying thank you so much to all those in the education system, including the Ministry of Education, for the phenomenal work that they’ve done in helping us with this significant reform package that is going to mean that so many children who are starting school today or who are in school today will be able to go on to live the life that they want.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Lawrence Xu-Nan—thank you for your patience.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to the Minister of Education for a very fulsome answer, particularly the sentiments right at the end. I can only hope that the teachers and principals and our support staff feel that they are being heard by the Minister.

I have a few questions for the Minister, but I’m going to start with Te Ahu o te Reo Māori. I have a few questions, and I hope that the Minister will be able to answer them succinctly. The first question to the Minister is around the funding cuts. It has been frequently reported that there is $30 million, but can I just confirm from the Minister that if you’re looking at the fact that it’s part of the multi-category appropriation, and the fact that if you’re tracking it to the 2029-2030 year, we are actually looking at $150 million in cuts to Te Ahu o te Reo Māori. So that amount of cuts, that will be the first confirmation. The second confirmation is that the Minister has frequently used a particular statistic around why Te Ahu o te Reo Māori is cancelled in terms of the completion rate, but can I ask the Minister to clarify: what is the criteria for registration, and what is the criteria for completion? I’ll start with those questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. While the Minister of Education is thinking about her answers to that one, I want to add some questions around Te Ahu o te Reo Māori. In particular, I want to ask the question about—the language you used was “mirrored in te reo Māori” and “consistent across the country”. What does she mean by “mirror” when talking about te reo Māori resources? What feedback has she received from Māori-medium education on those mirrored resources that they have received? Further to that, I want to ask about Te Ahu o te Reo Māori because, as we know, these resources were funded through cuts to Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, but the Minister said, “We will look to re-contract this.” Where is that at?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you. Just in response to both questions combined: it’s important to note that the development of the maths resources for those tamariki learning in Māori medium or kura kaupapa—they will have received their textbook, their workbook, their teacher guide to help improve their rates of mathematics—was funded directly out of the money that came out of Te Ahu o te Reo Māori. So all of those books—and I know that members like to call it a “cut”; it was a reprioritisation away from something where the teachers, and it wasn’t only teachers who were undertaking this course, it was whānau members, it was caretakers, it was a range of different people that weren’t necessarily in front of the child in the school; only 60 percent of them were completing the course. Unfortunately, it was so poorly contracted in the first place that it was difficult to be able to compare between providers, because it wasn’t contracted well. The ministry has changed, under our watch, the way that we do our contracting.

But the way that the Opposition are describing this as a “cut” is not right. All of that money has been reprioritised into front line—every single dollar.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: A cut to Te Ahu o te Reo Māori. That is true—that’s what we’re saying.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Because I am interested, Willow-Jean, in outcomes for children on the front line, and when a very small percentage of Māori students are at curriculum for mathematics by the time they go to high school, I care about those results. And, yes, we reprioritised $30 million into making sure every single child, including all those tamariki in the mainstream, have access to high-quality, world-leading, curriculum-aligned maths resources. We know, from the evidence, that that accelerates learning and gets our kids where they need to be. So it’s not so much of a cut as it is taking money from something that I don’t think was functioning, into something that is directly impacting students in the class. Now, I have said that we will re-contract Te Ahu o te Reo Māori, and we are working on that and will look to do so, but the member is going to need to wait until after or around the Budget for that.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How long? You said it’d be done by now. We’re a whole term in.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: That’s how Budgets work. You need to wait for them in order to fund things.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. In that case, the Minister of Education has not answered my question. Was there a $150 million of reprioritisation away from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori?

I just want to follow on from that. Now, one of the things we’re doing here as well—I would like to see transparency in terms of how tax dollars are being spent as well, because it’s an important part of the scrutiny process. I want to check: out of the $30 million that were reprioritised, let’s say from Te Ahu o te Reo Māori into math resources, only $24.8 million has been spent on resources. Potentially, $2 million has been spent on restocking. What was the remainder of the $3 million being spent on? Thank you.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): In answer to that member Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s question, there is $30 million a year that was allocated to Te Ahu o te Reo Māori that has now been reallocated into maths. Some of that has been allocated to the resources, the workbooks, the textbooks, and the very detailed teacher guides and the hard materials also that are available to schools. I’d just like to say something: I think around about 95 percent of schools have placed their orders and received their materials.

The other question was around where the rest of that is, because you mentioned $24.8 million was into resourcing. The rest of it has gone into professional learning and development. Now, this is really crucial, because it’s all very well to just put out a brand new curriculum, it’s all very well to resource it, but one of the key things you have to do at the same time—if you want to get system change—is not only the resources, not only the curriculum, but the professional learning and development that has to sit alongside that. Now, we’ve made sure that professional learning and development that is happening over the course of this year is happening in the mainstream. It’s also happening in te reo Māori settings as well, in Māori-medium and kura kaupapa settings as well. We’re making sure that that’s going into the te reo Māori professional learning and development. Also out of that of course, is all of the Māori-medium resources, as I say—the mirroring of those math books, workbooks, textbooks, and teacher guides in te reo Māori as well.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you. I just note that the Minister of Education didn’t answer my question about what she means by “mirrored in te reo Māori”. Are these Māori resources or Pākehā resources translated into Māori?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you. That’s an excellent question. They are not resources that have been translated from the English version into te reo Māori. The ministry, under my direction, have gone out and contracted Māori academics and specialists in te reo Māori, structured literacy, and in pāngarau as well. All of those resources have been created by the most incredible—and I’ve met some of them—Māori academics and Māori specialists, so it’s certainly not been a simple translation from English.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just for the Minister of Education, I’m interested to know—one of the important factors we focused on was student achievement—what was it that led to you bringing such a big focus to the numeracy aspect and the structured numeracy aspect? What were the results that you found that led to that?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): It’s fair to say that mid - last year we had a bit of a shock when we saw the School Improvement Plan (SIP) results. The SIP results are an assessment that we do with a randomised number of students, about 2,000 or 3,000, in different subject areas, and the maths one was particularly bad. I look at the year 8 results: those year 8 results had about 22 percent of kids at curriculum for mathematics before they went into high school.

Now, it was shocking, but were we particularly surprised, given what we’d heard from principals, who were saying to me, “Erica”—when I was in Opposition, not Minister—“we are getting students who are turning up at high school who don’t know their basic facts, have got huge chunks of their learning that are just missing. They don’t know their times tables; they haven’t automatised those.” We haven’t been making sure that there’s instant recollection of basic facts, which, we know now, from the science of learning, you have to have if you’re going to be able to solve complex problems and not get cognitive overload.

So we knew in Opposition that there was a problem. When we saw these results—22 percent, and I think it was around 12 percent of our tamariki Māori, at curriculum for mathematics before they went into high school—those were particularly galling, and we knew at that point that we couldn’t wait. Frankly, I don’t know how the ministry did it, but they have. We have the new curriculum in place this year, half a million maths books that went out to market in, I think, around July or August last year. They were aligned to the curriculum, they were printed, they were delivered, and then delivered out of our warehouse in the Hutt to schools around the country in January this year.

So, basically, what drove it were those awful results that, frankly, we weren’t particularly surprised about, but we are now doing something about it.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a question about those maths books provided to Māori-medium schools: how many of them were printed upside down, and how much did that cost? Further to that, what feedback has she got from principals and teachers about those maths resources, from Māori-medium education?

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Just one quick question, because I know that other people may have questions as well. I’m just confirming with the Minister of Education that the remainder of the $3 million that I asked about before has been used on professional learning and development.

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato): Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā rā koe e te Minita. I’m just going to quickly ask some brief first initial questions to the Minister of Education, and one of them is around Waikato-Tainui having a partnership agreement with 14 kawenata schools in Waikato and South Auckland. They are setting mutual education objectives, and among these are having Waikato histories taught as part of the school curriculum.

What can the Minister of Education report back, in the progress reports that the Education Review Office (ERO) provides, on its curriculum development work with iwi arising from pou reo evaluations, and, in particular, the teaching of New Zealand war histories—Te Pūtake o te Riri—within Hauraki-Waikato and in these schools nationwide? That’s the first question.

Then the second question is: the annual report explains that ERO’s He Taura Here Tangata Māori strategy also delivers on commitments to the Whāinga Amorangi plan, the Crown commitment to increase its own te ao Māori capability; what feedback can the Minister progress reports in from iwi and kura that ERO can provide on the status of te ao Māori’s capability—that was a bit of a mouthful! Thank you.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in response to the member Willow-Jean Prime’s question about the Māori maths resources, the feedback that we’ve had has been excellent. The resources—I’ve got some of them here—are, as I say, developed by experts, and I know that the Opposition are looking to find issues everywhere. I’m not aware of anything that’s been printed upside down; it’s not been brought to my attention. But what I had expected, I guess, if you’re interested in student achievement and wellbeing, is details about actually what’s in the curriculum—like a good, smart question might be “Hey, Minister, on page 29, we don’t think that this should be in this part, but it should be somewhere else.” But, instead, we’re getting questions about whether or not things are printed upside down, rather than celebrating the fact that these were developed by world-leading experts in Pāngarau. But here we are, worried about something that may have been printed upside down. It tells us a lot about the Opposition.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. Since we are on the curriculum, let’s actually talk about the curriculum. I want to ask questions to the Minister around the ministerial advisory group for the curriculum. Let’s start with, say, literacy. The Minister says “world-leading experts”, but let’s face it, in the beginning it was, essentially, just one or two people—there might be a whole team of them, but it was mainly led by one or two people—and I think we all know who they are. Can I just check whether the ministerial advisory group did also take part in the writing of the curriculum—which is a big no-no—and what the conflict of interest process is for that? We are also understanding that there are people who were part of the writing of the curriculum whose company is now being contracted to deliver them.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): I put together a ministerial advisory group when I first became the Minister. They were only in place for a very short period of time and did one report for me on the state of the curriculum and where they saw it going—their work was then finished. It is up to the ministry to contract writers on different curricula areas. For the English curriculum that we just put out recently, for example, there were around 20 different writers, over different periods of time. It went through a number of different iterations, through many different writers, and now it’s out for consultation to the broader sector, and the feedback we’ve had so far has actually been really good.

I had the principal of the largest school in the country text me to say how good it was. I’ve also had the principal of a large intermediate in Auckland also email me, just the other day, to say how good they thought the new English curriculum was. I think that’s a product of the fact that we had so many voices in the process. The other thing, I guess, just to remind the member, is that it’s not up to the Minister to pick writers on these groups; it’s up to the ministry—they make those decisions.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick follow-up, since the Minister of Education mentioned the senior English curriculum: can the Minister enlighten the committee on why the New Zealand Association of Teachers of English pulled out, citing that there is a lack of transparency, there’s a lack of ability to consult, and there’s a lot of secrecy behind that consultation? When we’re looking at the Association of Teachers of English for high schools, the entire association, pulling out, how would the Minister justify having lots of people being a part of it and getting all of this feedback, which is anecdotal, let’s say, from one school, but then we have the entire national association that pulled out of the development? That’s pretty alarming. How would the Minister justify that?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Well, it’s not really alarming at all. The fact is—and we had this over all of the curricula areas—there are many people who are involved in a curriculum area, and, on occasion, they disagree—

Katie Nimon: Wow, a difference of opinion!

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Yep—and it happens. The English association—it was a shame that they didn’t want to be involved. They were involved earlier on in the subject learning outcomes that we had written over the Christmas period, when we became the Government, because we could see that the roll-out of the NCEA level 1 was such a disaster. They were involved in that.

Look, it’s up to them, and the questions need to be put to them around why they wanted to be involved or not. But I would note that their feedback so far on the English curriculum has been pretty muted, because, frankly, I don’t think there’s much in the English curriculum to be upset about; because, as I say, it is world-leading, knowledge-rich, year by year. It’s out for consultation—lots of people can now have their say about what they do and don’t like, and I suggest that that member might like to go and look at the English curriculum himself, and the feedback as well. Thank you.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): I’m just really interested to understand what definition the Minister of Education uses for the “science of learning” when she often refers to it. Can she, please, explain, step by step, how implementing the science of learning will meaningfully change how students are being taught, particularly in terms of the curriculum we’ve been talking about?

While I’m just waiting for the Minister to answer that question, can she also talk about what consideration has been given to neurodivergent students when considering the implementation of the science of learning?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): There is a huge wealth of research and information around the science of learning. There is decades of cognitive—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: What’s the definition?

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: I just want your understanding, your definition.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Minister hasn’t finished her sentence yet.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: —thank you, Madam Chair—research around how the brain learns, and the science of learning is, basically, a reflection of how the brain learns and how much information you can hold in your very short-term memory, and the importance of locking things in your long-term memory. So the science of learning is really underpinned by that research, and that research, basically, tells us, when we are teaching things like structured literary and structured maths, the importance of storing things in our long-term memory. The way that you teach that is through explicit teaching.

I guess, in answer to the previous Minister’s questions around how that will change in the classroom, you are already seeing it. We have seen a shift away from a classroom that is project-based, sit-on-a-bean-bag, child-led to a far more structured learning environment where there is a curriculum that tells you exactly what to teach. Then, there are periods of time, not the whole day, of course, but in terms of a structured literacy lesson, depending on the age of the child—of course, it’s age dependent on how long you do your explicit whole-class teaching for. I know the member will be interested in the shift away from grouping to whole-class teaching so we’re not leaving children behind but accelerating their learning to make sure that that explicit learning is taking place in a structured way. The way that you will see it in the classroom—I’ve seen it so many times—is that there is a huge amount of serve and return. The teacher is constantly asking questions, getting a response, giving instructions—say this, write this, follow me, sit down, do this—so that the students are constantly engaged in their learning. There is very little ability for them to be distracted.

I was in Goodwood School, for example, in Hamilton, and the principal said to me—I was watching a structured-literacy lesson, and she said to me—“There are three children in this lesson that have severe ADHD. Can you pick those students?” They were all totally focused on their learning. The pace, the serve and return—say this, write this, repeat this after me—was so important. You’re going to see that, and you will see that, more and more in our classrooms as we embed the science of learning, structured literacy, structured mathematics, and this explicit teaching. What that doesn’t mean, of course, is sit in rows and chant things, as the Opposition would often like to characterise it, but it is putting an importance on that thing we always knew was important, about how to store things and the importance of storing things in your long-term memory, like your times tables. So many schools I know have turned away from making sure that that is embedded in the long-term memory.

We know through practice and games and explicit teaching, having that knowledge embedded in long-term memory so we don’t get cognitive overload, is so important. It’s exactly the same with structured literacy. Having the sounds of the words embedded in your long-term memory to bring forward and sound out words, to make meaning for them, and to be able to read them is so important for our neurodiverse learners. As I already mentioned, the structure of the lessons, that the same thing happens every day is so good for our neurodiverse learners. Structured literacy was developed for dyslexic learners, and we know that it is the way to teach all of our children to read, and so when we’re talking about neurodiverse learners, the science of learning, structured literacy, structured maths, explicit teaching, and a structured day is so important for them.

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just following up with the Minister of Education around my questions around the 14 kawenata within the Hauraki-Tainui kura and the report or pou iwi elevations within NZ’s Histories, and then also the annual report around the Education Review Office’s He Taura Here Tangata Māori strategy and the report on that.

While we are on the curriculum pātai that has been brought up, I just kind of want to ask some pātai around NCEA. Something that I guess kura kaupapa and constituents have constantly talked to me about is around having a high success rate in NCEA, and one of those strategies was to develop and provide their own curriculum in NCEA, which is Te Ao Haka. So can the Minister provide certainty or confirmation that the Te Ao Haka programme will remain as students gain university endorsed credits? The difference between university endorsed credits and credits is that those NCEA programmes are able to provide those credits for that student to get into university, and those programmes in kura kaupapa have been Te Ao Haka. I think there’s just a bit of uncertainty whether or not that will follow through as a university entrance - based curriculum that can go through.

I guess that is part and parcel as to why kura kaupapa NCEA achievement levels have been so high, because we’ve been able to develop curriculums like this that work with our students, that are very engaged and have had a huge success rate. I don’t know if there is a huge certainty that those programmes will remain as university entrance - based or credit-based. That’s a huge difference for not just a Māori tauira but any tauira who wishes to take Te Ao Haka programme: that those credits will be awarded to them for university entrance. So I’m just trying to provide certainty on those two different outcomes for that specific Te Ao Haka programme.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): On the subject of NCEA, we have a work programme under way, led by a group of principals who are advising us on policy. They are doing an incredible job—from around the country, a range of different schools—and they’ll be advising us. So we are in the middle of that process. But I want to say to the member that, around Te Ao Haka and the curriculum changes, it’s not a subject that we have been looking to remove. It’s not been on our radar.

In terms of kawenata, the ministry has been providing me updates on that, but I would like to say that this Government have taken an approach of our Māori action plan. Now, that action plan is being led by my Māori Ministerial Advisory Group, my ministerial advisory group for all things Māori, except for the carve-out of kura kaupapa where I deal with Ngā Kura ā Iwi and Turanganui separately because of the relationship that we have, and they are advising me on how we can best raise achievement and close the equity gap for Māori students. I direct the member to have a look at the Māori action plan, which is available.

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just really want to change tack slightly and talk about school property and procurement. It’s something we covered quite in depth with the ministry. Really, we heard quite a lot about what we’ve been able to expand by a savings exercise and how much more we’ve been able to deliver. I wonder if the Minister of Education could update us on progress on that, as a result of that programme.

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Thank you, Madam Chair. The member and members in the Chamber will know well that when we came into Government, one of the things we weren’t expecting was to have a huge pipeline of unfunded projects and—I think the ministry will be the first to admit—not particularly great communication with schools.

Since then, we’ve done a huge amount of work in looking at how we can move the property function out of the Ministry of Education. We’ll have more to say that in the future. But in the meantime, we have got a functional chief executive overseeing the property function, and we’ve seen extraordinary results. Last year, in 2024, we delivered more classrooms than we did in 2023. More of those classrooms were repeatable designs, were off-site manufactured builds, which has allowed us to do more. There will be some announcements in the next couple of weeks around the more that we can do now that we’re getting such good value for money.

Now, these classrooms that are off-site manufactured builds are warm, dry, and functional. The schools love them. In fact, if you just walk across the road to Wellington Girls’ College, you will see the 14 classrooms delivered in multi-storey blocks that were delivered in just 12 weeks. The students left for the holiday break, they came back, and here are your 14 new classrooms all built on time and on budget, delivered to site. That is the future of school property because it means that we can do a lot more.

When we build new schools, they will be very recognisable because we will have built them before. So many times I have gone to open a school building that was started under the previous Government and the architect and the contractors pull me aside and go, “It’s beautiful, but it was so expensive, Minister. You could have delivered two of these if you had done it in a different way.”, which is the way that we are doing it now, and that means—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: But how many did you cancel?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: —that we are going to be able to—so the member is yelling at me, “How many did you have to cancel?” Now, when we came to Government, there were 250 unfunded projects promised—promised, but completely unfunded. We’ve worked our way through those. We are still working our way through those. We had an injection of $400 million at the last Budget for classrooms. We delivered more than in the previous year. You’ll see what’s happening in this year’s Budget in just a month or so’s time. We invested about $790 million into maintenance and upgrades, which was well more—almost double, but not quite—than the preceding six years.

So not only are we getting better value for money out of the classrooms that we’re building, because you may remember when we came to office, classrooms were costing us $1.2 million dollars—$1.2 million each for one classroom. We’re down to $800,000-odd today, and we are driving even further. The more and more off-site manufactured builds and repeatable classrooms we do, the more value we are driving, the more classrooms we can deliver—and that goes for kura kaupapa as well. The more value we get, the more kura kaupapa classrooms we can deliver as well.

But not only that, all of that maintenance—because it’s really important, and what we forgot to do over the last six years under the previous Government was maintain the assets that we have. That injection of $780 million, as I say, was almost double the previous six years combined. That is going to make a difference for those students in those classrooms that were previously in substandard classrooms that are now being well maintained.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. Minister, relationship and sexuality guidelines—and I want to take you back to the annual review hearing, and read back to you a statement from yourself in response to questions from MP Jan Tinetti. You say, “I think you and I are very much on the same wavelength about this and I share your concerns and those young girls’ concerns. And you will see reflected in the curriculum that—when you see ERO’s report, you will see that that backs that up as well. There’s a number of shortcomings. It’s not only around consent, which I’m very concerned about, but also around young men saying that they actually want more information at an older level.” Minister, I’m going to give you the opportunity to inform the committee where you are up to with the relationship and sexuality guidelines. Did the Education Review Office (ERO) report in fact tell you to remove them?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): Where I’m up to with the Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) guidelines is that they have been removed. The reason that they were removed is they were not a curriculum, they weren’t year by year, they weren’t knowledge-rich, and they were suggesting that you should teach all of this material woven into the curriculum. Now, you can imagine parents who are seeing this, thinking, “I want the ability, if I decide, to pull my child out of a certain subject when it comes to RSE.”, to see in this document that it says that actually you should be incorporating this throughout every curriculum area. That was worrying for parents and that was some of the feedback that we got. It wasn’t a knowledge-rich, year-by-year curriculum. It wasn’t clear about what was being taught and when, and that is what a good curriculum should be. Again, it wasn’t a curriculum; it was guidelines, but it was being implemented as a curriculum, and that was causing so many problems.

What we are doing, and an update for the member, is we are rewriting the health and physical education curriculum this year, which will have the relationship and sexuality material embedded into it and will look much like all of the other curricular areas that we are writing. Knowledge-rich, year by year, very detailed, and specific about exactly what is being taught, so that if you are a parent and you decide that it is your job to teach your children these things, you are well within your rights to pull your child out if you so wish. But you will know—parents out there—exactly what is being taught and when, which is what parents have been asking for.

Where we’re up to is that there will be an RSE framework that is going to be put out for consultation in the very near future. The reason that we’re doing this, also, is the feedback we’ve had from schools and that was clear in the Education Review Office report: schools feel trapped. They’re trapped in between two factions, which are very different views on the RSE curriculum. They have to consult on it. There is community angst, and the schools feel like they are in the middle of it. My message to schools is: you should not be in that position. I am happy to take the heat, the Government is happy to take the heat. We will go out and consult on what should be taught, and when, at each year level, and we will fully consult on that like we have every other curricular area. I expect that we’ll get a lot of feedback. We will incorporate it into the final draft and then we will look at it again after a year to see if there need to be any tweaks.

As with all curricular areas that we’ve talked about, we won’t be, in 20 years, ripping this all up and starting again, like we’re doing at the moment. These neat curricular areas all need to be tweaked on a regular, rolling basis—like most other countries do—so we’re not in a position where every 20 years we have to go through this exercise of updating every single curricular area, which is really tough on teachers.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the Minister of Education for responses to some of those questions. It didn’t clearly give me a timeline of when she expected to put any form of alternative curriculum—

Hon Erica Stanford: This year.

: —in place because she has removed—this year? So December—thank you.SHANAN HALBERT Just referring back to the Education Review Office report, I don’t recall the report saying itself that schools felt wedged in the middle. I wonder if she could cite that for us.

Second to that, Minister, I would appreciate you just articulating: did the report say that the guidelines needed to be strengthened and improved, or did they say that they needed to be removed? A follow-up question to that is: can you, as the Minister, guarantee that your programme of work, the Government’s programme of work, on relationship and sexuality education will not negatively impact student wellbeing?

Finally, to the Minister, I would like to know which rainbow groups she has met with, what was their feedback as a result, and what action has she taken since the time of discussing this in the annual review to respond to the concerns of the rainbow community?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education): I’d just like to point out, to that last comment, I don’t write the curriculum. The ministry appoints writers and consults, and goes and get writers to write that curriculum. It’s not up to me to decide what is in the curriculum.

In terms of the question around “will it negatively impact students?”, it’s a health curriculum that will talk about a lot of things right from when children are five years old and being able to name body parts correctly, to understanding about hygiene, making friends, and, as they grow older, online safety. As they get even older, the puberty talk and, obviously, the birds and the bees talk, and consent as well, which is going to be a really important issue.

As the member also brought up, one of the findings of the Education Review Office (ERO) report was that what they found was young men were getting material at a certain age but they were slightly too young to get it—the girls wanted it at that age, but their suggestion was that we do it again when those young men are older. We’ll take that into consideration, the writers will, when they’re doing the curriculum.

The ERO report reported that schools wanted more explicit guidance in the curriculum, and they—

Shanan Halbert: What about “out in the middle”?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Look, to be fair to the member, I may have been conflating the two, but my conversations with schools around the country is that they don’t like being caught in the middle. The member will well know those two very heated sides of the debate around what we should teach and when. When I have said to those principals, “How would you feel about me taking the heat, like we did with the cell phone ban?”, they’ve said, “Thank you so much, because, actually, this is taking up a huge amount of our time and energy.”

Shanan Halbert: It’s not what schools have said to you.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: It is what schools have said to me. I was down on the South Island at the end of last year, and they’re very excited about having more explicit content in the curriculum. Now, that curriculum will be written this year, it will be out for consultation this year, and the ministry will be appointing writers this year.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. We would like to shift the focus a little bit and discuss Ka Ora, Ka Ako with the Associate Minister of Education. I just want to check with the Associate Minister that during the procurement process, when organisations came forward to ask about the procurement and the bottom line, they were told that it had to be $3 per person. We have seen the fact that the Compass Group, in particular, has been awarded almost $4 per student. That’s 84c extra for Compass Group, per student—44 percent of them, which makes up about a $9.2 million additional bonus for Compass Group. How does it work, and what would you say to other organisations who could actually do it for $4—just tell them that, “Actually, we decided to go with $3 plus an added bonus for Compass Group.”? That is my first question.

Also, when we are looking at the bulk catering sector and when we’re looking at $3 per student per day of funding, has there been any work that’s been done compared to other sectors? For example, Compass also runs hospitals. What is the daily rate for hospitals in comparison to this? Are we looking at something that is significantly lower than other areas as well?

Those are my two questions, to start with, for the Associate Minister.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education): In answer to the first question, the healthy school lunch programme has been delivered at $3. It would be wrong to assert that there has been a “bonus” for Compass separate from the contract which has been awarded at $3. There is an 84c additional payment for an extra piece of fruit or item for more senior students.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: So not $3?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I think being able to deliver that value is a very good thing. The member who is heckling me, saying “not $3.”, will actually know that the contract has been delivered at $3. It’s just that because we’ve saved a huge amount of money, we’ve actually been able to do additional items for older students.

The second question was in relation to comparisons across different sectors. We haven’t done that. The main comparison that I think people need to look at is that we are delivering the same nutritional quality for around about half the price that the previous Government did.

Glen Bennett: Outrageous!

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Shanan Halbert says, “Outrageous”. How outrageous, doing things more productively and getting the same results for a lower price. No wonder the Government is in so much fiscal difficulty, having inherited a set of books from a Government that thinks saving money and doing things smarter and cheaper to get the same results is “Outrageous”—says Shanan Halbert.

But to answer the member’s question, the real comparison is that, previously, they were spending up to $8.61 per student. We have more than halved that price.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): I just want to notify members that we’ve got just over five minutes left on the education topics.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Yep. Thank you, Madam Chair. The Associate Minister of Education was saying before that he delivered the same quality programme, yet the report says that what was formerly about 300 grams per student is now down to 240 grams per student. Now, the Minister can justify that the extra 60 grams is increased by the additional things we give them. Is this additional item the extra 84c that you’re giving to Compass Group? In which case, why don’t you just put the extra amount back into the food that you’re providing in the first place, and making sure that the food is actually the right amount and that it contains the right calories and nutrition for students?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education): Well, that’s very simply answered. We have contracted, at $3, meals equivalent to what were previously delivered, and we’ve continued to do that, but we’ve also been able to separately contract an additional piece of fruit or other item, which, I hear, students are very pleased to receive.

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato): Thank you, Madam Chair. Can the Associate Minister of Education give certainty to hapū and/or iwi providers of school lunches that the wholesaler Gilmours will not put up their prices term by term, making it difficult for hapū and/or iwi to provide kai for tamariki?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education): Well, the simple fact is we’ve contracted the School Lunch Collective to deliver at a certain rate. That is an issue between the collective and its various providers, including Gilmours.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to quote to the Associate Minister of Education something he said at the hearing, which was, “This doesn’t work. It’s not competitive.” Is it competitive when the main player has gobbled up its main competitor and we now only have the School Lunch Collective able to deliver your lunches for $3?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education): The key to good Opposition work is to do good research. The member the Hon Willow-Jean Prime’s question suggests that she believes that the business Libelle was the main competitor of Compass; it was, in fact, a subcontractor to Compass within the School Lunch Collective. But you keep working on that research.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Is it true that they are no longer operating and so now we only have Compass?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education): Well, Compass was always the main contractor. There is now one less subcontractor, but if the member had come along to the launch of the School Lunch Collective Ka Ora, Ka Ako contracts at the Beehive a wee while back—

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Invite us and maybe we’ll go.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I apologise, I understood the member was invited. If the member wasn’t, then I’ll be sure to invite him next term. However, what you will have seen is over 20 Kiwi businesses that are feeding into the School Lunch Collective and it’s been a fabulous, I guess, cooperation right across the School Lunch Collective.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you. The Associate Minister of Education has previously said that everything will be sorted by term 2. What does “sorted” mean?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education): Well, it’s very simple. That we are delivering the meals that are contracted and expected.

Hon Jan Tinetti: It’s more than delivering.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: You say, “It’s more than delivering.” I mean, the members might be interested to know that yesterday, if memory serves, and I’m doing this off the top of my head—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: No, you’re not. You’re doing it off your shared Facebook page.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: —but I think it was 99.04—what was that? Say that again?

Hon Jan Tinetti: Is that your only metric?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: No, no, your friend’s interrupting. What did you want to say?

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Same question: is that your only metric?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: No, not at all. There’s also the nutritional quality. There’s also the satisfaction of the students. There’s many metrics, but here’s a really important one: affordability. You see, the member over there was responsible for a school lunch programme, and she was so unsuccessful in persuading her finance Minister at the time to put money aside that there was no money in the Budget that the Labour Government left for school lunches in 2025. You know, if they were seriously committed to this project, they would have put some money aside, but they didn’t. That’s because they failed at the number one metric that Labour so often failed at: they couldn’t pay the bills. That’s why the people of New Zealand decided to put them over there and these people over here, because we actually know how to pay the bills.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Lawrence Xu-Nan—we’ve got one minute left.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you. Final question is around the fact that we’ve seen Compass having 44 performance management plans, with a whole array of issues. We’re now seeing some of those issues reoccurring, including students getting second-degree burns. How does the Associate Minister of Education justify those issues being solved in the first place?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Education): Well, first of all, there’s been a large number of complaints about a whole range of school lunch programmes. For example, I recently saw a complaint from the former Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti about the school lunch programme, but it actually pertained to a school lunch that was served when she was the responsible Minister. So there have always been complaints.

But I want to address the point that the member has made in relation to the young man who was burnt, and that is a real tragedy, but we took action immediately. We actually banned that particular pie and no more was served in the school lunch programme from that moment. More importantly, with the new management of the main kitchen preparing the meals, there is less and less and very soon no need for any kind of substitute meal, which completely eliminates the possibility of that happening.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members, our time with the Minister of Education has ended. The Minister of Housing is now available for one hour to respond to members’ questions.

Housing

JOSEPH MOONEY (Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I rise as chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to make a call on this. Now, just before I do so, I wish to just acknowledge and thank the many people who have assisted in the annual reviews of the many, many organisations, but, particularly, I’ll focus on ones with housing-related responsibility: that’s the clerks of the committee, that’s the Office of the Auditor-General, ministry staff, of course Ministers, and colleagues on the Social Services and Community Committee. A lot of work has gone into this to provide good information to the House and to the public.

The report itself on this aspect in regards to housing covers some 40 pages. I have less than five minutes, so I’ll just try and cover some of the key points in it. As part of our consideration of annual reviews, we held a hearing with the Minister of Housing, the Hon Chris Bishop, and the Associate Minister of Housing with responsibility for social housing, the Hon Tama Potaka. One of the issues we looked at was the role of community housing providers in social housing. Alongside Kāinga Ora, housing providers—often known as CHPs—are partly responsible for implementing the Government’s housing priorities. They’re tasked with providing about 20 percent of houses in the public housing plan, and we heard that there are about 85 CHPs currently operating in New Zealand; about a third are iwi or Māori housing providers.

We were interested in how their role in the social housing sector could be expanded, and the Minister told the committee that he thought there could be ways given to CHPs to be able to borrow money at rates closer to the Government rates accessed by Kāinga Ora through the Treasury. He said the Government is taking actions in the short term to maximise the potential of them, capitalising their operating supplements and better contracting.

In terms of support for Māori housing providers and papakāinga developments, we were particularly interested in those. The Associate Minister told the committee that $80 million of funding had recently been distributed to 12 Māori housing providers to build 200 houses over the next couple of years. We also heard that $35 million had been committed to Waikato-Tainui for the Hopuhopu housing development, which intends to provide 100 affordable rental homes in Hopuhopu, an area of land that was once confiscated and has since been returned to Waikato-Tainui. We heard a lot more around Māori housing and papakāinga development in partnership with Te Puni Kōkiri.

Another topic we looked at was tenants entering and exiting emergency housing, and we noted that the number of applications for emergency housing had reduced significantly but there had also been a number of declined applications that increased. However, we noted that nearly 50 percent of declined applicants were supported to find alternative housing arrangements, and we’re told the Government has been regularly engaging with the reference group to help understand any issues and concerns in the emergency housing sector and gather evidence about those concerns.

The Minister noted that about 55 percent of those who leave emergency housing move into transitional social housing, and we understand the Government is working with other providers such as Wellington City Mission and Emerge Aotearoa as social housing service providers.

We also heard about the Ministers of Finance and Housing’s letter of expectations for Kāinga Ora and specified the number of houses that the Government expects Kāinga Ora to deliver by June 2025 and June 2026. The Minister noted that the Government has funded what was left in the previous Government’s Budget for the rest of 2023-24 and is currently focused on restoring Kāinga Ora’s financial sustainability and looking at a plan provided by Kāinga Ora’s board to do so.

Kāinga Ora itself—looking at my time, I probably need to run through this a little bit more. We note that we were particularly interested in the financial sustainability of Kāinga Ora and noted that, as of June 2024, its total debt was $16.5 billion, a 34 percent increase since 30 June 2023, and the increase in debt was due to additional funding provided for Kāinga Ora’s development plan.

We also looked at matters around homes in flood-prone areas, managing tenants and community outcomes, reducing tenancy arrears, working with community and private sector housing providers, maintaining accessible housing, engaging with Māori communities, and other fiscal constraints.

We also looked at the annual review for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and noted it was responsible for $7.79 billion of expenditure within the Vote Housing and Urban Development portfolio and their responsibility in terms of working to deliver on the Government’s targets. With that, I will leave the rest for questions.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I am hoping to have what they had in the last segment—a bit of a back and forth, a bit of a Q and A session. I think that gets the best out of these. So I’ll start with a pretty simple one to set the scene. I’m keen to know, either from the Minister of Housing or the Minister responsible for social housing, whether it is indeed the definition used by Stats New Zealand for “homelessness”—“a living situation where people with no other options to acquire safe and secure housing are: without shelter, in temporary accommodation, sharing accommodation with a household, or living in uninhabitable housing.”—is that the definition of “homelessness” that they use?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): Well, that’s Stats New Zealand’s definition, I think the member read out, which is done as part of the census every five years. We just had the 2023 census; it took about a year for the data to come through. There’s a whole range of housing questions in the census. One of the challenges with this space is that there is no—that is, basically, the official Statistics definition of homelessness. I can remember having a long debate—in the way the member, I suspect, wants to as well—with David Clark when he was stats Minister in the last Government around—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Not really. I just wanted you to say yes, and then move on.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, in answer to your question: that is the official definition, according to Stats—yep.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Great—thank you very much. Has homelessness gone up in the annual review period?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): Well, that’s part of the problem—that it’s measured every five years, right? So we have anec-data in the meantime. The homelessness numbers are measured from census-to-census period—that’s part of the problem in this whole space.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much. So the Minister concedes that, between census periods, the information that they rely on to gather information on levels of homelessness and to gauge whether their policies are effective in this area is actually the feedback that they received from front-line providers?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): Well, there’s a range of things happening, right? I mean, one imperfect proxy for our housing need is the wait-list. The member and I have had a discussion in the House before around the issues with the wait-list. But, you know, the criteria for the wait-list hasn’t changed since 2011, from memory, so we’ve got 14 years of the same criteria—that’s a proxy for need. I mean, the way you get on the wait-list is by being in severe and urgent need of housing, and there’s a long form you have to fill out to get on the list. So that’s a proxy for it; the number of families in emergency housing is a proxy. As the member knows, there are providers that have what’s best described as anec-data. I’m not trying to be pejorative to them, but numbers go up and down, and they tend to track the economic cycles. We’ve been in tough economic times. But the official definition of “homelessness” is the Stats measure.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much. I wasn’t asking about the measure of need for social housing, which is the wait-list—that’s different. I was asking about how they measure homelessness. In your own homelessness insights, which both Ministers were issued, it indicates, quite clearly, that the Government is reliant on feedback from front-line providers to determine levels of homelessness. So it’s in that vein, when the Minister refuses to acknowledge that homelessness has increased in the annual review period, when we have quotes from Wellington City Missioner Murray Edridge, “I believe the levels of homelessness we’re seeing are unprecedented, certainly in living memory.” We have the Auckland Council Community Committee registering a 53 percent rise in people sleeping rough, in only four months. The Salvation Army State of the Nation 2025 report indicating that homelessness has gone up. There is, from the Downtown Community Ministry, an indication that homelessness in Wellington has gone up 40 percent. Why won’t he just accept and admit that homelessness has increased in the last 12 months?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): There is always support available from the Government for those who need it. We have gone through a recession, a period of tough economic times for New Zealanders. We are very focused on making sure that those who need support can get that support. We have done, I think, quite a good job of making sure that people who have been trapped in, or at least in emergency housing motels for a long period of time can move out of those motels—particularly if they’ve got children—into either private rentals, as transitional housing, or other forms of social housing. That’s been a remarkable success. There is more social housing coming on stream.

The Government is continuing to fund social housing, but we’re also making amendments to the rental market in order to create a more balanced rental market. Rents are, broadly, flat, and have been for the last 14 to 16 months or so, and so that, over time, will make a difference, because if you can keep rents under control, or even fall, more people can afford the private rental market.

Everything in the housing market is connected, and so when rents rise quickly, people are unable to afford the private rental market and they often end up in need of social houses. That’s one of the reasons why we have a big housing register. There are lots of reasons why you’re on the housing register, but unaffordability of the private rental market is a major driver of that. It’s difficult to disentangle different parts of the housing system from everyone else, and that’s why we’ve got action across a range of fronts from land supply, infrastructure funding, improvements to the rental market, granny flats—a whole range of different things that over time, will make for a more affordable housing market.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Can I ask, is this a supplementary, because I was going to go to the next member. Is this the same line of questioning, or a new one?

Hon Kieran McAnulty: I’m happy to bounce between. I suspect that that’s about emergency housing—

Ricardo Menéndez March: Yeah.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: —so let’s do it.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. If we could go on the statement, “There’s always support for those who need it.”, how does he explain the increase, including from the period that we’re looking at up until now, in declines for emergency housing? Has he received information that everyone who has been declined for emergency housing didn’t have a genuine need? So, to clarify, my question is: everyone who has been declined for emergency housing, is the Minister saying that those people didn’t have a genuine need?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Thank you, Madam Chair. There are various reasons why people are declined.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Do those reasons include leaving people potentially in a state of homelessness? I’m asking this because throughout the period we’re reviewing up until now, we’ve seen a steady increase in the number of declines of emergency housing. We’ve just heard the Minister of Housing say there’s always support for those who need it, and so I just want to ascertain whether it is the case that everyone who’s been declined for emergency housing has been deemed as not having a genuine need.

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): As the member will know, there was a recalibration of the irrelevant questions that were asked around eligibility criteria but also responsibilities that folks that are looking for emergency housing support would need to fulfil in order to qualify and remain in emergency housing.

However, emergency housing is not the only mechanism for providing for and adequately meeting the genuine needs of those that have severe housing deprivation or are facing severe housing challenges. For example, there are housing support products that are available through the Ministry of Social Development and other places, which can enable those people to, instead of going to emergency housing, go to other forms of accommodation. There’s transitional housing, there’s Housing First, there’s rapid rehousing, there are a number of outreach products—there are a variety of mechanisms. Now, if it is the case that some folks think that the only answer is emergency housing—no, it’s not the only answer; there’s actually a wide variety of pathways for people with genuine housing deprivation to seek support.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Just following up on that: so if somebody shows up needing support because they’re saying, “I don’t have a home.”, is the Minister saying that if they ask for emergency housing, they may be encouraged or they have been encouraged to, for example, look at other options, including those that may still continue leaving them in a state of homelessness?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s, again, a mischaracterisation of the situation. There is clearly a variety of options available for those with severe housing deprivation and what the member describes as genuine housing need to access support from the Government to have a roof over their heads. I think what the member is saying is that emergency housing has to be available as the only option. That’s not the case. There are a variety of options, and if it’s more effective for that person to be in a more permanent housing situation than in an emergency motel or hotel on places like Fenton Street in Rotorua or Ulster Street in Hamilton, then we have encouraged, supported officials to ensure that those options are pursued.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): So if somebody gets declined for emergency housing, what other Government-assisted options exist for people, other than emergency housing?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): I can do that in a chronological order or in alphabetical order: Housing First, rapid rehousing, outreach pilot programmes for folks that have come out of corrections facilities, rangatahi youth accommodation, transitional housing, social housing, and a variety of other supports such as Māori housing, which actually provides for many people who would rather live in a house than a hotel.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): I just wanted to follow on from—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: This is embarrassing, Tama. He’s not happy with your answer.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, no, no, no. Mr Potaka is making exactly the right point. This is going back a bit in time, but I just wanted to briefly canvas how all this started, which is—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: People living in cars.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: We know that.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah, yeah. By the way, those numbers went up in the last five years under the last Government. So, you know. Despite billions of dollars spent on Kāinga Ora and community housing providers and all these programmes, housing outcomes; the homelessness level got worse from 2017 to 2023. So, you know, those are the facts.

Emergency housing started under the last National Government as a well-intentioned but—I think we would all agree—ham-fisted and poorly designed policy intervention to make sure that people who were in genuine need could get into a motel. Sounded fine. “Oh, great. We’ve got these people in need. We’ll just give them a hotel voucher or motel voucher and they can be there for two or three weeks.” Started life like that, and that’s how it started and it was a good short-term intervention and it worked for a few months.

What happened is that, over time, it became a permanent and institutionalised part of the Government bureaucracy to the point where, at the height of things in 2021, there were, from memory, 4,000—

Hon Tama Potaka: Over 5,000.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Over 5,000, Mr Potaka tells me. I thought it was about 4,900 but let’s call it 5,000—5,000 families or so living in motels at a cost to the Government of $1 million per day in 2020.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: There it is. That’s the thing they’re worried about the most. Not about housing people, but cost.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, no. I’m worried about the squalid conditions. When I was Opposition housing spokesperson, I regularly dealt with families living in emergency housing motels and tried to get them into social housing.

It’s actually partly what lead to the Priority One policy that we took to the 2023 election, because we took quite a simple view—I don’t think it’s a radical view—that if you’ve been in a motel for six months with a child, you should go to the top of the wait-list to get into a house because you need it more than others. Not a radical view. That’s what we’ve implemented. So, progressively, the officials and social service agencies have been working to literally progressively go around all the motels around our cities and say, “You’ve been there for six months or longer, you’ve got kids. We’re going to work with Kāinga Ora or work with a community housing provider or work with a transitional housing provider and get you out of there.”, because living in a motel for any length of time is a disaster.

We’re very proud of that policy, so just going back to the origins of it all. It started life as a short-term thing—it was meant to be for two or three weeks, the occasional one-off grant. It became an institutionalised system where it was just a free-for-all. Rotorua is a classic case study of that, where grants were just handed over and a whole series of people became trapped in these motels. So we have designed the Priority One policy to make sure that families with kids can get out and we are trying to return emergency housing to its original intent, which is for short, time-limited stays to tide people over while they get back on their feet and get into more permanent housing.

There will always be a role for emergency housing in the system. There will always be a role for the other support products that Mr Potaka talked about. There’s a whole range of them—we spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on them. Transitional housing, sustaining tenancies, rapid rehousing, Housing First, which are very similarly aligned programmes. There’s a whole range of housing support products that the Ministry of Social Development will provide—if you need your bond paid to get into a house, we’ll pay your bond; we’ll cover your bond. There’s a whole range of different things that the Government will do or at least fund to make sure that people can get into a house, because that is one of the best interventions that we can make.

But this idea that we just have a free-for-all of emergency housing grants in which a bunch of moteliers were rapaciously ripping off the taxpayer and gouging the taxpayer because they knew that they could—because it was a free-for-all—we have put an end to that. I am not comfortable with moteliers up and down the country earning multi-million dollars from the Government because they’re housing people in the most desperate need. What sort of country have we become to when that becomes institutionalised and becomes normalised? So we are deliberately trying to put an end to that, and I’m proud of it.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): I want to go back to my previous question because Minister Potaka named quite a few things that were available to people outside of motels when it came to emergency housing. Can he confirm that when people are being declined to access, say, a motel via emergency housing, they’re actually offered any of those options that he listed? I’m also interested to know whether the Minister has sought alternatives to motels, because, right now, what we only have is a tightening to the pathway for emergency housing but, actually, not any substantive new initiatives to replace those motels.

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): As we’ve mentioned on regular occasions in this Chamber, for those with a genuine need for a short-term stay and temporary accommodation in most towns and cities in New Zealand, there is availability. There is a series of questions that are undertaken through engagement with Ministry of Social Development officials who seek, of course, to ensure that people don’t end up in emergency hotels because it’s a catastrophic situation, especially for those with children. It’s not great to live in a motel with a microwave as a kitchen, and the members should understand that and feel like that actually is pono and tika.

Now, the next thing, in response to the member’s question, is that there is a range of different alternative pathways available for those with housing need who are facing severe housing deprivation if they engage with the officialdom. One of those, of course, as we’ve mentioned, is emergency housing, but it’s not the only one, and our preference is that it’s not the default one if there are better situations available for people—whether or not that’s transitional or through community housing providers who might be able to provide a different pathway through supporting people to have a bond cover or tenancy rental cost cover. There is a wide variety of support products and pathways and programmes to enable those who have some severe housing challenges. You describe some of them as homelessness, and I think, by that, the member describes it as those that are rough sleeping. For sure. There is a variety of pathways that the officialdom may seek to pursue in order to ensure that that person has the relevant appropriate support, and some of that will be through Government, and some of that could be through community housing providers, and some of that could be through private housing providers. The Government has had a variety of products—housing support products is what they are called—that may be able to actually support that.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I have a series of questions following on from that. I’m keen to hear from the Minister, in his view, why have the numbers in emergency housing dropped? What has led to that?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Can I respond to the member with a number of suggestions, and we’ll start at bullet point one. There has been, in some places around the country, a tapering-off or slow-down in the rabid inflation in rental prices. That has enabled folks to access rental properties at a better rate, at a better knot than before. That also is influenced by immigration and the availability, ultimately, of supply of rental homes into the market.

The second observation that I’d make is that we have been absolutely dedicated to accelerating families—those who have children in emergency hotels who have been staying there for longer than 12 weeks—out of that emergency hotel situation, as a result of the decision that was made, which is known as priority one, in April, elevating those that have been staying for longer than 12 weeks in emergency housing to a higher priority in the social housing register—in which, by the way, we have seen a reduction of 5,000 households since we’ve come into administration—and accelerating those whānau into proper homes. Now, that has resulted in around 950 families and near on just over 2,000 children being accelerated into houses out of emergency hotels. We, on the side of the Chamber, feel that that’s actually a positive and constructive thing for those whānau, many of whom have had disastrous moral, social, and other challenges that they’ve faced.

The third thing is that there has been a better supply of different forms of housing throughout the housing ecosystem that has enabled folks to leave emergency housing and occupy their own homes, whether or not that’s in social homes. Of course, many of those exiting emergency housing have migrated into social homes, transitional homes—transitional housing, sorry, it is better described as—but also private homes. So there’s a wide variety of demand that has become available that has enabled those exiting emergency housing to access proper housing or better housing than a hotel or motel down a place like Ulster Street in Hamilton.

There are a wide variety of reasons. Those are three observations that I’ve made that I think help explain what’s going on. And, of course, there is a very clear focus to ensure that individuals and families are, ultimately, supported when they are in genuine need by the Government and also take responsibility along the way.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): So the Minister is trying to tell the committee that the reason that the number of people in emergency housing is because of the initiatives that they’ve brought in. All he talked about then was exits. I think it’s quite telling that he didn’t touch on the “tightening of the gateway”—that’s a quote; the “tightening of the gateway”—to get into emergency housing to begin with. They are arrogantly ignoring testimonies from those on the front line, proof that homelessness has increased, and they don’t even have the decency to admit it. And then the Minister stands up and makes it sound like it’s all because they’re going into housing. It’s not true. The reason I say it’s not true is because, in the report, 75 percent of the reduction is down to people not going in. Only 25 percent of their reduction is for people going out. So we’re seeing a tactic here. We’ve seen it before. When the Government’s under the pump, they just fill in time. It’s a time-limited debate. We’ve only had half an hour. The vast majority of it is these Ministers blustering. I want to know, in light of that answer, which in their own report shows is not true, how about they actually focus on the reason why numbers in emergency housing have reduced? It’s because this Government isn’t letting them in.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): The term “genuine need” has been used a lot in this debate. I want to ask and test again whether the Minister is saying that every person who has been declined for emergency housing did not have a genuine need, because we have seen an increase in declines for emergency housing, and the term “genuine need” has been used a lot. So can I just ask: is the Minister saying that every person who’s been declined emergency housing did not have a genuine need, and, if not, does he understand the reasons why people could be declined emergency housing?

TAKUTAI TARSH KEMP (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau): E te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. Tēnā hoki koutou katoa e noho ana i tēnei Whare. Ka tū au i runga i te mana o Te Pāti Māori hei reo mō ngā whānau Māori e noho kore kāinga ana, e noho pōhara ana, e noho mataku ana ki ngā huarahi o tēnei whenua.

[Madam Chair, thank you. Greetings to you all who are seated in this House. I stand on the authority of Te Pāti Māori as a voice for the Māori families that are living homeless, that are living in poverty, that are living in fear on the streets of this land.]

I just want to make a contribution this evening to remind us, really, e kore e wareware—we will not forget the struggle of our whānau. Our whānau that are people living rough, couch surfing, or trapped in the emergency motels, that are stripped of their dignity. We want to remind the committee that Māori are homeless and houseless, living on their own whenua.

We’ve got a few questions for our Ministers. According to the latest annual report on the social housing sector for the 2023-24 financial year—I’ve got a few questions—Māori make up over half of those on the public housing register, more than half. This is not just a statistic; it is a damning reflection of the system that continues to fail us. Therefore, given, then, Māori made up 50.7 percent of the housing register as of 30 June 2023, what actions is or has the Minister taken to urgently reduce this disproportionate representation, and why are Māori still over-represented in these statistics?

The report also highlights that Te Maihi o te Whare Māori was expected to drive Māori housing solutions. What measurable outcomes have been achieved under this strategy? Also noting that, in the Social Services and Community Committee report, it points out that Māori are more likely to experience severe housing deprivation and homelessness, why hasn’t the Government established a Māori-specific homelessness strategy? The report also states that 1,222 whānau Māori were placed in transitional housing as of June 2023. How many of these whānau were subsequently supported into permanent housing?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I wonder if the reason they don’t want to answer my colleague’s question about those in genuine need not receiving assistance is because it’s actually in their homelessness insights document that they both received in December. It demonstrates that 33 percent, apparently, could find something else, but the rest are deemed to not meet the need—if they don’t have a house, I don’t know how that doesn’t meet the need—or circumstances could have been reasonably foreseen—i.e., the Government’s blaming them for their situation, and it doesn’t account for 35 percent. I suspect that’s the reason they don’t want to answer, because they know that even in their own figures, in their own documents, it demonstrates that people in need are not receiving the help that they require. Despite the Minister’s promising on numerous occasions that that is available to them, it is quite clearly, in their own documents, not the case.

I wonder also whether the reason that they don’t want to talk about the tightened pathway into emergency housing is because they both received advice to say that this would increase homelessness. I’ve got it here: “Making these changes ahead of significant increases to the supply of affordable housing and more preventative wraparound supports does create the risk of increased levels of rough sleeping, people living in cars and overcrowding”. They were told, and they did it anyway.

And, now when they are presented with facts to show that the number of people living in cars and tents and garages and on the street has increased significantly in a period of only months, they refuse to accept it. Why can’t the Ministers just admit (1) that homelessness has gone up and (2) that 75 percent of the declines for people wanting to get into emergency housing is actually down to their change in policy and nothing to do with the numbers going out? Why won’t they just commit to actually doing what they’re promising and meeting the genuine need when it is presented?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Thank you for the opportunity just to recalibrate some of the conversation. The vast majority of people who apply for emergency housing support receive some sort of housing support—being at 85 percent—and that’s a far cry from some of the illusory stats that have been pulled out by some other members.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. It is not appropriate for Ministers to suggest that members are making things up. I said in my comments that this is derived from their own documents.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I don’t believe there was an insult or suggestion that that was not factual. “Illusionary”, I think, was the word.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: I appreciate that. Again, can I reiterate that the vast majority of people who apply for emergency housing support—that being around 85 percent for emergency housing—receive some sort of housing support. We’ve deliberated at length this evening over the different types of support mechanisms and pathways there are for people to receive housing support, not necessarily just defaulting into going to motels or hotels. We do not think that that is the preferred method of Government support for those with housing need, if there are other options available which provide far better shelter, far better support, and far better accommodation than a motel with a microwave as a kitchen.

In addition, there have been a couple of comments around Māori housing, which I’ll just address quickly. Absolutely, there is a disproportionality around the percentage of Māori that are currently on the register or, indeed, in emergency housing arrangements, particularly in places where there are high Māori populations, such as Rotorua and Hamilton. But I could observe, and I will observe, that there’s also been some significant acceleration in support for Māori housing providers to build affordable housing in many places throughout the country. In fact, the most recent tranche of which we announced was around $236 million of subsidy for Māori housing providers to build up to 500 homes in different places throughout the country.

We’re, actually, very whakahīhī and proud of the fact that we continue to support and accelerate that support for Māori housing providers, whether or not it’s in far-flung places, like Ohakune or Kaitāia or, indeed, places like Parihaka where we’ve provided some support separately to enable some infrastructure that, hopefully, will lead to houses being developed in due course. There was also a comment around there being no programmes or strategy around Māori homelessness, but there continues to be support for programmes around the kaupapa He Ara Hiki Mauri that have continued over the course of the last couple of years.

Declines: people are declined for a wide variety of reasons. The view that, I think, one of the members from the Green Party is suggesting is that there’s only a decline for one reason. There are declines for many reasons.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Is the Minister of Housing aware whether Ministry of Social Development (MSD) officials actually follow up with families that have been declined for emergency housing to ensure that their welfare is actually safeguarded, or is there no follow-through in terms of whether people who’ve been declined emergency housing are actually in adequate situations? Can the Minister explain whether the advice he received in relation to the tightening of emergency housing pathways in relation to exacerbating homelessness—does he think that advice was wrong?

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much. Due to the lack of answers, I thought I’d add something else to this. The very same document that I was referring to earlier, the homelessness insights December 2024, which both Ministers received—it’s interesting, particularly in light of the answers that we’ve received tonight, where they have refused to accept that homelessness is going up and they have refused to accept that the tightened pathway, the changing criteria that this Government brought in has led to an increase in homelessness.

In their own document, it quite clearly says that there are reports of increasing levels of homelessness and unmet need for housing services, and this is being put down to those very changes. It is extraordinary that the Ministers are arguing about the so-called squalid conditions in emergency housing, yet their own documents are saying that their policy has led to people living on the street or sleeping rough. Now, no one is actually arguing that emergency housing is the solution to the housing crisis, but what we are saying is that emergency housing is the solution to people sleeping on the streets.

In the very same document, it says that there is concern that it is more difficult for people in urgent and genuine housing need to access emergency housing, and it provides examples. They include clients being turned away at reception, less availability of urgent appointments, and clients having to prove that they did not contribute to their own circumstances—e.g., addiction. In their own briefing, they are admitting that they are turning people away with drug addictions because they deem it to be their fault and therefore they are being tossed out on the street.

So my question to the Minister: in light of that, will you at least give us the decency and admit that the change in criteria has contributed to the increase in homelessness?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Can I respond to some of the fanciful assumptions that have crept into the member’s conversations, the first one being that people are tossed into the street. Well, I’ve never seen Ministry of Social Development (MSD) officials literally tossing people into the street. They undertake a very professional and diligent practice—let’s call it “tikanga”, for want of a better term—in going through the relevant questions and responsibility framework that it currently applies to emergency housing. As we might recall, the irresponsible framework that the previous Government had led to over 5,000 households in emergency housing, despite all the money that was thrown at it—and nearly 5,000 children.

Might I add that, again, the woeful assertion that we refuse to acknowledge that the tightening of the pathway is affecting decline numbers, again, is unsubstantiated. We have never stood back and refused to acknowledge that. We have not necessarily mentioned it in the various observations tonight, but we can say absolutely that we are very clear about the responsibility framework that goes with accessing emergency housing. But what we can also say is this: of those people that were declined emergency housing support in October 2024, almost half of those declined actually got some form of housing support, whether or not that’s rent in advance, bond grants, or other things.

Ditto September—the leading reasons that people were declined emergency housing grants in September were that their needs could be met another way. A third of the people that were declined, they could be met another way, whether or not that was transitional housing or other forms of housing. Might I add that it gives me great relief to know where nearly 85 percent of all people exiting emergency are going to now, unlike 17-18 months ago where you only knew where about 50 percent of people were going. I actually think that’s an improvement. Other people think that going from 50 percent to 85 percent is a failure; I don’t. I think that’s actually an improvement and I want to acknowledge the MSD officials and others who are actually diligently undertaking their roles with firm guidance from absolutely outstanding Ministers to get on and do the mahi that they are here to do, which is to support all New Zealanders.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): We’ve spent 45 minutes on emergency housing. Emergency housing is a symptom of the dysfunction at the heart of our housing market. It exists because, for 30 years, we’ve made it too difficult to build houses in this country. So we just need to be really clear about that. There’s a really clear linkage internationally between countries that allow abundant land supply and have a functional housing market and homelessness.

To give you the most extreme example, everyone thinks about San Francisco as this, like, bastion of liberalism, socialism, and all the rest of it. Everyone thinks San Francisco is amazing. San Francisco has one of the most restrictive zoning codes in the Western world and it also has mass street homelessness.

So fixing our housing market—emergency housing and making sure it’s available is an important part of it. So is social housing, so is affordable rentals, which the Government has a range of programmes under way on because there will always be a part of the market—

Hon Rachel Brooking: We’ve all seen the apartments on Carroll Street.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Of what street?

Hon Rachel Brooking: Carroll Street, Dunedin. Forty-seven of them, apartments.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: In Dunedin? Send me an email, I’ll happily go and have a look at them. But I opened the social housing development in Dunedin, it was last year. You were there. We came and did it together. It was good times.

The point I’m making is that we have to fix the fundamentals. That is going to take time. If we fix the fundamentals of our housing market there will be lower house prices and lower rents over time, and that will do more to end homelessness in this country.

Hon Member: Not for the people that are homeless now.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah, which is why we’ve got to continue to support them, and there is support available. But we’ve got to fix the fundamentals. That’s what we’re focused on as a Government. So far, we’ve had 45 minutes of it, although the Opposition doesn’t seem to want to talk about anything else in housing other than emergency housing, but happy to have a kōrero about any about other issues if the Opposition’s willing to get to them.

JOSEPH MOONEY (Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to ask a question. I heard the Minister talking about the fundamentals, and one of the things we certainly heard at the Social Services and Community Committee, and we spent quite some time on this, was the role of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the leadership of the housing system. We heard about how good coordination is important because the system comprises several public and private entities performing different functions, including urban planning and consenting with local authorities, support services for housing and social housing, non-government organisations, central government agencies, regulation of their housing systems, and housing construction in primarily the private sector.

Now HUD has changed its approach to system leadership. It now takes a place-based approach to supporting communities of housing, etc. There is significant funding that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development has in respect of this, and so I would ask the Minister if we could actually hear his thoughts on the role of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in this space and in helping ensure that we can actually have more housing available for New Zealanders, to reduce the cost of housing for New Zealanders, so these issues around homelessness, issues around access to homes, the issue of the cost of access to homes and rental affordability can actually be addressed at the root.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): I’m happy to make a brief comment around that. This is a work in progress and we’re not there yet. What we’re trying to do is orient the system or reorient the system towards being much more granular about the use of data and around the use of need. Different regions have different needs, different peoples and different cohorts have different needs and also expectations. The housing system has not been particularly good at taking into account regional need and taking into account particular cohort identification and actions.

You know, there has been quite a bit of funnelling money into the system and just kind of chasing targets and hoping for the best. Actually, what we need to do is be much more particular about what we’re building and where we’re building. To give just an obvious way of proving that, 50 percent of people on the register need a one-bedroom unit. I think it’s actually 60 percent of people on the social housing register need a one-bedroom unit. They don’t need a lot. They just need a one-bedroom unit.

Joseph Mooney: A granny flat.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Indeed. They need a granny flat. Those are sometimes two bedrooms, 70 square metres. But you know, a 30 - square metre one would be all good. They just need a one-bedroom unit. That’s 60 percent of the register. The register’s about 20,000 applicants and 60 percent of them need a one-bedroom unit. In Kāinga Ora’s stock, 12 percent of it is one bedroom. So like, go figure. How does that work? You know, Kāinga Ora owns all these big houses up and down the country, often in the wrong place, often uneconomic to develop, often on big sections with a big front and back yard, a totally inefficient, uneconomic use of land. So, actually, you could do a lot more with that land. But if you also re-tilt the housing system and the funding towards a more place-based, particular—some people call it active purchasing—you could achieve a lot more for the same amount of money. So we are really focused on value for money, and that is an important part of it.

So it’s a work in progress. We’re not there yet. We’re going through quite an exercise and quite a policy process to get there. As a Government, we spend about $5 billion bucks a year on housing support. There are a multiplicity of programmes. Some of them have been mentioned by Minister Potaka tonight, but there’s the other ones we haven’t mentioned all the way up the housing supply food chain. So we’re going through a bit of an exercise to work out what works really well and what doesn’t work really well, because we don’t have unlimited resources and we do need to get fixated on driving value for money, and increasing supply and also social support for those who need it. So we’re going through a bit of a process. More to say in due course.

JOSEPH MOONEY (Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to explore one point that the Minister raised around value for money, the Social Services and Community Committee heard that Kāinga Ora is—well, we explored how Kāinga Ora’s operations and cost efficiencies compared to that of private housing developers. We heard that its building costs are higher than private builders. We heard that it’s partly due to Kāinga Ora having more complex building requirements, such as needing to meet universal design standards in a certain percentage of its homes. It was also noted that when it builds, it chooses materials and fittings that are expected to last over a long period, in contrast to someone building to sell. Also another reason for the higher building costs is the type of land Kāinga Ora buys, which is not always optimally configured to build on.

Could the Minister just give the committee some insight into any thoughts or work being done to ensure that Kāinga Ora is cost-effective in the way that it deploys capital, in the way that it contracts its work, and in addressing that issue that its building costs are higher than private builders?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing): Yeah, so the build costs are, on average, higher. Kāinga Ora is going through a turnaround plan or a reset plan right now. The early results are promising, but, again, we’re not there yet. We do want to see efficiencies through the system and driving down those build costs. Members will be aware of some sort of notable examples of very expensive houses built by Kāinga Ora. There’s the $1.4 million apartments in Auckland. There’s been a variety of examples that local MPs will be able to think of.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Does it include infrastructure?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No. There’ll be a variety of examples that people will be able to think of. Ultimately, social housing has a super-important role to play in New Zealand. But I think people expect the units to be efficiently and effectively delivered on time and with a real clear focus on value for money. They also expect the land—the very extensive landholdings that Kāinga Ora owns up and down the country—to be used economically and efficiently, and so they have started a process of targeted divestment of some sites and some areas. All the funds that are freed up from divestment of those areas will be put into new housing, and you’ll expect to see changes, and some of that will play out.

But one of the things we’ve asked them to do is to very much focus on what they own now and to make sure that if they don’t need it, it’s available for somebody else who might want to build on it. So, again, a bit of a work in progress on this one. Still going through it. There’s sites that Kāinga Ora have owned for 20 years that they have just sat on and have never built on. Now, that is an inefficient, uneconomic use of Crown capital. Somebody else would happily build on that land—including, for example, often a community housing provider. So we’re going through a bit of a process there. So, look, it’s a work in progress. The turnaround plan was endorsed in, well, essentially, December; announced in January. We’re now in April, so a bit of a way to go.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Yes, but that didn’t happen in Queenstown.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, Queenstown has some unique challenges around housing, and the best thing that Queenstown could do is let its city grow.

Hon Rachel Brooking: There were apartments ready to go that Kāinga Ora stopped.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Kāinga Ora doesn’t have a presence in Queenstown. The Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust has a presence in Queenstown. Whaea Julie does an excellent job down there. But the most fundamental problem with Queenstown is they have a housing market with the highest house prices in the country—on average, I think, 13 or 14 times the average household income.

Joseph Mooney: 14.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: “14.”, says Joseph. Julie does a fantastic job down there, but she’s struggling against a market that makes it very difficult to build. I’m not saying anything public that I haven’t told the mayor, and in fact told the local media down there as well, which is that, from memory, Queenstown went through a draft plan change and they freed up an additional capacity of 14 houses—14 houses, I think. I think I’m right in saying that; it might have been 15, but it was in the double figures rather than the triple. Whereas, in reality, they actually need an absolute bucket-load more houses. The crazy thing is that down there, you have plenty of land and you have plenty of developers who want to go out and build, and it’s very frustrating. So they’ve got a range of land supply challenges. They’ve also got infrastructure-funding challenges, which we’re going to sort for them.

This is my overall point, which is that it’s all a system. Queenstown has people living by the lake, and people living in cars. Often they are people who are servicing the wealthy tourists who come to Queenstown because it’s a fantastic place to play. They have people like that. I went down there two years ago when the same people were there. They have those problems because the city has not been able to grow. This is my point: when cities can’t grow, you end up with sky-high prices, sky-high rental prices, and people who are the workers in these towns can’t afford to get into the rental market in the first place. There’s a limited supply of social housing there for a large number of different reasons, and so, as a result, you have real, entrenched deprivation. This is my point: you have to sort the fundamentals and that is what this Government is focused on.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I think it is very telling that the Minister stands up and complains that the Opposition is focusing on emergency housing and gets his mate to answer a few patsies to try and fill in the time. It is quite clear that the Minister doesn’t want to talk about this because they know that their policies have led to an increase in homelessness. We haven’t been asking and focusing on emergency housing; we’ve been trying to get the Ministers to answer our questions on the increasing homelessness.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Can I interrupt the member and say I’ve been here for 35 to 40 minutes and, until just the last five minutes, all of the questions have been about emergency housing.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Point of order, Madam Chair. With the greatest respect, Madam Chair, it is not your role to insert yourself into the debate. That is a debating point that the Minister is able to respond to. It is not your responsibility to do that. Furthermore, every question that we have asked has been relevant.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): This is not a point of order.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: It is actually, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I said it’s not.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: It actually is, Madam Chair, because you’ve inserted yourself into this debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): You’ve drifted from your point of order.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: That is my point of order, Madam Chair. As I was saying, this report, on two pages—pages 20 and 21, and 19, actually—talks about emergency housing. The reason we are focusing on this is because these Ministers have refused to answer our questions on homelessness, which is increasing. They are reliant on front-line providers to give them information because the only information that Governments get is the census every five years. The Minister said that himself.

They stopped talking about that when we presented him with quotes, like from the Wellington City Missioner, that he feels that the levels of homelessness that they are seeing are “unprecedented, certainly in living memory.”

We have gone through their own report, we have gone through the homelessness insight, which points to the fact that 75 percent of the declines in emergency housing are nothing to do with people leaving for other houses—which they have consistently claimed—and everything to do with this Government’s change in criteria. Their own documents demonstrate that people are being declined. They demonstrate that they’re not being allowed to apply. At no point tonight have the Ministers even had the decency to admit that homelessness is going up—a fact that they are refusing to acknowledge.

It is a disgrace, a frank and absolute example of this Government’s focus on expenditure rather than actually delivering the services that people need. The Minister himself said it, he said that it was costing the Government too much. When we pulled them up about that, they didn’t mention it again because it was an insight into actually what this Government is focused on. They are not focused on fixing the rising levels of homelessness, the 40 percent increase in homelessness in Auckland in four months—40 percent in four months. They’re not interested in the 53 percent increase in Auckland or the 40 percent increase in Wellington or the 30 percent increase in people sleeping rough. They don’t care.

They don’t care that they were warned that this change would increase homelessness. They didn’t answer those questions. They didn’t answer questions about the feedback from providers. All they wanted to do was give us a lecture about planning. The Minister had the gall to complain that we were asking these questions. The reason he doesn’t want us to ask these questions, is because they don’t have the answers. Well actually, they do. They just don’t have the guts to show them. They don’t have the guts to actually admit to New Zealanders as to what is happening. Yes, homelessness is going up and, yes, it is down to their policies.

They tightened the criteria to emergency housing. People can’t get in. It accounts to 70 percent of the declines which, incidentally, have tripled. It also accounts for the significant decrease in applications. They’ve made it too hard to get into emergency housing to save money. People are living on the street and in cars and in garages and in tents. We’re hearing stories of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) issuing grants to people that can’t get into emergency housing for tents. Just let that sink in for a second. These Ministers are promising New Zealanders that everyone in genuine need can get in—it’s not true. Their own documents say that it’s not true, and now we’re hearing reports of MSD issuing people in genuine need grants for tents. Tents. That is this Government’s response to homelessness—homelessness that they created: tents.

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): I just want to respond to some of, again, the comments made by the member. First of all, the comments about the tents as a grant, that’s absolutely outrageous and appalling. That is not the proper practice of the Ministry of Social Development, and that matter has been recalibrated and I’ll look for officials in short course to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I wanted to demystify some of the fanatical infatuation that the previous member speaking has made around some of the statistics, which, again, have been pulled up selectively to justify his position. I have not received one privacy waiver from anyone. Our officials have not received one privacy waiver from anyone in the Opposition advocating on behalf of people in the homelessness—

Hon David Seymour: Not one?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Not one.

The second thing is that the homelessness insights that the previous member spoke of say that “maybe there is an attribution”, but there is no proof of the attribution that the member can refer to.

The final thing I’d say is this: between 2018 and 2023, the number of rough sleepers—via those censuses under the previous Government—went up 50 percent, and the severe housing deprivation went up 10 percent under the previous Government. We’re very proud that 3,000 children have come out of emergency housing, when, under the previous Government, it went up by about 4,000. Kia ora tātou.

SUZE REDMAYNE (Junior Whip—National): I move, That the committee report progress on this bill.

Motion agreed to.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The committee has considered the Appropriation (2023/24 Confirmation and Validation) Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Bills

Medicines Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Associate Minister of Health): I present a legislative statement on the Medicines Amendment Bill.

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

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I move, That the Medicines Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move the bill be reported to the House four months and one day after it has received its first reading.

The purpose of the bill is to help more Kiwis to be able to access the medicines they need to live a fulfilling life. The bill contains two main parts: one is a verification pathway, and the second is a number of changes to prescribing rights. Both of these changes are designed to make it easier for New Zealanders to get timely access to medicines so that they can live longer, happier, healthier lives. Both of these initiatives remove red tape and regulation that stop people from doing beneficial things, but that red tape and regulation doesn’t actually protect them from any harm.

To start with, the bill’s verification pathway: it will be an expedited alternative to the pathways currently available for pharmaceutical companies seeking consent to market their medicines in New Zealand. It will mean that, if a medicine has already been approved by two recognised overseas regulators, then Medsafe—the Government’s agency for consenting medicines to be allowed to be marketed in New Zealand—will not need to carry out its usual full assessment.

I want to acknowledge that this idea is one that all three parties—the ACT Party, New Zealand First, and the National Party—all campaigned on in the lead-up to the election, and it is a commitment in the coalition agreements of all three parties. It comes from the fact that, in recent years, many global medicine regulators have adopted what are called “reliance models” for approving medicines, and these models rely, partially, on an approval and assessment report by another recognised regulatory authority overseas.

Now, Medsafe first adopted a reliance pathway 15 years ago and was one of—we’re actually one of the first countries to do this. But, in New Zealand, our time frames for medicine approval are still slower than Australia’s target. They are far too slow, in fact, for many New Zealanders to receive the medicines that they need. The new verification pathway will mean that any applicants that can demonstrate that their products have approval from two recognised overseas regulators can have their products approved for marketing in New Zealand much, much quicker. At the moment, it can take 400 days for a new medicine that’s allowed to be used elsewhere—and I’m talking 400 working days, so two years—to be allowed in New Zealand. Under this rule, if it’s approved in two other countries, it’ll be allowed in New Zealand after only 30 days.

I’d just make the point that I think this occurred to many of us during the time of COVID, when so many new treatments, new devices, were being created in order to battle COVID-19 and all its different variants. And, oftentimes, things that were available and being used in other countries were not available here. Those of us who were in Opposition at the time would ask the Government, “Why is it good enough for Australians but not good enough for New Zealanders? Or good enough for Americans or Canadians but not good enough for New Zealanders?” And the answer was, “Oh, well, Medsafe has to approve it first.” And we asked, “Why would we wait for Medsafe to prove that the rest of the world got it right?” Because Medsafe has never found something that’s been approved overseas and not allowed it to be used here. The facts are—

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Didn’t we amend the Medicines Act over urgency when it came to the vaccines?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: We’ve got Ayesha Verrall heckling, saying, “Oh, we made amendments in the Medicines Act.” Well, that’s right, because even the previous Government found it so frustrating to have to do a separate approval when it was approved overseas, and, of course, if the previous Government had fixed the problem, we wouldn’t be here. In fact, if the previous Government had fixed more problems like this, they might be over here, but they’re not; they’re over there, because they were hopeless at fixing problems. But that’s enough from Ayesha Verrall—she’s had a go. She’s had her chance.

Now, this verification pathway is actually part of the Government’s wider work programme to streamline Medsafe’s processes, find efficiencies, and speed up the public’s access to medicines while maintaining appropriate safety measures and Medsafe’s credibility as a trusted regulator, which I think is important. In this case, we have less red tape, more speed, and more access to medicines while maintaining the same level of safety, because we’ll be asking ourselves: have any two of Australia, the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Great Britain, Canada, the European Union—you know, if any two of those jurisdictions have approved a medicine, the chances are that they didn’t both get it wrong and it’s safe to use here within 30 days, and I think that that’s a wonderful improvement.

We’re also going to be making changes to prescribing. This bill will help make medicine processes more efficient by expanding the ability for more types of prescribers to prescribe unapproved medicines for their patients where those are necessary for their care, and I want to acknowledge the role that the former Minister of Health Dr Shane Reti played in this change. Medicines that are unapproved in New Zealand are sometimes necessary for a patient’s care as a last resort, and that particularly happens during a shortage, where the thing that’s gone through the consenting process in New Zealand, even with the new faster process, may not be available because, often, there are shortages, especially in recent years with supply chain troubles. At the moment, only medical practitioners can prescribe what they call “off label”: give a different medicine—a substitute—while the usual medicine is unavailable. This bill expands that ability to nurse practitioners.

Nurse practitioners have advanced education in clinical training to practice, they can work autonomously, and they’re often involved in innovative service provision. It’s time to give them a bigger role. Especially in rural and other communities, which have difficulties in accessing GP services, nurse practitioners are hugely important—not to mention in aged residential care. Now, nurse practitioners can currently prescribe a range of medicines for their patients, but enabling them to prescribe unapproved medicines within their scope of practice, I think that’s appropriate for their patients—in the scope where these are appropriate for the patient’s care, it means that the patients can access medicines faster and will not be required to seek a prescription from a medical practitioner.

Finally, in further changes to prescribing, the bill goes further and enables all authorised prescribers to prescribe unapproved but funded medicines in situations where there’s a supply shortage. For example, in 2020, Pharmac funded an alternative oral contraceptive because there was a supply shortage, and with increasing supply chain issues, as I’ve mentioned, it’s important that we have that flexibility. When there’s a supply shortage of approved medicines, Pharmac can fund unapproved medicines as a temporary alternative, and yet not have to go through a consenting process all the while. It means that for patients that may not be able to get a prescription filled when they take it to a pharmacy, they can get another prescription from a GP because the only medicine available is that unapproved alternative.

The proposed changes will mean that pharmacists, prescribers, registered midwives, dentists, nurse practitioners, dieticians, and optometrists will be able to prescribe these medicines within their scope of practice, and this is going to save time for patients, doctors, pharmacists, and other health practitioners, and it will improve the continuity of care. All of our authorised prescribers are trained professionals, and this Government wants to make the best use of our health workforce.

As I was thinking about this bill coming to the House and the work that’s gone into preparing it, I was thinking about the challenge that we face in healthcare. We have an ageing population, we have increasing amounts of medical technology, and we have enormous challenges affording the standards of healthcare that people want. I’m reminded of one of the greatest New Zealanders—that is, Sir Ernest Rutherford—who once said that we didn’t have much money, so we had to think, and this is a small contribution to that culture.

We don’t have much money, so we’ve got to think. If a medicine is already approved in two other countries, let’s make it available to New Zealanders, because we ain’t going to find anything that two other advanced countries that are already using the medicine haven’t found. Other countries are already relying on each other; we should rely on them, too. If there’s a medical shortage and there’s a person who is qualified and capable, such as a nurse practitioner, of issuing a prescription of something off label, then let’s let them do it, because if you don’t have much money, you’ve got to think.

We’re going to have to do a lot more of this in healthcare: remove red tape, enable people and empower them, and let them make a bigger difference. If we do all of that, then I think we can overcome the severe challenges that we face in healthcare in this country and across the developed world. With that, I commend this bill to the House very much.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): It’s nice to hear that speech by David Seymour—a man who has many bad ideas, but I’m not convinced this is one of them. At the heart of the issue of medicines regulation lies the issue of patient safety, and it is important to recognise how important it is to New Zealanders that Medsafe and international regulatory organisations focus on that: ensuring the safety, quality, and efficacy of our medicines. Medsafe has a rigorous assessment process that protects public health by preventing the entry of unsafe and ineffective medicines to New Zealand.

I am not as rosy on the look of the history of medicines regulation as the Associate Minister of Health was. When I look at New Zealand’s history and around the world, there certainly are examples where medicines regulators have not got it right. We should never forget that. The example that was important in the early part of my career was formoterol, asthma medication that caused children’s death.

However, in New Zealand and around the world, there are regulatory bodies that do a good job of assessing the science, the data, and making sure that medicines that are available in markets are safe. Medsafe New Zealand has achieved that, but so have many others around the around the world. For that reason, Labour will support this legislation at its first reading so that these important issues can be considered at select committee.

The Minister was right to point out that the verification pathway is the focus of this bill, but also already exists to some extent the ability to use data from overseas medicines regulators—that’s section 23 of the current Medicines Act 1981. This bill introduces a new pathway based on recognition of full authorisations from two trusted overseas regulators. It could represent an improvement by reducing the duplication of regulatory effort and potentially speeding up the availability of medicines in New Zealand.

Of course, we commit to taking the time in select committee to checking that there are adequate safeguards and particularly mechanisms for Medsafe responding promptly if safety concerns arise overseas. It’s important that detailed requirements and conditions attached to medicines approved by this pathway are clearly set out in secondary legislation and regularly reviewed. I’m thrilled by the Minister’s enthusiasm for alternative prescribers, including nurse practitioners, but many others. It is a shame that the Therapeutic Products Act is not there to give effect to those, but never mind—we’ll move on to the next point.

Why are we doing this? The stated benefits of this are that—and they’re well outlined in the regulatory impact statement (RIS), I think it’s paragraphs 14 and 16—the proposed changes emerged in the context of discussion around improving access to medicines. That is a very helpful discussion our country has had. The intent behind the verification pathway is to facilitate faster public access to medicines. However, as the RIS notes, the actual impact on medicines availability and access may be limited because, in practice, after Medsafe approval, Pharmac funding is often required for this to be available at scale in our communities. And, of course, this bill doesn’t address that. So, while it may speed up part of the process and reduce costs for pharmaceutical companies, it may not have a big impact on patients. I guess we won’t know until we see how it goes.

It’s critical that the Government clearly articulates the expected and tangible benefits of these changes, including which patient groups will be benefited. We look forward to having those conversations. One area where we do have concerns is the change of a technical advisory group into one where the appointees are appointed by the Minister of Health. That is an area where we will be focusing our scrutiny in select committee because that appears to create some possibility of conflicts of interest as well.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired.

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. On behalf of the Green Party, I rise to speak on this piece of legislation that, strangely, we support as well. We have many things that we have concerns about, but, for this, we do agree that access to medicines is important. When I think about the challenges for Māori in access to vaccinations during COVID and the fact that inequalities did exist and the inequities were there, because we couldn’t access the relevant medications, these types of changes will help all of us to benefit as Aotearoa New Zealand.

I want to labour the point of support around how we can look at a multidisciplinary approach to the administration of medicines, and having nurse practitioners be able to work at top of scope for the delivery of medicines into community is important. With this legislation, we are looking forward to what the select committee process will bring, as we will be encouraging iwi Māori, Māori providers, and the various stakeholders to bring their voice into the select committee and inform the way which we will move forward as the Health Committee, cautious, as always, in terms of the way that we will look to analyse submissions as they come forward, because we are taking a safety approach in making sure that we do have the relevant safeguards in place.

Patient access to medicines is important, but so is looking at the wider health system. We do have current barriers and challenges in the way that we need to take a population-based approach across the entire system. So, while we are looking at medicines in this part of the system, let’s look at the entire system and the very deep challenges that we have within Health New Zealand and within primary care and in the way which we deliver secondary care as well.

Now, medicines are only one part of that. Accessing medicines in a timely way is important, but if we can pull the ambulance back from the edge or the bottom of the cliff, then we can actually look to improve the lives of all New Zealanders across Aotearoa. Kia ora to my colleague Francisco. I want to recognise the workforce that is coming from overseas to support us in this time of crisis. Our Filipino nurses and those who are clinicians that come from overseas, because those skills that we have from overseas are kaimahi that come to Aotearoa to support us—whether it’s in hospitals, primary care, or in aged care as well.

Now, when we think about this legislation and safeguards, the Minister does have a lot of power in this space, and our forming of committees just through ministerial appointment also needs to be looked at through the select committee process. But the flexibility to be able to prescribe and to find medicines that have already been approved into other jurisdictions does provide some comfort and safety for us at the stage of the process.

We do look forward to hearing from across the board in terms of community and patient voice—those who have been impacted on both the access issues and concerns as families and those who have sought care, but also those who are the prescribers. Can we find, across the workforce, their voice to come forward into the select committee process? We want to have regulations that safeguard patient care and also safeguard the workforce and those who are the prescribers to ensure that there are relevant protections in place but also open up access to a broad range of medicines that, maybe, we have not had access to here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

On behalf of iwi Māori, we think that we are heavy users in the system of health, whether it’s Health NZ services and whether it is out in community healthcare spaces and primary care. So, of course, we need access to timely medicines that this legislation can bring forth. So, on behalf of the Green Party, we do stand in support and look forward to seeing what we can bring out in the Health Committee process. Kia ora.

SAM UFFINDELL (National—Tauranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of this bill. This is a good, pragmatic bill that creates a new verification pathway, a faster option for getting approvals here in New Zealand. We’ve got two overseas trusted regulators who have approved it. Medsafe will not need to do a full assessment. The decision must be made within 30 days. It meets the promise in the coalition agreements. It’ll help New Zealanders get faster access to medicines while keeping safety in place. I commend this bill to the House.

SPEAKER: I call the Hon Jenny Marcroft.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Thank you for the promotion as well. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Under-Secretary.

JENNY MARCROFT: I appreciate that. The Medicines Amendment Bill: I stand on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this piece of legislation, and I am very privileged to do so as well. The purpose of this bill is to increase patients’ access to medicine. It does this by reducing some of the barriers to access currently that we see in the Medicines Act 1981. We have commitments with our coalition agreements, and it is a pleasure that all this side of the House is in agreement that this is a really vital piece of legislation to make that pathway to wellness so much easier for so many patients in New Zealand. We campaigned for the last two elections on tidying up the processes in Pharmac to make sure that there’s increased funding but also that the pathway of procuring medicines and having them approved in this country is much quicker.

This verification pathway that comes through this bill: the streamlined approach under which the medicines can be approved for distribution in New Zealand if they’ve been approved by two recognised overseas jurisdictions. New Zealand First recognises health as a critical and essential investment that reflects how New Zealand values its people. We see this as an investment in our people as opposed to a cost on society. So this bill will actually enable that increase in access to medicines for New Zealanders through that streamlined verification pathway for medicines.

Why do we need this? We’ve had so many stories we’ve heard over the last number of years of people having to go overseas to get their medicines because they just weren’t able to access them here in New Zealand, whether it’s go to Australia or Malaysia or various countries around the world; people who have not been able to get well, who may have passed away because the whole process of getting access to modern medicines has not been available for them. This legislation will ensure that health and wellness is at the forefront in being able to access these medicines.

Introducing a verification pathway for medicines approval in New Zealand is the purpose of this bill; updating prescribing settings as well to enable wider prescribing, enabling those in the health workforce to actually work at top of scope. I think that’s a very important change that this bill will make as well. Studies have shown that for every $1 spent on modern drugs, $3 to $19 is saved in the health system via things like reduced hospitalisation, so this is very sensible legislation.

I’d just like to conclude my contribution with a quote from Malcolm Mulholland, who many in this House will know. He’s advocated for patient voice in terms of getting access to medicines, and this is what he has said: “There can be no greater legacy in politics than improving the health of our citizens.” On that note, I’d like to commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I call the Hon—no, not the honourable—Dr Hamish Campbell.

Hon Member: Everyone’s got a promotion tonight!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I know; everyone’s honourable.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): Thank you for the promotion. It is a great honour to stand and speak in support of the Medicines Amendment Bill in this first reading. It’s great that we actually have agreement across the House on this piece of legislation, because I think this is just common sense.

It creates a new verification pathway for medicines in in New Zealand. We’ve already traversed that a number of times in the House, but what are we going to find different that these other major countries haven’t found? We’re often using the same data that the pharmaceutical companies have submitted to the overseas regulators. They’re resubmitting it here. It’s unlikely that we’re going to find any difference. Also, it’s great to be able to make sure we can empower our healthcare workers to be able to deliver medicines that everyday Kiwis need, so, therefore, I am happy to commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): 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 9.59 p.m.