Tuesday, 15 July 2025
Volume 785
Sitting date: 15 July 2025
TUESDAY, 15 JULY 2025
TUESDAY, 15 JULY 2025
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Karakia/Prayers
Karakia/Prayers
BARBARA KURIGER (Deputy 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.
Member Vacancy
Tāmaki Makaurau—Takutai Tarsh Kemp
SPEAKER: Members, I wish to advise the House that following the death of Takutai Tarsh Kemp on 26 June 2025, the seat of the Māori electoral district Tāmaki Makaurau is vacant.
List Member Elected
New Zealand First—Dr David Ashley Wilson
SPEAKER: I have received from the Electoral Commission a return declaring Dr David Ashley Wilson to be elected a member of Parliament to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Tanya Marie Unkovich from her list seat. I understand that Dr Wilson is present and wishes to take the Oath. Would he please come forward to the chair on my right.
Members Sworn
Members Sworn
Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First): I, David Ashley Wilson, swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III, His heirs and successors, according to the law. So help me God.
SPEAKER: Congratulations. Well done.
Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills
Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills
SPEAKER: Ten petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.
CLERK:
Petition of Laura Salas requesting that the House ask the Minister of Immigration to reevaluate age restrictions on work-based residence visas; and grant an exemption so that Mercedes Salas may continue living in New Zealand
petition of Liam Roach requesting that the House introduce a study wage for all tertiary students into legislation
petition of Wendy Joy Baker requesting that the House legislate to require that vehicles provide a 1.5 metre passing distance to cyclists on the road
petition of Joanne Crowle requesting that the House introduce a discounted tobacco tax rate or exemption for citizens aged 55 and over
petition of Tree of Humanity For All requesting that the House urge the Government to advocate for international intervention to end the blockade of Parachinar, Pakistan and support relief efforts
petition of Tree Of Humanity For All requesting that the House urge the Government to call for the Pakistani Government to release Imran Khan from detention
petition of Caitlyn Lucmayon requesting that the House urge the Government to increase the base pay of public healthcare workers
petition of Melissa Ewart on behalf of the Home Educators Student Sports Association requesting that the House urge the Government to require Sport NZ to make funding for School Sports NZ conditional on allowing home-schooled domestic students to compete in student sports events
petition of Focus on Iran requesting that the House urge the Government to express its support for Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi as the leader of the Iranian Opposition
petition of Catherine Cooke requesting that the House urge the Government to fund Keytruda for early stage triple-negative breast cancer.
SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered 43 papers.
CLERK:
Government responses to the report of the Petitions Committee on the petitions of:
Catrina McGregor
Ara Alam-Simmons
Connor Sharp, and
Patrick Rooney
Government response to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the:
annual plan 2025-26, and
Providing equitable access to planned care treatment
2024 annual reports for:
Crown Regional Holdings Ltd
Te Pūkenga
2025-29 strategic intentions for:
Department of Corrections
Te Puni Kōkiri
Statistics New Zealand
statements of corporate intent for:
AsureQuality Ltd
Electricity Corporation of New Zealand Ltd
Kordia Group Ltd
KiwiRail Holdings Ltd
MetService
New Zealand Post Ltd
New Zealand Railways Corporation
Quotable Value Ltd, and
Transpower
2025-26 interim statement of intent for the Tertiary Education Commission
2025-29 statements of intent for:
Environmental Protection Authority
Ferry Holdings Ltd
2024-25 updated statement of performance expectations for Creative New Zealand
2025-26 statements of performance expectations for:
Climate Change Commission
Commerce Commission
Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority
Electricity Authority
Environmental Protection Authority
Ferry Holdings Ltd
Financial Markets Authority
Kiwi Group Capital Ltd
Natural Hazards Commission
New Zealand Lotteries Commission
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
Public Trust Office
Real Estate Authority
Reserve Bank of New Zealand
Retirement Commission
Taumata Arowai
Te Māngai Paho
Tertiary Education Commission, and
Tourism New Zealand.
SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House. Six select committee reports have been presented.
CLERK:
Reports of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the:
Local Government (Water Services) Bill
review briefing on the 2023-24 annual review of the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation
special report on the review briefing on the 2023-24 annual review of the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation
reports of the Petitions Committee on the:
petition of Brian Webb
petition of Holly Brooker, and
petition of Sharon Shaw.
SPEAKER: The bill is set down for second reading, and the review briefings and special report are set down for consideration. The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of four bills.
CLERK:
Online Casino Gambling Bill, introduction
Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill, introduction
Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill, introduction
Secondary Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 3), introduction.
SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.
Urgent Debates Declined
Recent Flooding Events—Nelson-Tasman
SPEAKER: I’ve received a letter from the Hon Marama Davidson seeking to debate under Standing Order 399 the recent flooding events in the Nelson-Tasman region. The purpose of an urgent debate is to examine the actions of the Government. The Government response to this event will take some time to develop, based on an assessment of needs. On that basis, I do not think that the events outlined in the member’s letter warrant setting aside the business of the House today. The application is declined.
Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I absolutely understand the ruling that you’ve just made. However, it is usual practice in situations where there’s a significant local emergency, such as the one we’ve seen in Nelson-Tasman, that a Minister would make a ministerial statement so the House still has the opportunity to canvass the issues in perhaps a less political way than an urgent debate might require. I wonder whether the Government’s given any indication of whether it intends to follow that course of action, which previous Governments have done in situations the same as this.
SPEAKER: That’s not something that has been indicated to me. Can I make it very clear that this doesn’t close off future debates on this matter. It’s simply that the request through the letter doesn’t quite meet the test that I’m required to do to be fair to all members of the House. But that doesn’t preclude a future debate, and I take the point that the member makes.
Motions
New Zealand Youth Choir—Congratulations
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage): I seek leave to move a motion without notice or debate on the success of the New Zealand Youth Choir.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I move, That this House congratulate the New Zealand Youth Choir which this month was judged Choir of the World at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales and received two gold medals at the Grand Prix of Nations at the European Choir Games in Aarhus, Denmark. They did us well.
Motion agreed to.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Question No. 1—Finance
1. RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Finance: What recent announcements has she made on the cost of living?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Last week, I announced the Government is expanding the FamilyBoost scheme to help families pay for early childhood education and assist them with the cost of living. From the start of this month, families will get larger rebates on early childhood fees, and the abatement rate for families earning more than $140,000 per year will reduce. These changes will put more money in the bank accounts of households currently receiving FamilyBoost and make the scheme available to thousands more families who were previously ineligible for it. People will start to notice the difference in their bank accounts from October, when the payment for the first three months of this financial year begin to flow through.
Ryan Hamilton: What difference will the changes being made to FamilyBoost make to households?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: A household paying $100 a week, say, for early childhood education costs could have its weekly FamilyBoost payments increase from $25 to $40. That adds up to $780 over the course of the year, making that family a lot better off. A household with early childhood fees of $300 a week could have its weekly payments increase from $75 to $120 a week. The actual amount households receive will depend on how much they pay for early childhood education and their household income. Households with annual incomes of less than $140,000 will be eligible to receive the full rebate. The rebate will start to taper off once household income passes $140,000 and end just after household income passes $229,000.
Ryan Hamilton: How many households will benefit from the changes to FamilyBoost?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: To date, about 63,000 households have already benefited from the scheme, and the changes announced last week will make around 22,000 more families eligible, and the estimated take-up will be around 16,000 more. That means more families getting assistance with the cost of living at a time when many households face additional expenses in their life. It will be of great help to parents with young children.
Ryan Hamilton: What has the response been to the expansion of FamilyBoost?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I’ve seen a statement from the Early Childhood Council CEO, Simon Laube, that states that the changes the Government is making to FamilyBoost will “increase children’s ability to access quality childcare and make the scheme much more attractive”. This follows feedback from parents praising the scheme, including one parent with children at an early childhood education provider in Johnsonville, who said, “It’s been an absolute lifesaver and life-changing for us. It has been super helpful, and we have been able to budget more into our quarterly plans as a result.”
Question No. 2—Prime Minister
2. Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister): Yes. In particular, our action to break up Te Pūkenga and restore regional polytechnics to local control, because towns like Invercargill and Nelson have huge pride in their local polytechs, but, under the previous Minister of Education—Chris Hipkins—they were collapsed into a single national entity. It was an expensive and wasteful mega-merger and it robbed communities of their local identities. So I want to congratulate the responsible Minister for all her work to right that wrong and to put polytechnics back under local control. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Before the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins asks his next question, can I just indicate that that level of barracking was just ridiculous. Rare and reasonable and, if possible, on point.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How many Kiwis have left New Zealand since he became Prime Minister?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, just a little bit of context for the member: he’ll remember through the six years of the global financial crisis, the net migration of New Zealanders going to Australia was higher than it currently is. In the last year of the Labour Government, it was actually 29,379, and the net migration in the first year of the new Government in 2024 was 29,952.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he consider it a success that 184,000 Kiwis—equivalent to the entire population of Hamilton—have left New Zealand under his leadership?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’d just encourage the member to look and use net migration—that’s the standard way that we look at these things. But the reason people leave a country is because they think they can earn higher incomes somewhere else. What this Government’s doing is making sure that we fix the economy. Because why are they leaving? They’re leaving because there was high inflation, high interest rates, the economy shrunk, and people were put out of work. And that was because of the last Government.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Have 184,000 people given up and left—the highest rate since National was in Government last time—because his Government’s failed to tackle the cost of living crisis: butter now costing $10 at the supermarket, insurance going up, rates going up, power bills going up, and transport costs going up, just to name a few?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, if the member really cared about people struggling with the cost of living, he’d get in behind and support FamilyBoost, he’d get in behind and actually support fast-track regulation, he actually would have supported tax relief for working New Zealanders—never gave them tax relief in 14 years. Low and middle income Kiwis deserve it after he ran up high inflation, he ran up high interest rates, and he put the economy into recession.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Have 184,000 Kiwis left because the FamilyBoost policy he just mentioned has delivered $75 to just 390 out of the 21,000 families he promised were going to get it and he still can’t identify a single family with kids that’s received the full $250 a fortnight he promised them during the election campaign?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: There’s been over 60,000 people that have actually received the FamilyBoost payment. What I think is fantastic is—and the member should be encouraging this to support Kiwis, actually, with the cost of living crisis that he created through economic mismanagement—that we are making sure we’re actually getting support to working families. If the member really cared about it, he would have actually supported increasing tax thresholds for low and middle income working New Zealanders. That was not an ideological policy; that was just basic common sense to support working New Zealanders. He doesn’t care about working New Zealanders.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: If he’s aiming to help low-income New Zealanders get ahead, why has the minimum wage in New Zealand not kept up with inflation, potentially leading to low-paid Kiwi workers going to Australia, where the minimum wage increases have at least matched inflation?
Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Because he doesn’t care about them.
SPEAKER: Either the Leader of the Opposition wants an answer, which should be the desire of all those who support him, or he doesn’t.
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I’m proud about is this is a Government that is tackling the cost of living through better Government spending and stopping the wasteful spending that was previously happening. Inflation has gone from 7.3 percent down to 2.5 percent; interest rates have come down, I think, 2.25 percent; and, as a result, that’s $320 on an average mortgage each fortnight back into Kiwis’ pockets. We’ve actually made sure that rents are now stable after having increased $180 per week under his previous Government—they’re actually down $5 per week at this moment. That’s all good stuff. And I would hope that that member actually could get over the politics. Why doesn’t he just say thank you to this Government for supporting the low and middle income working New Zealanders that he purports to care about, but did nothing about it when he had his chance in Government.
Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: So is his position that New Zealanders struggling with the cost of living should just be more grateful to the Government that’s increasing their rates, increasing their power bills, increasing their insurance, increasing their car registration, and failing to deliver them the cost of living support that they promised them during the election campaign?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we’re not increasing rates; councils are increasing rates. And I’d welcome that member’s support of our drive on councils, because this happens to be Local Government Week, and I’ll be very interested to see whether he’s encouraging those members of Labour, Green mayors across the country to actually reign in profligate spending. Let’s see what he says in his speech, eh?
Question No. 3—Resources
ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): My question is to the Minister for Resources and asks—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Hang on. Questions are heard in silence. I know everyone’s very excited today for various reasons. We’ll start again, please.
3. ANDY FOSTER (NZ First) to the Minister for Resources: What actions is the Government taking to increase economic growth in the resources sector?
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Resources): With characteristic modesty, I recently travelled to Singapore and Sydney, and a host of people asked me, as a Cabinet Minister, to confirm that the foolish moment of cancelling the oil and gas industry was really over. I confirmed that it was, and legislation will soon pass. I also, in the context of economic growth, gave a glowing account of the fast-track legislation, the most permissive regime in Australasia. Not surprisingly, people are flocking to the resources sector, including Federation Mining, which is soon to enjoy an infusion of additional capital. Jobs will flourish and, indeed, we will regard it as a glowing light on a hill.
Andy Foster: What updates can he give about the fast track?
Hon SHANE JONES: Obviously, the fast track is designed not only for mining projects but a host of others, because we need to ensure that such proposals are not hobbled by red tape or, indeed, lost in serpentine processes in the bureaucracy. The one-stop shop is a key feature out of our coalition agreement. It is developing a host of pipeline projects, and in the event applicants strike problems that we did not understand in the construction of this legislation, the Minister responsible and myself will ensure that they are swept away.
Andy Foster: What recent engagements has he had with potential investors in the New Zealand resources sector?
Hon SHANE JONES: I have endeavoured to assure investors in the resources sector that we have decriminalised the coal industry, we have validated the gas industry, and we are not in the business of visiting moral judgments upon various elements of the economy because we remain agnostic as to how we keep the lights on. I had the privilege of addressing a host of mining investors—professionals in Sydney. They regard the quality of leadership that I have shown on behalf of the Government of such stature they invited me to be a politician in Canberra.
Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Take it up!
SPEAKER: Just wait.
Andy Foster: What will reversing the ban on oil and gas exploration do for the New Zealand economy?
Hon SHANE JONES: Sadly, gas supplies have decreased, worsened by the Jacinda Ardern cancellation of an entire industry which now afflicts our energy and electricity sector. The danger of such showy, empty gestures will be laid out by me next Friday, 12 o’clock, in New Plymouth, at a public meeting where I will remind everyone that the cost of electricity is linked to the ongoing affordable access to fossil fuels, something that this Minister is taking advice on in terms of ensuring we have adequate levels of access to our own coal and we expand gas whilst the wind blows, the sun shines, and the rain falls.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, sir. It has been canvassed in this House a number of times, Government Ministers and parties using patsy questions or questions to themselves to criticise the decisions of previous Governments—that’s been established. It’d be useful to know whether it is OK for Ministers to be using them to criticise decisions that they themselves were part of.
SPEAKER: Well, that is an interesting question and one that I’ll spend some time thinking about, but what I would say is that there is no prohibition on Ministers referring to policies of the past that they’re currently dealing with.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Minister saying that he’s going to stop virtue signalling by using our coal rather than importing inferior offshore coal?
SPEAKER: Well, that question is sort of interesting because it’s hardly factual as soon as you say “virtue signalling”, but, anyway, I’m sure that the honourable Minister will make every effort to stay within the bounds of Standing Orders.
Hon SHANE JONES: Coal before dole. Now, on the matter of the coal exports, they are continuing. They will not be ruled out by this Government. We have changed legislation that sought to demonise and criminalise the coal industry. We’re not in the business of moral arbitration and, more importantly, we have our own fields of coal for the purposes of electricity, and whilst it is not fully available at the moment, advice has been sought so we are not totally reliant on Indonesian coal, up to a million tonnes. In fact, I feel the need for a new coal-fired power station.
SPEAKER: No time for an urgent debate on that, but we’ll go to question No. 4.
Question No. 4—Prime Minister
4. 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: Does the Prime Minister accept that any Government policy decision which increases emissions directly increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events like the historic flooding seen in the Nelson Tasman region?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I accept is that this is a Government that has got a very good plan to make sure we have net carbon zero by 2050. On our latest plan, it’s good to see that we might even do that six years early.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Does increasing climate-changing emissions increase the frequency and severity of climate change - charged weather events?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I think the effects of climate change on extreme weather events are well understood and well known. What I was very proud about was, again, to see an amazing response in Nelson Tasman from our central government, from local government, from regional civil defence—the way they worked together having spoken to those mayors. We’ve been very proud of the response from our first responders and our civil defence teams.
Chlöe Swarbrick: How does the Prime Minister reconcile his comments following those floods that “Many other countries from around the world are also wrestling with the same issue. You’ve just seen horrific floods in Texas last week, and we want to make sure that we are doing everything” with his decision to have taxpayers subsidise fossil fuel exploration to the tune of $200 million in his most recent Government Budget?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I just reject the characterisation of that question because the problem that this country has in an energy security sense is that we don’t have enough gas. We are, rather uniquely, the only country I know on Earth that’s making the rather odd transition to go from domestic gas to international coal. That is a function of the Labour-Green decision to end oil and gas exploration. We are repealing that. We are wanting to double the amount the renewables through the fast-track legislation. I’ll just say, if the member really cared about climate change, they’d get onboard and actually support repealing the oil and gas ban and actually support fast track.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Is the Prime Minister aware that his own advice issued to the Government says that the new gas fields that he is talking about subsidising would take approximately 10 years to come online, and is he therefore seriously suggesting that the solution to our energy supply problem is to become more reliant on global supply chains of fossil fuels that are vulnerable to disruption?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I’m absolutely certain about is a Labour-Greens policy that actually was ending oil and gas led to rapidly rising wholesale electricity prices, which put huge pressure on our industrial businesses, which actually put low and middle income working people out of jobs. We care about working New Zealanders and, as a result, that’s why we’re changing the planning laws, that’s why we’re ending the oil and gas ban: so we have affordable and abundant energy, because that’s what Kiwis want.
Chlöe Swarbrick: If Government policies increase emissions and, therefore, the threat of extreme weather events, which require billions of dollars to clean up as well as disrupting food systems, upending lives and livelihoods, will that increase or decrease the cost of living for New Zealanders?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I utterly reject the characterisation of the question. This Government has an emissions reduction plan that will see net carbon zero by 2050. What this Government will not do is actually have low and middle income New Zealanders lose their jobs because of a reckless energy policy from a Labour-Greens previous Government. That’s not happening under this Government.
SPEAKER: Question No. 5, the Hon Barbara Edmonds, when the House has settled itself. Someone is going to have to symbolically leave, I think, just to get a bit of discipline into the place. [Interruption] No, I’d nominate the member who just asked that question if I had to. The Hon Barbara Edmonds when the House is silent.
Question No. 5—Finance
5. Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: Does she stand by her statement she is “seeing signs of growth across our economy”; if so, why?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance): Yes. The economy expanded by 0.8 percent in the first three months of this year, following growth of 0.5 percent in the last three months of 2024. We’ve had two consecutive quarters of per capita growth, after eight quarters of negative or no growth. The rate of growth that has been occurring is at rates higher than previously forecast, and in the March period, at a rate quadruple that of Australia. That is not just “signs of growth”; that is actual growth. Global events do mean that it will be challenging to sustain those levels of growth into the June quarter. “Nonetheless,” to quote the Treasury’s latest Fortnightly Economic Update, “conditions for growth remain in place as mortgage rates continue to fall and optimism for the future lifts.”
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why, then, is the number of financial hardship cases—as reported by Centrix—14.4 percent higher than a year ago?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: We are still seeing the impacts of unemployment, and I want to be clear with the House: it has been forecast for some time that employment would be peaking at around this period. However, I’m also happy to let the House know that the unemployment levels we are experiencing now are lower than was predicted in the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update 2023. To inform the House more specifically of the numbers, in the 2025 quarter, Grant Robertson’s pre-election update said there would be 165,000 people unemployed. The actual number under this Government was lower: 156,000.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why is the number of people behind on debt repayments growing, now at almost half a million people?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I feel for anyone who is in that situation, and it is obviously a combination of factors that impact households. On the one hand, as I’ve just outlined, the critical thing for any household is whether or not they’re able to obtain employment. That is why we are so focused on growing the economy, so that businesses have the confidence to create and sustain good-paying jobs. The other effect that is clear is the transmission of lower interest rates into the economy. While a significant portion of New Zealanders have refixed their mortgages at the much lower interest rates available under this Government, it is also the case that not all have had the opportunity to do so yet, but I am advised by the Reserve Bank that over the coming months, many thousands more New Zealanders will have the opportunity of more household income afforded to them by lower interest rates.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she accept responsibility for the fact that Kiwis are doing it tough right now, and are therefore having to dip into their KiwiSaver, with hardship withdrawals up 44 percent?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Again, I think it is always of concern when New Zealanders feel that they need to dip into their KiwiSaver in order to address pressures in their household. What I do take responsibility for is cleaning up the economic mismanagement that occurred under the past Government, and, in particular, for the following things: the fact that food price inflation that was in double digits in May 2023 is now down; the fact that housing costs for those who are on mortgages have lowered; that in many parts of the country, rents have, in fact, dropped; the fact that we froze petrol taxes that were intended to be in place by the last Government, and removed the regional fuel tax; and the fact that 1.9 million households under this Government, on average, received a $60 boost per fortnight thanks to our tax relief.
Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why did she not mention in her list that the other thing growing in this economy is the number of people going to Australia, with 47,000 Kiwis leaving in the last year alone?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I have said for many years, as a member of this House, that one of my goals is to ensure that there are jobs and opportunities in New Zealand such that more New Zealanders feel they can pursue their ambitions and aspirations in New Zealand. I note that that net migration loss is almost exactly the same as it was in the year prior, under the previous Government, and it remains the Government’s mission to ensure that this economy is growing in such a way that more New Zealanders wish to follow their prospects here. But I’ll tell you this, members: there is one sure thing that will drive more New Zealanders to Australia—and the most talented ones with the most ability to create jobs—and that is slamming additional taxes on them. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: OK. We’re just about at the end of it, and I’d suggest to some of the members along the front bench to my left that it would be a good idea for them to just be a little more respectful of people about to ask a question.
Question No. 6—Health
6. Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has the Government made to improve access to elective procedures for New Zealanders?
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): The Government recently announced the next phase of our successful Elective Boost programme. It will see 21,000 more elective procedures carried out over this year through both public hospitals and private providers. With over 215,000 procedures set to be delivered over this year—21,000 more than previously planned—wait times will reduce and Kiwis will have access to the life-changing operations they require. We’re removing the hold-ups, providing certainty, and unlocking capacity across the system to put patients first.
Dr Carlos Cheung: How many additional procedures will be delivered under this phase of the Elective Boost programme?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: The next phase of the Elective Boost will see more than 21,000 additional procedures be delivered, bringing the total number of planned elective procedures to over 215,000. There’s a significant uplift with hips, knees, and cataract operations, and a major step towards reducing the elective wait-list that has left too many New Zealanders waiting in pain for too long. These procedures will be delivered by unlocking capacity in both the public and private sectors. That’s why we’ve signed panel agreements with private hospitals whilst also increasing capacity at Health New Zealand’s dedicated elective facilities such as the Manukau Health Park, Tōtara Haumaru, and Burwood Hospital. We’re getting on with the job and putting patients first.
Hon David Seymour: Does the Minister subscribe to the philosophy of former Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping, who said that it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice?
SPEAKER: Well, if—
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Mr Speaker, the—
SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry. If the Minister was some sort of expert in rodent control, that’d be a reasonable question.
Hon SIMEON BROWN: I’m happy to answer the question, or address it.
SPEAKER: No—well, I’m not happy for you to be asked. Dr Carlos Cheung. [Interruption] We’re just going to wait.
Dr Carlos Cheung: How will the Government ensure that these procedures are delivered?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: By taking a smart, joined-up approach and working both with the public and private hospitals, we’ve already shown that Elective Boost can deliver results. We will continue to do this by unlocking capacity, partnering with private providers in a more strategic way with longer-term contracts, and—most importantly—getting Kiwis the care that they need. By 1 June, more than 12,764 additional procedures had already been delivered through phase one of the boost, far exceeding our target of 10,500 procedures by 30 June. New Zealanders don’t care who does the operation; they just want it done.
Dr Carlos Cheung: What else is the Government doing to improve New Zealanders’ access to planned care?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, improving access to planned care is a top priority for this Government, and that’s why, as part of our record funding boost to general practice, we’re supporting GP clinics to deliver minor planned care procedures closer to patients in the community. This will reduce wait times for procedures such as minor gynaecological procedures, skin excisions, iron infusions, and oncology infusions, all whist delivering care closer to home and taking pressure directly off our hospitals. We’re turning the system around.
Hon David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for my question to be answered, after all.
SPEAKER: Well, I’ve ruled it out, so—
Hon David Seymour: Well, the House is the master of its own destiny.
SPEAKER: No, no, no—no, not at all. Think about it—have a read of the Standing Orders.
Question No. 7—Health
7. Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his target that 95 percent of patients will be waiting less than four months for a first specialist appointment?
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health): Yes, our Government has brought back the health targets because patients deserve faster access to care. That includes our target for 95 percent of patients to receive their first specialist assessment within four months by 2030. The good news is that wait-lists are already improving. The latest data from the Health New Zealand national collections shows the total number of patients waiting has reduced by 2,955 between February and March, and those waiting over four months has also dropped by 2,940 during the same period. This shows that our focus on putting patients first is making a difference. There is still much work to do. Patients have been waiting for far too long, and we will continue to focus on reducing wait times to ensure that more New Zealanders get the care they need faster.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Will he take responsibility for Nelson patients being given appointments that don’t exist, with doctors that aren’t there, in order to say he’s meeting the target?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: That question is just repeating the beat-up from the unions in Nelson, who are trying to politicise an IT system rather than celebrate the fact that all 23 of those patients now have bookings over the next three months and will be seen.
SPEAKER: Sit down. We’re going to start that answer over again. [Interruption] Sorry, did someone object to that while I’m on my feet? The person who did may not get to ask their question if it happens again. We’ll start the answer to the question in a reasonable, conversational fashion.
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the question highlights that the Opposition is prioritising politicising an IT system rather than celebrating the fact that all 23 of those patients, who had been waiting over two years for a first specialist assessment, have got their bookings. Their letters were sent on 4 July, and they will have their bookings over the next three months and will get an appointment. I’m focused on getting patients seen; they’re focused on politics. It’s unacceptable.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question?
SPEAKER: Sorry, Mr Peters, we normally go for three from the questioner who has the primary question, so we’ll stick to that.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Is this what patients can expect under a National Government: a fake doctor’s visit that they don’t even know is happening?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, they all received letters. The letters were sent on 4 July for appointments over the coming three months. This is an Opposition which is politicising an IT system—
SPEAKER: No, that’s enough. Sit down.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question?
SPEAKER: One more here.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Hang on, that’s four.
SPEAKER: No, I’m doing the counting; no one else.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: What did he expect would happen when he set a target to increase clinic visits but did not agree to this understaffed hospital having enough doctors?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: There are more doctors and more nurses at Nelson Hospital today than in 2023, when she was the Minister of Health. And, by the way, the people we are prioritising getting appointments for over the next three months were people put on the wait-list when she was the Minister.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can the Minister possibly accuse the member of repeating the beat-up of the unions when that member wouldn’t know a worker if she tripped over them?
SPEAKER: Good, well, perhaps point made, but it’s certainly not an answer for the Minister of Health.
Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Has he asked Health New Zealand to explain the obvious falsehood in their response to 1News on this matter: that Nelson’s booking system cannot make appointments more than six weeks in advance?
Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the system, which was put in place in 2018, when Labour was in Government, has limitations as to how long you can book patients in. What has happened is they have all received letters, with their bookings, over the next three months, and they will be seen. That’s my priority, and, as I said in answer to the earlier question, these are people who were put on the wait-list when she was the Minister. My focus is on getting these patients seen and off the wait-list so that we can deliver the timely, quality access to healthcare that New Zealanders need.
Question No. 8—Prime Minister
8. 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: Is the Prime Minister concerned that the Christchurch City Mission has reported an upsurge in the number of homeless people in Christchurch, so much so that their emergency shelters are regularly full?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We’re always concerned about people who are without housing, and that’s why this Government is doing an incredibly good job of trying to improve the situation that we inherited. It has been excellent to see that rents have come down $5 since we came into power, versus going up $180; it has been amazing and excellent to see that nearly 6,000 people have come off the social housing wait-list; and it’s been an outstanding achievement to ensure that we take several thousand people, including 2,100 kids, out of emergency hotel accommodation, and 85 percent of them are now in warm, safe, dry homes. I think all members of this House should celebrate that fact and that progress. That is something that we can all be very proud about because, actually, we are supporting vulnerable people when they need it most.
Hon Marama Davidson: Then, why are homeless pensioners living in cars, vans, and tents in Christchurch’s red zone, instead of in emergency or social housing?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I just say to the member: anyone who needs any housing support can come to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and receive it. But if you think about what was, without doubt, an absolutely failed housing policy under Labour, under the Greens—where house prices went up; rents went up; the social housing wait-list went up from 6,000 to over 25,000, and is now back at 19,308, from memory—we are making progress. The fact that we have taken 2,100 children out of damp, squalid motel rooms—which the previous Government was very happy to throw people into—and we have prioritised them and got them into State houses or community housing providers, is an outstanding result. [Interruption]
Hon Marama Davidson: Then, given—
SPEAKER: Wait, just wait.
Hon Marama Davidson: With what the Prime Minister was just saying about emergency support housing, does he agree, then, with the executive director of the Christchurch Methodist Mission that “Chris Bishop said in an interview that if people are homeless they could go to the Ministry of Social Development and housing support would be available for them … we know that’s not true.”, and, if not, why not?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I disagree with the characterisation of that question. Anybody who wants assistance can come to MSD and they will receive it. I will just ask the members to think about it: the legacy on housing of the previous Government was abysmal. We care about vulnerable people. That’s why we’re fixing the housing mess that we’ve inherited; rents are down; the social housing wait-list is down; and people are out of emergency housing in warm, dry homes. That’s a good outcome. Yes, there’s more to do. If people need assistance, that’s still available to them. But to have 85 percent of people—85 percent of households—out of emergency hotel accommodation, into warm, dry houses, that’s something we should be celebrating.
Hon Kieran McAnulty: You know that isn’t the case.
SPEAKER: No, hang on. It’s your own side that’s making most of the noise. Carry on.
Hon Marama Davidson: Then, why are there more people being rejected for emergency housing support at MSD?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’d just say to the member: if people are desperately needing support from MSD, it is available. But what I say is we’re not going to consign people to motel rooms and have kids raised in motel rooms. We want them in warm, dry homes, and we’re making great progress doing that: 86 percent of people taken out of emergency housing are now in proper homes. That’s a good thing for them, their families, and those kids.
Hon Marama Davidson: Is the Prime Minister denying, then, that there are 300 people sleeping rough in Christchurch, 653 in Auckland, and 464 in Wellington, on most recent counts, all up since this Government restricted access to emergency housing?
Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I can confirm is there is 2,124 children that have been moved out of motels, into homes and houses; what I can confirm is that the average rents across New Zealand are down $5, not up $180 a week as they were under the previous administration; and what I can confirm is that there is now 19,308 people on the social housing wait-list, and that is down from 26,000 under a Labour-Greens Government that didn’t care about vulnerable people.
Question No. 9—Local Government
9. NANCY LU (National) to the Minister of Local Government: What recent announcements has he made on getting councils back to basics?
Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Local Government): This Government is getting councils back to basics, focusing on the core services Kiwis rely on. Too much ratepayer money is being spent on lower priorities instead of roads, water, waste, and infrastructure. The bill introduced this week—the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill—restores focus and tightens financial rules. When councils lose focus, rates go up, and that drives up the cost of living. We’re putting ratepayers first, and bringing back the discipline needed to deliver results for Kiwis. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Excuse me. Look, the noise in here is just far too much today, and I would particularly suggest that there is a lot of noise coming from the cross-bench to my left that needs to stop.
Nancy Lu: How will refocusing councils on core services deliver better outcomes for ratepayers?
Hon SIMON WATTS: Well, Kiwis expect their rates to go towards the basics: fixing roads, keeping water running, and collecting the rubbish. Kiwis are frustrated with rising rates, expanding bureaucracy, and poor value for money. This bill makes sure that councils focus on what matters most, not on pet projects or distractions. It’s about getting the basics right, delivering better services, and ensuring Kiwis get what they pay for.
Nancy Lu: Supplementary.
Hon Member: Libraries. Sports fields.
SPEAKER: Someone is on their feet to ask a question, and someone just called out—second row of the cross-benches.
Nancy Lu: How will the new performance measures improve the quality and consistency of services?
Hon SIMON WATTS: For too long, ratepayers have not been able to see how their council is performing. This bill changes that. We’re setting new performance measures requiring councils to publicly report on spending, including what they pay contractors and consultants. This is about transparency, accountability, and giving ratepayers the tools to see where their money is going and whether they’re getting value for money.
Nancy Lu: What other steps is the Government taking to lift the performance of local councils and deliver better outcomes for communities?
Hon SIMON WATTS: Well, this Government is tapping into the root causes of poor performance, not papering over the cracks. We’re looking at tools like rates capping to stop unnecessary increases, and cutting red tape so that councils focus on delivering the basics. This Government is focused on ensuring value for money and better results for local communities.
Question No. 10—Economic Growth
10. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister for Economic Growth: Does she stand by her statement, “I think New Zealanders will judge our government on what we do and what we deliver”; if so, how does she think New Zealanders will judge the Government’s ability to deliver jobs, when 47,000 people left New Zealand for Australia last year?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister for Economic Growth): Yes, I stand by that statement. In terms of how New Zealanders will judge the Government’s ability to deliver jobs, I would invite them to compare how the actual unemployment rate under this Government compares with what was being forecast would be the case under the previous Government. I can share with the member that the actual numbers of unemployed people have been consistently lower in every quarter under this Government than the previous Government was forecasting would be the case, prior to the election. It is certainly the case that the economy has been through a very tough period, and that is why our Government has been so focused on getting inflation and interest rates under control and encouraging growth and job creation. There is more to be done, but we are taking the right steps.
Hon Ginny Andersen: How can her Government claim it’s creating jobs when half of New Zealand households say that work is hard to find?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, consistent with my answer to the previous question, it has been forecast by Treasury and other economic entities since the last Government was in power that unemployment would be peaking at around this point. What is good news—which the member is yet to reflect on—is that the rate of unemployment is lower than she was forecasting in her Cabinet.
Hon Ginny Andersen: Does she agree with Christopher Luxon, who said, “New Zealand is where the opportunities are—not Australia”; if so, how does she explain the 47,000 New Zealanders who saw no future for themselves here, under her Government?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Yes, I absolutely support the patriotism of the Prime Minister, who has the good sense to say that New Zealanders should pursue their ambitions and aspirations here. If the member takes a different view, that she wants New Zealanders to leave for Australia, then she should ask herself what she’s doing in this House because when I come to work each day, I see it as my mission to make sure that this is an economy that does catch up with Australia, that doesn’t allow the wealth gap to persist, that actually removes some of the barriers that stop us digging wealth from the ground and that stop us making developments happen, and that doesn’t chase talent and capital out the door with new taxes. So, yes, we’re on a mission. This is a wonderful country. New Zealanders should stay here, because this Government is going to back them to succeed.
Hon Ginny Andersen: Does she agree with the Deputy Prime Minister, David Seymour, in his view the numbers of New Zealanders leaving is always a bad sign; if not, why not?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Yes, it is always my aspiration that New Zealanders feel they can pursue their ambitions here in New Zealand. What I always take note of is how we compare with Australia, and that’s why I was delighted that in the first three months of this year, New Zealand grew four times as fast as Australia. One quarter isn’t enough; we need that to occur again and again and again, which is why we are on the mission to ensure this is a better place to do business, a better place to employ people, and a better place to make resources into incomes and opportunities for New Zealanders. The member can be very critical, but I am yet to hear a single idea for how you would make this country better.
SPEAKER: Well, as much as things might be better if I did have the opportunity, it’s not for me to do that, so please be careful of the use of the word “you”.
Hon David Seymour: Who would want a Deputy Prime Minister who said that New Zealanders leaving the country was a good sign, and is it possible that would be true if the New Zealander in question was Ginny Andersen?
SPEAKER: No—no answer to that. [Interruption] Just a moment. That’s the last warning for the Hon David Seymour. Do not use—[Interruption] Sorry—well, do you want me to not have that? We’ll just go straight to: out of the House. Don’t use question time to attack the Opposition. It’s very clear in the Standing Orders.
Hon Ginny Andersen: Did this Government confuse its “Everyone must go” tourism strategy with its approach to jobs—no work, low pay, and hard-working Kiwis lining up for Australia?
Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I’m finding this occupation of the moral high ground rather curious when I note that Statistics New Zealand report that the net migration loss from New Zealand to Australia in 2024 was almost exactly the same as it was in 2023, and I do not recall the member at that time taking responsibility for every New Zealander who chose to pursue their fortunes elsewhere.
Question No. 11—Vocational Education
11. Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) to the Minister for Vocational Education: What recent actions has the Government taken to restore regional decision-making in vocational education and training?
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS (Minister for Vocational Education): It was clear to us from the start that Labour’s mega-merger of all regional polytechnics into one unwieldy national institution simply wouldn’t work—and it didn’t. So we are breaking it up: from 1 January next year, 10 regional polytechnics will be re-established with their own governance and decision making. We’re putting vocational education and training back into the hands of local communities where it belongs, delivering on what we campaigned for and what regional New Zealand has been asking for. This is a major milestone in building a system that is financially sustainable, responsible to employers, and focused on the future.
Dr Vanessa Weenink: What does this mean for the people of Christchurch and Canterbury?
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: Canterbury’s polytechnic, Ara, plays a critical role in supporting Canterbury’s strong and diverse economy, particularly in trades, health, engineering, and technology. Restoring local governance puts decision making back in the hands of the region, where communities and industries know best what skills are needed. Returning Ara to local control will ensure it remains agile, practical, and deeply connected to the Canterbury economy and wider regional industries. It puts proud Cantabrians back in charge of shaping their workforce, and it sets Ara up for long-term success, supporting Canterbury as a regional powerhouse. This is great news for Canterbury.
Catherine Wedd: What does this mean for the communities of Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti?
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: The Eastern Institute of Technology—EIT—has always been a trusted regional provider of skills training, from horticulture and viticulture through to trades, hospitality, business, and nursing. EIT has been something of a poster child for regional polytechnics. Restoring local governance means EIT can reconnect closely with employers, iwi, and communities to make sure training meets the needs of this important region’s recovery and growth. After years of uncertainty, the people of Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti will once again have a vocational provider they can be proud of.
Tākuta Ferris: Can she guarantee that regional polytechnics and institutes of technology and polytechnics won’t be unfairly penalised for any financial underperformance they may experience over the short to mid-term, as they re-establish themselves as independent regional providers again?
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: We have undertaken, over the last year, significant financial work with all of the individual polytechnics to ensure that they have a pathway to financial viability. When they are turned back into regionally run and managed polytechnics, those communities will take responsibility and accountability for ensuring they stay on that pathway and maintain their sustainability.
Stuart Smith: What does this mean for the top of the South Island?
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology has been an integral part of the Nelson-Marlborough communities, supporting the marine, aquaculture, viticulture, health, and engineering sectors. Returning it to regional governance means learners in Nelson, Marlborough, and Tasman will once again have a provider that reflects their economy and aspirations. I know that local mayor Nick Smith is delighted with this outcome. It’s about backing local decision making and ensuring skills training fits the region’s skills, strengths, industries, and future opportunities.
Hon Mark Patterson: Can the Minister confirm the future of the Telford agricultural training facility in Clutha?
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: I acknowledge the member’s keen support of Telford and New Zealand First’s advocacy of Telford. Telford campus, as part of the Southern Institute of Technology—SIT—is one of the 10 polytechnics that will be stood up on 1 January 2026. Telford has a proud history of serving this country’s $60 billion primary sector, and with its unique on-farm, practical delivery of agricultural training, it achieves great employment outcomes. I know that the agricultural sector around the country will be delighted that Telford is likely to be the recipient of some of the $20 million strategic fund—
SPEAKER: Yep, good.
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: —that has been reprioritised from back office—
SPEAKER: Good.
Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: —into front line, and we’re proud to support Telford.
SPEAKER: I think I should put a price on advertorials.
Question No. 12—Housing
12. Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Housing: Has the number of people sleeping rough, as defined by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, increased since he became Associate Minister of Housing?
Hon TAMA POTAKA (Associate Minister of Housing): Rough sleepers are a subset of those Kiwis unfortunately living without shelter in the census. Now, the number of rough sleepers increased between Census 2018 and 2023 and there’s no current single source of data for the number of rough sleepers as of today. Anecdotal reports and comments in this House and, actually, from some providers in some locations observe an increase in rough sleeping, but also acknowledge that there are various potential contributing causes for any changes: the cost of living, economy, mental health, and of course the lack of prudent spending by previous Governments. That’s why I’m supportive of the exemplary Going for Housing Growth mahi that is being led by Minister Bishop to ensure that more of the right houses in the right places are built for Kiwis in need.
Hon Peeni Henare: Can he explain why homelessness in Tāmaki Makaurau rose almost 150 percent in just three months, as reported in the December 2024 insights report?
Hon TAMA POTAKA: I cannot recall that data point being referenced to me as a single source of truth data point. There may be some anecdotal reports in relation to that number, but what I can say is this: homelessness is something that continues to confront many, many Kiwis, and this Government is absolutely supportive of an intention to ensure more houses, the right type and the right place, are built for Kiwis in need.
Hon Peeni Henare: How can he justify cuts to emergency housing when Māori in Tāmaki Makaurau make up 50 percent of those in need?
Hon TAMA POTAKA: I am unaware of any cuts to emergency housing. What I am aware of is there is absolute clarification of what is a genuine need for a short-term stay in temporary accommodation, and I’m very proud to say that in addition to the 2,125 children that have left emergency housing, expedited under priority 1, there’s an additional 1,000 children as well—so over 3,000 children have left emergency housing and the dank, dark, nefarious places that were, of course, supported by the previous Government.
Hon Peeni Henare: Does he believe he’s making New Zealand a better place for rangatahi to live, given that about half the homeless population that have risen under his watch are under the age of 25?
Hon TAMA POTAKA: I can confidently and proudly say that we are making Aotearoa New Zealand a better place to live for the over 3,000 kids that have come out of those dark, catastrophic emergency motels and hotels since this Government came into administration.
Hon Peeni Henare: Why does he still refuse to admit that homelessness and rough sleeping has increased under his watch, when his own official documents show a significant increase in homelessness and sleeping rough since he became Minister—an increase which front-line providers attribute to his policies directly?
Hon TAMA POTAKA: What we have seen in various homelessness insights reports is that there is not one single cause for any reported rises in homelessness—whether or not that be rough sleeping or sleeping in cars. What we also note is that there is a serious cost of living and economic crisis that is confronting a number of towns and cities in this country. That’s why I stand here behind the Minister of Finance to support what she’s doing to get this economy back on track and actually build more houses for Kiwis that are in genuine need.
SPEAKER: That concludes oral questions. There will be members who need to leave the House for other business. Could they do so quickly, quietly, and without conversation on the way.
Parliamentary Service Commission
Membership
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Leader of the House): I seek leave to move a motion without notice or debate on an appointment to the Parliamentary Service Commission.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I move, That under section 15(1)(d) of the Parliamentary Service Act 2000, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi be appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Service Commission.
Motion agreed to.
Bills
Online Casino Gambling Bill
First Reading
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister of Internal Affairs): I present a legislative statement on the Online Casino Gambling Bill.
SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: I move, That the Online Casino Gambling Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 17 November 2025.
I’m pleased to be here today to present the Online Casino Gambling Bill. This bill is about ensuring that New Zealanders who wish to play on online casinos can do so on regulated websites in a safer market, where operators follow our requirements for harm minimisation and consumer protection and contribute financially to New Zealand. This bill will allow for up to 15 vetted and licensed operators to conduct and advertise their online casino platform in New Zealand while prohibiting unlicensed online casinos from operating in New Zealand.
Online casino gambling has been around for a long time in New Zealand. Every day, Kiwis are gambling on offshore websites with thousands of options available at the click of a button. Data from the Ministry of Health shows that 156,000 New Zealand adults have participated in online overseas gambling in the past year, and this number is likely increasing. Unlike physical casinos in New Zealand, these online operators do not need to meet harm prevention and minimisation standards. They don’t even need to check if the people playing are of age. They also don’t have any consumer protection regulations, so someone gambling on these websites might be unable to withdraw their winnings or money that they’ve deposited.
These online casinos are also not currently contributing to the cost of providing support services for gambling harm in New Zealand. This bill will require all online casino operators licensed in New Zealand to contribute 1.24 percent of their profits to the problem gambling levy, which is used to fund services to reduce gambling harm.
This bill will establish a licensing process to enable the Secretary for Internal Affairs to grant up to 15 licences to allow operators to conduct online casino gambling. Companies that do not receive a licence will not be allowed to operate or advertise in New Zealand, and could face penalties for doing so. Allocating up to 15 licences will provide consumers who wish to gamble with sufficient variety and choice while maintaining a competitive market. This is important in order to facilitate channelling consumers to the regulated market and away from any illegal operators. It will also minimise the regulatory burden of the scheme and ensure that the Department of Internal Affairs, as the regulator, is well positioned to enforce the system and take action against any black market operators.
The bill does allow licensed operators to advertise with limitations, including not advertising to children. This is, again, part of channelling customers towards safer regulated operators and away from illegal ones. Detailed rules about the form, content, timing, location, and volume of advertisements, as well as the use of third-party endorsements, will be set out in the regulations. This follows a very similar process and practice to the Gambling Act 2003, where the specific rules are set out in regulations rather than legislation, so they are easy to update as technology changes.
One of the biggest harm prevention changes that this bill will introduce is to require online gambling operators to verify that all of their players are aged 18 and over, to stop children from accessing these sites. Operators will need to use a suitable age verification tool before customers can play on those websites. Both Lotto and the TAB currently use online age verification systems effectively, as well as many other gambling companies around the world. While adults may choose to gamble—and we want them to be able to do so safely—I’ve been very clear that I do not want children gambling.
Operators will also be required to exclude problem gamblers, whether the player identifies themselves as having a problem or the operator identifies them as problem gamblers. The detailed requirements for this will be set out in the regulations.
Preventing gambling harm is the primary purpose of this bill. However, it is also important that online gambling companies offering services to New Zealanders pay their fair share of tax. Licensed operators will be required to pay GST and the offshore gambling duty of 12 percent, which goes to the Crown to fund core services. This is in addition to the 1.24 percent of profits which must be paid to the problem gambling levy to fund support services for gambling harm in New Zealand.
The Department of Internal Affairs will enforce the new regulatory system armed with a suite of penalties, from formal warnings up to licence cancellations, for any operators that do not follow the rules. The department will be able to request information from companies, investigate potential breaches, and take action where appropriate. Fines of up to $5 million can be applied for breaches of the rules. I am confident that the department will be able to carry out this role as it is already the regulator for physical gambling in New Zealand, such as with casinos and pokies.
The cost of setting up and running the regulatory team will be fully cost recovered from fees from the licensed operators. The department will also have strong relationships with similar regulators overseas to help take action against any offshore companies that breach our laws.
New Zealand is one of the last OECD countries to regulate online gambling. This gives us an advantage in that we can learn from other jurisdictions about how to appropriately and safely regulate our market.
I’m proud to introduce this bill to take action on regulating online casinos. I know that many New Zealanders are interested in this bill and will want to have a say on the proposals. I hope that everyone who wants to have input will submit during the select committee process.
In conclusion, this bill will ensure that New Zealand has controls in place to keep Kiwis safe if they want to participate in online casino gambling. I commend this bill to the House.
SPEAKER: Before I call the member, can I just indicate to the House, as notified to parties, this will be treated as a personal vote. Whips, of course, can vote according to proxies they hold.
LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE (Labour—Māngere): Talofa, Mr Speaker. I rise as Labour’s spokesperson on internal affairs to give my contribution. I support the regulation of online casino gambling; in fact, this work began under the previous Government. However, I oppose this bill.
I am concerned that this bill opens up doors to offshore gambling casinos without a strong plan for harm reduction. Everyone should be able to stay healthy and get the care when they need it, and having an online gambling addiction is no different. I want to see that the Government does more to protect vulnerable people from online gambling harm, particularly in vulnerable communities such as Māori, Pasifika, ethnic, and Asian communities, who are way overrepresented in gambling harm.
My concern, specifically, about this bill is that it allows far too many online casino licences: 15. Why the 15? With information from IRD, it shows that 36 offshore online gambling operators pay GST in New Zealand, with 15 of these accounting for over 90 percent of the total GST from this type of business, and it appears that the Minister of Internal Affairs has taken this approach of least resistance. Does the Minister have sufficient focus on preventing gambling harm—in fact, the internal best practice on gambling harm reduction, like offshore in Australia, which has introduced better, stronger measures on gambling harm reduction?
It is important that the Government is serious about supporting the reduction of online harm and, specifically, consumer protection, because the bill in its current form does not address those particular actions wholeheartedly. They are listed vaguely. The bill needs stronger provisions and a commitment from the Government to measures to reduce online gambling harm, specifically in primary legislation. We want—I want—New Zealanders to be protected from online gambling harm, and also New Zealand consumers must be protected.
We’ve seen even today that the Prime Minister has been weak in his leadership, and it’s the same reflection on this bill—it’s weak. There are many cuts—
SPEAKER: You can’t make a statement like that.
LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE: Apologies, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: The member will withdraw and apologise.
LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE: I withdraw that, Mr Speaker. But what I wanted to say is there have been many—
Tim Costley: And apologise.
SPEAKER: She has apologised.
LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE: There have been many cuts on women’s pay. It’s hard to see a doctor or a nurse, and the price of getting medical assistance has become more expensive. Whilst families across New Zealand struggle with the cost of living, this is the one bill that is going to make New Zealanders waste more money from their hard-earned cash through the exploitation from and the exposure to more online gambling, and this is causing gambling harm to Kiwis every day.
I have a particular concern that Kiwis cannot focus on making good decisions, having peace of mind on paying their bills, and caring for their families because many have lost jobs and businesses as a vital plan for their future. Instead, what we have is that in this bill, the Government is going to open New Zealand up to a saturation of online casino gambling licences, meaning that New Zealanders will be open to more exploitation and more online gambling harm. Why is the Government not protecting New Zealanders? What is the Government thinking? Fifteen Government licences or platforms—[Interruption]
SPEAKER: Right, someone is going to leave the House. That’s quite unacceptable. Your time will be extended by 30 seconds.
LEMAUGA LYDIA SOSENE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill will be problematic in New Zealand. It will bring in short-term profits and convenience, and it will have a long-term negative effect. We know that it’s an unregulated market, and I support a regulated market, but not with this bill in its current form. I do not support this bill.
BENJAMIN DOYLE (Green): E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnei te mihi maioha ki a koe. Ki a koutou ngā Minita o te Kāwanatanga me ngā mema o Pāremata, kei te mihi ki a koutou katoa hoki.
[Mr Speaker, this is a most gracious greeting to you. To you, the Ministers of the Government and the members of Pāremata, I acknowledge all of you also.]
Te Pāti Kākāriki have long held that all gambling legislation must focus primarily on the elimination of harm. It is the industry itself and its insidious tendrils of coercion that devastate individuals, whānau, and communities. We must focus on addressing the root causes of these harms and always work to protect the humanity of those who have been caught up in its web. Here the system is broken, not the people who are suffering under it.
Online gambling is a new, rapidly evolving and changing frontier. It brings 24/7 gambling into people’s houses and allows it to be easily hidden from friends and whānau by being accessible on small devices such as cellphones. As with many things online, there are challenges in validating and regulating. People can pose as whoever they want to be online, especially in instances where gambling is surreptitiously embedded in otherwise seemingly innocuous gaming apps. Left unchecked and without appropriate regulation, it allows an environment for young people to have unlimited access to online gambling sites. Not doing enough to regulate online gambling effectively isolates those most vulnerable to developing problem-gambling habits. This risk and its correlating harms will only compound, as problem gambling amongst those who gamble online is 10 times higher than that of the general population.
We know that, due to predatory and targeted marketing tactics, Māori and Pasifika communities are more vulnerable to the economically, psychologically, socially, and spiritually destructive nature of gambling. This is a Te Tiriti issue. Despite her words in the House today, I note that the Minister’s paper to Cabinet regarding this bill explicitly states that tax revenue is a key factor driving this regulation, rather than harm reduction. This is a fatal error. We must centre the lives and needs of communities, especially those most affected by decisions such as this. Regulation and tax generation are mechanisms to achieve that, but they should not be the primary objective. Legislation must prioritise people, not profit. It is appalling, in an industry which is explicitly affecting Māori more than any other population group, that this piece of proposed legislation has utterly ignored the voice and expertise of Māori communities. Iwi leaders expressed that it is astounding, disappointing, and concerning that the Minister has failed to meaningfully work with tangata whenua on this bill.
The Problem Gambling Foundation, harm reduction advocates, and community experts have all called for this bill to go further. If she were here, I would ask the Minister to consider banning gambling advertising altogether.
SPEAKER: The member will recognise that it is totally inappropriate to reflect on the presence or otherwise of anyone in the House. Withdraw and apologise for that statement.
BENJAMIN DOYLE: I withdraw and apologise for that statement. The Problem Gambling Foundation and all others have asked for this bill to go further. I asked the Minister to consider banning gambling advertising altogether, as this is one of the most direct and ubiquitous coercion techniques, which directly leads to harm. Why not also redistribute a far greater proportion of the profits generated through tax and licensing directly to the organisations and advocates working on the ground to reduce gambling harms?
I stand here to voice the Greens’ strong criticism of this bill for its flimsy and ineffective attempt at reducing the devastating harms of online problem gambling. We have an opportunity to meaningfully enact the advice and recommendations of experts and those who have had experiences of harmful gambling. We have an opportunity to prioritise human wellbeing rather than the profits of the offshore gambling industry. However, we understand that, while this bill only scratches the surface of what is possible in gambling harm reduction, it is a small first step in the right direction. The Greens will support this bill to select committee with the intention of engaging fulsomely and critically with our colleagues from across the House in order to strengthen this proposed legislation.
Tim Costley: Mr Speaker?
BENJAMIN DOYLE: For that reason, I commend this bill to the House.
Tim Costley: Mr Speaker?
SPEAKER: I’ll call you when I’m ready and not before. Some people on that side of the House need to be just a little bit more respectful of how the Chair works.
TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki): Pleasing to hear some kind of guarded support from the Green Party. I’m not quite sure where Labour landed with their speech. Look, I’m not much of a fan of gambling, and as—
Arena Williams: Then vote with your conscience.
TIM COSTLEY: Oh, well, if you listen, that’s where we’re getting to. As the last speaker, Benjamin Doyle, said, the rapid pace of change with online gambling: you know, it is deregulated, it’s all run from overseas—listed off a whole bunch of things that they’re concerned about. That’s the whole point of this bill, though. The whole point is there is no regulation; we should have some. There are no rules that say you should ascertain the identification of that person or that they’re 18; maybe we should have some. There is no money coming in to get channelled back into the harm that can come from gambling; we should do that. That’s what this bill does, and if members opposite actually bothered to read it, they might be more engaged in the process.
So I’m commending this bill. Let’s take it to select committee; let’s do that, and let’s actually bring in some regulation to temper this rather than just fighting based on some kind of ideology.
JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Online Casino Gambling Bill. This bill is to stop the unregulated situation that we find ourselves in at the moment. This bill will create a robust framework to regulate online casino gambling and protect consumers and minimise harm. We want to make sure that only trustworthy operators are allowed to operate in the online gambling market. These trustworthy operators must be subject and accountable to New Zealand standards, not overseas standards. Currently, this industry is very prone to exploitation and we’re keen to bring this to an end.
Sending this to the select committee is the right thing—to hear submissions, to hear concerns, and to see if this piece of legislation goes in the right direction. One concern we do have is what we have heard from other speakers is up to 15 licences, and that will be dealt with over three stages of a licence process. It will be really interesting to hear from people around, actually, if we do need 15 operators in this space or up to 15 operators. Maybe it is a case that we start off more with three or five. That is process, I think, we can flesh out through the select committee.
We’ve also heard it is a growing pastime of a number of people to use this. It is a 24/7 access to this gambling. It’s not necessarily like racehorses or Lotto in that sense, but 24/7. We do understand that the harm—especially for our young people if they can get access to this, but even just harm for the general population. So we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got some safeguards in place.
New Zealand First does believe in balancing the economic opportunities, because we have heard that there will be an increased tax take, but also the social responsibility that goes around that. This bill achieves—to an extent at the moment—trying to get the right type of balance. The focus on the harm minimisation and the consumer protection aligns with our commitment to community wellbeing. On that, I will commend the bill to the House, and we look forward to hearing through select committee the different views from people that go through that process. Thank you.
TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. I tēnei tū tuatahi ōku, otirā mō Te Pāti Māori i tō mātou hokinga mai ki te Whare i te wehenga ake nei o tō mātou tuahine, a Takutaimoana. E te tuahine, e moe, okioki.
Hoki rawa mai ki a tāua, e te Pīka, tēnā koe. Tēnā hoki tātou.
E tū ana ahau ki te whakapuaki i ngā whakaaro o Te Pāti Māori mō tēnei tūāhuatanga, nō reira kia tahuri au ki ngā kōrero.
[Thank you, Mr Speaker. With this first speech of mine, indeed for the Māori Party upon our return to the House following the departure of our sister, Takutaimoana. To my sister, sleep well, take your rest.
Returning to you and I, Mr Speaker, greetings. Greetings also to all of us.
I stand to express the opinions of the Māori Party regarding this phenomenon, therefore let me turn to the statements.]
Although it may be true that a regulated online gambling industry is better than an unregulated one, gambling does nothing for Māori. Never has, never will, and neither will this bill. We do not need overseas companies profiting off our misery, and we cannot support a bill that will legalise the exploitation of our people and all of the people of Aotearoa. The Minister expects that most, if not all, of the licences will be won by offshore companies, who are under absolutely no obligation to reinvest any of the income derived back into communities in Aotearoa. The bill is a simple tax-raising exercise, and if this Government is involved in deciding how to spend that money, we know that the communities that need it the most won’t see a cent.
The ministry’s own evidence shows us that the bill will have a disproportionate impact on Māori, Pasifika, rangatahi, and our whānau with lifelong disabilities. Māori are more than three times more likely to be entrapped by problem gambling than other New Zealanders, and problem gambling has had a devastating impact on the cohesion, cultural identity, and financial stability of whānau Māori for generations. Pacific peoples are more than twice as likely to be entrapped by problem gambling than other New Zealanders, also. Gambling harm is already ripping through our communities. We don’t need a band-aid fix that legalises and regulates these harmful practices; we need to stop enabling these corporations altogether.
Unfortunately, this bill only promotes pure international corporate exploitation, with no positive social contribution at all. For sure, there will be a monetary return, but only to the few. Almost half of all rangatahi Māori between the ages of 16 and 24 have gambled in the last year, and they make up 15 percent of all moderate- to high-risk gamblers. This is something that we can’t afford to promote, increase, or exacerbate at all. People with lifelong disabilities have a higher risk of developing harmful gambling behaviour. Social isolation, unemployment, and limited income are all risk factors that contribute to gambling harm. This Government has already taken away the minimum wage pay top-up for our disabled whānau, and now they are legalising a gambling regime that could potentially do even more harm. It’s not acceptable.
Online casino companies are offering Māori influencers hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote online gambling and target our whānau. Hāpai Te Hauora Chief Operating Officer Jason Alexander is quoted as saying this: “These gambling companies are [now] using Māori influencers to reach Māori audiences. It’s not just harmful—it’s calculated, it’s manipulative, and it shows they have no regard for the wellbeing of whānau [Māori or the people of Aotearoa].” This bill does nothing to prevent licensed operators from engaging in these predatory practices. In fact, the Government are legalising these practices through this bill. It shouldn’t be allowed. He’s also on the record as saying, “What’s really worrying is that these same companies—the ones illegally targeting our people now—could be operating legally here [in Aotearoa] as early as next year. Their current behaviour shows exactly how little they care about whānau, and if this is how they act before regulation, [then] what will they do once they’re in the system?”
We support the cause of Hāpai Te Hauora to ban gambling advertising in Aotearoa completely. We also cannot support a bill whose department didn’t even bother to do a proper Te Tiriti o Waitangi analysis. Instead, they relied on a July 2024 Cabinet paper which included a population implications assessment.
SPEAKER: The member’s time has passed.
Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Government bill, the Online Casino Gambling Bill. This bill will provide some regulation in the space of the wild, wild west that is international-based gambling in New Zealand. It does real harm in our communities. At the moment, there is no regulation, and therefore we are creating a method by which things will become illegal—not just creating a path for them to be legalised but also, we point out, everything that’s not within those licence boundaries will be illegal. So I commend the bill to the House.
CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand today a bit disappointed, really, with the bill that we have in front of us. The reason for that is that this was really an opportunity to regulate an unregulated market and actually address the main issue with online gambling, which is online harm.
Unfortunately, the good work started under the previous Government in order to regulate and make a reasonable environment where there are a few operators able to be regulated and also provide a significant amount of time and resources to address gambling harm—on the contrary, this bill that we now have before us looks to allow 15 different operators licences within New Zealand. The result of that will be a change in a situation where we are facing ads constantly when we open our phone, when we open our laptop, when our kids log on to YouTube, for online gambling. Unlike the situation now, where that’s technically illegal to advertise for online gambling, this will now be permitted after this bill has passed.
My personal view, as this is a conscience vote, is that there should be a regulated system in New Zealand for online gambling, but, regretfully, what we have in front of us is only going to make that situation worse. Fifteen is far too many. When the last Government looked at this bill, they were considering around—I understand—three. So there’s a significant difference there in what people were looking at.
I think perhaps one of the reasons that the Minister has ended a little bit off the mark on this bill has been because when this was first introduced—and we see that from the two regulatory impact statements; the first one clearly states that there hasn’t been sufficient time to consult with the people who this would affect. So there hasn’t been feedback from public consultation on this proposal. And by the time the second regulatory impact statement was made to Cabinet, the decisions had already been made about the regime that was going to be put in place. Unfortunately, this regime will allow far too many online gambling operators to operate in New Zealand.
We know online gambling does harm. We know that gambling does harm. We know that this is not something that we want to encourage people into. So I think a reasonable stand to take would be to have a regulated market that really looks at the harm it causes. But the environment that this bill will create, as I’ve said, is one where we are constantly faced with advertising for online gambling.
There is a bit of irony when I look at what this bill will do and the recent statements that the Government has made in relation to preventing online harm for children and young people. The Government has said that they will have a Government bill making sure that social media is only available to those over 16. This bill—although technically you’re only able to participate in online gambling once you’re over 18, and I hope that the verification methods are robust—will actually probably mean that even with those verification methods, children and young people are subjected to what is an addictive form of spending your time, spending your money, and they will see that normalised. There’s information within these regulatory impact statements and there’s information from advocates against problem gambling that show that when it is advertised, it becomes normalised. We know that because of this regime, there will be legitimate advertising taking place in New Zealand.
I think this is a missed opportunity. The Government should have taken a step to reduce gambling harm. They should have taken steps that looked at the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders. They should have taken steps that meant that people were less likely to be subjected to advertising for online gambling than they are now. Unfortunately, this bill does the exact opposite. It brings in far too many licences all at once and it means that advertising is a lot more likely. So it is regretful that we do not have a regulatory regime—which we sorely need in this country—which will truly address gambling harm.
So, with that, I say my personal view on this conscience matter is that I will not be supporting this bill. However, I am on the Governance and Administration Committee and I look forward to hearing submissions if this bill does pass through the House and looking to see if there are improvements that can be made to this bill to better reflect the harm that online gambling does to our communities. So, with that, I cannot commend this bill to the House but I ask those on the other side to treat this seriously, look to their conscience, and if this bill does indeed go through, try and make significant changes to this bill which would actually look to reduce the harm of gambling that we know is so great within New Zealand’s community.
TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s been interesting to listen to the contributions that we’ve had so far. What I do want to say is this bill is about ensuring that we have a regulated online casino gambling market in New Zealand—better than what we currently have, which is completely unregulated; a complete Wild West scenario where anybody can operate an online gambling service here in New Zealand.
What we’re simply saying is there will be 15 licences available. We can regulate it up to—as Todd Stephenson correctly says—15 licences available. We can actually regulate it here in New Zealand so we actually know who the operators are rather than what happens at present where it’s an ad hoc scheme where absolutely anyone can partake in it. I think it will be for the betterment of New Zealand and for all of us to have a greater understanding of what the online casino gambling market looks like. Therefore, I commend it to the House.
ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Mr Speaker, thank you. There’s a time-honoured tradition in this House that issues like gambling, like alcohol, and like prostitution reform have been treated as conscience issues, and so it is right that in this debate, members are afforded the opportunity to speak to their values and the values of those people that they represent, in an issue as important as this one. I think it shows us where we have gotten to with this coalition Government, that National, speech after speech, has been about whether we accept this regime—which does very little to improve the situation, if not make it worse—or do nothing. That is not what members are called to do in issues of conscience. This is an issue where every member should be thinking about how best to serve those communities that we represent in this House.
I want to talk about how this bill impacts rangatahi and young people, and how the situation will be made worse by this Government regulation, which does not go as far as it should, which does not go as far as the previous Government would have. Have National members asked their Ministers to discuss this? Have there been National caucus meetings about this issue where 15 licences are going to be granted to now Government-sanctioned online gambling that will then legally advertise to young people? Have they asked why it’s 15 and not one or two? Have they asked how this will now impact the young people in their communities they represent?
Well, this is about the young man who I met over the holidays. He’s a mate of the sister of my husband, and he dropped out of university as a promising, young engineering student at 20 years old, addicted to online poker. His friends knew him as a poker star, but that leads you down a course of an addictive and, fundamentally, harmful hobby and pursuit, which the Minister of Internal Affairs says, “Well, if adults choose to do this, then good on them.” But her changes miss all of the kinds of harm reductions that are needed to make sure that more young people like him are not going down this path and, ultimately, giving up the promising careers of the type that he had and the kind of opportunities in life that he had, because they become addicted to what is a fundamentally harmful and much worse situation than going down to the pokies and putting a bet on the horses over a pint of beer with your mates, because it’s in your room, at midnight, online, in a way which does not have any of the harm reduction tools available—but could have.
This Minister could have introduced a bill today—the work has been done—that included reduction of online harm for young people, that included reduction of harms for people in the digital space, that that Government says it prioritises. Why are we considering a social media ban for young people if we don’t believe that there are genuine digital harms to young people that Government is poorly equipped to deal with now, that tech giants are actively advertising to young people in a way that they know will get them hooked—influencers who are out there peddling gambling to 16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds. Now, this bill would allow those 18-year-olds to still continue to be targeted in that exact way, where online harms through gambling, through things like loot boxes, through video games, are completely fine.
This bill misses the point. And it is a conscience issue. It is an issue for every member to look at their community and say, “Is it OK for me to go down to the local markets and know that one in three of the secondary students I talked to have gambled online? Is that OK? Is that the New Zealand I want to live in, and the community that I want to represent?” No, and that’s why I wouldn’t be heckling the member from Māngere who is speaking about the young Pacific people who are most affected by this Government’s failure. This is a bill which does not help them.
We have National members who say, “Read it”. I’ll read it: the Government’s regulatory impact statements—both of them—both point to the fact that the Government has not done this work. That there was not effective understanding of the community perspectives in this. That we have NGOs that are well-resourced to do this work, to engage with community groups, and there was not time to engage with them. That there has not been analysis about how this will impact young people—by the way, a generation of young people who are drinking less, who are engaged in less risky sex, who are doing fewer drugs.
This is a generation of good kids. They are doing their best, and yet they are gambling more. They have all experienced bullying online. They have all experienced online harm. And now the Government says that it’s fine to sanction 15 tech giants to get in their eyeballs, wherever they go online: social media, YouTube, Spotify—you name it. Everything will be pointed towards this destructive path where young people right now are turning away from the careers that they could have had, are getting addicted to something which is no good for them, and are getting into debt on their credit cards and on their parents’ credit cards. Shame on this Government.
DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): Fact: New Zealanders up and down this country are gambling online at the moment. This is why we’ve got a bill before us that regulates the sector and actually reduces the harm. I think this is a good thing. We can get tax from it. It is a formal sector, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.
SPEAKER: We come to the end of the debate. I have, as I previously indicated, according to the Standing Orders, treated this subject as a conscience issue. In this case, I know there are members who want to cast a personal vote, and I’m prepared to accept that. This is the process we are going to follow. I’m going to put the question, and I’m going to announce the result. At that stage, any member can ask for a personal vote. The question is that the motion be agreed to.
A personal vote was called for on the question, That the Online Casino Gambling Bill be now read a first time.
Ayes 83
| Abel (P) | Doocey (P) | McCallum (P) | Seymour (P) |
| Anderson (P) | Doyle | McClay (P) | Simmonds (P) |
| Arbuckle | Fleming (P) | McClure | Simpson (P) |
| Bates (P) | Foster (P) | McKee (P) | Smith (P) |
| Bayly (P) | Garcia (P) | Meager (P) | Stanford (P) |
| Bidois | Genter (P) | Menéndez March (P) | Stephenson |
| Bishop (P) | Goldsmith (P) | Mitchell (P) | Swarbrick (P) |
| Brewer (P) | Grigg (P) | Mooney (P) | Tuiono |
| Brown (P) | Hamilton (P) | Nakhle (P) | Uffindell (P) |
| Brownlee | Hernandez (P) | Nimon (P) | Upston (P) |
| Butterick | Hoggard | Parmar | van de Molen (P) |
| Cameron | Jones (P) | Patterson (P) | van Velden |
| Campbell (P) | Kirkpatrick | Paul (P) | Wade-Brown (P) |
| Carter (P) | Kuriger (P) | Penk (P) | Watts (P) |
| Cheung | Lee (P) | Peters (P) | Wedd (P) |
| Chhour (P) | Lu (P) | Pham (P) | Weenink |
| Collins (P) | Luxon (P) | Potaka (P) | Willis N (P) |
| Costello | Luxton C (P) | Pugh (P) | Willis S (P) |
| Costley (P) | Lyndon (P) | Redmayne (P) | Wilson |
| Court (P) | MacLeod (P) | Reti (P) | Xu-Nan (P) |
| Davidson M (P) | Marcroft (P) | Rutherford |
Noes 39
| Andersen | Hipkins (P) | O’Connor G (P) | Twyford (P) |
| Belich | Jackson (P) | Prime (P) | Utikere |
| Bennett (P) | Kapa-Kingi (P) | Radhakrishnan (P) | Verrall (P) |
| Boyack (P) | Leary (P) | Rurawhe (P) | Waititi (P) |
| Brooking (P) | Luxton J | Russell (P) | Walters (P) |
| Davidson R (P) | Maipi-Clarke (P) | Salesa (P) | Webb (P) |
| Edmonds (P) | McAnulty (P) | Sepuloni (P) | White (P) |
| Ferris | McLellan | Sosene | Williams |
| Halbert (P) | Ngarewa-Packer (P) | Tangaere-Manuel (P) | Woods |
| Henare (P) | O’Connor D (P) | Tinetti (P) |
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
SPEAKER: The question is, That the Online Casino Gambling Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.
Motion agreed to.
Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.
Instruction to Governance and Administration Committee
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister of Internal Affairs): I move, That the Online Casino Gambling Bill be reported to the House by 17 November 2025.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the motion be agreed to.
Ayes 68
New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 54
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 5.
Motion agreed to.
Bills
Employment Relations Amendment Bill
First Reading
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I present a legislative statement on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill.
SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN: I move, That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 17 November 2025.
I know that many businesses want to do the right thing by their workers, but they are facing increasing uncertainty about how employment law will be interpreted, and they face large potential costs if they get the law wrong. In particular, labour market regulations have become more complex, making it harder for employers and employees to reach solutions that work for both. Policies that were meant to benefit workers have only added to business uncertainty and the cost of doing business. Uncertainty and unreasonable costs discourage investment and hiring, locking Kiwi workers out of employment.
The policies in this bill aim to restore business confidence to hire and to increase opportunities for Kiwis. Flexible labour markets are the best environment for businesses to grow. When businesses thrive, our economy thrives, and it’s only with a strong economy that we can lift wages, create opportunities, and help Kiwis get ahead. With these objectives in mind, I’m introducing this Employment Relations Amendment Bill. The bill enhances labour market flexibility, reduces compliance costs, and rebalances the personal grievance setting. It implements several ACT-National coalition commitments and supports the Government’s Going for Growth agenda by helping to make New Zealand’s business settings more competitive with respect to employment.
The bill implements four policies: it provides greater certainty for contracting parties; it strengthens consideration of and accountability for the employee’s behaviour in the personal grievance process; it introduces an income threshold for unjustified dismissal personal grievances; and it removes the 30-day rule and associated compliance and information requirements to support the expansion of 90-day trials and reduce red tape.
I will now briefly describe each change and my reasons for proposing them. First, I’m providing greater certainty for contracting parties. Contractors play an important role in New Zealand’s economy and society. The reliability and efficiency of services provided by contractors is a hallmark of our modern age. Contracting arrangements also provide significant flexibility for workers, particularly those who cannot or do not want to commit to standard hours—for example, through gig work. However, currently a contractor can challenge their employment status in law despite being a contractor. This creates uncertainty and extra costs for business, potentially placing at-risk various business models that use contracting arrangements. To give greater weight to the intention of the contracting parties, the bill establishes a gateway test establishing an exclusion from the definition of “employee” in the Employment Relations Act.
This new approach will provide businesses with more certainty to protect—with innovative business models involving contractors where this is appropriate—and enable businesses to offer better terms and conditions to their contractors with less concern that it might impact the contractor’s status. By maintaining and growing contracting opportunities, I expect the new approach will help with the cost of living. This will especially benefit workers who cannot commit to standard hours or who find benefit in flexible work, like people who are job hunting or re-entering the job market, students, or parents with young children. This Government favours policies that create opportunities for these groups of people rather than narrowing their choices.
Secondly, I’m strengthening consideration of and accountability for the employee’s behaviour in the personal grievance process. The current remedy settings are imbalanced. Remedy reductions for contributory employee behaviour have decreased in recent years and instances of serious misconduct are still resulting in employees getting remedies. For example, in 2022, a restaurant worker was fired for stealing food from the restaurant, but the employer still had to pay the employee $21,000 in compensation for hurt and humiliation. In 2021, a truck driver was fired for falsifying information on their timesheet, but the employer had to pay the worker $10,500 in compensation for the humiliation and distress caused by the job loss and 13 weeks of lost wages.
These remedy settings reward poor behaviour and are not fair, so I’m introducing a suite of changes to address this imbalance, which are: removing eligibility for any remedies for employees whose behaviour amounts to serious misconduct, removing eligibility for reinstatement into a role and compensation for employees who contribute to the situation that led to the personal grievance, clarifying that the Employment Relations Authority and Employment Court have the full spectrum of remedy reductions—up to 100 percent—available to them, requiring the authority and court to consider if the employee’s behaviour obstructed the employer’s ability to meet their obligations to act as fair and reasonable employers, and increasing the threshold for procedural error to shift the focus solely to whether any errors in the employer’s process resulted in the employee being treated unfairly.
Next, I am introducing an income threshold for unjustified dismissal personal grievances. New Zealand’s current unjustified dismissal settings place a significant constraint on labour market flexibility. A poor-performing manager or executive can have a big flow-on effect for the entire business and create the risk of poor culture and low morale. So this bill introduces an income threshold of $180,000 per annum, above which a personal grievance for unjustified dismissal cannot be pursued. This change will provide greater labour market flexibility, enabling businesses to ensure that they have the best fit of skills and abilities for their organisation. It allows employers to give workers a go in high-impact positions without having to risk a costly and disruptive dismissal process if things don’t work out, benefiting the next generation of leaders to move up the career ladder.
Business and management practices have been shown internationally to be a key factor in determining firm productivity and export performance. However, research into New Zealand firms shows considerable room for improvement to reach best practice. By making it easier to remove poorly performing managers and executives while giving new talent a chance, I expect to help improve management capability and thereby lift economic performance across New Zealand. The bill preserves the ability of employers and employees to contract back into unjustified dismissal protection or to agree their own terms and conditions relating to dismissals.
Lastly, the bill improves freedom of choice and cuts red tape at the beginning of employment. Currently, if an employer is party to a collective agreement that covers the work of the new employee, an employee’s individual employment agreement terms must reflect the terms of the collective agreement for the first 30 days of their employment. This is known as the 30-day rule. The 30-day rule makes it difficult for employers and employees to agree bespoke terms and conditions, such as a 90-day trial for new employees. Expanding the availability of 90-day trials was an ACT-National coalition commitment that supports workers who may struggle to gain employment and, also, give employers greater confidence around hiring. The bill removes the requirement that the terms of a new employee’s employment agreement should reflect the terms of the applicable collective agreement for the first 30 days of employment. This expands opportunities for employees and employers, allowing them to agree on a wider range of employment terms at the very start of employment.
The minimum disclosure and related employer obligations that have existed since the Employment Relations Act was created are retained—for example, the employer would still need to inform an employee that a collective agreement exists. Retaining these provisions achieves the optimal balance between supporting freedom of choice and access to information to inform that choice for workers and reduces the compliance burden for employers.
In conclusion, this bill will enhance labour market flexibility, reduce compliance costs, and re-tilt the personal grievance system to better balance employer and employee interests and discourage poor behaviour. The outcomes of these changes will be a more productive economy with higher employment, higher wages, and thriving businesses. I commend this bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Here we go again. It’s a bit like Groundhog Day—the number of times that we have poor legislation that hurts workers from this Government and this House is just disgraceful. This is yet another piece of legislation that is a direct attack on workers. At least this time we are seeing that we’re going to have a select committee process—well, I hope that’s what we’re going to have—
Tangi Utikere: Nah, shortened.
Hon JAN TINETTI: —a select committee. Maybe it will be there, my colleague Tangi Utikere. But it just really fails to surprise anybody these days that we are seeing so much of an attack against our workers in this country, and this bill is certainly another display of that from this Government.
Based on what we heard from the Minister—that word “balance” again. How many times have we heard that? I would say to the Minister that there is never a power imbalance in the industrial situation where the employer has had their power taken away from them. It does not happen. All that is happening in this particular case and other legislation that has been like it has been that the worker has been put on the back foot completely and put into a situation where it is being made even more difficult for them. I’ve said it in this House before: I cannot understand why other parties in this coalition Government back up a situation where workers are put in such a terrible position.
First of all we hear about the contractors and introducing the gateway test for determining if someone is a contractor or an employee. I went to visit the Uber drivers last week who were taking their case to the Supreme Court, having had it go through the court twice that the courts had determined that they were employees and not contractors. Yet here is the Minister putting in a piece of legislation that has now the potential to absolutely overturn all of that work that they have done.
I heard what those Uber drivers have to put up with. I heard how they are taken on initially, thinking that maybe they are being respected as contractors, but that is not how it turns out to be for them. They are held absolutely under the thumb of their employer. The company absolutely holds them under that thumb and they have no discretion with that employer. I challenge any member of the other side of the House to go and talk to those drivers to understand the experience that those drivers have on a day-to-day basis. They are being treated as employees, and yet the company is saying, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, that’s not the case. They’re just choosing that.”, which is absolutely wrong. I am disgusted that we are having this discussion in the House here, once again questioning those people, those drivers, and putting them through this.
The other area that I want to talk about is the removing of the 30-day rule. All that’s about is the Minister has this overinflated view, which is completely wrong, that the unions have all this power and “we’re going to dismantle them and take them out of the industrial situation.” Firstly, I’d say, “Good luck with that.” But, secondly, I would say, “What is wrong with giving workers 30 days of protection of the collective agreement that exists within their workplace already?” Anybody who has an ounce of understanding of employment law about them understands that that is the protection that those workers need to get themselves into the workplace, to understand their job, and to understand their choices without having people sort of put it out there that maybe that’s not for them before they’ve even started in their job.
This is a Government who is absolutely hell-bent on putting the rights of the workers right to the bottom of the pile. It is absolutely shameful that we are seeing pieces of legislation time, time, and time again in this area. Labour absolutely opposes this bill and we look forward to hearing people against it in select committee.
RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): This is a Government that does not give a damn about working people in this country. We’ve seen it with the dismantling of pay equity, we’ve seen it with 90-day trials, and now we’re seeing it by a Government that is attacking our Uber drivers and people who have collective agreements in their workplaces that lift the wages and working conditions.
I can’t believe the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety when she tells us that this is a bill about higher productivity and higher wages. There’s nothing in this bill that delivers this. Actually, I think the Government members who have ever used an Uber should hang their heads in shame. They should realise that like many of us in this country who have benefited from the drivers who are currently being subjected to terrible conditions by Uber as a company, they have benefited from those drivers. They have gained time from being able to access a driver to take them to the constituency meetings, to the public meetings. They have benefited from the labour of those workers who right now are fighting through the court system to have their status as employees recognised. That would give them greater safety nets, greater protections, and better working conditions.
I think the next time that any Uber driver sees the Government members getting those services, I hope those drivers give them a zero-star rating as passengers because they will know that these are members of a Parliament who have decided to basically go on the side of the company—a massive company by the way, Uber—that has actually managed to drive down working conditions for people across the globe. Yet the members across the House are quite happy to go on their taxpayer-funded Uber trips while not actually addressing the working conditions of those very same drivers. Shame on the Government members who benefit from the labour of those workers and yet turn their backs on them when convenient and side with massive corporations raking it at a time of a cost of living and inequality crisis.
This bill also contains anti-union provisions by basically preventing workers from automatically being part of a collective agreement and being offered better working conditions. This has nothing to do with better wages or better working conditions, as the Minister has said, because, effectively, what it does is it creates more barriers for people to be part of a collective agreement where workers together can fight for better wages and the so-called higher productivity that the Minister claims to champion. If anything, all this bill will do is keep thousands of workers in lower-paid situations.
When we’re talking about some of the contractors in this bill—and I want to go back to Uber drivers—many Uber drivers end up taking that gig because they simply cannot not make ends meet with the full-time jobs that they have. Many Uber drivers have to take up the gig because they just cannot survive. Yet the Government, instead of addressing those working conditions, has decided to go and take sides with a massive corporation that is not delivering safety and decent incomes for these drivers.
I don’t know if MPs realise that, for example, when an Uber driver is picking up a passenger, they don’t know who it is. They don’t know where that passenger may be going. If, for example, the passenger decides to rate an Uber driver with zero stars they could automatically lose the ability to maintain income as an Uber driver, and they have very little recourse to address that. It’s really hard to go back to that massive corporation and get some sense of justice if, say, for example, a passenger who was being racist decided to give that Uber driver zero stars or just simply didn’t like them.
What this means is that because they don’t have those protections that they could have if they were considered employees, they’re basically at the mercy of this massive corporation who has decided to not have an adequate duty of care for these drivers—their labour actually benefits us as MPs, and it benefits countless people across the country who use the labour of Uber drivers to get to work, to get to doctors, to get to their social events. I think if we had a Government that actually cared about workers, they would not be basically putting the boot on countless Uber drivers across the country and they would not be union-busting by preventing workers from joining collective agreements that grant better wages, better conditions, and indeed a much more productive workplace.
The Greens will continue opposing this bill and want to mihi it to all the Uber drivers and to the Workers First Union who have been fighting this massive corporation to seek justice.
SUZE REDMAYNE (National—Rangitīkei): This bill is about supporting our Government’s Going for Growth agenda. It’s about helping our businesses grow, especially small to medium sized businesses, which often don’t have the resources to navigate some of the current settings that this bill is trying to change. In New Zealand, 97 percent of businesses in this country are small to medium enterprises, so they employ fewer than 20 people. They play a vital role in our economy. They’re our farmers and our rural contractors, our hairdressers, our real estate agents, pharmacies, tradies. They account for 30 percent of employees and 25 percent of GDP. This bill will help them grow and innovate. It will strengthen the economy, lift wages, and help hard-working Kiwis get ahead. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon MARK PATTERSON (Minister for Rural Communities): New Zealand First also supports this bill. We believe the Minister is bringing in sensible changes. New Zealand First is always a champion of labour market flexibility. We believe that that is a key component, and, as the previous speaker, Suze Redmayne, pointed out, it is the Going for Growth agenda. We see this as a key pillar—having a good, flexible labour workforce that is fit for a modern working environment.
Some of the key components here include amending section 6 of the Employment Relations Act to provide a clearer definition for a contractor. We’ve heard from some of the Opposition speakers, and they’ve focused very heavily on the Uber situation. This actually improves that; it gives some clarity. There has been a lot of legal ambiguity. It’s not just about Uber; this is a massive part of our employment workforce now: the gig economy. Contractors are becoming more and more prevalent in the workforce. We’re clarifying that with a gateway test so that some of these highly legally contended situations can be sorted out. We’re cutting them off at the pass by being much clearer, on the way into an employment contract, where you stand.
In terms of the threshold for personal grievances, personal grievances have been—and there’s certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest it—weaponised in a number of areas, so we are raising the threshold for that. Employees can be held accountable for serious misconduct. And the flexibility to move on—employees earning over $180,000—for an unjustifiable dismissal; that is also key. These are not vulnerable workers; these are workers who are highly paid and are expected to be able to perform at a certain level, and it can be heavily disruptive to a business and productivity to have underperforming senior employees and managers. I will point out, as the Minister did, that that can still be contracted into an employment agreement if they would like to do that on the way in. These are not vulnerable workers; they know what they’re doing. They have the capacity to do that.
I was interested in some of the commentary from the Opposition on the 30-day rule, because I would have thought that actually the best advert for a union is if a worker is coming on on lesser conditions than the union. Surely you would want to join the union and be part of a collective agreement. There is certainly incentive to join a union if they’ve got a particularly good collective agreement on the table. This 30-day rule is an anachronism, it goes back to the Labour Party, and it is tied to the unions. It is unnecessary. The unions will still have plenty of access to get to these workers and put them on a collective agreement, should the workers look to do that.
In conclusion, this is about flexibility, it’s about fairness, and it’s about enabling the conditions for growth. We are going to have to grow this economy. We have been in a serious situation, we’re growing our way out of it, and labour market reform is part of that set of responses that this Government is bringing forward. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Kia ora. First of all, I’d like to stand in strong opposition to this bill. I’m not sure what it takes for a Government to understand that penalising workers’ rights is not an economic strategy. It is not about growth. That is a bad social policy. This whole Government’s idea of economic growth being at the cost of underpaying people and of penalising those who are at the bottom of their view of the worker food chain does nothing but create more hardship on many of those families and communities that are already experiencing hardship. What we’ve got is a community who are struggling to pay $18 for a kilo of butter. They are struggling to find employment, they’re struggling to find access to stay in employment, and we’ve got a whole factor of drive-down of salaries going on. It’s been really confronting to see how this Government sees that growth is best to happen by standing on the heads of those who need the most support.
When we see that this bill is stripping back core protection, I want to say that I’m horrified, but, sadly, with this Government’s track record towards workers and workers’ rights, I’m not horrified. I’m, again, sadly, underwhelmed by what it says are solutions for economic growth.
Let’s look at some of the things that this bill’s doing. First of all, it’s going to heighten the workers’ vulnerability to be unjustifiably dismissed. It’s great if you have employers that are good, but, unfortunately, this opens the doors, as it does for many situations, for those worst-practising businesses and employers. That’s why employees’ rights were put in place in the first place. We’ve got, sadly, a sector which has a high proportion of Māori and Pasifika workers, of migrant workers, and of contract-style mahi, and they are going to remove every protection that has entrenched equality.
This gives the employers more power. When you’re in a climate where there isn’t a heck of a lot of work, that then creates an opportunity for employers to exploit the most vulnerable. That’s what this bill is about. Cruelly, that does appear to be what this Government has been about: exploiting those who need support the most.
We’ve got nearly 144,000 New Zealanders, which is about 5 percent of the workforce, or one in 20, who are employed as self-employed contractors. I just want to say that again: one in 20 in New Zealand are employed as contractors. So we’re not talking about a small amount of people here; we’re talking about a large proportion who are already disadvantaged, who are already struggling financially, who are already feeling the trauma of exploitation. When we look at that, we’ve got Māori participation in those industries, we’ve got high levels of contracted casual work, significant across agriculture, across forestry, fishing, mining, construction—all the sectors that have a whole lot of vulnerabilities going on.
Then we looked again at the 30-day rule—and I have heard my colleagues talking about it prior. The 30-day rule acts as a lifeline. It gives kaimahi time to consider union membership before being pressured into an individual agreement. Without this rule, employers could use the divide and rule tactics, which is real—the peer pressure to keep Māori kaimahi, to keep Pasifika kaimahi, to keep those who are not savvy on what their rights are, on weaker contracts from day one. That’s a really tough position to claw back from. It allows employers to opt out of collective conditions on day one, and it creates a race to the bottom. It’s the opposite of what our workers need right now, especially, again, in the cost of living crisis.
We’ve also seen some stakeholder views. The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has described this as a radical employment bill that threatens every worker in Aotearoa.
Look, we already know you’re good at flexing muscle. We’ve already seen the Government flex its muscle at those who are wāhine, those who are Māori, and those who are struggling. This bill makes it easier to continue to have a Government that flexes its muscle, that exploits its power to put imbalance in the workplace and constructively dismiss workers while making it harder for those workers who are out there struggling, trying to bring home money for their whānau. It also makes it really hard to keep those employers accountable. There’s better ways to flex muscle for economic growth. This isn’t one of them. Kia ora rā.
GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. With great pleasure, I rise to speak on the Employment Relations Amendment Bill in its first reading. The area I want to focus on is this ability of people to be their own contractor, to run their own little business and take on a role like driving Uber vehicles—to take on that role—in their own time and terms and conditions, because, guess what! A lot of those people want the flexibility that being a contractor allows. Actually, I can think of opportunities where, possibly, the member for Palmerston North might eventually want to get an Uber to take him all the way up over the Brynderwyns, up to the North, to see what our roads are like and might respect the fact that Northlanders would like a new road. That would provide the opportunity for someone who’s a contractor to do that, and that would be one of the great things. So I commend this bill to the House.
CAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, here we are with another attack on workers’ rights by this Government. What a terrible piece of legislation. National and New Zealand First members should really be taking this opportunity to reflect on the type of legislation that this Government is putting before the House, because if you read the regulatory impact statement, all you see is ACT Party policy, ACT Party coalition agreement. This is a vehicle for the far-right, libertarian agenda of the ACT Party to be driven into to Parliament and put at the heart of our most important piece of employment legislation.
Every single one of these changes introduced today in this bill is absolutely terrible for working people, and I’ll tell you exactly why. The first issue is the absolutely unprecedented situation of this Government bringing a bill into the House to change the law in relation to contractors where there are working people using our existing laws, taking their case to the Supreme Court only last week. Why are they doing this? Why can they not have faith in our judicial system to be able to provide a just outcome for working people? Absolutely disgraceful behaviour to bring this bill to the House.
The actual change that they make limits what judges and what people can do in order to assess the real relationship between workers and between employers. So, at the moment, there is a test of the real nature of the job. So you look at: is this actually an employment relationship or is it a contracting relationship? That’s what our judges can do at the moment. This bill takes that away. It says if you have the word contractor written in a document, then you’re a contractor. Well, this is against all the international examples, this is totally different to the common law that applies in many other countries that we compare ourselves to, and is an absolutely disgusting, unprecedented attack on workers’ rights that will take New Zealand backwards, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
The second thing that they’re doing is making two changes to the personal grievance process. The first thing that they’re doing is actually making it so anyone earning over $180,000 in New Zealand can be fired at will. Now, you will all know people who earn that amount of money, especially on that side of the House, and when your wife or when your husband or when your brother-in-law comes home and says, “I went to work and I was told that I’m now sacked, and they didn’t give me a reason why.”, you can tell them—or those members on the other side can tell them—that the reason that that happened to them was because of this terrible law that you passed today.
The other thing they’re doing in relation to personal grievances is making a change which is totally unnecessary. In an employment relationship, often there is a situation where an employee may do something that is not 100 percent perfect; an employer might do something which is not 100 percent perfect. The situation that they’re bringing in says if the employee is anything less than perfect, they can’t get their remedies. Totally unrealistic and unpractical, and a totally ridiculous law to bring in. There is already contribution that can be considered by our courts.
The next thing that they’re doing is introducing a way of allowing not only people on high incomes but those on low incomes to be sacked at will. Now, we know that 90-day trials exist in New Zealand. These 90-day trials often can’t be implemented within the first 30 days if there’s a collective agreement, because collective agreements agreed by unions don’t have 90-day trials in them, so those people are protected for the first 30 days. This Minister is getting rid of the 30-day rule simply so people on low incomes in New Zealand can be sacked more easily—so they can lose their job.
There’s so much to say on this bill, but I just wanted to draw the House’s attention to this: another situation where we have a regulatory impact statement where all of the information in relation to international obligations is redacted. And why is this? Because we have free-trade agreements with lots of different countries that state that our employment situation should not decrease—and I bet you that that’s exactly what it says in this regulatory impact statement. They won’t share it with the House.
This Government has increased unemployment. It has made it harder for New Zealanders to get a job. And now, when they should be looking at trying to get people into employment, what are they doing? They’re implementing laws to sack people more easily. This will affect every family in New Zealand. The unfairness of this bill will reverberate throughout the years until the next Government gets in and actually brings some real balance into employment law, which actually provides protection for workers, and actually makes sure that they have the fairness they deserve.
Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak in support of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill. The intention of this bill is to bring rebalance to the personal grievance settings. At the moment, it is out of whack. Business leaders in multiple sectors have told me that the personal grievance industry is a real major handbrake for productivity in multiple sectors. So that is why we are making some changes, as well as clarifying and increasing flexibility regarding work structures, for example, in contracting. Ultimately, this is about increasing opportunities. It’s about going for growth. Economic growth will lead to greater opportunities for workers. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. At a time when record numbers of New Zealanders are leaving our shores, when unemployment has reached new heights, and we have a record number of 47,000 New Zealanders leaving for Australia in the past year, this Government decides it’s a good time to further erode workers’ rights, to make it even easier to fire workers, and to take away their ability to be part of a collective agreement.
If it was not already looking bleak for New Zealanders, this bill is just one more nail in the coffin of workers’ rights, of New Zealanders being able to earn a decent wage, of having a fair income, and being able to afford the basic groceries to feed your family. That is what is foremost on New Zealanders’ minds right now, and this Government continues on a crusade to further take away workers’ rights and make it harder for people to get what they deserve.
So let’s take a look at exactly what this does. The number one I’d like to speak to is the removal of the 30-day rule. Let’s talk about the importance of that. It’s a vital rule that enables unions to engage with new employees in those first 30 days to give them the benefit of the collective agreement. By removing that, it means that employers can sign up an individual agreement and undercut the rights and the freedoms of workers. That is going to significantly compromise the rights of workers and potentially also the pay of workers if they’re on an individual contract as well.
So it removes that right and it removes the ability for that advocacy to take place. It’s stripping away the ability of the bargaining right of unions for workers to have fair wages and fair conditions. This is in the context of a cost of living crisis. This is in the context of a Government who proclaims to be doing more for New Zealanders, to be putting more money in their pockets, and to be giving back to the squeezed middle, as they put it. With one hand they say they’re doing this, but with the real hand, with the actual actions, they continue to erode workers’ rights.
The next one is around personal grievances, because what this does is completely take away the right to go through that process for a personal grievance. In fact, for anyone earning over $180,000, it takes away any ability to have a personal grievance. I do fear what this does, particularly for sexual harassment in the workplace, for women who have got to stand up and say certain behaviour is unacceptable. If you are earning over $180,000 in New Zealand, under this, it is impossible to take a personal grievance and that is deeply concerning for human rights, for women’s rights, in New Zealand.
It is really difficult to understand what the benefits of this bill are. It removes the obligation to provide an active choice in which the employer asks the employee whether they want to join their relevant union and receive that advocacy. It significantly weakens employees’ rights in the personal grievance process by removing any remedies for serious misconduct, removing eligibility for reinstatement into a role, and it also removes eligibility for compensation for hurt and for humiliation if the employee is found to have “contributed to the situation that led to the personal grievance”—yeah, I don’t even want to start there. This creates an absolute perverse incentive in the personal grievance process to pin it on the employee and remove the protections. It takes away their right for a personal grievance and it takes away their right for union representation.
If this Government is going for growth, they’re doing it the wrong way. This is holding people back. This is paying people less. This is paying it to their mates and looking after their own group of friends while watching the rest of New Zealand suffer and not even be able to put food on the table. Well, this will come back to bite them at the election, along with all of the other sad little bills that have eroded workers’ rights in New Zealand.
MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill does actually help support the Government’s going for growth agenda, and isn’t that what we all want? Growth provides opportunities, and that’s what everyone in this House should actually aspire to.
These changes in the bill will enhance our labour market flexibility, they’ll reduce compliance costs and remove some of that red tape that we all love to hate, and they will bring the balance between employer and employee interests back to a sensible and practical place—and, again, that’s what we should all want. The changes will provide confidence, and confidence is what enables and promotes positive employment outcomes and opportunities. Outcomes do mean opportunities, and opportunities mean jobs. I commend this bill to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill be now read a first time.
Ayes 68
New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 54
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 5.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is, That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.
Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.
Instruction to Education and Workforce Committee
Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I move, That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill be reported to the House by Monday, 17 November 2025.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the motion be agreed to.
Ayes 102
New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 20
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 5.
Motion agreed to.
Bills
Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill
First Reading
Debate resumed from 22 May.
TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take this call on behalf of the National Party in support of the legislation. It does broaden the use of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Special Fund to support community legal services more comprehensively. Currently, the fund can only directly purchase community legal services, and this expands it to also fund functions that facilitate or support those services. Why this matters? Three points: better use of existing resources, it reduces pressure on Crown funding, and it strengthens community legal services. This is about making better use of the existing fund, and, therefore, I commend this bill to the House.
Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much. Labour—as you’re aware, Mr Speaker—supports this bill. It broadens use of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Special Fund to allow for expenses incurred by community law centres. Community law centres do amazing work in our community, and in my experience, working in Lower Hutt, it’s been a really valuable resource to send people who can’t afford to receive legal services—so to allow that and the delivery of community legal services to be paid for using special fund money.
It’s important to note that it is not explicit in the current legislation; delivery of community legal services can be paid using the special fund money. The legislative statement gives an example of overheads, such as things like rent or digital costs that are not in and of themselves examples of community legal services, but they very well may be essential expenses incurred in the delivering of those services. Currently, Crown funding is required to fund functions that facilitate or otherwise support the delivery of those community legal services. It’s important that they are funded properly.
What this bill does is it enables the Secretary for Justice to enter into a contract with more community law services to purchase community legal services. That’s important work. It’s also important to note that under Labour, we significantly increased the level of funding in that space.
In the context of this, it’s important we continue to make available access to legal services. We know that there are barriers to accessing justice. It is vital that we have a justice system that is able to be accessed by everyone. One of the main barriers of going through the justice system is that people simply cannot afford representation and it’s very difficult to even get that in terms of legal aid—more could be done in that space.
So community law centres serve an incredibly important role in our communities. I commend the bill to the House.
PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill recognises the valuable service that community law centres provide to the public. They give information, give support to the public, and enable the normal person on the street the opportunity to understand the legal circumstances they may find themselves in. The bill enables and facilitates this support and the work of community law centres. I commend the bill to the House.
VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to speak in support of this bill, possibly because I’ve had quite a close relationship with Community Law over my career as a lawyer, first as a lawyer and then a manager of YouthLaw Aotearoa—I was there for almost a decade. Community law centres do play an absolutely vital role in terms of access to justice.
I also think they’re quite an unusual service because, from time to time, people who get the services of Community Law don’t actually present first with what they believe is a legal issue. So I’m reminded of a young 16-year-old who I provided support and legal advice to who was referred to YouthLaw via Youthline. When I spoke to her, she spoke about some uncomfortable physical behaviour that she’d received from her boss. She didn’t call it sexual harassment, but through the conversation she became aware that that was what it was, and we eventually assisted her to raise a sexual harassment claim.
Now, this is important to consider, because I think that we all understand the importance of funding legal services, but in truth, community legal services operate in a network. So the idea of building up networks so you can have referrals when people need it is also an essential part of the access to justice framework. I think that’s what’s unique about community law centres. In 2011, Community Law Centres Aotearoa was set up, in part, to help assist that broader framework of networks and people being able to come in and get the services they need. It was also there to advocate for community law centres when they felt under threat that their funding would be cut by the previous National Government. What we’ve seen Community Law Centres Aotearoa do in terms of access to justice is quite extraordinary. They’ve set up Te Ara Ture, or the bridge to law, which matches pro bono legal capacity with issues in the community where people need lawyers. This isn’t a traditional legal service but it’s certainly something that should be funded.
I’m excited to see that these additional attached services are now being recognised in terms of them being funded by the special fund. But I just did want to speak to two points which may come up in the select committee process. Government members have made the point that making this change will reduce the pressure on the Government Vote—so Vote Justice. I think we need to be a bit cautious about proceeding down that line of argument. In truth, the special fund, at times, in the past, has not been sufficient to meet the needs of Community Law funding. If you look back to 2012, for example, the interest received on the fund was actually just under $5 million, which wasn’t anywhere close to the $10.97 million that was needed to fund Community Law at the time. So the Ministry of Justice had to contribute to the budget as well. We must be clear that if the special fund ever dips below what’s required to fund adequate services, we should be expecting the Ministry of Justice to fill that gap and ensure that we have adequate services.
The second point is just in reference to who provides the support functions. So the bill at present reads that it has to be a contract with Community Law, which I think is correct. However, I do think that this bill opens a door to a conversation about the funding of other entities as well. My view is that Community Law do provide a rather special service that ought to be protected by legislation, and so I agree with the framing of the language of the bill as it is. I would just urge the select committee to be very mindful of protecting the scope of the bill as it’s drafted now as it goes through the select committee processes.
Finally, the special fund is, at present, a fund where the banks still retain 40 percent of the interest from the fund. I do think that that’s a matter that the House should consider in due course as well, in terms of the adequacy of funding to ensure that everyone is able to access legal help when they need it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
MIKE BUTTERICK (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d just like to, in the first instance, acknowledge and thank our community law centres for the services that they provide in our communities and, often, for those who are our most vulnerable. I’ve met with them a number of times in the Wairarapa electorate, and they’re very passionate and compassionate, and I would like to thank them for what they do. Often, we have constituents in our offices that seek advice, not only from us but also from the community law centres. So I would like to commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.
Ayes 102
New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 20
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 5.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 102, Noes 15.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is, That the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.
Motion agreed to.
Bill referred to the Justice Committee.
Instruction to Justice Committee
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Housing) on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by four months and one day after the bill receives its first reading.
Motion agreed to.
Bills
Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): I present a legislative statement on the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I move, That the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
This is an important bill, and I want to thank the Environment Committee for their hard work in considering it. I understand that it was reported back from the committee by majority, but I also understand that there was a constructive and collegial atmosphere during the select committee hearings, which was good. I also understand, subject to hearing the speeches from the other members, that there are indeed some elements of the bill that other parties in the House support, which is good to see.
This is an important bill. As I’ve said publicly a few times, we’re in this three-phase programme to reform the Resource Management Act (RMA). We’ve done phase one and we’re in the middle of phase two. The allied changes that are being made to the national direction that are under way at the moment complement this piece of legislation, which the Government wants to get into law very quickly, and then, of course, we’ve got the replacement of the RMA coming later in the year, going into next year. But this bill makes some quick and targeted—well, not that quick, but it makes some targeted changes to the existing RMA in order to unlock productivity, housing growth, economic growth, and primary sector changes.
The first area of the bill concerns infrastructure and energy, and it will bring to life the Government’s Electrify New Zealand reforms and provide certainty for ports. The second package is around housing, and it includes reforms to enable the first pillar of the Government’s Going for Housing Growth policy. There is a third series of changes around farming and the primary sector, to reduce the regulatory overlap between the RMA and the Fisheries Act for flexibility around marine consent processes. There’s also a section in the bill on emergency and natural hazards—we’re making that more efficient and effective—and then there’s a whole series of changes to system improvements that I don’t intend to canvass today but I think they are widely supported.
The bill proposes broadening the definition of “long-lived infrastructure” to provide for more activities that support electricity generation and more types of transport, which is a good thing. The Environment Committee has looked at the changes to section 70 and recommended changes to clarify that section 70 amendments will apply to plans already notified, including those under appeal and subject to court proceedings. The Government supports those amendments made by the Environment Committee.
When it comes to housing, there’s been this complex interplay over the last few months between the Government and the Auckland Council. Mayor Wayne Brown calls it “RMA gymnastics”, and members probably aren’t aware of the complicated legal process that’s happened. So, back in 2021, Parliament legislated the medium-density residential standards (MDRS) on top of the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPSUD). Most councils have now got on with that and have put those plans into effect, which is good. Auckland has not, for a variety of reasons; some of which are good, and some aren’t. The council has asked the Government to have the ability to withdraw proposed plan change 78 (PC 78) because PC 78 as it was originally drafted pursuant to the MDRS law allows the council to upzone but it doesn’t allow it to down-zone. And, post - the floods, there’s a willingness by the council to reclassify some areas as being within flood-prone areas, which, obviously, everybody supports.
The bill as reported back from the select committee allows the council to withdraw PC 78 and resubmit a new plan change, which the council is—without breaking the Fitzgerald v Muldoon conventions, I can say that the council is duly getting on with that quite quickly. It requires the council to notify a new plan change by 10 October, and, crucially, it means that the council has to provide as much development capacity as was in PC 78 as it was originally notified. So, in other words, we’re going to achieve a similar level of housing capacity uplift in Auckland, which is a good thing because, fundamentally, house prices and rents are linked to urban planning rules that make it hard for cities to grow, including Auckland. But Auckland Council will have more flexibility around the flood-prone areas that it’s dealing with there, and it will also be allowed to not use the medium-density residential standards, which many people in Auckland are keen on not using. It was a too one-size-fits-all solution. However, the bill also makes it clear that existing council plans that have incorporated both the NPSUD changes and the medium-density residential standards are now locked in.
As members will be aware, the Government campaigned on allowing councils to opt out of the medium-density standards. We’ve come to the simple view, to be honest, that giving councils the ability to opt out of the medium-density standards would involve another plan change. That’s time-consuming and expensive, and given that the RMA phase three—the new RMA—is coming next year, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to make councils go through that complicated legal process. I see that the former Mayor of Wellington—Celia Wade-Brown—is shaking her head, and I think that she probably agrees.
Plan changes—people think they’re easy, but they’re not.
Cameron Brewer: The other one isn’t.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: They should be easier, frankly—oh sorry, sorry.
Cameron Brewer: Oh, there’s two: Your Worship, Your Worship.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Your Worships, my apologies. I didn’t see my good friend and colleague Andy Foster—and two Mayors of Wellington. Hey, you never know—
Cameron Brewer: There’s a third coming.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: —you never know, there could be a third coming. The rumours could be true. There could be a third coming. Who knows? Who knows—and I’m not talking about Dame Kerry Prendergast. Who knows? There could be a third coming, if the rumours are to be believed. Well, we’ll wait and see.
Cameron Luxton: What, is Andrew Little coming back?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Is Andrew Little coming back? I wasn’t talking about him, either. No, no, he’s got important work to do in Wellington—soon.
Hon Rachel Brooking: Are you supporting him—is that an endorsement?
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Hey, I’ve been prescient about this. I said on radio that he was a solid candidate and that I thought he’d win, and I said that six weeks ago.
Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, well done!
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, I’m just saying, you know. Anyhoo—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Anyway, back to the bill—back to the bill. Easily distracted.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Back to the RMA, after a minor diversion into the tawdry embarrassment that is Wellington local body politics and the centre-right in Wellington. So where was I?
Plan changes are complicated, expensive things. We’re not going to make councils that have already adopted the MDRS, most of which are actually comfortable with it—we’re not going to make them go back through and change it. Auckland is going to be exempt. There’s a separate solution for Christchurch, which—again, for very complicated reasons, I won’t traverse—is halfway through its process, and so there’s a separate solution for Christchurch.
The Auckland changes are really important. We’re in the second reading debate, but just to flag up to the House that there will be Amendment Papers that will become available for the House during the committee of the whole House stage in which the Government will move that a requirement of the new plan change that will be done in Auckland will be upzoning around City Rail Link stations in Auckland. There will be 15 storeys around three of them, in particular, and 10 storeys around the other two stations—and I see the MP for Mt Albert is here in the House, and I’m looking forward to her support for the upzoning around her wonderful suburbs, which will allow for great urban density in that wonderful part of Auckland.
It’s sensible density in the right place, because the Government is spending 5 billion bucks on this extraordinary new rapid transit system for Auckland, which is the City Rail Link. It’s a wonderful thing.
Hon Rachel Brooking: It’s wonderful.
Hon CHRIS BISHOP: It is wonderful—it is wonderful—and I thank the member for her support. But the Government has got a simple view, which is that having spent that money, we’ve got to make sure we have the housing outcomes that come from that, and having single-family home zones right next door to big train stations doesn’t make a lot of sense. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. So Auckland is going to have to upzone around those stations. There will be controls around how they do it, but they have to upzone because that’s how we drive a more productive economy. You know, I don’t want to relitigate the point, because members have heard me rant on about this often enough.
The other change I just wanted to briefly mention is heritage. The bill makes some changes around having a streamlined planning process to make it easier for councils to delist heritage-listed buildings in their district plans. We went through this ridiculous exercise with Wellington. We’ve had two different attempts to get rid of the Gordon Wilson Flats, and, again, I’d just flag for the House that there’s an Amendment Paper coming once we get to the committee of the whole House stage in which we will move to make the demolition of those disgusting flats up on The Terrace a permitted activity. You might well ask whether it’s a bit ridiculous that Parliament has to legislate to permit the destruction of heritage-listed, earthquake-prone, asbestos-ridden eyesores in Wellington; you’d be right, and the new RMA will make it a lot easier. But in the meantime, we have to take these sensible steps. I commend the bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Debate interrupted.
Voting
Correction—Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill
CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green): My apologies, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to correct a vote at the first reading of the Legal Services (Distribution of Special Fund) Amendment Bill, to cast five votes from Te Pāti Māori against the bill. We have a proxy.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? No objection. The vote will be so corrected.
Bills
Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Debate resumed.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to talk about the select committee report back on this bill. I want to start by saying this bill touches on many different resource management issues, and we’ve heard a few of them covered by the Minister for Infrastructure. They are set out quite neatly in the legislative statement but also in the select committee report back and the dissenting views.
Why I start with that is because we are going to have the committee of the whole House stage, I presume, at some time in the sitting block or—
Hon Chris Bishop: No, August.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Next month, I’m being told. Thank you for that, Minister. So we’re expecting to come back here and do the committee stage of this. Labour has been supportive of the bill, but not all of the bill, and I’ll go through that in some detail. But we do have some very real questions for the Government Ministers in that committee stage, so I want to foreshadow that now. We’ve heard from the Minister just now that there’s going to be a number of Amendment Papers doing significant heavy lifting around Auckland, and also around Wellington, with the heritage.
I put it to the Minister that if we could see those Amendment Papers before we’re in the committee stage of the bill, that would be a useful thing to do.
Hon Chris Bishop: Yeah, that’s fine.
Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Thank you. The Minister is nodding—that would be a useful thing to do. So both the people who know about complicated planning issues in Auckland can look at that—maybe even talk to Opposition members before the committee stage—so that we can ask good, meaningful questions on those amendments, because enabling 15-storey buildings around railway stations is significant, and we do need to treat it with the weight that it deserves.
I’m just going to lightly touch on the issues as they’re covered in the legislative statement. I want to particularly focus on natural hazards. But the first thing in the legislative statement is infrastructure and energy key changes. We heard the Minister say that this is part of the electrification of the country. In Labour, we’re certainly supportive of the provisions that enable that electrification. We do have some questions, however, about some of the definitions and some of the technical terms around energy and electricity, where they could be related to fossil fuel sources. So those are some questions that we will be asking in the committee stage.
We also note that there is this new term: “long-lived infrastructure”. Most everybody wants to be long-lived infrastructure now, so there’s been some changes made there. Again, we have some concerns around fossil fuels that we will raise in the committee stage. But the general idea of the amendments around network utility operators and designations—these are things that Labour had done in the Natural and Built Environment Act. We’re very much in support of those provisions that have rolled through to this legislation.
The next thing in the legislative statement is housing growth and key changes. We’ve heard from the Minister that there’s a lot more to come in Auckland, and I’m not sure if there’s any more to come in Christchurch. But as the Minister said, in the last parliamentary term, Labour and National, in a bipartisan way, agreed to this MDRS—the medium-density residential standards. Then National agreed to it, and we made a piece of legislation that went through the House and was passed. Then, as we heard from the Minister, National campaigned against that bipartisan agreement, which does not bode well for future agreements. But we’re still trying to work as constructively as possible, despite that backtrack. Now, as the Minister said, the bill, as it was introduced, had this opt-out of the MDRS for all councils. Two councils that are tier 1 councils that were supposed to incorporate the MDRS—they haven’t done it yet, and that is Auckland and Christchurch. Every other council: the opt-out doesn’t apply any more in the bill as reported back. We’ve heard from the Minister that there’s going to be a lot of intensification in Auckland and then probably not quite as much in Christchurch.
We’ve also heard the Minister talk a lot about down-zoning and some problems with the MDRS around down-zoning. I want to spend a little bit of time on this and note that I will be asking questions in the committee stage as well. So the MDRS provisions required the councils to permit three houses on a section of three storeys high. However, they had to do a plan change to do this and there were qualifying matters which would allow the council to say, “Actually, the MDRS won’t apply to these areas because of a qualifying matter.” And those qualifying matters generally related back to Part 2 of the Resource Management Act and include, therefore, the management of significant risks from natural hazards. So that was already a provision that was already an opportunity for councils to say, “Actually, we will not put the MDRS in this particular area because there is a significant risk of natural hazards.” Maybe that has been more difficult to do than was first thought, but now we’ve heard that Auckland, with its ability to change its plan changes—I understand, as the Minister has said, that he’s had a lot of correspondence with Auckland Council about what could work in Auckland to get the same results with that same amount of density but in good places for that density.
Obviously, a good place for the density is not in a flood plain, but my reading of what I’ve seen of the bill so far—noting that there are Amendment Papers to come—is that it doesn’t enable down-zoning. It enables the council to not put some intensity in some places, but that’s not down-zoning the activity—the housing that is already there. It’s important to be clear about exactly what will be enabled by the changes, just so that we’re all talking about the same things and also to work out if the intensification that’s going to happen in Auckland—whether or not there are any qualifying matters for that. So things like the natural hazards that I was just speaking about, but also where heritage fits and where special character areas fit within that, because I know that it is a political hot potato issue in Auckland, so it will be good to have some clarity from the Minister when we’re in the committee stage about how that works.
I also want to note that there was an opportunity in this bill to be stronger on natural hazards generally and enabling councils to say no to projects that are going to be in the wrong places such as housing on flood plains. There are some changes in here, and it’s good that there are changes, but we haven’t changed Part 2 of the Resource Management Act (RMA). Again, that Part 2 of the RMA talks about the management of significant risks from natural hazards. The Natural and Built Environment Act talked about “risks are reduced” from natural hazards. So we do need to strengthen that language. There is some national planning, but that’s all been delayed at the moment and is waiting for the next round of reforms. It is really important that that work happens and happens at speed, because we know that New Zealand has a whole lot of natural hazard risks before climate change, and with climate change, those natural hazard risks are amplified. We also know that this Government has done the fast track, whereby projects will be enabled on flood plains, which seems to go against all good common sense and is very disappointing.
Another disappointment, moving on to farming and primary sector changes, is around farm plans in section 70. The certification of freshwater farm plans—these have been talked about in legislation for a long time and keep getting paused and changed. But the idea was, in the legislation before this bill, that regional councils would have a role in deciding who could certify freshwater farm plans. That’s now been taken to the Minister, and also, it appears, the auditing role of those farm plans. So we’re particularly concerned for farmers, that they will have to rely on an industry certifier and then an industry auditor. So where is the role for an independent regulator in that process so that farmers can say to the world: “Look, this is how we can prove that we do good environmental things on farms in New Zealand.”? That’s changed. So has section 70, which enables regional councils to permit—so something doesn’t need a resource consent—even if it’s going to have an adverse effect to the water body. That just makes no sense. I’ve got lots of questions I’ll be asking in the committee stage.
LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. There’s something that really continues to astound me with this Government—and sure, there’s a lot of things in this bill and there is a lot to talk about, but what is really disappointing, and what is quite telling, is what they actually leave out. Sure, there’s lots in here about housing, about natural hazards, and the like, but I didn’t hear from the Minister, for example, about the unprecedented changes to freshwater protections, about weakening of marine protection, or about the fact that this Government seems to continue to stick their head in the sand when it comes to the task of actually delivering when it comes to Kiwis and their need to actually adapt to this very disruptive, changing, and dangerous climate.
We’re seeing that right now, aren’t we, when it comes to Whakatū—Nelson. This changing, disruptive climate is wreaking havoc right now. It’s not a one-off; it’s consistent, it’s more regular. I really want to take this time just to acknowledge those communities of Nelson-Tasman, and the fact that they are dealing with all of this right now. It’s something that is, unfortunately, less and less uncommon, and it’s something that we’re seeing consistently across the country. What’s really frustrating about these times is that when they happen, we—particularly here in Parliament—praise and we glorify how the community pulls together; we talk about how awesome it is that we provide everyone housing and shelter, how everyone needs to pitch in to help each other out, to make sure that we’re fed, that we have access to clean drinking water. Yet when it’s proposed that we actually design our nation in the exact same way, in a way that actually cares for each other and cares for te taiao—our environment—it’s suggested that it’s ideological, that that’s utopia; when, actually, this is the pragmatic way that we need to be moving if we’re serious about a relatively stable future for our kids and our grandkids.
So, with that, the Green Party does not support this bill. I, firstly, want to thank the hundreds of submitters who actually took the time, in the tsunami of legislative change, to sift through this and have their say, because we did have some really valuable submitters who took the time to actually come talk to us. Essentially, it’s a whole bunch of ad hoc amendments based on the Government’s coalition agreements, and I appreciate that this does make it really hard for the multitudes of Kiwis who care about our resource management system and its impact on the environment; it’s been really challenging to navigate this. But for most of the changes, unfortunately, they constitute this continued dismantling of environmental protections under this Government. As with pretty much all the other legislation promoted by this Government, the pace of the reform and the pace of these bills—and the lack of evidence to support these changes—are one of the fundamental flaws that means that we couldn’t support it.
So, sure, there are some good things, particularly when it comes to natural hazards. We do support these changes, and particularly to the emergency provisions. What was really disappointing—and the Minister mentioned it in his opening comments—was about this greater power given to councils to actually prevent, for example, development in flood plains. However, then we have this ridiculous exemption which has now been introduced, which still allows the granting of land-use consents for infrastructure and primary production in areas that we know have significant risks from natural areas. Again, that is playing out in Whakatū—Nelson right now. Why would we continue to perpetuate this for our communities?
We do really support, when it comes to the system improvements, changes like those that particularly relate to compliance history being considered in consenting decisions; we think that’s really sensible. We think it’s great that financial penalties have been increased, and removing people’s ability to insure themselves against those penalties, and particularly the ability for the Environment Court to suspend or revoke consents, which are all really sensible and overdue changes.
When it comes to energy and infrastructure, there is a lot in there, but we don’t support, for example, the proposal to include gas infrastructure as long-lived infrastructure. We know, for example, in 2021, the Climate Change Commission actually recommended that there be no new gas connections from 2025, and the International Energy Agency has noted that all fossil gas generation should be phased out by 2040. So there is just simply no justifiable need, in this climate crisis, to be giving 35-year consents to fossil fuel infrastructure that will likely not be in use in 25 years. We think that’s really short-sighted.
But the changes that we are absolutely most concerned about as Te Pāti Kākāriki are these proposed changes to section 70 of the Resource Management Act. They’re really just this knee-jerk reaction to what was a successful legal challenge by the Environmental Law Initiative. Again, we didn’t hear any of this from the Minister: these changes are absolutely unprecedented, in that, for the first time in the Resource Management Act’s history, they actually permit councils to allow significant adverse pollution in waterways and water bodies where they are already significantly adversely impacted. So we interpret these changes as, essentially, giving up on some of our most polluted and degraded waterways, taking us further away from Te Mana o te Wai, where the health of our fresh water would actually be prioritised.
I’ve just had the pleasure of being in Te Wai Pounamu, starting in Whakatū—Nelson, right in between those huge rainfall events and flooding; down in Manapōuri; Te Ānau; down in Riverton/Aparima; and also Invercargill. It was really stark seeing the contrast between, for example, the national park areas of Te Ānau and Manapōuri, and then going down to Riverton/Aparima and Invercargill and seeing the changes, particularly in the estuaries, in those areas. It was flagged to me some reports—that literally go back 20 years—where scientists were trying to get the attention of, at the time, the district councillors and the regional council to say that these high nutrients were having massive impacts on these estuaries, and there needed to be massive reductions as a result. There’s largely been complete inaction over those two decades, and now we’ve got the New River Estuary in Invercargill, we’ve got the Jacobs River Estuary in Riverton/Aparima, and even Waituna Lagoon near Bluff, all now suffering from those decades of inaction, where the impacts are actually impacting the health of the ecosystem and the health of our communities. We absolutely do not want to see the backwards approach that this Government is taking.
Hon Penny Simmonds: Over 90 percent of the land in Southland is covered by catchment groups doing good work on fresh water.
LAN PHAM: I really appreciate the comment that I’m hearing across the House about catchment groups; there is amazing work going on from the catchment groups, which we actually heard about on these trips down there. But what I really want to stress, and what I’m absolutely sick and tired of with this Government, is this constant conflation with any form of environmental protection being “anti-farming”. That is absolutely not the case, and, actually, it’s the farmers down there who feel abandoned by this Government who are selling them down the river for their ideological ideas that this is ending farming. Thank you.
SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This change to the Resource Management Act is necessary panel beating of this lemon of a law that this Government has committed to replace with a new system based on property rights and a new piece of legislation designed to specifically protect the environment. This is necessary now. It’s because the Resource Management Act that we’ve got now has, essentially, slowed down the economy, stopped necessary and vital development, and failed to protect the environment, as Lan Pham rightly pointed out. It has taken a totally unrealistic approach to rules, to needing consent from farmers to ports, to councils needing to consent new waste-water treatment plants or upgrade existing. It’s made it far too expensive and take far too long to build the infrastructure we need so that communities can just get on with being their best selves.
There are lots of positive changes in this legislation. I’m going to run through some of them. Firstly, the changes indicate and reinforce the certainty of the direction this Government has committed to in terms of resource management reform. We are replacing the current broken system with a new system based on property rights and protecting the environment in a realistic way. This backs up this Government’s commitment to economic growth and restoring a focus on creating wealth. With that wealth, we can therefore protect the special places that we all agree need protection, and make the necessary investments in infrastructure so that we can create more communities, create more affordable housing, increase density, and so on, so that we can live better lives in the cities and, obviously, provide far more certainty for those growing things, raising livestock, and living on the land that the things they need to do in order to turn a profit, they will be allowed to continue doing, and the environmental issues that we know need to be solved can be solved in a realistic time frame.
What did we hear from submitters? We heard that infrastructure—like dams, like ports, like our electricity network—is long-lived. It can survive, once its built, for decades, for 50, 100 years. We only need to look at Italy to see Roman aqueducts which have stood for 2,000 years. We are currently designing bridges in New Zealand like up at RiverLink and the Melling Interchange with a 2,000-year design life, yet the Resource Management Act would limit consenting some of these things to just a few decades. So we have taken on board submitters’ suggestions, and we are going to be increasing the number and types of assets that can befit from definition as “long-lived infrastructure”, so you don’t have to keep justifying why these things are there. Guess what! We’re not taking them away, are we? We’re going to continue needing the bridges and the ports and the power lines. Who knew the Resource Management Act didn’t understand that!
We’re also going to be including the definition of “long-lived infrastructure” and extending those designation powers not just to ports but also to inland ports, because it turns out that when you have a port next to the ocean where you unload containers from a ship, sometimes you need more than the room dockside to store the boxes. That’s what we call an inland port. Anyone who lives near Hamilton knows about the fantastic inland port that Tainui have built next to State Highway 1 and the railway line there. You look at Ōtāhuhu in Auckland, Onehunga—huge inland ports. But until these changes go through, inland ports won’t be recognised as part of the port system. This Government has said that’s a positive, practical change we can make to the Resource Management Act: we’re going to extend coastal permits to include inland ports.
What else are we doing? Well, when it comes to housing growth, the previous Government and, for some reason, the National Party agreed with Labour to create a medium-density residential standard (MDRS) of three-storeys of three units everywhere. Well, the ACT Party stood up in this House and said, “That won’t work. You can’t have blanket density across entire cities; you actually need to know where to make the investment in pipes and infrastructure so you can grow up around those infrastructure nodes.” Now, we had a change of Government, and, in the ACT-National coalition agreement, it was agreed that the MDRS—this unusual blanket standard—would be repealed and replaced with much smarter legislation planning rules, which actually allow for densification around transport nodes, around rail corridors, and, as the Minister pointed out, around the City Rail Link. So it turns out that when more people vote for ACT, you have more ACT MPs in Parliament, more ACT Ministers sitting around the Cabinet table, sometimes the lights come on and good policy gets made. So ACT will take credit for reversing the MDRS and replacing it with smarter policy, and there’s more of that coming when we replace the Resource Management Act entirely.
Then we get to some of the matters that the committee canvassed. We all know that heritage is important to New Zealanders. We’re a young country. We don’t necessarily have a whole lot of buildings that we would say, “We’re proud of this building. We’re proud of this structure.” I mean, some people really might fall in love with a bridge. As a civil engineer, there are a bunch of bridges around the country that I used to love stopping at and forcing my kids out of the car to go and read the plaque about the engineer who built this bridge, but other people might say, “Maybe we need to get that bridge out of the way and build a new bridge.” But we should not have heritage rules stopping the sensible development of our cities, stopping people developing their residential and commercial buildings in towns all over New Zealand.
What we’re doing here is we’re actually taking more things into account when it comes to assessing a building’s or structure’s heritage significance; its physical condition, including its seismic risk—can it really be maintained as a heritage building if it’s likely to fall down? If people can’t afford to upgrade these buildings, there’s no incentive for them to maintain them, and then the heritage we thought we were protecting becomes nothing more than a pile of bricks. That is what the system was incentivising. We’re changing that so that we can protect the heritage we value but allow people to get on with developing and using the buildings.
Now, Lan Pham raised a good point: many people in New Zealand are concerned about the cumulative effects on water quality that have resulted from many, many years of the Resource Management Act continuing to allow for activities that discharge to the natural environment, failing to distinguish between special places we really need to protect, because New Zealanders agree that those special, unique places should be protected, and the places where we carry out all kinds of business and activities—like cities, where we have industrial zones, for example; or the rural areas, where we grow food, and that involves soil-disturbing activities and putting fertiliser on the farms so that we can grow food. That’s why New Zealand’s able to grow food for 40 million people, not just the 5 million people who live here.
Now, of course, making environmental rules that match up with our expectations for where we need to protect the environment and where we can have a bit more of a realistic expectation around what kind of environment we should expect, say, I don’t know, where there’s a bunch of farms or where there’s a city or a town—we need the system to be realistic. The changes we’ve made have said, “Look, we do agree that we should aim to restore places in the natural environment to a healthy state, but we need to give ourselves time to do that.” New Zealand’s been developed for over 160, 180 years in some places. We’ve cleared the forests. We’ve created farms. We’ve created cities. We’re not restoring it to some pre-human state in the space of five or 10 years. These things will take decades; they could take generations. We should be patient and we should allow nature and people to work together.
I’m really proud of the changes we’ve made to the certification of freshwater farm plans, because it turns out that actually allowing those professional organisations that support farmers to work with them and confirm that their farm plans are fit for purpose is a practical improvement.
There are a couple of other changes we made to the bill in the select committee around natural hazards and making sure that councils could take action to avert emergencies like flooding by putting diggers into a river to clear some gravel out before people’s homes and businesses are flooded. There’s lots more to come. I commend this bill to the House.
ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): We need our economy performing really, really strongly, because that’s the only way in which we can have good lifestyles and also good standards of living and also be able to afford the public services that we want, so we should all be supporting this piece of legislation. The Government is pursuing this aspiration to grow our economy, grow our welfare, grow our standard of living relentlessly.
One of the things that gets in the way of that is regulation and red tape; and, look, we all know that. We all travel around the country and we can hear story after story after story of where red tape is bogging organisations down—bogging companies down, bogging councils down, bogging all kinds of people down.
Right at the top of that tree, often, is the Resource Management Act (RMA). It has been the whipping boy for so many, many years. In fact, it’s probably one of the most amended Acts around because everybody keeps on trying to fix the thing, and, indeed, I suppose we’re trying to do that again today, trying to fix the piece of legislation to do what we think it should do. I spent something like 30—well, it’s over 30—years working with the RMA, and I saw some great results out of it and I saw some really poor results out of it. The one thing I would say is that agility is not something the RMA is particularly good at, and I’ll come back to that fairly shortly.
It’s interesting: we had the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, in opening the debate, talking about the Gordon Wilson building down the other side of The Terrace and saying it’s been so hard to get rid of it. I chaired the hearing when Victoria University came to the council and said, “Look, we want to delist this building. We also want to change the zoning, turning it to university precinct from residential.” We got that one through, but what happened is that the advice we got was that there is no way that anybody can use this particular building for any purpose in a way which is economically viable. It was a significant cost to fixing it in any way you wanted to do it, and it was not going to be worth that money when you’d done that work, so it had to go.
What happened is our decision got appealed. It went to the Environment Court, and the Environment Court, unusually, had a split decision. The judge said, “We agree—can’t use it for anything. It’s completely unviable.”, and it got overruled by the commissioners, who said, guess what!—they didn’t say that it shouldn’t be demolished; what they did say is that it should have to go through a resource consent process. That was 11 years ago. That is how long, sometimes, it takes to get to a point of doing something, and in this case it has taken the Government to intervene. While it’s unusual for the Government to intervene on one particular building, this one has taken 11 years. Most people recognise that it is unsavable, and yet it takes 11 years to get it off the heritage list and to do something about it.
I might also say, in terms of heritage, what we do not want to see is to see it become a free-for-all. Heritage is really valuable to us—whether it is Māori heritage, whether it is non-Māori heritage, it is important in telling our stories, and those are buildings that are valuable to many people. It should not just be a free-for-all where people can go along and say, “Look, it gets in the way of whatever I want to do and therefore I should be able to knock it down easily.” There’s still got to be a robust process to go through.
I talked about the RMA being one of the most changed Acts out. Of course, it was killed off by Labour and then it’s done a Lazarus and it’s back again for a little while but, again, with a limited lifespan and likely to disappear by the end of this term, I suspect.
But I want to pick up a few key issues in the bill as we’ve got it. The first one of those I want to pick up on was the medium-density residential standards (MDRS). It makes the opportunity to be able to opt out of the MDRS, and I think that is a very sensible proposition, because it should be down—we say to councils, “You’ve got to make sure that you provide for population growth in the next 30 years.”, but the councils and their communities should be able to work out how to do that, not have central government say, “Let’s impose it on you.” Now, it makes absolute sense to say, “Well, we want to densify around public transport and around services.” That makes complete sense to me, but we’ve got to do that in a way which actually works for communities and gives people some certainty about what to do.
If I might go back, in terms of experience, we were, as Wellington City Council, just about to do a plan change. In fact, we were going to notify the entire plan. Two hours before we went to our debate, I got a call from the then Minister for the Environment, the Hon David Parker, saying, “We’re just going to change the rules.” That was not particularly helpful. This was the MDRS deal that was done between National and Labour. So we, of course, had to take a big step back and go, “Oh, heck, they’ve just changed our entire planning arrangement, and, oh, by the way, they’ve probably killed any chance of getting densification along a line which would’ve supported a light rail proposition in Wellington City.” Basically, it said that everywhere in the city—and that was true of all those Tier 1 councils—was all the same. They’re not the same. So we should be allowing councils and communities to make those decisions for themselves and supporting them in making those decisions. That is really, really important.
The other point I’d make is that in terms of saying to councils and communities, “You need to provide for the next 30 years’ growth.”, it would be really, really useful one day if a Government actually said, “We actually have a plan around how many people we expect to be providing for.” We have not had—and I’ve only been saying this for about 40 years—a migration strategy, which is the key driver now. That is the key driver for growth. It’s not natural increase; it’s migration, and Governments do not have a strategy around migration for 30 minutes, let alone 30 years. So that’s something which I think—it’s a hobby horse—we need to do. Even the Infrastructure Commission is now saying that would be a good idea, because then we can plan infrastructure around the number of people we actually expect to have as opposed to putting a finger in the air and saying, “How many people—we’ve got no idea, so let’s just go and build stuff that we may need or may not need.” That is hopeless.
As I said, densification makes absolute sense, and there is a clear link to infrastructure and to services, but please don’t leave uncertainty, as was done to Wellington City but is also done elsewhere.
Second thing I wanted to touch on was hazards. Look, it makes absolute sense to allow down-zoning of areas that are prone to hazard. How many times around this country have we seen communities inundated? In fact, even in the last week we’ve seen communities inundated. We are building sometimes in really dumb places. The insurers are saying, “Stop building in those places.” Our newly renamed Natural Hazards Commission, I went to talk with them and they said, “We said, ‘Please don’t build there because it’ll fall off a cliff.’ ” What happens a year later? It falls off a cliff. “Please don’t build there; it’ll flood.” What happens a year later? It floods. And who picks up the tab? Well, in the first instance it’s the insurers, but in the second instance it’s all of us, because we all pay for those insurance costs, and so we don’t want to do that. So it makes absolute sense to try and avoid hazard.
I’m on the Governance and Administration Committee, and it’s one of the questions I’ve actually asked regularly when we have the National Emergency Management Agency in front of us: it’s all good and well to try and fix problems after they’ve happened; can we have the Government agencies which are relevant try and fix them before they happen, try and stop us putting people in harm’s way?
The third thing I wanted to talk about there is ports and the idea of, well, first of all, increasing coastal permits from 2026. Every single port, at least to some degree, was going to have to reconsent itself next year. For what? Are we going to say to them, “No, we’re going to strip out those ports; we’re going to remove them.”? That is absolutely bonkers. What would it have cost them to reconsent them? Probably hundreds of millions of dollars. What does it cost Meridian, for example, to reconsent the dams? Were we going to take the dams out of the Waitaki? I don’t think we were. Why are we doing that to ourselves, forcing genuinely long-life infrastructure and having to reconsent something that’s there. If it was on land, you wouldn’t do it, but because it happens to have its feet in the water, you start doing that. That is madness, and we have to change that. Whether it’s waste water, whether it’s ports, whether it is dams, we have to stop doing that. That would save us literally billions and billions of dollars which we could spend on something far, far more useful.
The idea of ports being requiring authorities makes absolute sense. I was down with PrimePort Timaru the other day, and one of the things they said—
Hon James Meager: Oh, great place.
ANDY FOSTER: Great place, yeah—I did drop in on the Minister’s office, but he wasn’t there; he was doing some great work elsewhere. But what they said is that they are allowed to replace all the piles on their main wharves—that was absolutely fine; they could do that as of right. They wanted to put in two piles, literally, to put in a little—they can replace hundreds, but to put in two piles to put in a place that the kids could operate their sailing boats from, that is a nightmarish resource consent costing them tens of thousands of dollars. That is nuts. If they were a requiring authority which says, “This is your area to operate within; you can do port-related activities that look like this—away you go.”, wouldn’t that make so much more sense to be able to do those things so much more efficiently? So those changes make 100 percent sense to me.
The final one I wanted to touch on in the minute I’ve got left is just around farming and aquaculture. Again, we’ve just got to take the pressure off, take the red tape off—the red and green tape off—and allow these businesses to get on and do their business and create the wealth that our country needs, because that is good for every single New Zealander, both now and in the future. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30.
Sitting suspended from 5.56 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good evening, members. We are on the second reading of the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill and we are up to call number six, which is a split call.
DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): Thank you. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. First of all, I do want to mihi to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform. In this particular situation, he reached out to meet with ourselves and to explain some of the thinking on this bill, and that often helps. It doesn’t mean that it changes our opinion, but it does help for questions and for those of the communities that put us here in this place.
What I have understood in those early engagements with the Minister is the five themes and some of the certainty. One of the things we did agree on is that there needed to be certainty and, to be honest, speed on renewable energy and renewable infrastructure. I think that’s something in Taranaki that we’ve been asking for a long time, and it’s more than overdue.
In saying that, though, there were numerous concerns from our community and rather than share what our views were, I would like to take my time to share what the views of the community are—Māori within Te Tai Hauāuru and the community of Māori around the motu. So there were, again, concerns about how this bill would impact on our rights, on tino rangatiratanga, our ability to be kaitiaki.
It’s just concerning that every time this Government talks about making things effective and efficient, it always seems to have an impact on us as tangata whenua. I’m not quite sure why the Tiriti or our role as kaitiaki is seen as being in the way. There were concerns about the marginalisation of tangata whenua, specifically a lot of our iwi who are settled. We’re concerned about the undermining of their settlements and the co-governance frameworks that their settlements have given rise to.
There was concern about some of the legal definitions and, I guess, the loss of opportunity that this Government continuously misses by leaving iwi and Māori out of their considerations. So some of the submissions that we saw: Ngā Iwi o Taranaki opposed this bill. They felt that it would limit tangata whenua consultation and participation. Ngāti Toa Rangatira also opposed this because it was a piecemeal change to the Resource Management Act (RMA). I want to emphasise that everyone thought there needed to be changes to the RMA; it didn’t need to be at the cost of tangata whenua. That was the concern.
Ngā Waihua o Paerangi Trust recognised the resource management bill as part of a suite of harmful environmental legislative changes and were continuously concerned about that, as were Raukawa Settlement Trust, who support improvements but in principle, not at the cost, again, of their rights, their cultural and environmental values.
Te Korowai o Ngāruahine also urged the Government to continue a kaitiaki-centred, inclusive approach. Māori are not the problem in this bureaucracy. So, once again, a resounding voice of concerns for breach of Te Tiriti, a resounding lack of Māori input or consultation, and a resounding profit over taiao. This has become the slogan, sadly, for every speech I’ve been doing lately.
Hoi anō, Muaūpoko Tribal Authority opposed the changes, specifically to section 70 and 100, because of the polluted waters, their rights, and marine and coastal areas.
Then we also had pou taiao leaders of the Iwi Chairs Forum, who mostly opposed because they thought that the bill undermines te mana o te wai and the Treaty settlements and favours infrastructure over taiao. So there were warnings also of irreparable harm to freshwater and taonga species.
Te Kaahui o Rauru were extremely concerned about the impact, again, on tangata whenua, on conservation land for mining, limiting consultation—a host of kaupapa that are absolutely, I’m sure, of no surprise to the Government.
Te Runanga o Ngāti Ruanui oppose the removal of hearing rights and permitted status of polluting activities. Again, what we saw was community Māori, iwi Māori, Māori businesses, Māori tangata as individuals concerned that this Government continues to attack their ability to live and be who they are in the environment. We do not support this bill, nor do a large proportion of our community. We do ask for change, but we ask that the change be one that enhances the relationship that tangata whenua have with our environment. Kia ora rā.
CELIA WADE-BROWN (Green): I was reflecting, when my colleague Andy Foster spoke earlier, about what high hopes we had for the Resource Management Act (RMA) once upon a time. It was introduced as something that was meant to really look at the effects, not the minutiae. I mean, having been involved through my previous role, it became so difficult to protect some concepts like sunlight and views and so on, especially in a hilly city.
So what was going to happen with the RMA? It was going to be replaced—despite its intentions for the public good, its intentions for a balance between a healthy environment and the right to develop your property, whether you’re a corporate or an individual. It became calcified. Every time something went to court, there was another little change. At every opportunity, there was—from different parties; I’m not sure that anyone is immune from this—another little tweak here to tell councils what to do, to require them to do something, to require them to not do something. That has been very frustrating. There are definitely some things, as you will see in our differing view. There are definitely some things we agree on. The longer consents for renewable energy—absolutely, no-brainer. But when the International Energy Agency has noted that all fossil gas generation should be phased out by 2040, what is the point of having long-lived infrastructure to include fossil gas?
We also have concerns about fresh water, and I was interested to hear earlier Rachel Brooking talking about farm plans. Yes, some of us are involved in our local catchment communities—the Wairarapa Catchment Collective is quite all-encompassing. It’s got everything from big beef and dairy farms through to quite small weekend blocks, and people have worked together, and we have found, in particular, that the children of farmers have got absolutely fascinated by what animals they might find, whether they’re lizards on the land or whether they’re the different native fish in the river, or all sorts. With eDNA testing, the amount that they have been teaching their parents—whether their parents are weekenders or they have been there for generations—has been fantastic. But let us not mistake inspiration and collective work for a good reason to remove regulations on fresh water altogether. Not everywhere has got catchment collectives, and sometimes it’s quite difficult if you’ve got one recalcitrant person on less than 50 hectares—because this is removing the need for farm environment plans for under 50 hectares—it’s very difficult for neighbours to call somebody out, because it creates a big social tension, and that’s where you do need to keep having those environmental regulations.
There’s another area. Minister Bishop, when he introduced this, he sounded like a grand urbanist. All of this building housing, increased density along with transport—I thought that he was channelling my colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter, and he genuinely believes this. But then he completely undermines it by talking about the necessity for greenfields growth. And greenfields growth is like a sort of short-term—the land’s a little bit cheaper, but it’s really expensive, because you’re always going to have to have two cars; it’s really expensive for councils even if you’ve got development levies, because you’re taking the infrastructure out and you are spreading it across a much wider area. It’s expensive for emissions and it’s expensive for management of water infrastructure. So it’s a pity that we didn’t do, collectively, a thorough job of getting rid of the RMA and replacing it.
CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): I rise to support the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. This is a much-needed piece of legislation which makes targeted amendments to the Resource Management Act (RMA). I would just like to acknowledge our amazing Minister responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, who, as has already been pointed out by a member of the House, in terms of the consultation, has taken to get some really good progress on this very complex area—being the RMA.
I’d also like to just acknowledge the committee members of the Environment Committee, as we did have quite a collegial approach as we moved through the select committee process. There were many areas of the bill we did agree on, and that was very progressive, because we did acknowledge that it would be better for infrastructure, energy, housing growth, farming—of course—and the primary sector, being an area that this bill addresses to reduce the red tape, but also the natural hazards and the emergency response that this bill will help as well. Obviously, coming from the area where we had Cyclone Gabrielle, this had been very welcomed by a lot of councils. During the submission process, we heard over 300 submissions, of which many supported a lot of this bill. We heard from the councils, to some of the NGOs, individuals, industry, and businesses. It was a great process that we went through on the select committee. It’s a very much-needed piece of legislation, and I’ll look forward to the third reading of this legislation. I commend this to the House.
Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It does give me some pleasure to rise and take a call on this bill, the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. While I am a member of the Environment Committee, the previous speaker, Catherine Wedd, the chairperson—happy birthday, by the way—is right, in the sense that we do work in a rather collegial manner. I did join the select committee towards the tail end of the deliberation on this bill.
However, I did want to point to three specific areas of the bill in my contribution, the first being clause 15, amending section 70, discharge aspect of this bill. Section 70(1) sets out, basically, the requirements on a council before it includes in a regional plan the permitted activity rule that would allow the discharge of contaminants into the waterway, basically. Largely, what this does is—and I thought I would reference at least one submission to this part of the bill—basically, amend the scope of that section to clarify that regional councils can include permitted activity discharge rules in their plans when an activity may have significant adverse effects on aquatic life. That’s the bit that members on this side of the House didn’t agree with. It didn’t sit right with us that waterways that are already polluted could be further polluted just on the basis that—you know, the requirement was just to show that change could be made over a certain period of time, but, ultimately, what this amendment allows for is the further pollution of waterways. For that reason, we don’t agree with this part of the change.
I did, however, want to draw the House’s attention to the submission by the Environmental Defence Society. In their submission to the select committee, they had, basically, opposed a particular change that the bill would have made, and that was a concern that they had around the proposed wording of section 70(1)—specifically, clause 15(1) of the bill—which would replace the term “Before” with the phrase “Except as provided in subsection (3), before”. They found this particular amendment problematic because it removed the requirement that a regional council has to assess whether the mandatory performance standards that are required in the bill can be met before including a permitting discharge rule in the plan. They made a very good point about why that was problematic, drawing on a High Court observation as well. They will be pleased to know that the select committee worked together to recommend that that be removed from the bill, so the bill, as it’s presented to the House, does not include that particular part they objected to. That, for me, actually is the best part of select committees: working together to finesse a piece of legislation and taking into account, in the process of doing that, various submitters and the points that they bring to select committee. I think that was a good change that was made.
The other aspect of the bill that I would like to just refer to is the bit around freshwater farm plans. Now, farming groups have been advocating for the use of farm plans as a way to coordinate a response to environmental rules. Currently, the regional council is the certifier of freshwater farm plans. This bill removes regional councils from being the approved certifiers and auditors, and that’s problematic because, as the primary regulator of the waterway, they should have a role and they should retain that role in terms of certification and the auditing side of the freshwater component of farm plans. We also objected to the fact that changes that the select committee made will limit the number of farmers that require a freshwater farm plan to most farms larger than 50 hectares. I think, from memory, that excludes about a third of farms. While we accept that there needs to be a balance struck there—that very small lifestyle blocks should be excluded—we felt that the 50-hectare size did not strike that balance because it was, firstly, too big, and, secondly, there wasn’t a risk-based analysis of that. So I just wanted to share those two changes to the bill.
The final point that I want to make is around the housing component of this bill. Now, that’s not an aspect that we objected to, because, ultimately, the aim of this legislation is to increase housing, and, on this side of the House, we do agree that that’s a good thing. I do, however, want to point to the fact that the National Party supported the medium-density residential standards (MDRS), which were also aimed at increasing housing intensification, back in 2021. Then, in 2023, they said they made a mistake and withdrew from the bipartisan agreement around the MDRS. Now they want to go further than the MDRS went. The MDRS would have allowed, in Auckland, for example, or in general, housing developments of up to three storeys. This has now moved to at least six storeys. The Minister, in his contribution in the House today, said that they intend to move to 15 storeys—so, much more housing intensification than the MDRS would have allowed for at the time. Again, while we don’t necessarily oppose that on this side of the House, in the area that I live in, the electorate that I live in, Maungakiekie, there has been a lot of feedback around that intensification. So I will just put on the table the need to do that well.
The legislation does talk about intensification around transport nodes, particularly around the City Rail Link stations, and, again, that’s a good thing in principle, but I will note that that needs to be done in a way that is sensitive.
In closing, though, what I will say is, while this legislation looks at liberalising the regulations around infrastructure and development, including housing, it aims to strike a balance with environmental requirements as well. I don’t believe it actually achieves that, necessarily. I do think that some of the aspects of this bill will weaken our environmental protections. I will leave it at that. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise with great pleasure to support this bill. If there’s one thing that seems to really divide the House, it’s the whole freshwater discussion and debate. There seems to be a lack of acknowledgment from the other side that, actually, the rural community really has come a long way in the last 20 years about where it sits and how it accepts that it’s got responsibilities to improve water quality. Consequently, despite the objections from the other side, farmers are working hard to reduce their impact, and what we’re finding is that in a lot of catchments that is starting to happen, right? The changes to section 70 take a pragmatic position so farmers don’t, effectively, get shut down in some parts of the country.
Then, with respect to farm plans, it’s really important now that, actually, the Minister can approve the industry organisations that can approve farm plans, not each individual council, so, therefore, it makes it more efficient. With that, I commend this bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call.
Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to make a relatively brief contribution to the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. I want to address the provisions relating to the Christchurch City Council or the Christchurch Intensification Planning Instrument (IPI).
I also want to start my contribution by acknowledging the work that the Environment Committee did, particularly to make those changes and to shape this bill into something that is a pragmatic balance between national direction and also acknowledges and recognises those local realities. In Christchurch’s case, the inclusion of a bespoke withdrawal pathway is a recognition of the fact that the city is in a different position to some other centres, like Auckland, and much of that intensification planning work in Christchurch has already been done—and well done. The Independent Hearings Panel has progressed the bulk of Plan Change 14, and many of those provisions are now actually operative. So the council, I think—and the community, it should be acknowledged—have also engaged in that process with considerable commitment and lots of robust feedback and a certain amount of passion, because it is something that people feel really passionate about, and we need to respect that.
The pathway provided in this bill therefore allows the council—with ministerial approval, obviously—to withdraw only the remaining parts of that IPI that haven’t yet become operational, provided—obviously—that they can demonstrate, or that Christchurch can demonstrate, that they have capacity for the next 30 years of demand and housing, plus a little bit of contingency. So it’s not a free pass to walk away from intensification, nor should it be, but it is a conditional mechanism that reflects Christchurch’s distinct planning context—as it should, also.
Ultimately, we do support this bill, as has been said by colleagues, principally because Labour agrees that the focus should be on ensuring everybody has a warm, dry, safe place to live. I acknowledge the history behind the medium-density residential standards. It was certainly touted at the time as something that could garner that bipartisan support, and I know that there was quite a lot of collaboration in 2021 to ensure that that was the case. So we still remain a little bit bemused, and I think there’s certainly some damage to credibility in terms of the Government, at the time—well, the Government now—but whilst in Opposition, walking away from that agreement. So whilst there are aspects of this bill that we also support—the streamlining consents, the enabling, obviously, of renewable energy, and ensuring that the intensification targets can be met in an appropriate way—it’s not a blanket endorsement; we have significant concerns about the broader direction that the Government is taking in regard to Resource Management Act reform, particularly the weakening of the environmental protections. Even within this modest bill—this more modest bill—the freshwater management and the erosion of safeguards under Section 70 has been mentioned, and I think that that is worth repeating.
We’re also mindful of how the resource management settings interact with major regional infrastructure, such as Lyttelton Port. The bill’s recognition of the port as a regionally significant infrastructure—and, therefore, its eligibility for fast-track consenting—underscores, I suppose, the importance of ensuring that critical trade and freight infrastructure is not held back unnecessarily. But we should also be really mindful of the fact that Lyttelton Port is not just an economic asset; it is a coastal environment, it’s a workplace, it’s a key point of community connection. The consenting process must, therefore, also allow for proper environmental assessment and, actually, meaningful community input as well. So we will be watching the implementation closely to ensure that the balance between efficiency, that is often touted, and public accountability in relation to both that infrastructure and that housing intensification is maintained.
Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. This is part of a suite of a phased change for the Resource Management Act. First, repealing the previous one and reinstating the old one, and then a series of bills that will come through. So for those who are watching at home and wondering what we’re doing, this is only one of a series of things that will be done. This is making sure that councils won’t be doing things and plan changes unnecessarily and has made some very pragmatic allowances, just as the previous speaker, Dr Tracey McLellan, was saying, especially for Christchurch, where I’m based. I commend the bill to the House.
Hon JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to rise and take a call on this piece of legislation. This part of the bill, in theory, we are comfortable with the majority of aspects within this piece of legislation, but there are some that we aren’t comfortable with, but, however, we do support. As my colleague Rachel Brooking mentioned in her contribution earlier this evening, we will be bringing quite a few questions to the committee during the committee of the whole House stage, just to help clarify our understanding and thinking and perhaps, hopefully, maybe make some much-needed changes.
As I mentioned, we aren’t 100 percent comfortable with some of the environmental changes made within this bill. Before I do delve into that a little bit, I do want to pick up on the comment that Grant McCallum made. I do want to acknowledge the work and the changes that farmers have made over the years. If I think about when we were farming, the practices that we were undertaking 30 years ago, there’s been some massive improvements in that space. So I do think and recognise it is really important to acknowledge the good work and the changes that have been made.
One of the concerns I do want to talk about is the section 70 discharges. I’m a little bit perplexed as to why there is a belief or thinking that it is actually OK to allow clause 15, the new section 70(3), that enables the council to include a rule in a regional plan that allows as a permitted activity a discharge into water that could result in adverse effects to aquatic life—it may not necessarily, but it could. I just am perplexed as to why the committee or the Minister thinks that that is something that is actually OK, because what kind of message does that send to our future generations that it’s OK if we pollute just for a little while or make this body of water worse for a little while, when, actually, I think the aim and goal should be that, at the very least, our rivers should be swimmable? I do feel that that moves away somewhat from that.
I am pleased to see a change that was made where submitters expressed concern and talked about, eventually over time, reducing the adverse effects. I am pleased to see that a time frame has been put in there where initially I don’t think there was. So the committee has decided on that time frame of 10 years to work on reducing the adverse effects of whatever that pollutant may be in that particular body.
One of the things that farmers often discuss with me when I meet with them—and I’m quite sure members across the House have similar conversations where farmers say, “You know, we’re doing a lot of good work, we’re doing the right things. How do we tell our story better? How do we continue to have that social licence? How do we get the broader public to actually understand that we’re not all bad or we’re not doing bad things? We don’t intentionally want to pollute.”, and all these things. And they often say, “How do we it better? How do we get our message across and show the public that what we’re doing is actually really good and really positive?”
I do, in that vein, have a little bit of a concern around the certification and auditing aspects where the Minister is going to be able to—well, currently the regional council is the freshwater farm plans. Under this piece of legislation, it looks like there’ll be changes made to that and it could be, perhaps, an industry body that might be able to do that. So I am a little weary of that. Not to say that they wouldn’t do it accurately, correctly, and do everything right, but I am a little bit worried about the perception that that could put out there that they may not—the wider public perception might be that they are not truly independent and perhaps necessarily have some qualifications that would otherwise be required to make some of those decisions. So I am just a little bit weary in that aspect of things.
With regard to the size, where farms larger than 50 hectares are the ones that would require a farm plan, I have a bit of concern around that, because it doesn’t take into account any risk factors, and I think that kind of lends to being a blanket approach, without taking those risk factors into consideration. So I am aware that there are people out there and members opposite who don’t like, in the past, legislation that has been referred to as taking a blanket approach to things. I do have some concerns around that thinking, and I’ll probably look to ask the Minister questions about that when it comes to the committee of the whole House.
The stuff around housing, we absolutely support. As my colleague Tracey McLellan said, we’re really focused on making sure that people have safe, affordable, warm housing to live in. Things around the changes to the ports and their consents being just automatically increased, I think that makes absolute sense. So it is with some reservations, but I do commend this bill to the House.
RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East): It’s great to hear such consensus across the House. I’ll be very brief—three things, really. Firstly, to our select committee chair, Catherine Wedd, happy birthday. I just acknowledge her on this special day. The definition of “long-lived infrastructure”, I think, has been a great addition to this amendment bill: something that’s 35 years consentable, 50 years durable—fantastic. One thing which probably hasn’t got much attention but I want to read out: section 88 amended, new subsection (2AA), inserted by clause 28, “An applicant must ensure that information required by subsection (2)(b) is provided at a level of detail that is proportionate to the scale and significance of the effects that the activity may have on the environment.” That proportionality is the key. It will help cut through some of that red tape in consenting. I commend this bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Environment Committee by majority be agreed to.
Amendments agreed to.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Bills
United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister for Trade and Investment): I present a legislative statement on the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill. I move—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before you do—so that legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon TODD McCLAY: I move, That the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
It’s a pleasure to speak on this bill again. Following the bill’s first reading in April, it was referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee where it was extensively examined. The committee considered the bill from 10 April until 19 June and it recommended the bill now proceed and be passed into law. I want to express my thanks to all those involved in this important examination process, from members of the committee through to civil society and business representatives. The New Zealand - UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement—or CEPA, as I will refer to it from now on, to shorten my speech—is a high-quality free-trade agreement (FTA) that will provide real benefits for New Zealand and for New Zealanders.
The Government recognises that trade is crucial to our economic success, and we know that one in four New Zealanders’ jobs depend upon trade access around the world. That’s why we’re focused on doubling the value of exports over 10 years, and growing our FTA network is one component of this.
We have a warm relationship with the UAE, and the CEPA is a significant new milestone towards deepening this bilateral relationship. It, along with the accompanying bilateral investment treaty, will provide opportunities to grow our trade and people-to-people links with the UAE. It provides New Zealand better access to a dynamic and internationally well-connected economy that is both an important trade and investment partner—as the world’s 20th largest economy, with GDP of over US$500 billion. The UAE is also aiming to be the world’s best-connected trade hub by 2031. This means more opportunities and increased jobs and incomes for New Zealanders. The opportunities here are considerable, and the CEPA, once in force, will improve conditions for New Zealand exporters in the UAE market, with tariffs eliminated on 98.5 percent of our goods exports immediately. This will benefit our producers of dairy, beef, sheep meat, horticulture, commodities including apples and kiwifruit, seafood, forestry, as well as all industrial items, with full tariff elimination increasing to 99 percent within three years.
On top of these high-quality commitments for our goods exporters, the CEPA contains trade facilitative rules designed to reduce behind-the-border barriers. These include commitments to release goods within clear time frames, ensuring that Customs processes and practices are transparent and as efficient as possible, and to further strengthen existing sanitary and phytosanitary measures.
Our services exporters will also benefit with the CEPA, with improved commitments in a range of priority sectors such as education, professional services like engineering and environment and audio-visual, and on top of this, most favoured nations’ commitments in the agreement in key sectors mean that our exporters will always enjoy the best available treatment in the UAE market into the future.
Other provisions agreed under the CEPA mean our services suppliers will benefit from more transparency and certainty and enjoy the assurance of fair treatment in their covered sectors. The CEPA will also contribute to a further diversification of New Zealand’s FTA network. The Middle East is a significant missing piece of the overall FTA network. Having the CEPA in place represents a crucial first step in expanding our FTA coverage in this important region as the also concluded agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries will add further. This first agreement is why I, along with officials, pushed for CEPA to be New Zealand’s fastest ever free-trade agreement negotiation, concluded in just under four months. I was very pleased to sign it in January this year, during the Prime Minister’s visit to the UAE.
The importance of our network of FTAs has never been so relevant as in the current global context where the rules-based international trading system is facing challenges. Without FTAs like the NZ-UAE CEPA, New Zealand would find it harder to compete internationally. Therefore, we can’t stand still, which is why we’re doing all that we can to progress our recently concluded free-trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as investing in our FTA negotiations with India.
The UAE isn’t standing still, either. Not only does it have over 20 CEPAs signed but it has commenced negotiations with over a dozen more trade partners. The NZ-UAE CEPA is the highest quality and the most liberalising of any of the more than 20 free-trade agreements the UAE has concluded to date. This is a tremendous achievement for New Zealand and will benefit our exporters greatly.
At the same time, the CEPA preserves the Government’s right to regulate in the public interest and to preserve the status of the Treaty of Waitangi through the agreement. It also contains the most comprehensive commitments on inclusive and sustainable trade of any FTA agreed by the UAE. There are a limited number of legislative and regulatory amendments that are required to align New Zealand’s domestic law with our obligations under this agreement, and the bill makes the changes required for New Zealand to implement these obligations and bring it into force. Specifically, the bill amends the Overseas Investment Act 2005 and the Overseas Investment Regulations 2005, the Customs and Excise Act 2018, and the Customs and Excise Regulations 1996.
The bill will enable an increase in investment screening thresholds from NZ$100 million to NZ$200 million for non-Government UAE investors, the designation of an authorised certification body to certify that goods originate in New Zealand, the application of preferential tariff rates under the CEPA, the implementation of obligations relating to the tariff treatment of goods returned to New Zealand after repair or alteration in the UAE, and giving effect to the rules of origin applicable to imports into New Zealand that originate from the UAE.
These legislative and regulatory changes are consistent with the changes required for almost all of our previous FTA agreements. Both the UAE and this Government are working to ratify CEPA as soon as possible to quickly realise the benefits of the agreement. Once both countries have concluded all of the necessary steps, we will be ready to bring the CEPA into force. New Zealand has secured this free-trade agreement at a crucial moment in the current global trade landscape. It will provide concrete, long-term benefits to our economy and to our exporters as New Zealand navigates the increasingly turbulent trade world we are now facing.
Can I thank all members for their work in the committee and for the extensive support across the House that this bill has received. I commend the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour): I rise as the first speaker on behalf of the Labour Party to support this piece of legislation, and to, firstly, thank and congratulate the Minister for Trade and Investment for what was certainly a fast trade agreement from the time of his negotiation. I would like to say that Labour, when in Government, had hosted a Minister from the UAE here in New Zealand, the Minister of State for international affairs and relations. She came over here and suggested that we start a negotiation. We went back in September and confirmed that negotiations should begin, and, in fact, we took a trade delegation to the UAE just to confirm the relationship, the value of it, and the potential from the agreement. But the Minister, on coming into Government, took up that challenge and pushed it through, so congratulations.
He did mention briefly the agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which was a wider trade agreement that had actually been started under the previous Labour Government back in 2007. But it had reached a point of stalling—is a polite word, I guess. Some internal issues within the GCC meant that that hadn’t progressed with our country. The Minister, after the UAE agreement, has, as we had, started to renegotiate that, and now we have, effectively, two trade agreements with an area of the world that is growing rapidly.
It is changing, and there were submitters that came to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee who raised some points. Some of them related to historical areas around labour relations and, I guess, gender issues. What I’d like to say on behalf of my experience within those Arab countries is that huge progress has been made, and it’s only right that we, as a trade partner, acknowledge that through this agreement, and, indeed, encourage progress—not to be like us, but to acknowledge the cornerstones of what we’d call a “fair society”.
Trade for All was a framework that Labour laid out when in Government to ensure that any trade agreements would ensure that benefits flowed through to all areas of New Zealand society. It acknowledged gender imbalance in some areas of commerce and trade, disadvantages for Māori enterprises, labour—to make sure that we didn’t undermine labour rights in getting opportunities in trade. Indeed, this current Government—the coalition Government—has carried those through into this agreement, and we applaud them for that.
There was some suspicion, as I say, from submitters that the labour rights or labour issues within some of the countries are not what we have here in our country. We acknowledge that, but they’ve made huge progress and it’s only fair that we encourage one another, in areas of difference, to respect those differences but actually move towards what we think is a fairer society—one that does offer opportunities. This agreement does move us in that direction.
The other area of concern raised by submitters was the one of investment. Indeed, the threshold before any proper scrutiny of the investment proposals are looked at by the Overseas Investment Office, or the Minister or the Government, has now moved from $100 million to $200 million, except for areas of critical Government infrastructure and investment—the areas that we consider are still important. But moving it to $200 million is an area that is consistent with other trade agreements that we have.
One of the things that I think that we in Opposition will continue to scrutinise is the other changes that the Government is making around the areas of overseas investment. That may, in fact, not be because of this piece of legislation or this trade agreement, but because of changing Government policy that just undermines some of the scrutiny that I think most New Zealanders want to see in place. When we have a world full of trillions of dollars looking for a place to invest—and, indeed, in both the UAE and the GCC countries there is a lot of money looking to be invested, particularly in the areas of sustainable development—we’d like to think that, in New Zealand, we offer those opportunities, but we do need to ensure that the money coming in delivers sustainable benefits for New Zealand and not just for those overseas investors.
One of the other areas of concern was around the respect for Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Te Tiriti has been acknowledged in trade agreements for some time now, prior to Labour being in Government and incorporating it into Trade for All. It has been respected, and, indeed, sometimes there is some astonishment or some confusion with our trade partners when we say that we have to protect and uphold the rights of our Treaty partners regardless of the legislation, and that in trade agreements the same will apply. Through the good work of our trade negotiators and respect and understanding, those protections have been incorporated here, through to the point of data protection, intellectual property of Māori and iwi enterprises, and of Māori businesses as well—they will be protected.
So the submissions—and there weren’t that many—were mainly focused around the areas of investment, of labour rights, as I’ve said, and the protection of rights for Māori and for our Treaty partners. In our view, having scrutinised those at select committee—and I want to acknowledge the chair of the select committee and, I guess, the very fair way that we approached all of these things with an open mind. But, actually, we all came to the conclusion that this was a pretty good deal. It’s very hard in Opposition to say that it’s a “very” good deal, but it almost—almost—reaches that threshold of a very good deal, and, indeed, what it does—
Hon Mark Patterson: Grudging!
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I know it’s difficult, but I just acknowledge the work that the Minister has done. He did it in a very rapid fashion. The Government has done a number of things in a rapid fashion, very quickly. We don’t agree with many of them, but, in this particular case, when it comes to a trade agreement with the UAE, I think it delivers opportunities for that country and for our country. It will build relationships between us in commercial opportunities, and, ultimately, we hope, a more peaceful world where we can share and depend upon one another for a better outcome for all of our citizens.
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party. We will not be supporting this particular bill.
Hon Members: Aw!
Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: It’s in line with the fact that we didn’t support the agreement—I don’t know why the Government side is thinking that we would support the bill despite the fact that we’re not supporting the agreement. Now, there is a reason for that and I want to kind of highlight some of the reasons.
I want to, first, provide some of the context to this bill. The previous speakers have mentioned that when we’re looking at the bill itself, the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill, this is on the basis of the NZ-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that was agreed on in January of this year. Yes, while I agree with the other speakers, and also with the Minister, on the fact that this was probably the fastest trade agreement deal that we have signed up to—which was only, I think, a four-month negotiation period—but a fast agreement doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be a good agreement, that it’s going to be an agreement that is really genuinely beneficial to Aotearoa New Zealand. Indeed, as we were discussing in terms of the agreement that enabled this bill in the first place, there is very little evidence in terms of genuine and tangible economic benefit that we’ll be able to see as a result of this.
Yes, we talked about the fact that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a factor in this, and having an agreement with the UAE potentially could expand on other further opportunities of a collaboration with other GCC countries.
But looking at the pure agreement itself, one of the things that we see in the agreement, in chapter two—and we’ll talk more, in terms of the details, about the increase in terms of the investment threshold from $100 million and $200 million in just a bit—as expected from a trade agreement, it’s trade of goods and services; it’s a fundamental cornerstone of a trade agreement. But the most tangible benefit of this trade agreement is a reduction of tariffs worth less than $42.6 million per annum, which, for some, they may consider it to be significant, but when we’re looking at trade agreements and the fact that our positioning in Aotearoa, in terms of the global trade potential, is worth billions and trillions of dollars, this is actually reasonably small in the context of a benefit to an agreement in terms of the expenditure that we spend negotiating the agreement in the first place. As we expected, most of Aotearoa New Zealand’s export into the UAE currently is already under the unilateral UAE duty exemption programme. The agreement is also unlikely going to have immediate commercial or economic benefits to Aotearoa New Zealand exporters as a result of that. Also, there’s no enforceable investment facilitation chapter and enforceable bilateral investment agreement which would increase investment from the UAE to Aotearoa New Zealand.
So as the agreement which enabled this particular bill stands, there are some issues. I think that the way the bill is done—which is on the basis of an agreement that has already been signed—also fundamentally highlights one of the issues we have in terms of international agreement negotiation, which is that, often, from an international law perspective, Aotearoa New Zealand operates on a dual system and not a mono system in the sense that any international treaty does not take effect unless there’s a domestic piece of legislation, which is what we’re seeing here. But what that has also meant is that it creates a loophole for Ministers to go and make these sort of deals and sign “Aotearoa New Zealand” on behalf of the people of Aotearoa New Zealand on to a deal without having the need to have any formal and substantial public scrutiny. Yes, we did have some hearings on the agreement itself, but that was after the agreement had been signed. It’s very hard for you to walk back from a contractual partner to say, “Oh, by the way, I know we signed this, but we’re now going back to our people and our people didn’t really like this particular bill.”
So there are definitely concerns. This is a concern that has been expressed as part of the Standing Orders review process in the 2020-2023 Government. The previous speaker, the Hon Damien O’Connor, has also mentioned the Trade for All report, which is supposed to address some of these concerns that we have about the lack of transparency and the lack of public scrutiny when it comes to the way we do international agreements. But what we have seen is that those recommendations have not been taken on board and we’re still continuing with the same sort of negotiation process that we’re currently seeing under Standing Orders 405 to 408. So that, from a process perspective, is one of the reasons why the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand find it really hard to agree to a bill which doesn’t really have that public scrutiny and accountability in the current framework.
Now, on to the bill itself, one of the things that we do see—and, again, this is sort of the issue that we have, that some of the submissions that were being made on this bill are less to do with the bill itself and more to do with the agreement that forms the foundation of this bill. Again, highlighting the opaqueness and sort of the reverse process we’re seeing when we’re looking at any international agreement, particularly when it comes to international trade agreements.
But on to the bill itself, one of the things that has been highlighted is that idea of the introduction of a type 5 investor, and this is something we can discuss more in terms of the committee of the whole House stage. But the fundamental element—and this is something that the select committee was very interested in, and, again, I do thank the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and particularly the members on that select committee, for us to be able to have that really curious but really open discussion in terms of this particular type of investor and then really allowed us to have this opportunity to ask officials about some of the examples and the reason behind the increase of the investment amount from $100 million to $200 million.
I think one of the things that I wanted to highlight from that particular consultation period during the select committee was around the fact that we were curious as to what that process actually looked like. What is the process for investment screening? Who is responsible for investment screening? This is something that we have seen expressed through the select committee report around the fact that all screening for investment in New Zealand is undertaken by Land Information New Zealand—LINZ—and also under the Overseas Investment Act. Under the Overseas Investment Act, LINZ has the mandate to consider screening significant business assets that are generally defined as assets valued at more than $100 million. But what we’re seeing for this particular bill and for this agreement is investments from the UAE will need to meet a threshold of $200 million before they are being screened. So that is, fundamentally, the most significant change to the legislation through the select committee process, at which it was discussed at length, because the rest of the bill is more to do with adding additional amendments to take into consideration of agreement.
Now, I would like to draw attention to a particular submission to this bill, which is by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, which does oppose this bill. But it’s more than that; it opposes the agreement itself and it highlights something that we have spoken about when we’re talking about the agreement, which is the concerns over the labour right violations that the UAE is currently having. It really questions in terms of what we are willing to sacrifice as people of Aotearoa New Zealand who uphold workers’ rights—allegedly; not under the current Government. But what does that actually look like internationally? How can the International Labour Organization—and the international agreement that we signed up to is manifested through our trade agreements.
One of the major concerns is around the fact that when we look at the agreement itself, as the submitters mentioned, the trade and sustainability development chapter is not enforceable. That is a problem because it says it shall endeavour to adopt and maintain the principles concerning the fundamental rights at work. Yes, we do see that over the last few years. I agree with the previous speaker on this that we have seen some changes to the way that the UAE functions in terms of the way that their labour rights have worked. However, what we’re still seeing are major loopholes and major gaps for, particularly, migrant workers who are working in the UAE and what that will mean for them. So when we are importing things from the UAE, are we looking at potentially feeding into some of those international labour right violations? Which I think is a key consideration.
So, with that, the Green Party will not support this bill, because the Green Party does not support this agreement.
LAURA McCLURE (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise today in support of the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill—and I did have to read that, because I know we don’t like using acronyms. The ACT Party supports this bill. It’s a huge honour to stand here and say that this Government, and particularly the Minister, have got an agreement over the line in almost record time. I think it sends a signal that—
Tim Costley: It’s almost very good!
LAURA McCLURE: Oh, almost—almost record time. Actually, it could be record time—maybe we need to check that out.
What I think it does is it sends a signal that New Zealand is a tiny island nation at the bottom of the bottom of the earth, and part of our prosperity is the fact that we are able to trade, and these agreements are really important to New Zealand’s economy. It signals two things. It signals that we need to diversify our markets. We need to trade more with other, yes, like-minded partners, or partners that are of significant economic opportunity for us.
Part of the select committee process was hearing from submitters, and, like the previous speakers have said, there were some concerns about labour issues. I do hear those concerns. I think the United Arab Emirates UAE is making rapid improvements, it’s becoming quite a modern society, and it’s one that we do really want to trade with. But we also need to think about some of our other trade agreements that we have with other partners, and I think it is a bit contradictory to bring up labour rights issues when we know that those are things that, actually, some of our other trading partners have as well.
Yep, this is, potentially, of small economic benefit right now, which I think the previous speaker, Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, talked about, but it’s actually the opportunities that this presents for our markets here and what it could actually bring in. So, while the immediate economic benefits may not be that huge, what it does do is it opens up a whole bunch of opportunities for our exporters and potential exporters from the UAE to come into New Zealand—whether that is investment, for example, they are things that we want and we need more of.
The bill does technical things that all trade agreements do. This one, obviously, raises the investment screening threshold from $100 million to $200 million. It does things like the certificate of origin, the tariffs, the rules, etc. These are all the things that are the basics of implementing any type of free-trade agreement, and the ACT Party supports more of this. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): I will use the acronym. We absolutely support the UAE trade deal. This is a really important step forward, and, in record time, this deal was pulled together by Minister McClay, and we absolutely commend him for doing that, and in under four months—a fantastic performance.
Look, it is absolutely critical that we diversify our trading options. It’s clear for all to see the geopolitical tensions at the moment, and the ability to trade as broadly as possible and our goals of growing the economy and doubling our exports are an important component of that for New Zealand. So deals like this are critical, and the UAE would seem—quite a synergy between them and us. Food security: we’re hearing more and more, as our Ministers go out into the world, about food security being something that’s increasingly on the radar, and that’s something that we are able to offer some of these international countries like the UAE. So there’s certainly something in it for them. I mean, the good thing here is it builds upon—this is not in isolation; it builds on the Gulf States deal, it builds on the EU deal, it builds on the UK deal. Minister McClay’s been heavily involved in that. I acknowledge one of the previous speakers, the Hon Damien O’Connor, who did a lot of the legwork for the EU and the UK deal. We’ve got the India deal going at the moment—that’s going to be critical as we go forward.
I do wish the Greens would reconsider their position. We cannot, as a country, tax ourselves to prosperity. Day after day, you get up here and demand Government spending. We’ve got to earn it somehow, and deals like this are exactly how we’re going to earn our way in the world and lift our standard of living and our ability to deliver those Government services that you are rightly demanding are increased.
The other thing I did want to say here is that there is a gentleman called Vangelis Vitalis—who many of us will know—that is New Zealand’s lead trade negotiator. He would be one of the most incredible New Zealanders in terms of his service to New Zealand and the value that he’s brought to our country, and our primary sector in particular, through these trade deals. He is an extraordinary operator, and we are very lucky to have him—and whilst it’s the politicians that take the credit, it’s the people like Vangelis that do the groundwork and get these deals over the line for us.
The substandard part of this deal from our perspective—what we’ve, not given up, but in terms of what we’ve offered up in return—is increased investment in threshold for the Overseas Investment Act provisions from $100 million to $200 million. That seems a sensible matter; it’s in line with our other trade agreements. It still gives us the ability to scrutinise large strategic purchases, and we haven’t traded that away. We’ve just lifted the threshold, and the UAE is now a trusted partner in that regard, to bring them into line with some of these other trusted international partners that we have.
So New Zealand First absolutely supports this bill. It’s fundamental to our going for growth. It’s fundamental for us growing our exports—doubling our exports. So we absolutely commend this bill to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The next call is a split call.
RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. So the Green Party is not supporting this bill. For those of you wanting a robust analysis of our position, you can reference my excellent colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s speech, in which he laid out the broad-ranging aspects of this comprehensive economic partnership agreement that we are signing up to as part of this legislation allows that to, basically, come into place. I wanted to focus on a few specific aspects, within my role particularly as immigration spokesperson and as somebody who has worked really closely with our Sudanese counterparts.
First of all, I want to make it clear that the Green Party is not inherently against trade deals. In fact, we recognise that, actually, trade deals that build on mutual respect and aspirations that uphold the rights of people in both countries can be beneficial. But we also need to be aware of the breaches to human rights that may be occurring in the counterparts that we are signing trade deals with. I think particularly of the conflict in Sudan, which has been described by many people as one of the most horrible humanitarian incidents that we’ve had, and with the United Arab Emirates’ complicitly in enabling some of that to happen. I think there is a lot of concern around us not holding our trade partners adequately to account. This is something that we raised in our differing view. I do want to mihi to the Sudanese diaspora, recognising that many of them actually do live in the United Arab Emirates, and who struggle to voice their concerns in relationship to the United Arab Emirates’ complicity in some of these issues.
As my colleague noted in the differing view when he tried to ask around, for example, the concerns on this issue, what we received was that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) was not able to accurately articulate how this trade deal could hold both parties accountable for serious human rights and armed conflicts. I think, to me, that’s a really important issue to resolve.
Other submitters—and I want to pick up on the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions—also talked about the United Arab Emirates’ poor record of appalling international labour rights and standards in relation, as well, to how the ratification of this agreement does not help move us closer to the International Labour Organization commitments to address modern slavery. The United Arab Emirates is one of the countries that probably is most notorious for having guest worker visa schemes that do entrench migrant worker exploitation.
When I hear other members talk about how trade can boost our economies, we’ve also got to think about who is benefiting from the increase in, for example, GDP that we may be seeing as a result of these trade deals. In the United Arab Emirates, we know that many of the migrant workers and low-wage workers are not benefiting to the degree that they should from the economic gains that they have seen in their country. We know here that we also have issues to address relating to who is benefiting the most from the trade deals that we’re signing up to. That includes, for example, making sure that our farmers are looked after as we continue liberalising, basically, the arrangements that we have with other countries and we talk about slogans like boosting our agricultural exports. I think that needs to centre, actually, issues around sustainability, looking after workers, etc.
Again, I want to reiterate that the concerns that we have in relation to this piece of legislation stem from particularly the inability to adequately take seriously and address the human rights issues that exist within the UAE and also the inability to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and protect Māori sovereignty, which was never ceded, as part of these trade agreements—something that has been a longstanding issue for the Greens in trade deals that we’ve signed up to, both in Labour and National Governments.
I think, to me, this signals that, actually, we do need to do more work as a Parliament and in Governments to ensure that the trade deals that we sign up to actually enhance the rights of people across both nations. That they do not just benefit the companies that are already doing well at the expense of, potentially, workers that are currently being exploited, whether it’s on shore or off shore with the partners that we’re signing up with. We look forward to having constructive conversations across the House and with communities on the ground to ensure that we can build trade deals that genuinely uphold principles of sustainability, economic equity, and indigenous sovereignty. So, for those reasons, we won’t be supporting this bill.
Tim van de Molen: Point of order. Madam Speaker, just seeking to clarify that I am not taking the other half of the split call.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, it’s your call.
Tim van de Molen: Correct.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. Thank you.
TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): With the United Arab Emirates close economic partnership agreement, it’s fantastic to see this bill now coming back for the second reading. As we heard from the Minister for Trade and Investment, trade agreements for New Zealand are vital. As an export-oriented nation, this is essential for our long-term prosperity. With an ambitious goal of doubling the value of exports over the next 10 years, new agreements like this become even more important. So to see it progressed in record time was fantastic.
As chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, it’s been a privilege to help guide this through its process in that committee, and I particularly want to thank the members of the committee for their efficient and effective consideration of this bill, and Opposition members in the Labour Party in particular, acknowledging that no deal is quite perfect but, actually, this is a very good deal—I will take Mr O’Connor’s concession on that regard—and it will be a fantastic benefit for the country.
We’re very pleased to see this progressing with near unanimity. It would’ve been great if we could’ve had unanimity across the House, but we’ve got to a very good position on this and we’re very pleased to see this progressing. So I commend it to the House.
Hon PEENI HENARE (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I, too, stand in support of the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill. A little bit of context with respect to some of the submissions on the matter of the Treaty of Waitangi clause. I want to acknowledge their taumata and the other submitters that came forward in what, for some or an outsider looking in might see those submissions as being prickly or against. But, actually, what they’re doing is building on a legacy of continually challenging the Government, regardless of whether it’s a Labour-led Government or a National-led Government, to try and push for the recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi in the pieces of work and the negotiations that are done on trade.
They have had success in the past. We know that in particular with the UK. If I recall correctly, it might have been the first time or unique for its time. With respect to this particular deal, we did hear from the submitters about how they might look towards pushing the envelope, if you will, on the recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi rights and what does that mean. I thought the officials gave a really good, fulsome response about how, through the indigenous connections that Māori, who are already trading in the United Arab Emirates and other places around the world, that indigenous connection with those particular countries have seen trade continue to grow and flourish. With the addition of Treaty of Waitangi discussions in negotiations, it’s allowed for a really good recognition, and I think another good stepping stone as future trade agreements are considered by this Government and future Governments.
Just to provide a bit of context with that, because, as I say, if some look at those submissions from those particular people, they might actually think they were in opposition to it, but, really, what they were trying to do was just continue to challenge to make sure that those indigenous rights aren’t forgotten and that the Treaty of Waitangi takes its place in recognising that Māori continue to trade around the world—they have a significant role to play in the primary products space, which is why it’s important that we continue to recognise that.
The other part that my colleague, I think, summarised quite well around lifting the investment threshold is that it is important that we get good investment into this country. It’s just as important that we make sure that there is strong accountability mechanisms when we look at how money comes into this country, what’s being invested in, where that money comes from, and in what way that money comes into this country is a really important question that not only this House should be asking but I know people across the country are asking, as foreign investors look to invest in this country. We know there’s a push for foreign investment in this country. We know it’s important to continue to grow our economic outlook into the future. But we must make sure that there are accountability mechanisms there.
I thought my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor pointed to some of those matters and things that we’ll continue to interrogate, regardless of our support for this bill or for any other negotiation that’ll look towards bringing foreign investment into this country. We know that land is precious. We know that it’s a taonga and a resource for our country, and we want to make sure that it continues to be that into the future.
Without further ado, I do commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to making sure that the work of this committee continues to interrogate and do very collegial work on trade matters and foreign affairs matters. Thank you, Mr Speaker.
TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki): Oh, thanks, Mr Speaker. Look, just in lieu of the time and to keep things moving, I just want to cover one aspect which was touched on briefly by the Minister for Trade and Investment, which is around the investment screening threshold lifting from $100 to $200 million. It was an area that I interrogated and it didn’t seem to have been something people had looked at particularly much previously through select committee processes around how this works, as it was explained to us. I think that it’s important that we get this right. It applies where the purpose of the business coming to New Zealand in that investment is specifically to facilitate trade in relation to this economic partnership, and I think that is important.
There is a team that monitor this. I want to particularly acknowledge Pedro Morgan, who’s the lead adviser to overseas investment at Land Information New Zealand, who I think did an excellent job advising the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and I think deserves to have his name in Hansard. It was excellent advice that we got and it gives you real confidence in the public servants that look after us and monitor these processes to make sure Kiwis are getting the best deal. There’s a great team in place to look after it. With that, I commend this to the House.
VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise, like my colleagues, in support of this bill, and to commend the Minister for his quick work in the context that my colleague Damien O’Connor mentioned, which is that there were essential early conversations that were begun by the last Labour-led Government as well. I think the Minister made a useful comment, which was that these are unusual times in trade, and so I do think that it’s an important time to ensure not only that we’re maintaining our trade relationships; that we’re diversifying them—and certainly, that we’re managing risk in these unusual times.
I didn’t have the pleasure of sitting on the select committee considering this bill. However, I have been through some of its provisions and the provisions of the agreement, and I did think that they were substantial in terms of the immediate removal of tariffs on considerable areas, including dairy products, industrial products, horticulture, red meat, and poultry. One of the interesting points within the agreement itself, I thought, was in relation to the tariffs regarding wine, which, while they’re not as substantial as the others—New Zealand exports to the UAE total about $7 million—the tariffs on wine were 50 percent, so the effect of the agreement is, essentially, to reduce them to 10 percent. But the novel factor of the agreement is it futureproofs New Zealand producers and exporters. So if other parties are offered liberalisation of tariff regimes, New Zealand would still get the benefit of at least those liberalisations, as well. I thought that was an excellent example of how we ought to be negotiating trade agreements in terms of futureproofing them.
As others have spoken to, this isn’t the first trade agreement that the UAE have entered into. Just this year, Malaysia, Kenya, Ukraine, and the Central African Republic have also been countries that the UAE have entered into trade agreements with. They have very much had a focus of shifting away from oil being the chief export for them, into looking at logistics, sport, tech, and tourism as well.
I do want to acknowledge, as others have, the submissions of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. I think it is tempting to want all of our trade agreements to evolve on the same plane, with the same requirements in terms of our worldview. However, that’s not always going to be possible, and I agree with my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor that we must continue to engage across the globe, continue to develop our relationships, and, where there are opportunities for ongoing conversations, to have those conversations actively.
I did want to make a comment on the rules of origin, which, to my mind, are the real anchor of a trade agreement. If they’re overly broad, there’s a risk of trade diversion, so one country importing goods and simply onselling them, and if they’re too onerous in terms of defining what a rule of origin is, then at times that can be seen as defeating the purpose of ensuring smooth trade. So getting that balance right is really essential, and I do note that, in terms of this agreement, there is the ability for entities who are approved to self-determine that origin—or self-certify, if you like. That’s not unusual for New Zealand; we have a similar rule in terms of Australia, as well. However, I do think that that is one area where, going forward, when we are reviewing our agreements, we ought to look whether that rule is still serving us. Likewise, the investment threshold, as others have spoken to.
So the critical issue there is whether, when Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) is assessing the threshold, whether multiple lower amounts that constitute over $200 million are counted as one or not, and whether LINZ ought to have discretion in terms of how they make that assessment.
So there are things that we will need to keep an eye on. But overall, like colleagues, I agree that this is a really good way for New Zealand to move forward, and I commend this bill to the House.
Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill. This is progressing the process so that we can ratify the agreement that has been made, and I commend the bill to the House.
Debate interrupted.
Points of Order
Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill, Majority Amendments—Leave Sought for Party Vote
SCOTT WILLIS (Green): Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to have a party vote recorded on the questions on the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill, agreeing to majority amendments recommended by the Environment Committee and the second reading of the bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Leave for that has been sought. Is there any objection to that motion? There has been an objection.
Bills
United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Debate resumed.
Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m glad of the opportunity to make a contribution in this debate about the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill. I want to devote my remarks in the debate to the issue of human rights in this trade agreement. I want to respond to some of the comments made by submitters at select committee and by colleagues in the House tonight who have questioned whether we should be making a trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates when the UAE falls well short of the human rights standards that we hold ourselves to.
Labour is supporting this bill. My colleague Damien O’Connor started the exploratory discussions to get the negotiations under way when we were in Government, and credit to him and to Todd McClay, the current Minister, for the progress that’s been made. It needs to be said that the United Arab Emirates are one of our top 20 trading partners, and this agreement will, within three years, move 99 percent of our exports to duty-free status and eliminate tariffs.
Now, I don’t need to labour the point, but it does need to be said that the United Arab Emirates’ human rights fall well short in areas of labour rights, the rights of migrant workers, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly. It’s easy for the members of this House to go and read any number of reports from the likes of Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International or others to see those things documented.
Why do I raise this? Because, for me and my colleagues in the Labour Party, we want to see human rights given more weight in New Zealand and in New Zealand’s foreign policy. We oppose, as have done successive Governments, the terrible human rights abuses in Myanmar right now, or in Afghanistan. We’re outspoken about Israel’s human rights abuses in Gaza, and we advocate for sanctions as a response to Israel’s egregious and ongoing breaches of human rights and international law in the occupied Palestinian territories. I’m in favour of autonomous sanctions as a policy so that New Zealand in future can take concrete action in the most egregious situations.
Why aren’t human rights concerns an obstacle to a trade agreement like this, in our view? Well, here’s the thing: human rights should play a bigger role in our foreign policy. New Zealand can do more to be a stronger voice for human rights internationally, but we cannot only trade with countries who share our views of human rights and democracy or measure up to a certain standard. If we did that, we would go broke very quickly.
Look at China, by far and away our biggest trading partner. China is not a paragon of human rights and democratic standards. Across Asia, a region where we have stronger and stronger trade, diplomatic, and security ties, many countries in the region—for example, some of the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—don’t share our views about human rights and democracy. But, as a country, we have to make our way in the world. We have to trade to survive, literally. If we don’t trade, it would be an existential threat to our nation. We have to be pragmatic, and I think this is a powerful example in foreign policy of where consistency risks being the enemy of good policy.
Now, having said all that, we can do more to integrate social, environmental, moral, and ethical concerns into our trade policy. I want to acknowledge the work that was done first by David Parker and then by Damien O’Connor in developing and growing and promoting the Trade for All policy, which went a long way to involve a range of different stakeholder groups in society behind a holistic approach to our trade strategy and what it could deliver to New Zealand and our partners. I want to acknowledge the progress that’s been made pursuing labour and environmental standards in what is now a series of trade agreements. Progress has been good. I’m pleased to see that the National Party have come around to Labour’s point of view on investor-State dispute settlement—ISDS— provisions which would allow private sector firms to sue Governments in what are, essentially, private sector tribunals, and it’s great to see that that seems to have become a bipartisan feature of trade policy for New Zealand. There’s no doubt that we could, through our diplomats, be a much stronger voice for human rights in the world through our foreign policy.
I think that, in the most egregious cases, we should be implementing and putting sanctions in place, as our Government did in the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and I think that the current situation in relation to Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories is crying out for that approach. You could make the argument, then, that these are contradictions, but I think that they are in fact an argument that we have to be pragmatic in our foreign policy, and our foreign policy must be grounded in our national interests. We must recognise that we share values with some countries, and with others we share interests, and we have to cooperate and work on the basis of both, but often not both at the same time. At a time in history when international law and multilateral institutions are breaking down, we are seeing the rise of authoritarian Governments around the world, including amongst the great powers, and foreign policy is becoming more transactional and more coercive all the time.
I want to finish with this: I believe it is within our capabilities in New Zealand to do more and better when it comes to being a strong voice for human rights in our foreign policy, and we can do more in relation to trade. Thank you.
DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I’m pleased to be part of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that heard this bill and spent some time deliberating over it. Look, it’s essential to the Government’s vision for doubling the value of exports from New Zealand—the fastest trade deal done to date. We’re not here to muck around and I’m not here to muck around. There’s no point belabouring the point. I commend the bill to the House.
RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take the final call tonight on the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill. I’m sure there’s a very good acronym for this trade deal. Can I congratulate the Minister, Todd McClay, on the speed at which the deal was begun and concluded around a year ago, and also acknowledge my colleague Damien O’Connor, who kicked off the discussions back in September 2023. So it actually is quite remarkable that within two years of those discussions beginning, we actually have a trade bill that is now progressing through this House.
I do want to just draw briefly on some of the comments made by my colleague Phil Twyford, just in response to some concerns raised by the Green Party around human rights and the connection between human rights and trade deals. It wouldn’t surprise members of this House to hear that of course we should be concerned with the human rights conditions in countries that we trade with, and there’s no question about that. Certainly, it can bring a strong level of discomfort when we do know that we’re engaging with countries where the human rights standards are nowhere near those of New Zealand. What I would say is that, actually, these trade deals can begin an opportunity for us to engage with other countries to improve human rights and other important areas of law—like environmental standards, for example; like animal welfare provisions—not just for the countries we’re trading with. Sometimes, those countries will actually have asks of us. We have to acknowledge that there are times where we also as a nation fall short and may be required to improve standards in some of the areas where we work when we are trading with a nation. So I think we also have to be careful not to stand here and be too holier than thou around that, that somehow we have everything perfect, because we don’t.
I’d also comment that often the time that is taken to see improvements—for example, if we consider human rights or labour laws with other countries—can feel like it takes far too long, and I do want to acknowledge that. Improvements that we can see through mechanisms that are introduced in a trade deal, alongside the relationships that we build, the dialogue that occurs, it feels and it does often take decades for change to occur. I do acknowledge that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be working in dialogue in order to make that change. One of the things that trade does is it opens up the door for dialogue. It opens up the door to build relationships with other countries and, of course, it makes a significant contribution to the economy of our nation, and globally.
So, as others have noted, Labour supports this bill. I do particularly want to acknowledge, as I said at the beginning of this speech, just how fast it has been progressed. It is significant for New Zealand. It’s around $1 billion of revenue for us annually that this deal will deliver for New Zealand. We have to acknowledge that that’s important for our economy in order for us to be able to invest in the things that matter to us as New Zealanders.
So, absolutely, we should always be working with countries that we partner with to improve human rights; to improve labour laws; to improve environmental laws; and, one of my personal interests, animal welfare laws; and many other things as part of those trade agreements. But that doesn’t mean we should be backing off from having trade agreements in the first place. That does a disservice to New Zealand. It does a disservice to our opportunity to use our influence in a constructive way. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 102
New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 20
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 5.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Bills
Local Government (Water Services) Bill
Second Reading
Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister of Local Government): I present a legislative statement on the Local Government (Water Services) Bill.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.
Hon SIMON WATTS: I move, That the Local Government (Water Services) Bill be now read a second time.
This is the third and final piece of legislation for implementing Local Water Done Well, the Government’s plan to address water services challenges. It is a complete legislative framework for New Zealand’s water services delivery system. It provides enduring settings for our vital drinking-water, waste-water, and stormwater services. At a national level, we have had historic under-investment, which has resulted in significant challenges that are difficult and costly to address. This bill provides a flexible and enabling framework for local government to address challenges and ensure that they do so and do not emerge again. It emphasises a need for financial sustainability and sets clear economic, environmental, and water-quality regulatory standards.
The bill also provides for regulation of water services that is based upon and designed to be proportionate to that risk. In the extreme, those risks can be significant, particularly around public health, environment, life, and property. This bill provides regulation to achieve safe and effective water services without excessive costs, compliance, and requirements. Local Water Done Well maintains local ownership, choice, and decision making. In support of financially sustainable water services, the bill introduces new council-controlled organisations, known as “water organisations”, with requirements around public ownership, governance, and accountability.
I would like to acknowledge and thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for the improvements that they have made in regards to this bill. They have made a large number of amendments and adjustments, which are comprehensive and necessary with this type of complexity and complex bill. I would also like to thank those many people that made submissions to this bill, particularly councils, local interest groups, iwi, and many who have contributed throughout the course of this water services reform.
After considering the submissions, the committee has recommended 367 amendments to enhance the bill’s workability. Feedback has been heard and well used. The committee made a number of recommendations, including two new statutory objectives to be included for water services providers. This supports housing growth and urban development and promotes an efficient use of water resources when providing water supply.
To further support housing growth and development, the committee also recommended improvements to workability of the development contribution provisions. The committee also recommended additions to the bill to support the effective transfer of responsibilities from councils to water organisations and to clarify that certain responsibilities cannot be transferred. The committee agreed to modifications to ensure that accountability operates effectively in practice and enables water organisations to get on with their job.
As you can see here, there are a wide range of recommended changes, many of which have been adopted by this Government and will enhance this legislation to ensure that it is enduring. The bill also contains provisions to ensure that Watercare is classed as a water services provider and water organisation, while retaining specific responsibilities relating to water services that are provided under the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act.
Regarding stormwater management, rainfall without regard for property boundaries or who owns it, the bill provides clarity about who is responsible for managing the various types of risks and hazards. The committee has recommended changes to definitions and processes to support water services providers to plan, manage, and regulate activities that will impact the stormwater network and protect people and property.
I would like to thank the committee for their work with iwi, in particular, to ensure that the bill upholds Treaty settlements. I want to acknowledge the hard work of the committee, committee staff, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office on the bill. They have all worked relentlessly in a short time frame to strengthen this legislation. The proposed amendments will help establish effective and enduring regulatory settings for New Zealand’s water services that will be workable for water services providers and our communities. This is a reform that will benefit our communities for generations to come. For that reason, I commend this bill to the House.
TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise as Labour’s spokesperson for local government on this bill. The Minister is quite correct in that this is basically the third in a series, or a trilogy, for what is the Government’s inadequate approach to water reform, not getting the fundamentals right—
Hon Rachel Brooking: A horror trilogy.
TANGI UTIKERE: Actually, it is a horror trilogy, because that is exactly what communities are going to experience in the long term if the Government proceeds with this proposed form of water reform. Labour, it will come as no surprise, will not support inadequate legislation in this space. We will not support something that is significantly underdone and is, basically, subpar as a solution for communities all around New Zealand.
The Finance and Expenditure Committee considered this bill, and there were a number of submissions. What was really interesting, in the opportunities that I took up to sit in on that committee, was the number of councils that—rightly so, actually—engaged with the process to share their views, but, more importantly, I think, to share their experiences around what this Government has forced them into doing as a result of this proposed piece of legislation. This is something that was very interesting to listen to, and it came as no surprise that many of the councils who fronted up to the select committee were talking through the steps that they were forced to take, in what is a very hurried fashion, really, because the time is ticking for them to comply with what would be contained, in terms of submitting their water delivery plans.
The Labour Party submitted a differing view, and there’s one line in the differing view that I want to point out because it is extremely apt. It really goes to the heart of why it is that we are opposing this bill this evening. It’s because we believe that the Government’s proposed changes “lack the longitudinal courage required to ensure the provision of affordable water services for communities of interest over the decades to come.” When it comes to listening to and understanding what it is that they are painting as a picture, a lot of the stats, a lot of the figures and the data that they’ve presented, actually don’t add up to a rosy picture for communities moving forward into the future.
Of course, this is a Government that’s not really interested in understanding the long-term implications for councils, because their view of localism is something quite different to what many around the country will experience localism to be all about. What they campaigned on is quite different to what we’re experiencing this evening. We heard the Minister talk briefly before about the fact that, when it comes to the three waters, when it comes to reform around drinking water, stormwater, and waste water, there has been a historical level of under-investment in this area, and nothing is being done by this Government—that’s my view—in terms of seeking to address that or to make it adequate. The Minister talks about communities having local ownership, choice, and some form of sustainability. Well, it’s far from it—it is far from it when communities are, basically, dovetailed into a position where they must hurriedly race around and try to scramble around to find partners to make this work for them. It is something that is simply setting the sector and local government up to fail.
One of the interesting things, of course, is that this is a Government that did promise councils that any reform in the water space that they would deliver would come with the financial capacity to be able to deliver it. There is nothing in this bill—there is nothing in these water reforms—that provides any additional tools, any additional funding opportunities, directly to councils to support them in meeting that particular challenge. What that means is that this is a Government that is very happy to set councils up for failure. Failure in the long term is what is going to be coming down the road for councils as a result of this water reform under the Government’s name.
This is also something that doesn’t really force or encourage or incentivise regional collaboration. This is not going to provide any incentive for councils to want to work together. Over the last few months, I’ve been taking the opportunity to meet with councils around the country to listen to the issues that they are facing, and my goodness, they are stocking up under this Government. They really are. Every week, there is something more lumped on to councils that they expect them to follow through, and they don’t provide any funding tools to support them in that particular space.
What’s really interesting is, when one talks to councils and hears from councils about what their experience is around water reform, there is a number of councils that will have no element of choice around this. They will be positioned in a sense where they will be, largely, orphaned. They will be like the last person on the dance card who doesn’t get a partner. The fact is that all of those other councils that are around them have gone through a process of maybe identifying who they would work with, and then there are councils who will, basically, be left on their own, not because they want to be but because they have to be as a result of this Government’s reform.
We all know that councils are working hard to deliver their water services delivery plan by early September, but, of course, if they are not in a position to be able to do that, the Government has indicated that they will intervene. There is a specific provision, if triggered, that will allow the Government to, basically, intervene and to put in place what they consider as Crown water specialists to follow through that particular process. What is interesting in the select committee’s report, which has been developed as a result of listening to the evidence and the submissions that the committee received, of course, is that the report confirmed that there is actually contingency planning that is under way for intervention towards councils where that may be the case.
The Minister and the Government might like to paint a rosy picture around this, but the reality is that the select committee report—that has, effectively, been authored by the committee and the recommendations adopted by a majority of Government members—clearly states that there are contingency plans under way for intervention. Look, the time frames are very tight, so it’s no wonder that that may be something that is triggered, effectively removing that sense of localism and the choice that they may choose to make.
What I think is really interesting is that councils are already facing difficulties when it comes to their financial capacity, when it comes to the rates rises that are on the increase as a direct result of this Government. These rates rises that are being experienced by communities all around the country are a direct result of the decisions that have been taken by this Government—
Andy Foster: That’s not true.
TANGI UTIKERE: Members opposite may say “That’s not true.” Well, I’ll tell you what, I look forward to actually hearing the fulsome contributions that they will make on this, because I actually predict that Government members will stand up, they’ll make a very brief contribution, and they’ll sit down. They will choose not to address the elephants that are in the room. They will choose not to address or to rebut the concerns that have been expressed around the decisions that they have been taking. They won’t stand up and tell us, “These are the tools that we’re going to put in the tool box to allow councils to fund this and to head down that path.” Maybe they’ll prove me wrong, but I doubt that that will necessarily be the case.
What’s really fascinating, I think, is that these are decisions that have been taken by the Government—and we are on the final leg of that horror trilogy, in terms of this form of reform—that actually ignore the lessons, the understandings, and the experiences of the folk of Havelock North, of Queenstown, of other rural communities around New Zealand. That’s unfortunate, because what communities and councils around this country need is a Government that’s going to give them some hope, and this is something that actually is far lacking from this Government in what they’re seeking to do. They talk about localism, but they’re not prepared to front up when it really counts. There is no financial component in this legislation. They are simply saying to councils, “We expect you to do this. We are not going to incentivise it.” There are no carrots in this particular piece of legislation; it’s all stick, stick, stick. Quite frankly, communities deserve much better.
As we head into the future with water reform on the cards, it will be such under this Government that failure is what is on the horizon. It’s on that basis that Labour will continue to oppose this reform.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.
LAN PHAM (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. One of our country’s most pressing and fundamental challenges right now is this one. It’s our people’s access—or, actually, in many cases, lack of access—to clean, safe drinking water. That is just such a basic fundamental that you’d think we would have sorted it out by now, yet we haven’t.
The other aspect of it is this continual, perpetual cycle of waste-water and stormwater infrastructure and systems that unnecessarily harm not only the health of the environment but the health of ourselves. You’d think the solutions to that—when it comes to protecting communities’ drinking water, when it comes to the delivery of waste-water and stormwater services that don’t unnecessarily harm the environment—would be something we can deliver. And yet for so long, thanks to literally decades of elected members who have consistently put off investing in these really important aspects that are fundamental to Kiwis’ lives, we’re in this situation where we’re, essentially, up waste-water creek without a paddle. This bill, unfortunately, is not providing Kiwis with the paddle that they so desperately need.
What we do see tonight—and, unfortunately, likely in the rest of the process of this bill through Parliament—is yet another missed opportunity. I say “another missed opportunity” because we’ve just had the second resource management bill, the amendment bill, which already deprioritises fresh waterways and particularly fresh water that is already significantly degraded—which, unfortunately, is a big hunk of our rivers, streams, lakes, and ultimately oceans that we interact with every day and that we need to be healthy and safe for us to actually interact with those spaces.
Because it is 2025, this was an opportunity to create an actually fit-for-purpose framework. It could have ensured that no community was left behind. It could have ensured that we didn’t have substandard, poor-quality drinking water, and that our environment was protected and restored. We could have had the full involvement of iwi Māori in that process, in their exercise of rangatiratanga over fresh water in their rohe. Instead, we’ve got this, another rushed process, and it’s something which councils particularly picked up on in their submissions on this bill. I’m talking particularly about Ōpōtiki, Thames-Coromandel District Council, and Palmerston North City Council, who talked really strongly in their submissions about how they didn’t even have the time to consult with their communities. That was something that was echoed across submissions. This is too important to be ramming through without due consideration.
Now, I do want to acknowledge that the entirety of the bill was not a complete disaster. Thanks to some really strong voices, particularly from iwi Māori, we’ve seen and do support the strengthening of Māori rights and interests when it comes to Treaty settlement obligations, particularly to Te Ture Whaimana o Te Awa o Waikato and Ngāti Rangi, which is now provided for in the bill. It is right and a good thing that these provisions also apply to all persons who are exercising functions, powers, and duties under this bill. We also really welcome the fact that regional councils can now be part of considerations, discussions—and even potential water entities themselves—because we see their role as a key way to actually provide equity across communities, to actually provide a voice for some communities who are ultimately being left behind in this.
However, ultimately, we’re not supporting this bill, because there is still this unacceptable void of involvement for iwi and hapū who have not yet settled. This is completely unacceptable. We live in Aotearoa, where tangata whenua have existing rights and sovereignty, particularly when it comes to fresh water and freshwater systems. The role of iwi Māori, in their partnership with the Crown under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, means we have obligations, and they need to be clearly provided for in water-service governance and delivery with really clear mechanisms for iwi Māori voice and representation, particularly in terms of protection of their rights and interests.
The other key parts of this bill that we absolutely oppose are those that take us further away from appropriate investment in adequate drinking water, waste-water, and stormwater infrastructure. This would allow, particularly, not only for environmental improvement but for this actual achievement of te mana o te wai, which we know is central to what we need in this country to actually turn the dial in the freshwater space. Now, where this is particularly glaring in the bill is in these perverse single standards proposed for waste water and stormwater, and also the removal of the objective to provide water services that do not have adverse effects on the environment.
Now, I firstly want to pick up on this perverse single standards for stormwater and waste water, because they’re absolutely ill-thought-out and they’re absolutely dangerous when it comes to our environment and our communities, particularly in terms of their disconnection between the actual receiving environment—be that a river, an estuary, or an ocean—and the actual environmental outcomes that communities want to see in those receiving environments.
We know that these stormwater and waste-water standards will override any existing or more stringent standards or limits already set in key legislation. This is across national policy statements, it’s across the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement, our national environment standards, or our regional district plans. This is completely overriding community voice and the processes that communities have been in for so many years in actually achieving this. There have been lots of councils who are really concerned about this. I wanted to pick up, particularly, on Environment Canterbury’s submission, because they point out really clearly—just taking Ōtautahi Christchurch’s waste-water discharge to ocean as an example. This is just north of Ōtautahi Christchurch city. The single standard for this was no more than 1,000 colony-forming units of enterococci bacteria in 75 percent of samples and no more than 5,000 in the remaining 25 percent of samples. Now, this new single standard takes that to 40,000 enterococci colony-forming units in 90 percent of samples.
The absolute worst part about this is that, when you combine this with the removal of the objective to actually provide water services that do not have adverse effects on the environment, it means Kiwis and communities are missing the boat with an actual futureproof reform that would put an end to essentially this ambulance-at-the-bottom-of-the-cliff approach to our water services. Instead, we’re just going to muddle along with this phony solution that further entrenches our failure to design, build, and deliver infrastructure projects that protect the health of our communities and the health of the environment.
The Minister, in his opening comments, talked about choices. I think what’s really glaringly troubling about this bill is questioning on what planet it makes sense to actually choose to deprioritise the safety and quality of people’s drinking water. Why would we choose to set up the conditions that risk locking in further under-investment in substandard infrastructure that, ultimately, harm human and ecosystem health? This is just an incredible and unfortunate missed opportunity. What we’re really disappointed about is that our pressing water issues won’t go away. They’re just going to continue to be exacerbated and get worse over these years and decades. Communities deserve so much better, and they can next year when we actually vote this Government out. Kia ora.
TODD STEPHENSON (ACT): It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of ACT and speak in support of the Local Government (Water Services) Bill. Firstly, I want to thank all the submitters to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We had 180 submissions and a number of people actually presented in person, a number of them councils and other organisations which did very detailed submissions that would actually improve this bill, and, as the Minister said, we had 366 amendments. There was obviously a lot of interest by stakeholders directly affected by this bill, and I do want to thank them for the time that they took. As I said, I think we’ve greatly improved it with their input.
I know that some stakeholders still have some concerns, particularly around waste-water and stormwater consenting, etc., and I think we just need to make sure that we continue to look at how we’re going to align this bill and the issues there around the Resource Management Act changes in due course and make sure we do have consistent standards and approaches so that we’re not making people jump through too many hoops.
But let me be clear: this bill was well signalled by the Government, and it was in response to the total rejection by the electorate of the previous Government’s three waters. So this is the reason we have come up with the three bills. This is the third and final piece, and what this is doing is ensuring that we address the historic under-investment in water infrastructure but doing it in a flexible way and an efficient way that the ratepayers can actually afford in their communities. I’ve heard a lot of talk across the House tonight, but this actually does provide flexible options for councils to decide how they do their water services in their area and what works best for them.
The other thing I can confirm is that councils are well advanced in their plans because this has been well signalled. So there will be no problem in this being implemented. I commend this bill to the House.
ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): Charles Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,”, and he was talking about A Tale of Two Cities. But I want to pick up from what Todd Stephenson was talking about: the tale of two bills. This bill has been through the Finance and Expenditure Committee. They have heard 183 submissions; 367 amendments. I might say that that shows you that a select committee is thinking, listening very carefully, and doing its work very well, and I think that is about authenticity in terms of responding.
I want to compare that with a Labour piece of legislation, which we’ve just had alluded to: 88,000-plus submissions. Did they listen? No, they did not—no, they did not. But to be lectured by the Labour Party over there about what this bill is doing, when they ignored 88,000-plus submissions, is galling in the extreme.
This bill gives councils choices—this bill gives councils choices. I know that those councils are thinking about those choices, they’re working hard on those choices, and they’re coming up with the solutions that they think are the most appropriate.
Did the Labour Party give those councils choices? Well, first of all, they said, “We’re going to allow you to opt in”, and then said—
Tom Rutherford: Voluntary. Voluntary.
ANDY FOSTER: Oh, it’s voluntary. And then they’re going to say, “We’re going to allow you to opt out if you really want to.” And then they said, “No, damn it, you’re in—you are in—regardless of whether you wanted to or not.” What is that, other than dictating to them? That gave the councils no choice whatsoever. I know, because I was on the other end of that. That really caused councils a lot of trauma; that causes councils a lot of trauma. Local Government New Zealand has not recovered from that yet. And you saw, of course, the setting up of campaign for local democracy. So do you think councils supported what Labour was doing? Hell no, they did not—no, they did not. What have we heard in this one? We’ve heard that councils, by and large, responded to it constructively, positively, and we have responded to them by making changes to the legislation through the select committee process.
The other thing I would like to just mention in terms of what else did Labour do with that—the enforced co-governance: did we have that? Did we see hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of billboards all over the country saying no to three waters? No, we did not. No, we did not see that rejection of this piece of legislation at all. This lead piece of legislation also did not spend $1.2 billion, I think it was—
Hon Member: Oh yeah, that’s right.
ANDY FOSTER: Yeah, $1.2 billion to get absolutely nowhere.
The last things I wanted to say: Labour’s proposal was very reliant on size. They kept saying, “Well, it’s going to save lots of money.” Well, of course it was—if you model it in a way which says that you’re going to have efficiency gains every year because it’s going to be bigger and better and brighter, of course it’s going to look bigger and better and brighter. But that was a nonsense, and we all know about that. At one stage, it reached right down to every two houses becoming a unit that would be managed in some way, some place hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away. Of course that offended people as well.
We all know that more needs to be done in the water area, but we can do more for less. We can be more efficient. One of the things, as I’ve said before in this House, is some councils are spending 40 percent of every investment in roads—and that includes all your water infrastructure—on traffic management. If we can get that cost down, we’re saving a lot of money and we’re able to do more for less.
Then, of course, there’s the consenting area. I’m going to give you one example. The re-consenting of waste water is ridiculously expensive. That is a challenge that a lot of councils face. We were in Blenheim the other day. They have a perfectly good waste-water system. It is going to cost that council $500 million to $700 million to discharge the land for 30,000 people. Every single man, woman, and child; that is $20,000. Is that affordable? No, it is not affordable. So not only did they do that; they gold-plated the system, they made it utterly unaffordable. I think this is the way forward.
Just in terms of under-investment, we’ve heard from the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) that councils overall are spending 76 percent of what they should have been spending in terms of depreciation against renewals—76 percent for decades. And has the OAG called that out loudly? No, it hasn’t. I would say to the OAG: if that carries on, you, Taumata Arowai, and the Commerce Commission need to be putting the pressure on councils to make sure they invest properly in water infrastructure we can proud of and that can do its job into the future. I commend this bill to the House.
STEVE ABEL (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, this is what you get when you get the billboards all across the country, the knee-jerk, division-stoking “Stop three waters and co-governance” billboards across the country, and, in the words of the Prime Minister, you make policy based on bumper stickers. We have a significant infrastructure deficit in this country. In regard to water—the three waters being stormwater, sewerage, and drinking water—we need a proper investment in infrastructure. That’s what the three waters plan was seeking to do. It was finding the means to allow councils to afford what they did not have the rating base to afford. What this Government does is it throws out the magic money tree that you guys use to give $2.9 billion in tax cuts to landlords.
Hon Member: No. To give them the rightful tax cuts they should have to do business.
STEVE ABEL: And you wonder why everyone’s leaving the country, because there’s no redistribution of wealth.
Hon Member: Pretty normal stuff. You distribute it amongst them.
STEVE ABEL: Back to the subject—
Andy Foster: Yeah, keep to the subject.
STEVE ABEL: Well, I was responding to one of your chaps interjecting, which is permitted, I believe. Because we don’t have that proper investment in infrastructure, those local councils now are having to find the money through their rating base. What does that mean? Rates are going up. And what does it mean? The other thing you’re seeing is water bills are going up. There are people throughout this country right now, and I know in my part of West Auckland, where they can’t afford to pay their water bill, the water that they need to drink, that they need to cook their food, that they need to wash their children—all those things. They can’t afford to pay for that basic necessity of safe drinking water and household domestic water. That’s in part because of this infrastructure deficit that this Government is in denial of needing to be addressed at a central level.
One of the most egregious things was the removal of a part of the bill that said that its objective should be to provide water services that do not have adverse effects on the environment. Now, all of our water comes from the environment. This might be a shock to the members of the Government, but all of the water that we depend on has its origin in rivers, lakes, aquifers, or rain clouds, and that protection of the environment is the means to ensure that we have safe and clean drinking water.
What you get in those parts of rural New Zealand where we have a major issue with contamination of drinking water and groundwater with nitrate—most of which comes from dairy cow urine, followed by synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, followed by other forms of livestock urine—that nitrate contamination gets there through means of inundation and infiltration into the catchment that leads to the feeding of the aquifer. The people of Canterbury depend on that aquifer for their drinking water. Nitrate is extremely expensive to remove from drinking water, so you should be preserving and protecting the source water in the first instance. This Government, in concert with what they’re doing here in this legislation, they are also removing all the legislative frameworks that protect drinking water through protecting fresh water. They’re removing the freshwater protections that ensure that we have access to safe, clean aquifers and rivers.
One of the stark statistics is that currently, in New Zealand, there are a hundred cases of bowel cancer each year—new cases—attributable to nitrate water contamination, most of it in rural New Zealand and rural areas due to aquifer contamination. There are 40 deaths from nitrate contamination, in terms of bowel cancer in this country, every year—40 people a year die.
Suze Redmayne: Oh, that’s a long bow.
STEVE ABEL: That’s straight out of Otago University, Suze Redmayne. I can give you the paper if you’d like. It’s published international academic literature. Due to nitrate contamination of drinking water, 40 people a year are dying from bowel cancer.
What does this Government do about it? It removes the protections on fresh water. It gets rid of the means by which we ensure that our environment and the impact on that is protected, which is the source of our drinking water. It shows the absolute illogic of the way that this Government thinks about things because it doesn’t realise the environment is connected to us; we are part of it.
CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): The so-called bumper sticker of “Stop three waters” was not a bumper sticker by this Government. That was a bumper sticker that was being held up—have a look on the internet—by New Zealanders, that was being held up by community groups, that was being held up by the mayors of this country. “Stop three waters”. Our bumper sticker was, “National will repeal and replace three waters”. That is what we are doing today with this second reading, this very key piece of legislation—the third piece of legislation.
This delivers on our election promise to deliver better water services for New Zealanders. It restores councils’ ownership and control of their assets and enables communities to sustainably invest. They can borrow, now, through the local government funding authority—and any suggestion that the local councils are not enthused by this, then look at the Department of Internal Affairs’ own report: 66 councils are involved, 36 indicative delivery models are already under way, 14 multi-council council-controlled organisations (CCOs) are in place—Selwyn has already been announced with its CCO; they have worked well together. This is a hugely successful reform.
The Labour Government—when they were in Government—said that we would never be able to find something to replace three waters with; well, this is what we have. Councils are loving it. It will deliver great results for New Zealanders.
Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): When the Labour Party said that National and its cronies would never be able to find something to replace it with, it wasn’t because we thought they were going to deliver higher rates for New Zealanders. That is exactly what this trio of water reforms that this Government has delivered is delivering for New Zealanders.
The Department of Internal Affairs’ advice that the select committee heard as part of this process indicated that most ratepayers will incur higher costs compared to the previous water reform approach initiated by the previous Government. When people were driving up and down the highways looking at those National Party signs “We’ll repeal and replace”, did they include the sentence “and we’ll put up your rates bill”? That is what is happening as a result of this series of reforms. The Department of Internal Affairs’ advice to the committee and what the committee heard made it abundantly clear that that is the case.
What we are seeing is that it fragments our water systems, making it harder, not easier, for communities to afford safe, modern infrastructure. The Government is replacing a form of centralisation—and we all remember that railing that we heard from the National Party and the other parties that now form this Government; the railing we heard about that. What it is doing is replacing that, and what’s more, it is threatening councils that, if they don’t comply, the Government is going to step in and do it for them. That’s not what we’re hearing in the speeches from the Government members tonight: the coercive nature of what this legislation can and does impose on councils.
Instead of enabling collaboration, the bill is forcing smaller councils to go it alone, and this is undermining efficiency and sustainability. Regulatory oversight is being imposed, and the cost of compliance is being dumped on to already overstretched councils. This is a Government that says it’s making it a priority to make sure we’ve got regulatory standards in this country. Yet in this bill, what are we doing? There’s an imposition of these regulations on to councils that are going to lead to higher rates bills for many, many, many New Zealanders. National Party candidates across the country are going to have to face up to their voters next year and explain why their Government has put in place a series of reforms that is delivering higher rates. That in a cost of living crisis, that is what the National Party has chosen to make a priority.
Let’s look at some of the detail that the committee went into in this bill. The shifting of the financial risk to councils and ratepayers was one of the key things that came through. This is where the coercive nature does come through, because there is now a requirement under this legislation for every council to develop and submit a water services plan that meets financial sustainability and regulatory compliance tests, but there are no new funding mechanisms to follow this—councils are required to do this, but there is no ability for there to be the capacity within those councils to prepare those plans. It forces councils to ring-fence water revenue but not does nothing to address the real infrastructure funding gap.
When we heard Cameron Brewer saying that Labour said it could never be done, well, it hasn’t been done in this legislation. It has not done that absolute fix for what has been decades in the making, and what there has to be: the ability to have a long-term vision to fix via Government. This Government is finding that—that infrastructure funding gap has sat there and undermined our prosperity and our growth for far too long in this country. It is short-term thinking, and all it is doing is imposing more costs on to ratepayers. That gap is not insignificant; it is up to $185 billion over 30 years. Let’s get real about the challenge in front of us.
What we have seen from the National Government and their coalition partners is rates increases for New Zealanders. We’ve seen a lack of long-term thinking. We’ve seen an inability to actually come up with solutions. All they have done is what they have done for the last nearly two years of being in Government, which is to think success is undoing, without having any vision or any plan of what to put in place and, at the same time, imposing more costs on New Zealanders during a cost of living crisis. Labour is most definitely not supporting this bill.
RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I don’t know how we get accused of adding more costs on. We go back to the Nanaia Mahuta model where there were four entities and co-governance, and today we’ve heard most of these entities have all chosen their own pathway: 65 percent have grouped together. That’s democracy. Minister Brown sorted out WaterCare Auckland with $300k, when the last Government spent over a billion dollars—a billion dollars. The last Government talked about co-governance and undemocratic, and we talked about council-controlled organisations (CCOs) and proportional shareholding. Tangi Utikere talked about the financial implications. We’re talking about debt to revenue, and we have increased the CCOs’ ability to borrow up to 500 percent, so they can borrow more to represent the life commensurate with the asset. This is good. You want a vision—here’s a good one for you. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): All of this [holds up bill]—and we can all thump it down. A big, beautiful bill? Or a big, beautiful nonsense? My colleague Tangi Utikere said that this was the third in a trilogy of bills around water services and, of course, that just invited me to think about a trilogy that I’ve read, along with my daughters: The Hunger Games trilogy. You might recall that in The Hunger Games, in the first of those books, a corrupt Government sets children to fight against each other to the death. In the second of that trilogy, the districts start to fight back. But in the third of the trilogy—and is this is a tragedy, this trilogy—the rebels start to fight amongst themselves, they start to kill each other off, and then they turn around and just want to implement the same system all over again.
I want to pick up on a very particular point that I don’t think quite enough attention is being paid to by the people over there who are provoking this fight to the death: you see, what’s going to happen, and it has been clearly signalled and very much talked about right through the process of this bill, is that in order to pay for the water infrastructure, rates will have to go up. Now, this previous Government had a solution which involved central government helping with that expense so that rates were not going to go up in this excessive fashion. But this Government has introduced a solution that means that rates will increase. This year alone, in the Clutha District Council—Mr Stephenson, you’ll be interested in this—rates are going up by 16.59 percent. In Upper Hutt, rates are going up by 15.78 percent. In the Hamilton City Council—this is for you, Mr Hamilton—rates are going up 15.5 percent. In Waipā District Council, the rates increased 15.5 percent. In Hastings District Council, 15 percent. In Selwyn District Council, 14.2 percent. In Grey District Council, 13.73 percent. Another one for you, Mr Stephenson: in Queenstown Lakes District Council, 13.5 percent. In Westland District Council, 13.2 percent.
Now, these statistics, these figures on rates increases—the source for that? The Taxpayers’ Union. They are the people who are worried about increasing rates, not that Government over there. That’s quite an interesting position for them to be in.
So as this mess was put together, the mess that that Government has not dealt with is the issue of who pays. There is a pattern in this country of central government pushing requirements on to local government without the requisite funding mechanisms—local government, which has very limited funding mechanisms, which has to turn over and over again to its ratepayers to ensure that it can pay for the things that central government has mandated it must do. That Government over there has mandated these water reforms and has given it the semblance—the semblance—of councils being free to choose what they want to do, but—the consequence? These are extraordinary rates increases. In a time of a cost of living crisis, that Government is forcing rates increases on the ordinary people of New Zealand. What a shame. This bill is a piece of trash, and we are voting against it.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.
Debate interrupted.
The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.