Tuesday, 10 February 2026

Tuesday, 10 February 2026

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Start of Sitting Day

Karakia/Prayers

MAUREEN PUGH (Assistant Speaker) (14:00): 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 the peace of New Zealand. Amen.

Return of List Member

Georgie Dansey—New Zealand Labour

SPEAKER (14:01): I have received from the Electoral Commission a return declaring Georgie Dansey to be elected a member of Parliament, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe from his list seat. I understand that Georgie Dansey is present and wishes to make the Affirmation of Allegiance. Would she please come forward to the chair on my right.

Members Sworn

Georgie Dansey

GEORGIE DANSEY (Labour) (14:01): Ko ahau, ko Georgie Dansey, e oati ana ka noho pūmau taku pono ki a Kīngi Tiāre te Tuatoru me tōna kāhui whakaheke, e ai ki te ture.

[I, Georgie Dansey, swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III, His heirs and successors, according to law.]

Obituaries

Rev. John James Terris QSO

SPEAKER (14:02): I regret to inform the House of the death, on 2 February 2026, of the Rev. John James Terris QSO, who represented the Western Hutt electorate from 1978 to 1990. During his membership of this House, he was appointed as Chairman of Committees, therefore serving as Deputy Speaker. He was Acting Speaker on a number of occasions in 1985, 1988, and 1989.

I desire, on behalf of this House, to express our sense of loss and sympathy with the relatives of the late former member. I now ask members to stand with me and observe a period of silence as a mark of respect to his memory.

Presentation

Petitions

SPEAKER (14:03): Twelve petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK (14:03):

Petition of Asjid Javed requesting that the House urge Immigration New Zealand to review its transit visa policy for travellers to the Cook Islands, particularly for Pakistani passport holders

petition of Fiona Lagae requesting that the House urge the Government to require the New Zealand Transport Agency to commence an urgent review and undertake any necessary remedial work at the intersection of Hauraki Road and State Highway 25

petition of Whaioro Trust requesting that the House implement a legal age for alcohol consumption

nine petitions of Wiremu Thomson to:

inquire into supermarket EFTPOS privacy practices

urge the Government to require the provision of information about independent election candidates

introduce an expiry date for auctioned emissions units

change the time periods when Māori electors may change rolls

amend section 107 of the Sentencing Act 2002

allow KiwiSaver members to self-manage their funds

change tax arrangements for when income is sold

change company, PIE, and trust tax rules

allow only New Zealand citizens to vote in elections.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee.

Papers

SPEAKER (14:05): Ministers have delivered eight papers.

CLERK (14:05):

2024-25 annual reports of the

Social Workers Registration Board

Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand

Government responses to the petition of Mayor Weston Kirton

report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Ann Chapman

2026 long-term insights briefing for the Ministry of Defence

2025-29 statement of intent for the Children’s Commissioner

2025-26 statements of performance expectations for the

Children’s Commissioner

Social Workers Registration Board.

SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House.

Select Committee Reports

SPEAKER (14:05): Four select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK (14:05):

Reports of the Environment Committee on the

Minister’s response to the emissions reduction monitoring report for 2025

Natural Environment Bill and Planning Bill

report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill

report of the Petitions Committee on the petition of Shane Riddle.

SPEAKER: The bills are set down for second reading, and the Minister’s response to the emissions reduction monitoring report for 2025 is set down for consideration.

Bills

Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill

Modern Slavery Bill

Introduction

SPEAKER (14:06): The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of two bills.

CLERK (14:06):

Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill, introduction

Modern Slavery Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading.

Oral Questions to Ministers

Finance

Question No. 1

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (14:06) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has she seen on the economy?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:06): Last week, Stats NZ released quarterly labour market figures for the December quarter. The numbers showed an additional 15,000 people got jobs in the final three months of last year. In addition, the hours worked and the number of people actively seeking work also increased. The Government is continuing our work to drive headline unemployment lower, and Treasury and other economists continue to forecast that to happen.

Dan Bidois: What else did the labour market data show?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: As I’ve said, the headline unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percent in the quarter, which is fractionally below the 5.5 percent rate forecast by the Treasury in its December half-year update. While we are driving hard to get that rate lower, as I noted earlier, the underlying details of the data are positive. ANZ Bank economists have noted, for example, that more people choosing to participate in the labour market is “consistent with rising job opportunities.” The unemployment rate is generally one of the last indicators to shift when an economy moves away from tough times and into positive growth. The good news is that economists are expecting the unemployment rate to fall this year as the economy continues its recovery.

Dan Bidois: What other evidence is there—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just a moment. We’ll just end all the conservations while a question is asked.

Dan Bidois: What other evidence is there that the economy is recovering?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, a number of recent surveys have shown rising business and consumer confidence, which are signs of a growing economy in an environment where people see increased opportunity. For example, the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index lifted in January to its highest level since August 2021, and this, of course, comes alongside the ANZ New Zealand Business Outlook survey, which remained at historically high levels in January, signalling the economic recovery is under way. It is also supported by the fact that Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, for the second month running, is reporting increased numbers of job advertisements. It is a fact that many Kiwis have been doing it tough and there is still a lot of work to do, but these indicators are positive for our progress.

Dan Bidois: What is the Government doing to support the economic recovery?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: The Government’s policy programme is driving growth and employment through a series of much-needed reforms. Our fast-track approval system is one year in and it is fixing the problem of projects being stuck for years in delay and buried in bureaucracy, with spiralling costs. That system alone, through the projects approved so far, is supporting thousands of jobs to be created and sustained. It is a shame that the members opposite me opposed that legislation and the job creation it supports. If there are genuine ideas for increasing job creation, can I suggest that they should be brought forward at this juncture, and here’s a clue: a capital gains tax won’t create more jobs.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, sir. I was sitting there looking at you, waiting for you to intervene—you were shaking your head. I would suggest that if you were unsatisfied with the response from the Minister, perhaps an intervention was warranted. That was a patsy question that should not have been used to make those comments, particularly that one towards the end of it.

SPEAKER: Yeah, well, it was an interesting observation on your part, but it could be a medical condition. So you’ve got to be a bit careful about raising those things.

Prime Minister

Question No. 2

Rt Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the Opposition) (14:10) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand all of his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:10): Yes.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he stand by the promise he made to New Zealanders before the election that there would be no new taxes introduced by a Government he leads; if so, how is introducing a new gas tax that every New Zealand household will pay consistent with that promise?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, that’s not what we’re doing. We’re opening up an LNG importation facility so that we can lower power bills. If the member doesn’t support that, he’s supporting higher power bills.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Well, does he agree with Nicola Willis: “If it looks like a tax, if it quacks like a tax, it’s a tax.”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, it’s a charge that electricity companies will pay so that consumers pay lower power bills—it’s that simple. It’s as simple as that.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: So is it a tax, a levy, a fee, a charge—regardless of what he calls it, is it an extra cost every New Zealand household will pay every time they pay their power bill?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: In answer to the first part of the question, absolutely not, because it will lead to lower power bills, not higher power bills. That’s why we’re doing it. But with respect to the definition and the semantics of different words, maybe it’s just a rhetorical flourish—a bit like whether they’re going to work with Te Pāti Māori or not.

SPEAKER: No, sorry. I just would suggest that the Government need to stick to their own knitting here, and not add those little flicks at the end.

Hon David Seymour: Is importing LNG more or less necessary after somebody banned looking for oil and gas here?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, here are the facts on energy, which are pretty simple. To keep the keep the lights on in New Zealand, you need gas. Labour caved to the Greens. They had the oil and gas ban that cranked up electricity prices to $800 per megawatt hour—some of the most expensive in the world. It’s cost the country—

SPEAKER: OK, that’s enough.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —$5 billion since 2017.

SPEAKER: I’d just remind the Government side—all members of the Government side—that Speakers’ ruling 205/5 makes it very clear questions should not be asked designed to attack the Opposition. That’s a longstanding deal in this House and it will be enforced.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: How does introducing a new gas tax that every New Zealand household will pay every time they flick on a light switch help them with the cost of living?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What a load of rubbish, and the member clearly is not understanding what this proposal is actually about. This is about creating an LNG importation option so that we can lower the dry-year risk and, in turn, lower electricity prices. An LNG facility will lead to lower power bills.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Does he still think that “New Zealand needs abundant affordable energy”; if so, how will increasing lines charges—a decision his Government has taken—introducing a new gas tax—a decision his Government has taken—and doing nothing while power companies continue to extract billions of dollars of windfall profits out of New Zealand households help to achieve that?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I just want to help the member with the definition of a tax, because what is a tax? Is it a capital gains tax, a wealth tax, a death tax, a trust tax, increasing income and corporate tax—all tax policies that that member hasn’t ruled out that will hurt New Zealanders, for sure.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Well, does he agree, then, with the Cambridge English Dictionary when it says that the definition of a “levy” is “an amount of money, such as a tax, that you have to pay a government or an organization:”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: It’s somewhat semantic, and I’d just say to the member that what we’re doing is lowering power bills. Now, the member doesn’t support that—I get it. The member has done everything to crank up pain and suffering on every single New Zealander. He wants to introduce many, many new taxes, including $90 billion worth of green taxes, and hasn’t even ruled that out.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Supplementary question, Mr Speaker. So why—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just a moment while the House calms itself. That entire outburst was pretty unacceptable.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: So why are the members in the Government the only people in the country that seem to think that increasing the taxes people pay every time they pay their power bills is somehow going to make the cost of living crisis better for New Zealand households?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: The member is misunderstanding what this policy is doing. We are increasing the supply of electricity and energy in this country by opening up an importation facility for LNG so that we reduce the risk around dry-year risk—which is what we inherited from the last Government in 2024; an energy crisis that shouldn’t have happened that caused the problem—so that we can lower power bills. We are doing this to lower power bills—period. If you do not support it, you are supporting higher power bills. What are you going to do?

Hon Chris Bishop: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the putting in place of an LNG facility as an insurance policy, the modelling suggests, will lower power bills as a result of having that in place?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What I can confirm is the advice we have received is that it will lower power bills for every household by about $50 a year, it will create value to the economy of about $1.2 billion, and it will protect 2,000 jobs. I would have thought that the member, having created the energy crisis in New Zealand—

SPEAKER: Oh no—no, that’s enough.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: —would have actually supported this policy.

SPEAKER: That’s enough.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Why should New Zealand households pay an extra gas tax every time they pay their power bills, while electricity companies continue to make billions of dollars of windfall profits and his Government will do nothing about it?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That is not happening. New Zealanders are going to pay lower power bills as a function of us opening up an LNG importation facility—that simple. Either support it, and if you don’t, you’re supporting higher power bills—it’s that simple.

Energy

Question No. 3

DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth) (14:16): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Energy and asks: what recent announcements has he made on procuring an importation terminal for liquefied natural gas? [Interruption]

SPEAKER: David MacLeod, ask the question again so that all of the House can hear it over their own discussions.

DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth) (14:17) to the Minister for Energy: What recent announcements has he made on procuring an importation terminal for liquefied natural gas?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister for Energy) (14:17): Yesterday, the Prime Minister and I announced that the Government will be progressing an LNG importation terminal in Taranaki. This critical new piece of energy infrastructure will provide the sector access to reliable back-up fuel during dry years, when hydro generation is under pressure. This represents a significant investment in critical energy infrastructure that will strengthen New Zealand’s energy security and put downward pressure on electricity prices.

David MacLeod: What will this mean for Kiwis’ power bills?

Hon SIMON WATTS: Well, it’s simple: the net result is lower power bills for Kiwi households. This initiative will deliver savings of approximately $265 million per year across the electricity system. This translates to power bills falling by at least $50 per year for the average Kiwi household. LNG will mean Kiwis will face more stable and predictable power bills, with fewer sharp winter price shocks for households and businesses alike.

David MacLeod: What impact will this have on the New Zealand economy?

Hon SIMON WATTS: Well, independent modelling shows that this critical piece of energy infrastructure will provide a $1.2 billion boost to the economy per year by 2035. It will also help protect approximately 2,000 jobs that would otherwise be at risk due to rising electricity costs, lower gas production domestically, and reduced industrial output. By providing certainty and resilience, this critical energy infrastructure will boost business confidence, regional employment, and industrial growth across our economy.

David MacLeod: What response has he seen from the sector?

Hon SIMON WATTS: The response from the energy sector has been very positive. Karen Boyes, executive director of the Major Electricity Users’ Group, welcomed the clarity that this announcement provides to the industry, Port Taranaki’s chief executive, Simon Craddock, stated that the construction of the LNG facility is a “great opportunity for that region”, and the Gas Industry Co. chief executive, David Prentice, described LNG as “mission-critical for energy security”, saying, “It will provide the stability and flexibility needed as domestic gas declines and New Zealand transitions to a renewable energy future.” In short, industry leaders have welcomed LNG as a practical solution to help solve New Zealand’s fuel shortage.

Prime Minister

Question No. 4

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green) (14:20) 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) (14:20): Yes.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Why has his Government decided, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, where power bills have already increased by 12 percent in the last year, to impose a guaranteed extra cost on New Zealanders’ power bills to increase our fossil fuel dependence?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We’re not doing that.

Chlöe Swarbrick: How does he reconcile his Government’s stated objective for the electricity sector that it delivers “reliable electricity at the lowest possible cost to consumers” with the announcement that his Government will be guaranteeing more costs on New Zealanders to fund imported fossil fuels?

SPEAKER: No, no—just a moment.

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I reject the characterisation in the second part—

SPEAKER: Sorry, Prime Minister. Just reword the question; the member will know why that question is not acceptable.

Chlöe Swarbrick: How does he reconcile his Government’s stated objective for the electricity sector that it delivers “reliable electricity at the lowest possible cost to consumers” with the announcement that his Government will be imposing more costs on New Zealanders through their power bills?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Because this initiative will lower power bills.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Why did his Government not consider the benefits of $1 billion of investment into low-cost renewables like solar, batteries, and wind, and using our hydro assets more strategically, instead of choosing to sign Aotearoa New Zealand up to a new international supply chain vulnerable to disruption and price shocks?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, this country is actually experiencing a renewables boom, and it’s in part because we’ve got an outstanding piece of legislation called the fast-track legislation, which that member failed to support.

Hon David Seymour: Does the availability of gas as a firming fuel make it more viable to do exactly the investment in solar and wind that others want?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, two things will happen: our emissions will lower because there’ll be less coal being burnt, and the second thing that will happen is there’s going to be more renewable investment because there’s more certainty around a back-up option of gas.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Chlöe Swarbrick—sorry, but we’re going to go side to side.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why?

SPEAKER: Well, because that’s the way it’s always been done.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: She’s already had three questions and she’s not—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Because we’re the “real New Zealand First”.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —landing at all, so give me a chance.

SPEAKER: No, hang on—don’t have an argument.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Why did the Government immediately rule out any consideration of any option to deal with dry-year risk that didn’t include increasing our dependency on fossil fuels?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We didn’t do that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why doesn’t the Prime Minister conceive of the fact that he could hook up a wind farm to the Green caucus room, and maybe that’s the solution?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we’re open to more ideas.

SPEAKER: No, no, no—no, Prime Minister. That’s very unhelpful for the order of the House. I call Chlöe Swarbrick, and no one else is speaking.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Can the Prime Minister name for the House one credible economist or expert who is not in the fossil fuel industry or associated to his Government or office who thinks that his LNG imports is a good idea?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, there’s been a wide range of support to say that this is a very good thing to lower power bills.

Hon Members: Name one.

SPEAKER: Good. We’ll now have the House compose itself for question No. 5, from the Hon Barbara Edmonds.

Finance

Question No. 5

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) (14:24) to the Minister of Finance: Is a 10-year high in unemployment a sign that people will “see increased opportunity”?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (14:24): Well, obviously, no. What are signs of the fact that people are seeing increased employment opportunities is the fact that employment growth was up 0.5 percent quarter on quarter and there is a higher participation rate in the labour market, consistent with improving economic activity—to quote ANZ—“bolstering perceptions that opportunities in the labour market are on the rise.” What is a sign that people will see increased opportunity is the fact that Treasury and a range of other economists continue to forecast more job creation and lower unemployment and the fact that people are working more hours, that firms’ hiring intentions are increasing, and that job ads are up. These are all signs that people will see and are seeing increased opportunities.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Why, then, won’t she take responsibility for the 32,000 fewer jobs compared to when she took office?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Our Government has taken responsibility for fixing the economic mess we have inherited, which has involved ensuring that we brought inflation back under control, ensuring that interest rates were supported to drop, and ensuring that firms would be in a better position to create jobs. It is challenging to accept the rhetoric of the member when she opposes the fast-track legislation creating thousands of jobs across the country as we speak.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: What increased opportunities are there for the 139,000 part-time workers who want more work, but can’t get it?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, one of the features of the recent Stats NZ data was evidence that the hours worked are increasing. Other signs that people can look forward to is the fact that forecasters are continuing to forecast more job creation and a lower unemployment rate, and for those part-time workers, I would say to them that you have a Government that is on your side saying yes to quarries where you might get a job, saying yes to new roads which you can help construct, and saying yes to solar farms and wind farms that you can help build—a Government that says no to a capital gains tax and yes to getting things done.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: What increased opportunities are there for Māori and Pacific youth when one in four are unemployed?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: We are very focused on ensuring there are more opportunities for young people, and one of the features of the latest Stats NZ results was a lower rate of those young people not in education, training, or employment. What we have seen is an increasing rate of participation by young people in tertiary education, affording them more opportunities for the future, and I’d tell you the number one thing that this Government is doing to increase the employment opportunities of young Māori: making sure they get educated. Actually, that starts with the basics of literacy and numeracy, which, while Chris Hipkins was the education Minister—

SPEAKER: That’s good.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: —went backwards. Our trials are showing real results from structured literary and numeracy, but here’s the thing: you can offer an interest-free student—

SPEAKER: Yeah.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: —loan, but if you can’t read and write, you won’t be getting a tertiary education.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Supplementary. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just wait.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she stand by her statement that “New Zealanders have worked incredibly hard for economic recovery.”; if so, when will she work hard for it?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Yes, and can I ask that we be gracious, because while I question her policies and while I question much of her party’s philosophy, I do not question her motivations or her work ethic. The problem is she’s been working on a capital gains tax—

SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s—

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: —and that’s the wrong problem.

SPEAKER: OK, that’s enough—that’s enough.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: You just contradicted yourself.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Supplementary, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just wait for the House to settle itself.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she take responsibility for the loss of 10,000 jobs in Wellington alone, and is that the real reason why she won’t stand in a Wellington seat?

SPEAKER: Oh no, sorry. Because there’s—[Interruption] Just a moment.

Hon Chris Bishop: You’re better than that, Barb.

SPEAKER: Because there’s been a little bit of—

Hon Chris Bishop: Or maybe you’re not, actually.

SPEAKER: Mr Bishop.

Hon Chris Bishop: Maybe you’re just as nasty—

SPEAKER: Mr Bishop.

Hon Chris Bishop: —as your mate next to you.

SPEAKER: Mr Bishop, if you want to chair, come and take it—I’ll swap jobs with you any day. Can I just say that because there has been that unnecessary sort of little flick either side, reword that question.

Hon Barbara Edmonds: Does she take responsibility for the loss of 10,000 jobs in Wellington alone?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I see that the member is taking tips from Craig Renney, the Labour Party finance spokesperson outside caucus, whose numbers she seems to be blindly relying on and which I think are highly questionable. She also seems to be taking a tip from the nasty book, accusing me of not working hard enough. I think she should differentiate herself from Craig Renney with a bit more class.

Infrastructure

Question No. 6

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) (14:30) to the Minister for Infrastructure: What recent milestones has the Government’s fast-track approvals scheme celebrated?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister for Infrastructure) (14:30): Last week, alongside my good friend and colleague Minister Jones, we celebrated one year of the Government’s fast-track approvals scheme. It was set up to solve a problem New Zealanders know too well of projects being stuck for years in bureaucracy and delay, with costs spiralling. It’s taken just 128 days for fast-track projects to receive decisions from when they’re accepted into the process. One year in, the results speak for themselves. It’s fixing the basics of how we approve infrastructure in this country and building the foundations for future growth.

Catherine Wedd: How many projects have been approved so far?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: One year in, we’re building real momentum. Nine projects have been approved so far, eight are expected to receive decisions before the end of March this year, and two of those have already received draft approvals. It’s worth thinking about the nine approved projects, which include a new wharf and cruise ship terminal in Auckland, four major housing developments across the country, three mining and quarrying projects, and one renewable energy project, with more to come. Overall, they’re expected to deliver 2,000 new homes and more than 260 million tonnes of aggregate, support thousands of jobs, and contribute billions to the economy in the years to come.

Catherine Wedd: What can New Zealanders expect to see from fast track this year?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Coming down the pipeline, we have another 19 projects before expert panels. Those decisions are expected in the coming months. In total, there are 76 projects currently progressing through fast track, including referral applications being considered—or ones that have been referred—and substantive applications having their application assessed for completeness. We can expect to see more fast-track projects break ground this year. A number have already started, delivering an immediate boost to those local economies, and we’re looking forward to more sod turnings and more ribbon cuttings on infrastructure projects up and down the country.

Catherine Wedd: What does he have to say to those who criticised fast track?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, there was criticism as we were developing the fast-track regime that said that the projects would be rushed and it would lead to potentially harmful projects. Projects like mines, quarries, and infrastructure have all progressed through fast track—high-quality decisions with a range of conditions. Fast track was never a rubber stamp; it was never meant to be a back door. What it was meant to do was speed up decisions for common-sense projects around the country. It’s the Government and the country saying yes to growth and yes to supercharging our regions, and to say anything else would be to say no to a better, more prosperous New Zealand.

Energy

Question No. 7

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (14:33) to the Minister for Energy: Does the Minister agree with the Government-commissioned Frontier Economics report that said, “It would make no economic sense to develop an LNG import terminal to meet just dry year risk as the large fixed costs would be spread over a relatively small amount of output”, and, if not, why not?

Hon SIMON WATTS (Minister for Energy) (14:34): Yes, but we are not taking the Frontier review’s approach to funding LNG infrastructure. We are instead progressing a broad-based approach, reflecting LNG’s role as an insurance policy. Official advice shows the cost of our approach is materially outweighed by the expected benefits.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: When will the gas tax first be added to people’s power bills?

Hon SIMON WATTS: Well, I do not agree with the premise of the member’s question. The impact of our policy will lower power bills for New Zealand households and businesses.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m seeking your guidance in terms of what to call this. We’ve had from the Government, today, that this is called a levy, this is a charge, and this is a fee; we’ve been calling it a tax in other questions. I’ve asked the Minister a very straight question around when this tax/levy/fee/charge would first appear on people’s power bills. It’s very straight; it would be good to know when it would appear on people’s power bills.

SPEAKER: Good. Well, that’s very interesting. You should have asked that question in a way that would have coincided with the Government’s view of whatever it is that’s being put on those power bills. But you were—[Interruption] Excuse me. You were very specific in referring to it as a tax, and it’s not unreasonable for the Minister to reject that.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: When will the gas levy/fee/charge first be added to people’s power bills?

Hon SIMON WATTS: Again, I don’t agree with the premise of the member’s question, but what I can advise is that the cost of the infrastructure that will be incurred every year—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: No, just a minute. This is clearly a very important question because it’s used up two of the Opposition’s questions, and so the House should hear it in silence.

Hon SIMON WATTS: The cost of the insurance that will be incurred every year as a result of the infrastructure that will be put in place will be paid for via a levy on the electricity sector.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is Marsden Point no longer in the configuration of our considerations on this critical matter?

SPEAKER: Well, in so much as the Minister has some responsibility for the historical nature of that, he might make a comment.

Hon SIMON WATTS: I think what the member is referring to is the fact that when you remove options in terms of energy security and resilience, you have less options and it has significant impacts on the New Zealand economy. What we are doing instead around LNG is bringing in that capability to increase security of energy in this country, and, therefore, the result and impact of that is downward pressure on Kiwi power bills.

Rt Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. How is it that the Minister can explain the decisions of a private company to mothball the Marsden Point oil refinery, but cannot answer a very straight question about when this levy is going to be imposed that the Government announced just yesterday?

SPEAKER: I think you’ll find that Marsden Point was—two things happened: it was mothballed, and then the chimney stack was blown down by the New Zealand Electricity Corporation, which was a Government organisation prior to the split of companies in the mid-1990s.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Will there be measures put in place to prevent the gas levy/charge/fee being increased even if less gas is used because of higher costs?

Hon SIMON WATTS: Again, I don’t agree with the premise of the words that the member is using in regard to this question, nor does it demonstrate understanding of how this will be funded. The funding for the infrastructure, which is the LNG importation terminal, will be paid for by and levied on the electricity sector. The electricity sector will also benefit from a reduction in electricity prices as a result of us having the security of supply of that gas coming into the country. The net impact—if you put yourselves in the shoes of a New Zealand average household, or of businesses—is a net savings versus not having this infrastructure.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Can the Minister rule out gas levy/fee/charge exemptions for large, long-term electricity contracts—such as that with Rio Tinto smelter at Bluff—that would mean higher tax/levy/fee rates for New Zealand households and businesses?

Hon SIMON WATTS: Well, as I have referred to multiple times already today, the net impact of the policy announcements that we’ve made in regard to New Zealand businesses is that it will lower the cost of the power bills that they are incurring.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m seeking your guidance, as always. It appeared the Minister was reading from some official advice or modelling. I just wondered if the Minister would be able to table that advice and modelling for the House.

SPEAKER: The Minister is saying that he wasn’t doing that.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Does he agree with energy expert Christina Hood, who says that literally half the true price of imported LNG would be subsidised by the gas levy/fee/charge paid by New Zealand families and businesses?

Hon SIMON WATTS: No, but what I do agree with is that the situation which I inherited, and we inherited as a Government, was a catastrophic impact as a result of a not sufficient supply of gas, and the impact of that has been felt by businesses and households across the board. As a result of that problem statement, we’re taking action to put in place a gas importation terminal. That provides certainty of supply for that gas and that will protect Kiwi jobs, and that’s something I’m very proud of.

Prime Minister

Question No. 8

RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (14:40) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON (Prime Minister) (14:40): Yes.

Rawiri Waititi: Can he explain his statement made at Waitangi last week: “Article Three must guarantee equality of opportunity. And … it cannot and should not guarantee equality of outcomes”?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We don’t believe in socialism, which is an equality of outcome, but what we believe is that every five-year-old in this country, irrespective of their circumstances, deserves to set off on the same starting line in order to make the best of themselves.

Rawiri Waititi: Does he agree that countless violations of the Treaty of Waitangi by the Crown have created an Aotearoa where Māori do not have equal opportunity to access land, food, housing, and healthcare?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That’s why we’ve been working incredibly hard with iwi leaders up and down the country to make sure we can advance outcomes for Māori and to make things more equal for Māori, including all the work that we’re doing on education to lift literacy rates amongst Māori. They’re up 18 percent with new entrants, for five-year-olds. That’s great.

Rawiri Waititi: So why did his Government decide to disestablish Te Aka Whai Ora—the Māori Health Authority—when one of its main goals was to promote equality of opportunity for Māori to access healthcare?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Because, as I’ve said, we don’t need a centralised, Māori-focused organisation separate from the rest of what we offer New Zealanders. We deliver health on the basis of needs.

Rawiri Waititi: How can he claim to support equality of opportunity while leading a Government that has dismantled Māori-specific health, housing, and education initiatives that exist because opportunity has never been equal?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, the Government invested about $50 million in the first few weeks of this Government with Māori health organisations to lift immunisation rates for under-twos. Look, we’re interested in the practical things that improve outcomes for Māori and non-Māori.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he stand by the Government’s statement that prisons are sometimes necessary, and would he go into Government with a party that promises to abolish prisons?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we don’t believe in abolishing prisons, defunding the police, having a 30 percent reduction in the prison population, or repealing the gang-patch ban.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Will the Prime Minister explain to Mr Rawiri that “by Māori, for Māori” doesn’t mean you go out and rip off Māori?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we want all New Zealanders to be treated equally, and we’re here, as a Government, to make sure we improve outcomes for everyone.

Food Safety

Question No. 9

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) (14:43) to the Minister for Food Safety: What recent feedback, if any, has he received from food businesses about the challenges they are facing?

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD (Minister for Food Safety) (14:43): Last month, I heard from an owner of a small-scale meat-processing business about their challenges, as a very small business, trying to comply with rules designed for large corporates. They also highlighted the big, positive difference made by recent changes to testing requirements for businesses like theirs. By scaling microbiological testing requirements with risk, we have been able to significantly reduce costs without compromising food safety. Businesses reported that they are now thinking about expanding, and have fielded inquiries from other people looking to set up small-scale meat-processing facilities.

Todd Stephenson: What other feedback has he received from food businesses?

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD: Since becoming food safety Minister, I’ve made an effort to talk to a range of food businesses about their experiences with the Food Act compliance. It was great to hear directly from the food and hospitality sector about how we, as a Government, can make their lives easier. Several common themes emerged, including making sure there is consistency across New Zealand food safety and local council verifiers, clarifying rules that can sometimes be ambiguous and difficult to follow, and making sure that record-keeping and registration requirements are actually justifiable on the basis of risk. I’ve taken that feedback on board and I have initiated a programme that includes 13 different work streams to cut red tape and make life easier for Kiwi food businesses.

Todd Stephenson: What are some of the actions in his work stream?

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD: A number of changes have been delivered already, including the removal of registration costs from low-risk, home-based cake makers. As a direct result of feedback from the sector, we are making things clearer by revamping food control templates, producing more specific guidance, and beefing up support services, and there is much more to come. As part of the programme, I’ve asked officials to review the requirements for all categories of businesses that fall under the Food Act to make sure that what we ask them to do is proportional to risk. Where there is scope to cut red tape while maintaining food safety, we are going to cut it.

Todd Stephenson: What effect will the work programme have on New Zealanders?

Hon ANDREW HOGGARD: Cutting red tape makes lives easier for small businesses and is a good thing in and of itself because it supports businesses to expand and employ more people. It will also improve job satisfaction. I know, as a farmer, that small-business people want to spend their time doing what they love and not being stuck at the kitchen table doing paperwork, and I want to do what I can to help them to do that, but this work programme will also affect everyday Kiwis by putting downward pressure on prices and improving the accessibility of food. Reducing unnecessary compliance costs for businesses will undoubtedly mean more options at a lower cost for Kiwis.

Economic Growth

Question No. 10

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) (14:46) to the Minister for Economic Growth: Does she agree with the Minister of Finance that Budget 2025 “forecast declining unemployment”; if so, why are there 32,000 fewer people in work since the Government took office?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister for Economic Growth) (14:46): Yes. The Treasury forecast declining unemployment in Budget 2025 and in the more recent Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update, whereas the claim made in the second part of her question is backward-looking. For the member’s clarity, forecasts are about the future, not the past. If the member wishes for more explanation, I’m sure her colleague Barbara Edmonds would be happy to talk her through it.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Is it part of her economic plan that 165,000 New Zealanders want a job and can’t get one?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: No.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Is having the highest unemployment rate in a decade a sign of a growing economy?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: No. As I went through in the first audition for this question with Barbara Edmonds, what are signs of a growing economy is 15,000 more jobs being created in the past three months, more people increasing their hours, increases in the number of job ads, increases in the intentions of businesses to hire people, forecasts of increased growth, and lower unemployment. What is also a sign of a growth plan to increase jobs is a Government that will actually back fast-track projects like quarries, like roads, and like solar energy plants, as opposed to the “no” people on the other side.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Is she going to take responsibility for her decisions that have caused thousands of New Zealanders to be out of work and now unable to afford food?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, I take responsibility for my decisions; I don’t take responsibility for the member’s claims.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Does she think the tactic of telling New Zealanders that things are getting better when, clearly, they are not is working, or is it just further proof that she is way out of touch?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: What I am in touch with and what our Government is in touch with is that it is not enough to wallow in descriptions of the problems that New Zealand faces. It’s not enough to say that people have been doing it tough—yes, they have been. It’s not enough to say that we want jobs created—yes, we do. What’s required and what we should take New Zealanders seriously about is giving them clear, concrete policies that will deliver better economic opportunities and deliver better jobs, and plans for an additional capital gains tax don’t cut it. Fast tracking projects does; Investment Boost tax reduction does. Actually delivering policies that will increase economic opportunity is what’s required; not just telling New Zealanders that it’s been tough—they know that already.

Prime Minister

Question No. 11

Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green) (14:49) 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) (14:50): Yes.

Hon Marama Davidson: Why is Aotearoa New Zealand still bottom trawling in the South Pacific high seas when literally every other nation in the South Pacific has stopped, and what message does this send on an international level regarding our country’s reputation for destroying vulnerable marine ecosystems for profit?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, in answer to the second part of the question, we’re not doing that.

Hon Marama Davidson: Why has his Government proposed to weaken South Pacific fisheries rules when other South Pacific nations, including Australia, are calling for more protection of corals in seamounts?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: In answer to the first part of the question, we’re not doing that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: You just made it up.

Hon Marama Davidson: What is his message to the 78 percent—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What day is it?

Hon Marama Davidson: I’m just going to wait until he finishes, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Yep, that’s right. Start again.

Hon Marama Davidson: What is his message to the 78 percent of New Zealanders that are in favour of banning bottom trawling in the South Pacific high seas, including Jono Ridler, who is swimming over 1,300 kilometres from North Cape to Wellington as a call to end bottom trawling?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: This is a Government that balances both economic and environmental considerations for all sectors.

Hon Marama Davidson: How is bottom trawling consistent with the global goal of protecting 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030, and when 77 percent of New Zealanders think more of the global ocean should be protected in ocean sanctuaries?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, as I’ve said in answer to my previous question, it’s a balance, as the member would well understand.

Hon Marama Davidson: Will he commit to withdrawing his Government’s proposal to the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation to increase the amount of coral that can be destroyed by bottom trawlers without consequence in the South Pacific; if not, why not?

Rt Hon CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, what I do commit to is growing our aquaculture sector, and also protecting our environment.

Education

Question No. 12

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (14:52) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcement has she made regarding changes to assessment and reporting?

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Minister of Education) (14:52): It’s difficult to lift achievement without data, but we have never had in this country a consistent, reliable measurement of how students are doing through their primary and intermediate schooling. Parents deserve meaningful information so that they can help at home. That’s why I announced that this year, schools will begin using a nationally consistent reporting approach for parents that is supported by twice-yearly assessments in year 3 to year 8. Parents will get detailed reports on how their children are progressing across multiple topics within the maths and English curricula. Under this Government, for the first time in our country’s history, we will be consistently monitoring progress across primary schools so that we raise achievement, so that we can fix the basics and build a better future.

Katie Nimon: What can parents expect to see in their children’s school reports?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Parents and caregivers are key stakeholders in their children’s learning, and we have created a nationally consistent reporting framework so that they can see in detail how their children are progressing. Through the new nationally consistent curriculum, together with this new assessment and reporting requirement, parents will receive rich data on their children’s progress in reading, writing, and maths twice-yearly through one of five progress markers that are consistent across the country. They’ll also get an explanation as to why that marker was used and how they can help at home, a graph showing progress over time, and—importantly—their child’s attendance record. Reporting in other learning areas, values, and behaviour will still continue as it does now.

Katie Nimon: Why did she make these changes?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Parents have told us consistently that they don’t know when their children are falling behind until it is too late. Parents want to be empowered with data. The Education Review Office, the Auditor-General, and the New Zealand Assessment Institute have been very clear that we need a nationally consistent assessment tool and consistent reporting to parents so that they know how their children are progressing and so that the system—importantly—can respond and intervene early when a child needs extra help or extension. We’re acting on all of this advice. We are empowering parents with data so that they can be active participants in their children’s learning.

Katie Nimon: What feedback has she received on these changes?

Hon ERICA STANFORD: Well, it has been overwhelmingly positive. The New Zealand Assessment Institute said that the NZAI is delighted to see the assessment principles and practices being applied by the Minister of Education: “The Smart [assessment] Tool … is intended to provide clearer guidance for schools and for parents, so that more consistent reporting and increased progress can occur.” Francesca Rudkin of Newstalk ZB said, “I am no longer a parent of school children, … But if I was, I would be pleased with [the Minister’s] announcement this week about changes to reporting a child’s progress in primary and intermediate schools. As a parent [we have] had to suffer through the pointless student-led conference era whereby your [children could] present you with a curated collection of their recent work—this is welcome news.”

SPEAKER: That concludes oral questions. Those who need to leave the House for other business should do so quickly, quietly, and without any conversations on the way—so “quietly” means no conversations on the way.

Government Business

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate resumed from 29 January.

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (14:56): Isn’t it great to be back at work here in Parliament to continue work on our ambitious agenda to get New Zealand back on track? As the Prime Minister would say, New Zealand is the best little country in the world, but we need to get our mojo back. How do we do that? By fixing the basics and building the future.

Before we do that, a little reflection. How good was Waitangi last week? How good was Tama Potaka? Forthright, mana-enhancing, Tama led a strong National Party delegation over several days, and we thank him for his guidance and his manaaki. How good was the Prime Minister? Taking up the wero, responding with calm and grace, highlighting the bonds that bring us together in times of crises, rather than focusing on what drives us apart, and turning towards debate on the issues of the day, rather than leaving them for another. How good was Grant McCallum, the local MP? The man practically lives at Waitangi, and the lengths he goes to in order to engage with local iwi in his community are textbook for any local MP. Many would have missed this, but as we were lining up for the powhiri to take our seats—as Ministers and party leaders and party doyennes gradually squeezed out those of us who were keen enough to sit out the front—Grant got shuffled to the second row. But immediately, from across the ātea, there were very strong and very severe calls from several kuia, telling Grant under no circumstance to sit in the second row. So up the front Grant went, and that speak volumes of a man who is well respected in his community.

How good was the new season of “Keeping up with the Kapa-Kingis”? I’ve never been to a live filming before, but you could just feel the energy and the drama. For those of you who missed it, Cousin Peeni is leaving the show; Uncle Willie went a bit off script; and a surprise haka left you wondering, Mr Speaker, if you were watching a repeat of last season. But through the drama and the rumblings emerged some sound advice from the final speaker, Waihoroi Shortland. Waihoroi said, and I quote him: “If we don’t want to talk to the Crown, who can we talk to? The trees won’t give it back to us. The birds sing a lovely song, but they’re not on the same page. And for all of our differences, you are still my only haven to get resolution, whoever you may be.” He also went on to say he wished we as MPs were colourblind, and that if he had one wish, we would remove our party affiliations in order to chart a path for the future together. We know here that it’s unlikely that he’ll get his wish about colour blindness, and party affiliations won’t fall to the wayside, but surely he can get his wish about working together in order to chart a path to the future. If National, Labour, Green, and ACT MPs can come together on the cricket field and rase $50,000, as we did for ReSport last week in Whangārei in the days before Waitangi—

Hon Barbara Edmonds: What about the netball?

Hon JAMES MEAGER: —why can’t we look to the Prime Minister’s statement and together identify those things that are worth pursuing across multiple Parliaments? If the netballers can come together, without subs on the bench, and play four full quarters of high-octane netball, why can’t we work together as well? New Zealanders are crying out for a sense of unity and coherence from their politicians. Yes, we’re going to disagree sometimes on the deep, fundamental questions of philosophy and policy that bring each of us here, but surely there are substantial features of the Prime Minister’s statement we can all agree are worthy of pursuit together.

Let’s look at Resource Management Act (RMA) reform—the largest reforms to our planning system and local government since the RMA was introduced 30 years ago. Settled consensus on an enduring, long-lasting framework which enables growth and protects the environment is vital. New Zealanders need certainty that they can build the houses, roads, infrastructure, and flood resiliency that they need over the next 50 to 100 years. We can’t have a healthy environment without a strong economy, and we won’t have a strong economy without a stable environment.

Let’s look at fast track. Now, I know the members opposite voted against fast track, but think about two things. First, recent events have shown that fast track does not mean a rubber stamp. Projects are carefully considered by expert panels, and they must stack up against environmental concerns. Secondly, nobody seriously believes that the Opposition opposes many, if any, of those projects listed in the fast track. We know they moved amendments to remove them from that fast-track process, and we’ll remind them of that as we lead up to the election, but do we seriously consider for a moment that Rachel Boyack opposes the Hope Bypass in Nelson or that she opposes the iwi-led Maitahi Village housing project in Nelson? No, of course not. Do we really believe that they’ll get in the way of solar projects in Oamaru, in Tekapō, or Twizel; projects that are going to reduce the reliance on hydro and produce power in the South Island at the time of the year when demand is the greatest? Are the Opposition transport spokespeople going to come out against the Second Ashburton Bridge? Is the tourism spokesperson going to oppose workers’ accommodation at Cardrona? Will Jo Luxton oppose water storage and fish screens in North Canterbury? I highly doubt it. These are serious, positive, growth-enabling legacy projects that are good for New Zealand and good for New Zealanders. These are the projects we should be talking about when Waihoroi asks us to put our colours aside and chart a path together.

The Prime Minister talks of $7 billion worth of taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects, including the Dunedin Hospital rebuild, Brougham Street and Rolleston flyovers in Canterbury, and the rebuild of the Burnham Regional Supply Facility. Just this week, Miles Anderson and I announced the rebuild of two more bridges in South Canterbury, on State Highway 82, at Waihao North River and Elephant Hill Stream. Last week, I stood alongside Minister Patterson, alongside the Deputy Mayor of Timaru, local contractors, and local developers outside the Timaru Showgrounds in demonstration of the problems we can solve when we work together and we get things built. That showground’s development has sat idle for years, while a succession of people were busy pointing fingers at each other and nobody really took responsibility for doing what’s right for the community.

Make the decisions—make the investments and get on with it. We think New Zealanders are tired of the millions of reasons we say no. They want to hear us say yes, preferably together, preferably for the long term. Say yes to Chris Bishop’s 30-year infrastructure pipeline. Say yes to Erica Stanford’s revolution in education, her raising of standards, the elevation of vocational education as an equal to the university pathways we try to ham-fistedly force everyone into. Say yes to targets in health and in education and in law and order, knowing that when we don’t set targets, we don’t hold ourselves accountable—standards slip, wait times blow out, attendance drops, and crime goes up.

Say yes to delivering more services in the community at a local level and requiring actual outcomes for the millions of dollars of contracted service delivery. Say yes to social investment, and for goodness’ sake, say yes to local government reform. Don’t sit there and die on the hill of legacy regional councils. Work with us on a shared idea of what individual decision-making, community-led services, and local government looks like over the next 50 years. Say yes to more tourism and more visitors to our brilliant country, people who bring with them not only their own cultural vibrancy but also their own foreign currency. Say yes to more foreign investment in our start-ups and our infrastructure through Invest NZ.

Let me close with one short example. I’ve spent a lot of time in Queenstown over the last year as Minister for the South Island, and every single person that I’ve spoken to knows that Queenstown will be a large metropolitan city in the next 100 years. It is a desirable, beautiful, high energy region full of great, talented people. Growth in that region is inevitable. The question is not how we put the genie back in the bottle. People will come. Attractive regions attract ambitious people. It is going to happen. The question for us all is, what do we want this growth to look like in 100 years’ time? Where do we want to put our schools? What will our health needs be? How do we best stay ahead of our infrastructure demands? How do we give critical infrastructure—like our airports, our bridges, our roads, our power supply, our schooling infrastructure, our hospitals—the certainty of consent and maintenance over the next 100 years? How do we maintain flexibility in our planning so that we can adapt to the inevitable change in attitudes and technology and preferences and, quite frankly, where we want to live?

The only real answer is that we don’t really know for sure, but we do know that the only way to do this is to tackle it together by charting that shared path. Yes, of course, we’ll disagree around the edges and even the closest of relatives in this House will be in fierce disagreement. But I plead to the members opposite, find those things you do support; please commit to them. Find something in our agenda that you will commit to long term. Give New Zealanders the certainty that they want that successive Governments and successive Parliaments will build a country for the future.

Hon Jo Luxton: Very sweet!

Hon JAMES MEAGER: It is very sweet. It is a very sweet ideal that I implore everybody to listen to.

We can all agree that New Zealand is a great little country to live in, maybe apart from those heckling opposite who apparently don’t want to join the shared path and who want to sit there and throw barbs and throw jives across the House. But there is only one way we can guarantee prosperity in New Zealand, and for us on this side, it’s to fix the basics now so that we can build for a future tomorrow. Thanks, Mr Speaker.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (15:06): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister’s statement in an election year sets the vibe of the year. It tells the House where the energy’s at. It’s a way to think about how the year’s going to show up, and nothing’s said it more than Christopher Luxon, day one of the Parliament sitting. He’s given 20 minutes in an election year to spell out the achievements of his Government, to chart out the path ahead, to inspire the caucus, to inspire the nation, and he falls six minutes short—can’t make it to the end of a speech, doesn’t have 20 minutes of vision or ideas in an election year.

Now, I probably started this year thinking there were going to be some fractures in the National Party. We’ve certainly been hearing about them at the end of the year. But nothing has shown more unity and loyalty of their leader than the absolute commitment of every member of the National Party who has stood up not to outshine their leader. Their leader who fell six minutes short—who couldn’t spell out vision, couldn’t spell out achievement, and these days is sounding far less like a Prime Minister or a leader. The only fall back is to blame the other guys, to blame the people before them. At this point, he’s sounding more like that frequent caller to the complaints department than a Prime Minister. It is time for our Prime Minister to stand up, to show some leadership, and to explain to everyday New Zealanders why life is getting harder under his prime ministership; why he is leading a country where he promised to fix the economy but everywhere we go, people we are speaking to are telling us life is getting harder; life is not getting easier. They are making it worse for people all over the place.

Christopher Luxon on the campaign trail nearly three years ago was up and down the country, as were his MPs and candidates, promising everybody that brighter future, telling everyone that they were going to fix everything, telling families they were going to get $250 a fortnight in tax cuts. Now, we on this side of the House, don’t back ourselves as being particularly skilled in the art of sleuthing, but we are going to turn our attention to finding just one family—just one family that have received that $250 a fortnight in tax cuts, because the IRD hasn’t found one. The Prime Minister can’t identify one. Nicola Willis can’t identify just one family.

When the National Party go back on the doors this election, they’re going to have to explain to the electorate why it is that life is harder under their Government. Why is it harder when you go to the supermarket? They’re told by Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis, “Don’t worry, the recovery is happening.” For people when they’re standing at the supermarket check-out thinking about how they’re going to pay for their trolley of groceries, it feels more like a recession than it does a recovery. They’re wondering how they’re going to pay for this, how they’re going to pay the power bill, how they’re going to pay the doctor’s bill, how they’re going to pay the rent or the mortgage. This Government—crickets, in terms of what they have to offer families who are in this situation. When we talk about how it is that we will offer hope and vision, Chris Hipkins—I won’t call him “Christopher”—spelt this out very clearly in his speech in response to the Prime Minister’s statement.

He talked about how, when we talk about how we’re going to ease that cost burden on families, we’re going to give them something tangible: a Medicard so that going to the doctor is not a luxury, so they will be able to go the GP, they will be able to be seen to, and they won’t have to juggle that against paying the power bill, buying groceries, paying for the school uniform, or any other costs that families have to endure. That is not the country that we want on this side of the House. We want a country that invests in its people, a Government that puts the health of its citizens—and is willing to back them, not property speculators and not tobacco companies—at the fore of the equation. There are going to be very clear choices for voters in this year’s election about who it is that they can vote for. Who has got their back? Who is going to be thinking about their jobs, their health, their homes, about how we can relieve the pressure on the cost of living?

If we look at what this Government is presiding over, it can be bleak—and thank goodness we had Chris Hipkins’ speech to inject some hope and some vision into what that picture looked like, because tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs. Nicola Willis has told them not to take it personally. It’s pretty hard, if you lose your job and you don’t know how you’re going to support your family, how you’re going to pay for the mortgage or the rent or put food on the table, not to take it personally. Is there a plan? There is no plan. What we see is New Zealanders voting with their feet every day and leaving New Zealand. That is not the kind of country we want to see. We want to see a country where there is hope for our young people, where they want to stay because they see a fulfilling future—one where they can fulfill their aspirations, where they can be everything they want to be. That is not what is happening under this Government.

Now, I couldn’t forego this opportunity to have a talk about the liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanks that the Government announced yesterday. Mr Speaker, if you were writing for a satirical show, you could not make this stuff up better. Yesterday, in official briefings, when the Prime Minister and the Minister for Energy stood on the podium and it was a “levy”. Now, by today, it’s not a levy, it’s a “fee”. Come to question time, it’s not a levy, it’s not a fee; it’s a “charge”. I think we saw the Minister for Energy introduce a new description for it. I think it was an insurance policy that may have come into the equations in his answers in question time today. To quote Nicola Willis—and we’ve been doing it all day, and it’s not something that we put high on what we usually do—“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a tax.” Anyway, I completely botched that one! But make no bones about it: this is a gas tax. This Government is proposing that New Zealand households and businesses that do not use gas, that use electricity, are going to be paying a tax to pay for gas infrastructure.

Here’s the kicker: people using gas are not going to have to pay that levy. This is a huge subsidy on one of the most expensive ways in which we can produce energy in this country. This is not about New Zealand seizing the moment and thinking how, in an era of global uncertainty, we can put energy security in New Zealand front and centre by relying on electrons homegrown, made in New Zealand by sun and wind here in New Zealand, and by our hydro lakes. No, what we’re going to do is tether ourselves to precarious offshore gas markets that have been highly volatile over the last five years and subject the New Zealand industry and New Zealand households to that price volatility.

Do not be fooled: when this Government says that this will lead to lower electricity costs, that this will save jobs, they need to show us the modelling. All over the country, they are being called out on this. This does not stack up. It is no surprise that that modelling has not been released—that it has not been put on the table.

Hon Member: They’re all talk.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: They are all talk. This is a Government that has failed to produce an energy strategy, an energy policy, and it has gone for a band-aid. It is a band-aid that New Zealand households—

Hon Barbara Edmonds: An expensive band-aid.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —and businesses are going to end up paying for. It is an expensive band-aid, and it is an expensive band-aid that we don’t have to have. There are other opportunities.

Now, do we need to have firming and storage in our energy system? Yes, we do. Does it have to be LNG? No, it doesn’t. There are cheaper options, and this Government took them off the agenda, therefore subjecting New Zealand households and businesses to their gas tanks. We will hear them denying that it’s called that over the coming days.

I go back to the vibe of the thing, the year that we are entering into. When we look at the lacklustre faces of the Government benches, we can see this is a Government that is out of ideas, it is out of hope, and it is certainly a party, in the National Party, that lacks a leader—a leader that is failing to inspire his own caucus, a leader that is failing New Zealanders.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato) (15:16): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, that member’s attempt to put that joke across earlier, I think just sums up the last Labour Government: great promise, lots of noise, but totally failed to deliver, and everyone is left wondering just what the heck had happened.

Now, all I’ve heard from the other side today is bluster, blame, and general babble, and, frankly, New Zealanders deserve better than that. Thank goodness for them, on this side there is a Government that is fixing the basics and building the future. I get the opportunity to see the promise of that in the Waikato electorate every day. It is of course the best electorate in the country, and we are very proud to be benefiting from some of the magnificent changes that this Government has brought to the fore. Most recently, of course, is the third medical school—turned sod just before Christmas. It was a fantastic moment for our region, and it will be fantastic, of course, for New Zealand more broadly as well.

Sticking with that health theme now, we’ve had the 12-month prescriptions come in, and, just this last week, as I’ve been going around communities in the electorate, I’ve had numerous people stop me and thank me for that change, because it’s a meaningful impact for them. If they’re able to get a 12-month prescription, instead of having to go four times a year to the doctor, that reduces their costs, it frees up additional doctors appointments as well. These are all steps that will help us to build the future that New Zealanders deserve.

Alongside that, of course, we have transportation. In our electorate, that is a huge opportunity. We have the mighty Waikato Expressway. We’ll be doing the next extension of that, and we’ll be turning dirt on that later this year. The extension to the Piarere intersection of State Highways 1 and 29: a dangerous corridor with high traffic volumes that, actually, we would have just about been, right now, driving on a brand-new four-lane expressway had it not been cancelled by the last Labour Government in 2018—short-sighted, narrow-minded approach that compromised the safety of Waikato residents and road users and that was simply unacceptable. Thank goodness that is back on the table now, and, as I said, we will be turning dirt this year.

Alongside that is the Southern Links project and the commitment that this Government has made to extending the expressway—a National Party plan—all the way through to Tauranga; four lanes, a fantastic ambition and one that I think will be a massive boon, not just for our economy in the Waikato but for the wider “golden triangle”, which, as we know, is expected to see 70 percent of New Zealand’s population growth to 2050—70 percent. We must get the infrastructure in place to support that growth. That’s what this Government is striving so hard to do.

Now, we’ve had to play a bit of catch-up. Fixing those basics hasn’t been easy. We’ve seen that in infrastructure, but we’ve also seen it in education. With all the kids now back at school—my own included—we’ve had great feedback from other school parents who are just delighted at the progress that’s been made now in education. They actually have hope again that education will deliver great outcomes for young New Zealanders into the future. It should not be that we accept the mediocrity that seemed to be the case under the last Government. This Government is more ambitious than that. We are fixing the education curriculum. We will ensure that those young New Zealanders going through school will be able to build a better future for themselves and, of course, for New Zealand.

Now, law and order as well is another key area where, like most of New Zealand, the Waikato saw some issues over the last number of years. Thankfully, we’re seeing a massive turnaround in that space as well: ram raids down significantly in our electorate, as they are around the country—85 percent drop; 38,000 fewer victims of serious violent and sexual crime. That impacts families across the country. I don’t think we can appreciate just how much that means to communities. Not seeing those victims—that is massive. The other side would have us abolish prisons and defund the police. That absolutely is not something that this side of the House will be doing. We are committed to ensuring that there will be consequences for crime but, indeed, focusing on how we can reduce the level of offending in the first place. Now, we’ve seen a 24 percent increase in police foot patrols around our electorate as well.

People are noticing these changes: the improvements, the basics being fixed, the promise that the future holds. Optimism is coming through, and I am confident that 2026 will be a great year. Re-electing a National-led Government at the end of the year will ensure we can continue to build the future that New Zealand deserves. Thank you.

NANCY LU (National) (15:21): The Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament for 2026 was delivered on 27 January, and I still encourage New Zealanders to have a read of or listen to some of the speeches that were delivered in this House since then.

Now, since the Prime Minister’s statement, I’ve shared and talked to many New Zealanders in every walk of life: people in our cities, in our rural areas, in our regions, people who work in different sectors, and the many ethnic and migrant communities who help make New Zealand better, stronger, more connected internationally, and definitely more ambitious. The message that I have when I talk to them is very, very simple: fixing the basics and building the future.

Just very recently, as of this Monday—yesterday—I had the best example to talk to people. Yesterday morning, I had the privilege and honour—I was invited by the local MP of Takanini, Rima Nakhle, to join her and the Minister of Education, Minister Stanford, for the blessing at 5 a.m. and the pōwhiri at a primary school in Flat Bush. The primary school was named and gifted a beautiful name, Te Kura Rau Iti primary school.

Now, Flat Bush, part of Takanini, is one of the fastest-growing suburbs in New Zealand. We see a lot of new builds, a lot of new families, a lot of young families with very young children, a lot of diversity in ethnicities. Therefore, we saw the growth and, actually, explosion in the number of students that are enrolled locally in schools. Through our campaign here, actually, in 2023 and all the way back to 2020 under the last Government, Rima Nakhle and myself saw that teachers had to give up their staffroom and give up their library space just so that they could provide classrooms for the overflow of students so they could go to class.

It got to a point where one of the teachers asked us and said, “Well, we’re so close to giving up our staffroom, our kitchen, as well as maybe even the toilet, because we’re just so short on space.” Then they told us, “The Labour Government promised us this new classroom, and new this and new that, but we just haven’t quite seen it yet.” This is why I say fixing the basics and building the future is so evident in the opening of the new primary school on Monday—fixing the basics.

Schools and classrooms don’t have to be rocket science. They don’t have to be designed differently for every school. It needs four walls and a roof, warm and dry so students can focus on learning, building their future. This is what Minister Stanford has done since she became the Minister of Education in New Zealand. She has asked, and the entire ministry worked together to make sure that classrooms should be just built easy, fast, safe, and cost-effective. And guess what! Classrooms now in New Zealand are built for less than half the cost of what they were under the Labour Government.

What that means is Minister Stanford is now able to fix the basics by providing more classrooms and more new schools for our children so they can go to class and actually learn and build their future. Also, the ministry can now provide more classrooms because they are able to do it faster and cheaper. This is what I called fixing the basics and building the future.

I’m a mother of two young children. My oldest, Amber, is six; she’s in year 2. She deserves to go to a classroom where she can focus on learning. She needs the right materials to focus on the one hour of maths, one hour of reading, one hour of English and literacy and writing every day. As a mother of two young children who are benefiting from the public education system in New Zealand, this is the minimum I expect from New Zealand’s education system, and this is finally what I see in our New Zealand primary schools because of the education reform that Minister Stanford has delivered for New Zealand.

As a mother and as a parent, we are so proud to see the progress of this Government, that we have delivered in fixing the basics and delivering and building the future for our children, for our younger generation but also for the future of New Zealand.

Now, I have written so much of my thoughts based on the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament, but the blessing and opening of the primary school in Flat Bush on Monday morning at 5 a.m. was a dream come true for me. As a New Zealander, I’m so proud of this Government, that we are fixing the basics and delivering for our future.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (15:26): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s always an honour to be able to take a call in this House, and I am very happy to be able to rise in support of the Leader of the Opposition’s amendments to the Prime Minister’s statement.

It was quite interesting listening to the speeches from the other side today, and I was kind of a little bit perplexed as to exactly what I should be taking away from that. We saw that James Meager could adequately read a speech; that’s what I took away from his particular contribution. We heard that Tim van de Molen’s favourite electorate is the one that he represents. And we heard a great description from Nancy Lu of actually what constitutes a classroom and the fact that it needs walls and a roof. So I don’t know really what to take from this Government. They seem to have so little enthusiasm for what was in their Prime Minister’s statement. The Prime Minister couldn’t even complete his time.

I just want to say to the Government MPs: can we please wake up and start addressing the issues that are really important to New Zealanders? We have so many problems in this country, and these have been brought about by the fact that, since this Government has come in, they have made things not better, like they promised, but worse for New Zealanders.

We see 32,000 fewer jobs since this Government came in. That represents less opportunity for everyone who lives here, their children, and their grandchildren. We’re seeing more people than ever going across to Australia. We have 165,000 people in New Zealand out of work and looking for a job, and that is not even taking into account the underutilisation rate in New Zealand: 139,000 people need more work. They’re working part-time and they want to work more; they want to contribute. Where is the opportunity that this Government is presenting for these New Zealanders? We didn’t hear about it from the Prime Minister, and we certainly haven’t heard about it from the members of the Government that have been speaking today.

Now, I am the Public Service spokesperson for the Labour Party, and I want to acknowledge how terrible this Government’s changes have been for public servants, not only in Wellington but in fact all over the country, many of whom are constituents of the MPs that sit around this House. We have had thousands and thousands of public servants lose their jobs under this Government. We know that Wellington is the capital; they’ve got a lot of public servants here—although I’m not 100 percent sure if it’s more than in Auckland. We know that they have had 10,000 fewer jobs in Wellington. Look at what has happened to this capital city, and we can see that this is a direct result of the choices that this Government is making not to invest in jobs and to actually make economic conditions worse. I’ll ask again for those opposite: please, wake up and tell us how you’re going to address these really important issues that are facing New Zealand.

Now, this has been a very full-on start to the year for New Zealand, unfortunately, and I do want to tone the political aspect of my speech down a little bit because one of my other portfolios is being emergency management spokesperson, and it’s really important to acknowledge how impactful the weather events were in the North Island at the beginning of this year. My colleague Cushla Tangaere-Manuel will speak to that a little bit more because she’s been on the ground on the East Coast, helping the locals there. I have seen people from all over this House. James Meager asked us to be colour-blind, and certainly in emergency situations we take off our party coats and we put on our hats as legislators for the country and actually try and make the best out of what can be a really tragic situation.

I want to acknowledge the people who have been caught up in that. I want to acknowledge the communities. I want to especially acknowledge those who have been impacted and have lost loved ones. It is an absolute tragedy to ever lose a loved one in an accident, and when this is an extreme weather event, it really is something that I just cannot imagine—the pain that some of these families are going through.

I want to acknowledge those that were lost at Mount Maunganui, especially in Welcome Bay and in Warkworth. Those people are still in our thoughts, and while we continue to work hard in this House, we’ll continue to work better together in order to address those events that we know will continue to happen, and focus on adaptation and on making sure New Zealand has the best emergency response system in the world. We face the most challenges; we should have the best response system. As chair of the Governance and Administration Committee, I really take that responsibility seriously with the new Emergency Management Bill (No 2)—to look at these changes.

In conclusion, there is a lot of work to do in New Zealand. Some challenges are created by this Government—which I’ve addressed—some challenges we face as a result of our geography, but we need to make sure we do more.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) (15:31): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Otirā, ko taku kauhau tuatahi tēnei mō tēnei tau. Nā reira, huri noa i tēnei Whare, tēnā rawa atu tātou katoa. E tū ana awau ki te tuku kauhau mō te kōrero a te Pirīmia i tēnei tau.

[Greetings to the Speaker of the House. This is, indeed, my first speech of the year. Therefore, I greet all those in the House. I stand to deliver my speech on the Prime Minister’s speech this year.]

I stand to provide the Government an opportunity to make good on their promises. On 21 and 22 January, the northern end of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, from Pōtaka to Wharekahika to Te Araroa to Matahi Horeora, received a month’s worth of rain in 36 hours. The news coverage showed the devastation, but being on the ground as the local MP was not only an honour, to be able to be present to fulfil my responsibility as their advocate here at Parliament, but it was also very moving to see the devastation: to see roads that were no longer; children’s playgrounds devastated, recently built; school gyms and facilities, and community facilities, damaged, newly built; farms and homes, destructed.

It was also the best show, as my colleague has acknowledged, of community will and pulling together. Like I said, what this absolutely presents is an opportunity for the Government to come true, particularly on their promise for fixing the basics and building the future: upgrading roads, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. Let’s see it. They’ve got a very concrete opportunity to deliver and reconnect Wharekahika, Te Araroa, and Pōtaka to the rest of Aotearoa.

I do want to acknowledge the Prime Minister and other Ministers and the MP for East Coast, who did visit—so you have seen first-hand the devastation. Stop talking just about roads of national significance, and honour the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and reconnect them so that they can go back to business as usual, they can go back to school, they can access hospitals. Right now, they’re living in a real danger zone.

The other promise talks about growing the economy to create jobs and opportunities. It’s no secret that areas like Wharekahika and Te Araroa have high unemployment stats, and the median income is about $27,000, much lower than the national median of $41,500. However, one key industry on the coast that creates employment and has an impact on the economy is, of course, farming and various other methods of working our land—30,000 hectares of whenua, predominantly whenua Māori, have been ravaged by this. Again, an opportunity for the Prime Minister to make good on his promises: go back to Wharekahika and Te Araroa and tell the people what you’re going to do for them—acknowledging the small contribution, of course, that has already been made.

On that note, of course the whānau at home are not resting on their laurels. Like I said, I was so proud to be from home and see all the volunteers supported by the professional services from around Aotearoa. Right now, as we speak, the 30,000 hectares of land that have been ravaged and the communities who have been isolated from each other and their homes are being looked after by locals, with support, as I’ve said, from services. But they need more. They need some concrete guarantees from this Government that they will be reconnected.

Before all this, people were already saying they felt overlooked by this Government. This is your chance to prove—to put your money where your mouth is and say, “We see you; we value you, and we will reconnect you.”

Hoi anō rā, I want to acknowledge all the whānau around the world who have sent your aroha, your koha, and your karakia to the whānau of home. Hoi anō rā, koutou katoa kei te wā kāinga, kia kaha tonu koutou. Mā te Atua koutou katoa e mānaaki, e tiaki. Tēnā tatou.

[So to you all at home, be strong. May the Lord bless and protect you all. Thank you.]

JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland) (15:36): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise as the member of Parliament for Southland to speak in support of the Prime Minister’s statement.

Two years ago, this Government was elected on an ambitious agenda to get New Zealand back on track and, since then, has been relentlessly focused on fixing the basics and building the future. We have fixed the basics. We have got inflation under control. We have been reducing regulation on businesses small and large, so that they can focus on building their businesses on creating employment opportunities for New Zealanders, and that is exactly what is happening. This year, the primary sector is on track to reach a record $62 billion in exports. We have already reached a record of $80 billion of total exports.

In my electorate of Southland, which, I will say, is the greatest electorate in the country—and I know everyone in this Parliament has their own favourite, but there are very sound reasons for me to say that: 15 percent of tradable exports come from Southland. It creates a huge contribution to New Zealand’s economy and to helping our country get back on track. In fact, this week, the Southern Field Days will be at Waimumu, and that is the greatest field days in the South Island. It only happens every two years, and I think it’s going to be a very positive one for everyone.

I want to give a shout-out to everyone who has been working hard across our primary sector, across our orchards, across our farms, across vegetable growers, who have been working incredibly hard to work through a very challenging time to get this economy back on track, which they have done and we are seeing. We’re seeing great prices in meats; we’re seeing great prices in the dairy sector. That is helping people pay down debt that they accumulated over the last few years prior to that, and now we’ve put them in a position where they can invest in other things, which will flow through the broader economy.

That also helps the Government. That helps us with our tax take and allows us to invest in things like the new Dunedin Hospital. This Government has got that back on track. It had blown out. We got that back on track, and it is now under way.

I do want to take this opportunity also to just acknowledge the late Jules Radich, who was the Mayor of Dunedin, who worked very hard on this. I worked with him to help our Government get this in position so we could get this across the line. My heart goes out to his family.

I would also take the opportunity to—unfortunately, we had a sad start to the year, with Sir Tim Shadbolt, the long-time Mayor of Invercargill, also passing away at the beginning of this year. He made a huge contribution to Southland. Something he’s well remembered for is how he helped with the Southern Institute of Technology. I was privileged to be at the opening, or the welcoming ceremony, yesterday, with the Hon Penny Simmonds, the local member of Parliament. It’s great to see all the new faces coming in, the community there to support, and the acknowledgment to Sir Tim Shadbolt.

Yesterday we also had the opening of a new dialysis unit in Invercargill at the Southland Hospital. I want to acknowledge the Hon Simeon Brown, the health Minister, who has been doing an incredible job in very challenging circumstances in getting things like this under way. Almost a third of people who go to Dunedin for dialysis treatment come from Southland. This means this new unit in Southland Hospital will make a massive difference to people who no longer have to travel up to three times a week, 2½ hours each way, often having to stay in Dunedin and spend time away from their families. It is investments like these that we are making to build the future for our region and for the country.

I turn to Queenstown, another part of my region, and the Central Otago area. It is an incredible area and we have been doing some really great work. We have a process under way for a regional deal—that is, negotiation is under way between the three councils who have responsibilities in that area and the Government. It just gives an opportunity to work on the long-term solution that this region needs. It’s one of the fastest-growing areas in the country, with a lot of demand on its infrastructure, which is growing fast, and we have some very exciting things like, for example, an application under fast track for a gondola, which would be the first in the Southern Hemisphere for passenger movements. We’ve got some really exciting things happening there. We also have a clinical services plan, which is the first that’s been done for the region in decades. I did a huge amount of work to get that going. Health New Zealand has now delivered that to the Minister, and I understand there will be recommendations taken to Cabinet soon, and I look forward to those.

I turn to Fiordland. We have some very exciting things there, with a long-term concession for the operation of key visitor infrastructure announced by the conservation Minister, Tama Potaka, earlier this month, and there is continuing investment in that region. There is a lot happening. This is a Government that is getting the future happening.

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill) (15:41): I rise in strong support of the Prime Minister’s statement. Over the past two years, this Government has been working tirelessly to bring New Zealand back on track. The challenges we faced were real: economic pressure, rising living costs, community safety, and declining confidence in public services. Through hard work, discipline, and a clear plan, New Zealand is now on track for recovery. Just a few minutes ago, we received a survey result showing satisfaction with Government services at a record 84 percent in the December 2025 quarter. That recovery is not abstract. It has been felt in communities like Mount Roskill.

Let me turn to the economy and tourism, because together they show how this recovery is being delivered in a practical way. With interest rates now coming down, many families are feeling real relief through lower weekly mortgage repayments. That makes a real difference at the kitchen table. Business confidence is high as well. Small businesses are beginning to plan, invest, and hire again. Tourism and major events are key parts of the economic momentum. Through this Government, major events and the tourism package are part of our work to boost Eden Park’s status as a premium major event venue. We are driving jobs, growth, and investment right here in Auckland.

I have seen the impact firsthand. I recently spoke with the manager of my local Soho Hotel, who told me that whenever there is a major event in Auckland, especially at Eden Park, their hotel is fully booked. There’s been more shifts for staff, more customers for nearby cafes and restaurants, and more money flowing through our local economy. Major events do not just fill stadiums; they fill hotels, taxis, restaurants, and shops. They support workers, strengthen small businesses, and showcase New Zealand to the world. This momentum is continuing. Just this morning, Minister Louise Upston announced further Government investment into major sport, food, and cultural events. This investment will drive economic growth, attract visitors, and encourage further private investment.

I want to focus on education as well, because this is something people in Mount Roskill really care about. Education is one of the clearest examples of this Government fixing the basics and building the future. We are reforming NCEA to ensure it is clear, credible, and focused on achievement. We got rid of cellphones. We are making sure students receive one hour of reading, writing, and mathematics every day, because these core skills are essential for success. Parents in Mount Roskill are telling me that they are more confident in our education system and believe this is the right approach to help their children succeed. This Government is listening to parents, supporting teachers, and building a system that prepares our young people not just for exams but for life also.

Also, we’ve talked about law and order. This Government has been very clear that we are tough on crime, enforcing tougher sentencing laws to restore law and order, and the approach is working. When people commit crimes, there must be consequences. I’ve been door-knocking across Mount Roskill and I’ve listened to residents, and one message comes through fairly clearly: people are actually feeling safer. Under the previous Government, New Zealanders were repeatedly confronted with headlines about ram raids and gang activities, but today those stories are far less frequent, and that is no accident. This Government has put more police on the beat, targeting gangs, and we have established a tactical retail crime unit at Mount Roskill Police Station to focus on retail crime. These measures are making a real difference. They are 38,000 fewer victims of crime compared to recent years. They are protecting local businesses, supporting victims, and restoring confidence in our communities.

We understand there is more to do, but this Government is here, taking responsibility, fixing the basics, and building the future.

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Tai Tonga) (15:47): Tēnā, kua rongo au i te kī taurangi a te Pirīmia. E mihi tonu ana ki te parekura ki runga o *Mauao. Rātou i ngaro i roto i te āwhā nui, me te horapa o te āwhā ki runga ki te tini me te mano, e mihi ana.

[Now then, I have heard the Prime Minister’s pledge. I acknowledge the great tragedy that occurred at Mauao. Those who were lost in the great storm, and the many who were affected by the storms, I acknowledge you.]

As I listened to the Prime Minister address the nation following the catastrophic floods from the East Coast to the Far North, his praise for our marae, our hapū, and our iwi communities could only be received as hollow words and shallow praise, particularly when we take into account the actions of his Government over the past two years.

I think of all the marae, the hapū, the iwi communities across Te Tai Tonga, throughout Te Wai Pounamu that have carried out that same work for the last decade or more as these events intensify. From Te Āwhina and Whakatū during the Nelson floods to Omaka andTakahanga duringthe Kaikoura earthquakes, they were the lifelines of their communities; Tuahiwi and Ngā Hau e Whā, all the way down to Murihiku. Our marae, our hapū, and our iwi have always done this work. I acknowledge the $1 million fund. I agree it’s obviously insufficient, but at least it’s a start. I hope the Prime Minister carries his newfound appreciation for te iwi Māori into the rest of the election year.

Then we had Waitangi, and rather than take the opportunity to set out a strong commitment to te iwi Māori, another pre-prepared speech again felt like hollow words and shallow praise. Rather than step up to the challenge and hope of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, he managed to reduce it to something akin to socialism, and that he’s not really into that, when the promise of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is ora; it’s wellbeing for everybody. We’re tired of politicians showing up and reading speeches to us. We want to hear from you. We want to know what your commitment to Te Tiriti, to te iwi Māori is. We want to know that you understand the issues impacting Māori most.

We expect more. We expect leadership that upholds Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the foundation of our country. We expect more, and more importantly, our rangatahi expect more. Our rangatahi are the future of the country. I’ve spoken about this many times in this House. They are the future of the labour workforce and can’t be ignored. They will no longer tolerate being pushed to the back. They want to know what’s on offer for them. At this very moment, they are mobilising to take control of their own political futures.

As we head into this election year, te iwi Māori need to be clear that there is only one critical task that needs to be done this year, and that is a change of Government, and the key thing for us to remember is that we have the numbers to do it. Through all the current political noise it remains clear that party politics continues to fail Māori. The political model that promotes the idea that there can only be one leader, one president, one chair, one set of ideas has never delivered the change that we need the most. Our representation is driven from the ground up, not the top down. Our leadership invites sharing of power and acknowledgment of mana, not the hoarding of power and diminishing of mana. Our leadership is for the people by the people, not for the people by individuals.

If the two recent polls are even remotely accurate, the independent Māori seats will play a critical role in determining who the next Government will be. The message is clear, e te iwi: the independent Māori seats continue to be our greatest political leverage and opportunity. We must retain them. Stay on the Māori roll. Every 35,000 Māori that get on to the Māori roll triggers a new independent Māori seat. We must continue. We could have 16 independent Māori seats. We must maximise the Māori vote this year for a change of Government.

We cannot afford any wasted Māori votes. To all of our wāhine, our māmā, our aunties, nannies, our sisters, our cousins, we’re going to need you this year. We’re going to need you to make sure that each of your whānau are organised ahead of time, that they are on the Māori roll before August, that they are confirmed enrolled to vote before October, and that when early voting opens on 26 October, we vote early and we vote as whānau.

Nō reira, kia kaha—kia kaha rā, e te iwi Māori i roto i tēnei tau. Kia māia, kia manawanui. Kei a tātou te mana hei kōwhiri i te Kāwanatanga haere ake nei. Nō reira, kia toitū te iwi Māori, kia toitū anō hoki ko te Tiriti o Waitangi. E te Pika, tēnā koe, tēnā rā tatou.

[So to the Māori people, be strong—be strong this year. Be courageous and stout-hearted. We have the power to choose the upcoming Government. So may the Māori people stand firm, may the Treaty of Waitangi endure. Madam speaker, I acknowledge you, I acknowledge all here.]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This is a split call—Hūhana Lyndon.

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green) (15:52): We’ve heard proclamations of success and shout-outs for the fast track and it being some remedy that needed fixing in Aotearoa, but may I share: tīhei Taranaki—tīhei Taranaki iwi [behold Taranaki—behold Taranaki tribes]; Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Ruanui. The way that southern Taranaki tribes like Ngāruahine and community came together over 13 years of battling to protect the seabed off southern Taranaki, we have now seen success again. They have fought for years to say no as iwi and community to seabed mining off Taranaki. So tīhei Taranaki.

The things that were important in this space, for this decision from the fast track panel, was Te Tiriti o Waitangi and upholding the obligations that Te Tiriti o Waitangi affords the iwi, but further the degradation and undermining and the lack of protections for these sacred taonga species. So toitū te taiao. Toitū te Tiriti [may the environment remain. May the Treaty remain].

This fast-track myth that we have still remains within us in Tai Tokerau. I cast my eyes again to the North and reflect on McCallum Bros Ltd, who, after 80 years of taking sand out of my own people in Pākiri, Ngāti Manuhiri, now are coming north to add further destruction to the taiao in our rohe. Their consent has now been lodged. The super - fast track that has now been inflicted on communities will shorten the runway for iwi Māori and councils to respond. The super - fast track is going to make it even harder for community voice to be heard.

But, no, community and iwi Māori are united, as we saw in Taranaki. So, yes, come to Bream Bay, give it a go, McCallum Bros. Any of you from the Government, try and come into our rohe and keri i te onepū ki te ākau [dig up the sand on the beach]. Good luck. Expect resistance, because people and community continue to rally in the kāhui. People and community will gather on 15 March and protest again against what this House is going to inflict upon the onepū, upon the people, the community, the iwi Māori of Bream Bay, because there is no gain in sand mining in Bream Bay. There is no evidence that there is any need for this in Tai Tokerau or even for Aotearoa. There are new solutions for manufactured sand. It is a manufactured narrative that somehow the sand mining in Bream Bay is going to be of regional and national significance. He teka—he teka mārika [That’s lies—absolute lies].

So bring it. Bring it into our community and try your luck, because hapū and community are united in the kāhore on this issue, just as Taranaki Maunga has been united, as we have seen, and finally the panel has agreed and declined it.

This consent being lodged; people are rallying, community are working together. As the Green Party, we stand alongside community and iwi Māori to uphold the obligations of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and to protect te taiao. I don’t know whether you have seen the comms, but the Green Party is deeply committed to revoking coal, hard rock, seabed mining, of any of these fast-track consents that might come across our tēpu, because, do you know what, we honour Te Tiriti and we honour the importance of te taiao protections. This fast track is no good for te taiao, tātou mā [the environment, everyone.] Be clear on that. Our communities are watching, our mokopuna are watching, because what is decided in this House and what is implemented through the fast track will have intergenerational impacts, and that will be the shame that we will have to bear as a House as we see projects like the McCallum Bros come into community, come into iwi Māori without consent.

There is no tautoko from our community, and I dare anybody to come into our door here and try and take us on as we oppose McCallum Bros and sand mining in Bream Bay. Kia ora.

STUART SMITH (Senior Whip—National) (15:57): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Debate interrupted.

Bills

Employment Relations Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 29 January.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): We were up to the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, call No. 8, which was a Labour Party call.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) (15:57): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Here we are again: another week and another Government bill that’s putting a wrecking ball to the rights of workers in this country. They call it modernisation, and they call it efficiency, but let’s call it what it really is: this is regression, a full-scale roll-back of fairness in the workplace. This bill is an absolute disgrace. It is an outright ideological attack on the rights of working New Zealanders, on the dignity of work, and on the very values that keep our community strong in this country. This Employment Relations Amendment Bill doesn’t amend the law, it amputates it.

Now, I was fortunate enough, even though it is not my select committee, to sit on the Education and Workforce Committee for the hearings for this bill. We heard from everyday New Zealanders. We heard from workers, we heard from small-business owners, we heard from unions, thousands of them—we didn’t hear thousands of them, but thousands made submissions; 3,590 submissions. How many supported the bill? One percent; 4 percent didn’t have a view either way. That’s 95 percent who said loud and clear that this bill makes our lives harder.

What did this Government do about the fact that 95 percent spoke against this bill? Very little. They ignored those people. They came back with token changes, tiny tweaks to make it look like they cared, but, in fact, they made it worse. It came back from select committee in an appalling state. It was bad enough when it went to select committee, and it came back even worse. They lifted the personal grievance level, but the worst thing they did was that they fiddled with the wording around the so-called gateway test. Now, they feel like they made it better; the Government benches felt like they made that bill better. You can paint over the rot, but the house will still fall down. This bill is rotten to the core. It is anti-worker to its bones.

I want to start by talking about that gateway test for the gig workers, because that’s where the human cost really lands in this particular bill. We know these people. They are our Uber drivers, our food delivery people. They are people who are working so many hours—many of them 12 hours plus—and that’s to feed their whānau. They’ve fought through the court system—they’ve fought through the court system—time and time again for recognition and, every single time, the courts ruled in their favour. They said, “You are workers; you have rights.” And what does this Government do about the victory that they had? What did they do with that victory for fairness? Did they celebrate it? Did they recognise it? Did they build on it? No. They slammed the door shut on these workers. They said, “Sorry, you actually now have to pass another test before you can even find out if you deserve rights.” They’ve built a barrier and put a sign up that says, “Workers are not welcome.”

Now, I’ve heard this gateway test called by colleagues in this House a “trapdoor”. It’s a bit more like a brick wall. That’s exactly what these workers are facing by the changes that this bill is seeking to make. They are putting a brick wall in front of these workers. Now, as I said, the select committee heard from these workers. We heard from legal experts who said that this gateway was a trap for these people to keep them in insecure work. We heard that it was going to keep people in poverty. But did this Government listen? No, they made it worse. As I’ve said, it came back worse.

We’ve been told that this is all about flexibility. But flexibility for who? It’s certainly not flexibility for those workers. It is flexibility for the multinational company that doesn’t want to follow court rulings and is, therefore, disrespecting its people, because that’s the only flexibility that I can see in this bill—flexibility for exploitation. We wonder why our young people are leaving this country in droves. They’re heading across the Tasman because they’re saying—and I know, because I have one of those young people—“Why would I stay here when rules keep being rewritten for those with power but not for me?” They know that they can get a better deal elsewhere. That is shameful, and that’s exactly what this bill is doing. It’s making it harder for our young people.

One of the most chilling parts of this bill is the so-called fire-at-will clause, a workplace licence to silence. Once you earn over $200,000, you lose the right to bring a personal grievance. You can be dismissed without recourse, without reason and without warning. What message is that giving? It says to ambitious workers, “Don’t speak up. Keep your head down. Be quiet.” That’s not ambition; that’s intimidation dressed up as reform. That’s exactly what that is. What happens to a worker who gets a job or a promotion moving them from one island in this country to the next, from Christchurch to Auckland, is on plus $200,000, shifts their whole family up there, shifts their whole life up there and, within three months, has lost that job for no reason and cannot take a personal grievance? Does $200,000 seem like a lot of money at that particular point? No, it is not. Just wait! This is only the start of a very, very slippery slope, and something that we should not be proud of in this country and the way that we’re heading.

This bill doesn’t just change the law; it changes the spirit of our country—the idea that if you work hard, you’ll be treated fairly. That’s what’s at stake here. Listen very carefully to that. We have always had that kaupapa in this country: if you work hard, you’ll be treated fairly. But this bill, with a stroke of the pen, is putting that at stake. I say to all people on the other side, but I especially say to my New Zealand First colleagues: they claim to be, and stand for, the working New Zealander—the battler, the person doing the hard yards. Well, this is your test. My colleague Phil Twyford said this to you: this is your test, because a vote for this bill is a vote to make life harder for those people. That is not catastrophising the situation. This will make life harder for those people. Don’t tell them that you are on their side while you are voting for this bill.

We’ve seen a lot in the last two years from this Government. We have seen a complete anti-worker agenda. We’ve seen fair-pay agreements scrapped, 33 pay equity claims frozen, collective bargaining weakened, and, now, this bill is putting employer against employee. This is an absolute dark day and probably the darkest for our workers in this country. This is not balance. This is not fairness. This is a bulldozer, a wrecking ball, that is going through our workforces and our good, quality principles that we have stood up for fair work in this country at the rate of knots.

Good faith means listening, real listening, and when 95 percent of people tell you that this is wrong, you should stop and listen, not make it even harder. The Government is not listening. It charged on with the anti-worker crusade that puts profits ahead of people, and Labour will not stand for that—not this bill, not this direction, not this dangerous rewriting of our country’s social contract. We will stand up for our workers in this country—the drivers, the deliverers who have quickly become part of our fabric of who we are. Every single day, they are part of our fabric, and this bill tells them they matter less.

Labour will vote against this bill, because we believe in fairness and because we believe every worker deserves safety, dignity, and a voice. We will always—always and unashamedly—stand up for the voice of the worker.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (16:07): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Opposition tries to paint every layer of bureaucracy and every change in the law that they put through as being things that are good for everyone, but all they do is they add layers of cost in the economy, and, ultimately, New Zealanders pay for it in a thing called inflation.

This bill ensures that what contractors and employers and employees agree is actually what they can rely on—that if they agreed to terms, those are the terms that the parties will have in that relationship. That is a good thing for everyone. I commend the bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (16:08): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you. This is a bill that is of deep concern to me. I spent a long time as an employment lawyer, and I was very concerned, in particular, about what was going on with contracting in this country.

One of the problems with the issue of contracting is that the people who are truly exploited under it have got very few resources, and they didn’t have the channel through which to challenge what was going on to them. When they did challenge what was going on to them—for example, looking at the issue of whether they were truly contractors or whether the constraint on them was so great that that wasn’t the case, that the employer was having their cake and eating it too, and that they were paying the price. When they were in that situation and they made some headway, what would actually happen was that the employer would often buy them off with a settlement, so you didn’t see the kinds of decisions that told the true story about what I see as a great injustice in this country. I saw some of it more than most people, because I represented those people in those situations.

The law had a number of tests in it about what made you a contractor, and they were a mixture of tests, because we needed enough of a balance in what we were seeing to find a place that was realistic. This law takes us away from reality. What I saw were workers who were called contractors who earned less than the minimum wage by a long shot, who were completely exploited, who were subject to very strong direction from the principal so that everything they did was up for scrutiny.

In fact, often, other people were also directed by that principal in a way that could never really happen if you were in business on your own account. The Australians call it being tied hand and foot, and that’s what it was. They weren’t small businesses, as we wish they were. They weren’t able to get ahead. Every time they were getting ahead, often—I’ll call them the employer, but the principal in those situations would have the right, often, under the contract, to look at their finances, and they would see they were making a little bit of money and they would carve back the contracts. They would take away part of their run or they would take away part of any kind of attempt to have a profit, so they could never get ahead.

It was a lie. They desperately wanted to make a bit of money and get ahead, and it was a complete lie. They ended up on such low wages—and they were, really, wages—that they didn’t have KiwiSaver, often. They didn’t have a lot of the things that we want. Guess who ends up paying for it in the end—the taxpayers of New Zealand, because those are the people who have no KiwiSaver. Those are the people who have no reasonable wealth despite the fact that they have worked their socks off. It isn’t fair. It’s not a fair outcome for New Zealanders.

It is really important that we test the nature of a contract so it doesn’t become a proxy for an exploited worker. We haven’t done a good job of that in the past. The law was catching up in cases like Uber. They were catching up. They weren’t doing it ahead of time; they were doing it way behind time. When they were on the way to actually getting there, what does this Government do? It cuts it off at its knees. It cuts that development off, because it is under the illusion that this kind of behaviour is good for our country.

It is not good for our country. It is not good for our good employers, because they have to compete with these rascals that do this sort of thing to people. It is not good for our people and our wellbeing that this is happening today. It is a very, very bad-faith thing to do when we know these are the people we are supposed to protect in this House and stand up for and make sure that they can thrive. What are we doing today? We are again siding with the powerful against the powerless. That is what we are doing. Mainly, it will be out of ignorance and ideology.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (16:13): Madam Speaker, thank you. While the Employment Relations Act has indeed provided important protections, over time some of these settings have created unintended costs and risks for employers. What this bill and the changes proposed in this bill do is rebalance the system so that it works fairly for both employees and employers. I commend this bill to the House.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (16:14): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I’m not surprised the Government MPs aren’t keen on taking long calls on this bill, because this is an absolutely terrible bill. I’ve got 10 minutes and I intend to use every single minute to go through with you why, again, for my second time today, my colleagues on the other side of the House need to wake up and realise the legislation that they are passing through.

This bill is not only a terrible move for employment relations, but it is going to hurt New Zealanders. We’ve heard today, and I spoke to it in my earlier call, about the fact that we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the last 10 years. We’ve had 165,000 people out of work and 139,000 people looking for more work. What is this Government’s answer to this, to the fact that there is not enough work for people and there is a cost of living crisis? It is to make it easier for people to lose their jobs. If they are lucky enough to find a job, which is quite difficult in this particular environment, this Government’s answer to that is to make it easier for them to be sacked.

I’m a former member of the Education and Workforce Committee, and that is a hard-working committee, but I have to say, every single change that they have made to this bill has made it even worse. It was a terrible bill to start with, and these changes at select committee, almost without exception, have made the changes that will be implemented in this bill worse.

I think it is important to remind people that the Employment Relations Act, as passed in 2000, has enjoyed a relatively large degree of political consensus over time, in what is a very, very contentious area for both sides of this House. This bill takes a huge step backwards and puts it in line with the Employment Contracts Act, which was very, very politically divisive and led to big ructions within industrial relations in New Zealand. This bill takes us back there.

Now, there are four major changes that this bill makes, and I want to go through all of them. The first that I just cannot ignore and I want to cover in detail is the change that, effectively, rewinds and takes away the victory that some of our most vulnerable workers in New Zealand—Uber workers, gig workers—won in the Supreme Court only in November last year. Uber workers in New Zealand united and took a case to the Supreme Court against a huge multinational company, and they won. What is this Government doing? It is reversing their win through this terrible piece of legislation that will take those hard-won gains that those Uber workers made in the Supreme Court and, effectively, turn those around through the introduction of this gateway test.

I know colleagues on the other side of the House will say, “We have to do this because this was in our coalition agreement.” Well, I ask colleagues to read that coalition agreement and tell me what you think it says, because when I read it, I think there’s a mistake in it. I think what this coalition Government agreed to do does not make sense. I’ll read it to you. The National - ACT Party coalition agreement states: “Maintain the status quo that contractors who have explicitly signed up for a contracting agreement can’t challenge their employment status in the Employment Court.”

Well, the status quo is that they can, as we’ve seen through the Uber decision. I encourage my colleagues in New Zealand First to read that coalition agreement and see if it makes sense. I can guarantee you that it doesn’t. That means you don’t have to follow through with these terrible changes that reverse the changes that these vulnerable workers have worked hard to win in the Supreme Court.

That is not something that they just thought up once Uber was invented. The test for who is an employee is something that is common throughout Commonwealth jurisdictions. It looks to the real nature of the work, which should be the test that we use. The test in this bill reverses that and makes it much easier for employers to say, “You are not an employee. You don’t get holiday pay. You don’t get parental leave. You don’t get sick leave. You don’t get the minimum wage. You don’t get anything, because you’re not an employee.” That is what this bill does.

Let me tell you, it is going to affect every single electorate MP in this country when people come to them and they say, “Why can’t I go to a tangihanga? Why can’t I take parental leave? Why am I being paid under the minimum wage?” For all of those Government MPs who are constituency MPs, the answer is: “Because we passed this bill and it took away your rights.”

Shame on this Government. This is a terrible piece of legislation that takes workers’ rights backwards, is inconsistent with good practice around the world, and just bows to a powerful multinational that does not have the interests of New Zealand workers at heart. I want you to reflect on that and see if I am wrong, because I tell you, you will have people coming to your offices, you will have people in tears, you will have family members who have been mistreated because of the rights that have been taken away, and that is only one of the areas that this bill covers.

The second thing is it makes wide-ranging changes to our personal grievance regime and programme. Our personal grievance regime essentially means that if you’re unfairly treated, you can raise that with your employer. If you don’t settle it with your employer, you can take it to the Employment Relations Authority. This bill does two things to weaken that for New Zealand workers. It takes away the ability for high-earning workers to take a personal grievance. No, you haven’t misheard that; it takes away the ability for workers in New Zealand who earn over a certain amount to take a personal grievance at all—at all. That is a severe injustice and change.

People may say, “Who cares about high-earning people, because they earn a lot of money?” Well, let me tell you, some of those high-earning people might have a lot of people relying on them. They might have a lot of people who rely on the fact that they bring that income home. They might be supporting a lot of people. They might have a really large mortgage. They might live in an expensive part of New Zealand. They might have costs that we do not know about. This is taking away a fundamental right that has existed in New Zealand since the Employment Relations Act came in.

Additionally, it takes away any rights for people who contributed to their dismissal. If you’ve ever seen an employment dispute, show me one where there is one party that is absolutely lily-white and did not do anything wrong. It just is a fallacy—it doesn’t happen. Additionally, the Employment Relations Authority, at the moment, is finding, in cases where they’re finding 100 percent contribution, they’re not awarding anything. This is totally unnecessary. It’s already in place, and it just means that when workers are found to have contributed at all, then instead of having the Employment Relations Authority deciding on the basis of facts, it’ll just mean that you get nothing. Workers in New Zealand who have been unfairly treated will get absolutely nothing. I’m not surprised that 95 percent of people oppose this bill, this terrible bill, and I’m not surprised that there was such a huge amount of opposition to it.

The final area that I wanted to cover is around the 30-day rule. The 30-day rule is going to be abolished by this particular bill, and it essentially means that when you start in a job, instead of being covered by the collective employment agreement, you won’t be covered by that agreement at all and you’ll most likely be covered by an individual employment agreement, unless you decide independently to join a trade union. The reason that that is really important is because what a lot of individual employment contracts have in them is a trial period—essentially, a 90-day period where, similarly to what will be introduced here, you have absolutely no rights at all, and you can be sacked for any reason at all. When people first start a job, instead of having the agreement that might have been agreed with other people in the workplace not to have a 90-day trial, immediately, people are going be on an individual contract, and they are going to have their rights taken away from them.

There are a few things in this bill that the Education and Workforce Committee has tried to improve. One of the things I imagine that people on the other side of the House would point to is the fact that the income limit has changed in relation to the people aren’t allowed to take personal grievances. While I think that should be even higher and not there at all, the problem is that they’ve actually changed the test of what remuneration is. They have raised the threshold, but they’ve also said that instead of it just being base wages and salary, it’s going to be everything you earn—your entire remuneration package, which we know for many high-income earners will mean a lot more people are in that category.

In conclusion, this is a terrible bill. It changes the case that the Uber workers took to the Supreme Court—it reverses that in a way which is very, very constitutionally wrong, in my view. It fundamentally changes the fairness of how people interrelate at work. It will make it easier for people to be sacked at the time when we are facing a cost of living crisis. Those Government members supporting this bill should be ashamed, and I challenge them to look in the eye the people that come to them and complain about this terrible bill.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (16:24): I have a tremendous amount of respect for the member who just sat down, but on the issue of employment relations, we do differ. On this side of the House, we believe that the pathway to higher incomes and opportunities is for a more flexible labour market—flexibility for workers in the gig economy, and flexibility for businesses. This bill supports those aspirations, and it’s part of our Going for Growth agenda as a coalition Government. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee by majority be agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Defence) (16:27): I move, That the Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill.

In an increasingly volatile world, strong military discipline is essential for the operational readiness of the New Zealand Defence Force. Our armed forces personnel must maintain this discipline wherever they are in the world, whether here at home, offshore, or in combat environments. We hold our personnel to a high standard, and they should expect the same from their military justice system. The current system is out of date, with no substantial changes made since 2007. This bill modernises New Zealand’s military justice system so that it is fairer, more efficient, and more transparent. It amends key legislation underpinning the system—the Armed Forces Discipline Act, Court Martial Act, and the Court Martial Appeals Act—along with other legislation. The result is an updated military justice system that is easier to navigate and that better aligns with developments in the civilian criminal justice system.

A wide range of behaviours is an offence in a military context, ranging from very minor offending, such as being late for duty, to very serious offending, such as assisting the enemy. While the current system works well for mid-level offending, it is too complex and too time-consuming for low-level offending. This distracts command from their core focus of delivering operational outputs. At present, most charges are prosecuted at summary trial. The bill introduces a new, minor disciplinary sanctions system to effectively address very low-level offending. This provides a fair and speedy alternative to the complexity of a summary trial. The bill also makes changes to improve the investigation of serious, complex, or sensitive offending, including sexual violence offending. These changes will advance Operation Respect, the Defence Force’s campaign to eliminate inappropriate and harmful sexual behaviour within the armed forces. Responsibility for serious, complex, or sensitive offending will be transferred to the Director of Military Prosecutions to ensure it is dealt with independently of the chain of command and in a more streamlined manner.

The current system relies on outdated investigatory powers. The bill updates existing search powers and incorporates powers used in the civilian criminal justice system. This includes new powers to search defence areas and carry out drug testing on members of the armed forces for disciplinary purposes. A new search warrant framework will provide judicial oversight of searches of electronic devices and empower military police to obtain production orders for documents from third parties. It will also allow for searches outside defence areas that are owned, occupied, or used by a member of the armed forces. These changes will increase the New Zealand Defence Force’s ability to investigate alleged offending while providing better protections for those subject to search powers.

Other aspects of the military justice system are also strengthened by this bill. It amends the military bail provisions so that they align better with the modern civilian system. Much like the appeal rights of civilian prosecutors, the Director of Military Prosecutions will be empowered to appeal sentences. In addition, the Director of Military Prosecutions will have the safeguard power to appeal not guilty findings where the interests of justice require this. The bill also updates the powers of military tribunals and courts to deal with disruptive behaviour and contempt of court. A new scheme will be created to enable the use of national security information and proceedings in the Court Martial and Court Martial Appeal Court.

The bill contains protections and safeguards that, appropriately, balance the rights of victims with those of the accused. For example, it significantly strengthens the right to a trial by an independent and impartial court by extending the right to elect trial by court martial to most offences, increases the protection available to young people under the age of 18, and provides for the appointment of victim support officers in certain cases.

To support a smooth transition, the bill will commence one year after Royal assent. This will allow time to amend existing regulations, train personnel, and prepare new defence force orders to give effect to the changes. The public and our personnel expect a modern justice system that upholds the reputation and credibility of the armed forces. The new military justice system will ensure the men and women of our defence force can focus on what they do best, which is protecting New Zealand and its interests. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour) (16:32): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was just saying to my colleague that I think this is the first defence speech I’ve made in this House—I’ve been here a wee while. Anyway, it is an honour to speak on behalf of the Labour Party and say that we will support this bill. I have been in this House for some time, and, as we all do as Kiwis, we keep an eye on the armed forces and the military, the people who dedicate their lives and put them at risk to support our country in many, many ways. I just want to acknowledge them and the progress that has been made, not just in areas of technical expertise but in the collaboration among the three forces, which is something we should acknowledge. I know the Minister responsible for the bill has done an outstanding job in leveraging some money out of her colleagues, so they’re likely to see a big increase in resources. It is absolutely essential that that money is spent wisely and supports the young men and young women who go into the forces.

This piece of legislation amends—when I look back in the notes I have here—some legislation that’s been around for quite a while, and times change, and we learn from time to time. I was looking up a case that I can recall, HMNZS Canterbury, which goes back to the early 2000s, and I can remember it floating around Parliament and there being accusations across the House, and, in broad terms, it was inappropriate behaviour, with the boys’ club and stuff being ignored, driven by alcohol. In reality, the risk when you put a lot of young people together anywhere—it might be in a rugby club; it might be in a boarding school; I’ve been part of that from time to time—or if you put them on a ship or you put them offshore in an army base, there is a need for discipline. There is the temptation to leer up. That particular case, in the early 2000s, did highlight the potential for—inappropriate is probably the right word—some serious misconduct that was occurring. Changes were made, I think, in culture, but what this piece of legislation does—from the notes that I have here—is it makes legislative changes and brings them up to date. Things like search powers, which would have been, I guess, going into a locker on a navy vessel or in a barracks somewhere to search what might be in the locker now mean being able to get access to electronic data that might be kept on a device.

Look, Labour supports the need to upgrade this. As I say, in summary, it modernises the legislation. As I was walking at Waitangi the other day, there was a Ford ute, and it had “Military Police” on it. It kind of just reminded me—you don’t see many of them—that, actually, wherever the military operates across the world—and this legislation will apply to New Zealanders wherever they are in the world—there’s a police presence and oversight within the military. That doesn’t mean they have a separate system of legislation and rules; they still have to abide by New Zealand legislation when it comes, particularly, to serious offences. But in the military, there might be minor misconduct—you might be late for a parade—which hardly requires a court of justice. Then, of course, you could be disclosing, to the enemy, some information which could be really, really serious, so it is appropriate that we have, within the system, methods and systems of, I guess, accountability and justice that are appropriate to the charges laid down. This bill—and I’m sure that the select committee will deal with it appropriately—hopefully both brings a fairer, more modern, up-to-date, and more effective justice system and oversight and discipline system to our military services and, then, assures young people who might be thinking about a career that, actually, if they slip up or if something happens, then they’re not going to be clobbered by a system that is overreaching or that they can just get away with anything and nothing’s going to happen.

There’ll be members on the other side of the House who are more familiar with the system. They may have been before the justice system and military—I’d like to hear those stories—but none the less, this should provide a base for fair justice across the military in our country and encourage more young people to take up those opportunities.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (16:37): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to speak on the first reading of the Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill. I think, to start with, I will just provide some of the context around this bill. This bill is, in some part, the result of reviews done around military prosecutions and summary trials. It does have some significant quality of life improvements when it comes to the way that courts martial and, in particular, the summary trial system work here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Now, I guess, for even greater context or even just a little bit of history, when we’re looking at the military courts, it does run differently from the civilian justice system, and what we are seeing here is originally established under the Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971, the Court Martial Act 2007, and the Court Martial Appeals Act 1953. Unlike the civilian justice system, we do see that the military justice system applies to armed forces personnel everywhere in the world, not just here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Now, the previous speakers have mentioned some important aspects of this, and I think it is important to note that the discipline that is required of our armed forces personnel is more stringent and greater than what we would consider in a civilian setting. Because of that and consistent with that, there is a range of behaviours that can be considered, or are considered, offences in the military context. But what we’re seeing is that the current system doesn’t provide flexibility, particularly for low-level offending, as opposed to medium- or high-level offending, which is working as intended. That, again, meant that the complexity and time needed meant it’s not working effectively and people are unlikely to report on it, to avoid certain levels of bureaucracy within the existing summary trials system. In saying that, there are some good parts of that, but the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, at this stage, cannot support this bill on two particular areas. Again, we are open to potentially changing our position, depending on how the select committee goes with the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

The first aspect of that is—and both of them are to do with the expansion of or scope of existing powers—around the expanded scope of search powers. Now, as it currently stands, in terms of search powers, you can search what is considered the armed forces personnel’s, for lack of a better term, work equipment or even the military premises. However, this particular bill allows the expansion of the search power to the armed forces personnel’s personal premises. That could be a vehicle—their personal vehicle—it could be their home, and it could be other things such as a personal computer. The previous speaker, the Hon Damien O’Connor, has pointed out that there are certain aspects of that that deserve updating in the technology age. On the judiciary, it’s important that a judicial warrant is still needed; however, there is a lack of, I guess, clarity around the impact this will have on the families of personnel and how that expanded scope of power is going to work. That’s one of the first reasons why we have cause for concern around this bill.

The second part is around the extension of the special procedures under the Security Information in Proceedings Act 2022. Now, I understand this is quite a small part of this bill, but it is a significant part. When the Security Information in Proceedings Act 2022 was first past, the Green Party opposed that. It is also consistent with the way that we operate in that we’re not going to be in favour at this stage of any expanded scope of an Act that we opposed in the first place. Part of that is to do with the concerns around the lack of protection for non-Crown entities and the ability for them to have a fair and just trial, particularly around the vagueness of the “national security information” definition—this is clause 141—and the fact that it’s now extended to courts martial.

We’ll see what happens in select committee, but, as I said, at this stage the Green Party will not be supporting this bill.

LAURA McCLURE (ACT) (16:42): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of this bill. If you just look at how old the current system is—we’re talking 1953 for the Court Martial Appeals Act, the Armed Force Discipline Act 1971, and the Court Martial Act 2007—it makes sense that some of these things need to be updated.

Looking through the legislation, I think what really stood out to me was the fact that the system is working well for all the mid-tier offences but that the system is not equipped for those low-level and more complex cases—especially when you deal with sexual harassment, for example. We need to make sure that it is updated and that it’s easy to navigate.

I’m on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and I look forward to hearing some submissions. I’ve listened to some of the concerns from the previous speaker, Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan. These are important things, and I think it’d be great to get some submissions through. The submissions, hopefully, will be opened this week. You’ll have about six weeks to submit on the bill. We look forward to hearing from you.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First) (16:43): Madam Speaker, thank you. New Zealand First has always been a strong supporter of our defence forces, and that means they need to have the tools in place to do their job and to keep doing their job. Our New Zealand Defence Force has a very proud heritage, and they do a great job now in representing our country all around the world as a responsible global citizen. They are representing us in many parts of the world at the moment and doing a sterling job.

This bill is, in many ways, about making sure they continue to do that, because we’ve already heard, in a speech earlier, that not every time is everybody playing by the rules and playing the way that they ought to. Sometimes you need a way of making sure that people come back to the rules and there are disciplines in place. Every military service around the world, right throughout history, has always had some way of disciplining—some of them fairly brutally, but we are in a modern age now, so it’s a much more civilised approach—and a way of making sure that a military force remains disciplined and focused on the task.

The general policy statement and the explanation describes that very well: “Strong military discipline is central to ensuring the New Zealand Defence Force’s operational effectiveness. Military discipline’s primary purpose is to create a cohesive and effective fighting force. It enables a military to function as a unit,” etc., etc. All of these things are recognised as being utterly essential. What we see in the legislative statement is that the current arrangements are not fit for purpose in terms of some of the more minor offences and they’re not fit for purpose in some of the much more serious offences, which sometimes we see, unfortunately, making news.

This bill is about trying to bring the disciplinary arrangements into the modern era and making sure that our defence forces are able to continue to do their job in a professional way and represent this country in the way that we expect them to. I commend this bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato) (16:45): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call here in the first reading of the Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill. I’d like to start by acknowledging and thanking all current and former defence personnel for their service, both here in New Zealand and around the globe, the vast majority of whom are exemplary in their service to the uniform. Of course, we do have this sort of legislation for those one or two who occasionally fall foul of the rules. In response to the question from the Hon Damien O’Connor earlier, no, I was never one of those, so I don’t have that firsthand experience.

Look, what we’re seeking to achieve here, as has been outlined by the Minister and others, is, effectively, an evolution of the system—a modernisation to the legislation that hasn’t occurred for about 20 years now. We’re looking to make a couple of key changes that I think are relevant—one of those being moving the responsibility out of the chain of command to the Director of Military Prosecutions instead, which I think will help address some of those concerns or perceptions around conflicts of interest, real or otherwise, which can arise in some of the situations where this legislation might be required. Of course, the modernisation of search powers reflecting changes in technology has been pointed to by others as well.

Now, strong, effective discipline is critical in a military setting. It’s a constant part of training and exercises for all military personnel. From the simplest tasks, through to the more complex, it’s always present because it enables that clear, strong focus, at a team level, to deliver on that operational output that is the critical function of our military. Alongside that, though, we need this legislation to pick up the pieces when necessary. Modernising that and making it more efficient to enable more time to be focused on those critical tasks is important.

I’m happy to commend the bill, and I look forward to scrutinising it in more detail and to welcoming submissions in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. Thank you.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) (16:48): The opening words of the Minister in introducing this debate contained a reference to “uncertain times” or something like that. It reminded me that, while there are often considerable differences between us on different sides of the House on questions of foreign policy and security, there is, by and large, in this Parliament a great deal of agreement and consensus about the need for armed forces, and the imperative that we invest properly and support, as Damien O’Connor said, the men the women who serve their country in uniform and, in some cases, put their lives on the line for their country.

In that spirit, I think it’s worthy that this bill, which seeks to modernise the justice system for our armed forces, deserves the support of this House. I’m sure that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee will do a good job of scrutinising the detail of these provisions.

I think it was Andy Foster who made a reference to times gone by, when military justice wasn’t recognisable in today’s modern times, and I wanted to recall for the House the case of Archibald Baxter. He was such a significant figure in New Zealand history. The son of Scottish pioneers in Otago, he was a Christian socialist and a pacifist, and in World War I, he was a conscientious objector. He was sent by the Minister of the day, James Allen, on a troopship to the front—Minister James Allen thought that was a good thing. He’d already been in jail in New Zealand, and on the ship, Baxter and 13 others, including two of his brothers, “were stripped, placed in uniform, locked in a small cabin, and abused by officers and volunteer soldiers.”—this is from the historian David Grant. They were sent to Étaples in France, and they were subjected to—Baxter suffered what was called Field Punishment No. 1, which was, basically, a form of crucifixion. They were tied to a post in the open, with their hands bound tightly behind their backs and their knees and feet bound, for up to four hours a day in all weathers.

Baxter was beaten and sent to a part of the front that was being heavily shelled. He was denied food, and, finally, on 1 April 1918, he was taken to a hospital in Boulogne, where he was diagnosed as having “a mental weakness and confusional insanity in his determination not to fight.” Shortly after, that was the end of Baxter’s war. He was taken to a British hospital for mentally disturbed soldiers and was sent home in August 1918.

He went on to live a full and satisfying life. He came home, he married Millicent, who was the daughter of one of the founding professors of Canterbury College, and they had children. They returned to, and spent most of their latter years in, Dunedin. One of Archibald Baxter’s sons was James Keir Baxter—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): And this is going to come back to the bill at some point?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: —of course, Madam Speaker, of course—and James K. Baxter, one of New Zealand’s most distinguished poets, wrote this in his poem “To my father” in 1947:

… I have loved

You more than my own good, because you stand

For country pride and gentleness, engraved

In forehead lines, veins swollen on the hand;

Also, behind slow speech and quiet eye

The rock of passionate integrity.

I wanted to dedicate this intervention to Archibald Baxter. The book that he wrote, We will not cease, is actually one of the classics of New Zealand literature, and it’s a part of our history that is worth recalling. It’s modern history, and this bill shows how far the military justice system will have come.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): You came back just at the end, Mr Twyford.

DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast) (16:53): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my privilege to rise and take a call on the first reading of the Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill. I look forward to the bill coming before the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and to hearing the submissions on it. The Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill modernises New Zealand’s military justice system so that it is fairer, more efficient, and more transparent. Our armed forces must maintain strong discipline so that they’re ready to protect New Zealanders, but the current system is out of date. This bill modernises New Zealand’s military justice system so that it is fairer, more efficient, and more transparent. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour) (16:54): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I join with colleagues in speaking in favour of this bill as it’s referred to select committee. It’s a bill which, of course—as many colleagues have said—modernises our disciplinary regime for the defence forces.

I do want to acknowledge the contribution of Green Party members as well, because I will come back towards the end of my contribution to areas of the bill that I will be looking to scrutinise as it travels through select committee. But I do think that it is much-needed—it’s clear that it is—and as a headline in terms of some of the comments from colleagues in the Greens, I was somewhat reassured by the advice from Crown Law, which didn’t find a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in relation to these changes, and, certainly, that’s been the case before when other changes have been made to this regime. The other reason I was quite reassured is that this is, in many ways, the result of the 2019 review, where Petra Butler, who is a very esteemed public lawyer from Canterbury, contributed in terms of the human rights implications of some of the changes that were recommended as part of that review.

Now, it is important for us to know that the summary trial system has been operating since 2009, and so the 2019 review was the first time in 10 years that it had been reviewed. It is quite a unique system in that, in the summary trial, the roles of defence counsel and, if you like, prosecution, as well as the decision maker, are performed by officers—so not lawyers—and lawyers actually aren’t permitted in that space, although they can provide separate advice to the courts. It is quite a different system, and when the system was reviewed and individuals who had been through the system with higher-level offending were interviewed, there was a sense of discomfort from some of them that the processes weren’t entirely fair and that they weren’t well enough prepared.

If you consider the nature of those roles as well, I understand that the Ministry of Justice has a certification process for officers to go through. Level one and level two allow you to be prosecution or defence, and level three allows you to be an adjudicator. Level one and level two courses require two days in residence programmes before you are qualified to be able to perform those roles in summary hearings, and let’s remember that, at present, sometimes there’s fairly serious sexual offending involved in those proceedings, so one can understand that there is absolutely a need to do as this legislation recommends and create, as new section 102B in clause 42 does, two different pathways: one for low-level or minor offending, and the other for more high-level offending. The points that I think do need to be scrutinised at select committee include, firstly, the fact that a lot of what will be defined as something that can go to a court martial or something that cannot will be determined by a military order, so it won’t be within the body of the legislation itself, and that is a decision for this House to make—is this something that deserves to be in primary legislation, or is it appropriate that that decision is made by military order?

Colleagues have, rightly, spoken to the increase in search powers. My initial read-through says to me that these are really a draw-in from existing powers that exist within other spaces in our justice regime and, therefore, there may not be cause for concern. However, they are quite far-reaching, and I do think that we should be scrutinising them. The other, as was mentioned, was the Security Information in Proceedings Act and the draw-in to this regime of existing provisions in our law, which we will be scrutinising, as well.

Finally, there were other recommendations of the review, including whether it was appropriate to retain detention as a punishment for some of the summary trial offences. This may well be outside the scope of the bill, but I do think it’s appropriate that, as part of this consideration, we look at that broader set of recommendations in the 2019 review, which I look forward to doing. For now, I commend this bill to the House.

GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie) (16:59): It’s my pleasure to rise to take a very brief call on the first reading of the Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill. It has been informative to hear the discussion thus far. I am excited at the amount of scrutiny that this bill will go through at the select committee process.

This is actually quite a substantive bill, in terms of the thickness of the bill. At the same time, it might be procedural, but—as has been noted by a number of members—it’s an incredibly important part of this Parliament’s work.

Can I finish by acknowledging all of those men and women who serve this country. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 108

New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34, ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8, Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 15

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Referral to Select Committee

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh) (17:04): The question is, That the Armed Forces Discipline Legislation Amendment Bill be considered by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

Public Service Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister for the Public Service) (17:04): I present a legislative statement on the Public Service Amendment Bill.

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

Second Reading

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister for the Public Service) (17:04): I move, That the Public Service Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

First, I want to acknowledge the contribution from all members of the Governance and Administration Committee that considered and reported back on the bill. This bill intends to amend the Public Service Act 2020.

This bill will ensure the Public Service refocuses on delivering for taxpayers by getting back to basics. New Zealanders expect a Public Service that is capable, impartial, and focused on getting results. The changes in this bill ensure they’re better equipped for this by sharpening focus, clarifying responsibilities, and lifting performance.

The bill addresses excessive proscription and duplicative responsibilities in the current Act which have distracted agencies from their core mission. This starts with refocusing the purpose of the Public Service to getting back to basics, delivering better outcomes for taxpayers while supporting constitutional and democratic Government. This does not change our commitment to the political neutrality of the Public Service and the provision of free and frank advice. These enduring principles of our democracy are retained in the Act unchanged. Nor does it mean that long-term thinking will stop being a core feature of Public Service advice. This expectation will continue to be included in the Public Service principles and the responsibilities of chief executives.

We can’t have a high-performing Public Service without the right people, so how we appoint its leaders and hold them to account matters. The Government, on behalf of New Zealanders, has a legitimate interest in how the Public Service Commissioner is driving performance across the system. As such, this bill reaffirms the principle of merit-based appointments, clarifies chief executives’ responsibilities, and improves mechanisms for performance management.

In last year’s Public Service census, 30 percent of public servants said that they were not confident that appointments in their organisation are being made on merit. That is simply not good enough. We’re strengthening the Act to make sure that the best person for the job is the one who gets it; not the most familiar or the easiest option, but the person with the right skills and experience to deliver.

For this reason, the bill will no longer allow Public Service chief executives to be automatically reappointed. All roles will be subject to a full, contestable process so that the widest possible pool of talent can be considered. This important change will make sure we get the right person for the job every time.

Chief executives have a critical role in delivering the Government’s priorities and are entrusted with significant taxpayer funding to do so. The bill will clarify the responsibilities of chief executives to make it clear that their focus should be on core day-to-day functions. The bill will also strengthen the provisions around chief executive and agency performance management. It will now require the commissioner to publish a clear plan for performance reviews and to codify the existing practice of consulting Ministers when the commissioner is setting performance expectations and reviewing performance. This will make the process more robust and increase confidence and transparency for Ministers and for the public.

These changes are not a politicisation of the Public Service. The commissioner will still be required to act independently when making decisions about individual chief executives and, like any other Public Service leader, will still be bound by the principle of political neutrality.

To further ensure we have the right people in the right places, the bill will reintroduce key positions, allowing the commissioner to have input into the appointment and performance management of key back-office positions such as finance or digital. These tools will be important levers to drive better performance across the Public Service.

To maintain the trust and confidence of the public, the Public Service must have zero tolerance for inappropriate behaviour and wrongdoing. The bill will require chief executives to notify the commissioner before starting investigations into serious misconduct of senior leaders and for agencies to report annually on the outcome of these investigations. This will allow the commissioner to provide advice and have insight of standards of integrity and conduct overall. These changes will give New Zealanders confidence that the Public Service is upholding the high standards expected of them.

The bill also removes unnecessary duplication of responsibilities. Provisions relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion are removed from the Act, as these responsibilities are already provided for under several existing laws, including the Human Rights Act, the Employment Relations Act, the Equal Pay Act, and the good employer obligations already embedded in the Public Service Act. The Government of the day can use workforce policy statements to address how they would like these objectives to be achieved. The Act itself must emphasise that first and foremost there should be an unbiased, merit-based appointment process.

I want to reiterate that removing these provisions does not remove our commitment to the Public Service drawing from the widest possible talent pool and eliminating bias in recruitment. In fact, these things are the essence of merit-based appointments. The bill also removes the need for each Public Service agency to prepare their own long-term insights briefing. Instead, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) will prepare one briefing on behalf of the Public Service. DPMC will provide guidance to the Public Service to support capability and long-term thinking, but we do not need 34 separate briefings with considerable overlap and duplication to ensure a focus on the future.

Finally, the Public Service is now operating in an environment of heightened strategic competition where other States may seek to obtain our information. This bill will empower the Public Service Commissioner to manage the risk of malicious or disruptive actors by restricting access to certain products, services, or vendors. These new technologies have great potential to improve the delivery of public services, but we must carefully balance this with protecting New Zealand’s national security. This Government believes in a strong Public Service, a Public Service that understands its role in implementing the priorities of the elected Government and building the future for New Zealanders.

This bill provides a targeted set of amendments to restore purpose, discipline, and professionalism to the Public Service, while preserving its constitutional role as a politically neutral institution. It ensures leaders are appointed competitively and on merit; it removes duplication and provides a stronger focus on roles and responsibilities; it refocuses the Public Service on delivering results, not processes; and it puts the needs of taxpayers, the people who fund and rely on these services, front and centre.

This bill will ensure that the Public Service is based on getting back to basics and is equipped to serve the Government of the day—all of which adds up to better outcomes for Kiwis. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (17:11): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to start by acknowledging the Minister who just resumed her seat. The Minister attended our select committee at our last meeting—I think it must have been one of her last engagements before she made her announcement of her retirement. I just want to acknowledge a long service and, additionally, the support she’s given to female MPs around the House. Although we may differ on almost everything, I think that shows the type of statespersonship or stateswomanship that can be shown within this House. So I just wanted to acknowledge the Minister and her significant service.

This is a bill that Labour is opposing. Although the aims of the bill stipulate many things that I think we can agree on, unfortunately, from our perspective, the bill falls short in a number of areas—five particular areas that I want to mention in this call, if I have time.

But I do want to just reflect on the purpose of the Public Service, and it’s something that I think a lot about in my role as Opposition spokesperson for the Labour Party on public services. I think, often, it can be misconstrued that, on this side of the House, we stand for Government at all costs, and, of course, we don’t—we want the most effective services for New Zealanders; we want the Public Service to be the most effective Public Service that it can be. We don’t want to see any public money spent in a way that isn’t serving the public.

In terms of those objectives in this bill, of making sure that there are improvements in performance of the public sector, of course we agree with that, but unfortunately, from our perspective, this bill doesn’t achieve that—and, also, there’s an opportunity, I think, in New Zealand to really look to the Public Service as a driver and an innovator of change. There was an opportunity in this bill to really empower the Public Service to be a leader within New Zealand in many different areas, and I think it was an opportunity missed within this bill, because there are many changes in this which are very, very retrospective in terms of, I think, the progress that will be made. I’ll go through some of those.

The other thing that I just wanted to note that the Minister mentioned was merit-based appointments. Of course we stand for merit-based appointments, but this was scrutinised in quite a lot of detail at select committee, and there was not one single example that any of the advisers could give us as to a situation where someone hadn’t been appointed on the basis of merit within the New Zealand Public Service. Despite that, we are able to have a Public Service, to date, that largely represents the community that they serve. I think that’s a really important point: that those two things can be true alongside each other, that we can have the best people for the job and that they can represent the diverse community that is New Zealand. This bill assumes, I think, that that is not the case. I think that’s a shame because I think the Public Service should represent, as far as possible, the community it serves, and that is how to get the best results for New Zealanders.

Additionally, before I go through the five areas of change briefly, the Public Service Commissioner’s role has changed significantly under this Government. This bill goes into that in some detail, but I think the wider context of the Public Service Commissioner taking over bargaining for different groups of workers and taking on a much more leadership role within the Public Service is something that we’ve observed on this side of the House. To date, we haven’t observed positive outcomes of that to date, because we’ve had a few examples of ads attacking Public Service workers, and we haven’t seen the benefits that the Minister implied would follow from that leadership role. But it’s not to say that the Public Service Commissioner can’t and won’t be able to show leadership in the Public Service, which he, at the moment, is being empowered to do through this bill.

But there are problems with this bill. The things that I want to mention were briefly related to the merit comment that I previously made. This bill does remove changes to prioritise diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think that is a shame and a mistake, because, as I said, I think that New Zealand’s Public Service should represent the community it serves. It is a shame to see those particular provisions which should be, probably, agreed to, and probably would enjoy majority support by New Zealanders—to see those removed and targeted, I think that’s a step away from encouraging diversity and inclusion, and I think that’s a real shame in this bill. So that’s something that we disagree with.

Additionally, we’ve heard again and again from this Government about how they don’t want to prioritise pay equity. This bill, again, takes away some of the leadership that the Public Service Commission has shown in pay equity. Now, the Public Service was the first to have pay equity in New Zealand—in 1960, I believe, they had provisions in place to ensure that men and women doing the same work didn’t receive different wages, which was the practice prior to that. They were leaders within pay equity. The Public Service has always led in relation to pay equity and making sure that men and women receive equal pay for work of equal value. To see these provisions that are already within the Public Service Act removed, in addition to the other terrible backwards steps that we’ve seen in relation to pay equity by this Government, is further salt on the wound. I really want to commend the work that the Public Service has done historically for pay equity, not only with that bill I mentioned from the 1960s but, additionally, leading with the pay equity principles and showing, really, the rest of New Zealand how equal workplaces can be. I think it’s a real shame that those have been removed.

We did hear a lot of submissions on this bill, and I just checked the number—I think it was the majority opposed this bill. One of the things that came up a lot was the change to remove the 34 long-term insights briefings and replace that with one briefing. Now, the Minister talked a lot about how these are not useful documents. The feedback that we got from places like the Office of the Clerk was that these are useful documents and that, additionally, there is a lack of long-term thinking within our Public Service, and this is another step backwards in relation to that because it means that the current mandate that agencies have to be able to look at the long term and produce a report and report that to a select committee is taken away.

I just don’t understand how the singular report from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is going to actually take into account all the myriad of factors that could be included in other reports that are to date. We’re still receiving long-term insights briefings. The Governance and Administration Committee receives those and gives those to other committees, and we know how hard people work to try and see beyond what’s immediately in front of them—a vision for how public services could be in New Zealand. This is a step backwards for that particular project and, I think, a mistake, and I think we will be really missing those long-term insights briefings. There would have been an opportunity for a compromise, and we’ll be looking at the committee stage to see if there is some appetite for that, because I think moving from 34 to one is significant. Surely we can increase the number of long-term insights briefings to make sure that we are not losing all of this really valuable information.

Really concerningly, and something that did come up in submissions, was the risk to Public Service neutrality. Now, New Zealand has an excellent Public Service that, I think, almost universally acts in a politically neutral way, serving the Government of the day, which they should. There are two changes in this bill, which, I think, really challenge that and were picked up by submitters—and that was the change in relation to making chief executives reapply for their jobs. So if a chief executive has a Minister and they know that they have to reapply for their job, there is an incentive there to align their interests and their service with the political interests of the Minister of the day. Some may see that as a small change, but it is, I think, significant in terms of how recruitment and retention of chief executives work. At the moment, if it’s not working, I think, mostly, those people end up not remaining in those jobs anyway, so I think it’s probably unnecessary and, additionally, leads to the perception of the impact on neutrality.

Additionally, the very significant policy advisory group, which works directly for the Prime Minister—they are now going to be all put on fixed-term contracts. Now, that’s objectionable in two ways. It basically means that they don’t have employment security, and, also, it means that there is a churn and not that same level of expertise within that office, which does serve the Prime Minister of the day and is really significant and important.

Most importantly, as I stated at the beginning, I don’t think this bill will achieve its aims and will, in fact, take New Zealand’s very well-regarded Public Service backwards. That is a shame. We know the Public Service have had to deal with a lot. There’s been thousands of job cuts within the Public Service under this Government, and, for the people that are still in the Public Service, it makes their jobs harder. It does take away some of those important aims towards diversity, inclusion, pay equity; it risks undermining public sector neutrality. So, on the whole, it’s not a bill we can support, and I do not commend this bill to the House.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green) (17:21): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in opposition to this Public Service Amendment Bill. I wanted to begin my speech by acknowledging, just like the previous speaker did, the contributions of the Minister. This might, probably, be her last bill in her Public Service portfolio.

I was saying to the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee that I didn’t realise that that was Judith’s last hearing. If I had, I wouldn’t have been, perhaps, so nice to her—it was a very amicable hearing. But I also wanted to acknowledge that, even though we disagree with this bill, there has been some good work in the space that’s been done by this Minister; in particular, the work around sexual harassment and taking a harder line on that is really a much-needed and positive step forward. I do encourage the Minister, if it’s possible, in the last few months—well, we don’t actually know when the reshuffle’s going to happen, but in the last few potential months that she has in this role before she moves on to her role as the Law Commission president—to take up the suggestion that seemed to have support in the committee to have more transparent reporting of sexual harassment cases, including a sort of dashboard-style thing that the Public Service Commission might be in charge of.

That’s the positive stuff. I now have to, unfortunately, move on to the negative aspects about this bill and the fact that we do oppose it.

Andy Foster: You don’t have to.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: Well, we do have to, because we’re in Opposition, Mr Foster.

This is a bill that is really concerning in two things. The first is the timing. It really speaks to the Government’s priorities that, in the midst of the highest levels of unemployment, out-of-control inflation that’s beyond the target band, and the lowest economic growth that we’ve seen since the great financial crisis—it fundamentally speaks to their priorities that this Government is ashamed of the economic carnage that they’ve wreaked and that they’re desperately trying to distract people with culture-war nonsense like this bill.

In addition, we echo the sentiments that have been raised by submitters such as Professor Jonathan Boston that “changes to legislation [of constitutional significance] such as the Public Service Act should ideally be based on a careful independent analysis of the issues and options, in-depth public consultation, and broad cross-party agreement.” And look, I acknowledge that this bill did go through public consultation, and I want to give kudos to the Government for that, in light of all the bills that haven’t gone through a select committee stage and of all the bills that have been rushed through urgency. But, unfortunately, there hasn’t been broad cross-party agreement on this, and it is outrageous that the Government is pushing through a bill with significant constitutional significance without serious cross-party engagement or support.

What is also of concern to us are the deeply destructive things that this bill facilitates, all in service of the distraction agenda for the “cost of greed” crisis that this Government has already overseen. The most destructive thing that this bill does is it undermines the tradition of the non-partisan, politically neutral Public Service that New Zealanders were able to take pride in. This is consistent with the actions of this Government, which has unfortunately consistently undermined this important principle in just the two years of Government they’ve had. They’ve denigrated public servants who’ve spoken out about this Government’s attempt to manipulate health advice so that they could give millions of dollars of tax breaks to tobacco companies. They’ve spent taxpayer money in attacking striking workers with Government funds—an action that was criticised by the Auditor-General and which has now resulted in a review. They’ve appointed political cronies to top Government positions, with some of those appointments being found unlawful. It’s really ironic that a Government that is really fond of law-and-order rhetoric is so willing to disregard process and being themselves so willing to act unlawfully. So, law and order, but not for thee.

This bill will further allow them to continue the politicisation of the Public Service. We share the concerns of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation that this bill extends the Government’s direct control over its agencies, and we are concerned that this bill undermines the independence of the public sector. It does this through many ways, but one of them is through the removal of references to current and successive Governments and the long-term public interest, and of improving ways of working with the public. It adds a section—and this is furthering the point around undermining the contributing to the culture, which undermines the political neutrality of the Public Service—it adds a question which essentially adds a responsibility to adhere to the short-term diktats of the Ministers of the day.

Now, the cumulative effect of all these changes will be a Public Service that is more siloed; that is more narrowly focused on serving the short-term political interests of the current Government in charge, rather than serving the public good or the long-term wider public interest. And, of course, we agree about the need for the Government to have a Public Service that is responsive to their democratic mandate. But the fact is that, under the current constitutional system we have, any Government can basically do whatever they want as long as they have a majority now, and this Government has certainly not been shy or really been slowed down in any significant way of exercising their constitutional prerogative to act that way. So it really is concerning that they’re seemingly seeking more power to go further than they already have.

The deletion to clauses that refer to successive Governments implies that there is one constant, unchanging will of the public that is always perfectly represented by the current Government of the day. We know that that’s not necessarily the case. Clauses 29 to 30, which enable the Public Service Commissioner to designate any employee in the Public Service—using what we view as an overly broad criteria—to exempt them from the Public Service requirement to act and provide advice independently of the Minister, is also a really concerning feature of this legislation that we are opposed to. We do share the concerns that have been articulated by some of the union submitters—like I’ve referred to earlier, like the New Zealand Nurses Organisation—that clause 37 of the bill potentially could be read in a way that restricts the ability of collective agreements to cover employers.

We do have—and I’ve already articulated some of the positive things that we felt that the Minister was doing: clause 38 is welcome, in the powers that it gives around investigations—but we do have misgivings that section 94B(c) may give overly broad powers to the commissioner, including the power to potentially shut down investigations by issuing guidance to not report. While we do support the intention of clause 38, we do want to see some potential guardrails and checks around that. We are concerned that clause 45(1) could open the door to more public - private sector partnerships, which could open the way for more privatisation. We do think that it could potentially weaken existing clauses in the public sector around conflict-of-interest management and open the door for more private actors being conferred powers by the chief executive. That is concerning, because there are some things around Official Information Act requests, for example, that don’t necessarily apply to people in the private sector.

We’re concerned that clause 46 will also enable a greater degree of politicisation by the Public Service. The previous speaker, Camilla Belich, has already articulated the concerns around that, so I won’t go on further.

We are concerned and we share the concerns around deprioritisation of the requirements of the Public Service to take into account the need to take diversity, inclusion, and equity within the Public Service seriously. We agree with the concerns that have been articulated by the Disabled Persons Assembly that it will make it harder for disabled job applicants to overcome discriminatory barriers when seeking employment within the public sector, because we know that these initiatives are actually put in place to make sure that we do have merit-based appointments.

We do know that one of the things that this bill does that we’re also opposed to is it downgrades the requirements of long-term insights briefings—it really drastically reduces the requirements for them. Look, the Office of the Clerk made a submission during the select committee stage that this bill appears to reduce opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny of the executive—something that does that is always concerning.

In short, we stand proudly opposed to this legislation. We will be voting no. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Just before I take the next speaker, Mr Hernandez, you’re a very good orator. It’s a shame you had to read so much of that. It’d be good to practise your oratory skills.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) (17:32): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT and we will be supporting the Public Service Amendment Bill. Firstly, let me also pay tribute to Minister Collins, who is, obviously, the Minister in charge of this bill and has served this Parliament for a number of years. Obviously, we now know that she’ll be retiring, but I think she should be very proud of this piece of legislation that she’s bringing in her name as part of the Government—ACT is very happy to support it. I do want to acknowledge the Governance and Administration Committee for their work on the bill, and also the 94 groups and individuals who made submissions—17 of them making oral submissions.

ACT have long believed that New Zealanders aren’t necessarily getting the value and service from our public services that they deserve. Making sure that the Public Service actually does deliver for New Zealanders is extremely important. We actually think restoring some clarity to what they’re doing, ensuring it’s actually spelt out about their political neutrality, and some of the other changes this bill makes are incredibly important. In fact, it’s so important, I actually just want to read out just what the purpose is in this bill that’s being inserted. It says—this is new section 11, inserted by clause 11, “Purpose of the public service”; so pretty straightforward stuff—“(a) supports the Government to develop and implement its policies, deliver high-quality and efficient public services, and meet the needs of New Zealanders; and (b) supports constitutional and democratic government and acts with a spirit of service to the community and in accordance with the law.” Pretty simple stuff, pretty straightforward, and pretty clear.

We think this is an excellent piece of legislation and very nicely aligns with the needs, not race Cabinet circular that ACT was very happy to support. So we will be supporting this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First) (17:34): Thanks, Mr Speaker. I’m privileged to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and, also, as a member of the Governance and Administration Committee to speak in support of this bill.

Our Public Service, I think, has a proud heritage and it’s well recognised around the world. This bill is about making sure that our Public Service continues to be a very highly regarded Public Service, not just around the world but also by New Zealanders. There’s a simple question: what do we want? We spend a lot of money on the Public Service, so what do we want from our Public Service? I’ve always said there’s a significant difference between a Public Service and a bureaucracy. Bureaucracy, often, is interested, as Minister Collins said, about process, about the rules, and is often not particularly helpful; whereas a public servant is an honourable profession, which is about going out of your way to say, “I know that you pay for my salary; how can I help you? How can I help you to get what you need?” That is what the difference between those two is.

What we expect out of a Public Service is to be professional; to be high quality; to be politically neutral; to be responsive—so if somebody comes to you with concerns or there’s an issue there, to be responsive to those—but also to be able to think about the long term; to provide quality service; and to provide quality, thoughtful advice. Of course, we get a lot of that quality, thoughtful advice in this place from our Public Service advisers.

To be very, very clear: I think that most of our public servants get up in the morning, dedicated to doing a great job on behalf of the people of New Zealand. But I think, under the last Labour Government, something was lost of that. We heard about cuts to the Public Service. I think we’re about 3,000 down from the peak that was about 63,000 under Labour. But that grew from 48,000 to 63,000 people over the period of that six years, and yet services by and large—I think most people would say—went backwards. You can have too much public service, because you can have ever increasing red tape, green tape, strangling business, strangling innovation, strangling creativity, and that’s not what we want from our Public Service.

This bill is all about trying to drive improvements in public sector performance, reduce those silos, reduce transparency—sorry, increase transparency, and reinforce political neutrality.

Celia Wade-Brown: Freudian slip!

ANDY FOSTER: It’s not a Freudian slip at all, Celia Wade-Brown. I’m just trying to do what the Speaker has said and avoid reading from notes, and speaking as the Speaker said he would like us to speak.

There are some sections that I wanted to focus on. The first one of those is that which Todd Stephenson has just read out: the “Purpose of the public service”. I don’t think that you can argue with that purpose of the Public Service. I think it’s really clear, it’s really what it is about, and it says in clause 11: “The public service (a) supports the Government to develop and implement its policies, deliver high-quality and efficient public services, and meet the needs of New Zealanders; and (b) supports constitutional and democratic government and acts”—and this is the bit that I really love—“with a spirit of service to the community and in accordance with the law.” I think those are great aspirations.

This bill is all about setting high standards. One of the things it does is it amends section 17, which at the moment says that the “Commissioner may set minimum standards of integrity and conduct” to now “must” set minimum standards of conduct and integrity. How could you argue against that?

Then there’s the question of, how do we ensure that we get those high standards delivered? There are four particular areas there that I wanted to mention. First of all, the focus on professional confidence. Secondly, the change to the way in which chief executive officers (CEOs) are reappointed, so that it is now much more of a contestable process. Actually, I might note that that’s something which is slightly different from the approach which is now being taken in another piece of legislation to local government CEOs, where, at the moment, you can have five years plus two years automatically, without going back to the market. Now, the proposal in another piece of legislation is to go five plus five. I know there’s many local body - elected members who would say that there is a power imbalance already in favour of CEOs—that will just reinforce that if that were allowed to go through. So I think there is an issue there to be talked about.

The other area is to make sure that people are hired on merit. In the first reading of this, I talked about the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) part of this and the removal of the DEI part. It is great to have a Public Service which is reflective of the nature of our community, but it’s also even more important to make sure that we have a Public Service which is professional and able to do its job really, really well. The Public Service survey in 2024—great response from more than two-thirds of public servants—said, actually, that they themselves are really concerned about the quality of the people who are appointed. They themselves—not politicians but they themselves said that that was not good enough, because they said 80 percent believe they deliver value for taxpayer money, 87 percent believe they contribute to better outcomes, 90 percent care about their agency’s use of taxpayer money, 96 percent say it’s important that their work contributes to the common good, but they say that the biggest barrier to performance is just 44 percent are confident that their colleagues are hired on merit. That is condemning, and that is not from politicians; that is from public servants. That is one of the things that has been taken out of this bill, because this bill is about trying to make sure that we get quality public services. New Zealand First had a bill in the tin before this bill came out to actually address exactly that issue.

Can I just, on that, say that the bill replaces a section in the Act—which, again, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to read there. The current section said—this is 44(c) of the Act—to “work with public service leaders to develop a highly capable workforce that reflects the diversity of the society it serves and to ensure fair and equitable employment, including by promoting the good employer requirements in this Act;”. The new clause just says: “work with public service leaders to develop a highly capable workforce and to promote the good employer requirements in this Act;”. It’s quite a clear difference in the approach that’s been taken, because we’re about the outcomes that our Public Service delivers.

Look, the other thing that I wanted to say, and I do want to say some nice things, finally, about the Minister for the Public Service and the commissioner, but it’s the long-term insights briefings (LTIBs), because we went through quite a bit of a discussion about that. I think it’s really, really important that we do have our Government agencies and us as a Parliament thinking about things which are long term, that are well beyond three-year terms. New Zealand Governments of all colours have not been particularly brilliant about doing that for many, many years. In fact, this is an area in which local government actually can show central government a thing or two, and I’m sure that iwi can show us all a thing or two on that particular score. There’s real value in thinking about long-term issues.

The long-term insights briefings were supposed to be about doing that. The idea here is to take 30-odd of those, and instead of having 30 of those—some of them of great value; some of not quite such significant value—and putting that all into one. As a Governance and Administration Committee, we discussed that at quite some length, and one of the things that we’ve said is, yep, OK, go for one; the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, who are going to be charged with doing that—very, very confident about their ability to be able to deliver a very good, high-quality long-term insights briefing. They are going to need to consult with all the Government agencies to make sure that they get their advice as to what are the big issues in transport, what are the big issues in welfare, what are the big issues in education, whatever it might be, and select those themes which are the most important for the future of our country. That’s really, really important.

As a select committee, one of the things that we said is it’s really important that we keep monitoring the quality of that now fundamentally important long-term insights briefing. So I commend that part of the report back from the select committee to say we’ll keep an eye on that, make sure it’s going well, because LTIBs are quite new. We’ve gone from just a few of them to having quite a lot of them; we’re now going back to one of them. Let’s try and make sure we get the right balance of those, and let’s try and make sure we get good-quality LTIBs so that they help inform decision making going forward.

Look, just to finish off with, I wanted to join, also, the commendation to Minister Collins. It’s been a real breath of fresh air having her and also Sir Brian Roche in front of the select committee being so clear about what they want from our Public Service. They talked about creating a culture that is creative, is courageous, and is customer focused, and I think that those three things are really, really important. I want to thank them for the work they do and to commend this bill to the House.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This is the Te Pāti Māori call—have you indicated that Te Pāti Māori have given you the call?

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: No, but—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): No, well, that’s the requirement, as the member knows.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Well, actually, point of order, if I may, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Don’t point of order that decision. The member knows that if she’s going to take the Te Pāti Māori call, it will be done with the permission of Te Pāti Māori.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Sorry, if I may, Mr Speaker, the discussion that I’ve had directly with their person, Himi, is that they don’t have to give me formal permission if I need to—if they’re not in the House, I can stand and take the call. So I guess that’s a form of permission; I’m not asking for it every single time, and that’s the question I was answering, to that point.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): OK, well, I will allow the member to take the five-minute call. I’m taking her word that she has had that indication from Te Pāti Māori, but I’ll ask her to get Te Pāti Māori to clarify that with the Speaker’s Assistant or with the Clerk for the future.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Tai Tokerau) (17:43): Happy to do that—thank you, Mr Speaker. Ka pai—thank you, Mr Speaker. As I was listening to some of the speeches earlier, what I was picking up was that if we have things such as diversity, such as cultural capability, such as things other than what you might normally find in a very clinical and technical way, that reduces professionalism, it reduces capability, and it lessens the roles that the Public Service run for us. In my view and in my experience, it does not at all. In fact, without diversity and without the inclusion of all the things that make communities great and wonderful—sadly, I would say that this bill reduces that, in my view.

I’ll say this: the Public Service Act requires a workforce that reflects the diversity of Aotearoa. It requires a chief executive to be a good employer, to recognise minority groups—let’s do more of that; we’ll be better off when we do that and we keep doing that—and to make employment and pay decisions free from bias. It requires transparency, reporting, and accountability. None of that happened by accident; none of that happened at all. Those requirements exist because exclusion and inequity were real and persistent and damaging, so these things made it difficult for people that were keen to get into working in the Public Service and believed that they brought a particular set of skills and experience that otherwise was not understood and was not appreciated in the Public Service. I think good on them for doing that, but, unfortunately, I think this bill undoes that.

All is about to change. This bill completely, in my view, tears out those principles from the law. It removes the requirement to consider diversity when hiring and promoting staff. It removes explicit recognition of pay equity and bias-free remuneration. It weakens reporting and oversight, and it hands the discretion back to individual departments. That’s a risk; that’s a threat, as if fairness is something we can rely on people to remember when it is no longer required.

We are told this about merit—we talk about merit, and I’ve heard it a few times in the speeches—but merit has never been the problem. Merit has always been part of Public Service appointments. What this bill does is pretend that merit is untouched by bias, it is untouched by history, and it is untouched by unequal access to opportunity. This is simply not true. A Public Service that does not reflect the communities it serves does not serve them well. This is not ideology; this is fact.

So, threats: when decision makers all come from the same backgrounds, the same experiences, and the same networks, blind spots are guaranteed, and those blind spots cost people. So let’s be clear about the impact. Removing these requirements does not make discrimination illegal, but it makes it easier. It does not ban diversity, but it tells agencies it no longer matters, that you don’t have to think about that so much—“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing, keep doing what makes you feel comfortable.”

This bill follows a global retreat from diversity and inclusion, and it brings that retreat into our public institutions. It risks stalling decades of work to build a fairer, more representative Public Service. It weakens transparency, it undermines public confidence, and it sends a clear message about whose voices matter less. This is simply another hopeless bill. It wastes all parliamentarians’ time, Parliament’s and the public’s time, while families are trying to make ends meet in an ongoing living cost crisis. This is poor prioritisation, and I do not recommend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (17:48): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to begin by acknowledging the many workers across the country who are giving their lives to acts of service, as opposed to simply, like the other side of the House, wanting to deepen the pockets of shareholders. We’re talking about teachers, we’re talking about nurses, allied health workers, we’re talking about care and support workers, security guards, and admin workers who help those very same workers do their mahi—people who understand that through service, we can achieve great things and look after each other.

The bill in front of us is nothing but an affront to the mahi that these workers do by actually deleting the long-term public interest in active citizenship and simply talking about things like efficiency, which we know is code for things like opening the door for future privatisation of our public services, something that the Government has not shied away from playing around with and potentially even taking to the election.

We deserve a Public Service that is adequately resourced, and my concern with this bill is that it actually ends up doing the very opposite: rather than centring the public good and the public interest and the wellbeing of our communities, it rids those very same responsibilities. I think of, for example, even issues that we’re facing right now in our mental health services. I think of a local forensic psychiatric unit, the Mason Clinic, that had a new unit open recently. They were only given about six weeks to hire the 87 roles, including mental health nurses, allied health, and security. When I think about the challenges that our public sector faces when it comes to adequate staffing, safe staffing levels, etc., I cannot see how this bill actually meaningfully addresses any of these things. If anything, it diminishes them.

The prioritisation of waging culture wars—and we’ve heard from the New Zealand First speech about diversity and inclusion (DI) despite themselves and their own party having had DI provisions—does nothing but actually create additional barriers for many workers who have been locked out of the workforce, like disabled people. We know that, without active measures in place to break barriers for people who have been prevented from accessing the benefits of being active participants in the workforce, the market will not necessarily provide the conditions for them to be able to participate. This is why we have had, for example, high unemployment rates among disabled people, because of those very same barriers that exist.

Provisions within the public sector which break down barriers and ableism for disabled people to, for example, participate in the workforce are great. They help reduce poverty, they help increase a sense of community and inclusion, and I’m really concerned about the fact that this bill actually does a lot to diminish these very same things that we know could have yielded huge fruits.

I’m also particularly concerned about provisions in this bill—for example, clause 29(2)(b), which—and bless whoever is sneezing on the other side of the House—allows for the “chief executive [to] have regard to the wishes of the relevant Minister when making decisions about ministerial staff.” This is a blatant overreach and it grants huge amounts of power to the Minister and the chief executive, and I think it allows for the politicisation of the Public Service, and it will, effectively, allow Governments to, effectively, bypass due diligence in order to appoint mates. I’m particularly concerned about what this could lead to when it comes to political agendas within the public sector, when we’re already seeing a diminishing of the long-term public interest and active citizenship in the provisions in the very same piece of legislation that is supposed to put the public good over private gain.

The Green Party is obviously not supporting this bill, but we want to aspire to move beyond overturning what the Government is doing. I think it is time for us to have a serious conversation about what actually resourcing working people to do well can do for our country; about why actually emphasising having safe staffing levels, as opposed to cutting thousands of jobs in the name of efficiency, could do for our communities. I’m particularly concerned that this Government seems to be far more interested in waging culture wars in this country than actually doing what it needs to in order to ensure that working people in our communities—that these very same workers look after—are thriving, as opposed to waiting in pain in our hospitals because the Minister has decided to be more focused on culture wars than doing what they need to actually keep people well. The Green Party won’t be supporting this bill.

GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie) (17:53): It’s my pleasure to rise on the second reading of the Public Service Amendment Bill.

In these first couple of years as a member of Parliament, I have observed much and learnt much and been surprised by much. One of the things that has often surprised me is the level of inefficiency within much of the Government process. I came from 25 years in the charity sector, where we learnt to live on what sometimes felt like literally the smell of an oily rag. We knew how to squeeze the most out of every dollar. I’ve got to say that is not the shared culture of all of our Public Service, which is why I am enthusiastic about the changes that this bill brings.

It’s why I want to commend “JC KC”—the Hon Judith Collins. We are going to miss her greatly in this House. She has been a relentless advocate for efficiency and effectiveness within the public sector. I appreciate the work of Sir Brian Roche in this, as well.

I do hear the concerns of my colleagues and friends across the House. I do think that some of those concerns might have been overplayed. As my friend and colleague Andy Foster went into in considerable detail, this bill has a lot in it to be pleased about. I am delighted to commend it and recommend it to the House. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.55 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good evening, members. When we suspended for the dinner break, we were on the second reading of the Public Service Amendment Bill. We were on call No. 8, which is a Labour Party call.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) (19:30): I love my country, and I know the many public servants who live in this town and all around the country love their country too. What they do when they agree to work for our Government is that they agree to be an important part of our democracy, and public servants up and down the country—whether they work in health or corrections or education or parts of the police force or customs service—serve their country every day. More than that, they play a vital role in our democracy. Our democracy is more than just what we can see right now in this House. It is more than Treasury benches and Opposition benches, although that is incredibly important—that is one of the most important things in our democracy, what we do in this House.

But our democracy is not upheld when our Public Service is relegated to the role of merely serving the Government of the day. That is extremely important, but it is not their only function. What contributions to this debate have ignored is the fact that there is a vital role, beyond just the incredibly important role of executing a Government’s agenda efficiently, that our Public Service has to uphold. That includes the obligation to providing free and frank advice, and serving the long-term interests of New Zealand, and that is what is removed from the purpose statement of this bill.

Part of our democracy is that elections have consequences and that Governments get to implement their agenda. All of us in this House understand that. But that is not everything, and sometimes, we have other functions that are incredibly important, including having a Public Service that is independent and politically neutral, and that is what this bill compromises. Removing the requirement for the Public Service to have a view to the long-term interests of New Zealand means that they are just relegated to managers that implement the desires of Government. Well, I think that pretty much tells you what this Government’s view is of our democracy. Run by a deodorant salesman, this pathetic, small view of what Government means in New Zealand, of what life in New Zealand and what the fabric of our democracy is about.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: This Government does stink!

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: And some of their decisions stink, as well, because far too often—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m glad that wasn’t personal, Mr Webb.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: —far too often, this Government is threatened by advice, by differences of opinion, and moves to eliminate them.

Another important concern I have about this bill is its reduction of the role of the Public Service Commissioner in the appointments of senior public servants or chief executives. This compromises, potentially, the political neutrality of the Public Service. There is more scope for Ministers to influence decisions, to have their say, to specify who they want to hear from.

Government is tough. You will often hear advice you don’t want to—one doesn’t want to, Madam Speaker—but the point is that a Government in the best interests of New Zealand is one that is willing to hear contrary views and is willing to get advice that they disagree with. The requirement in this bill that there is more ministerial involvement in the appointment of senior public servants opens the way for Ministers to hold those public servants’ reappointments over them in return for advice that favours the Government’s perspective. That’s what this is about, and I think the Minister responsible for this bill doesn’t need to think very hard were she to imagine—if she wanted to—a situation where you could have, for example, politically motivated appointments by Ministers.

Another problem with this bill is not only does it set aside the requirement for the Public Service to take into account the long-term interests of New Zealand, it also reduces the avenues for public servants to deliberate at length and give advice on these long-term challenges that our country faces. The long-term insights briefings are being reduced down to just one prepared by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Those long-term insights briefings are incredibly important; they provide a considered piece of advice, they go to select committees so that all of Parliament benefits from them, and they’re published for the public.

I have spoken already about the fact that our Public Service plays a role in our democracy. It does. One of the features is that it outlasts the political cycles. We may come and go every three years. Our democratic incentives are to meet the needs of the electorate as best as we can within three years. They operate under different incentives, and that is appropriate, and it is to the benefit of New Zealanders. Those long-term, considered pieces of advice by people who have spent their career digesting and thinking about and working on an issue and bring all sorts of analytical skills to bear—that is something that we should celebrate and want to have more of. But now, the Government is removing the avenue from which that could come. It is also a problem for our democracy, because it reduces the access of the Opposition to these considered pieces of advice, and that is a real shame.

The final thing that I want to turn to in the problems with this bill is that it continues the Government’s attacks on women. This Government has cut women’s pay; it has moved to remove pay equity; it has removed pay equity settlements as they were under way, making sure that many women who were entitled to better pay lost that opportunity. This bill continues that, and it’s even worse, because I understand that that Government was in financial trouble—I understand that. What they did was wrong, but I know why they did it. But in this bill, they’re not saying that the Public Service can’t have a cheque. They’re just saying you’re not even meant to have these policies that mean that women are paid equally. They’re removing the pay equity positions. This isn’t about Budget appropriations to these ministries. This bill just says that it is not something that the Public Service should focus on anymore, making sure that women are paid fairly. That is appalling, and shows that even when it doesn’t come down to Budgets—even when it doesn’t come down to Budgets—the Government is not even interested in paying women fairly.

Miles Anderson: What a lot of rubbish.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: It’s absolutely true. Well, put the provisions for pay equity back in, if the Government is so offended by this, because that is the fact of the bill you are passing.

We could go on, because I do notice that the bill also removes the requirement for the Public Service to reflect the population of New Zealand, and I wonder what is so threatening about that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea that, in addition to merit, the Public Service should represent New Zealand. I see groups from all across New Zealand come to interact with the Public Service and feel, at times, that they are not heard. We certainly see a lot of that from Māori communities’ experience of engagement with the Public Service; we hear it from Asian communities’ experience of engagement with the Public Service; with rural communities. Why shouldn’t that diversity be reflected in the Public Service? But this Government seems to have a problem with that, and, perhaps, mostly reflected by the love of Trumpian talking points.

This bill is bad. It erodes elements of our democracy that have been long standing. It removes a long-term consideration of the public interest from the purpose of the bill that governs the Public Service. It introduces a risk to our political neutrality. It removes access to long-term, considered pieces of advice, and it stops the Public Service from pursuing pay equity. I could not think of a more limited, small-minded, managerial, hopeless vision of our democracy than this bill.

Hon MELISSA LEE (National) (19:40): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I don’t know where those members on the other side actually come from, because this bill actually talks about clarity of role for the Public Service. One of the changes that this bill actually makes is that it is mandatory for the Public Service Commissioner to set minimum standards of integrity and conduct, rather than leaving it optional—optional; having no standards is what that side wants. We want to make sure that we have standards, in this Government.

The other thing that we’re wanting is to make sure that the New Zealand Public Service remains strong, trusted, and fit for purpose. A capable and professional Public Service is fundamental to an effective Government. This Government is wanting to make sure that we fix the basics and build a future, and that includes the Public Service.

This bill also reinforces the core values that underpin the Public Service: political neutrality, stewardship, free and rank advice, and service to the public interest. The other thing that I really like about the changes in the bill is the fact that just because you happen to be the chief executive of a Government department does not mean that it continues for ever; the best person gets the job. I commend the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (19:41): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just hot off the press, Transparency International has just rated New Zealand’s transparency and corruption, and we’ve fallen four points. I want to start that way because I’m concerned that sometimes we take such things for granted, and we don’t think deeply enough about them. I think that’s absolutely apparent in this bill.

The first thing that I wanted to talk about was the practical reality of giving someone a shorter term—so a chief executive gets a shorter term; they are up for a job review. That’s actually a pretty big deal. Like the myths that I’ve seen play out, if you have “short-termism” in your contracts in that way, if you don’t allow people a degree of safety, then they will react in short-term ways. I remember seeing that in the business world, where people at very high levels would constantly try and bump up the price of the shares in the short term, but it wasn’t in the long-term interest of the company or the shareholders or the public, and they would roll from one job to another, bumping up the price by actions that were pleasing to their masters but only lasted a short term. I think we can absolutely see the risk of that happening here. That’s the practicality of making people live on a knife edge. It’s OK for us. We’re elected. But these are people we rely on for a balance in our system. We rely on people in these positions to think long term. So it’s no mistake that that’s happening at the same time as we take away the tool of thinking and the discipline of thinking long term.

What we were doing in this Act before was we were having a whole lot of minds look to the long term, departments focus on the long term, and advise us and advise others about the long term. That’s an incredibly important thing. If you talk to anyone in public policy, at an academic level, or anyone with any kind of view over it, they will all tell you: the problem that we have in New Zealand and elsewhere is not thinking long term.

So I wouldn’t have minded if we had seen some work across ministries to create less of these long-term briefings in collaboration—great minds should get together, sometimes. But I am really worried by seeing one. We’ve seen a lot of this in this Government. There’s a lot of talk of local democracy, etc., but, actually, what are we seeing? Just total centrism. That is a form of arrogance, isn’t it? That is this House thinking that whoever’s in Government knows best all the time and doesn’t need those many voices and that depth of experience that comes from our Public Service. I absolutely respect that that happens.

I think I’d just like to point something out: in the report that was done by the Governance and Administration Committee, there was a statement from the Labour members on it which reflected the fact that the RIS—now, we know what a RIS is, but many of the public won’t; it’s a regulatory impact statement—actually points out that the objectives that are stated on the front of this bill are at risk of not actually being achieved by this legislation. That’s an act, by our public servants, of independence. They are advising people, when they do that, that they will not necessarily achieve what they hope to achieve. They’re advising the public, too, who get to see those documents. It’s powerful that our public servants give us these documents. I, for one, respect when they say that, and I think twice.

But what we have here is we have a curbing of the debt of our public servants, the security of our public servants, the independence of our public servants. What will we see if we do that? Well, we have a falling transparency and corruption rating. We can expect to see that go down further if this is the path we take.

Now, I know I bark on about it a lot of the time, but I am really worried about this internationally. I am worried that we and democracy are really challenged, and when we do things like this, we forget that we are in a fragile situation, and we should be pouring our hearts and minds into shoring up our democracy, not eroding it.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (19:46): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Public Service Amendment Bill in the second reading. Although I haven’t been part of any of the select committee process, reading through some of these documents, it’s heartening to see and to hear from the Minister that we’re going to be building trust in our public servants again. That has been recently eroded, sadly, through some pretty prominent things that have happened in our country. I would really like to build the trust back in our public servants, when they internally say that they don’t believe that all of the appointments made above them are on merit, then I think that’s a problem. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) (19:47): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to join my colleagues on this side of the House in strong opposition to this bill. I am absolutely—

Stuart Smith: Disappointed, Jan.

Hon JAN TINETTI: —disappointed—yes, that’s a good word there, Mr Smith: “disappointed” in the other side of the House, in the way that they have painted our most trusted institution in this country, being our neutral Public Service.

I too have not been on the Governance and Administration Committee, so I took some time to read through the departmental report and some of the submissions into this bill. I also took some time to read the differing views. I have to say that I’m very perturbed in what this bill is aiming to do, because we already, as I’ve stated right from the outset, have one of New Zealand’s most trusted institutions, in our Public Service—in its independence, its neutrality, and its commitment to serving all New Zealanders. I did hear my colleague the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall saying that sometimes, as Ministers, with the Public Service, you get advice that you sometimes don’t like hearing. That is part of being in Government. Sometimes you don’t like hearing that advice. But that is the strength of our Public Service and the neutrality of them and the independence of them, of how powerful they are. They are renowned around the world.

In fact, as someone who has been a Minister, when I travelled, people used to talk to us about the sorts of advice that we were getting, and when we would explain our situation, there was a wee bit of envy of how that was delivered and how we had a neutral Public Service who could give us the best advice that was going to allow us to make the best decisions for this country.

That is why, from the outset, when I was reading through the departmental report and through the different views that came through into the final report, I am really, really concerned that there seemed to be no meaningful attempt to build cross-party consensus into what a modern Public Service will look like. In fact, this bill will take it backwards. It doesn’t build one; it takes it backwards. It doesn’t build one, because you don’t get consensus across the House here. To develop something that is forward-thinking and modern, we would have to develop that together. This is a serious failure, a serious failure of that Government, because we need to build anything from our very good Public Service that we have now—we need to build that going forward and we need to build it together, to have that faith going forward.

I have to say again how disappointed I am to hear the other side—the Government benches—running down and saying that there’s been trust that’s been eroded. That is plainly not true. I don’t like hearing that about people who are working really, really hard, day in and day out, from this Government. We heard that coming through, and I read that coming through from the submissions in select committee.

I want to start by addressing the diversity, equity, and inclusion. We hear from the other side: “Oh, it should be about merit.” When you give effect to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the two are not mutually exclusive of each other—with merit. In fact, when you give effect to that, you build strength in your service, because the Public Service is able to make decisions or give advice from a position of knowledge.

Let’s go back a step there. We used to have one of the biggest pay equity gaps around in the Public Service. Why? Because that diversity was not being given any credit whatsoever. We had this massive pay equity gap. Now, I don’t believe there is a member in this House that says it’s OK for anyone or any institution to have a pay equity gap. I think we would all be on the same side saying that that is something we need to bring down. Well, the only way we do that is by appointing people into positions of responsibility, not just because they are women, but because they have the merits to be in there and they are women. That is what is going to bring that gap down. When Kia Toipoto was written, that side of the House agreed with it. They were all on board with it—they said, “This is a really good thing because it’s going to bring down the gender pay gap in the Public Service.” Guess what?

Shanan Halbert: Nek minnit!

Hon JAN TINETTI: That’s exactly what it did. My colleague is right, “Nek minnit, we get into Government, and we decide that there’s this imported cultural war on diversity, equity, and inclusion, so we’re going to say it’s a bad thing. And we’re going to say that it’s nothing to do with what should be there.” So what that side is saying is that it’s OK to have pay equity gaps, it’s OK to have ethnic pay gaps—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: What did the Minister for Women say?

Hon JAN TINETTI: Absolutely, my colleague, what do their Ministers of the population say? Because all I hear is complete crickets. They have completely bought into an imported cultural war in this area.

Stuart Smith: Ha, ha!

Hon JAN TINETTI: And they laugh. That’s exactly the response that I would expect to see: laughter coming there. They should be hanging their head in shame on this one, because their talking notes do not address the harm that this bill has the potential to cause.

I heard my colleague talking about the cutting-down of the long-term insights briefings. Obviously, over on that side of the House, they think, “Oh, that’s nothing.” Those briefings give an absolute important measure of how we are performing as a country in different areas. The Ministers use those insight briefings, the Public Service uses those insight briefings, the departments use those insight briefings. What’s going to happen? Those insight briefings are an absolutely critical measure that we have in this country, and this Government is getting rid of it. There will not be that global overall look, and I think that that is really sad. But not just sad: incredibly dangerous for how this country is performing. We will start to see made-up measures—that is the risk. That is the risk of what we will see are the made-up measures. We are already seeing them. This is something that we are already seeing in this country. That is a real risk.

I also heard members before talking about how good it’s going to be when the chief executives (CEs) are on this limited time frame—well, they already are, by the way. They have terms. The terms come to the end, but there is political neutrality in those appointments. The Minister does not make those appointments currently, because they need to be politically neutral. When that side of the House says that this is about building the politically neutral—this is bringing it down and pulling it down. They have no understanding of what they are saying in their talking notes. This is doing the exact opposite. Giving that responsibility to the Minister solely alone is incredibly dangerous, because you get political appointments in that case. And what happens? Our transparency and our corruption levels go down. That’s what the rest of the world will see us as. Whereas, currently, we have a system where we have a neutral appointment system.

I also want to say that, as someone who was a Minister who went through the appointment of a CE in one of the ministries that I had the oversight of, I was able to have a representative on that appointments team. So the Minister can have their say and their input, but they don’t have the final input or say. That is important—incredibly important—to that political neutrality.

I am absolutely horrified with some of the speaking points that I hear being said by the other side. The Public Service belongs to all New Zealanders. It doesn’t belong to Government. They serve Government—absolutely they do—but, ultimately, it exists to serve all the people of New Zealand. It must be trusted, it must be independent, and it must be representative, and this bill does little to build that trust. It knocks away the supports that we have built over generations. Thank you.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (19:57): I agree with the last sentiment from the previous speaker, the Hon Jan Tinetti, that the Public Service should support all New Zealanders. That’s something we agree on. When I was at school and we’d play sports in primary school, you’d pick two captains organically amongst yourselves, and then you’d choose who you wanted on your team. You wouldn’t pick the Māori boy or the Chinese boy or the girl out of diversity; you’d pick the ones that would help you win the game. That was all about merit. Just like we’re celebrating the Olympics. We don’t have three gold medals; we have one. Imagine if Labour’s socialism got into the Olympics—God help us!

Hon Jan Tinetti: Just shows how little they know.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is—[Interruption] Quiet during voting, please. You’ve had your chance to have your debate. The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Governance and Administration Committee by majority be agreed to.

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

Ayes 68

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

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Public Service Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Anzac Day Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 28 January.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Last time we were on the second reading of the Anzac Day Amendment Bill, we were up to call No. 10. It is a split call and it is a Labour Party call.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Labour—Panmure-Ōtāhuhu) (20:00): Kia ora, Madam Speaker, and thank you for this call on the Anzac Day Amendment Bill. I would like to begin by thanking our Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee because they examined this bill and, after hearing submissions on it, they made recommendations for some amendments and they agreed on them unanimously.

As local representatives and as members of Parliament, most if not all of us are invited to Anzac events. For myself, as a local MP from South Auckland—I represent Panmure-Ōtāhuhu—my day usually begins with the dawn service at Manukau, and then I go to the Papatoetoe RSA. From there, I go to the Ōtara Anzac Day, then I go to the Ōtāhuhu Anzac event, and then I choose between attending either the Papatoetoe Anzac event or the Panmure Anzac commemoration because they’re held at the same time. One thing that is common amongst all of those four Anzac commemorations is the Tongan brass bands. All of them are led by a Tongan brass band walking down the public road, and I can tell you it is so good to see all of our veterans that come and march down the street. It is a day when I can tell that they’re so proud to be there.

But one of the reasons why we have this bill, the Anzac Day Amendment Bill, before us is that the current Act, the 1966 Anzac Day Act, actually covers only six wars, and we know that since 1966, there have been about 50 or so deployments. So the thousands of veterans since the parent Act was passed that are not actually recognised or commemorated at Anzac Day is something that we absolutely agree on in the Labour Party that we should look at to ensure that the definition is broadened and that the scope of who and what is commemorated on Anzac Day is indeed recognised. So the Labour Party supports this bill, and it is one of the bills where, I’m glad to say, there is general consensus. As members know, we don’t usually have such pieces of legislation in the House, but this is one of them.

Currently, the Anzac Day Act of 1966 is kind of frozen in time because section 2 of that Act commemorates only New Zealand service personnel in the South African War, the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, the war in Malay/Borneo, and the war in South Vietnam, as well as those who have at any time given their lives for New Zealand or the British Empire or the Commonwealth, despite the fact that we have been involved in so many other wars. So this is a bill that’s long overdue, and it is great that we really agree that we should actually pass the legislation.

I would also at this time like to acknowledge all of our many, many veterans who made a submission to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, especially all of the veterans who for many, many years have advocated for this change. I’ve spoken about the broadening of the scope. One of the things that came through from the submissions was that the Act should also recognise non-military service. As members know, there are various people like our health personnel and our nurses that are sent to war, but, currently, the Act does not actually recognise their service to Aotearoa.

The bill also broadens the Gallipoli reference. It replaces the current reference to troops from “the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand” at Gallipoli, with “New Zealand and other allied forces”. Now, that also brings in the fact that we need to recognise troops from India and from France, and these are only two of the countries that we should recognise because they also, of course, took part at Gallipoli.

It also defines “warlike conflict”. The new clause describes that a person in a warlike conflict is a person who serves and responds to an armed conflict that has occurred, is occurring, or—futuristically—may occur in the future. So it actually kind of futureproofs this legislation. I commend this bill to the House.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (20:05): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I recall that in the days after the first reading of this bill last year, I was doorknocking in a suburb in my electorate named Wattle Downs. I came across a gentleman—and I’ve doorknocked on his door before—named Mark. He’s an ex-serviceman. He has been following the progress of this bill since the announcement, and he said to me, “Please tell your Ministers that I am so happy and proud of National. Well done.” He was so happy. Mark, I commend this bill to the House, and I’m thinking of you.

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour) (20:06): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I’d just like to get up to support this piece of legislation. I did sit on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, though not for all the hearings, but it is a very significant piece of legislation for significant Kiwis who have put their lives and, I guess, their families’ support on the line for our country, and it’s not easy. I guess we’d go back to the early 1900s and the 1940s, when more people were doing it and people rushed off overseas to defend our country and defend the empire, and Anzac Day is a commemoration of that, but, of course, we’ve had since then, unfortunately, ongoing conflicts around the world. The Anzac Day legislation, by definition, has not included or recognised many of those veterans, and this bill is an attempt to recognise and support those people.

The Government and the select committee have spent a lot of time carefully considering all the submissions and discussing every word in a particular clause, given the eligibility that this affected. But why I say that is because it’s a bit confusing, because there is the commitment of the select committee and the Government to get this right, but on the other hand, they seem to be squeezing the service for the very people who will now be defined as veterans. So it’s hard to be overenthusiastic in the Government’s progress on this piece of legislation when the very support that people need has been cut back by a decision in March 2024. But I won’t dwell on that for the moment; I’ll come back to that.

“Lest we forget” is something we all refer to, come Anzac Day, because it is important. I think that over the last 30 years, New Zealand has grown to appreciate more the level of sacrifice and commitment that so many Kiwis and such a large portion of our male population—certainly in the First World War—committed to protect the realm. It was a long way from our country, but none the less people were prepared to do that, and we should never forget. We want to prevent such horrific wars occurring into the future, and, unfortunately, today and tomorrow and over the last few months, we’ve seen, probably, the likelihood of that increasing rather than decreasing.

But, as a Parliament and as a select committee, what we were tasked with was ensuring that the expansion of eligibility of those people who are called veterans went beyond just those as laid down up to 1966. There were specified conflicts that were in the Act, from the South African War through to the war in South Vietnam. Of course, we’ve seen many people, as I say, travel offshore to other places, and there’ll be some of them who are over on the other side of the House—and I look forward to the contributions from them. We are recognising them, as well.

But it’s not just people at the front line. I think that was the critical area that we were looking to try and address, and that is that for people who go into the armed services, there are a multitude of roles there, but they all form part of an army or an air force or a navy that relies on teamwork, and there are, for whatever reason—some of it might be misfortune, some of it might be in the line of duty, but not right at the front line, and they are injured or they are killed. Those people are indeed affected. They are veterans of a defence system for New Zealand, of, as I say, a system that we rely on for our defence, for our security, and for our wellbeing.

We mustn’t, I guess, forget some of the effort that went in to get this moved along. On 1 April 2025, Willie Apiata gifted his Victoria Cross to Minister Penk with the aim of having the definition of “veteran” changed in legislation. That was to move things forward, such was his passion to make change here and to ensure that people who fought alongside him and served alongside him, and many others, are, indeed, looked after by more comfortable Kiwis who haven’t had to put ourselves at risk or to sacrifice anything.

But, as I say, in his commitment to that, which is huge, as I say, unfortunately the Government had changed the application for a discretionary veterans’ independence programme. It was suspended, so no further applications were received. It reinstated the support, but only for those who were over 80 or who were terminal veterans, so a bit unfair for people, again, who slipped through the cracks. So, on the one hand, we’re making progress and, on the other hand, we’re going back.

So there will still be veterans who, unfortunately, feel aggrieved and feel that we as a Parliament or this Government—in particular, the coalition Government—haven’t given them due recognition to acknowledge the fact that it has taken some time for this to go ahead and to progress. We have to say that it wasn’t all this Government, other than the cutbacks in the support system. We could have all been a little more hasty in having recognition of those veterans, but, none the less, we have before us in the House today what we consider is progress.

I think the wording that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee went round and round on was, “Everyone who has served or will serve New Zealand during war and in warlike conflicts in the past and in the future.” It is quite significant that this legislation looks forward while hoping that we never have to send too many people offshore, or anyone offshore, into conflict. They will go offshore for peacekeeping duties. Those people are serving our country. They are representing us and they are worthy of veteran status, which this piece of legislation will indeed bestow upon them. It’s slightly a shame that it’s taken so long, but be proud that it is coming through the House today.

I acknowledge the work of the select committee. I think there were some very passionate submissions made. I think every single member of the select committee wanted to do the best, sought advice, considered, and then sought further advice to make sure that the wording that we put in place recognised that those who have been part of historic Anzac sacrifice, and then those who have come through other conflicts, may not have necessarily given their lives, but have suffered as a result, and they are worthy of support from our State, from the country.

So I’d just like to say that Labour supports this bill and we think that this is a positive step forward for a nation that is still growing up and learning. Perhaps the Government might see its way clear to ensure that every veteran, regardless of their age—if they’re under 80, then perhaps they deserve to have support as well. If they’re not terminal but have another illness, perhaps they deserve to have support as well.

So that’s the next piece of legislation or the changes that we will be expecting in this House from the coalition Government. In the meantime, we have to acknowledge and celebrate this piece of legislation. Kia ora.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (20:15): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a very deep honour for me to speak on the Anzac Day Amendment Bill at its second reading. Of course, one doesn’t want to be speaking about something that might kind of benefit themselves. Being one of these contemporary veterans who will now be part of this, I acknowledge that it is kind of, but it’s more about all of the other New Zealanders who have contributed and continue to contribute, not just in the armed forces, but some civilians who work alongside us. In particular, I acknowledge some of the civilians who worked in Bong Son Hospital in Vietnam, but also we had civilian doctors who deployed to Bamian in Afghanistan, alongside our troops.

This is an important part of a suite of changes that we are making to further acknowledge our veterans in New Zealand. It is important that we do that because it is true that people sleep soundly in their beds at night because rough men are willing to do violence on their behalf—men and women. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Public Finance Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (20:17): I present a legislative statement on the Public Finance Amendment Bill.

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

Second Reading

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister of Finance) (20:17): I move, That the Public Finance Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Restoring discipline to public spending and putting the Government’s books back in order is one of this Government’s top priorities. It is the very basic that needs to be fixed. After a period in which excessive spending not only drove inflation and the cost of living crisis but also left our books in tatters, it has been prudent for the Government to reflect on the Public Finance Act.

Now, obviously, sound fiscal management is central to the purpose of that Act. The Act currently supports the long-term sustainability of public finances, and by doing that, we enable the delivery of consistent, high-quality services to New Zealanders both now and in the future. There are always those who will seek to mortgage our children’s future, but they should be upfront about what that is.

The Public Finance Act, I want to acknowledge, has served New Zealand well for more than 30 years and is internationally respected, and it is one of the institutional frameworks that those overseas look to as part of New Zealand’s sound governance frameworks. This bill that we are discussing today doesn’t seek to rewrite it at all. Instead, it makes targeted, practical amendments to support fiscal transparency, strengthen fiscal responsibility, and improve how the Act operates in practice, reflecting on how previous Ministers of Finance have interpreted it and applied it.

In its specifics, the bill strengthens the requirements for disclosing specific fiscal risks, and there has been some discussion about whether this is needed. Of course, our Government has already made significant improvements working with Treasury since we came to office on this issue, but I have no confidence that a future Government led by today’s Opposition parties would maintain that practice without the binding constraint of the law. Why do I say that, and why are these amendments necessary? Because when our Government came to office, there was a significant discovery of multiple fiscal cliffs, which were items of commitment that had not been funded in previous Budgets and which added up to an awful lot of money.

Now, there has been some discussion in the first reading of this bill—and publicly—about whether or not those risks were, in fact, disclosed. So let me take you to a practical example of the lack of disclosure—and, I would put it, Madam Speaker, a very intentional lack of disclosure—and that is the Pharmac budget. Now, what happened with the Pharmac budget was that the previous Government—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I was just reflecting on the words of the Minister of Finance, and she said, essentially, that there was an intentional misleading on the part of the members of the former Government. That is clearly a disreputable reference, bringing into question the honesty of a member of the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I was listening carefully and what I heard the Minister say was that she used the word “intentional”, but I was waiting to see which actions or if she specifically—she talked about actions being intentional, right? She didn’t mention anyone misleading anything. We’ll listen really carefully and I ask the Minister to carry on.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Thank you. Madam Speaker, I fully understand why members opposite are pretty sensitive about this. They should be, because what was intentionally done by the last Minister of Finance was he topped up Pharmac’s budget, right? That was actually essential—to top up Pharmac’s budget—to ensure that it could deliver a number of medications that New Zealanders rely on, on prescription: things like asthma inhalers, diabetes medications, ensuring that women can access the contraceptive pill. He topped up the funding, but here’s the thing: what he didn’t do was make that permanent and therefore account for it in the future fiscal forecasts. Instead, he made it a one-off top up. And then what he did was he strictly interpreted the narrow confines of the then Public Finance Act and disclosed, in a generic sense, that there was a fiscal risk in that Pharmac had had some temporary funding and that this would come to an end and would be required to be topped up.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: You can’t read a budget.

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Well, I did read it and that’s what it said. That actually added up to almost $2 billion. What it didn’t say was that in the absence of that, actually, Pharmac’s ability to fund basic medications was completely at risk. What that meant was that in coming to office, our Government immediately had to find the funds to continue that essential delivery of medications. That was one example. I recall that there were more than 20 examples of this behaviour.

Hon Member: Wow!

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: And yes, it is true. The previous Minister of Finance abided by the letter of the Act in that risks were disclosed in a generic and non-specified way. But what was not clear was the size of the holes that were being left and the essentialness of topping those up. It meant that an incoming Government had to find that money and account for it into the future. Frankly, the fact that short-term funding was put into flatter the books is one of the more disreputable things that the last Government did, and the amendments that we are proposing today are to ensure that in future there is a lot more transparency about that sort of behaviour.

What the Treasury did when we were forming this bill was they reviewed the statements of specific fiscal risks over the past 25 years, and they found that, yes, indeed, the comprehensiveness of those disclosures varied dramatically. They, in their own words, highlighted “a genuine issue about the quality and comparability of disclosures over time”—Treasury’s words, not my words. What the analysis then confirmed was that that inconsistency had reduced fiscal transparency and hindered the comparability of those specific fiscal risks over time.

We immediately, of course, took non-legislative actions to improve this in introducing improvements in our first Budget, quantifying the fiscal risks in our half-year update in 2025. What this bill does is it locks in those improvements and will ensure that future disclosures are consistently high quality, transparent, and comparable. By embedding these changes in law, we are taking a proactive step to strengthen fiscal discipline, improve transparency, and build public trust in the Government’s financial management. The sad thing is, we have very recent evidence that, given the chance, these people sitting opposite me will try and fudge the numbers. And that, Madam Speaker, is something we need to address.

The second thing that I want to specify that this bill does is introduce a requirement for the Minister of Finance to publish a tax expenditure statement annually alongside the Budget, again improving transparency around policy-motivated tax concessions and exemptions, and it adjusts the timing for the pre-economic fiscal update.

I want to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their work on the bill. They have introduced a clarifying amendment that relates to how the Government articulates their fiscal strategy. Currently, the Act specifies a narrow set of indicators for expressing short-term intentions and long-term objectives, and those are important but they’re not always the most appropriate target. The provisions in this bill allow Governments to use alternative variables providing they meet the specific transparency requirements in the report. Following the committee’s consideration, the bill has been tightened—again—to ensure that there are always five variables on this.

Now, I do also want to reflect on another matter that the select committee considered. This was this absolute fiction introduced by the last finance Minister that if you want to enhance the prosperity of your people through the Budget process, what you do is you do a wellbeing report; that if only the Public Finance Act uses the words “wellbeing” enough, and enough people do enough glossy documents saying “wellbeing”, then “wellbeing” will be enhanced.

I just want to highlight the views put forward by the Green Party on this one, because what they have said is that the very principles of responsible fiscal management expressed in the Public Finance Act are biased against increasing debt—yeah, that’s right; that’s a good thing, but wait for it!—because we don’t recognise that debt can be used to improve our resilience and economic capacity and that is always a more prudent approach. Well, here’s the household analogy to break it down for you. Any household can say tomorrow, “If I spend more, I’ll be happier. I’ll have a nicer car, I’ll have nicer clothes, I’ll have a nicer house. If I spend more, I’ll eat out more, I’ll be better, and I can go to more concerts.” But guess what? The money doesn’t grow on a tree. It needs to come from somewhere and you have to pay it back.

It is clear that we are making sure this Act can work well into the future. But man, oh man, New Zealanders need to know that the Green Party—the Labour Party’s best friend—disagree with the very thrust of this Act. Let’s not take our prudent fiscal management framework for granted. Thank goodness a sensible National Party is leading the charge.

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

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (20:28): What that speech demonstrated was just how unfit that member is to be the Minister of Finance. Can’t read the Budget, can’t read the financials, can’t read the well-signalled risks, can’t add up, and, above all, cannot see that the purpose of a Budget goes far beyond just the dollars and the cents. It is the Government’s plan. It’s the Government’s plan for the country. Of course—of course—how money is allocated matters in that. But there is so much more that matters other than just money in the way we run our country. Of course we care about the dollars and cents; of course we care about where it comes from and where it is allocated to. But we need to think more broadly than that.

Let me just start by looking at some of the specific changes that have been put into the Public Finance Act by this bill. The previous speaker said that we needed to make sure that there were adequate disclosure requirements around specific fiscal risks—post-exposure requirements were all there; they were all being met. What this bill does is to provide for the fact that Nicola Willis can’t read.

There is a new requirement in this for a tax expenditure statement to be published every year. That was already being published every year. There was no need to put that into legislation.

This bill enables Governments to express their fiscal strategy using alternative fiscal variables. Like what? The operating balance before gains and losses, excluding ACC revenue and expenses, that the Minister made up because she couldn’t make the books add up? I mean, again, this is probably a good idea to have some alternative ways of measuring what Governments are doing, but that shouldn’t be done in an ad hoc manner because the Minister of Finance can’t get it right; it needs to be done in a very predictable way.

When we get to the committee stage of this bill, we will certainly be putting amendments into the name to say the “Public Finance Amendment Bill (Saving Nicola Willis’ Bacon)”. That would be an adequate description of this bill.

So that speech from the previous speaker, the Hon Nicola Willis, was appalling—that speaker is so prepared to cast fingers at everyone, except herself. That is a Minister of Finance who promised that she would fix the finances of this country. We are further in debt. Inflation is back up and increasing again. Unemployment is up. That’s all that’s going on in our economy at the moment. She has taken a wrecking ball to our economy.

I just want to take on that specific example of Pharmac that she raised in her speech. The funding for Pharmac was well signalled as being an annual event; it was well signalled as a risk. There was nothing to stop that member, who is now the Minister, from sitting in her office and reading the pre-election fiscal update and reading the Budget and putting that all together, but it seems she was incapable of doing that, so has made up a myth—a myth that she didn’t have the information. Now we have an entire bill to support her myth. That is absolutely ridiculous.

As for quoting Pharmac, wasn’t that the Government that made huge promises about what it was going to do around cancer drugs, and then forgot to fund them in their first Budget? This is a Government that cannot even read its own promises.

Todd Stephenson: You were going to rip the drugs out of their veins.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not me, Mr Stephenson.

Todd Stephenson: I’m just putting the record straight.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know, but don’t use the word “you”.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Let me move on to discussing what I think is the most egregious facet, the most egregiously awful part of this bill. There’s some really well-developed research around what people read in the annual reports of companies. This is what virtually everyone does. They read the text. They read the words. They read the narrative that the company writes about itself. They look at the stories that the company tells. In fact, hardly anyone actually reads the financial statements; an accountant might, perhaps large shareholders might look to see if they’re in the biggest shareholders list, but the great majority of people do not get their information from the financial statements. What they get their information from about the companies that they invest in is from the narrative that the company writes.

So the same thing happens with a Government Budget. There’s a couple of things to think about here. First of all, in terms of a Government’s Budget, what people are interested in is what Government is planning to do to make their lives better.

So, in terms of wellbeing reporting, the whole objective of that is to try to be accountable to New Zealanders for making lives better and for setting it up and reporting on it in ways that New Zealanders actually understand. That’s the point of wellbeing Budgets. There’s a really well-developed field of wellbeing economics. We had experts in our own country who came and talked to our select committee about it way back in 2018, when we were first putting this legislation through—people like Paul Dalziel and Caroline Saunders; people like Professor Marilyn Waring, who is absolutely famous for talking about whose work gets counted and whose doesn’t. Now, that’s not the sort of thing that’s reported in ordinary Budget statements. The whole point of wellbeing economics is to try to measure what is valuable.

There’s a really famous speech from Bobby Kennedy, talking about why GDP—or gross domestic product—is not in itself an adequate measure of what we do in an economy. Here it goes, it says “even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction—purpose and dignity—that afflicts us all.” So he talks about what GDP measures. He says, “It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armoured cars”, and on it goes. “Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

The point of the wellbeing Budgets is to try to get a focus on that which makes life worthwhile, and to understand those factors in our country that make life joyful and worth living, and to direct the Government’s attention to them and then to measure Government’s progress towards them. It was quite revolutionary to attempt to do this through our Public Finance Act. It was a major innovation, and one that was lauded worldwide as being a really significant thing that countries could do. Grant Robertson was quite visionary in putting this in place. It did provide a focus for Budgets as to what we were going to try to focus on.

So, for example, the wellbeing objectives in, I think, our last Budget Policy Statement were around a just transition, trying to support the transition of New Zealand to a climate-resilient, sustainable, low-emissions economy. There was a wellbeing objective towards physical and mental wellbeing, trying to improve the physical and especially the mental wellbeing of our young people. This is not something that is measured in mere dollars and cents; it’s measured if we say this matters and we try to work towards it. We were going to have a wellbeing objective around the future of work, enabling us to work in this new economy that confronts us all the time. We were concerned about the wellbeing of Māori and Pacific peoples—as that side ought to be. One in four of young Māori and Pasifika people are unemployed at the moment. What does that do to their wellbeing? This Government, in addition to trashing the economy, has now trashed wellbeing budgeting. What an accomplishment. They should be ashamed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ (Green) (20:38): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak against the Public Finance Amendment Bill, at its second reading. Before I begin my speech proper, I just wanted to thank the finance Minister, Nicola Willis, for the free advertisement for the Green Party fiscal strategy. You can go to it by googling “Green Party fiscal strategy”, and it outlines, actually, that we do have a comprehensive vision for managing public debt in an actually financially responsible way, as opposed to—well, we’ve seen what this Government counts as financial responsibility: it’s $2.9 billion to landlords, hundreds of millions of dollars to fossil fuel companies, and tens of millions to tobacco companies. So we certainly won’t be taking any lectures on fiscal responsibility from that side of the House.

Let me return to the bill. In its current form, it represents a backward step for New Zealand; it represents a backward step for our commitment to the wellbeing of our people.

Now, while this Government likes to frequently cloak its rhetoric in the language of efficiency and flexibility, we can’t have any illusions about what this bill actually does. It narrows the scope of responsible governance, it prioritises really narrow fiscal metrics over holistic outcomes, and it risks eroding the trust that fundamentally underpins not only our democracy but our society as a whole, and this House must reject it outright.

Again, like most of the bills this Government seems to be passing this year or putting forward, it fundamentally shows how distracted this Government is. They have just simply given up on addressing the serious economic challenges that New Zealand today faces. Whether it’s the out-of-control inflation that’s out of the target band, whether it’s the unemployment that shot up to the highs that it soared to during the great financial recession, or whether it’s the economic mess that they’ve left the country with, with economic growth at lows comparable to the great financial crisis, they’ve simply given up.

What they are left with is continuing their destructive rampage of undoing everything the previous Government did and, really, tinkering around the edges of this really quite petty legislation—which, as the previous speaker correctly asserted, is just as a result of the Minister actually refusing to be accountable and actually doing her homework. It’s really interesting that the party of so-called fiscal and personal financial responsibility got so upset about needing to do their homework that they decided to change the law to account for that. What a waste of time this is.

Let’s begin by addressing the core fundamental problem that this bill has, which is that it assaults wellbeing reporting. Under the existing Public Finance Act, this Government is required to outline wellbeing objectives in the Budget Policy Statement and explain it in the Fiscal Strategy Report—how these objectives have guided decisions. Now, the Treasury is also mandated to produce this wellbeing report. These provisions were introduced to ensure that we have a more holistic definition of fiscal policy; that fiscal policy actually serves the broader needs of New Zealanders—that encompass health, that encompass education, that encompass environmental sustainability and social cohesion—but these are now slated for repeal. Why? Because this Government claims it’s about streamlining process, but it’s actually retreating from accountability itself.

These wellbeings are not some fluffy add-ons. They’re the very essence of why we actually govern. It’s not so that the number can go up; it’s so that we can actually achieve the objectives of why these numbers are important in the first place. In a post-COVID world, where there’s a lot of mental health crisis, the housing affordability, the climate crisis, how can we justify stripping away mechanisms that force Governments to actually look at the human impact of what their policies are doing?

Submitters to the Finance and Expenditure Committee rightly pointed out that, without these measures, the ability of the legislature and the wider civil society to hold the Government to account on non-fiscal outcomes is reduced. Without these requirements, future Budgets can simply make the line go up at the expense of the other wellbeings that we know make life worth living. This bill tells Kiwis, it tells New Zealanders, that their wellbeings don’t matter as much as the fiscal bottom line that this Government seems to be so obsessed with. It’s a betrayal of the progressive reforms that have made New Zealand a leader in integrated financial and social policy. If we pass this, we’re signalling that economic growth is really the most important determinator of everything else, and that nothing else should take consideration.

If you actually zoom in and look at what the Living Standards Framework was actually about and what it was measuring, it’s actually really obvious why this Government is repealing it. Let’s go through what the Living Standards Framework asserted made up the wealth of New Zealand. It looked at the natural environment—that was one of its measures. The Living Standards Framework defines the natural environment aspect of wealth as “All aspects of the natural environment needed to support life and human activity, valued for spiritual, cultural and economic reasons.” It looked at things like the average temperature; the biodiversity and genetic resources of the country. It looked at coastal sea level rises. It looked at fish stocks. It looked at groundwater stocks. It looked at net greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, river health, soil quality, and timber stocks. If you actually pay attention, you’ll know that the fundamental wellbeing of a country, and even of an economy, is tied up to those things—especially the critical primary industries that make up New Zealand.

One of the other measures of it was social cohesion. The Living Standards Framework defines social cohesion as “The willingness of diverse individuals and groups to trust and cooperate with each other in the interests of all, supported by shared [intellectual] norms and values.” Now, if you look at the four indicators that made up the social cohesion metrics—I should have really written this graph down bigger, because I really can’t see—the four metrics are: ability to express identity, discrimination, sense of belonging, and trust held in others. I mean, if you look at what this Government has done over the past couple of years, have the metrics for the natural environment and social cohesion gone up and down? They haven’t. This really speaks to the fundamental reality of why they’re repealing these wellbeing reforms, because everything is trending up or trending down in the wrong direction.

If you actually look at what this Government is obsessed with, which is looking at the hard numbers—let’s be, you know, rational economic managers and look at the actual financial and physical capital of this country, and the human capability. Now, the Living Standards Framework defines the financial and physical capital of this country as “Tangible, human-made assets, such as buildings, machinery and infrastructure, including physical taonga, such as marae. Intangible, knowledge-based assets, such as research and development, software and databases, and arts and literature. Financial assets minus liabilities, including currency, bank deposits, loans and equity.”

Now, this Government, which really prides itself as the sort of hard-nosed economic managers—unfortunately, these numbers have gone down as well. We know that GDP is lower now than when they came into office. All this Government has said to us is that they actually can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, and even when they supposedly focus on their really narrow metric of economic growth and economic prosperity, they’re unable to achieve it. They’re doing something that every person who doesn’t have a growth mindset does: instead of actually tackling the challenge and challenging themselves to chew and walk—sorry, I can’t remember the analogy now—but to do several things at the same time, they’re instead changing the metrics because they’re afraid of failing these wellbeing targets.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: They’re cherry-picking.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: Indeed, they’re cherry-picking. Much like the new financial metric that the Minister of Finance has invented, the operating balance before gains and losses, excluding ACC revenue and expenses, it’s not really going to conceal the fundamental reality that everyday New Zealanders actually find themselves living in in this Government’s New Zealand.

Let’s look at the last and one of the most important aspects of the Living Standards Framework, which is the human capability side of things. It defines human capability as “People’s knowledge, physical and mental health, including cultural capability.” Now, has Aotearoa New Zealand’s human capability been enhanced with the exile of so many of our young people—tens of thousands fleeing for Australia and for greener pastures across the last two years? Has our human capability been enhanced by the wastage of high unemployment, youth and otherwise, that this Government has sacrificed our young people to? I would suggest no, and this Government realises too, which is why they’re cooking the books—so that they don’t have to be accountable.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) (20:48): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We rise in support of this bill. Actually, that last comment from the last speaker was totally offensive. There is no “cooking” of the books. We are continuing to deliver, in fact, enhanced transparency and accountability. In fact, I’ll just have a look at the select committee report. That speech would have been great; probably, they should have just put it in as a differing view. I noticed the Greens didn’t even bother to do a differing view, so I’m not really sure where that content came from.

Firstly, I want to thank the excellent Finance and Expenditure Committee for doing some great work on this and taking their job seriously. I want to thank the people who did take the time to submit. Actually, New Zealand has one of the strongest public accountability regimes in the world, and this bill only seeks to enhance that. I’m not going to be lectured by members across the other side of the House, who racked up over $60 billion in additional spending, did not improve public services—

Hon Scott Simpson: How much?

Todd Stephenson: —$60 billion—$60 billion—and actually didn’t deliver any better public services; in fact, and as we’ve heard tonight, they actually left some of our iconic public service schemes like Pharmac in jeopardy—actually left them in jeopardy. The measures in here will ensure greater transparency around forecasts, budgeting, etc.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: Greater cherry-picking.

TODD STEPHENSON: No, it’s not cherry-picking, not at all—in fact, it’s very black and white, very straightforward.

The other point I’m going to make is that we’ve actually taken a different approach. We don’t need wellbeing measures, because what we’ve introduced is Government targets. There’s an entire website of Government targets where we actually set the target of what we’re going to deliver—reduce crime, reduce hospital waiting lists. We measure it, and we deliver it. That’s the way you actually get things done, not wellbeing economics. We’re lucky in ACT to actually have some economists, so we know what we’re talking about. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (20:50): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill, the Public Finance Amendment Bill.

Just a brief little glimpse of history here: 1989—37 years old, and I’ve got to give it to my predecessor here from the ACT Party: this is the highlight of that whole neoliberal era. Because of this finance amendment bill, we are going to take it a little bit further and ensure that it continues in the way that it has been. We did fantastic things as a result of this. In fact, the Government was held to account—fancy that. We got to a position where we actually figured out what the Government was spending, where the revenue was coming, and made sure we had to make that transparent to the public—fabulous, novel idea. Regular reporting; fiscal strategy; accountability; financials of the Government departments, Ministers and Government entities; transparency in how taxpayers’ money is spent—pretty damned important; excuse the rhetoric there—asset management; borrowing limits. Some in this House don’t understand that or those words. Requiring the Government to produce a balance sheet—you know, balance sheet: revenue, expenditure, assets, what we own; currently at about half a trillion dollars’ worth of assets owned by the Government. Pretty important to get this stuff right. At the end of that period, we had—and these are words that we don’t hear much these days—a fiscal surplus. Get the balance right, the books right.

Now, I’ve heard from the Opposition around reducing and getting rid of the wellbeing out of this Act. Well, I can come back to that a little bit, because I’ve spent a lot of time and I understand where they’re coming from with wellbeing economics. In fact, I’ve read the same Bobby Kennedy quote myself on a number of occasions. It’s very important for us to understand what these wellbeings are. In fact, the Living Standards Framework started off—because they gave it to Treasury, it only had four, but we ended up with around seven: you’ve got to look at the natural capital, financial capital, economic capital, institutional, social, environmental, cultural, and human capital, which the previous member from the Greens was alluding to. Yes, these are all very, very important things, but economic and financial is part of that, and if we get that part right, we may have a chance of getting the other parts right. So here we are. We’re going to make some tweaks to this amazing bill from the neoliberal era—tweaks and pragmatism, strengthening fiscal responsibility, transparency regarding special fiscal risks. Oh, how the Minister has mentioned Pharmac and the $2 billion spend to rectify that—I think they call that a special fiscal risk, and the impact that that had, but you might also say that a special fiscal risk was the previous finance Minister.

Large Scale Asset Purchase Programme: does anyone in the street have the faintest idea what those words mean? If you look up “large-scale asset purchasing programme”, it is regarded as an unconventional monetary policy where the central bank buys Government bonds. Well, the net effect of that is an extra $50 billion that Labour and the finance Minister could spend on behalf of us all to inject money into the economy, called quantitative easing. That might explain half or at least two-thirds of why we ended up with so much debt that we had to deal with leading into this thing.

We had the HYEFU, the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update, prior to us coming into Government. Can anybody remember that? It was just so opportunistic and so beneficial for them that, actually, we kind of got it wrong, didn’t we, leading into the last election. In fact, a wily old customer that is a friend of mine and a colleague and my boss said to me before the election, “I think this is wrong. I think they’ve underestimated how much debt we have and what we’ve got to recover. This is a deep, dark hole that they have dug for us, and we’re going to have to climb our way out.” I said, “It can’t be that bad, sir?” Well, he was right—it was a deep, dark hole of debt that we had to climb out of.

It’s very difficult to act green when you’re in the red. You’ve actually got to get the books in order so that you can do the good things that we need in life. Wellbeing—yep, we agree with that. We want increased wellbeing, absolutely. The Living Standards Framework was a step in the right direction; there were great people behind that, but you’ve got to admit that all of those Living Standards Framework metrics were substitutes for the real thing. It’s a funny thing: in the end, GDP—you can count it. Financials: you can count them. We know what the numbers are. Your metrics don’t give the whole answer and you know it. Also, let’s think about the obfuscation and the amount of stuff that the Treasury had to face up to by doing this Living Standards Framework. Perhaps there may be just an inch of truth in the idea that they were somewhat distracted at that famous HYEFU, but we’ll leave you to think through that.

We are repealing the wellbeing objectives, and we’re going to publish a tax expenditure statement. I’ll repeat that: a tax expenditure statement. Labour, have you heard of one of those? We’re going to count what we spend so the public can understand what the implication of these changes are. Isn’t this fabulous, this stuff? I love it—I love it. New Zealand First supports this bill because it fulfils our commitment in the coalition agreement to improve the quality of Government spending, whereby we can improve the quality of the wellbeing of every citizen in this country. We commend this bill to the House.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (20:57): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to start by just getting it out of the way that the Green Party will not be supporting this bill. I’d also like to thank the Minister of Finance, because her entire speech was spent attacking the Opposition, so I think it’s only appropriate to say that all gloves are off in this speech. I actually wrote a very reasonable speech, but I think I’m going to throw it away, and let’s talk about something real.

Let’s start by addressing the mythic elephant in this House, which is the fact that we have seen a pandemic that was unprecedented globally, and those kinds of debt that have been taken on from the shock event is something that the Treasury has factored in. From a global perspective, Aotearoa New Zealand has actually done better than most other countries, yet we have seen this Government not having any pandemic yet still managing to tank our economy, because this is this Government’s legacy.

Now, we talk about the fact that this is supposed to be fiscally prudent, but what we have seen over the last two years is that the rich have got richer, the wealthy have got wealthier, and the poor have got poorer. These are not economic decisions; these are political decisions, because this Government only really cares about their cronies as opposed to the majority of the people here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

We talked about GDP. Now, the submitters for this particular bill have mentioned that there is a risk for GDP and national debt and argue this will be a step backwards for Aotearoa New Zealand, because GDP, while it can be measured, cannot be used to measure equity and equitable distribution in our community. You know what GDP doesn’t measure? GDP doesn’t measure the fact that we have a record number of people leaving Aotearoa New Zealand. GDP doesn’t measure the fact that we have 10,000 people who lost their jobs in Wellington alone, and we have some of the highest rates of unemployment of the decade. GDP doesn’t measure the fact that tertiary students are facing some of the worst debt. GDP doesn’t factor in that our seniors are asking more and more about hardship grants because they can’t afford their power bills.

GDP does not measure any of those real situations that affect the people of Aotearoa New Zealand every single day, so don’t come to this House on your high horse, talking about GDP and talking about all of this when there are people out there every single day who are doing it tough. That is disingenuous. Introducing a bill like this and creating your own measures is disingenuous. We have seen that from this Government in terms of the fact that, for anything that doesn’t really go their way, they need to fudge the numbers. I can say “fudge”, Mr Speaker, because this is a verb that the Minister of Finance herself has used. This Government very much loves to fudge the numbers and—

Francisco Hernandez: Cook the books!

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: —cook the books—use the data to try and bamboozle the New Zealand public into thinking they’re doing anything that is beneficial to them, but they see through that. The people of Aotearoa New Zealand are no fools. They see through this Government’s veneer and also misdirection, because what they truly care about is being able to put food on the table, being able to live in a safe and warm and dry house. That’s what they care about, but we have seen the cost of bread and essentials and butter and milk skyrocketing. What has happened to those people, and what are we going to be doing for those people? Is that something that’s going to be fixed if we don’t consider the wellbeing of our people?

Again, this Government loves to talk about fiscal holes. Let’s talk about fiscal holes. Let’s talk about the up to $24 billion fiscal hole that this Government has decided to overlook, in terms of our nationally determined contribution, particularly when it comes to the refusal to accurately cost and represent the offshore climate liability risk on its books. That is something that, unfortunately, isn’t what we’re seeing in this particular bill. That is a shame. You know what else is a fiscal hole? The hundreds of millions of dollars that this Government has decided to overlook when they’re looking at adjusting the KiwiSaver balance. These are things that affect people here, not only in terms of a Budget but also in terms of the real lives of people in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Minister, finally, used a household analogy, but my question here is: if we’re using the same household analogy, if you don’t invest in your house on a day-to-day basis, what happens when the roof collapses because you didn’t fix the roof? What happens if your child has to be hospitalised? This is the real thing that we’re going to be concerned about, and this is the real debt on our future generations.

CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour) (21:02): Thank you, Mr Speaker. If there was ever a time to bring in a Public Finance Amendment Bill and strengthen the transparency and accountability and responsibility around our fiscal management, it was after the last Government.

If they need some reminding, can I read you some headlines off the Treasury long-term insights report published in August last year: “Treasury briefing points finger at government spending during Covid-19 pandemic”, “Treasury signals need for independent fiscal watchdog”, “Treasury says $66 billion Covid-19 response shouldn’t be repeated”, “The $66 billion Covid spend up: Treasury asks if the Government went too far”. This is Treasury, the most conservative in the public sector, saying this.

That side of the House has given us every reason why we need this Public Finance Amendment Bill. I support the legislation.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) (21:03): I don’t think any of us anticipated just how nasty this debate on a piece of public finance reporting legislation would get. The chair of the select committee could muster one minute on the bill, and even in that one minute, he managed to fill it with vitriol. That tone was set by the Minister of Finance. I was sitting in my office listening to that speech and thinking, “This is what we’ve come to. This is the kind of contribution that is being made in our House of Representatives by a senior Minister of this Government”—where she did voices. That was the level of debate that we saw from the Minister of Finance.

If we’re going to put it in context, this is a bill where the Government of the day is saying, “We don’t need to measure our policies in the context of the wellbeing of New Zealanders.” If you have a Prime Minister who is self-proclaimed “wealthy and sorted”, why do you need to worry about the wellbeing of other New Zealanders? That’s exactly what we’re hearing from the Government benches over there.

Let’s have a look at what this bill does. It has this shroud of saying it wants to increase the transparency and the way in which things are reported. Now, we actually support some of the measures around reporting in this bill, and we did at select committee, and we worked to improve some of those measures. This is Nicola Willis crying, “Oh, but the fiscal cliffs.”—a latter-day Wuthering Heights kind of motif that we’re hearing: “Heathcliff!”—but Nicola Willis is in danger of falling down her own fiscal cliff.

She’s saying it all came as a surprise. Nicola Willis clearly did not do her job. Nicola Willis, as Opposition finance spokesperson, clearly did not read the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update. Nicola Willis, as Opposition finance spokesperson, clearly did not read the Budget. We made it even easier: when it came to housing and the fiscal cliff in terms of public housing—that she claims we left them and she didn’t know there weren’t houses funded beyond June 2025—well, on 24 September, Labour put out a press release telling her this in 2023. This was no shock. This was complete transparency.

This is a Government that came in and refused to prioritise New Zealanders and their wellbeing, and instead of spending money on things like housing, it decided to come into Government and do what straight away? Tax cuts for landlords and tax cuts for tobacco companies. That’s the kind of emphasis that this Government is putting on wellbeing and showing its true colours. Any cries that they did not know about what the books said is (a) because they did not do their jobs—and some of that was actually just picking up a press release that was headed and explained in paragraphs: National needs to front up and allow money in its own Budget to fund public housing beyond 2025. We basically put it in neon, yet the Minister of Finance claims it was a surprise! That is the level of detail that we are working with here.

The purpose of a Government needing to stop and examine what it is funding in its Budgets through its wider policy lens of wellbeing is a good practice for any Government. When we look at a Budget, we are not just looking at dry lines on a balance sheet and volumes of books that many people find absolutely impenetrable. What we find in there is the decisions that a Government is making—real decisions that affect everyday life—choices that Governments have: to fund or to not fund State housing, to fund or to not fund Health, to make sure that we are adequately taking action on climate, or not doing that. All of these are choices that are written in numbers in a Budget, and every one of these needs to be reported on.

A Government needs to have the confidence in its own policy agenda, in its own choices it’s making, to front up to the House, to front up to the people of New Zealand, and explain how those choices are going to impact the wellbeing of New Zealanders—how those choices are going to impact the wellbeing of our environment. This is not a practice to be mocked and ridiculed by the Minister of Finance. This is a practice that, internationally, economists worldwide say is a good idea. This is a discipline that Governments should have, because the choices we make are real, and they have real impacts.

The Minister also says that one of the things we need to do is express fiscal strategy using alternative fiscal variables. Now, this sounds like a lot of technical terms, and I will get into some of the technicalities of this. One of the things in here is so that Nicola Willis can use her operating balance before gains and losses, excluding ACC revenue and expenses (OBEGALx), which is the new measure she has around the Government books, to make it seem like we’re going to get back into surplus sooner. What we have is a Minister of Finance who is changing the law so she can use a new measure that makes the books look better, yet she comes to the House and claims this is about transparency—“This is about making sure the public can have greater scrutiny.”

One of the things that we did look at very closely was moving those goal posts on fiscal variables. The bill overhauled how the Government could express its fiscal strategy in terms of variables. Currently, the fiscal strategy report must state long-term objectives, and I think this is an absolutely critical thing that needs to be done. Every Parliament needs to understand, in terms of the fiscal strategy, what those long-term objectives are, and also short-term intentions, for five specific variables. That is: total operating expenses, total operating revenues, the operating balance, total debt, and net worth. These are all really important variables that need to be understood, not only in terms of that long-term strategy but in terms of short-term intentions.

The bill that was brought to the House was to allow alternative variables to be subject to transparency, but as introduced that could have allowed the Government to use fewer variables altogether. We would have had less transparency in our reporting against those important variables that we need to understand. The committee improved this by requiring the long-term objectives and short-term intentions for at least these five variables—which must either be those five specified variables I talked about or similar in nature—and mapped back to those. There are some changes in here that we worked constructively on at select committee, but even here the direction of travel was telling from the Government. The Government wanted more flexibility in how it framed its fiscal story. It wanted to be able to tell a different story than every other Government before it had told, in terms of the Government books, by the introduction of OBEGALx.

Now, what we have is some remarkable rewriting of history in the House tonight. We’ve had a New Zealand First speaker stand up and rail against decisions that were made by the 2017-20 Government, which New Zealand First were part of. New Zealand First was sitting around the Cabinet table making those decisions—a remarkable retelling of history. Those decisions he railed about, his current leader and senior Ministers were part of and absolutely supportive of—in that Cabinet makes collective decisions. Then we’ve had talk about all the debt that was racked up. I want each member that takes a call and says that to stand up and tell New Zealanders they did not back the wage subsidy scheme—that they did not back keeping New Zealanders in work through COVID. Actually, I remember members sitting on this side of the House during COVID saying they wanted more spent on the wage subsidy scheme. Any member that gets up and rails against that debt: tell New Zealanders you did not care if they kept their jobs during COVID.

I’m proud to have been part of a Government that put New Zealanders and their jobs to the fore of our thinking. We borrowed to keep people in work; this Government has borrowed to give tax cuts to landlords and tobacco companies. This is the kind of thing—the choices that are laid bare—when you look at the Crown accounts, and why it is so important that politicians and Ministers are accountable through the lens of wellbeing.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (21:13): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to give you a practical example of the wellbeings, for example, and how it flowed through even to councils and my role in local government.

We had a stakeholder that would come and provide six-monthly reports to council as part of their accountability. They’d have to comment on things like foot traffic and retail spending in the CBD. That report got rejected by staff and sent back to them because they didn’t have a cultural, social, environmental, and economic lens on it. They said, “What is this about? It’s about foot traffic and retail spending.” They went back and they filled in the précis form with two lines under “Cultural” and two lines under “Social” and two lines under “Environmental”. It changed nothing. It was well-meaning but, unfortunately, meaningless as well.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call—Cushla Tangaere-Manuel.

CUSHLA TANGAERE-MANUEL (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) (21:14): Tēnā rawa atu koe, e te Māngai o te Whare. Kei te tū awau ki te whakahē i tēnei pire, Public Finance Amendment Bill, mō te Pāti Reipa.

[Greetings to you, Mr Speaker. I stand to oppose this bill, the Public Finance Amendment Bill, on behalf of the Labour Party.]

I just want to acknowledge my colleagues who have spoken before me, in particular the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, who made a great point in the fact that this is not merely about dollars and cents.

As the spokesperson for the Māori economy, I want to acknowledge how frequently the Māori economy has been lauded in this House for the astronomical growth, the contribution to the overall economy of this country. I acknowledge everyone who has been part of that growth and look forward to the initiatives to come.

Now, in considering this bill, I had a look at some of the mission statements and purpose statements of some of the financial arms of our iwi authorities, who have contributed to this massive growth in the Māori economy. They say things like this: “Dedicated to ensuring a prosperous, healthy, and vibrant future for the whānau, hapū, and iwi [etc., etc.]”; “Enabling environmental kaitiakitanga, driving self-determination in housing and economic development.” Another goes on to say: “To preserve, protect, and enhance the identity and integrity and future aspirations and general wellbeing …”. And I’ll quote one more: “To sustainably grow the intergenerational economic wellbeing so that our uri may prosper.” For all the overarching values, fiscal performance is a given, but it’s nothing without the growth and development of the people you represent. Is this not what we’re here for as parliamentarians of this country? It’s to ensure the wellbeing of the whānau, the individuals, the businesses—everybody in Aotearoa we represent.

I want to acknowledge Grant Robertson and the Labour Government, who had the courage to introduce this world-leading initiative. The world was looking at Aotearoa and going, “Wow, look at this, a country who actually wants the wellbeing of their people at the forefront of their financial decisions.” Now the world is looking at us for the wrong reasons, not just because of this bill, as we know, and that’s been discussed in this House at length. Now they’ll be looking and thinking, “Why on earth would they want to repeal something that guarantees the wellbeing of their people and will inevitably have economic returns?” As the Hon Dr Deborah Russell said, this is not just about dollars and cents. And who produces the dollars and cents? Healthy human beings.

What does this look like on the ground? We talk about papa kāinga, housing, whenua development. The member from New Zealand First said you can’t count these outcomes. Yes, you can. Communities across Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and Aotearoa will tell you that when a papa kāinga goes up on whenua, first of all, you can count the whānau who have a roof over their heads. You can count the students that are going to go to the kura. You can count the customers that are going to support the local businesses. You can absolutely count these benefits.

Then you look at the hauora benefits. A lot of the iwi organisations I’ve quoted from have a lot of their own hauora. Of course, once again, you can count the benefits. You can count having the years you have your whānau with you. You can count the whānau who have access to quality healthcare. You can absolutely count the benefits of creating Budgets that prioritise the wellbeing of our whānau. We talk about balancing the books. A lot of the people in here will have coaches. They’ll be going to the gym to try and get themselves balanced so that they can perform and balance their own books and be in balance for their own families. This is the same thing, just on a larger scale.

Once again, I’m proud to be part of Labour, proud to be part of a team whose Government had the courage to prioritise the hauora—the holistic hauora—of our country, knowing that it will definitely impact the holistic financial hauora as well.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (21:19): Here are some economic facts for the House: $66 billion of overspending, the fourth-largest Budget deficit in the developed world, 7.3 percent inflation, and the Reserve Bank raising interest rates, which induced the deepest recession since 1991. This bill restores a focus on fiscal transparency. It restores the reputation of New Zealand as a fiscally responsible country. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) (21:20): It’s good to see that the National Party’s research team’s work has not gone to waste. It’s quite clear the number of National Party members on the Government side who have to depend on reading a piece of paper to read out key lines. It’s just astounding. Thank you to the National Party researcher who put those key lines together, because it’s quite clear they have no imagination, no ability to be able to debate in this House what is a short-term thinking bill—short-term thinking for short-term decisions, because there is absolutely no recognition on the other side of the House that dollars and cents do not make a healthy New Zealand.

What good is a measure of growth in GDP when we have people sleeping in cars, when we have them sleeping on the streets, when we have a higher number of homeless people in our country? What good is that Budget Policy Statement if it does not address the fact that the priority is to get people off the streets, to fund the policy and the initiatives across the country that support people who are homeless to get into social housing, to be able to support them to find the mental health, whatever addiction services, or, actually, just the people available there who can treat them with respect and integrity because they are a person? The fact they are a person and a New Zealander, they should be entitled—“entitled”, and I use that word specifically—to the support of the safety nets that a Government should provide. What good is dollars and cents when the fact is we are having more and more of our New Zealand children going hungry? What is the absolute point of a Budget Policy Statement that will talk about fiscal responsibility but won’t actually target and provide programmes and initiatives that help feed our children?

The most interesting thing that I found about the speeches earlier in the House today: once again, the focus is on the Labour Party and the previous Government’s decisions. Where is your responsibility towards those people who are homeless? Where is your responsibility for the child poverty that is growing in New Zealand? Where is your responsibility for helping to lift wages in this country? If you believe it is not a Government’s job to support that, why are you here—quite seriously: why are you here? This bill is about short-term decision-making for short-term decisions. No longer are we looking across to think, “What do future generations in New Zealand need?” In order to support future generations, you must plant the seed today. Members of the House on the Government side might shake their heads, but, actually, you look at the submissions that came through to the Finance and Expenditure Committee—because this is the second reading; we’re supposed to be talking about what actually happened in the select committee, as well.

Of the people that came through to the select committee, time and time and time again, they did not support the removal of those wellbeing requirements from the Public Finance Act. I’m going to quote some of their submissions because they deserve to be heard in this Parliament, in this House tonight. For example, the Disabled Persons Assembly raised concerns that removing the wellbeing requirements could reduce the availability of data needed to inform measures that support inclusion and the wellbeing of disabled people. Why would you not listen to them? There are 1 million people in New Zealand who recognise they have a disability. That’s 1 million; that’s a fifth of our population. Why would you not listen to the people that are there to help advocate for them, when they say that this could reduce the availability of the data they need in order to advocate for decision makers right across this Parliament to make decisions in their best interests? Should we not be a Parliament supporting with the safety nets that the most vulnerable people in this country need?

There’s also the New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine. They submitted that the “wellbeing approaches to budgets are likely to support improved health outcomes”—stuff your targets if your outcomes aren’t being improved—“in particular for groups with poorer health status”, such as Māori, such as Pacific, and those experiencing high levels of deprivation. Once again, it’s a bill full of short-term decision-making which will have huge implications on future generations.

I’ll add one more submission, because this was a very good submission from the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services. They noted that prioritising wellbeing and people-centred approaches in investment decisions aligns with the social investment approach. You’ve pretty much just contradicted yourselves. I thought the social investment unit was your big thing, but no! It “aligns … with the social investment approach”, which aims “to improve the lives of New Zealanders in need.”

Once again, time and time again, as we’re seeing right across the country, it doesn’t take much—when I’m out in public, you have someone grip your arm, and I’ve seen it with Chris Hipkins just this weekend at Pasifika Festival Wellington. He takes a few steps, and someone grips his arm and says, “We need you to win.” And we’re going to win, because of the very clear fact that we are listening to people who are coming to Parliament to say, “Do not get rid of those wellbeing initiatives, because it’s short-term thinking and there are going to be gaps as a result of your short-term decision-making.”

The other interesting thing that I heard across the House today—again, thank you to the National Party research team; a shout-out to you for the key lines that everybody had to read—was the complaining around the spending during COVID. I have said this before: in the two weeks when New Zealand was in level 4 lockdown, I worked in the all-of-Government control centre. At the very first stand-up we had—this is a cross-Government team, basically, that was put together to deal with what we didn’t know was coming—the question was, “How many body bags do we have in New Zealand? How many do we have on order? How many more do we need?” That is not the conversation you want to be a part of, but that’s exactly what we were faced with.

When you are faced with the advice that there is going to be unemployment the size of Palmerston North—the size of Palmerston North—of course you’re going to act. We put through the wage subsidy as part of that $60 billion. We put through the small-business cash-flow loan scheme. We put through the COVID relief scheme for those workers so they could stay connected to their job. And, if you really want to do some reading, go back to the Hansard from that time and have a look at who was supporting that bill. Also, have a look at those then Opposition members complaining that it wasn’t enough—that there needed to be more. This bill is short-term memory thinking as well, but, again, shout-out to the National Party research unit for making those speech notes so everybody else can talk about them.

The interesting thing I found about all of this was the first speaker, and, gosh, that was a speech. It didn’t actually have anything to do with this particular bill, because, ultimately, this is what this bill is also about: the simple fact that someone didn’t know how to read the Budget accounts.

Dr Tracey McLellan: Mind-blowing.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: Mind-blowing. When you are the Opposition finance spokesperson, that is your number one role: read the financial accounts. It does require some work, because you’re going to have to open up a Vote and possibly make a comparison. The fact that there are specific fiscal risks—they’re set out in those books, and if you go to the Vote, you will see if it’s for year one, for year two—for three, for four. It’s not Barbara Edmonds’ fault that the previous Opposition finance spokesperson could not read the books before she became the finance Minister. How is that my fault? How is it Barbara Edmonds’ fault or the Labour Party’s fault?

The fact is the Government promised huge tax cuts. They realised they couldn’t make ends meet. That’s why they didn’t read the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update. They didn’t read it from front to back, and thought, “Oh, actually, maybe we can’t afford those tax cuts. But do you know what? I’m going to put my job on the line and say I’ll resign if we have to borrow for it.” Well, guess what? You borrowed for it, so therefore—I’ll leave that to you. Therefore, again, this is a bill around short-term decision-making that does not take into account the wellbeing of a nation and our most vulnerable people. It is about short-term memories by the Government side of the benches, and once again it’s because the Minister of Finance could not read, when she was the Opposition finance spokesperson.

NANCY LU (National) (21:30): The Government is amending the Public Finance Act to prevent future Governments from exceeding the extent of fiscal risk in Government accounts. These changes are intended to improve the transparency and accountability of future Governments for New Zealanders. The National-led Government are in support because we have nothing to hide. Now, the Opposition members are voting in opposition. They are voting down this bill and New Zealanders should be very, very concerned. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) (21:31): Oh, thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very happy that you chose me to take a call because this is something that I really want to talk about. That is because I am the member for Dunedin—which is a great job to have—but in 2019, I wasn’t. A great Dunedin graduate and person who’s back there now had, in 2019, the first Wellbeing Budget. I can tell you that when I was electioneering in 2020, I was able to talk about this a lot with my colleague Ingrid Leary—and we had even retired finance spokesperson Michael Cullen helping us with our campaign.

Why we were so happy about this approach is that it was not just the short-term thinking of gross domestic product; it’s not just GDP. I have listened to the former National member, Marilyn Waring, when she did all of her research into saying that this GDP, whilst it has some place in our society, only measures that economic activity—and it can be negative activity. If you have an earthquake, there will be an increase in GDP. If you have a massive pollution event, you are likely to have an increase in GDP. So only looking at GDP is a problematic approach to how we consider our finances and how we govern in New Zealand.

The Wellbeing Budget was one step to look into the future and say, “What are those policy decisions that a Government makes when they choose to spend taxpayer money on some things but not others? How do we frame those decisions so that we are looking at the long-term implications of a decision?”

Because we all know that if you choose to buy the cheap thing that is going to break down in five years’ time, you will have spent more money on that than if you’d spent something that was a little bit more expensive up front. That happens and we need to be able to make those decisions, which is why a longer-term framework is useful.

We also know that Budgets are about choices, and having these wellbeing objectives, but also the report on that, meant that these choices can be explained. And we know, like we just heard from Barbara Edmonds, that there are votes in a Budget and there are different years associated with those votes and people can choose to read those Budget documents if they want to. That is transparency and it already exists. More transparency is a great thing and nobody on this side of the House has opposed more transparency, but when that side of the Government says, “Oh, there was a fiscal cliff that we didn’t know about Pharmac.”, when they then chose to not put it in their Budget, it is deeply ironic.

I heard the member for ACT Todd Stephenson yelling about Pharmac, heckling away; then, he had an opportunity to do a speech and he did a speech and he did not cover this issue because he sat down so quickly, unlike his colleague from New Zealand First, who took quite a long time to make his points.

The information was in the Budget. Those politicians, if they had chosen to look at it, knew that. So either they have made a cynical choice to talk about fiscal cliffs or they haven’t read it. It’s a binary option and it’s shameful for them.

Now, these objectives—we had a just transition, increasing physical and mental health, shaping the future of work, lifting wellbeing outcomes for Māori and Pacific people, and improving child wellbeing. These were the outcomes that Budget decisions were making, and those were the choices when this side of the House was in Government, and I hope for all of New Zealand we are back there very soon.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono) (21:36): Thank you. Before I put the question, just a reflection: every now and then, within some of the speeches, the words “you” and “your” are used, and we all know that brings the Speaker into the debate and we don’t want that. I don’t want to interrupt people doing that because it will disturb your flow, but I do want members to be mindful of that.

The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Finance and Expenditure Committee by majority be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Public Finance Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 68

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

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) (21:38): I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? Oh, sorry—that legislative statement is published on the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Second Reading

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) (21:38): I move, That the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee has carefully considered the bill and recommended that it be passed with amendments. I thank the committee for its work and acknowledge the submitters who contributed their views.

As I said during the first reading, this bill is part of a broader package of reforms aimed at streamlining financial services regulation and reducing unnecessary compliance costs while maintaining strong consumer protections. The bill makes targeted amendments to the Financial Markets Conduct Act of 2013 and the Financial Markets Authority Act of 2011 to improve the operation of the regulatory system and support better conduct outcomes.

New Zealand’s financial sector is a critical engine for growth. It channels capital into enterprises and innovations that lift productivity and expand opportunity for New Zealanders. In line with the Government’s going for growth policy, we’re streamlining the legislation to ensure our regulatory settings continue to support well-functioning, trusted markets that foster investment, protect consumers, and enable sustainable economic development.

A key change to the bill following introduction is that it now contains adjustments to the climate-related disclosures regime. This regime requires large financial market entities to report on their climate-related risks and opportunities in annual climate statements. The purpose is to help with the allocation of capital towards activities that are consistent with a transition to a low-emissions, climate-resilient future. Last year, I wrote to the Finance and Expenditure Committee to ask that they consider inserting proposals to amend the climate-related disclosures regime in this bill. I considered that changes were necessary to right-size the regime for New Zealand and to avoid imposing an undue compliance burden on businesses. The committee subsequently called for submissions on the proposals and, ultimately, recommended that they be included.

The proposals are these: firstly, raise the reporting threshold for listed issuers from $16 million in market capitalisation or quoted debt to $1 billion; secondly, remove investment scheme managers from the regime because they are not a good fit for it; thirdly, make changes to the liability settings, including to remove deemed director liability for certain entity breaches as this is hampering useful disclosures and increasing compliance costs. The fourth matter was to enable the monetary reporting thresholds for the regime to be raised but not lowered by Order in Council, with appropriate safeguards, so that we can make adjustments in the future if considered appropriate.

The committee also recommended some further technical amendments. This included removing the requirement for two directors to sign the climate statements, because this should not affect the potential liability or accountability of directors under the Act.

Other key features of the bill were addressed as well. The bill simplifies licensing by requiring the Financial Markets Authority to issue a single market services license to firms, rather than separate licenses for each service. This reduces duplication and compliance burdens. It introduces a requirement for the Financial Markets Authority’s approval for certain significant changes that are made by licensed firms or authorised bodies, such as entering into significant transactions that could affect their ability to meet conduct license criteria.

The bill clarifies and simplifies the minimum requirement for financial institutions’ fair conduct programmes with the conduct of the financial institutions regime. These changes include explicitly requiring communications about the price of products and services to be timely, clear, concise, and effective; adding requirement to resolve consumer complaints in a timely and effective way; further, another one is reducing prescription around training and supervision of staff; removing duplicative requirements that overlap with existing legal obligations; and the bill also formalises a statutory framework for the Financial Markets Authority to undertake on-site inspections, with or without notice, to monitor regulatory compliance.

Minor and technical amendments are included to modernise the legislation, such as: allowing digital recordkeeping and the use of cloud services outside New Zealand; embedding existing Financial Markets Authority exemptions into the legislation to provide long-term certainty; updating definitions and empowering provisions to align with best drafting practice.

I now want to turn to changes that have been recommended by the select committee. The committee has recommended several amendments to improve the bill’s clarity and ensure it aligns with its original policy intent. Clause 4 deletes the definition of price to avoid unnecessary interpretation issues. Clause 18 refines the change in control approval requirements so that they apply only to licensed businesses and removes the need for expert reports and clarifies the Financial Markets Authority’s power to impose conditions and vary license terms. Clause 30 expands the regulation-making power with a change in control approval requirements to allow exemptions for a broader class of persons and transactions. A new appeal right has been added to allow firms to challenge Financial Markets Authority decisions relating to approval under the new regime. Clause 19 would limit the requirement to train and supervise employees to those whose work is relevant to compliance with the fair conduct principle under the conduct of financial institutions regime. Clause 56 extends the Financial Markets Authority’s inspection powers to entities regulated under Part 2 of the Act, not just financial markets participants.

In conclusion, these amendments respond to stakeholder feedback and ensure that the bill is workable, proportionate, and effective. The changes will make it easier for firms to comply with their obligations, strengthen the Financial Markets Authority’s ability to oversee conduct, and, ultimately, improve outcomes for consumers. This is a good bill. I commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) (21:46): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is an interesting clash of ideas, where there is some genuine disagreement between Labour and National, but, broadly, we support many of these technical changes in this bill. We are voting against it at this reading in the hope that after the committee stage we will see some improvements that mean we can support what are, largely, changes which enable the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) to enact and to use some of the new powers that are being enabled by this bill under the new structure that it will have, and to have a role in the market of a regulator that’s getting alongside the businesses and institutions which provide these services and making sure that consumers know what their rights at the same time as doing some of these prosecutions and designation decisions. That’s a good thing, but there are some problems here.

This is a bill that takes the conduct of financial institutions regime, which was brought in because, over a period of time, the conduct of those institutions, the lenders, the insurers, in relation to their customers—it was proven time and time again that New Zealanders weren’t being put first; that the customers, in these scenarios, weren’t enjoying some of the rights that most New Zealanders would expect. Indeed, comparing consumers of those products in New Zealand to their counterparts in Australia, they weren’t getting the same protections.

There’s one way of regulating that kind of conduct, which is to introduce harsh penalties, introduce a top-down regime, but the conduct of financial institutions regime was bottom-up: about making sure that staff and people who work in those institutions had the right sort of training, the right sort of oversight, and the right sort of systems in place so that there was never a compromise on what the customer was getting and that there was always a protection there for consumers around some of these really important products.

At the end of the day, your mortgage, your lending on your car, your insurance—those are incredibly important to not only your quality of life but your cost of living, and those are going up for New Zealanders at the moment under the decisions that we are seeing taken by this Government. It’s important that not only are we focused on bringing those prices down, but that people are also getting what they’re paying for.

This is a bill which swims in the other direction; it makes it easier for institutions—and not all of them, absolutely not, but a few players in the market we’ve seen over time taking advantage of New Zealand consumers because they don’t have some of those protections that other countries we like to compare ourselves to have. They know that they can play a hardball game, and that when your, say, insurer—a licensed institution—is negotiating with you, little mum and dad with your products, absolutely, consumers in New Zealand do not have any sort of power to negotiate the terms. That’s why we need clear consumer protections here, and that’s why the regime was a good idea. Perhaps it needed some tweaks, but this is a large-scale reversal of many of those protections.

We want, at the committee stage, to be able to debate with the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs an amendment which would reflect the need to protect consumers when FMA is using its powers, particularly of delegation, to designate products which need to comply with the conduct of financial institutions regime and the rest of the Financial Markets Conduct Act architecture. It’s important here that it’s clear to financial institutions that if we are walking away from some of these more prescriptive regimes here—so, the more prescriptive training and oversight regime, fine, that’s up to the Government. If they think, based on their advice, that they can walk back on that, then that’s over to them, but we want to make sure that those uses of the powers that the FMA do have, and that we expect them to use in the interests of consumers, are always being exercised in that way. I’ll get to a specific amendment that we would also suggest to the Minister about buy now, pay later soon in my speech.

I want to also point to the things we do agree with; those powers of the FMA: we do agree that there were some technical amendments to be made to the climate disclosures regime and engaged with the amendment that the Minister helpfully sent to select committee before the committee stage. It was good to be able to hear submissions on those points. It was good to hear New Zealand businesses describing the level of compliance and the way that they had used resources around reporting on those.

But we must make sure that we’re getting the balance right here. When the Minister says that those resources will be better spent on climate mitigation work that we know needs to happen—everyone in this House can agree with that. It’s important that not only is the Government getting the signals right, but that our financial markets and business community are playing their part—and, for the most part, the part they want to play—to reduce New Zealand’s long-term climate risk. We have to get those settings right. The amendment that you’ll see from Labour is around the caps for reporting. To jump right up to $1 billion would exclude a huge number of businesses that are already reporting and already are in a position to continue to report because of their international obligations.

It seems reasonable that though different parties can disagree on the technical aspects of this, the who’s in and who’s out should be about choosing those businesses that are in a position to be able to do this, to expend their resources, to be able to respond to some of the climate risks, and can lead the market in New Zealand and meet obligations internationally that we all have as New Zealanders and that the Government has signed up to.

Those amendments are going to be key to Labour’s support but it’s also worth asking ourselves: what are we really trying to do here? Because at the end of the day, we want this financial markets conduct regime to work for the people who it’s meant to benefit, for those people who, you know—any electorate MP will have dealt with these cases where we get people who come through the door and their lives have been significantly impacted by something that has gone on with their insurer or something that has gone on with the their bank or their lender. The stakes are incredibly high for getting this right for people and making sure that consumers always have faith that the rules are fair and that the rules will be followed or there will be harsh penalties is a really key role that the Government plays in our economy to make sure that people have faith in the system and that there is a level playing field.

It comes back to this idea about the introduction of the conduct regime was very close to this Government’s now reversal of much of that, so it didn’t get a chance to bed in. When I speak to financial mentors around the country who are dealing with those constituents that we have, too, who have had an issue with their insurer—perhaps they’re paying far, far too much for their car insurance product, or a woman I spoke to who was paying for paint insurance, which she never could claim on. You know those financial mentors are pointing out to me that if we had a regime which had bedded in, which had become industry norm, and which was largely becoming industry norm anyway, then those sorts of cases wouldn’t be happening.

For the Government to have made these changes—look, it’s premature, but we’re up for change. I mean, you’ve got the lid off and you’re making changes on this now. Many of those amendments that have been made at the committee stage, they wouldn’t have been what we would have chosen but they are reasonable and they’re sensible, based on the industry feedback, and so we can find some common ground there. But we need to keep in mind that this regime is in place because when people are subject to terms which are grossly unfair, there is a penalty regime, but there also needs to be protection for that happening in the first place.

Nobody who—any of you, as electorate MPs, who have talked to, who have had an issue with their insurer, were hoping for their insurer to be punished. They were hoping for that issue to never have happened to them in the first place, so to have a sort of forward-looking regime is incredibly important. That’s why we welcome these extra powers for the FMA.

In my final couple of minutes, I just want to raise this issue around the designation powers of the FMA. Largely the changes in this section because of the new structure for the FMA, alongside a new structure for the Commerce Commission. This is broadly something which will be beneficial in the provision of financial services products in New Zealand, but the designation powers need to be something which is enduring and cross-partisan. They cannot be something which Cabinet dictates because that is open to a raft of competing interests which, you know—this should be a decision which is evidence based and based on harms to consumers where the FMA is the right referee in the game. I’m talking here about buy now, pay later. This was a missed opportunity to give the FMA power to designate buy now, pay later products as part of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act regime. They don’t have this power now and they should. They should because, even if they don’t make that designation, New Zealand consumers should be able to say that is a decision for the regulator, it is a decision made based on the amount of consumer harm that they’re seeing in New Zealand, that they monitor that, and that users of those products can be assured that the penalties are right.

These are young New Zealanders. These are people who haven’t got credit records and don’t have security attached to it. These are products which are largely unregulated in New Zealand now because of that Cabinet’s decisions, and it would be better if FMA had those powers here. I look forward to discussing this through that at the committee stage. But, until then, Labour opposes the debate.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.