Thursday, 12 March 2026

Thursday, 12 March 2026

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Start of Sitting Day

Karakia/Prayers

BARBARA KURIGER (Deputy 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.

Personal Explanations

Question No. 6 to Minister, 11 March 2026

Amended Answer to Oral Question

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health) (14:01): Point of order. I seek leave to make a personal explanation to correct an answer to an oral question.

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

Hon SIMEON BROWN: In answer to question No. 6 yesterday, I said that vaccine mandates and workplace settings for the 12- to 17-year age group remained in place until late January 2022. This was based on written Ministry of Health advice which the ministry has since acknowledged was incorrect as it related to booster mandates rather than the primary two-dose series. The correct position is that these mandates remained in place until 4 April 2022.

Business of the House

Business Statement

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Deputy Leader of the House) (14:01): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, the House will adjourn until Tuesday, 24 March. That week, the House will consider the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2024–25, Emergency Response, and Remedial Measures) Bill, the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill, and the Antisocial Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill. On Wednesday, the general debate will be replaced by a debate on the Budget Policy Statement, and the hours of Wednesday will be extended into Thursday morning.

Presentation

Petitions

SPEAKER (14:02): A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK (14:02):Petition of Consumer New Zealand requesting that the House urge the relevant Minister to recommend regulations under the Civil Aviation Act that require airlines to tell passengers about their rights when their flights are disrupted.

SPEAKER: That petition is referred to the Petitions Committee.

Papers

SPEAKER (14:02): I present the report of the Controller and Auditor-General entitled Chatham Islands Council: Inquiry into sensitive expenditure and procurement, and that paper is published under the authority of the House.

Select Committee Reports

SPEAKER (14:03): Four select committee reports have been delivered for presentation.

CLERK (14:03):Reports of the Social Services and Community Committee on the 2024-25 annual reviews of the:

Ministry of Housing and Urban Development

Ministry of Social Development

Social Investment Agency, and

Sport Integrity Commission.

SPEAKER: No bills have been introduced.

Points of Order

Oral Questions—Ministerial Responsibility and Royal Commission into COVID-19 Inquiry

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries) (14:03): Point of order. Sir, Standing Order 390 deals with the conduct of members, the quality of questions, and I’m seeking some guidance from you. The Rt Hon Winston Peters and a host of others addressed yesterday and the day before some very important issues related to the royal commission related to the COVID inquiry. Question time is an opportunity for us as members to test what falls within the responsibility of given Ministers. The Minister of Health has been given responsibility for the carriage of the royal commission and what responses may come from the Crown.

I seek some guidance from you to the extent that question time can continually be used for us to go to the nub of this issue. Testing what officials have done, testing what former publicly elected Ministers may have done or not done is surely a constitutional right of us as members. Then why are we being closed down, yesterday and the day before, in terms of apparently eliciting opinions when opinions are very, very much permissible in terms of a Minister's responses if that Minister holds responsibility for something, which the Hon Simeon Brown does, i.e. the royal commission?

Now, I know that the various Speakers’ rulings are somewhat awkward, but Speakers’ rulings, not the least of which 200/5 and onwards make it absolutely clear that what my colleague was doing is within Standing Orders and within Speakers’ rulings.

Now, you are right to ensure that we don’t stray too far from what Standing Order 390 requires, but for a host of New Zealanders, as to whether or not their children may suffer long-term illness, is something that we are entitled to inquire into. Can you provide some clarification, please?

SPEAKER (14:05): Well, firstly, thank you for acknowledging that you consider that I was at least partially right, in your opinion. I did think, as I saw a question on the sheet today that I thought was going to go to this matter, that I should come to the House prepared to answer some of the questions that you have just outlined.

You’re right to say that the purpose of question time is to scrutinise the current executive and hold it to account. For that reason, Ministers are required to answer in a way that addresses the question, if they can do so consistent with public interest. That is providing the question is consistent, itself, with Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings.

Now, despite what you think, I didn’t shut down questions yesterday; I simply said some questions could be worded better, and, indeed, they were. In considering the public interest, Ministers may address principles such as privacy or national security, but they should not use it in a way of avoiding scrutiny under Standing Order 396 and Speaker’s ruling 199/6. It’s for Ministers, not the Speaker, to judge the public interest—Speaker’s ruling 199/6. Consideration of public interest applies to answers to questions rather than to the asking of questions.

The primary condition in asking a question is ministerial responsibility. Ministers may only be asked about “public affairs [for] which [they] are officially connected, proceedings of the House or [matters] of administration for which [they are] responsible”—Standing Order 388. “If there is no ministerial responsibility, there can be no questions.”—Speaker’s ruling 173/5; Ministers are not responsible to the House for the action of previous Governments or of political parties—Speakers’ rulings 178/3 and 178/4. “In respect of the activities of [a] previous Government, which the Minister has had to confront as a Minister … it is legitimate … to comment on those,”—Speakers’ ruling 180/4.

The question would go to: how is the comment elicited by way of the question? That does not open the door to using questions from governing parties to attack other members—Speakers’ ruling 181/3, or to bring parties not involved in the question into the answer—Speaker’s rulings 200/5 and 200/4.

The question that you started asking was: if there was public interest in this, how are we to get to the nub of the matter? I would have thought that was the purpose of selecting the royal commission itself and for having a royal commission report. How the Government deals with it may well be questioned.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries) (14:09): Point of order. Are you saying that Speaker’s ruling 200/5 does not apply in us inquiring into how this Minister intends to account to New Zealanders for content in a royal commission report which raises extraordinarily dangerous questions about either negligence or wilful ignorance?

SPEAKER (14:09): No, I’m not saying that. Speakers’ ruling 205/5 says “Ministers should not commence an answer to a question with a political attack on the person asking the question.” Now, that’s not happened, as far as I know. The questions were asked from the Government’s side and answered from the Government’s side. “This is totally outside Standing Orders. (2)”—to follow that other course of action—“[It’s] especially true of answers to written questions”, and it goes on in that vein.

But in the end, the Minister has responsibility for response to a royal commission. Questions can be asked about how he’s going to respond to that. The question itself should not contain attacks on other members in the House. That’s the longstanding practice here, not brought in by me but going back as far as 1929.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries) (14:10): Point of order. Thank you for that response, but, inevitably, when my colleague is inquiring and testing the knowledge of the Minister—and in his interactions he’s not only responsible to the House but to the public—then how do you imagine we are going to avoid a situation where we are commenting on the office holders who may have done wrong or who may have been called out by the commission in terms of not providing adequate information to assure New Zealanders that their children are not going to get ill? That’s more than reasonable for a type of question.

SPEAKER (14:11): Well, the question would be, then, to the Minister—effectively, asking what the public can see for themselves by reading the royal commission report, and what does the commission say about these matters, but it cannot be an attack on the individual. That’s the constraint that is put on questions for the ability for the executive to be scrutinised.

Oral Questions to Ministers

Social Development and Employment

Question No. 1

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (14:11) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: How many more people are receiving the jobseeker support benefit today compared to when the Government took office in 2023?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:11): Labour left our Government with challenging economic conditions, with close to 190,000 people—

SPEAKER: There is a different way to start that answer, and I’d suggest you use it.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Point of order.

SPEAKER: I’m not giving you instruction, but point of order, the Hon Louise Upston.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Just in terms of the interchange that you had with the Hon Shane Jones, one of the points was the ability of a Minister to answer a question in terms of the context or the circumstances in which they came into office. So I would have thought that that answer that I had started was in order.

SPEAKER: Yes, I know you did; that’s why you started it. But I think there is a different way of wording it.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Speaking to the point of order, sir. Thank you, sir. This was a primary question on notice, and Speakers’ rulings are quite clear that if a question is political in nature, then members should expect a political response. But when not only is it on notice but the content of the question is such that it is a very straightforward question asking for details that aren’t political in nature, we should be able to expect a direct response without political content.

SPEAKER: Well, I don’t think you could run that there was political content there; I just thought that the Minister could have started talking about “At the start of our term, this was the position”, rather than going straight to the mention of another party and the attack on it. The Hon Louise Upston.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: When our Government came into office, we faced incredibly challenging economic conditions, and at that point there were close to 190,000 people on jobseeker support. Those numbers have been steadily rising since 2022, which is before we took office. The COVID-19 royal commission inquiry has found the previous Government’s increased spending drove up debt, inflation, and interest rates, which leads to higher unemployment. In an economic downturn, employment is always the last thing to come right, which is why the forecast has always been for the numbers to get worse before they get better. As of December, the quarterly figures show 223,500 people on jobseeker support, which is why our Government is focused on a more active welfare system to support people into work as conditions improve.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Are we really seeing the “green shoots of economic recovery”, as she claimed yesterday, when 7 percent of New Zealand’s working-age population are now on jobseeker support—a new record?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Yes. If you look at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report that came out in January this year, it shows that business confidence is at the highest it’s been since 2014. What does higher business confidence do? That is when firms start employing again, hiring more staff, and paying higher wages. How do we reduce the number of people on the jobseeker benefit? When the economy is growing, firms have more confidence, and they are hiring more people.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Is it a sign of green shoots when the number of young people—18- to 24-year-olds—on jobseeker has grown by 32 percent on her watch, as reported by Radio New Zealand?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Mr Speaker, let me refer you to others: the ANZ Bank economists who say more choosing to participate in the Labour market is consistent—

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: No, ignoring the real stats.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON:—with rising job opportunities. The previous Minister wants to hear stats; that’s what I’m talking about. The latest filled jobs data shows, for example, the strongest annual growth in the hospitality sector, with jobs—

Glen Bennett: How about those young people who are unemployed?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON:—up to—well, many of the young are working in hospitality; 19 percent increase compared with the previous quarter. I think that’s pretty good.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Is it a sign of green shoots when unemployment is at a 10-year high?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, as I’ve said, the incoming Government would have liked to have had a very different economic set of circumstances than we inherited, but, instead, what are we doing? We are dealing those challenges. We have a much more active welfare system; we’ve got 70,000 people in case management, some of those over the phone; we have introduced a traffic light system so more people know what their obligations are; 90 percent of those on the jobseeker benefit say that is helpful to them. We want to ensure New Zealanders are ready, as the economic conditions improve—for them to grab those opportunities with two hands.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Was the Prime Minister wrong when he said in May last year that “Unemployment is just almost peaking and about to come down.”, given there are now more people on jobseeker support than at the height of COVID-19?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, as we know, the unemployment rate is where Treasury forecast it would be, and, as I accept, it is higher than anyone would like. For any individual who finds themselves without a job, it’s incredibly difficult for them and their family. That is why our Government is absolutely focused on economic growth, on creating the conditions where businesses have more confidence to employ more staff. As I said, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report that came out in January says business confidence is at the highest rate since 2014. I think that’s something to celebrate.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Is it correct that she is currently missing her jobseeker reduction target by more than 83,000?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said in answer to the primary question, jobseeker numbers were always going to get worse before they get better. Look, the number is higher than any of us would like. I’m focused on ensuring that the welfare system is more active; that means more job seekers get more contact with the Ministry of Social Development to improve their chances of finding a job, and that’s exactly what I’ll continue my focus on.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Has Treasury advised her that at best she is going to miss her jobseeker reduction target by more than 60,000 people in 2030?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, I remain optimistic that our economic plan is working, and, as I said, business confidence is the highest it’s been since 2014. Will we get the target or not? We’ll get close, and for every single one of those people coming off welfare into work, it makes an enormous difference for them, their families, and the communities, and that’s what I’ll continue to focus on.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: When will she stop blaming the previous Government and instead admit that her Government’s plan for growth is only growing unemployment, growing poverty, growing homelessness, and increasing numbers of Kiwis having to move abroad for opportunities?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, I actually give New Zealanders far more credit than that member does. When you think about more than 50 percent of the Government’s spending during the years of COVID-19, having nothing to do with COVID-19, what does that sort of level of spending do? It drives up inflation, drives up interest rates, creates challenging economic conditions, creates challenging cost of living, and unemployment rises. We are focused on that, and that is why we have a far more active welfare system that is supporting New Zealanders. I am really proud that despite those challenges, 83,000 New Zealanders left welfare for a job, in the last year. That’s something worth celebrating.

Social Development and Employment

Question No. 2

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (14:20) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Is she concerned about Treasury’s advice that the Iran war energy price shock could increase inflation; if so, what impact, if any, does she expect this will have on the growing number of unemployed people needing welfare support?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:20): I am concerned, as are all members of the Government, that the conflict in the Middle East could have an impact on the New Zealand economy and on New Zealanders. As the Minister of Finance has said, the economic impact of the conflict remains unclear, and the long-term implications for New Zealanders will depend on the duration and scale of the conflict. Right now, it is too soon to judge whether the impacts will last long enough to materially reduce levels of expected growth and employment in the New Zealand economy. That is why we have an active welfare system, and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) continues to assist people who need welfare support.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is she making any preparations for an increase in inflation that could lead to an increase in the number of people requiring welfare support as a result of the potentially prolonged Iran war?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said in the answer to my primary question, the economic impact of the conflict remains unknown, and that will depend on a number of factors, which includes the severity and duration of the conflict.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Has she introduced any bills that will leave the growing number of people requiring welfare support worse off?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: What we are very committed to doing is ensuring that we have a fair welfare system that supports people in their time of need and treats people equally so that we don’t have a system that takes two different groups of people receiving income and treats them differently.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Has that left people worse off?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: No, because that is the practice that is under way at the moment. If somebody receives income in a block amount—e.g., backdated ACC as a lump sum—and if that means that they were then not entitled to some of the MSD assistance, they have to pay it back. That is no different from any other form of assistance through MSD. Where there is an overpayment, people pay it back.

Ricardo Menéndez March: What does she say to people who have boarders, including disabled people, who are being basically left worse off as a result of bills that she has introduced and passed?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The member is referring to a measure in Budget 2025, which, again, is about fairness. If people have income from boarders, it should be counted against any housing or income support they receive from taxpayers. We want a fair, transparent, and equal system where those who require support get it if they don’t unnecessarily burden other taxpayers with support they shouldn’t have access to.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she agree with economist Brad Olsen that “we know that the number of jobs being advertised in the economy are still 25 percent lower than pre-pandemic”, and if so, how does she expect more beneficiaries to fill fewer jobs?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said in the answer to my previous question, what we are seeing with the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research is that business confidence is the highest it’s been since 2014. Business confidence rising means businesses are taking on more staff. Those staff they have, they might be offering them more hours and increasing their pay. That is what helps us as a country turn the corner, and when employers are taking on more staff, that directly assists us with reducing the number of people on the jobseeker benefit. Initiatives like ChamberWorks, that we launched last week, connect MSD job seekers with the largest pool of employers across the country.

Scott Willis: Does she have concerns for people needing more advances to deal with the cost of fuel and bills, which will put them further into debt, and what does the Government intend to do about it?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said, it is too early to see what the economic impact will be of the conflict. The welfare system is there to support people during a time of need, and they will continue to do that.

Scott Willis: What does she say to Presbyterian Support Otago social work team leader Jollene Warrington, who said, “People are struggling with mental health and wellbeing due to the financial pressure of how to meet their basic needs.”, and how will an extra liquefied natural gas levy on electricity affect those already being forced to choose between heating and eating?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, the policy that the member refers to is about lowering energy prices, but let me say this: our Government fully accepts that there are too many New Zealanders today who are finding it challenging, and the cost of living is challenging many families and households. That is why we will continue to focus on economic growth. That is why we know economic growth provides job opportunities, which means families and individuals can meet their requirements in a stronger way. We will not resile from our single focus on the cost of living and growing the economy.

Statistics

Question No. 3

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Tai Tonga) (14:26) to the Minister of Statistics: Does he agree with analysis from Te Kāhui Raraunga that replacing the five-yearly census with administrative data, small-sample surveys, and targeted data collection “will build in a bias that favours numerically dominant groups, and will further invisibilise some Māori individuals, whānau, and communities”?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Statistics) (14:26): The traditional five-yearly survey model is no longer financially sustainable, operationally reliable, or able to produce timely, high-quality data. That is why the census is evolving to use administrative data first, which offers a more efficient, resilient, and responsive foundation for population statistics. I do acknowledge the concerns raised by Te Kāhui Raraunga; this Government takes these concerns seriously, and I also note that these concerns were not necessarily addressed by previous censuses. Stats New Zealand is confident in the use of integrated administrative data at counting the population even better than a full-field enumeration census. In implementing this, Stats New Zealand is committed to working with iwi Māori, including Te Kāhui Raraunga, on the design, planning, and implementation of the new census approach.

Tākuta Ferris: Does the Minister accept that resource allocation, electoral boundaries, and democratic representation rely on accurate population data; if so, what guarantee can the Government give Māori that they will not be under-counted under the newly proposed system?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: In answer to the first arm of the question, yes. In answer to the second, I would note that in the enumerated 2023 Census, administrative data significantly improved the under-count in Māori descent.

Tākuta Ferris: Will the Minister commit to upholding Māori data sovereignty, as a right grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, by working with Māori data experts to implement the Māori Data Governance Model co-designed with Government in 2023 for the protection and governance of Māori data?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: What I commit to is Stats New Zealand continuing to collaborate with iwi Māori on these matters, including Te Kāhui Raraunga and including 20 relationships that they have bilaterally with iwi Māori.

Māori Development

Question No. 4

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) (14:28) to the Minister for Māori Development: Does the Minister stand by his Government’s track record for Māori, and, if so, why?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Minister for Māori Development) (14:28): Yes, whether it’s Minister Brown leading improved Māori two-year-old immunisation rates, from the terrible 64 percent it was in October 2023 to 68 percent now; or Minister Willis leading the tax relief for Māori that resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars remaining in Māori whānau hands; or Minister Seymour overseeing a 12 percent increase in kids going to school since 2023; or Minister Jones eloquently articulating a geothermal strategy that will ignite investment in Māori land; or Minister Goldsmith cracking on with law and order policies that have reduced the 12-month levels of Māori victims of crime from 43,733 to 4,650. We don’t speak from the podium of truth but from the crucible of outcomes. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: The House is about to hear a question and the only person speaking or making noise will be the questioner.

Hon Willie Jackson: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister accept that his track record in terms of cutting Māori and targeted funding in areas like Māori housing, Māori broadcasting, and Māori trade training has resulted in a record 10-year high of Māori unemployment, and if not, why not?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Yes, we have inherited the fiscal cliff of Māori broadcasting that the member who asked the question had left us, but we continue to support Māori broadcasting and, indeed, te reo māhorahora i roto i tēnei Whare [the widespread language within this House.]

And I am so stoked that 5,500 Māori have come off the jobseeker benefit in the quarter up to quarter 3, 2025, and the hundreds of homes—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Look, calling out a question is not acceptable. It’s not a question; it’s just a barrage. You’ve got supplementary questions. If you need a question answered, then use your allocation to ask them.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: I will start my answer again, Mr Speaker. We unfortunately have inherited a fiscal cliff in Māori broadcasting left by the member opposite. We have seen nearly 5,500 Māori come off the jobseeker benefit in the quarter ending September 2025. We continue with a serious housing programme alongside, with, and for Māori, particularly in places like Hopuhopu, alongside Waikato-Tainui and their $35 million we committed to with Te Kauhanganui o Te Whakakitenga, the hundred homes that are being built up in Kaikohekohe right now by Te Hau Ora o Ngāpuhi, and of course those homes that are being finished on Haruru Falls Road by Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, or indeed the homes that are being finished right now in Ohakune by my relations in Ngāti Rangi or maybe even those homes that are yet to be built but will be built by Willie Jackson’s in-laws right now in Te Teko.

Hon Willie Jackson: What specific target has the Minister set to reduce Māori unemployment in this term, and when is he planning to see a reduction for Māori who are suffering under the Minister’s policies?

SPEAKER: One of those questions can be answered.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Employment targets of course are the responsibility of the Minister for Social Development and Employment and we have seen a number of projects that have been supported by this Government, whether in infrastructure, whether or not it’s fusion technology, fusion energy, and whether it’s housing, which have seen serious numbers of Māori being employed across the country. We have also seen a huge effort to ensure that those people that have got some significant challenges around mental health are supported, and I mihi out to Minister Matt Doocey, the Crusaders’ champion, for his mahi.

Hon Willie Jackson: Does he agree with Tainui leader Tuku Morgan that the Government’s track record for Māori communities has been marginalised and minimised with all the pieces of the legislation that has been demolished by this Government, and, if not, why not?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: I agree with Waikato-Tainui leader Tuku Morgan, who was effusive in his praise for this Government continuing the serious support of Te Matatini—the largest support ever for kapa haka in the history and herstory of this country—for the massive support that we gave Waikato-Tainui around housing in Hopuhopu—I know many of the Opposition members have never been there; you might get there one day—and, of course, for that coal stack that is now providing some energy resilience at the back end of Rāhui Pōkeka. Tēnā tātou.

Hon Willie Jackson: Does the Minister agree with Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour that Te Puni Kōkiri should be absorbed into the Ministry of arts, culture, and heritage; and can he reassure Māori that he will not let this happen?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: I’m not responsible for the comments of Minister Seymour, but maybe you should check the accuracy of those comments.

Hon Willie Jackson: They’re pretty accurate. I’m sure he’ll confirm it. Thank you.

SPEAKER: That “pretty accurate” comment is not appropriate when you’re on your feet. You will just withdraw and apologise for that little outburst.

Hon Willie Jackson: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon David Seymour: Point of order. I don’t believe I’ve ever made those comments as Deputy Prime Minister.

SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s fine. OK.

Hon Willie Jackson: Does he accept that his track record has resulted in more Māori unemployed, double that of non-Māori, cuts to Māori-targeted initiatives, and Ministers undermining his own ministry; if not, why not?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Yes, my ministry is involved and responsible for advocating for the increased employment of Māori, but it wasn’t too long ago under a Labour Government that the number of Māori unemployed was around 25 percent.

SPEAKER: Question No. 5—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: Beg your pardon?

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: Supplementary question, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, and no one else speaking.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he stand by this Government’s track record for Māori arts and culture, and in particular the decision to continue to properly fund Te Matatini, which the previous Government had announced—

SPEAKER: No, no.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: —but not properly funded?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Absolutely. I absolutely agree and stand by the record around supporting Te Matatini and a number of other arts, culture, and heritage matters that Minister Goldsmith’s responsible for.

Justice

Question No. 5

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (14:35) to the Minister of Justice: What progress has the Government made towards fixing the basics in law and order?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) (14:35): Great progress. Restoring law and order is a core focus of our plan to fix the basics. We banned gang patches, reintroduced tougher sentences for serious offending, and made stalking an illegal and imprisonable offence. Shortly, we will be introducing legislation to give police more tools to deal with disorderly behaviour in public places, and, today, the hard-working Justice Committee’s begun hearing submitters on the Government’s reform of the Crimes Act, which will further ensure criminals face real consequences for crime. The good news is that in two years, we’ve made great progress with 49,000 fewer victims of crime.

Tom Rutherford: What does the Crimes Amendment Bill do?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, that’s a very good question. The reform of the Crimes Act includes a raft of changes, including new specific offences for assaulting first responders or prison officers, two new specific coward-punch offences, and a new shoplifting infringement regime, as committed to in the National - New Zealand First coalition agreement, that gives effect to the Government’s expansion of the citizen’s arrest powers so business owners have an additional tool to protect their livelihoods, and, finally, it strengthens the trafficking and people smuggling rules to stop criminals using loopholes to evade real consequences for crime. I want to thank those who have submitted on this bill to the Justice Committee, particularly those who have shared their harrowing stories and experiences of being victims of crime. This Government’s working to do something about it.

Tom Rutherford: Why is the Government giving police an additional tool to address disorderly behaviour in our communities?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Because we want all New Zealanders to enjoy vibrant, welcoming, and safe town centres that are not blighted by disruption and disturbance. Fixing the basics in law and order means, in this case, reclaiming our streets so that those who live, work, and visit can enjoy these public places. We have many tools to help those in need, and there’s always more work to do there, but we also need some tools to deal with disorderly behaviour and to reclaim our streets for the enjoyment of those who live there.

Tom Rutherford: What update can he provide on the Government’s initiative to clamp and seize vehicles of those with overdue court fines?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, real consequences for crime mean that people need to pay their fines if the courts have imposed them. The Government’s initiative to clamp and seize cars of people not paying court fines has been highly successful, returning more than $700,000 and seizing 236 vehicles. Victims are always the priority of our justice system, and they should not be left out of pocket if they’ve suffered harm or had their property damaged. Between July 2025 and February 2026, bailiffs scanned 147,000 number plates and identified 2,866 people with overdue court fines and reparations. Six hundred of those paid on the spot. Eighty vehicles have been sold at auction, another 20 will go under the hammer, and there’s work on all the others.

Health

Question No. 6

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) (14:38) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by all of his actions and statements?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health) (14:39): In the context in they were made, yes.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does his statement regarding the Royal Commission of Inquiry and the concerns of the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group about a two-dose vaccine mandate for 12- to 17-year-olds, that is “Former Ministers were informed of those concerns”?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Yes.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: In the context of the inquiry, is the statement “The Vaccine Technical Advisory Group advise against two doses for 12- to 17-year-olds never went to Ministers, and the Royal Commissioner finds that.”; is that a fair representation of what the report says?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The royal commission found that the Hon Chris Hipkins was informed of the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group’s concerns in a briefing on 22 December 2021, and that this briefing was considered by the Hon Ayesha Verrall on 7 January 2022.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Did the inquiry find that Ministers were aware of the technical advisory group’s concerns about the risks of double dosing under-18-year-olds?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The royal commission found that the briefing was received by the Hon Chris Hipkins on 22 December 2021 which raised concerns from the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group. It was considered by the Hon Ayesha Verrall on 7 January 2022. The royal commission also found that the Hon Ayesha Verrall made a comment on the specific advice related to the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group’s concerns, and I’m advised that this comment referenced data relating to safety concerns. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: One speaker—one person asking questions.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Did the inquiry find that Ministers were informed of the concerns of the technical advisory group regarding risks to young people from double doses of vaccines; if so, what did the advice to Ministers say?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The royal commission found that the Hon Chris Hipkins was informed of the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group’s concerns in a briefing on 22 December 2021, and this briefing was considered by the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall on 7 January 2022. The briefing stated in paragraph 23, “In November 2021, CV TAG has raised concerns about vaccine mandates requiring younger age groups (e.g. [those under] 18 years) to be fully vaccinated. Consideration should be given to permitting younger people who have had one dose to be permitted to work or undertake other activities covered by the mandate.”

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why, after more than four years, has the Ministry of Health not published the 22 December 2021 briefing and kept it hidden, and why does this briefing not appear in the Ministry’s list of briefings provided to Minister Hipkins in December of 2021?

Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order, sir. The suggestion that a ministry kept information hidden surely is an inference that shouldn’t be allowed in a question.

SPEAKER: Well, I didn’t take it as an inference because the question started with the word “why”. I think it’s a simple inquiry.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, the royal commission found the briefing was provided to the Hon Chris Hipkins on 22 December 2021 and considered by the Hon Ayesha Verrall on 7 January 2022. I’m not aware of why this briefing was not publicly released. That would be a question for the Ministry of Health or the Rt Hon Chris Hipkins.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What commitment can he give as Minister of Health that the impropriety described in the royal commission’s inquiry regarding the forced administration of vaccines to children will not be repeated under his watch?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Well, I have raised expectations with the Director-General of Health that advice is made sufficiently clear to both Ministers and the public. Equally, I understand that as a Minister, I’m obligated to question advice as it is presented to me. Ultimately, improving immunisation rates is a key policy of this Government. That’s why we have brought back the target on increasing immunisations for two-year-olds, and we need to ensure young New Zealanders have the best possible start to life. It is critically important that we have transparency about the information we have in this regard.

Health

Question No. 7

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (14:43) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made about supporting first-year GP trainees?

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Health) (14:44): Well, this Government is making it easier for new doctors to choose general practice as their specialty by changing the way first-year GP trainees are employed. From next year, first-year GP trainees who are not already employed by a private practice will remain employed by Health New Zealand during their first year of training. This removes a longstanding barrier where doctors had to leave hospital employment when moving into GP training and risked losing employment conditions and continuity of service. By keeping them employed by Health New Zealand, we’re making general practice a more attractive career path and strengthening the pipeline of GPs so more New Zealanders can access timely primary care.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: Why is it important to remove these barriers for doctors entering GP training?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Primary care is the cornerstone of our health system, and if we want New Zealanders to be able to see a GP when they need one, we must make it easier and more attractive for doctors to train in general practice. Under the current system, some doctors face disruption to leave entitlements and employment conditions when moving from hospital training into general practice. Removing that barrier provides greater certainty and fairness for trainees and encourages more doctors to pursue careers as GPs. The sector has been calling out for this change since 2022. We heard their calls, and we have delivered.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: What feedback has he received about this change?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The feedback from across the sector has been very positive. The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners has welcomed the move, noting that it ensures GP trainees have the same pay and employment conditions as their peers, which helps keep the system fair and make general practice a more attractive option for young doctors. The New Zealand Resident Doctors’ Association has also welcomed the announcement, describing the change as correcting a “longstanding anomaly” for GP trainees. Initiatives such as this are all part of this Government’s plan to fix the basics and build the future.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: What other steps is the Government taking to strengthen our GP workforce?

Hon SIMEON BROWN: This Government is taking a comprehensive approach to growing our primary care workforce. That includes increasing medical training places across Auckland and Otago by 100 per year over the course of this Government; establishing a Waikato medical school, which will train an additional 120 doctors each year from 2028; funding 100 overseas trained doctors already living in New Zealand to begin work in GP practices over the next two years; funding up to 50 New Zealand - trained graduate doctors a year to train in primary care settings; and fully funding GP training fees for all three years of the programme, aligning it with other medical specialties. All of this is about building a stronger GP pipeline so New Zealanders can get the care they need when they need it.

Economic Growth

Question No. 8

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) (14:46) to the Minister for Economic Growth: Do 32,000 fewer people in work compared to two years ago reflect a growing economy; if so, why?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS (Minister for Economic Growth) (14:47): No, but 15,000 more people in work compared to three months ago does.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Still can’t do numbers.

SPEAKER: Hang on. One person—

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: That’d be Ginny who can’t do numbers.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Operating balance before gains and losses.

SPEAKER: No, just ask your question.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Are the 350 jobs at risk from the Wattie’s restructure a sign that the economy is growing?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: I want to extend my sympathies to the Heinz-Wattie’s team at this tough time, including employees currently being consulted with, as well as growers, suppliers, and the communities that support them. New Zealand’s manufacturing industry has faced challenges for several years, and supply chain disruption and global tariffs, along with inflationary pressure, have created headwinds for export-driven businesses. Broadly speaking, I am receiving positive feedback from the wider manufacturing industry that sentiment is improving. In the latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, manufacturing is leading business confidence at 77 points. The latest BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index also shows the sector expanding, with a reading of 55.2—above the level that indicates overall growth.

Hon Ginny Andersen: What opportunities for growth are there for the 220 growers that supply produce for Wattie’s?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Again, I want to acknowledge that this will be a period of significant uncertainty for those growers, who are some of the best in the world at what they do—who grow food that is nutritious, and they do so in an efficient manner. There is global demand for the quality of food that New Zealand produces, and while I, again, acknowledge that this is an uncertain time for those suppliers, it is likely that there will still be demand for the products they produce.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Is Wattie’s closing its frozen vegetable supply going to improve grocery competition?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: No.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Is it a sign of growth when 17,000 people attend a jobs fair in Auckland, when only 100 employers were looking for workers?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: Unlike that member, I say good on all of those people who went to that job fair; I say good on them for going out and looking for work. And I say to them, in the last three months, 15,000 more jobs were created, and we are doing everything we can to have an economy that supports more jobs being created. To every New Zealander who is taking the effort to go out and find more work: we’re on your side. Go for it.

Hon Ginny Andersen: Is Wattie’s closing just one more sign of her failing economic plan, which is causing more harm than good to New Zealand?

Hon NICOLA WILLIS: No, and I’d like to reprise a conversation I had with Kieran McAnulty on breakfast television this morning, when I asked him whether the Labour Party were proposing that they would subsidise the jobs at Heinz-Wattie’s, he said that that was not the position. I asked him, indeed, what he thought the Government should be considering to support those workers, and he said that he had no proposals. I can tell you very clearly what our Government proposes. What we say is that this is a time to ensure that manufacturers do not face escalating costs in the regulatory burdens that they face. This is a time to ensure that farmers do not face excessive environmental and red tape, which gets in the way of their ability to produce. This is a time to ensure that they have electricity security, and we are making reforms to ensure electricity affordability. Our Government is ensuring that the underlying conditions in the economy support our manufacturing industries, and the numbers are in: they show that overall confidence in the manufacturing sector is the highest it has been in several years.

Trade and Investment

Question No. 9

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) (14:51) the Minister for Trade and Investment: What work is the Government doing to underpin the growth of New Zealand’s exports?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Minister of State for Trade and Investment) (14:51) on behalf of the Minister for Trade and Investment: I can say that New Zealand’s export performance continues to strengthen. This growth is led by our primary industries, strong global demand for high-quality New Zealand products, and an active trade policy agenda. The latest Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) forecasts show that food and fibre exports remain at historically high levels, with horticulture alone expected to reach $9.2 billion in revenue this year. This growth matters because it brings real money back into New Zealand. It supports jobs, it helps lift incomes, it funds public services, and it strengthens the economy for all New Zealanders.

Catherine Wedd: Why are the primary industries so important to New Zealand’s export success?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: Let me count the ways. The primary industries are indeed the backbone of New Zealand’s export economy. They generate our largest export earnings, worth over $60 billion last year. They underpin employment right across the country, from farms and orchards to processors, exporters, and logistics businesses. The strength we’ve seen across this export sector reflects New Zealand’s reputation for safe, sustainable, high-quality products, which continues to resonate in global markets.

Catherine Wedd: How is the Government supporting exporters to grow trade and access new markets?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: As a Government, we’re focused on opening doors for exporters and strengthening relationships with key trading partners, and that includes advancing trade agreements and reinforcing cooperation with like-minded economies. A good example of this was last week’s announcement of an agricultural cooperation arrangement with Chile, which boosts closer collaboration between two exporting nations, reinforces our shared commitment to open, rules-based trade, and drives the primary sector’s further success.

Catherine Wedd: What else is the Government doing to support exporters at the moment?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: There are challenges arising from the current conflict in the Middle East. Agencies are meeting with sector bodies and exporters, including in our dairy, meat, horticulture, wine, and wood sectors. MPI is assisting primary sectors to manage any disruptions to consignments en route up to that market. We’re also working to provide information to importers and exporters. An exporters’ webinar was hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, MPI, and the Ministry of Transport just last Friday. It was attended by 850 exporters. The next webinar will be held next week, and I encourage any businesses or exporters concerned to register and attend.

Pacific Peoples

Question No. 10

Hon JENNY SALESA (Labour—Panmure-Ōtāhuhu) (14:54) to the Minister for Pacific Peoples: Is he confident that the lives of Pasifika people in New Zealand have improved under this Government; if not, why not?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister for Pacific Peoples) (14:54): Yes, this Government is committed to improving the lives of all New Zealanders, including our Pacific communities. That’s why we’ve taken strong steps to restore law and order, with 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime; ram raids are down 85 percent; and repeat youth offending is down 22 percent. We’re improving health outcomes by lifting childhood immunisations to 82.6 percent, as well as delivering faster cancer treatments, shorter emergency department waits, and thousands more elective surgeries. We are seeing progress in education, with phonics proficiency lifting from 36 percent to 58 percent. The Government is fixing the basics and building a future for all Kiwis, including Pacific people.

Hon Jenny Salesa: Is he delivering the brighter future he promised Pasifika, when almost 10,000 more Pasifika children are living in hardship now, under his watch?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: There’s an inverse relationship between hardship and warm, dry homes. I’m very proud of the Our Whare Our Fale initiative, which, in Porirua, will deliver 300 homes, of which more than a dozen I’ve already enabled.

Hon Jenny Salesa: Is it a surprise that almost 10,000 more Pasifika children are in hardship when, under this Government, 13,000 more Pasifika are now unemployed?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: There are a number of initiatives we have for employment of Pacific people, including Tupu Aotearoa, Alo Vaka, and, indeed, just last week, I announced a new initiative for Pacific people, called Game On, a collaboration between the Game Developers Association, TupuToa, and The Cause Collective to give young Pasifika people experience in what is now nearly a billion-dollar gaming industry.

Hon Jenny Salesa: Is it a surprise that almost 10,000 more Pasifika children are in hardship, when, on his watch, one in four Pasifika youth are unemployed?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: As I mentioned, I was very proud to announce, last week, up to 57 places for the Game On initiative, which will give them skills and the ability to contribute to the gaming industry and high-value employment.

Hon Jenny Salesa: When he said just last week—and I quote—“I believe it is important that there is a strong voice for Pacific peoples within government, both at a ministerial level and within the public service.”, was he promising Pasifika that this Government would never abolish the Ministry for Pacific Peoples?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: We’ve already made those statements. That will not happen in this term of Government.

Hon Jenny Salesa: When Pasifika unemployment has doubled under his watch, one in four Pasifika youth are unemployed, and almost one in three Pasifika children are living in poverty, how can he possibly claim to be delivering a bright future for Pasifika New Zealanders?

Hon Dr SHANE RETI: I do acknowledge those concerns and have also demonstrated the actions that we’re taking to address them.

Prime Minister

Question No. 11

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (ACT) (14:57) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of the Government’s statements and actions?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR (Deputy Prime Minister) (14:57) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes—in particular, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Brooke van Velden’s leading one of the most significant and most needed legislative reform programmes of any Government in over two decades, including the repeal of the widely loathed Holidays Act 2003. The Holidays Act has been so needlessly complex that even Government departments with all their resources have struggled to pay their employees correctly, racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities along the way. You can only imagine what that has been like for small businesses trying to calculate employee pay over the holidays. The Employment Leave Bill introduced this week to be debated after question time will reduce compliance costs for businesses and deliver clarity for employees—something that people have been waiting for almost since the Holidays Act was passed on April Fools Day in 2004. Unfortunately, Brooke van Velden was in intermediate school at the time, but she got here to fix it up just as quickly as she could.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: If passed into law, how will the Employment Leave Bill help New Zealand employers?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Prime Minister, the Employment Leave Bill benefits businesses by saving them time and money when calculating their payroll obligations. Getting Holidays Act obligations wrong has been extremely costly for employers, many of whom have had to invest in sophisticated payroll software in the hope it will save them from future headaches. The Employment Leave Bill restores confidence for employers so they can focus on growing their business rather than second-guessing payroll calculations. These changes will free up employers to focus on what they do best: growing their business, serving their customers, and investing in their people.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How else will the Employment Leave Bill support New Zealand businesses?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: It is going to also improve the sick leave system with a pro rata sick leave system. No longer will a part-time employee receive the same amount of sick leave as someone working full time. All employees will receive sick leave hours proportionate to their contracted hours.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: If the Minister responsible was giving the answer, you wouldn’t have to read.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I see people from the Labour Party are now criticising me for celebrating the deputy leader of ACT’s achievements in policy reform for New Zealand. They think it’s somehow diminishing to praise her.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Let her speak for herself.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, actually, she did speak for herself. She did question No. 1 yesterday, and she’s going to have a lot more to say. I can only imagine Carmel Sepuloni just wishes that her leader praised her, but unfortunately the poor guy is not resourceful enough.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: Sorry, just a moment. Those comments are not at all helpful.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does he accept that his Government’s decision to cancel the new inter-island ferries that were meant to arrive this year will likely continue to cause disruptions to passengers and freight, when yet another mechanical fault has taken out one of the two remaining Interislander ferries this week?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Prime Minister, no, I don’t accept that, because there have been long-documented problems with the existing ferries. That does not mean that the unaffordable and unviable solution that the previous Government put in place was the best answer for New Zealand. Yes, the ferries break down from time to time. Now, I’ve heard about politicians that bark at every car, but I’ve never heard of one that barks at every ferry.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Is the business community keenly anticipating the Employment Leave Bill becoming law?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes, on behalf of the Prime Minister he Employers and Manufacturers Association says the Employment Leave Bill “marks a significant and long-overdue step towards fixing a Holidays Act that has frustrated employers and employees for more than a decade.” They go on to say, “Successive governments have acknowledged the problems, but this is the first time in years we’ve seen meaningful progress”. I also note the endorsement of Bronwyn Heenan, employment national practice group lawyer at the firm Simpson Grierson, who said this week she is pleased to see a focus in the bill on a move to an hours-based framework. She said, “The stated policy objective is to deliver greater simplicity, clarity and certainty for both employers and employees, while improving compliance outcomes across the labour market. We consider the Bill is a positive step forward in achieving this objective.” This Government has listened to the people responsible for jobs and prosperity and we’re delivering common-sense reform that makes their lives easier and their goals more attainable.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Has there been any other indication of support from the New Zealand business community for the Employment Leave Bill?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes. I have spoken to people up and down the country who run small businesses, and they say we are under so much pressure, as New Zealanders are up and down the country. The question is, beyond talk and beyond rhetoric that we hear so often from the other side of the Chamber, what practical things are being done to improve the situation for us? When you tell them Brooke van Velden has moved the Holidays Act to an hours-based scheme with the new Employment Leave Bill, they get it immediately. It may not be all over the headlines, it may not be popular retail politics, but it is actually fixing something tangible that matters, and for that I think Brooke van Velden deserves all of our respect.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: What is his response to Billy Clemens from Transporting New Zealand, who said, “We are really concerned that this incident just shows how vulnerable the Cook Strait connection is, particularly for that kind of high-priority freight which really can’t be delayed.”?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I would say to Billy Clemens: be very careful how people may use your quotes for political advantage in Parliament.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: What action, if any, will his Government take to increase the resilience of the ability of freight and people to cross the Cook Strait, given it’s three more years before we are going to get a replacement ferry?

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: The answer is in the Minister’s first supplementary question in this series. The Government has created an affordable pathway to have rail-enabled ferries, with places that they can be loaded and unloaded at either end, that are actually viable and affordable. When the Opposition say, “Oh, we already had ferries arriving.”, maybe you did, but you didn’t know how to fit them through the channel that they had to pass through, you didn’t have the ports that they needed to load and unload, so you are pointing to a fantasy rather than a solution.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister wants to deflect by making this a political debate but my question was about actions that will be taken immediately—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: No, hang on. You know the rules. Points of order are heard in silence. Please start again.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: The question, if he could answer on behalf—

SPEAKER: No, no. Start again.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Repeat the question or the point of order?

SPEAKER: The point of order. Don’t push it.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: OK. My question was about what action, if any, his Government will take to increase resilience now and for the next few years. The Minister didn’t address that.

SPEAKER: I think he most certainly addressed the question. Not as satisfactorily to the member’s requirements but certainly to mine.

Hon David Seymour: Give her another one!

SPEAKER: Question No. 12—Dr Carlos Cheung.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: I seek leave to ask an additional supplementary question.

Hon Members:No!

SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? Yes, there is. Dr Carlos Cheung.

Transport

Question No. 12

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill) (15:06) to the Associate Minister of Transport: What recent announcement has he made about coastal shipping?

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Associate Minister of Transport) (15:06): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, I’ve announced the final project funded by the Government’s $30 million Coastal Shipping Resilience Fund, which is a $400,000 investment towards a national digital platform to improve critical supply chain efficiency and coordination across our ports. This follows our recent commitment of $8.3 million to build the next generation of Kiwi seafarers by funding trainee places on ships. This support will significantly ease financial pressures on domestic vessel operators training the workforce of tomorrow. With a third of the workforce hitting retirement age within the next five years, it’s essential that we build a homegrown supply of talent that will not only support coastal shipping but the wider maritime sector that underpins New Zealand’s local and national economy. Our Government’s investment will ensure that we can move our goods around the country, particularly in a time of crisis.

Dr Carlos Cheung: What announcements has he made about investments supporting disaster relief?

Hon JAMES MEAGER: As part of the Government’s investment into coastal shipping, the Rangitata vessel will receive $3 million from the fund to improve its ability to carry different types of cargo across a wider range of ports nationwide. Many of those who went through Cyclone Gabrielle will remember the Rangitata as providing disaster relief during that time. This investment will fund a deck-mounted crane capable of loading and unloading bulk cargo to be operating by the year’s end. This will mean the Rangitata can transport a broader range of bulk items and operate without relying on port-side infrastructure and cranes—facilities which may not be useable after a significant event.

Dr Carlos Cheung: What announcements has he made in the North Island?

Hon JAMES MEAGER: Good news for North Islanders: we’ve made a significant investment into new container-handling equipment that has just arrived at Gisborne’s Eastland Port, greeted by local MP Dana Kirkpatrick. This $5 million investment will unlock fresh economic opportunities for the Tairāwhiti region and will directly benefit local businesses, exporters, and industries by enabling the opportunity to ship containers outside of Gisborne. In Whanganui on Monday—on the other side of the island—alongside MP Carl Bates, I announced an $8 million co-investment into the procurement of a new crane dredging barge that will ensure vital supplies can be delivered to regional communities cut off by natural disasters and other major emergencies. The equipment’s total cost is $12.9 million, with the remainder being co-funded by Northland-based marine construction company Johnson Bros Ltd. It will be operational in late 2027, and I’d like to acknowledge local MPs Dana Kirkpatrick and Carl Bates for their ongoing advocacy for investment in coastal shipping resilience.

Dr Carlos Cheung: What investment has been made in the South Island?

Hon JAMES MEAGER: As well as the superbly named Rangitata vessel, the Government has committed $4.3 million for major upgrades to the Port of Greymouth and $1 million for a regional safety programme to be shared with Westport port. The upgrade will significantly increase the region’s resilience when completed in early 2028. It will create a much-needed avenue for essential supplies and equipment to be delivered by sea in the event of a disaster which cuts off road and rail links. This investment, of course, has been championed by fantastic local MP Maureen Pugh, who has long been an advocate for the West Coast and for this project.

SPEAKER: That concludes oral questions. We’ll take 30 seconds while those who have to go to other business leave the House quietly and without conversation on the way.

Bills

Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) (15:10): I present a legislative statement on the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill.

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

First Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) (15:11): I move, That the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 27 July 2026.

Tihei mauri ora. E ngā rau rangatira o Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, tēnā koutou. Nei rā te mihi hoki ki ngā wāhi o tō koutou rohe; ko Panekire maunga; ko Waikaretāheke awa; ko Waikaremoana hoki. E mihi ana. Piki mai kake mai ki Te Upoko o te Ika.

[The breath of life. To the many chiefs of Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, greetings. I also acknowledge the landmarks of your region; Panekire is the mountain, Waikaretāheke is the river; and to Waikaremoana itself. I welcome you. Welcome to the head of the fish.]

Kia ora and welcome to the many members from Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, making the journey here today and joining us here in Wellington, in this Chamber, for a significant milestone, today. We’re moving quickly through the end stages of this settlement. It was only two weeks ago that we were up in Tūai to sign the deed, and a wonderful day that was. I was there; I delivered the Crown apology on the shore of Lake Whakamarino, surrounded by the ngahere of Te Urewera.

It was particularly special to see the local tamariki splashing about in the lake—including during the apology—the members of the extended family and hapū that were there, the sun shining, great food, and beautiful singing, and a robust challenge. It was a wonderful occasion, and I understand that the hapū only had nine days to organise that ceremony, and they did a wonderful job.

I’d like to acknowledge the trustees and negotiators for their efforts in achieving this milestone. In particular, I want to acknowledge Kara Puketapu-Dentice, Te Ori Paki, Neuton Lambert, Nicky Kirikiri, Tina Wagner, Wes Turipa, and Tumanako Waiwai. I also want to pay my respects to Hemi Waiwai, who passed on before the negotiations concluded, and I acknowledge the emotions that many will be feeling today. This has been a long journey, and there are many that were part of that journey over the decades who are no longer here today, and we acknowledge them. I also acknowledge others who have contributed to the settlement, including Tamati Kruger, Kirsti Luke, Maea Rurehe, Lorna Taylor, Waireti Amai, Te Iwa Rangihau, and Paygan Johns, who helped. I also want to acknowledge the Crown team for their efforts over the years—in particular my predecessors as Minister for Treaty negotiations, the Hon Chris Finlayson and the Hon Andrew Little.

Today’s reading is an important milestone for Ngāti Ruapani in their settlement journey. While negotiations formally started in March 2020, Ngāti Ruapani have been seeking recognition and acknowledgement for generations. The first claim was laid in 1989, and we’re very conscious of that long effort.

The settlement is grounded in the Crown’s acknowledgment and apology for the many breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi / Treaty of Waitangi. It, in particular, refers to the Crown attacks on kāinga, such as Te Kōpane in 1886, in its use of the scorched earth policy over the years. It refers to the taking of the land at Onepoto in 1872 without compensation; the acquisition of 178,000 acres, in four southern blocks, after threatening to confiscate interests in this land; the failure to protect Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana from becoming, virtually, landless; pressuring Ngāti Ruapani into allowing their interests in the Waikaremoana block to be included in the Urewera consolidation scheme; and the failure to respect Ngāti Ruapani rangatiratanga by administrating the Waikaremoana lake bed, as if it were Crown property, for a long period of time.

The settlement package provides for financial and commercial redress of $24 million. It includes the transfer of shares in the Patunamu Forest Ltd and several commercial redress properties around South Waikaremoana. It includes two cultural redress properties totalling 50 hectares—Turi-o Kahu and Kaitawa—which have been carved out of the former Onepoto Conservation Area. The land in now unencumbered, giving the Ngāti Ruapani governance entity the option to use the land in whichever way it sees fit. The settlement will also restore traditional names to six places within the Ngāti Ruapani rohe, including the township of Tūai.

Finally, the settlement provides for the restoration of approximately 12,000 hectares of land into Te Urewera. For those who are not familiar, Te Urewera was established through the Tūhoe settlement as a legal person and includes land previously known as Te Urewera National Park. The addition of land into Te Urewera recognises Ngāti Ruapani’s wish to connect with the wider identity of Te Urewera and to protect the land by drawing it under the realm of Te Urewera. It also recognises the innate connection between Ngāti Ruapani and Tūhoe.

Today is about acknowledging the long and difficult journey it’s taken to get here. It’s true that no settlement can fully compensate for the loss and prejudice that the people of Ngāti Ruapani suffered. However, I believe this settlement lays a cultural and economic foundation for Ngāti Ruapani to strengthen their connection to their rohe and to grow their identity for future generations to come. This is the first reading of three to be had in this House, and I look forward to hosting you here again soon to support the passage of your legislation.

I consider that the bill should proceed without delay to the Māori Affairs Committee. I commend the bill to the House. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) (15:18): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Tuatahi e mihi ana ki a koutou Ruapani i tae mai nei, i whakarangatira i te kaupapa i tēnei wā. Tēnei te mihi ki a koutou. Haere mai, haere mai, nau mai.

[Firstly, let me acknowledge Ruapani who have gathered here to ennoble the occasion, I acknowledge you all. Welcome, welcome, welcome.]

Well, for the first time in a number of weeks, I totally agree with everything that Minister Goldsmith said. That’s what you get in these Treaty settlements, and it was well-said. I think he said today at our pōhiri that that’s the beauty of these types of settlements. It does bring a unanimity in terms of the House. I want to thank the Minister for his work. You’ll note that the Minister for Māori Development is here and he wasn’t at the pōhiri earlier today— practising his answers for question time, I think was the reason he wasn’t there—so I’ll give his apologies for him not being there. It’s good to see him here too, because he, like us, is a huge supporter of this kaupapa. He has been an advocate for Māori in the past. I just want to make this point today because I heard some of this kōrero today about the connection in terms of urban Māori and iwi—particularly with Kara Puketapu being the chair. Kei konei a Kara? Kia ora Kara, tēnā koe. [Is Kara here? Greetings Kara.]

I think that remains one of the biggest challenges for all of us in terms of iwi and urban and in terms of how we strengthen that connection. With respect to everyone who’s here at this first reading, so many of our people are disenfranchised, so many of our people are not interested, and so many of our people are not speaking Māori or going to the marae or participating in terms of te ao Māori.

I think with Treaty settlements we have to use them as an opportunity to bring our people back in: to bring our people back in in terms of their iwi, and to bring our people back in in terms of te ao Māori, to get them interested, to get them participating, particularly those—and I know with Ruapani there have been a lot of different arguments, as there are in terms of all Treaty settlements.

I think that’ll be the challenge: how do you activate someone in Lower Hutt, in Porirua? How do you activate these people? How do you get them interested in terms of going back to Ruapani—$24 million’s not going to get them interested; it’s not enough, but it’s a start. It’s an opportunity; it’s a start, and I don’t think either side of the House would say that that type of pūtea is anywhere enough, but what we always say with these types of kaupapa is that it’s an opportunity that people like Tipene O’Regan and Bob Mahuta saw before, too. The criticism was always that the pūtea was only 2 percent or 1.5 percent of what a real settlement was worth.

You know, Ngāi Tahu, for instance: the estimate was that that settlement was worth $16 billion to $18 billion; Tā Tipene and them settled for $170 million, along with Sir Bob Mahuta in Tainui. People said it was peanuts; our activists said it was peanuts at the time, but look what they’ve built with their peanuts—look what Ngāi Tahu’s built; look what Tainui’s built. I think that’s the example for all tribes going forward, that it doesn’t matter what that pūtea is in the end; it’s an opportunity to activate our people, rangatahi—get them involved in te ao Māori, get them involved in tikanga Māori, get them involved in the tribe, and you will see the fruits of the settlement. Because that’s the problem with so many of the settlements: they’re not big enough. They’re not big enough where every single person in the tribe is going to get a cut, but there’s enough there in terms of setting up a strategy, in terms of really getting our people involved in te ao Māori, and in terms of tikanga Māori.

So I wish you all the very best—wish you all the very best. This is a good start. This is only the first reading, and we’ll go through the process, but I think by the third reading, it’d be good if we can get, you know, everyone down here and celebrating the chance and the opportunity to really make the settlement work. Kia ora anō tātou katoa.

STEVE ABEL (Green) (15:23): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and kia ora to Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana in the gallery today. Beyond the highfalutin idea of nationhood, there’s a far more profound and important idea: it is the community of people. When people get up to do their daily round—and maybe their job is one of drudgery, but they do it to put food on the table for their whānau. Many of us through the country do that on a daily basis, but for some people, they carry in their ancestral memory the atrocities of war.

We have before us a document that I would urge not just my parliamentary colleagues but every New Zealander to read as a summary and an account of the repeated breaches of the most basic precepts of human decency against a people, Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana. The apology is thorough. It includes some of the worst atrocities, you might say, that we have read of in these settlements. It describes the Crown’s attempt to dispose of and clear out Ruapani, a scorched-earth policy which resulted in the widespread destruction of kāinga, pā, cultivations, food stores, animals, wāhi tapu, and taonga; widespread starvation and extensive loss of life; ruthless disregard for the survival of Ngāti Ruapani.

Reading those specific descriptions, I could not help but reflect on a contemporary definition, the characterisation of the intent to destroy, in part or whole, a people, which in 1946 garnered the term “genocide”. The intent to destroy, in whole or part, a people: this definition fits what we see described here was done to your people.

Today, Ngāti Ruapani come here to accept our tiny fragment of an offering so that they will do us the generosity of restoring the honour of the Crown. We as parliamentarians offer that humble apology and your forgiveness, because it is undeniable the wrongs the Crown did to your people. We also thank you, because in your act of accepting this deed of settlement, you are binding us together as a nation in a principle of rapprochement, a principle of us making amends for the harms done, that we may live in unity, because there cannot be cohesion or unity for our nation if there is not justice for Māori. That is the principle that is embodied in these Treaty settlements. Though it is not usual for us to make comment politically in these settlement processes, I would urge this Government in the strongest terms to resile from those Acts of this Parliament that have been passed now which cause division in our country, because they betray the principle of that founding agreement, Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Here today, we make some amends, and may this be the beginning of good for your people, Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana. Kia ora koutou.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (15:28): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe, Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, who have made the journey down to listen to our speeches in this House today. I think reading through this deed of settlement gives weight to what Steve Abel has just pronounced in this House. Because of the actions of the past—repeated immoral actions by the Crown—your people have been scattered and are still trying to find their way home. You’ve brought those who are connected today to a pōwhiri, which I wish I could’ve made it to, but as this bill goes through the House, I would love to come to further ones for second and third readings. Your area, your rohe, is in a very, very important part of this country, and it is an important part of you—protect it well, which I know you will. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First) (15:29): E te Pika, tēnā koe. E ngā kaumātua me ngā kuia o Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana kua tae mai ki tēnei Whare Pāremata, ki te tautoko te kaupapa o te rangi nei, tēnā koutou katoa. E tū ana ahau he uri nō Te Tai Tokerau ki te mihi atu ki a koutou, ka nui aku mihi maioha ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou, tēnei koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Ka mihi ahau hoki ki a tātou katoa kua huihui mai nei, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Greetings to the Speaker. To the elders of Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana who have arrived here in Parliament in support of today’s occasion, greetings to you. I stand here as a descendant of Tai Tokerau and greet you with much affection. Greetings to all. I would like to acknowledge everyone who has gathered here, I greet you thrice.]

My apologies to the gallery: the placement of my seat here—I can’t see unless I swing around away from the microphone, but I don’t want to do that, so I’ll look at you via the television screen.

I begin my contribution on the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill in support of this bill on behalf of New Zealand First. I begin my contribution by acknowledging the kaumātua and kuia who began the Ngāti Ruapani journey 40 years ago—and I acknowledge Nina Buxton and Neuton Lambert—and note that you are pleased that the journey to complete the settlement is almost over. Nearly there—not far to go now. Kara Puketapu-Dentice, chair of Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana: greetings to you, also.

The documents that we see in the debate pack that we’re given prior to our speeches on settlement bills is very grim reading, regardless of which Treaty settlement bill we’re speaking to. But what I’d like to do today is to acknowledge the beautiful part of the world you’re from. My nieces, who whakapapa to Ngāti Ruapani, talk about Waikaremoana as the most serene place in all of New Zealand. They whakapapa to Ngāti Ruapani through Mauruuru Pango. Recently, Mariana was up in Tūai, where she skipped around—because she’s very young and fit; she’s a Touch Black. She walked up to Lake Waikareiti—that’s the smaller lake just above Waikaremoana, which can’t be accessed by road; it’s waewae access only. Her whānau, they visit from time to time, and they speak so fondly and in such a heartfelt way of having their connection to this particular area through their whakapapa.

We are often shown photographs. We are envious, and we know that, at some point, we’ve got to get ourselves down there to experience what can only be experienced by doing that in person. There’s so many visitors and other New Zealanders who come to our country—doing the walk around the lake is, of course, one of the great New Zealand walks. My cousin Mariana said to me that you don’t live in Tuai for the modern amenities. She’s training to be a doctor—she’ll be out as a doctor next year—and she said it’s an hour on the gravel to get to the closest hospital. She’s recently spent a year at Wairoa Hospital. Also, the supermarket’s a bit of a long way to go, but you actually live there to be connected to the whenua and to be the kaitiaki of it.

And, I think, as a young person—and this is to the point that Willie Jackson made in his contribution: how do you get the young people back home? It’s that you be there looking after the place, so that when they come home, they are welcomed and they are able to learn who they are in that place. Having that ability to go back home—if you haven’t grown up there, it’s really important that you can be embraced by the whānau there and not judged for not being away and not having been connected until that time. That’s something you can do to get them back, and I say that from my own experience of being disconnected from my Hokianga whānau.

I’m going to leave my contribution there. I’ll finish it just on the words that Kara Puketapu-Dentice noted, that they have much to do to rebuild over the generations ahead, but the settlement will enable them to focus on that rebuilding of their relationship with their whenua. They will be able to support their whānau. They’ll ensure that Waikaremoana continues to sustain future generations—and it is about those generations that are so important. We can leave the past behind. We can draw a line in the sand and look towards the future, and I hope that blessing comes to all of you from Ngāti Ruapani. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ORIINI KAIPARA (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) (15:34): Waikaremoana, haere mai. Panekire maunga, tau mai. Huiarau, Manawarū, nau mai, whakatau mai. Nanny Naina, te kuia mōrehu, te maunga kanohi o Te Turuki Rangimārie kua riro ki te pō. Tumanako, koutou. E te kuia, te pou a Ngāti Ruapani, i tēnei rā, nau mai, haere mai.

[Waikaremoana, welcome. Panekire mountain, welcome. Huiarau and Manawarū, welcome. Nanny Naina, the matriarch, the face of Te Turuki Rangimārie who has since passed. Tumanako, greetings to you all. To the grand lady of Ngāti Ruapani, welcome, welcome.]

Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana is among the last of the remaining claims to be settled in what has been a 40-year journey, where many hands have contributed to this great undertaking. That 40 years gave Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana the opportunity to watch, to listen, and to go through the experiences of others.

This is not a standard settlement, and despite the Crown’s large natural grouping policy, the settlement is, in the view of haukāinga, a whānau and hapū settlement that restores the whakapapa connections between Ngāti Ruapani, Tūhoe, and Te Urewera. The settlement empowers haukāinga, where decision making and authority is exercised in proximity to people and place affected by those decisions. In that sense, e te Whare, all iwi have their own parliaments. In the case of Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, these are Te Poho o Hinekahukura, who stands at Te Kūha Tārewa Marae, and Te Poho-o-Tūhoe Pōtiki, who stands at Waimako Marae. Just as those who came before them, decision-making authority shall continue to emanate from these kāinga.

Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, they know their issues—kei te mōhio rātou ki a rātou anō. They know their issues and they are responsible for their issues, and they are determined to face those issues. To my parliamentary colleagues and to the institution of Parliament itself, the message from Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana is this: mana motuhake is not something the Crown can give. Mana motuhake, in relation to this Whare, to this House, is about getting out of the damn way. In another sense, mana motuhake is about the Crown knowing what it doesn’t know, and by creating space to allow Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana to do what they need to do to rebuild their lives, their way. The Crown’s role is to restore and maintain its honour and integrity.

Sometimes, the Crown often thinks that it is doing good things with good intentions as it continues to enable bad behaviour by those involved in the settlement process, which often creates more grievances. This process is supposed to resolve. The truth is this: our mokopuna reserve the final judgments on the honour and sincerity of both the Crown apology and its actions to restore its integrity in the future.

Brought into the context of the present, the Crown cannot simply give from one hand and take from the other, as is the case with resource management reform, which may have the effect of completely undermining all settlements to date and in future. The Crown ruins its own mana by not being able to uphold its own agreements and settlement commitments. In this term of Parliament, we have heard from both Te Tari Whakatau and the Office of the Auditor-General, who drew attention to these issues. And as my brother Peeni Henare noted in his valedictory speech yesterday, we come from a people where your word is your bond. Mana i te kupu, mana i te tapu o te kupu. Tapu i te mana.

[Honour your word, honour the sanctity of the word. Sanctity is authority.]

Do not let these words go vain: honour your word; honour the people.

The true hallmark of the settlement is not about the Crown’s new relationship with Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana. It is about Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana’s relationship with itself, with Tūhoe, and with Te Urewera. And my final words: ko hea nei te ritenga māriri i kaha ai tōku hapū a Ruapani? Ehara koa ko Tūhoe e ara ake nei. E tautoko mārika ana Te Pāti Māori i tēnei take kia kōkiritia e tātou i roto i te Whare. Kei aku nui, kei aku rahi, e tau ana.

[Where art the tranquil place where my sub-tribe Raupani may thrive? Indeed I am of Tūhoe who rises here. Te Pāti Māori whole-heartedly supports advancing this in the House. To my esteemed ones, I now rest.]

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (15:39): E ngā uri o Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[To the descendants of Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, greetings once, twice, thrice.]

Today, I rise to speak on the first reading of the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill. At the outset, I just want to acknowledge Ngāti Ruapani and your endurance and commitment to this long process, and I know those who have spoken before me have acknowledged that as well. Although I was unable to attend the deed signing at Tūai a couple of weeks ago, I watched the footage and was so amazed and impressed by the energy that you brought something that really identifies and signifies something dark for your history, but special for your future. I have met so many of you when Minister Tama Potaka and I went to Waikaremoana a couple of years ago, just ahead of the reopening of the lake walk. It was a really special time, and it was lovely to meet you then. It was lovely to see you all today at the mihi whakatau.

As a member of Parliament for the Napier electorate, I think it’s my privilege today to talk about some of the connections between Ngāti Ruapani, Lake Waikaremoana, and all of the people that I represent in the Napier electorate. For those watching who don’t know, the Napier electorate goes from parts of Hastings District all the way up to Tairāwhiti, taking in places like Motu and Matawai—areas named after Ruapani’s journey from Gisborne down to Waikaremoana. It’s special for me to be able to be here and be part of this process, and I look forward to the second and third readings, because I know that I go out and engage with the people in the community who share this special place with you, and I hope that they see the importance of the land and these properties going back to their rightful guardians and all of the grievances being settled by the Crown. I acknowledge that many of you would be part of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, represented by Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, and the way that she and I work together in this area is something that I’m very proud of.

Some of the people watching Parliament TV at home don’t necessarily know how Ngāti Ruapani’s settlement differs from Tūhoe’s settlement in relation to Waikaremoana and Te Urewera. The relationship between Ngāti Ruapani and Waikaremoana stretches back many generations. The Ngāti Ruapani people descend from Pāoa the leader of the Horouta waka, which found land in Tūranganui in Tairāwhiti. The Waipāoa River took its name from Pāoa, but Motu, Matawai, and Onepoto—all places in the electorate—were named by Ruapani on his journey to Waikaremoana, as I mentioned before. Something that really struck me as special is the naming of Waikaremoana as a result of a saying of Ruapani: “Kāti rā kua mākū ngā rekereke i ngā wai karekare o tēnei moana.”—“It is enough that my heels are made wet by the rippling waters of this sea.”

The landscapes referenced in this bill are not lines on a map; they are living places known intimately to many. A connection that I’d like to make, for one example, is Camp Kaitawa—a place that is being given back to its rightful people, rightful guardians, in Ngāti Ruapani. It’s a camp that my brother and many of my friends went to when they were growing up—a very special place to so many children throughout Hawke’s Bay. While I was doing my research, I found a photo from 1976 of the children of Waiwhare, Otamauri, and Sherendon schools on a Nimon bus heading up to Camp Kaitawa—some very, very special memories for all these kids in their beanies and homespuns. It’s a place that is a treasure to so many.

I want to say thank you for your patience; thank you for sharing the space with us; and thank you so much for what you will do to restore the community, to restore your hapū to their rightful place, and what this is going to afford you to be able to do in terms of resettling your community and reconnecting so many with their whenua tipuna. Thank you for being here to be a part of this process. Nō reira, tēnā koutou.

GEORGIE DANSEY (Labour) (15:44): Madam Speaker, I’m honoured to rise to speak to the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill today. I’ll start by acknowledging the iwi and whānau who have made the journey to the House; I commend you on your mahi for getting the bill this far. Kia ora koutou to the rangatira and the mokopuna in the House.

The journey to get to the place we are now, receiving this bill for its first reading, I understand has been a very long one for Ngāti Ruapani: six years of negotiation, and now we have a long-awaited agreement that we will work through in this House. I hope that this bill acknowledges the past and looks towards a stronger future for your iwi. The journey from 2008, when the iwi came together for this settlement, speaks to the challenging relationship that iwi can have with the Crown and also speaks to the persistence of iwi, hapū, and whānau to right the wrongs of the past. Nothing can right the wrongs of the past. Nothing is enough to apologise for the actions of the Crown, which began, for Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, in 1866. I hope this bill brings some closure to your people, and I commend the iwi for working with the Crown to work towards some redress for the harm caused. We know that that harm continues over successive generations. The first mentioned harm in the bill was the iwi not signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Crown acknowledging the opportunity to do so. This was followed by the intense armed attacks in 1866.

I visited the beautiful Urewera National Park and have had the privilege of camping by the lakeside. I remember clearly the really long gravel drive to get there and the multitudes of horses and pigs that I saw along the way, which of course added to the beauty of this incredible and unique whenua. I wanted to highlight that because one of the interesting parts of this settlement or this kōrero and this journey, for me, was the continued attacks from the Crown through to 1954 when the Urewera National Park was established by the Crown without consulting the iwi.

The Crown continued to not consult about the expansion of the park in 1957, and the Crown treated lake Waikaremoana like it was their own for decades, modifying water levels, causing environmental damage, and failing to compensate Ngāti Ruapani for the extensive use before 1967. The governance of the park severely restricted the iwi’s ability to use and develop the resources of their land, and it speaks to many years of deprivation and disconnection from their whenua. I commend the iwi on their resolute connection to Waikaremoana through this time and acknowledge the socioeconomic deprivation and migration that were a result of the Crown’s actions. Many people ended up living outside of their traditional lands, disconnected from their tikanga, tūrangawaewae, and whānau—and of course from te reo Māori.

I’m very pleased to see that a key feature of this settlement is the return of Crown-owned lands into Te Urewera. This reflects the essential aspiration of Ngāti Ruapani to restore their connection with Te Urewera. Through the settlement, I hope that your people are able to come home. I acknowledge the comments of the Hon Willie Jackson around bringing your rangatahi home for them to learn their tikanga, learn their reo, and be immersed in your iwi as they should have been for all of these years. The iwi knows its people more than anyone else, and that must be acknowledged. I hope that this settlement offers some kind of closure for the people of Ngāti Ruapani. It is a great pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti) (15:49): Tēnā koutou ngā whatukura me ngā māreikura o Ngāti Ruapani e koke nei ki tō tātou ana o te rāiona. Haramai te ara o te hōiho, te huarahi matua 38, me ōna kōrero katoa. Kara, koutou ko tō momo ko tō kāhui tira haere, e kawe nei i ngā whakaaro o ngā tīpuna mātua Rua-te-pūpuke, Hine-hākirirangi, me ērā o tāua Kiwa me ngā kōrero e pā ana ki ngā marae a Te Kūhā a Te Waimako, tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou e kawe nei i ngā kōrero e pā ana ki ngā mahi tahu i te whenua, ngā ahi whakapēhi hoki i te tangata.

Ki a mātou o Te Tai Hauāuru, kua titiro ki ēnei āhuatanga raupatu i roto i te hītori me te her-tori o ō tātou mātua tīpuna. Nō reira koutou e kawe nei i ngā mahi whakataunga Tiriti, koinei te pānuitanga tuatahi, ā, kua riro hoki māku e whakatūwatawata nei i ngā mahi a Metekoura. Me te mōhio hoki ā tōnā wā ka hoki mai anō koutou ki tōna kōrero ki tōna pānuitanga tuarua. Kāore au i te whakatōroa i ngā kōrero engari he tū āta whakamihi i ngā take o te wā engari ki ō koutou mahi uaua, taumaha, i ngā rangi ka heke. Te whakahono hoki i te whenua ki roto i te Taitara o Te Urewera, ā, te whakakotahi nei i te kaupapa karanga, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Greetings to the noble men and women of Ngāti Ruapani who have ventured here to our den of lions. Who travelled by way of the horse track, State Highway 38, along with its stories. Kara, and those of your ilk, along with your band of leaders, who bear with you the wishes of the ancestors Rua-te-pūpuke, Hine-hākirirangi, and others, and you too Kiwa, who convey the stories of the marae of Te Kūhā and Te Waimako, greetings to you all. I acknowledge that you bring with you the scorched earth stories, and the fires that oppressed the people.

My people of Te Tai Hauāuru have also witnessed this form of confiscation and is spoken of in the history and her-story of our ancestors. To the bearers of the Treaty settlement, this is the first reading, and it is my role to fortify the activities of Goldsmith. With the knowledge that in due course you will return here for the second reading, I will not drag on but I do wish to sincerely acknowledge the occasion, and the difficult and heavy burden that you will face in the future. To link the lands mentioned in the Te Urewera Title, and to bring together this huge undertaking, thank you all.]

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) (15:51): Ko te mihi tuatahi ki te Atua nāna nei ngā mea katoa. Ko te mihi tuarua ki te Whare e tū nei. Ka huri ki ngā mana whenua o Waikaremoana, Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, tēnei te mihi maioha ki a koutou. Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[May I first acknowledge God, the creator of all things. Secondly, to the House that stands here. Let me turn my attention to the authorities of Waikaremoana, Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana, my sincere greetings to you all. I acknowledge you once, twice and thrice.]

I rise today to support the first reading of the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill. I’d like to acknowledge, as others have done in this House, the long period of time and the long journey it takes to get to this point in the settlement journey. This bill gives effect to the deed of settlement that was signed on 25 February 2026 in Waikaremoana by the trustees of the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Trust, and it marks the formal recognition of one of the most complex and longstanding histories in Te Urewera.

I’d like to acknowledge all of those people who have participated along the way, and supported, to get to this point in time, and I’d like to personally acknowledge Kara Puketapu-Dentice, not only for your work with your iwi, Tūhoe, but also for your work in the Hutt Valley. You’re well known as being a hard worker and a great person to work alongside, and it’s nice to see you here today.

This bill sets out that Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana did not sign the Treaty of Waitangi, yet from the 1860s onwards, they faced some of the most severe breaches that the Crown could do under the Treaty of Waitangi. Those are acknowledged in this legislation, and it was also noted that for decades, the Crown treated Lake Waikaremoana as its own, modifying the water levels, damaging the environments, and offering no compensation for the damage that they left. This left Ngāti Ruapani virtually landless after a period of time, and the social, cultural, and economic impacts of those actions shaped the generations to come. This legacy is clearly acknowledged, as it should be, in the Crown apology.

Uncle Willie has already outlined how Treaty settlements in general are a mere drop in the bucket. The $24 million provided here in financial redress is small—tiny—in comparison with what has been lost. But he also noted, rightly, that it does provide a seed to grow a future opportunity, a reason for reaching out. My own background and experience was in the Office of Treaty Settlements and the mandating, and to be able to see how iwi were required by the Crown to reach out and find all of their uri, to reach out and start the register and refresh that process of whakapapa verification and looking at all those things, and we saw how iwi grew as a result of the processes and the requirements that the Crown put on to iwi.

On the lighter side of that, and the upside of that, we saw many people engage further back with their iwi, and, as Uncle Willie pointed out, hopefully a revitalisation of young people who return home, who find out where they’re from and who they’re connected to, and to take pride in that—to take pride in where they come from and to stand again where their ancestors once stood.

I would like to acknowledge that the bill establishes a right of refusal for 185 years, ensuring longer-term opportunities for the iwi to build the land base. But in this, I also acknowledge that the negotiations have spanned decades. With the earlier involvement with the Ngāi Tūhoe settlement process, we know that there is a separate mandate being pursued, which was formalised back in 2019.

This settlement today reflects the perseverance that you have gone through. Even though there have been hurdles along the way, I acknowledge that you have reached a significant milestone here today, and with all the best wishes I have for your future going forward, I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (15:55): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I would like to stand in support of this very special settlement bill, and I’d like to welcome our guests to the House. Thank you for making your way here to Wellington.

When we were at the mihi whakatau earlier today, you walked in and there were tears in a lot of your eyes, and I could feel and see the heaviness, the burden, that we spoke about briefly in the number of kōrero that a few of you gave. It’s a situation where no matter how many generations have passed, that beautiful bond that is whakapapa, that is blood, means that you feel the pain that your ancestors felt.

So as we embark on this journey, I look forward to learning more about the ancestors’ experiences, your experiences, as our guests in the House, and we’ll talk more about it in the second reading. But for now, I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Referral to Select Committee

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh) (15:57): The question is, That the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill be considered by the Māori Affairs Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Māori Affairs Committee.

Instruction to Select Committee

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) (15:57): I move, That the Ngāti Ruapani mai Waikaremoana Claims Settlement Bill be reported to the House by 27 July 2026.

Motion agreed to.

Waiata

Legislation Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon JAMES MEAGER (Minister for Hunting and Fishing) (16:01): on behalf of the Attorney-General: I move, That the Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to—oh, after you’ve finished.

Hon JAMES MEAGER: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It was going to be a short-ish call, but not quite that short!

I want to start by outlining the purpose of this bill. The purpose of this bill is straightforward. It is to make legislation easier to find, to use, and to understand. An essential feature of the rule of law is that legislation is clear and accessible. That ensures that people, everyday Kiwis, can find the law and understand their rights and their obligations. This supports certainty and predictability of the law. It follows from the legal concept that everyone is presumed to know the law.

How can people be expected to know the law if they cannot find it? Secondary legislation published by departments, Crown entities, and a range of other bodies is not as accessible as it should be. Right now, that legislation—which includes things like regulations, rules, and notices—is published in all sorts of places. A Kiwi looking for secondary legislation may have to search through departmental websites, through the Gazette, through newspapers, and even then they’re not guaranteed to find it, as some of it is not published at all.

This fragmentation creates real challenges. It makes it harder for businesses and individuals to understand their obligations, it increases compliance costs, and it works against our goals for a modern digital Government. It also undermines effective parliamentary oversight.

This bill changes that. It requires agencies to publish their secondary legislation on websites in a consistent manner. It requires them to prepare and publish up-to-date consolidations. It requires them to maintain key information about each instrument so that users know which is the correct version and whether it is in force or not, and it requires them to find and republish their existing stock of legislation in accordance with the new requirements.

The most visible impact of these new requirements is the updated New Zealand Legislation website, which will, over time, provide access to all of this legislation and—yes, folks—more. On behalf of the Attorney-General, I’m very excited to say that we have already switched over to the new version of the Legislation website. Thank you to everyone who signed up to the public demonstration of the website and, I’m sure, the thousands of people who provided their feedback on it. Your support has shaped the final version to give us a website that can efficiently identify, index, and, in a modern world, link to agency-published legislation. Over time, and once agencies have done what this bill requires of them, the Legislation website will be a single point of access to all New Zealand legislation.

The bill also makes other amendments to the Legislation Act 2019 to ensure that it achieves its purpose. These include improved editorial powers to make legislative changes that are simple, up-to-date, and make it easier to find, use, and understand. It includes, for example, making it easier to more efficiently renumber legislation and get rid of all that “ghastly” section 59ZZB-type numbering.

This bill also changes the provisions for revision bills. The current form of revision was established in 2012. Parliament’s intention for this process was to enable revision of New Zealand’s legislation to be done “progressively and systematically”; however, the current requirements are so restrictive that in that time, since 2012, only two revision Acts have been enacted, with a third, the Valuers Bill, before the House at this moment. Two revision Acts in 14 years is not a sign of a progressive and systematic programme. That’s why this bill expands the type of changes that may be progressed in a revision bill. The bill will enable revision bills to repair and maintain legislation being revised, as well as update the language and drafting style, while retaining strong safeguards. We look forward to the new revision programme taking shape in the next term of Parliament.

This bill and the new website are major milestones in work by successive Governments and successive Parliaments to improve access to legislation. I’m sure members of the House, legal professionals, the general public, and, of course, public law nerds are all looking forward to improved access to the law, and as I stand surrounded by a cohort of public law enthusiasts, I know they are as well.

I also acknowledge that this effort to improve access to legislation has had near-unanimous support across the House, and I’d like to recognise those who have been instrumental in bringing this bill to fruition. That includes the Hon Christopher Finlayson, who kick-started this work as Attorney-General under a previous National-led Government; the members of the powerful Regulations Review Committee, who have persistently inquired into the challenges of accessing secondary legislation, shedding light on this important issue; and I also want to acknowledge the hard-working and tireless Justice Committee for their thoughtful consideration of the bill, and those individuals and organisations who took time to make a submission. We thank you all for your efforts, and it is my pleasure, on behalf of the Attorney-General, to see this bill through its third and final reading.

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

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) (16:07): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to the Minister for those comments on this bill. It is an important bill that doesn’t perhaps get the attention it deserves. It’s certainly not a glamorous bill. Indeed, in my short stint—I think it was 2017-18—on the Regulations Review Committee, this wider legislation project was being considered by that committee, and on the Justice Committee, of course, this particular bill was considered. I do recall the concern that was voiced at the Regulations Review Committee when it was noted—someone asked the question “How many regulations are there to do with the dairy industry?”, and the response was alarming, because the response wasn’t a particular number; it was “We don’t know.” The idea that you can have a body of law that touches on a particular industry that you don’t actually know where the regulations are or how many of them exist is deeply concerning.

This is the kind of legislation that we need to ensure that our legislative stock is kept in good order. Rather than having a Ministry for Regulation, what we need is just a good framework for revision, for consolidation, for organisation, and for storage. That’s, essentially, what this bill does.

We do, though, have to make sure we strike the right balance, because we can lean too far in favour of administrative convenience and thereby undermine parliamentary oversight. Some of the things that go on—we support this bill, and the reason we support this bill is we think the balance that’s been struck is about right. But the ability to make editorial changes, for example, is one thing, so that if there are typographical errors in bills—and, in fact, that’s a relatively common practice—parliamentary counsel doesn’t have to come back to Parliament to fix the grammar or the spelling or the fact that a particular word is clearly missing.

The Minister talked about revision bills and the fact that because of a cautious approach in the definition of a revision bill, they weren’t perhaps used as much as they could be.

The concept of a revision bill is a bill which is, essentially, a modernisation. It’s not actually a substantive change. At least, the original concept was that it was simply a modernisation. I think the original Valuers Act was in 1908. The idea of saying, “Well, let’s bring that into the modern era, change the pounds for dollars, change the perches for square metres, and modernise the language and put it in a framework that is a modern legislative framework.”—that makes perfect sense, but we now have a revision bill framework that is a bit more than that. It, in fact, says, “Let’s not just take it and put it in modern language, but let’s, essentially, update the law.”

If you look at what it can do, for example, it can change monetary amounts. Now, that’s not just changing pounds into dollars, but it can, for example—and this is new—increase a fine. I remember there were complaints recently that parking fines hadn’t gone up for decades. It was cheaper to park and take a fine in a city council car park on the road than go into one of the rapacious commercial car parks and pay an hourly rate.

Now, I can understand that, but when we get into some other areas, having low scrutiny over what can be criminal penalties can be questioned. Also—I talked about this in the committee of the whole House—the idea that a revision bill can make amendments of unduly onerous or burdensome requirements, unnecessary compliance costs, and unnecessary costs of administering legislation is skating dangerously close to saying you can do substantive reforms through a revision bill. The safeguard is the certification of the bill where non-political actors have to certify that the bill is a revision bill, and they are the Chief Parliamentary Counsel and the chief executive of the administering agency. That gives me some comfort. The other thing to note, though, is that the revision bill still must go through this House. Ultimately, this House is the master of its own destiny. Whilst there have certainly been criticisms of the truncation of parliamentary procedure in this House, I would hope that if objections were raised that a bill that was presented as a revision bill was too substantive, then it would be given the full scrutiny that the House can, in fact, give it.

The other thing I’d note—and this came out of the select committee report, and it didn’t come out in the committee of the whole House—is that revision bills have a standing exemption on regulatory impact statements. Now, regulatory impact statements are an important document, whereby it’s shown that there has been a good process and a thoughtful process in developing the bill. Now, revision bills were given a standing exemption because, fundamentally, they weren’t changing anything. Now, because of this broadened scope, it is quite conceivable that there will be meaningful changes to the rights and obligations of citizens by virtue of a revision bill. The select committee’s recommendation was that that standing exemption, essentially, be revoked. Now, it’s still possible—and I’m pretty sure it’s the Ministry for Regulation that does it—to go to the Ministry for Regulation and say, “Look, this is a bill that changes these things, but it doesn’t quite meet the threshold for a regulatory impact statement at all.”, or, “It doesn’t meet the threshold for a thorough-going regulatory impact statement; can we pare it back a bit?” And you can have that conversation.

In the original conception of a revision bill, it was intended to be a Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation adjustment for things that weren’t penalties. You could see why that’s kind of trivial, but, now, it doesn’t have to be linked to CPI, so the Government could come in and say, “We’re going to increase levies on”—name whatever you like—“kiwifruit orchards.” Of course, that has a massive impact on the growers of those kiwifruit and exporters, but they wouldn’t have to do a regulatory impact statement and wouldn’t actually be required to consult, because it’s a revision bill. That’s why we need to think about these things.

The other provisions are important as well, and that is—[Bell rung] Goodness! Ha, ha!—the requirement to present regulations to this House. Certainly, in the Regulations Review Committee, one of the longstanding gripes was that agencies would be developing rules and regulations, what have you, secondary legislation, and just wouldn’t present it to the House. We wouldn’t have the ability to scrutinise them, because it was just tucked away and no one ever told us it existed. It did reflect not just a poor procedure but, essentially, a poor understanding in those agencies that secondary legislation is delegated from this House and this House, ultimately, has authority over it.

The provisions which say that secondary legislation won’t come into force unless it’s properly published and presented are quite useful, because previously there was, essentially, no particular consequence for not properly presenting legislation. It’s good to see that there’s some teeth in this legislation as well. It’s a really good example of the infrastructure around legislation, the concept of regulatory stewardship, and the fact that when it’s done properly, we can agree pretty much across the House about how to do it.

We don’t need a vanity ministry of David Seymour to do this sort of work, because regulatory quality is actually something we all agree upon and we can all work hard together on, and that’s, in fact, what we’re doing here today.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (16:17): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to speak on the Legislation Amendment Bill at its third reading. Before I begin, I’d like to thank both of the Ministers who were in the chair during the committee of the whole House stage for a really engaging committee stage—the Hon James Meager and the Hon Chris Penk.

I think, to start with, in terms of the broader picture, like the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, has mentioned, the legislative system of Aotearoa New Zealand can be complex. There are various kind of bills. I think, even for all members of this House, we’re learning every day about how our legislative process works and the peculiarities around our system; whether it is the difference between a private bill, a local bill, a private Act, a local Act, a revision bill, an omnibus bill, a Government bill, secondary legislation, primary legislation. It is something that is complex. I think, for most people of Aotearoa, people only really confront the legislative system when something goes to court. That’s where a lot of people find the level of nuance and the level of complexity that is in our system.

One of the things that this bill hopes to address under a democratic system is—well, there are a couple of things—that New Zealand law and the New Zealand political system should be free and be accessible by all. I think that’s a fundamental tenet of any democratic society. With that in mind, there are certain immediate improvements, and I acknowledge both the speakers before in terms of the work that has been done to get us to this place up until now. The digitisation and the improvement when it comes to the legislation website and ability to consolidate secondary legislation into a single source as part of that website is a huge quality-of-life improvement in the ability for people to be able to access our legislation and also our secondary legislation more readily.

For over a hundred years, we have seen the use of secondary legislation and we’ve seen how much secondary legislation is agency-drafted or agency-published, and that sometimes is hidden in the deep recesses within a particular agency or department, whether it’s in a physical copy or on their website. Again, one of the quality of life improvements that this bill aims to do is to ensure that all of the pieces of secondary legislation has to meet the same consistency in standard in order for them to continue to take effect. That does have a shelf life to it, should a particular piece of secondary legislation not be up to standard, and that particular area in the bill, from memory, under the commencement date is five years, and so it’s on the fifth anniversary of this particular bill.

These are some good changes, but I think that there are also some really interesting intricacies within this bill that continue on from existing conventions. One of them, if you look at clause 27 of this bill, is around the drafting of tax bills. Historically since the mid-1990s, the drafting of tax bills has been done by the Inland Revenue Department as opposed to being done by the Parliamentary Counsel Office, or PCO, as happens frequently within this bill. At that time, the recommendation to do that was given because the PCO did not have the capacity to be able to draft these bills, and also tax bills have a certain level of specificity and technical knowledge that is needed in their drafting. We did question during the committee stage whether that should be a system that is kept on, because from the submitters and, indeed, after conversations with both the PCO and also the Law Commission, there was this idea of whether that system should also be consolidated, but we have heard from the Minister that the system for Inland Revenue to draft their own tax bills is retained because of the technical knowledge and specificity that is required.

I also want to pick up on clause 31, which is around editorial changes, and I’ll come to the crux of one of the issues in terms of revision bills a little bit later. When we come to clause 31, one of the other improvements that is being made under this bill is around editorial changes and the level of confidentiality and specificity that comes with the editorial changes. Again, this is something that we’re seeing consistently. For those who were here for part of a previous bill, the Statutes Amendment Bill, that bill did go through the Parliament where we were seeing minor changes being made to a whole collection of different Acts where some requirements were outdated and had not been updated for decades.

The ability for us to make those kinds of housekeeping changes to New Zealand legislation is a really important one, and the use of editorial amendments could also be considered as one of those ways for us to be able to make those sorts of changes. Indeed, as part of the Standing Orders review that’s currently happening, one of the things we’ve heard from submitters on that is that with the way that we maintain legislation in Aotearoa because of the requirements we have, Parliament is sovereign when it comes to primary legislation, and, therefore, only Parliament is able to make changes to that kind of legislation, but it is often not the priority of any Government to be able to make some of these minor changes if it’s housekeeping or minor in nature. Indeed, in this House, other than the Statutes Amendment Bill, we have also seen a collection of other regulatory systems bills, which also seek to do a similar thing.

One other interesting thing to note within this bill is an Amendment Paper that the Minister released, Amendment Paper 506, which does introduce, I guess, a level of uncertainty to this bill—which in many places provides a level of certainty—and that is to do with the fact that if a particular publication or publishing requirement isn’t met when it comes to secondary legislation, the failure to comply does not invalidate the enactment or the effect of those pieces of secondary legislation. I want to point to some of the potential amendments from my colleague Vanushi Walters, who attempted to make some of these sensible changes to this particular clause, because the question that we were raising around that was if a piece of secondary legislation has not been published or has not been presented to the House but is effected, how would the public know that it has been effected? Again, the whole idea of having the Legislation Amendment Bill is for us to provide the most level of transparency and accessibility around our system to the New Zealand public.

Finally, I do want to just touch on revision bills. Revision bills are the only reason that the Green Party of Aotearoa is not going to be supporting the Legislation Amendment Bill, and partially that is because under the current Government, there have been too many instances where we see the Standing Orders being abused and we’re seeing the legislative process being abused to undermine the democratic process or the standard norm for the process that is effected from the legislative process. We are concerned that the expanded scope of revision bills under clause 37 would mean that it is much easier for any Government to push through amendments that are not minor in nature but that may, potentially, substantially change the nature or the purpose of a bill that is beyond what is the expected good legislative practice. Of course there is always the safeguard under Standing Order 276 that should revision bills be amended to include this particular aspect, we will be open to that, but, unfortunately, because the Standing Orders review has not caught up to the third reading of this bill, we cannot support it at this stage.

Finally, it is important, like I said right at the beginning, that our legislation is transparent and is publicly accessible, and so we hope to see more of this.

LAURA McCLURE (ACT) (16:27): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of this piece of legislation. We’re on the third reading now and so it has been well and truly traversed, but I think that modernising our legislation is always a good thing. To the Labour member—who is now not sitting in the House—who was discussing the Ministry for Regulation and saying that we don’t need it because we are now having this kind of bill come forward to the House, I would say that there is still plenty of poor, bad regulation that has been out there for decades that we need to get through and we need to work on. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First) (16:28): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a brief call on this bill. I wasn’t on the Justice Committee, but I do want to thank the Justice Committee. When you read through the document, I think that they did wonderful work, and I’m glad it was them who was doing it.

I also want to thank Minister James Meager for the introduction because I thought that he laid out what the bill is all about, which is, essentially, making legislation and secondary legislation more accessible. What more could we want, and to hear that some parties are thinking of voting against it—I do not comprehend that. I commend this bill to the House.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (16:28): Thank you so much, Madam Speaker. I share the sentiments from previous speakers, and particularly my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, that our lawmaking processes should be very accessible. In many ways, the Legislation Amendment Bill does help us go towards that, particularly in the quality of life updates, which my colleague noticed in his contributions, and particularly as we move into the digital age. We’re making sure that with regard to our laws and how they’re represented in secondary legislation and how they’re represented digitally, they are more accessible. We’re making sure that we’re also creating a set of standards around that, and I note the contributions from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb in relation to the reality that we could set some of these standards in other forms, rather than in the Regulatory Standards Act.

I do want to focus a bit on the concerns that we had in relation to the expanded scope of revision bills. This is important because, certainly at the Business Committee, this is something that we would be often potentially dealing with there. My colleague raises a really good point that, right now, we may be undergoing the Standing Orders review but there is no guarantee that changes will be made to accommodate, perhaps, methods to better scrutinise in the Chamber revision bills despite this extended scope.

I do want to talk a bit about Standing Order 276, as it relates to the provisions in the Legislation Amendment Bill for revision bills, to outline why we have concerns because of the way that Standing Order currently stands. Those two cannot be separated, in my view. The reason why we have concerns with the way it is currently written has to do with the fact that, so far at the moment, we would expect that these amendments should be minor in nature but the expanded scope could allow for that to be otherwise. A revision bill, in many ways, ends up having less time in the Chamber because of the way that Standing Order 276 lays things out. For example, there is no amendment or debate on the question for the first reading, so that creates a bit less scope for the unpacking in the debating chamber and for members of the public to hear the perspectives of different political parties if there is a view that perhaps these changes are not actually minor in nature. Additionally, there is no potential debate on whether the bill will be considered by a subject select committee nominated in the explanatory note of the bill. Also, following the presentation of the committee’s final report on the bill, the Business Committee determines agreements for the passage of the bill.

This is particularly important because I think one of the things that the Green Party has often tested at the Business Committee has been the reality that, often, decisions in the Business Committee require near unanimity. What we know as MMP evolves is that near unanimity as a concept also relies on a first-past-the-post model, and if we move towards future Parliaments where perhaps the distribution of political parties is not so much two parties holding near unanimity but a more diverse range of parties, for example, this also creates a different set of conditions.

I think we would have liked the Standing Orders review to have happened first for us to deal with the potential consequences of this. I think that the way this Government has operated over the past few years leaves us with little trust that the provisions in the Legislation Amendment Bill won’t be used to push for things that may not be considered minor or non-controversial, and I want to acknowledge that that is an subjective concept in and of itself. Things that may be minor and non-controversial for a political party in Government may not be felt in the exact same way by people in Opposition or by the constituents that we represent.

I echo the sentiments of my colleagues Lawrence Xu-Nan and Celia Wade-Brown, who have also been following the proceedings of this bill. They are both addressing the things that we can really commend from this piece of legislation, but that one element, unfortunately, means that our vote cannot be in support of this bill. That does not take away from the merits of the other components that we do think are quality-of-life upgrades that help modernise our legislative processes and make them more accessible.

TOM RUTHERFORD (National—Bay of Plenty) (16:33): I commend the bill to the House.

VANUSHI WALTERS (Labour) (16:33): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I have no idea why the last member who spoke wouldn’t want to take all the time in the world to speak about this wonderful and actually quite historic bill. I recommend to the member that he goes and visits the brand new website that is almost like Disneyland for law nerds. If you click on the secondary legislation tab, it says there are 19,744 documents that you can scroll though, but, of course, it’s also just an extremely practical tool for people who are wanting to find out the regulations that are governing some very practical aspects of their life.

I think that sometimes we do pass legislation in this House that has significant constitutional impact. I recall that, in the last term, we passed what was affectionately known as the SLAB, or the Secondary Legislation Amendment Bill, which was also extremely historic in this area. I wasn’t in the House, but I think another moment was when the Human Rights Act was passed and it connected the Human Rights Act to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which wasn’t overly discussed at the time but has certainly had a huge impact on our constitutional make-up, and, certainly, so did the declaration of inconsistency or the halfway house bill changes to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that happened last term as well.

This is one of those moments where we really are making a difference to access to legislation, ensuring that the law is known and knowable, and this was an issue that was discussed by the Regulations Review Committee last term but even well before then in 2014 when, I believe, there were two reviews done that identified a need for us to address this accessibility problem. This has been a long time coming, and in many ways, this is partially why I support the bill as it is, although I recommended some changes, which I will speak to. I think significant work has been done now, for over a decade, firstly identifying the issue and, secondly, proposing the first solution, which was that the Parliamentary Counsel Office would be responsible for publishing all secondary legislation. Now, here we are at the third phase where we realise that that isn’t practical, but we’ve still come up with a solution that allows access through the portal.

The work has certainly been done. Is it perfect? To be honest, I’m not sure, and in terms of what my Green colleagues have argued today, I think they’re quite correct. I will speak to revisions bills in a moment, but I would like to make the headline point that given the constitutional significance of this bill, it’s one we ought to monitor. In terms of the use of revision bill in particular, we ought to monitor whether they are receiving sufficient scrutiny in the House, particularly if the Standing Orders Committee chooses not to invoke other procedural protections to ensure that those revision bill get committee stage scrutiny if there is concern about them.

However, I do think that it is worth proceeding. One of the useful things of this bill—I would almost describe it as its heart—is in clause 20, which effectively says that secondary legislation doesn’t commence until it complies with the requirements of the Act, which for the most part is publication. This is huge, because, in many ways, this was assumed and has resulted in a situation where much of the legislation that is effective in law is not in fact published.

I did want to thank the multiple Ministers who were in the chair during a very robust committee of the whole House stage. I tabled two sets of amendments. I say two sets because they are actually two proposals with multiple options. The first one was about presentation to the House, so in the current state of affairs if you have secondary legislation that isn’t presented to the House, it is still effective, and my proposal was that we allow a certain time period for it not to be presented but within which it must be presented. The point I was making is that you can make it short—10 days, you could make it 100 days—but at least you would know that there was a requirement to present.

Now, the Minister in the chair responded, I thought, quite adequately to that. He said that if the secondary legislation doesn’t commence until it’s published, then that resolves that issue because the agencies will be very focused on ensuring that those rules apply so they will do their utmost to get it published as soon as possible.

The second issue was that if secondary legislation commences when it is published, if it falls off a website or falls off publication, the secondary legislation is still effective. It is still law, but members of the public may not be able to access it at all. Again, I proposed several different changes here—that we could allow that to happen if it was an administrative error for a period of a number of days or weeks or even months but surely we should be looking for that error to be rectified, so putting some sort of timeline in.

The Minister in the chair at the time seemed amenable to that as something he might consider, but, unfortunately, despite the very sensible suggestion, both of those amendments were voted down. None the less, in this corner of this side of the House, we voted for the Minister’s amendment because, again, our view was that the work has been done over several years—over a decade now—and this solves a massive gap in terms of the accessibility of legislation. We are happy to proceed with it, but, again, it does require review.

I questioned, as well, whether we had the exemptions correct, in terms of what is exempt from publication or what is exempt from provision to the House, notice to the House. If one were to look at Schedule 2, there are a list of pieces of secondary legislation that have various exemptions attached to them. What I found interesting in this regard is that it is possible to have a piece of secondary legislation that is exempt from this allowance. That wasn’t something that we discussed in detail, but, certainly, perhaps a matter for the Regulations Review Committee to consider when it is appropriate for a piece of secondary legislation to be exempt from disallowance. So, in effect, the House wouldn’t have a way of instantly taking that off the books. Looking through the list, it’s quite rare, but, in the list that I have in front of me, there’s possibly about four examples or five examples of when that’s the case. The exemptions that do apply seem, to me, to be quite sensible—so it’s where secondary legislation has little or no effect on the public, where there might be an emergency in place, or where early commencement is necessary.

Now, I questioned, again, the Minister whether we wanted to put a timeline on this. So if were exempting the secondary legislation from publication, perhaps we should require that none the less it’s published within a certain time frame. The assurance that was given to me was that most of these exemptions are temporary in nature. So it wouldn’t hamper the process of the public eventually having access to, say, something that needed to be passed under emergency management; it would get there.

On revision bills, I would just make the point that I thought the select committee did a good job in proposing some language that brought down the scope of revision bills. So it is possible; we just didn’t go quite as far as Green Party colleagues would have liked us to go. So, again, I would just say that it is something for us to monitor.

Certainly, there were some submitters who recommended that there were aspects of the bill we would need to continue to monitor, and aspects that we’ve chosen not to change that we should consider changing going forward. One of those suggestions came from the Law Society, who spoke to the fact that the IRD are empowered to draft their own tax legislation. That’s quite unusual. It’s a product of history from when the Parliamentary Counsel Office didn’t have sufficient capacity to be able to do that as well.

So there are clearly things that we will need to continue to monitor. But, overall, I’m just delighted that we’ve travelled this journey and are in a place where, at the press of a button, you can locate the secondary legislation that applies to your everyday problem, and I’m sure the Regulations Review Committee will look forward to many more interactions from the public, as a result.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam) (16:43): Excellent. It’s with great pleasure that I rise to support this common-sense bill. So, therefore, I commend it to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) (16:43): It was a great pleasure for him to rise, but a very short pleasure for the rest of us!

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: That’s Hamish’s pleasure!

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It’s a very short pleasure.

This is good to see, the work that’s been done on this bill, which I think everyone in the debate agrees is kind of an important and useful contribution to the stewardship of the country’s laws.

I want to say, first off, that the contributions from my colleagues Duncan Webb and Vanushi Walters, I thought, were first grade. Both of these members participated in the select committee process and all the prior stages of the bill going through the House, and they were thoroughly across the detail of the bill.

It’s sad that other than the opening contribution by the Minister James Meager reading the notes prepared by officials, we haven’t had a single other substantive contribution in this debate from the Government benches. I just think that’s a shame, because, as other colleagues have shown, there are things to say about this bill.

Access to the law is an important part of the broader access to justice issue. It’s one of the many parts of our lives that have been completely transformed in a positive way by the internet. I often think it’s kind of amusing around the Parliament and various offices and meeting rooms that the old statute book is there as a kind of backdrop, it’s there for decorative reasons, it’s part of kind of like a period dressing of the room, if you like. I doubt whether anybody accesses the statute book in hardcopy these days—I seriously do—and that’s because with the look-up functions, the internet is so perfectly suited to giving people instant and efficient access to large amounts of data like our laws.

But what’s interesting, when you look at the story behind this bill, is that it’s been quite a halting and circuitous process for the Parliament to actually get to the point, I think, of finding a sensible and efficient way of making, in this case, the country’s secondary legislation available in a clear and transparent and accessible way to the public.

I was fascinated to read that our secondary legislation is published by a plethora of different agencies—central government and local government—and that estimates range from around 7,500 to 20,000 current instruments published by around 120 Government, local government, and non-Government agencies. The fact that these laws, these bylaws, these regulations, these orders, these codes of practice, some are published, some are not—who would know?—and yet these bits of secondary law actually have a significant impact on the lives of New Zealanders.

So it’s good to be supporting this bill in the House today. I, too, like Vanushi Walters went and had a look at the New Zealand legislation website, and it is promising. It’s going to be a very efficient and user-friendly way to tap into those thousands of bits of secondary law, not through the, I think, misconceived centralised model which would have seen the poor old Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) crushed under the burden of having to be responsible for publishing all of the secondary law, but now this law is going to place an obligation on all of the publishing agencies—the 120 different agencies will be obliged to actually publish the secondary legislation that they are responsible for, a number of other obligations, as well, in the way that that information is kept and published, and then PCO simply will provide internet links to all of those off that main website. I think that makes all of the sense in the world. So, in effect, the new New Zealand Legislation website becomes a single point of access.

I was going to talk about some of the amendments that Vanushi Walters put up in the committee of the whole House stage that were never really properly replied to by the Minister in the chair, but, unfortunately, time has run out.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (16:49): This bill can seem dry to the average listener—like the Green Party members that voted against it—but, in fact, it’s actually transformative in the milieu of legislation. I am very happy to commend it to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (16:49): Madam Speaker, thank you very much for taking my call on this. I am in support of this piece of legislation. It reminded me—does anybody remember when we were listening to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and there was a piece of legislation that was very important, it was a regulation, and they were knocking down the person’s house, and he was told that if he went to the basement, round the corner, down the stairs, etc., he would find a notice which told him that his house was being pulled down, and, in fact, things went a little bit strange there, and he ended up off the planet anyway, and the dolphins took over.

The point of that is that I think this legislation is something we live and breathe, but it is extremely disempowering when you don’t know what the law is. It’s incredibly important that we see the wood for the trees in this House, but we also allow people access to the branches of that tree, to the little things, because that’s power in the hands of the people.

This is one of the things where technology is amazing and it will allow people who are not lawyers access to law and it will allow us to make things consistent. We will be able to, without the assistance of another person, go right down into that detail. I think that’s going to be really important; that we’re publishing at that level.

I wasn’t on this committee. I have been on the Regulations Review Committee. I was deputy chair of that committee, and I was amazed at the work of it. It’s a very, very important part of this institution, because it’s constantly looking at legislation and it isn’t, let’s face it, down to the representatives in the House. We’ve got to give absolute credit to the staff in this place who are so smart and will go through the detail and then will advise us. We get that overview because of the of the lack of the actual knowledge that they have. But what that committee does is it looks at consistency of law, etc. This piece of legislation might not be perfect. There probably are issues because there always will be such issues, but it’s a damn sight better than what we’ve had. We are going to be in this situation, really modernising in some ways where we’ve really struggled before because of technology.

I love the idea that Dr Webb talked about, about how there has been this attempt to have revision bills in the past and it hasn’t quite worked. This piece of legislation looks at those revision bills again and it says, “OK, that was not a great success because so few bills went through the process of modernisation. We’re going to do that better, but we’re also going to expand.” I absolutely respect Dr Webb’s fear and hesitancy and the note of this Parliament that there are risks with that that we go too far, that we open things too wide and there are risks in that. We don’t want to be in a situation where that becomes something that is disempowering of people. I think, as he says, the balance is right here, and it can be looked at again if things go astray.

I can see the risk, for example, of opening up from modernisation to a point where levies might be able to be increased. That could be a really onerous thing if it wasn’t used wisely, that those levies could be looked at and put up and nobody would have oversight. What I note about this piece of legislation is not only do we have oversight at a kind of bureaucratic level, but we also get oversight. That’s our job. We must always, as a House, take responsibility for the tabling of those things. It was an interesting story that Dr Webb told about how that has been something in the past where a department will create regulations and they won’t quite make it to us. We’ll never quite see them, because they’re always in the works. That is a dangerous temptation.

What I liked about this was that there was a fix in the legislation. There was a fix which said if you don’t bring the legislation before this House, this secondary legislation, then it’s not legal. I like that. That’s sensible policy. We’ll see how we go, because these things are difficult. But I think that that shows that the work of the officials and the select committee here has been studious and we’ve come up with inventive solutions to problems which are real for ordinary people. So I’m absolutely thrilled to see that kind of safeguarding.

Just to be clear, what’s going to happen there is, say there’s a law with a penalty in it and the penalty goes up, then that secondary law can be changed like that, but it must go to the Chief Parliamentary Counsel and that person has to give it the tick-off, and then it must come to the House to be approved as part of the revision bill. So there is a definite check and balance in it.

Now, I thought it was a very interesting point about the issue over regulatory impact statements because it’s something I didn’t even know about before I entered this House, that there were these regulatory impact statements. They’re something that I think we all find incredibly helpful when we’re in the House. We can go to the Table here and we can get a regulatory impact statement that’s written dispassionately, and it gives us the oil. It tells us where there might be issues in the legislation. It’s a wonderful check and balance.

Traditionally, this revision legislation has been so minimal—it’s been things like typos—that it hasn’t been through that process. The point was made that this is an area where we might need to continue to think again, that we might need to use the process for asking for regulatory impact statements on things where we think there’s a substantive change. This may be something that we need to look at more thoroughly once we have seen how the legislation pans out, because I find that one of the most useful tools. It is also available to the public: they are published, those regulatory impact statements. So I think that itself is something that’s well worth us considering. Where’s the line when we are allowing more substantive change? Because we do want to get things moving and we want things to keep up to date.

Actually, we were having a really interesting discussion in the House yesterday, about some legislation that we were getting before us in private bills and how wouldn’t it be nice if we actually had a system where that kind of private bill didn’t take up all our time, when, in fact, it might be dealt with in a system like this in a more expedited fashion that is respectful of the intentions of parties, etc. Maybe we could have a lighter touch with regard to those things.

I see this piece of legislation, and I think this is important. It is really grass roots in terms of how it impacts on people, because they’re the ones paying the fines, they’re the ones actually having to deal with pieces of legislation. But it’s important for us too that we’re not wasting our time on these things and we can look at those things in that way. What I like is it’s actually a bit creative and sometimes I don’t think we see enough of that in this House. I also see this as perhaps the foreshadower of some legislation where we do this work in a way that’s just efficient for everybody.

I’m really grateful for the work that I know has been done. This is a hard piece of work. There’s a lot of work in here. We usually thank the select committees for their hard work, and I do, but on this occasion, I thank the technical people behind this piece of legislation, because there will have been some really hard discussions and some very disciplined, bright people making this happen, and I’m grateful that they have. I hope, finally, that we review this legislation in the not-too-distant future, so we can keep getting better at this sort of thing. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (16:59): This is a good bill. I commend it to the House.

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

Ayes 108

New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8; Te Pāti Māori 5; Ferris.

Noes 15

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Employment Leave Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety) (17:00): I present a legislative statement on the Employment Leave Bill.

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

First Reading

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety) (17:01): I move, That the Employment Leave Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 13 July 2026.

For more than two decades, the Holidays Act 2003 has been a source of confusion. While it was created to cater for a wide range of working arrangements, it has been difficult to understand, challenging to apply, and costly to fix errors. The complexity of the Holidays Act has had real consequences. It has led to widespread non-compliance across both the public and private sectors, it has resulted in billions of dollars in remediation costs, and it has meant that many workers did not receive the pay they were entitled to, sometimes waiting years for payments to be made, and that is why this Government is acting.

We are repealing the Holidays Act and replacing it with a simpler, clearer, and more transparent framework, the Employment Leave Bill. This bill has a clear purpose. It simplifies how leave is earned and paid. It gives workers certainty about their entitlements, and it restores confidence for employers so they can focus on growing their businesses rather than second guessing payroll calculations. Because there are too many changes to cover today, I’ll summarise the main changes.

Firstly, this bill introduces an hours-based accrual system for both annual leave and sick leave. This means that leave will be earned, taken, and paid in hours. From day one, employees will earn both annual and sick leave in direct proportion to their standard hours of work. No more wrestling with weeks and days, adjusting balances when hours of work change, or trying to define what constitutes a working week for a staff member with variable schedules. It also means no more waiting for six months to access sick leave or 12 months to access annual leave. For most people, though, leave entitlements will stay the same. What will change is how they are calculated. For example, an employee working 40 hours per week will earn the same amount of annual leave, but it will be expressed as 160 hours rather than four weeks.

Another change is how entitlements reflect changes in hours worked. At the moment, annual leave balances automatically scale to match the working week of the employee when they reduce or increase their hours. For example, if an employee increased their standard weekly hours of work, they effectively receive an increase in leave balance immediately without having to earn it. And if they reduce their hours, they effectively receive a reduction in their leave balance. Under the new system, accrued hours will be banked, meaning leave balances will reflect hours actually worked in the past rather than scaling when work patterns change.

Gone are the days of multiple confusing calculations for leave payments. Under the new system, the same hourly leave pay rate will be used for all leave types. It will be based on an employee’s base wage for the day of leave. The aim here is simplicity. Employers and employees alike will know exactly what their minimum entitlements are. I want to stress that—minimum entitlements. As minimum entitlements, employees and employers are also free to negotiate higher than the minimum in a way that suits both parties.

As for the sick leave system, the sick leave accrual rate will provide the hourly equivalent of 10 days sick leave per year for an employee who works five days a week and the same hours every day. Unused sick leave can still be carried over up to a cap of 160 hours, which is the equivalent of the current 20 days. Of course, adopting hours-based accrual for sick leave will be a change for employees who work less than five days per week. No longer will a part time employee receive the same amount of sick leave as someone working full time. Instead, all employees will receive sick leave hours proportionate to their standard hours.

Next, the bill introduces a leave compensation payment. Workers with casual hours will be paid 12.5 percent of their ordinary hourly rate for every hour they work, instead of accruing annual and sick leave. For employers, this will remove the burden of tracking leave for casual hours, but for the workers themselves it will mean money in their hand now rather than uncertainty later.

The bill also fixes a very long-standing issue for parents. Under the new system, employees will earn annual leave throughout their parental leave, just as they do now. But when they return and take annual leave, it will be paid like any other annual leave would be, not at a reduced figure, which happens now. This will ensure the Act doesn’t penalise parents for taking leave to care for a new child.

The bill also provides immediate access to bereavement and family violence leave from day one of employment.

Finally, the bill improves transparency and flexibility. Pay statements will clearly show pay and leave balances and workers will be able to cash out up to 25 percent of their annual leave in each 12-month period if they choose to do so.

There will also be a careful transition. Most employers will have 24 months to move to the new system. The schooling sector will have longer, recognising its payroll complexity, and historical underpayments will not be ignored. A statutory estimation method will provide a new option to help employers resolve them efficiently and fairly.

In summary, these reforms will make it easy to pay employees correctly for their leave. This will lower employer compliance costs and give employers and their workers confidence that payments are correct. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) (17:07): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise here today with a sort of split view on this bill, and I want to make that quite clear. There are some parts of this bill that I believe are doing the right thing, but there’s a lot in this that I’ve gone through it, since it landed on Monday, with many employment lawyers showing that there’s a lot of holes in the bill as well. That’s the concern that I bring to this.

I know, and I agree with the Minister, there has been confusion over the Holidays Act, but the Holidays Act also did offer a number of protections to employees. That’s really important that those protections aren’t lost and that no employee would be worse off, particularly with their holiday entitlements, when this bill becomes law.

I want to go through, basically, where our concerns are as Labour and why we would not be giving certainty around this bill going forward, because, as I said, there are so many holes in it. I do acknowledge that for businesses, they do need to see some certainty around this. This is something that we were told constantly when we were doing tripartite work as a Government in this area, which involved business peak body groups and union peak body groups and the Government working on the this. As the Minister will be aware, having a continued one-third of that work, or two-thirds—Government and business—that’s not always an easy thing to get people in that room talking the same talk at the same time. That’s why taking something complex and trying to make it simple doesn’t always work for everyone, and that’s what we’re seeing with this bill as it sits here today.

I believe that this piece of legislation is poorly written as it stands at the moment.

We will be voting against it, but I know that it will be going to select committee, and I believe it can be fixed at select committee. I hope the Minister is open to those suggestions when it comes back from select committee with those ideas added or amendments that we will be making to it. As it stands at the moment, this bill undermines a significant portion of workers’ rights in this country. I want to briefly talk about that, but I also put the invitation out there that I’m happy to talk outside of this process as well, because I do want to get this right. I do see that there’s value in us coming together as a Parliament to get it right.

As I said, a basic principle is that nobody should be worse off, and we see that there is a large contingent of the workforce that will be worse off after this. I have to say that I have had a lot of correspondence with employment lawyers and employment advocates in this space who are really concerned with what they’re seeing and how they’re reading the bill. They say quite clearly that if you’re a standard worker, you probably won’t notice any difference, but the world is changing so much that there are very few people that would call themselves standard workers who work standard hours at this point in time. It’s changing so much.

The removal of holiday rights or entitlements from so-called casual workers and the way that that’s been translated, as it is written in this bill, and the replacement with an allowance removes a whole lot of rights from those particular workers. It’s not just a small number; it’s a very large number of people that we see in that situation. The big concern we see, and the number of people that have contacted me and reached out to me see, is the very real fear that this will encourage casualisation of the workforce. Now, that’s not something that any of us really want to see. It’s not good for workers, it’s not good for business, and it’s not good for the economy. It is something that is a real fear from the way that this bill is written at the moment.

That’s just one and probably the biggest problem, and in five minutes I don’t have enough time, but I want to reiterate that I do want to get this right and I do want to sit down and have that conversation. Holidays aren’t a luxury; they are a basic right. They do protect our workers, they do protect our businesses, and they do protect our families and our communities, because people need to take those real breaks. As I’ve said, we’re going to vote against this at this stage, but we do want to get it right, and we do want to work authentically with the Minister to get it right. Thank you.

TEANAU TUIONO (Green) (17:13): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to talk on this Employment Leave Bill. Just to acknowledge what has been said: this is an issue, and the Holiday Act itself has had numerous problems. This is a beast of a bill; there are many, many pages here, and I want to acknowledge the enormous amount of work that will be required in order to get this over the line.

But acknowledging it and actually trusting that side to do the right thing are two different things. I look at this in the context of the attacks that they’ve done on workers’ rights—the barrage of anti-worker legislation that has come through this House, whether it’s cancelling 33 pay equity claims or squashing fair pay agreements. They’re tinkering around with work safety as well, let alone the appalling and horrendous Employment Relations Amendment bill that came through the House just a couple of weeks ago. It says, to me, that that side of the House cares more about the Uber company about the Uber drivers; it cares more about the mining company than it does about the workers; it always cares about the multinational corporations than it does about New Zealanders. I think it’s really important that we place that context in terms of the important that actually needs to be done in this bill.

It is all of those things that paint the context of, I think, the suspicion that many workers have of this Government. Yes, these are issues that need to be sorted out. Everybody knows that the Holidays Act has got a lot of problems and a lot of issues around that, but in order for that to be carried through successfully, it requires trust. It requires trust, and that side has failed to provide the necessary trust to workers that they are going to have their best interests at heart as well. I do note that in the formation—I’ve been reading the regulatory impact statement and the various documents here—of this bill, they didn’t talk to workers. They talked to employers, they talked to everybody else, but they didn’t talk to the unions at all—the representatives of the people who will be most impacted by this bill.

The Greens, in terms of our workforce policy, think it’s really important that we ensure that leave allowances enable working people to live fulfilling, balanced lives. That it something that this House should be doing; it should be making sure that we put people first, making sure that their workplaces are safe, and making sure that they can put food on the table and keep the lights on. There are a number of things that are going to be addressed with this legislation, and the Minister herself outlined that, around annual leave accrual, sick leave accrual, and bereavement and family violence leave. In the regulatory impact statement, there are a couple of options outlined about how best to do it, whether it could be on a week-by-week basis or on an hourly basis, and the Minister has chosen to do that via an hourly basis.

If there’s one among a number of requests that I have for that side of the House, it’s to make sure that we have a fulsome process so that when this bill goes to the Education and Workforce Committee, we allow everybody to have their say. I know that side don’t like it when the unions show up in their different branches and their different sectors, but it is important that they are heard. They haven’t been heard in the design of this document. I hope that members on the other side of the House take that to heart, because this will impact the leave requirements of those workers.

Also, one of the other things that I have noticed is that sometimes things will get a first reading, then we’ll do the report-back from the select committee, and then all of a sudden, we’re speeding through committee of the whole House and through the third reading. There could be big issues coming up out of this—issues identified in the select committee process—that, actually, we need to slow down, we need to pause, and we need to consider. The Council of Trade Unions itself has said you haven’t included workers within the design of this legislation. They did ask for a pause, and if that side of the House is not going to give that, then at least give it the full process. Let it go through the committee of the whole House, tease out any of the other very important issues, because, look at it, there’s a lot there—so much so that the Minister herself couldn’t outline all of it in the ten-minute contribution that she had allocated to her. It does no one any service at all if we rush this through the House without giving it due scrutiny.

The Greens cannot support this bill in the House. We do not trust that side; they have to earn that trust, and they are failing to do that for workers.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (17:18): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m looking forward to seeing the Employment Leave Bill coming to the Education and Workforce Committee.

As a previous business owner, I had the pain of having to deal with not only the financial fallout of having the wrong calculations made for holiday pay but also the incredible psychological impact that that actually had on the manager who had made some errors. For a lot of people, the confusion around the Holidays Act has been very disruptive, so I comment this bill to the House.

Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (17:18): Madam Speaker, I rise as New Zealand First’s spokesperson for small business. This country has a long history—in fact, I think we’re the first in the world at tripartite relations working out workforce issues. We’re very pleased that the Minister took some of our advice under consideration in the formation of this bill, Employment Leave Bill. It’s a long-overdue piece of legislation that finally brings common sense and practical reality to a system that’s been broken for over two decades.

For too long, the Holidays Act 2003 has been a bureaucratic nightmare for small business and a source of constant frustration for payroll providers. We see that there’s a real balance here on both sides, employers and employees. We would like to see, through the select committee process, that all of these issues were surfaced. We do have a proud history for advocating for lower business compliance costs with clear, simple law to support that. This is a centre ground, common-sense solution that puts the productivity of New Zealand and certainty of New Zealanders first. We commend this bill to the House.

ORIINI KAIPARA (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) (17:20): I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Māori to oppose this bill, the Employment Leave Bill. Once again, this Government is telling the country that this is about simplification, about tidying up legislation, making payroll systems easier, and making life easier for employers. But when you strip away the bureaucratic language, the truth becomes very clear. The bill asks working people to give up more, while those in positions of power sit comfortably behind desks writing legislation based on statistics that suit their narrative. It is policy written from a theoretical box, by people who have never had to worry about losing a day’s pay because they’re sick, never had to choose between staying home to recover or going to work injured because the bills still need to be paid. Meanwhile, the engine room of this country—the working class, the labouring class, the brown workforce of Aotearoa—will carry the cost.

We need to be really honest about what this bill does. It reduces sick leave entitlements for many part-time workers. It removes leave accrual for workers receiving weekly ACC compensation. It changes the way holiday pay and leave entitlements are calculated, in ways that will reduce the benefits many workers currently rely on.

We must talk about who those workers are, because while the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety may see numbers on a spreadsheet, we see real faces, real people behind those numbers. We see the shearers working through the sheds across rural Aotearoa. We see the freezing workers in the meatworks, the forestry crews on dangerous terrain, the construction labourers building our homes, the orchard and packhouse workers sustaining our horticulture sector. We see the cleaners, the hospital orderlies, the aged-care workers, the supermarket workers, and the security guards who keep our communities functioning. These are not abstract economic units. These are people—people whose bodies absorb the physical cost of keeping this country running, and many of these workers are in casual, seasonal, and part-time work. That matters.

Māori have an underutilisation rate of more than 20 percent, meaning more than one in five Māori workers are unemployed, underemployed, or unable to get the hours that they need, often through no fault of their own. Yet this bill proposes that if you work fewer hours, you should receive less sick leave. What kind of logic is that? You still get sick, you still get injured, and you still need to look after your kids and your whānau. But under this bill, your entitlement to recover is reduced because your labour is deemed less economically valuable. That is not fairness; that is measuring the worth of a human being based on their productivity.

Then, we come to ACC. Just last week, this Government clawed back millions from ACC recipients. Now, this bill punishes those same injured workers. If a forestry worker is injured on the job, if a construction labourer falls from scaffolding, if a freezing worker damages their back, while they’re recovering from injuries sustained while contributing to our economy, their leave entitlements will stop accruing. The message is very clear and it’s not a nice one. It says that if your body breaks while working for this country, you carry the cost.

This Government says it wants efficiency, but efficiency without justice is exploitation. Workers are not just entries in a payroll system. They are parents. They are aunties, uncles, caregivers, nieces, nephews, community leaders—the foundation of our economy. When you weaken their ability to rest, to recover, and to care for their whānau, you weaken the entire social fabric of Aotearoa. So I say this to the Minister responsible: before writing legislation from behind a desk, spend time in the shearing sheds, the forestry blocks, the packhouses, the construction sites, and the hospital cleaning crews working night shifts, because that is where the real impact of this bill will be felt. For fairness, for dignity, and for the protection of working whānau, this House must reject this bill.

GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland) (17:25): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Employment Leave Bill. This review is long overdue and I commend it to the House.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) (17:25): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It seems like, under this Government, taking a holiday is a luxury that no New Zealander can afford to take anymore, not only because they can’t afford to take the holiday themselves but because the Government seems to think if they can’t afford it, they’ll take their leave.

This is a sad first reading. We stand for fair work, decent jobs, and people being able to live a good life here in New Zealand. These changes, along with all the other changes that this Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety has brought to the House, are a further erosion of workers’ rights in New Zealand at a time when the cost of living is cutting more sharply than ever before.

What this bill does—let’s run through what it does. Under the Employment Leave Bill, paid holidays for so-called casual workers are stripped away and replaced with a simple allowance. That means no guaranteed break. That means no real holidays and no time to be able to switch off with family. Workers who take on growing hours, people stepping up when workplaces are under-staffed when they are needed to, are not rewarded for that. They will never be able to build up the full holiday entitlement that they earn today, so it’s a step backwards for those workers.

Overtime hours won’t be properly recognised. These are the extra shifts that nurses, retail workers, and hospitality workers take on to be able to pay the bills. This legislation says that those hours don’t count towards holiday pay and being able to take leave.

Workers will lose the right to take leave in advance or ensure that two consecutive weeks off—a basic protection that helps people rest; that helps people visit all their relatives who have gone to Australia; that help you to recover, to avoid burnout that we see in so many of our professions, whether they’re teachers, whether they’re nurses, in so many professions we’re seeing people being burnt-out by having to work extra hours. Having that fundamental right to be able to take a break, to take a period of time of leave to connect with family, to connect with nature, to be able to have some time and recharge—this bill is undermining those very fundamental rights.

We believe, in Labour, that holidays are not a luxury, they are a right. They protect the wellbeing of our workers, and they enable people to do an even better job when they come back and be even more productive because they’ve had time to recharge.

We know that workers themselves do not support this legislation. There was a working group to look at this whole area, that had union members, that had a whole range of people, that was bipartisan and working towards an agreed approach forward. A lot of that work has not been included in this legislation. In fact, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, which represents over 360,000 New Zealand workers, has been unequivocal in their view that this legislation is unfair, it has been rushed, and it is actually harmful to workers’ rights.

The Minister has been so focused on pushing this through rapidly that it has not been properly looked at. There are many gaps—as my colleague the Hon Jan Tinetti pointed out in her speech—many holes in this legislation, and workers themselves, the people who will be directly impacted by this legislation, have in fact not been consulted about the details. Vulnerable workers, we know, will risk losing pay and the ability to take two weeks of leave—something so vital is weakened.

We already have, in New Zealand, some of the longest working hours in the developed world. We know that mental health and burn-out are real factors in everyday people’s lives, and this legislation is just going to add to the burden already on the hard-working Kiwi family being able to cope and live in New Zealand.

It seems like this Government actually wants to drive out New Zealanders, they want to drive them offshore by continually eroding workers’ rights, by continually making it even harder to be able to pay the bills. At a time when there are so many pressures on being able to meet weekly payments, this is just another cut on the back of the workers of New Zealand.

We want fair work, we want decent jobs that pay a wage that’s enough for people to have a good life here in New Zealand, and this is, sadly, not anything in the realm of doing that. It will make it harder for workers to get ahead.

We know that the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon campaigned hard on making the cost of living better for New Zealanders; this bill is just one of dozens that have made life even harder and worse for New Zealanders, and that’s a sad thing for our country.

TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki) (17:30): Well, Jan Tinetti stood there and said that she’s interested to see if it can be improved at the select committee—then support it. Send it to the select committee and give it a go. The Greens are scaremongering, saying it’s not going to go through the committee of the whole House. That’s absolutely ridiculous and absolutely untrue. I don’t know what planet they’re on. Let’s just send it to committee. I commend it to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) (17:30): First, something positive for the Minister—make the most of this, Minister. Everyone acknowledges that the Holidays Act has been a mess for a long time. Successive Governments haven’t grappled with it in the way that was needed, really, to come to terms with a very complex piece of legislation. It caused a massive headache, huge financial liability for the Government, and it needed to be sorted out. So kudos for having a crack.

Now normal transmission will be resumed. I’m afraid to say it, but this Minister and this Government are the last people for so many New Zealanders to trust to do a job that’s fair and even-handed in designing a piece of legislation like this. Our Green Party colleague Teanau Tuiono, he said it. The track record of this Government and this Minister has been to continually strip the rights of New Zealanders at work and to undermine their bargaining position.

The last time we were discussing an employment law bill in this House that the Minister brought, she was dismantling the personal grievance system that is fundamental to workers having access to justice at work, getting rid of the 30-day rule in the Employment Relations Act that allows for workers at a new job at a new worksite to experience some collective bargaining before they choose whether they want to be part of the union and part of the collective, a law that stripped contract workers the right away from them to fairly have a process that would determine whether they are, in fact, a contractor or an employee. The list is very, very long, going right back to the demolition of fair pay agreements. So there is a huge trust problem for this Minister and this Government in dealing with an issue like reforming the Holidays Act.

There’s something that I think is really, really important to politics and Government in this country, and particularly in relation to laws that deal with employment relations, and I would cast this as a mainstream social democratic view of society and work and the economy. That is that it is a partnership that requires negotiation, a careful balancing of the rights and responsibilities in a way that actually allows our economy to work in the interests of both the owners of capital and the people who get up every day and work and contribute their labour to the generation of wealth. I think that someone like David Wilson understands this, but, unfortunately, this National-led coalition, and particularly the ACT Party and this Minister, do not believe in that. They have a one-sided and distorted approach that simply wants to rip the value that workers generate away from them, and they constantly want to tilt the playfield in favour of the owners of capital and employers.

If this bill is just one more piece of legislation that does that, then it won’t last, because as soon as the Government changes, it’ll be gone. It will not have the confidence and the support of society. So other comments that have been made by colleagues: yes, New Zealanders work longer and harder than almost anyone else in the OECD. That’s the only way our productivity figures have kept their head above water. If this bill weakens the rights of New Zealanders to get access to time off, to leave, and to holidays, that will be doing them a terrible disservice—we cannot afford that.

Back to the trust issue: Sandra Grey from the Council of Trade Unions—the preeminent organisation that represents workers and represents unions in this country—has said that they have not been properly consulted in the development of this bill. If that’s true, then I think that’s a further nail in the coffin of this bill’s credibility. She’s calling on the Minister to step back and actually take another look at it and take time and consult properly on that. Jan Tinetti said that we will work at select committee genuinely to try and improve this, and we will. We will get into the detail with the Minister and the officials and we will do our job and we will hold the Minister to account and subject this bill to the scrutiny it deserves.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (17:35): Allow me to indulge this House for at least 30 seconds and begin by acknowledging the Minister. Well done to you, Minister, for having the courage to address these longstanding issues. Labour had six years and they didn’t do it, so well done to you. I know there will be businesses right up and down New Zealand who will be celebrating these changes, regardless of the way—in fact, I’ve met the odd business owner in my electorate of Northcote that votes for Labour, and they were very happy with this piece of legislation. So I urge the other side to reverse their position, to support this bill to select committee, and do what’s required to get this bill through the House so that hard-working Kiwi businesses can get ahead, and that workers get fairness—it’s all about fairness. So I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Employment Leave Bill be now read a first 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 5; Ferris.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Referral to Select Committee

DEPUTY SPEAKER (17:37): The question is, That the Employment Leave Bill be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Instruction to Select Committee

Hon BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety) (17:37): I move, That the Employment Leave Bill be reported to the House by 13 July 2026.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Employment Leave Bill be reported to the House by 13 July 2026.

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 5; Ferris.

Motion agreed to.

Public Finance Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) (17:38): on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Public Finance Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Third Reading

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) (17:39): on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Public Finance Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

New Zealanders rightly expect Governments to manage public finances carefully, transparently, and responsibly. This bill strengthens the framework that supports that expectation by making targeted improvements to the Public Finance Act. Members across the House have engaged closely with the bill, reflecting the importance of the Public Finance Act to the functioning of our public finance system. During the committee of the whole House process, there was particular interest in the bill’s smaller, more technical provisions.

While these amendments may appear minor, they serve an important purpose. They clarify that the operation of the Act reduces ambiguity and removes unnecessary administrative steps. Taken together, these changes help ensure the Act operates more clearly and efficiently in practice. I would like to thank members for their very careful consideration of these provisions.

There were also several more substantive elements of the bill that attracted constructive engagement from across the House—for example, the change to the timing of the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update was broadly welcomed. Moving the publication window five working days earlier better reflects the increasing use of advance voting and provides voters and commentators with more time to understand the fiscal and economic content in which election commitments are being made.

Similarly, the introduction of a requirement to publish a tax expenditure statement alongside the Budget was generally recognised as a useful transparency measure. This will improve visibility of policy-motivated tax concessions and exemptions, and help to ensure that foregone revenue receives the same level of scrutiny as direct spending.

Members also engaged with the provisions allowing Governments to express their fiscal strategy using alternative fiscal indicators. These amendments recognise the practical reality that successive Governments have sometimes used variables that better communicate fiscal strategy in particular circumstances while maintaining transparency and ensuring that those variables remain clearly linked to the Act’s existing statutory framework.

I also want to briefly acknowledge one area of the bill where there was more debate amongst members regarding the removal of the wellbeing requirements from the Act. This bill is about getting back to basics. These changes restore flexibility and ensure the focus of the Public Finance Act is on public finance.

Some members queried why these changes are being progressed now, given the ongoing inquiry into performance reporting. The answer is actually straightforward. The amendments in this bill deal with issues and opportunities that are already clear and where action can be taken immediately. Further work, including on performance reporting and infrastructure planning will continue, but this legislation ensures the Act is working as clearly and effectively in the meantime.

So, in closing, this bill represents an important step in strengthening fiscal transparency and responsibility. I’m confident that it will contribute to sound fiscal management for New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (17:43): We cannot support this bill. It’s very straightforward: we cannot.

Let me just talk a little bit about some of the more minor matters that the previous speaker mentioned, talking in terms of some of the technical changes in the Public Finance Act, but those aren’t a problem; whether or not they’ll achieve what the Minister wanted, whatever—they don’t change a great deal.

It’s the substantive changes that really worry us. Let me deal with one of them first, with the use of alternative fiscal indicators. That’s a cover for the Minister introducing her new measure of operating balance before gains and losses, excluding ACC revenue and expenses, so she could fudge what she was doing over these years, given that this Minister, instead of coming in and restoring New Zealand’s finances, as she promised, has actually spent more than was spent by the previous Government, has added more to debt, and is going in the wrong direction. It’s very frustrating that in order to justify that, she has introduced these alternative fiscal indicators and used them to cover up her own mistakes.

But the real problem we have with this bill, the real reason as to why we are so deeply opposed to it is because it removes wellbeing budgeting from what the Government is required to report on. It says that the Government is no longer required to report on the wellbeing of New Zealanders.

Look, here’s why it is important that we contribute, that we try to measure overall wellbeing. When we get the annual Budget every year, when we get the financial statements, when we get the projections, people read the words in a narrative, they read the stories. They try to understand what the Government is doing, not through the bare numbers on the page but through the goals that the Government is setting for itself in terms of how New Zealanders will be better off—and I don’t mean better off in terms of the dollars and cents, although obviously they are important, but New Zealanders being better off in terms of being able to live a life well lived with choices well chosen because they are choices that enrich a person’s life. That’s what wellbeing budgeting is about.

The thing is that there’s a whole field of economic work around wellbeing. It’s worth reminding members on that side of the House that when gross domestic product was first introduced as an economic measure, it was deeply contested—no one understood what it was about; it didn’t seem to carry any economic weight. It took a long time of it being used and being understood and being deployed in Government accounting and in Government budgeting for people to grasp why it was worth considering. But, even then, gross domestic product is a deeply contested measure.

That’s something that one of the more revered former members of this House worked on when she was here: Dame Professor Dr Marilyn Waring, who came into this House and realised, when she was on what was then, I think, the Public Finance Committee—the equivalent of today’s Finance and Expenditure Committee—in terms of what Government was accounting for, there were great and enormous gaps in what was being accounted, stuff that just didn’t make it into the Government’s books but what mattered. Famously, she found that women’s work didn’t register in the Government’s accounting for what was going on. The hours and hours, the work of childcare that women do, the huge amounts of housework that women do—we’re talking back in the 1970s, so there were different social structures in place. One of the things that Dame Professor Dr Marilyn Waring set out to do was to include some of those measures in the public finance statements. The easiest way to do it is to fix the measure of gross domestic product.

As she left this House, she went on to do really significant work worldwide in that space—her famous book, Counting for Nothing. I think it’s got particular relevance right at the moment, not just in terms of the wellbeing budgeting, which has now gone from this bill, but in terms of what happened last year around pay equity. Now, I really do want to talk about this because we’ve just had the report from the People’s Select Committee looking into what went on around the removal of pay equity, which helped the Government to balance its books—well, it hasn’t, actually, because they’re still using their spurious measures.

The People’s Select Committee talked about the value of women—in fact, people—being paid well. The value is not just the dollars and cents in the back of their pockets. It says how, in terms of labour market experience and economics—now, I just want to point out that this particular select committee, the People’s Select Committee, was chaired by Dame Dr Professor Marilyn Waring. Looking at the labour market experience and economics, she says that there’s a whole set of findings that drew on submitters’ lived experiences to show how the structure of New Zealand’s labour market systematically undervalues and underpays work in publicly funded female-dominated sectors such as health, disability support, and education. It talks about the impacts that has on the lives that people live, the stress it creates, the stretch on family budgets, the inability to be able to pay for children’s wider activities. Now, those are the sorts of things that are captured by wellbeing budgeting, but now it’s not being measured.

The thing about having that wellbeing budgeting in place was it ensured that Government Ministers thought about those matters, that they thought about the wider consequences of their plans, that it wasn’t just in terms of dollars and cents. Now, I know, Madam Speaker—and I’m sure you know too and people who’ve sat in this House for many years—that Government Ministers of course consider those things. The point about the wellbeing budgeting was it required Government Ministers to do it in systematic ways and to report on it, and that enables New Zealanders to understand much, much better what Governments are trying to achieve for them.

I guess, I find it really disturbing that this work on wellbeing budgeting has just been set aside. Now, as it turns out, Treasury has a series of living standards indicators which we’ll keep on measuring. So we still have that information available to us, but it’s not secured.

If I give an analogy here—and it’s something that the Minister lauded herself on in terms of this bill—let’s go to the tax expenditure statement. The Minister made a great deal of the fact that from now on the annual Budgets, the annual financial statements—that we’re going to require a tax expenditure statement. Now, that’s where there are special rules in the tax system that create reductions in revenue and expenditure that particularly favour one group of people or create a special category of rules. The bloodstock write-down rates are a classic example of an item that appears in the tax expenditure statement. The thing is I know that those bloodstock write-down rules appear in a tax expenditure statement, because Inland Revenue has been preparing and presenting a tax expenditure statement for many, many years. There was no need to legislate for it to be presented and prepared, but the Minister thought it was necessary; she said, “The information’s there, but I’m going to make sure we report on it.” That was exactly the logic for the wellbeing budgeting. The information was there, but we were going to make sure we report on it and make sure that we worked towards it. So it seems the logic goes in one direction for the tax expenditure statement and the other direction for the wellbeing budgeting.

It’s a sad day. That work on wellbeing budgeting, it was work-leading. It had a long way to go, just like the development of GDP as a figure that’s used in budgeting and in understanding a country’s finances took a great deal of time to work on that measure, to solidify it, to really understand how it worked—it took repeated efforts—wellbeing budgeting was starting. It needed work. It was going to get that work. We were at the start of a journey, not the end. And now it’s been stopped. What a wretched day.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) (17:53): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. So there’s some very minor amendments in this bill that actually could be a good thing, and I’ll talk about those first—that is, introducing more specific disclosure requirements for the statement of specific fiscal risks. So Treasury has to provide an estimate of the fiscal impact of each specific fiscal risk. This is something we’re broadly supportive of. Indeed, my colleague and co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, has been doing a lot of work to get the Treasury and the Government to quantify the fiscal risk of not meeting our climate obligations, for example, because, if we started accounting for that, we might understand that there is a cost to it.

Another example of fiscal risk would be in the roads of so-called national significance, which we now know, thanks to the report in the National Infrastructure Plan, that a whole bunch of them are totally un-fundable and the Government has no plan to pay for them. If their plan is to sign up to public-private partnerships and lock in future Governments to paying back exorbitant loans at extra-high interest rates, that will have to be disclosed. So at least we would understand the fiscal risks and, hopefully, we would understand the risks of not maintaining our assets and our infrastructure. That’s been a major problem over decades. I know the member Simon Court will agree with me that we need to get much better at asset management and asset registers.

Presumably, what happened with the under-investment in our health assets, for example, in the National Infrastructure Plan, we see that we’re going to have a need for more hospitals, more healthcare, our hospitals are in a shocking state. That specific fiscal risk I don’t think was accurately on Treasury’s books. It’s possible that some of the classical tools that were used to constrain Government spending, like the capital charge for district health boards, actually discouraged them from making capital investments where they were meant to. So I think that is a sensible change.

Overall, we’re not going to support the bill, largely for the same reasons that the Labour member spoke to, which are that it is kind of like a silly vice-signalling move to repeal the wellbeing objectives from the Public Finance Act. I think all New Zealanders know that Government’s not spending or saving money just for the sake of it; the whole point of what we’re doing here together—whether it’s at a local government level or central government level—is trying to invest in things that we can all benefit from. Many people—I’d say most people in New Zealand—actually want to leave this place in a better state for future generations. That’s not something that is accounted for in the Government books at all.

So you could have, supposedly, Government balancing the books, but, at the same time, we’ve got a huge social deficit. We have a very large, unacceptable number—I mean, really, any number is too many—of children living in poverty. That’s a social deficit. It’s going to cost us in the long term as a society if we don’t address that.

We have an environmental deficit, we’re losing biodiversity rapidly in most parts of the country outside of Wellington, where life is coming back thanks to a concerted effort. Our soil health is not good in a lot of places, and our freshwater quality is even worse. We have issues with our marine environment, overfishing, bottom trawling, and then the issue of all our urban development not having adequate wastewater treatment facilities, which are now failing as well.

So we’ve got all these deficits. I think the whole concept, even if it wasn’t perfectly executed—and I would argue that there would be better ways to approach it—if we don’t measure something, we’re not going to be able to take action on it. It’s not just what the Government is spending; we’re not counting these huge liabilities we have in the future.

The Hon Dr Deborah Russell mentioned that pay equity is a perfect example of that. So we know that female-dominated professions that do really vitally important caring work that enables our society to thrive have been systematically undervalued over decades. We thought all the parties in the House, except the ACT Party, were supporting moves to change that in 2020 when we put a new process into the Equal Pay Act to help people achieve pay equity. That’s about making sure people are being paid and valued properly for the important work they do, like being early childhood teachers, like being nurses or midwives. We know that those professions were undervalued because of sex-based discrimination. The only way we’re going to solve that is by having an evidence-based approach to solving it. The law change that we made in 2020 was supported by Business New Zealand and the unions and Government and, indeed, by the National Party. But once they got into Government, it was just inconvenient, because the truth is we haven’t been paying those professions enough, and they are mostly publicly funded.

So what does that mean? If we want to have enough aged-care workers, if we want to have enough disability carers, it we want to have enough early childhood teachers—and all of those things, I think, are very, very important for New Zealand to function as a society—then we’re going to have to pay them more, otherwise they’re all going to leave and go to Australia. The Government unceremoniously took at least $16 billion away from people in those professions and said, “Sorry, you’re not worth it. We’re going to spend that money in other ways.”

The whole idea that is prevalent on the Government side of the benches and right-wing - thinking people is that somehow Government spending is always bad, and private sector is always good. But there are a lot of really important public sector things that will not be met by the private market, and if we want to address it, we have to invest in it. In order to do that, we need to have a revenue strategy to make sure—and, happily, there are lots of tools out there to have a fairer revenue strategy that would raise more revenue. We are in the bottom half of the OECD for raising revenue through taxation.

So we are not taxing the wealthy enough at all, and that is eroding other people’s living standards. It’s actually a transfer of wealth from ordinary working people—Pasifika people, Māori people, women—who do the less-desirable jobs, the harder jobs, the ones who get up in the middle of the night to deliver babies or who are wiping the bums of elderly and disabled, who are cleaners, who are the admin and clerical workers that enable our hospitals to function. They’re doing that work and we have a transfer of wealth from all of their hard work—the ones looking after our tamariki in the early childhood education centres—to the wealthiest people. That’s what our tax system is currently allowing, and it’s actually really bad for growth. If we actually wanted economic growth, we would want to ensure that the benefits of all the work going on in society were more fairly shared and not trapped by a smaller and smaller number of people who own all the assets and who Government and the ordinary public are now indebted to.

Now, I know this is a very confusing, difficult topic for members opposite, because they think they know everything—especially Minister of Finance Nicola Willis. We can tell every time she talks to us, she thinks she knows everything, you know, her debating experience and her English literature degree mean that she understands everything about the economy! But, actually, she really doesn’t. She doesn’t understand the first thing. She’s just here to make excuses for every bad decision that her Government has made. We need to hold her to account. She’s the reason we don’t have brand-new ferries arriving that would be fuel-efficient, that would actually enable freight and people to keep moving across the Cook Strait, which is now being disrupted—supply chains disrupted today, next week, and probably for the next three years. She’s the reason why 33 claims that had been worked on for years—while she and Brooke van Velden and ACT and the coalition of bros, who are quite happy to subjugate everyone else, are the reason why people are going to continue to be underpaid in essential professions.

Simon Court: This is good. This is good content for us.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: It is; it’s good, because ordinary people are waking up to the fact that this Government is acting in the interests of its rich mates and some ideologs—and, in the case of New Zealand First, some conspiracy theory “cookers”—in not acting in the interests of all New Zealanders, the long-term interests, making sure the firefighters get the equipment they need to work. They’re doing this because they don’t understand, or they’re beholden to donors. I don’t know what it is. Maybe they’re just incompetent. But, luckily, we have an election later this year and we can choose something much more sensible and long term.

Simon Court: Madam Speaker, point of order. Madam Speaker, that member has imputed that some members of the House on the Government side are beholden to donors, which suggests that we cannot be trusted to make independent decisions. I would just ask that you’d suggest that member withdraw and apologise. It’s unacceptable.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Look, I know that’s a statement that we don’t make in the House, but there were a lot of “maybes” going on there. I don’t think there was any actual accusation. So we just need to be careful about how we say it, and I think the member probably framed it in a way that she got away with it this time. So she has six seconds left if she has anything else she wishes to further say.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I look forward to changing the Government later this year, to one that cares about our people.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House is adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 24 March 2025.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6.04 p.m.