Thursday, 21 May 2026

Thursday, 21 May 2026

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Start of Sitting Day

Karakia/Prayers

GREG O'CONNOR (Assistant Speaker) (14:00): Almighty God, we give thanks for the blessings which have been bestowed on us. Laying aside all personal interests, we acknowledge the King and pray for guidance in our deliberations that we may conduct the affairs of this House with wisdom, justice, mercy, and humility for the welfare and the peace of New Zealand. Amen.

Business of the House

Business Statement

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Leader of the House) (14:00): Next week, the House will consider further stages of the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill and the Building and Construction Sector (Self-certification by Plumbers and Drainlayers) Amendment Bill. The hours of Tuesday will be extended into Wednesday morning for Government business. On Thursday, the Minister of Finance will deliver the Budget.

TANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North) (14:01): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can the Leader of the House confirm that, in event that the House goes into post-Budget urgency, that urgency will be utilised for any Budget-related legislation and not for legislation currently listed on the Order Paper.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Leader of the House) (14:01): Well, of course, we will have quite a bit of legislation to get through related to the Budget, and we will be progressing a number of pieces of legislation.

Presentation

Petitions

SPEAKER (14:01): A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK (14:01): Petition of Ponsonby Chambers requesting that the House repeal section 14(1A) of the Habeas Corpus Act and section 169(6) of the Senior Courts Act and instead require a court to determine applications to appeal decisions under section 166 of that Act within three working days.

SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee.

Papers

SPEAKER (14:02): I present the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament: Summary of annual returns as at 31 January 2026. That paper is published under the authority of the House. No select committee reports have been delivered.

Bills

Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill

Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Mining on Conservation Land) Amendment Bill

New Zealand Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief Medal Bill

Oranga Tamariki (Suitable Accommodation on Leaving Care) Amendment Bill

Residential Tenancies (Requiring Landlords to Provide Curtains) Amendment Bill

Crimes (Impeding Major Bridges, Tunnels, and Roads) Amendment Bill

Introduction

SPEAKER (14:02): The Clerk has been informed of the introduction of six bills.

CLERK (14:02):

Local Government (Management of Local Authorities) Amendment Bill, introduction

Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Mining on Conservation Land) Amendment Bill, introduction

New Zealand Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief Medal Bill, introduction

Oranga Tamariki (Suitable Accommodation on Leaving Care) Amendment Bill, introduction

Residential Tenancies (Requiring Landlords to Provide Curtains) Amendment Bill, introduction

Crimes (Impeding Major Bridges, Tunnels, and Roads) Amendment Bill, introduction.

SPEAKER: Those bills are set down for first reading. The House comes to oral questions.

Oral Questions to Ministers

Auckland

Question No. 1

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (14:03) to the Minister for Auckland: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Hon CHRIS PENK (Minister of Defence) (14:03) on behalf of the Minister for Auckland: Yes.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: What advice has he received or requested regarding Auckland’s skyrocketing level of unemployment, now twice what it was three years ago, and the correlation between job losses in Auckland and homelessness?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister, I receive a range of advice on a number of matters, including employment rates. I am advised that job creation through mechanisms such as the pipeline of projects through the regional city deal, fast-track projects with some 8,500 homes consented, will be valuable for construction and other industries. The question is about ways we can ensure the employment rate is as high as possible and the unemployment rate as low as possible, and we’re confident that, as a Government, we’re getting on and taking such measures.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Has he received or requested any update on the number of homeless people in Auckland since the National Homelessness Data Project estimated that there were 940 homeless people in Auckland?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister, I receive a lot of advice, and it’s difficult for me to be specific about exactly what advice I’ve received in relation to the topic that the member has mentioned, but, certainly, the advice that I seek includes such issues facing Aucklanders as homelessness, and I would note that to approve the construction of 8,500 new homes under the Fast-track Approvals Act is going to be positive in terms of homelessness, as well as, as previously mentioned, in relation to employment.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Does he agree with the Prime Minister that “The problem is what do you do with the people. You can’t just move them around and bounce them around the city.”; if so, how can he promise Aucklanders that he’s simply not shifting rough sleepers from Queen Street to the North Shore?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister for Auckland, the mechanism popularly known as move-on orders—and I do mean popular with Aucklanders—is more properly within the remit of the Minister of Justice. But I would say for those who inhabit our city and region, we think that a fair balance must be struck. The rights of enjoyment and occupation must be struck for the benefit of all, including that for those who are moved on, there is a reasonable opportunity for them to be taken care of in a way that is appropriate, given their complex needs around housing but also mental health and addiction services. That’s why we’re taking such a holistic approach to that question as a Government.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Why is the Government planning to build just 207 additional Housing First places in Auckland when there are over 940 homeless people in Auckland, and where does he expect them to go—other than suburbs like Kingsland, Mt Eden, and Epsom—when he kicks them out of the CBD?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister for Auckland, I reject the characterisation of the—

SPEAKER: Yeah, so do I. I think that the last part of the question could be better worded, but make a response.

Hon CHRIS PENK: Thank you, Mr Speaker. On behalf of the Minister for Auckland, it seems to me important that we take a holistic approach to the question. As I’ve indicated, as the Government, we’re taking a number of different approaches which will be beneficial to the people of Auckland as a city and as a region and also for all of New Zealand. Of course, when Auckland succeeds, New Zealand will have the opportunity to do so too.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Why should Aucklanders trust him over the Ministry of Justice, who said there was no evidence move-on orders would reduce crime; Police, who opposed criminalising rough sleeping; and Treasury, who said the costs would outweigh the benefits?

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Point of order! Time and time again, in questions, there is an assertion made that the Government is criminalising homelessness.

Hon Willie Jackson: You are! You are!

SPEAKER: I appreciate that, and I was about to get—sorry, I’m not doing anything, the Hon Willie Jackson. Just reword the question. You can’t make an assertion like that.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you clarify for me what you think is out of order in the original question that I asked?

SPEAKER: No, not in the original question. There was nothing wrong with the original question. The supplementary that you just asked carried, effectively, an accusation that can’t be substantiated.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I think you’re referring to the part where I say “Police, who opposed criminalising rough sleeping”—

SPEAKER: No.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I need you to explain which part is—

SPEAKER: Well, I’m not going to do that. I’ve given you an opportunity to re-ask the question, or you can forfeit it—one of the two.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Why should Aucklanders support the move-on orders when the Ministry of Justice has said there is no evidence that move-on orders would reduce crime, Police have opposed criminalising rough sleeping, and Treasury have said that the costs would outweigh the benefits?

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister for Auckland, the member is mistaken in the effect that she thinks that the move-on order regime will have. My colleague and friend the Minister of Justice will be happy to explain it to her, I’m sure, but it’s not in the nature of a move-on order to criminalise homelessness. It doesn’t belong in the Crimes Act.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: They’ll be fined or put in jail. That’s criminalising.

Hon CHRIS PENK: Now is not the time for a lecture to the member about the difference between criminal law and other, but I can only conclude she wasn’t listening yesterday to the exchange across the House where I thought that was made tolerably clear.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is it true that the proposed move-on order legislation does not criminalise rough sleeping or homelessness or anything but it criminalises a refusal to follow a move-on order, and can he also remind the House that the Government, on behalf of New Zealanders, has many tools with which to help those who are in need, but relatively few—

SPEAKER: Yeah, well, one aspect of that question could be answered.

Hon CHRIS PENK: On behalf of the Minister for Auckland, yes.

Public Service and Digitising Government

Question No. 2

CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) (14:10) to the Minister for the Public Service and Digitising Government: Why is the Government undertaking significant public sector reform?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for the Public Service and Digitising Government) (14:10): New Zealanders expect a public sector that delivers efficient, productive, and cost-effective services. The reality is that the size and scale of the public sector grew unsustainably during the previous Government, so it is necessary to fundamentally rethink the way in which our Public Service operates. It will involve streamlining the number of agencies and entities, digitising both customer-facing and back-office systems, and returning the size of the public sector to a more sustainable level that does not exceed what most reasonable New Zealander would expect.

Catherine Wedd: What outcomes does the Government expect to achieve by returning the size of the Public Service to a more sustainable level?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: First, we expect to generate savings of $2.4 billion over the Budget period, which can be deployed to other areas, such as delivering more services in our health system, increasing educational resources for schools, building infrastructure, or strengthening our defence. Secondly, we would expect chief executives to propose new structures that are more efficient, define ways to share services more broadly, and, ultimately, this will improve the performance and productivity of the Public Service and deliver better value for money for New Zealanders.

Catherine Wedd: What outcomes does the Government expect to achieve by the digitisation of the Public Service?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: We expect a public sector that can be adaptable and can take advantage of the transformative power of new technologies available to deliver better services and improve productivity. This will make it easier for New Zealanders to interact with the Public Service and to reduce the overall cost.

Catherine Wedd: What are some of the opportunities for better public services that these transformations will allow?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: When implemented well, digital technologies allow the Public Service in a wider sense to become more digitally enabled, efficiently structured, more cost-effective, and higher performing. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already being used across the public sector, and by the end of September 2026, an AI assistant for Government New Zealand will enable users to find answers quickly and easily across Government services.

Transport

Question No. 3

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai) (14:12) to the Minister of Transport: Can he confirm the last public estimate of the cost of the Warkworth to Te Hana Road is nearly $4 billion, and why is the most recent cost estimate of the project being withheld?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister of Transport) (14:13): I can confirm the last publicly available cost estimate was a range of $2.9 billion to $3.8 billion. Updated estimates are being refined through detailed design and procurement, which is standard practice for projects at this stage. I acknowledge the public interest in the cost estimates for the project. Taxpayers also expect the Government to achieve good value for money, which can at times require confidential negotiations. The procurement process for Warkworth to Te Hana is well under way. Financial close is expected mid-year, so it’s not in the public interest to disclose updated costings at this time. The Ombudsman has also recently formed an opinion that the Government is entitled to withhold this information at this stage as we are in commercial negotiations.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is his Government refusing to disclose the estimated cost and benefit-cost ratio (BCR) for this project because as the Ombudsman said, “it might bring into question the Government’s decision to proceed to procurement”, and what does that say about the priority of this project?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, that’s not the reason. The reason is just as I just said, which is that the Government is engaged in commercial negotiations, and I hope the member would want the taxpayer to receive good value for money. I’m advised that releasing the BCR—the benefit-cost ratio—at this time infers the internal rate of return that is the perceived profitability or marginal value for the Crown, and this therefore weakens the Crown’s commercial value for money as the private sector could see opportunities—

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: I think AI wrote this sentence.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, do you want us to waste money now, do you? Oh, actually, you do—I forgot about that. You’re from those guys. The private sector could see opportunities to increase their return at the expense of the Crown’s value. It’s pretty simple—we’re involved in a commercial negotiation. We want good value for money. You don’t go into commercial negotiations saying how much you think something could cost because then, unsurprisingly, you will end up paying for what you have set aside and publicly disclosed how much it will cost. That seems like a fairly dumb idea.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Is it the case that the private sector competes for building all the road projects that are put out for procurement in New Zealand and it is still in the public interest for overall cost and benefit-cost ratio to be in the public domain?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, yes, we will release the benefit-cost ratio and the cost of the project once we have a finalised commercial contract. I’m not going to ask the New Zealand Transport Agency to negotiate with a hand tied behind their back. I want them to get the best deal for the Crown. I think most Kiwis would want that.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Has the fossil fuel crisis affected the cost of building highways, the demand for using roads, and the ability for future land transport funds to pay back a public-private partnership loan, and if so, how?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, I don’t know what the member means by fossil fuel crisis. That member’s on the record saying that in 2008 we’d run out of oil by 2015, and last time I looked, we’ve got plenty of it.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Mr Speaker, point of order. I mean, I think it was a fairly reasonable question, given we all know that there is a fuel crisis, the Government has a policy on it—

SPEAKER: No—no. No, hang on. Wait—wait. Wait, sorry, what is—?

Hon Julie Anne Genter: The Minister didn’t address the question at all. He made some weird assertion about me before I was an MP.

SPEAKER: With all due respect, he did. Do you have another supplementary?

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Do I get an additional supplementary?

SPEAKER: No, you don’t.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Why is he proceeding with an eye-wateringly expensive and low value for money public-private partnership at the same time when his Government is planning to lay off, potentially, 9,000 New Zealanders to balance its books?

Hon Louise Upston: Point of order. Well, there were multiple assertions in that, so, I would expect that to be ruled out.

SPEAKER: Yep, and the member, I’m sure, herself, would be aware of Speaker’s ruling 195/6, which makes it very clear you can’t hang a question off an assertion. If you’ve got a question, I’ll be generous enough to let you ask it.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Why is the Government proceeding with an expensive public-private partnership road at the same time it has disclosed plans to, potentially, lay off 9,000 New Zealanders from the public service?

SPEAKER: That barely makes it—barely makes it.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Those are both in the public domain.

SPEAKER: You can’t—[Interruption] Sorry! You can’t assert that’s something is outrageously expensive when the Minister’s just explained that there’s a process going on that will eventually lead to an ability to assess that, but not at the moment.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Mr Speaker, just speaking to the point of order. The front page of the New Zealand Herald today says it could well be the most expensive road ever built in New Zealand, so I don’t think it’s an outrageous claim.

SPEAKER: There are lots of places that you could go to get an authoritative comment—the front page of the New Zealand Herald would not be one of them. The Minister may make a reply.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: The Warkworth to Te Hana road of national significance is an important nation-building project for the country.

Hon Phil Twyford: A very expensive nation-building project.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah, well, so was the Auckland Light Rail project you wanted to spend $50 billion on. But anyway, it is going to be a game-changer for the North. It will improve safety and resilience and better connect Northland to the very important economic market of Auckland and, of course, the wider “golden triangle”—or, as I call it, the “golden quadrangle” involving Northland.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does the Minister—

SPEAKER: No one else is speaking while the member is asking their question.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does the Minister really believe that the Warkworth to Te Hana expressway is the best use of multi-billions of public money, when that route will carry less than 0.1 percent of daily motor vehicle trips, and if so why?

Grant McCallum: Yes.

SPEAKER: You may have to declare an interest, Mr McCallum.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yes. Standing Orders says some things about your pecuniary interest, but—it’s not pecuniary, sorry, that’s offensive. It’s not just about vehicle movements; it’s about safety and reliability and resilience.

Tamatha Paul: Then release the BCR.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: BCRs take into account multiple benefits other than—

Tamatha Paul: Exactly, so release it—release it.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: It will be released. I’ve already—you need to listen. Tamatha Paul needs to listen to the answer. We will be releasing the BCR. The business case for the Warkworth to Te Hana expressway is not just predicated on vehicle movements. It is also predicated on the very unreliable road that is there at the moment. It is predicated on safety; it’s a very dangerous section of road at the moment. It is also predicated on reliability and the wider economic benefits that will come from better connecting Northland to the largest economic market in the country, which is the city of Auckland—which is presumably why the last Government, in their outgoing draft Government policy statement, also included it as a road of national significance that should be built. The last time I looked, that member was a member of the outgoing Government that got booted out of office two years ago.

Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti

Question No. 4

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) (14:21) to the Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti: Does he stand by the Government’s track record regarding Māori-Crown relationships?

Hon TAMA POTAKA (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti) (14:21): Yes. Māori-Crown relations will outlive everyone in this House, hence why I commend the progressive and stellar mahi of members such as Minister Goldsmith with Treaty settlements progress—three last week from Hauraki and, of course, the first reading of Whanganui land settlement; Minister Stanford with some of her work around education, particularly supporting capital expenditure across various kura in this country; and Minister Jones, not only with the super-hot geothermal shot but also the tautoko that he provides to Parihaka, Ringatū out at Wainui Road, Rātana, and Waitangi.

Hon Willie Jackson: Does he agree with the Waitangi Tribunal’s assessment of the Treaty principles bill that states the bill risks destroying the very foundation of the constitutional arrangements of this country; if not, why not?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: I have not had the opportunity to read through the entirety of the Waitangi Tribunal report in this regard, but I will note that it was absolutely egregious that, in 2017, the NCEA level 2 achievement rate for Māori was 78.5 percent, and by the time we came back in 2023 it had gone down to 65 percent. That’s why, in this Government, I absolutely support Minister Stanford, who is spearheading a massive turn-around in educational achievement for Māori and all Kiwi kids—and actually reads her emails.

Hon Willie Jackson: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: A point of order is heard in silence—the Hon Willie Jackson.

Hon Willie Jackson: Mr Speaker, the Minister didn’t address the question at all. I was asking about the Waitangi Tribunal’s assessment of the Treaty principles bill. I don’t know what he was waffling on about, but if he could—

SPEAKER: No, no, that’s OK, because—

Hon Willie Jackson: Yeah, so the question is about the Treaty principles bill, and he never addressed it at all.

SPEAKER: Well, he did start by saying that he had, at this point, not had time to read the full report. I thought that was a reasonable way to start the answer. Any additional information, though, would be of no value to the member; well, that’s OK, but it might have been to the rest of the House.

Hon Willie Jackson: Why, then, given where the Minister is at, has the Minister allowed amendments to be made to the Education and Training Act that the Waitangi Tribunal has condemned and described as being as bad as the Treaty principles bill?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Perhaps it was the case under the previous Government that the Minister for Māori Crown Relations had a veto on all legislation, but in this coalition Government, actually, we work on things together and that’s how we actually move things through and ensure better clarity. But I will note, also, for the record, that a number of schools—actually, most schools in this country—have continued their commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and don’t need a legislative reference to do so.

Hon Erica Stanford: Does he stand by the Government’s investments into a bilingual education system?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: Absolutely, especially around that mahi in Budget 2025 around investing $10.5 million operating and $50 million capital expenditure into Māori-medium and kaupapa Māori education; and, also, strengthening kōhanga reo to aid in capability: $4.1 million; and, also, curriculum resources in te reo Māori: $4.5 million. We are committed to achievement and not just kōrero about Māori achievement in education.

Hon Shane Jones: Point of order, sir. Seeking a bit of direction from you. Essentially, what the honourable member from the Opposition, Mr Jackson, is asking is for my colleague to give, really, a legal response, and he’s not required to give it in relation to him offering an opinion—Speaker’s ruling 186/6—in terms of what the Waitangi Tribunal may or may not have said. The whole question is out of order.

SPEAKER: Well, it would be if the Waitangi Tribunal was a court, but it’s not.

Hon Willie Jackson: To the Minister, can he confirm that there will be no jobs lost at Te Puni Kōkiri that relate to maintaining the Māori-Crown relationship, and, if not, why not?

Hon TAMA POTAKA: As the honourable member will recall, I hope, from his previous days as a Minister, those are matter for operational decision-making within Te Puni Kōkiri. But what this Government is absolutely sure on is that we will not increase the Public Service by 33 percent over six years and then get far poorer outcomes around a range of issues, whether or not that’s conservation, Māori department, social housing, or a number of other things.

Hon Willie Jackson: Has he told the finance Minister that there can be no more job cuts at Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Arawhiti, given he’s already made cuts to those agencies in previous Budgets; or is it only Winston Peters and David Seymour who are brave enough to say no to her?

SPEAKER: No, that’s not a question that can be asked. I’ll give you a chance to reword it, but the last part’s no good.

Hon Willie Jackson: Has he told the finance Minister that there can be no more job cuts at Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Arawhiti, given he’s already made cuts to those agencies in previous Budgets; or is it only Winston Peters and David Seymour that are exempt from making cuts to their agencies?

SPEAKER: No. Well, you can’t—

Hon Willie Jackson: One more time? I’ll give it another shot. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: No, no. Wait on. Just wait. You need to know where you’re going wrong, and it sort of starts at the start and goes all the way through. You can’t make assertions.

Hon Willie Jackson: OK, all right. I think I’ve got it now. I’ll give it one more shot, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: It’ll be the last one.

Hon Willie Jackson: Last chance. Has the Minister told the finance Minister that there can be no more job cuts it Te Puni Kōkiri and Te Arawhiti, given he’s already made cuts to those agencies in previous Budgets?

SPEAKER: That was very good.

Hon TAMA POTAKA: As the honourable member will know, the quality of the Public Service is not determined by the quantity of public servants. This Government, and myself as the Minister for Māori Development, are absolutely focused that the ministry focuses and is geared towards achieving its role, delivering on its mandate, and making sure that it can be the best Ministry for Māori Development that it has ever been.

Tourism and Hospitality

Question No. 5

NANCY LU (National) (14:28) to the Minister for Tourism and Hospitality: What recent reports has she seen on tourism in New Zealand?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Tourism and Hospitality) (14:28): Data released by Stats NZ last week shows New Zealand’s international visitor numbers continues to rise. Annual figures show we welcomed 3.63 million international visitors in the year ending March 2026, a 9.2 percent increase on the previous year. This means that we are now at 93 percent of our target of 2019 levels. Growing tourism is a key part of our Government’s plan to fix the basics and build the future, and this progress shows that our plan is working.

Nancy Lu: What markets have seen the strongest growth?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: We are seeing continued growth from our largest visitor market, which is, of course, Australia, with 138,360 people arriving in March, which is up 21 percent on the same time a year ago. There was also strong growth from other key tourism markets, including an 8.3 percent increase in visitors from the United States and a 20 percent increase in visitors from China. We are seeing the flow-on growth in confidence in our tourism and hospitality sector as more visitors have chosen New Zealand as their next holiday destination. More international visitors means more customers for our businesses, and ultimately, more jobs being created across the country.

Nancy Lu: How are the Government’s policies and investments impacting visitor numbers?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Our Government’s investments into things like business events, cycle trails, Regional Tourism Boost, major events, Tourism New Zealand, and changing visa settings are collectively making a positive impact. With more than 2.5 million trips a year, our investment into the 23 Great Rides of New Zealand now generates $1.28 billion a year. That’s money flowing into our regions and growing our economy. Our first round of Regional Tourism Boost generated over 15,000 additional visitors. Our “Everyone Must Go” campaign, encouraging Australians to visit New Zealand, delivered almost 8,000 additional visitors, with an estimated—wait for it—$22 million in visitor spend to our economy. The visitor waiver trial that we introduced in November is also making a difference for Chinese visitors, with over 75,000 visits since the trial was introduced. That’s an estimated economic injection of over $440 million.

Nancy Lu: What regions are seeing growth in visitor spend?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The overall visitor spend for New Zealand and visitor spend in our regions has increased over the last two years. Every single region in New Zealand recorded a rise, with Auckland leading the way with a 21 percent increase for 2026 when compared to the previous year. Southland had the biggest turn-around from 2025, which lifted from 5 percent to 13 percent in 2026. Tourism is critical to our economy and to local jobs and higher wages, and our investments will help deliver lasting benefits for communities and businesses across New Zealand.

Mental Health

Question No. 6

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI (Te Tai Tokerau) (14:31) to the Minister for Mental Health: Does he consider that Te Tai Tokerau region is facing a methamphetamine crisis, given Te Hiku has no detox facility and reported wait times at the region’s only detox unit have increased since 2018 from six to eight weeks to 12 to 16 weeks?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health) (14:32) on behalf of the Minister for Mental Health: No. I’ve been advised that the Health New Zealand detox service for Northland reported today that it only has a six-week wait time. However, I understand that more work needs to be done to support those in the Far North and across New Zealand struggling with methamphetamine addiction. That is why in November last year, this Government released a comprehensive methamphetamine action plan. Part of that package saw $30 million over four years invested to increase the services available to communities hardest hit by meth, with almost $4 million going to local providers in Northland.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: What action is the Minister taking to support kaupapa Māori addiction providers in Te Hiku with additional Government funding of operational support for rehabilitation services?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: On behalf of the Minister, I’m pleased to announce that through the methamphetamine programme, new services are being stood up in the mid- and Far North. This includes a nurse practitioner in the mid-North, who will be able to support community detox, which may be suitable for some people. Te Hiku Hauora have been contracted to provide methamphetamine treatment, pou whānau connector, and peer support services. These new services are set to launch on 8 June.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: What Te Tai Tokerau - specific methamphetamine harm indicators informed the Government’s health investment decisions for the region?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: We have collectively responded to a range of issues that are facing the Far North regarding methamphetamine. This has included a range of actions that we have delivered. Included in this is the recently announced—Minister McKee and I announced this last week—additional $12 million of proceeds of crime funding going to be invested in the Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities (ROCC) programme in the North. New ROCC funding will allow expansions into Kaitāia, and this provides an around-the-system approach for police to crack down on gangs and drug networks. There is a stable support structure that helps build community resilience, and that breaks the grip of addiction.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Will the Minister commit to targeted funding for addiction and rehabilitation services in Te Hiku, given detox times are now as high as 16 weeks? I did hear the Minister’s previous response, Mr Speaker, but my information tells me that it is 16 weeks still.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: On behalf of the Minister, yes I can confirm that as of today, we have advised and been confirmed that it is a six-week wait time. Yes, we have committed to continuing to support addiction and alcohol services. New Zealand has a strong addiction treatment system. We invested $221.3 million into alcohol and drug treatment services in 2024-25, and we have a good handle on the coverage and outputs of those services, which support over 46,895 people per year. We know the services are effective; that is shown through evaluations and international outcome measures that put us on par with global standards.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Has the Minister received advice that rising methamphetamine harm in Te Tai Tokerau is contributing to increasing numbers of children entering Oranga Tamariki care?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: On behalf of the Minister, a range of advice has been received regarding methamphetamine addiction. It is a serious issue, and we are aware of this. The Government’s plan is already in the implementation phase, with services being expanded in identified hot spot regions, including Northland. This includes new and expanded treatment services, workforce development programmes, and enhanced early intervention initiatives. While some initiatives have experienced minor delays, they remain on track and are now being progressively introduced and scaled.

Health

Question No. 7

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour) (14:36) to the Minister of Health: Why are more patients having their referrals to specialists declined in the seven districts for which data was released to the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Health) (14:36) on behalf of the Minister of Health: This Government is focused on putting patients back at the heart of our healthcare system after years of significant increases in wait-lists for elective surgeries and first specialist assessments. Health New Zealand advises that despite a significant increase in referrals, the proportion declined has reduced over the past year and it is delivering materially more first specialist assessments and treatments than ever before. The latest validated data shows the number of people waiting for a first specialist assessment has reduced by more than 4,500 since January last year, following an 81 percent blowout between 2017 and 2023. As the member will be aware, the premise that declined referrals represent people missing care is misleading. Referrals are assessed through a structured clinical triage process undertaken by clinicians with patient safety and wellbeing the priority, and where referral is declined, patients continue to be managed by their family doctor.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Will the Minister release that latest data that she claims shows a different result from the increasing number of declined referrals in the data released to the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS)?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: On behalf of the Minister, the data that I have quoted today, I’m sure, will be made available to the member. I’m advised that the information that the member is relying upon, which is referred to the ASMS, and other unions’ activity has affected delivery through 2025, which is the period the member was quoting. This has resulted in the first specialist assessment volumes running below the plan through the latter half of last year. Since then, and particularly this year, Health New Zealand has worked hard to bring delivery back on track and is now ahead of the plan for first specialist assessments and on track to deliver the planned boost in elective volumes.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Why did his Government deliver fewer first specialist appointments in 2025 than in 2023, a year in which there were also health unions?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: I cannot be responsible for what was delivered in 2023. I can refer to what has occurred in 2025 and assure the member that since that period of late 2025, we are ahead of targets and delivering positive outcomes in terms of both elective surgeries and first assessments.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Are Health New Zealand’s tight, centralised controls on recruitment, introduced under this Government, the reason there are not enough specialists to see patients in New Zealand’s hospitals?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: On behalf of the Minister, I refute the claim made in that question. We are not having less appointments. We are delivering more referrals and more elective surgeries and more surgeries and interventions than the previous Government. We are meeting targets and we are delivering because we have set clear targets and accountabilities within our health system. We applaud the specialists for delivering. As I have stated in my primary answer, assessments are a clinical decision made by clinicians, and the health and wellbeing of the patient is always paramount.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Have clinicians raised concerns about risks posed by declined referrals?

Hon Shane Jones: They’ve raised concerns about you!

SPEAKER: I don’t think that’s right. I sit here, almost blameless, day after day, with very little complaint!

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: I can state that Health New Zealand advises—on behalf of the Minister—that despite a significant increase in referrals, the proportion declined has reduced over the past year and it is delivering materially more first specialist assessments and treatments than ever before.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Is the reason there is no action on the serious issue of declined referrals because his political party priority of meeting the target is more important than the health priority of people getting to see a specialist?

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: On behalf of the Minister, as we have replied, the issue that the member is raising does not exist. We have increased the number of first assessments, and the referral process is working effectively. We have reduced the backlog that was established through to 2025, and we continue to beat all of the targets of the previous Government, which we have had to recover from under this term of Government, and we are delivering well and on track and improving continually.

Women

Question No. 8

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (14:41) to the Minister for Women: What progress has she seen about improving early detection and outcomes for women with breast cancer?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Minister for Women) (14:42): This Government is focused on early detection, faster treatment, and delivering cancer care closer to home. That’s why we’ve extended the upper age for funded breast screening from 69 to 74, delivering on an election commitment. Since the roll-out began, more than half of the 31,800 women invited for screening have been screened, and 190 breast cancers have been detected—that is 190 women now able to begin treatment earlier. These are women who may otherwise not have known they’d had cancer until much later, when treatment can be more difficult and outcomes poorer. For many of them, screening may have made all the difference.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: Why is expanding screening such a priority?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: Because catching cancer early gives women the best possible chance of beating it. Around 37 percent of breast cancers are currently detected through the BreastScreen Aotearoa programme, and expanding screening means more cancers will be found earlier, when treatment is more effective. The 190 cancers already detected through this expansion show exactly why this Government backed it. These are mothers, daughters, wives, and friends who will now be able to spend more time with their loved ones.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: How is the Government improving access to screening across the country?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: We know access matters, particularly for women in regional and rural communities. That’s why we’re expanding screening capacity through new facilities, upgraded equipment, and mobile services such as the new screening site in Waikanae. We’re also rolling out 14 new community infusion centres, including in Rolleston in Selwyn, so more women can receive treatment closer to home, with less time travelling.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: What else is the Government doing to improve outcomes for women with breast cancer?

Hon NICOLA GRIGG: This Government is backing cancer care, with real investment and real action. We provided Pharmac with a $604 million boost, enabling access to new cancer medicines like Keytruda and Enhertu, and we reinstated faster cancer treatment targets to ensure patients are seen sooner. Alongside the work of organisations like the Breast Cancer Foundation, we are building a health system that delivers earlier care, better treatment, and stronger outcomes for New Zealand women.

Social Development and Employment

Question No. 9

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) (14:44) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she stand by her statement that “we have really reset the welfare system to ensure it is meeting the needs of young people”; if so, why?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:45): Yes. We acknowledge that many Kiwis are finding things tough at the moment. That’s why our Government has created a more active welfare system with more people in case management, more individual support, and a traffic light system with clear obligations. We are ambitious for all New Zealanders and have far greater aspirations for young New Zealanders than a life spent on welfare. Our Government is focused on growing the economy and taking steps to put all New Zealanders on a better path so that as many Kiwis as possible share in the benefits.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How does 100,000 young people not in education, employment, or training show she is meeting the needs of young people?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, as I said in my primary answer, we have a far more active welfare system that includes individual assessments for young job seekers, individual employment plans, more and individualised case management—and we know case management is the most effective in terms of supporting people off welfare into work. We have introduced a $1,000 bonus for young job seekers who get off welfare and stay in work, and despite there being challenging economic times, we’ve seen 84,000 New Zealanders leave welfare for work.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Did she or her office or the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) receive legal advice about removing 18- and 19-year-olds from the jobseeker benefit?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, as that member will know, that is legislation that has been referred to the Social Services and Community Committee, and we look forward to hearing what is said. In terms of the advice, we receive advice from MSD.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: How is removing access to the jobseeker benefit for 18- and 19-year-olds, when there are no jobs for them to go to, meeting the needs of young people?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, we’re very clear about our aspirations for young people, and that is that they should be in further education or training or a job. What we do know is that a young person who goes on to the jobseeker benefit under 20 is likely to spend another 21 years of their life on welfare. We don’t think that is a life that they should have in New Zealand, and the economic growth that our Government is leading—whether it’s fast-track jobs; 240,000 jobs over the next four years—provides them with the opportunity of work, and we will stick with that ambition for our young people.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Why should parents believe her when she says she’s encouraging their children to find work, when there are no jobs for them to go to?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said, what we want to see is more young New Zealanders in further education and in training and preparing for the opportunities. I outlaid all of the support and assistance that MSD is providing, and I think the front-line team at MSD is doing an extraordinary job of that very one-on-one assistance with young people that improves their opportunities, and, as those jobs arrive, they will be at the front of the queue and not the back.

Social Development and Employment

Question No. 10

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (14:48) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: How many families with children will be impacted by the increase in the entry threshold for the accommodation supplement, and what will be the average reduction in their accommodation supplement per week?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (14:48): Our Government is focused on targeting financial assistance to those most in need. That’s why we’ve increased the entry threshold for the accommodation supplement for homeowners. We’ve made this change to ensure that the accommodation supplement is targeted so those who own their own home will not get the same level of assistance, because we accept that that taxpayer support is going to grow an individual’s asset—i.e., their home. Of the estimated 9,300 clients impacted by the entry threshold change, 6,400 are identified as families with children. For those families with children—and, as I said, they are homeowners; they are not renters—the estimated average reduction in the entitlement will be $42 per week.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is it correct that most people impacted by these changes are low to middle income working households who could see a reduction of up to $59 per week?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said, these are New Zealanders who, yes, might be on low-middle incomes who own their own homes. We want to target support for the accommodation supplement to those who need it most, and they are renters; they are not people who are using taxpayer support to increase their own asset.

Ricardo Menéndez March: What does she say to the families who, according to her own Ministry, could experience “increased risk of housing insecurity and financial stress”?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said, our Government is focused on targeting support to those who need it most. And I accept that sometimes there are challenging choices, but people who own their own home have greater choices than those that are renting. That’s why we are ensuring that renters will get greater support, and some of what this will deliver means that we are able to increase support to a larger number of renters because we are changing the accommodation supplement boundaries, which mean more people will get support.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is she saying that none—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Just a moment. There’s no one else talking while someone is asking a question.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is she saying that none of the families impacted by these changes could end up having increased housing insecurity and financial stress?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I’ve acknowledged that, you know, times are challenging at the moment, and what we must do as a Government is ensure that we are targeting the support to those who have greater needs. I don’t think there would be anyone in this House who would disagree that renters have higher needs than homeowners.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Will families that are so impacted be able to get around it by falsifying their records?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I would always want to ensure that people are following the rules and abiding by the rules in terms of getting taxpayer support. I would expect that if anyone is aware of those sorts of cases, they should raise it with the Ministry of Social Development so their team can investigate.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is she planning to reduce access to any other assistance that helps with—and I quote from the Ministry of Social Development’s website—“essential living costs”?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: The question is about the accommodation supplement and the entry criteria, so the member will be aware that my colleague announced changes to—

Ricardo Menéndez March: You announced it as well.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Yes, to the accommodation supplement—

Ricardo Menéndez March: And the temporary additional support.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: —which actually increases it by $10 to $30 a week. I’d be surprised if that member was concerned about that.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Point of order. The question was actually quite straightforward and it’s just whether she was planning to reduce any other assistance that helps people cover their “essential living costs”. I don’t believe that was addressed whatsoever, despite there being an announcement today.

SPEAKER: It may not have been, but the primary question talks about the accommodation supplement, and there was no expansion in any of the answers from the Minister that took it outside of that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Of interest to the primary questioner, has there been any evidence that’s come before her of members of Parliament recommending that the records be distorted to try and get where they want to go as applicants?

SPEAKER: That would not be something that the Minister has any knowledge of.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, but the questioner knows all about it.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s not something the Minister can comment on.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Should people already struggling to survive pay a disproportionate price in her cuts to access to the accommodation supplement and correlated rent subsidies or the temporary additional support?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Sorry, I missed the first part of that. Could the member repeat it.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Should people already struggling to make ends meet pay a disproportionate price in her cuts to access the accommodation supplement, income-related rent subsidies, and temporary additional support?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I’ve said, our Government is absolutely focused on ensuring that taxpayer support goes to those who need it the most. What we have seen in this Government is a real focus on getting spending back under control, because when inflation is at 7.3 percent rather than 3.1, the number of New Zealanders that are hurt as a result of that is extraordinary. So the member might not understand that what we are trying to do, in terms of getting inflation under control, is for the larger benefit for a large group of New Zealanders across the board. We have to target support to those who need it most, and that is exactly what our Government is doing.

Public Service and Digitising Government

Question No. 11

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (14:55) to the Minister for the Public Service and Digitising Government: Which agencies will bear the largest share of the 8,700 public service roles to be cut by July 2029?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for the Public Service and Digitising Government) (14:55): All public agencies are expected to reduce their number of roles by 4 percent. That, of course, means that the larger agencies will bear the largest share. I remind the House that, between mid-2017 and the end of 2023, the public sector increased from 47,000 to 65,000. That’s over 18,000, an increase of nearly 40 percent. That was unsustainable, and that’s why we are working towards a workforce of, in principle, below 55,000 by mid-2029, which aligns more closely with historic norms.

Camilla Belich: Is there a cost-benefit analysis underpinning the 55,000 fulltime-equivalent cap for public servants, and if not, why not?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I haven’t seen that particular analysis, just as I didn’t see any analysis about increasing the size of the Public Service by 18,000, which the previous administration undertook, but I’m pretty sure—I don’t know; I could be wrong—that that costs a lot more. What we are interested in, in this Government, are the things that the Public Service delivers, and that is what we are focusing on, such as reducing the number of victims of crime, such as improving educational performance, and many other matters. That’s what really matters.

Camilla Belich: Why is the final number of departments after mergers not yet known, when the savings of $2.4 billion have already been accounted for?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Because we’re working our way through that process, and there are two different ways one could go about it. One could start at the top and just decide these are going to be the new structures; another way is to work with the chief executives of the existing agencies, get them to think laterally, talk with their colleagues, and come up with proposals. With a combination of both those things, we’ll end up with a more efficient Public Service.

Camilla Belich: How, then, will he know that the savings that have been budgeted for will actually be achieved?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, that is our goal in Government over the next three years, if we’re fortunate to be returned by the people of New Zealand to achieve that goal, and the good news is the many goals we have achieved. This is going to be another one.

Camilla Belich: Is it correct that over half of the affected roles are outside Wellington, and if so, which centres’ economies outside of Wellington will be hit the hardest?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes, it’s true that many of the public servants are from across the country, and, of course, they were also part of the very, very significant increase in the Public Service size over the previous administration, an increase that was unsustainable. It’s part of the reason why we’re grappling with very large deficits and we have a very large debt. All of those things Nicola Willis and the rest of the team are trying to redeem. Yes, there will be impacts across the country, but our focus is on delivering better results, not necessarily going for a bigger Public Service, like the previous administration.

Space

Question No. 12

KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (14:58) to the Minister for Space: What recent announcement has he made about the Kiwi Space Activator?

Hon CHRIS PENK (Minister for Space) (14:58): I thank the member for Māhia Peninsula for the question. I was pleased to announce recently the first recipients of the Kiwi Space Activator, a pilot programme designed to help more innovative space technology from the laboratory to the sky. In round one, Dawn Aerospace, the University of Canterbury, and the University of Auckland were awarded a total of $1.48 million to support exciting projects, including flying a small satellite, biological microgravity experiments, and the CubeSat TPA-2 satellite hosting New Zealand’s developed payloads. I expect you’re about as familiar with those as I am, Mr Speaker! This pilot programme will help shape future Government support for the space and advanced aviation sectors, to achieve our ambition of doubling their value by the year 2030.

SPEAKER: Thank you; very informative.

Katie Nimon: What challenges do these projects address?

Hon CHRIS PENK: These projects address real-world challenges identified by Government agencies. These include maritime security, space situational awareness, biosecurity, ecosystem health, and the New Zealand Space Agency challenge to deliver core components of a satellite in an innovative way. Kiwi Space Activator is helping to turn big ideas into big impact, further boosting New Zealand’s reputation as a hub for space innovation.

Katie Nimon: What is the purpose of the Kiwi Space Activator?

Hon CHRIS PENK: Oh, another very good question. I’ll just point out that the Kiwi Space Activator aims to reduce barriers for New Zealand organisations to test and develop new space technologies, including in orbit. Despite the association with the flightless bird, the Kiwi Space Activator demonstration flights help business attract customers and investors, helping to create jobs and to grow our space industry. It also develops New Zealand’s space capabilities and supports innovative projects that could contribute to a national space mission in the years ahead.

Katie Nimon: What are the next steps for the Kiwi Space Activator?

Hon CHRIS PENK: Last one, I promise. Applications for round two, in a word from our sponsor, are currently open and will close at midnight Monday, 25 May 2026. Up to $600,000 is available to support research, development, and flight costs. I encourage Kiwi organisations with exciting space technology concepts—as opposed to unexciting ones—to apply for round two so that we can continue to build the future of New Zealand’s space industry.

SPEAKER: That concludes oral questions. We will take 30 seconds. For those who have to leave the House for other business, do so quickly and quietly.

Bills

Disability Support Services Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Disability Issues) (15:02): I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Disability Support Services Bill.

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

First Reading

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Disability Issues) (15:02): I move, That the Disability Support Services Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 13 August 2026 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except oral questions) during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Disability Support Services (DSS) funds essential supports for some of our most vulnerable disabled New Zealanders. A 2024 independent review confirmed longstanding issues with DSS, and the Government took action to stabilise it. In the last two Budgets, we have invested a record $2.1 billion over five years into Disability Support Services to address demand and cost pressures.

Over the last 18 months, we have undertaken engagement with disabled people and their families to learn how disability support services should best be provided and improved. Disabled people and families have said that they want certainty in what they can access and for it to be consistently available. DSS has implemented a new needs assessment process to ensure a consistent level of support, and it specifically considers, for the very first time ever, the needs of carers. More choice and control has also been given for how people can use their flexible funding. However, there is more needed to strengthen DSS for the future and to ensure that we continue to make progress on the principles of enabling good lives.

DSS operates without a legislative framework that sets its purpose and authorises the use of appropriated funding. This absence has created legal and fiscal risks. A recent Supreme Court judgment has highlighted these risks. Work on DSS legislation had been under way on a slower track, but because of the added uncertainty disabled people and their families face with the financial risks, I have brought this work forward.

The bill establishes a needed foundational framework for strengthening Disability Support Services. It gives certainty to disabled people on what DSS does and for who. This is something the disability community and their organisations have been asking for for years. The bill clarifies that DSS funding is a contribution towards disabled people being able to live an everyday life. It makes clear that families and whānau have responsibility for the wellbeing of their families in the first instance and where appropriate, and that is exactly what has been happening already. It reflects the way DSS already works. It doesn’t mean that DSS won’t help where disabled people’s families support them. As I say, there is no change.

The disability community have asked for increased transparency, and that will be achieved by enabling the responsible Minister to make ministerial programmes as secondary legislation. These authorise the use of funding for disability support and are subject to parliamentary oversight. While I am the Minister for Disability Issues, I intend to undertake appropriate and targeted consultation on all ministerial programmes.

Following its introduction this week, I have heard concerns, including whether this bill introduces means testing. To be clear, this bill does not change current eligibility and access to support, nor does it introduce any new requirements for disabled people, families, and carers. Asset and income testing have long been used for a very small number of DSS supports, such as home modifications and equipment. It is not used in relation to personal care or carer support, and this bill does not change it. I’d really encourage people with concerns to engage in the select committee process but also to be clear about what this bill does and doesn’t do.

The absence of a legislative framework to set DSS policy has created an opening for litigation. In December 2025, the Supreme Court found that two family members paid by disabled people to care for them are employees of the Crown. It was never intended that carers in this situation would be Crown employees. The judgment highlights legal and fiscal risk to the Crown by widening the definition of what constitutes employment. This has created a risk of unmanageable costs, which may impact the provision of disability support. This bill reaffirms that it is the Government and Parliament that sets policy and funding, not individual court decisions. The Crown faces further litigation based on the precedent of the Supreme Court judgment.

My intention is that appropriated funding for DSS goes to quality disability support services and not to further costs from litigation. This is why the bill includes a litigation bar for historical employment claims of paid family carers. This bar will be limited to claims relating to decisions or events prior to the bill’s introduction. It is also why the bill extinguishes claims filed, but not resolved or determined, before the date the bill commences. These provisions are not made lightly. I consider them necessary to provide the certainty and consistency that disabled people continue to ask for. The bill does not affect the two successful claims or any subsequent remedies.

This bill sets the foundation for strengthening DSS, and I intend that it will be built upon to ensure its sustainability into the future. Appropriate arrangements will be put in place by DSS for people who may not be able to make decisions for themselves. These must be safe, enable the right support, and be on the right legal basis. As a transition measure, the bill includes novel provisions, such as temporarily validating existing employment arrangements between disabled people who lack decision-making capacity and their family carers. This is necessary to ensure that highly vulnerable disabled people continue to receive essential care and support services until new arrangements are put in place.

Family and whānau play a significant role in caring for disabled people, but an employment model is not always appropriate or practical. It can impact the health and wellbeing of both the disabled person and their family member, and it is not a natural basis for their relationship. For this reason, I’ve directed officials to work with the sector on a new carer-support package that better recognises and supports carers outside of an employment model, and this bill enables such support to be funded. The support package will be informed through consultation with the community and carer groups.

I ask Parliament to support this bill as a significant further step towards stronger disability support services, to better serve disabled New Zealanders and to provide clarity and certainty and a strong foundation for the future. Disabled people and their families have been asking for this. They have been asking for a strong legislative framework with clear, consistent, and certain disability support services, and I want to ensure that they have that certainty, clarity, and transparency that they have been asking for for a very long time. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (15:11): Thank you, Mr Speaker. We’re here today because, according to the Government, this bill does largely two things, and we’ve heard from the Minister responsible, who has said that it establishes a legislative framework for disability support services (DSS) funding, including by enabling the making of secondary legislation.

Now, I want to be absolutely clear: on this side of the House, the Labour Party supports the legislative framework aspect of this bill. I agree with the Minister that there is a need for that. In fact, it’s the lack of a legislative framework for DSS that has seen the chopping and changing of flexibility when it comes to DSS support and so many other changes, including access to residential care, that this Government has inflicted on disability communities over the last two years. I want to be clear that we support that aspect of it, but we cannot support the bill as it is currently drafted, and I will quickly lay out some of the reasons for it.

But, firstly, I want to acknowledge that we are here today because of a case that was brought about by Christine Fleming and Peter Humphreys, who each care for adult disabled family members in their family homes. Peter is in the gallery today and I want to acknowledge him, and Christine, and to thank them for their courage and persistence for fighting this case, for about eight years, from memory—and here we are today.

I think Peter said it best in an email to me, and I want to acknowledge the large number of emails that I have received on this. People are fearful of this bill, and I will lay out why. But he said it best when he said that we need to stand up against this at a time when people are “feeling frightened, unheard, and deeply concerned about this bill”—unheard because there has been a lack of meaningful consultation on this aspect of the legislative framework, and that’s what I’m hearing loud and clear from the sector.

“Nothing about us without us” is not only the rallying cry of the disability community but the philosophical bedrock of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and this is concerning—the lack of consultation on this aspect is concerning. The fact that this bill has come out of the blue; that there’s been radio silence from the Government since the Supreme Court ruling at the end of last year, where we could have had a transparent conversation around alternative options. The fiscal cost to the Crown, both of upholding the ruling but, also, if care is stepped back from the duty of care that they provide to disabled people—but none of that has been out in the public domain, and here we are today.

The heavy reliance on secondary legislation: that creates uncertainty and anxiety for disability communities who have been struggling with uncertainty and anxiety over the last two years. This exacerbates it. And now, Parliament is being asked to support a rather vague framework that signals some deeply problematic things without any of us seeing the detail. Much of the impact of those decisions will be how they operate in practice, and that’s why people are so fearful of this bill.

I want to touch on what the Minister has said: that it doesn’t signal any change for disabled people or carers in terms of their support currently. She has said that this is not a sneaky way of the Government to move towards means testing disability support funding, but that is not what is out there in the community. If that’s what the Minister holds on to, it is her responsibility to clarify that in the primary legislation, not the secondary legislation.

Huge references to natural supports; families are breaking down because of the stress of disability. The Minister keeps saying no change from there, but it signals a move away from a rights-based framework to one that is closer to a benefit system. If it’s not that, then clarify the legislation, Minister, because that is the worry. It is also the worry because of the trajectory of this Government, and it’s at a time when so much is being reduced. There’s “a broader political pattern of welfare tightening, transport reductions, housing accessibility failures, pressure on carers, health systems strain, and stricter funding controls.” I quote from Huhana Hickey’s fabulous work on Substack. That is what is underpinning the anxiety and the fear for disability communities and the lack of trust with this Government. The onus is on the Minister to make this legislation as clear as possible that we’re not moving towards means testing, that it’s not a sneaky way to reduce support further for disability communities, disabled people, and carers, who have been traumatised by this Government.

KAHURANGI CARTER (Green) (15:16): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party strongly opposes the Disability Support Services Bill. Disabled people deserve access to their community, disabled people deserve access to the care they need, and care workers who care for disabled people deserve to be paid for their work. This bill was introduced under the guise of—and I’m reading from the explanatory note here—“improving the consistency, fairness, transparency, and sustainability of the disability support service system.”

What this bill is really doing is singling out disabled people by creating a different set of standards for them compared to other New Zealanders. It allows for the erosion of rights of disabled people. The Disability Support Services Bill is being framed as a technical update, but what is in the fine print is that it enshrines in law the ideology that Luxon’s Government has perpetuated of how disability support is understood and how services should be delivered. This is an enabling law; so, initially, the impact might not be felt much, but the major red flags are the fine print. What this law does is enable a secondary legislation to enshrine in law what Luxon’s Government has been shifting to—

SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry. I’ll stop you there. You will terminate the speech. You know that you must address members of the House by their full name.

KAHURANGI CARTER: Oh, apologies. Am I able to continue?

SPEAKER: Yes.

KAHURANGI CARTER: Thank you. Disability support services are moving away from a human rights-based model to one that is discretionary and more like a charity model.

In the explanatory note, it talks about transparency. “Nothing about us without us.” has been repeated over and over by disabled people, something the Minister has professed to have listened to. Disabled people have had no say and no warning on this bill. It was introduced on Monday night with no consultation with disabled people, and about 30 minutes before it was announced, there was a briefing for some disability groups. Now, just three days later, we are at the first reading, which is likely to pass due to coalition support, and I want to impart a reasonable request that disabled people have asked me to impart to the Minister—to have a longer submission period.

The Minister in their opening statement talked about 13 August, which is not enough time. Disabled people have asked to have adequate time to have accessibility for disabled people, for captions to be added to the live select committee hearings to allow for disabled people to participate in the democratic process, which is their right and the right of all New Zealanders, something the Government should be taking very seriously. In the explanatory note, it also talked about fairness. There is a pattern that has emerged from the current Government: when working New Zealanders win workers’ rights cases through the courts, like pay equity, like Uber drivers, and like this case where parents who became full-time carers for their disabled children have been awarded by the court that they are employees of the Government, the Government’s response, rather than upholding the court’s decisions around human rights and workers’ rights, is to change the law. That is a political choice. It is a political choice who the Government listens to and who they don’t. It is a political choice who the Government funds and who they do not.

This Minister has been consistent in targeting disabled people and the systemic erosion of disabled people’s rights. This bill sets the future foundation for disability support in Aotearoa, and we must have disabled people’s voices. The Green Party will always fight for “nothing about us without us”.

TODD STEPHENSON (ACT) (15:21): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to speak on the Disability Support Services Bill. Firstly, I want to acknowledge all of those in the disabled community—people living with a disability, their carers, family, and all the actual service providers that look after this important community. I think we actually have a responsibility in this House to debate and discuss these issues with respect, with facts, and actually not with rhetoric and create scaremongering or other things that could cause distress.

As the Minister clearly outlined—

Shanan Halbert: Just like you did last night on Jenny Marcroft’s bill?

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Scaremongering, have you read the bill?

TODD STEPHENSON: —I think a lot of New Zealanders would be surprised—and I don’t need that yelling across the House, because we’re actually going to debate this in good faith—that there actually is no legislative framework today for Disability Support Services. I think New Zealanders would be surprised about that. The Minister, I think, is doing the right thing here in trying to actually provide clarity and transparency and certainty to the disability community. I think we should actually engage in that spirit.

The other point I would make—and it was very disappointing to hear some of the other remarks—this Government actually inherited, I think, an unsustainable situation in the disability sector. It inherited a ministry out of control and not able to control its own spending. This Government has done a number of things to make sure that disabled people and their families get the support they need because it has to be sustainable.

I want to thank the Minister, actually for making a number of changes, actually getting the trust of the disability community to be able to have these discussions, and now she’s bringing forward a piece of legislation to actually strengthen the transparency and their rights. This isn’t a rights discussion; it’s actually about making sure that people are looked after, they do get the care and support they need, and, as the Minister clearly outlined—and let me just say it again: clearly outlined—there is no move towards means testing. She said that very clearly, so let’s not have that repeated again during this debate.

The purpose is, as I said, simple: let’s actually get in place a system and a legislative framework for disability support that we can then build on. The Minister has already said there is more work that needs to be done once this framework is in place, and she has been out and will continue to be out, as other members across the Government are, actually talking to people in the disability community, understanding their needs, and making sure we put the appropriate support in place.

The select committee process will allow people to have their say. There have obviously been some developments, and the Fleming v Attorney-General Supreme Court case has been referenced today, but that’s only one aspect of this legislation. What is actually being done here is something that can be sustainable for the future. When we don’t take a considered and thoughtful approach to these things, sustainability of systems can get into question. We’ve seen that with ACC. If I look across at the Tasman, at the national disability support service there, a wonderfully set-up scheme to actually try and help people has got out of control and is becoming unsustainable.

So let’s actually just engage in this debate in good faith, actually recognise that the Government is actually trying to do something to actually provide certainty to the disability sector and community. That’s why we will be supporting this bill in the first reading. I commend it to the House.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First) (15:25): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Disability Support Services Bill. I’d just like to acknowledge the disability community. In the 2023 census, 17 percent of people living in New Zealand households were disabled, according to that census. That sort of equates to a really large number of adults: 750,000 adults; 98,000 children. So we’re talking about a very large number of New Zealanders in the disability community. One thing we need to think about is, as the people age—as we all age—there is an increase in disability prevalence, so we need to expect that number of people will grow, as our population ages, and those requiring support services will increase as a result.

The Disability Support Services Bill is absolutely necessary, because, as the Minister outlined, there is no clear, strong legislative framework for the Disability Support Services. It’s absolutely crazy that there wasn’t a system in place, and this piece of legislation is fixing that. It’s really important. This is something that the families have asked for to have certainty around, also some consistency. One of the points I think is necessary to reiterate because there is some concern out in the community: this legislation will not change current eligibility, and it does not move towards means testing. So that needs to be stated very clearly.

Of course, part of this bill is responding to a Supreme Court case which has created significant fiscal and litigation risks to the New Zealand taxpayer. We will affirm the Minister’s view that policy setting for public funding belongs in Parliament, not in courtrooms.

This bill, as has been mentioned already, will provide certainty for families and for disabled people, as the purpose of the Disability Support Services Bill will include making it clear that the Crown is not the employer of family carers. It also defines the purpose of the Disability Support Service as a contribution towards care. This bill also aims to strengthen the system by improving the consistency, the fairness, and the transparency of decision making. A short contribution from me. I now commend it to the House.

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE (Te Pāti Māori—Hauraki-Waikato) (15:28): Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mā Te Pāti Māori i tēnei rangi.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker; indeed greetings to us all in the House. I stand to give voice to statements on behalf of the Māori Party today.]

Caring for whānau living with disability is incredibly valuable mahi. Despite multiple inquiries and select committee recommendations, meaningful reform has not occurred. Māori perspectives are often ignored altogether, and disability systems continue to separate individuals from whānau, culture, and identity. Mana hauā affirms the inherent mana, dignity, and rights of disabled people. Māori experience disability at higher rates than non-Māori, and face compounded barriers across education, health, employment, housing, and incomes. These barriers are a result of systems designed without Māori authority, knowledge, or control. For too long, disability policy has treated Māori as an afterthought—ignoring whakapapa, whanaungatanga, and collective responsibility.

This policy will make it more difficult for whānau to care for disabled people. Disability advocate Jane has said—I quote—“It’s cruel … It has to be the worst piece of legislation I’ve ever seen.” Family carers had been failed by the system.

Family carers are completely isolated. This is not a system that cares about them; this is a system that suddenly worries it might have to pay for disability support services they are providing. There are 40 people with family care - related cases filed with the Employment Relations Authority. This bill will ensure that they do not receive employment benefits for their mahi.

They should be allowed to have their cases heard, but this bill would pull the rug on their only chance at legal remedy. This sets a bad precedent for our mokopuna, that work can only be recognised if you’re party to an employment contract. This follows the same pattern as the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, where the Government ensured that Uber drivers and other contractors can be recognised as employees. This was the result of direct lobbying from Uber.

Te Pāti Māori sees all work as valuable. If a person is taking on the responsibility of the Government, they should receive the same benefit as a Government employee. If we were in power ,we would empower mana hauā. mana hauā is a about collective disability that is shaped by social, cultural, and systemic environments, where systems are inaccessible, discriminatory, or culturally unsafe. Disability must be amplified. We will establish mana hauā authority where we will ensure that all new Governments build designs to accommodate all whānau. Housing should not be discriminatory; we will ensure that the work of all carers is valued.

In closing, Te Pāti Māori opposes this bill. Te Pāti Māori sees the value of our workers looking after our mana hauā as essential and most important. Te Pāti Māori opposes this bill.

DANA KIRKPATRICK (National—East Coast) (15:32): I rise to take this call on the Disability Support Services Bill. The bill establishes foundations and sets a clear framework for how disability support services will operate. It sets out what the system does, its purpose, and how public funding can be used.

I think it’s important, firstly, to acknowledge all of those in the disability sector, those who work in it, who administer it, and who face the challenges every day in that sector. We are clear that this bill will provide a framework that will make it easier to make the decisions in that prospect. I think the clarity will be good.

The bill does not change existing services, funding allocations, or who can receive disability support services, and I think that’s a very important point. It does not change any of that. It also means that eligible disabled people, their whānau and carers will continue to receive the support they rely on. That doesn’t change either. The bill makes it clearer what disability support services provides and how it fits with other supports. It confirms that family and whānau remain an important source of support alongside the publicly funded services.

We know how much disabled people rely on support from disability support services and how important it is that they and their families have certainty that support will continue to be available on a sustainable basis. That’s why this work is important and I look forward to the conversation in the select committee where people will be able to come and have their views heard by the committee, and we will work on it from there. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (15:33): I wish first to acknowledge Peter Humphreys. Thank you for coming today, Peter, and also Christine Fleming, who have worked so hard to get the judgment that the work they did was real work that deserved remuneration.

I want to try to help members opposite to understand why people within the disability communities are so worried by this bill. Let’s start with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a UN convention that we’ve signed up to, a UN convention that says that one of the important rights for people with disabilities is to be able to live independently. That’s a very important right for people with disabilities, and yet so often we do not enable that to happen.

I want to remind members opposite of the very firm saying, which is really important within disability communities, and within other communities—that “nothing should be done about us, without us doing it ourselves: “Nothing about us without us.”

People with disabilities are not children to be looked after. They are not objects to be done to. People with disabilities are people. They are adults. They are people who want to make decisions about their own lives, and they want to live as independently as possible. The reason so often that people with disabilities can’t do this is because of the social structures we set up around them. This bill totally reinforces one of those structures where it says, in effect, that the in the first instance, a family must care for a person with a disability. Now let’s be clear: families do care for their members. But this imposes a particular obligation on family members. It legislates that that obligation on family members. In effect, it legislates that a person with disabilities may not live independently. That is why people in the disabilities community are very, very worried about this bill.

Another reason that people with disabilities are very worried about this bill is because of the history of this Government, and to not recognise it is ridiculous. Let’s remember that one of the first actions of this Government was to submit a set of really strong restraints, very strong purchasing guidelines, for individualised funding for people with disabilities. And for two years that remained in place. This Government did it without consultation. It imposed it overnight, and then they have turned around and wondered why people in the disability community are scared and frightened. It is because the pattern of behaviour from that Government does not give people and the disabilities community any reason to trust them.

Finally, I want to point to some of the things actually in this bill that are deeply worrying, because it turns out that in clauses 10 and 11 of this bill, the Minister may give binding directions as to how funding should be allocated for people with disabilities. What that means is that’s not sitting here in legislation—the rights that people with disabilities might have; the supports that they might be entitled to. It is at the Minister’s direction. It rests with one person. I want to say again that the disabilities community has no reason to trust this Government. So when people from that community come and say “Nothing about us without us”, they mean it, and this Government needs to include them.

NANCY LU (National) (15:38): I’ve really had enough of the last speaker, Deborah Russell, on this bill. Please just stop the scaremongering. Please just stop using the disabled community as a way to attack this Government.

This bill provides consistency, provides clarity, and provides support for the people who really need the help. So start reading properly, and understand, and stop scaremongering. I commend the bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (15:39): First of all, I want toacknowledge that the people in the gallery will include people impacted by this piece of law, but also a lot of people who are here are waiting for the next piece of legislation that is about move-on orders. I’d just like to draw the inevitable concern that actually we have a Government that is attacking people in a way that is all about not actually backing people who care for others in the community.

Hon Louise Upston: Point of order! I’m not sure the member is talking about the bill that is before us at the moment.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you have diverted a wee bit, Helen White, so we’ll come back to the bill. You’ll have an opportunity to speak on the next bill when it happens.

HELEN WHITE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to talk about this bill and its impact on the people that are really of concern today, most heartily. One thing we know is that two people took cases to the court, and they actually had an eight-year process. Those people weren’t alone in the way that they were being treated. They went through that process right to the Supreme Court. Many others, when they saw the success at the Employment Court and then they saw further success at the Supreme Court took similar cases because they were impacted in the same way. They were told, “Hold off. We are waiting for this decision to come out before your case is progressed.”, so they didn’t get the opportunity to take their cases. My understanding of this piece of law is that it will extinguish their rights. It does affect a lot of people.

I want to talk about how fundamental the issue that Dr Deborah Russell just raised was. We have a piece of our law already. We have already signed up to a convention that says that people will be treated as independent and that if they’re disabled, they have no less right to live independently. The work that is being done by people to make that possible is something that the State will have to pay for one way or the other. This is a really interesting piece of law in terms of its suggestion that what the Government will be doing is making a contribution rather than actually acknowledging the cost that otherwise would be paid if family members weren’t doing that work. It’s a very interesting and difficult piece of law, and there will be a discussion in a minute over the motion to truncate that period for discussion. I want to make sure that people who are most impacted by this get a chance to have a good look at it and get a chance to weigh up the piece of law to actually talk to whether they think it is what the Minister says. In fact, the Minister—I wrote this down—said that disabled people and their families have been asking for this law. That’s what she said. I’m not sure that that is how a lot of disabled people and their families feel about this law. I think it’s very important that, actually, people impacted get a chance in this House and in this place to have their say.

My concern—and I’ve heard it raised by many colleagues—is that there hasn’t been a consultation on this prior. It is going to be extremely important that people weigh in on this important conversation in New Zealand because it’s quite fundamental. It’s fundamental to the role of the State and to the role that the State plays in supporting others and acknowledging the support that people give others, and I think that’s a really important debate, so I am concerned about this particular law coming through, and I am also concerned that it’s coming through in this way. I am concerned about all the cases in the Employment Court, and I was an employment lawyer for 25 years. I can see why the Employment Court found the way it did. It makes sense in terms of the definitions that I’ve worked with. I am concerned when we cut off the court process in that way, because those processes are considered and they’re consistent. They’re often very rationally consistent, and they bring us to places that might be uncomfortable but that we need to actually look at. Thank you.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote) (15:44): To summarise this debate here today, this bill sets the framework for the Disability Support Services function that has been without a framework, and the sector has been calling for one today. The important thing is that nothing changes in the way of support to those that are in the disability sector. Most importantly, this bill provides clarity, and that is what the sector has been calling for—clarity for the function. It’s about consistency, fairness, and transparency, and what is important is financial sustainability, because if you want to look at what unsustainable disability support services look like, go and look at Australia, at the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It’s an absolute mess at the moment. We don’t want that to happen here. This bill goes a long way to helping set the framework. I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Disability Support Services Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Referral to Select Committee

DEPUTY SPEAKER (15:46): The question is, That the Disability Support Services Bill be considered by the Social Services and Community Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.

Instruction to Select Committee

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) (15:47): I move, That the Disability Support Services Bill be reported to the House by 13 August 2026 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Nearly every speaker in this debate has said how important it is that the disability community—disabled people, their families, and carers—have certainty and consistency. That is why passing this bill before the general election will avoid a long period of uncertainty and will give disabled people and their families clarity about the Disability Support Services (DSS) support and the DSS support system. I want to be very clear that this legislation builds on the 18 months of engagement with the disability support community where, on every occasion, they talk about the fact that transparency is critical—as is consistency, clarity, having a consistent needs assessment no matter where you are in the country as opposed to differing ones in a region.

I’m concerned about some of the comments that the Opposition have made which are factually inaccurate. I encourage members of the community and of the public to come to the select committee, and if we don’t act promptly, this ongoing uncertainty about DSS will continue, and I do not—I repeat, I do not—want that to undermine confidence in the system. A shorter time frame will also, very importantly, enable us to do the work on the carer-support package, which addresses many of the concerns that family carers have raised for a very, very long time. By working closely with them on this carer-support package, I am very confident that we will be able to have a system that works far better—far better—for family carers and the disabled people they care for. I support this motion.

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

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (15:49): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Firstly, I will begin by acknowledging that there is a select committee process. There has been a previous process that this House underwent in 2013 in response to another court hearing where changes were passed under urgency, and so I will acknowledge that that is not happening this time and that people will be able to submit to the select committee. That is a good thing. It is disappointing, however, that it is shortened.

The Minister for Social Development and Employment has laid out the reasons—her rationale—for the shortened report-back period, but it is under four months instead of the full six months that a select committee would generally get. Within that, I urge the Minister to ensure, through the select committee chair, that there will be the full six-week submission period for disabled people and organisations that represent them.

I will also just touch on a point that the Minister made in her contribution to this referral debate when she said that there has been 18 months of engagement already with disability communities, but I will point to what many have emailed me to say, which is that that 18 months of consultation was not about this legislative framework. It was about disability support services in general. Those people did not know that the outcome of those engagement sessions was going to be used to develop this bill, and so it does not count and it is disingenuous in that sense to say that it does.

The Minister has also said that the shortened time frame is so that the Government can work with disability communities and carers, particularly to develop a care and support package. I do support the development of a carer support package. However, we should have had the detail of that to be able to debate where this bill will land in terms of operational detail before we considered this very vague framework that this bill provides.

I will leave my comments about the Minister’s contributions there. I do, however, want to make this point. I have been emailed by someone who doesn’t want to be named, but who has laid out very clearly why it is important that the select committee does take some additional steps to ensure that disability communities are supported to be able to submit to this process. She said this—and I’ll quote, and I’ll go into the detail that she lays out—“The overarching principle is this: the select committee should not treat accessibility as simply providing NZSL”—New Zealand Sign Language—“interpreters and easy-read formats, important as those are. True accessibility means actively going to the organisations and communities where the most marginalised people already are, rather than waiting for them to find their way to the process.”

I want to just step out for the consideration of this Parliament some of those suggestions. I went back to her and asked if she could be a bit more specific in terms of what would be useful for the select committee to consider. She said, “For example, partner with trusted community connectors. Rather than the select committee writing to individual disabled people,”—which I’ve pointed out would be too onerous for the committee, given the size and the diversity of our disability communities—“they could write specifically to kaupapa Māori services, Pacific health providers, women’s refuges, and community social workers and ask them to actively share information about the submission process with the people that they support and to assist those people to make submissions, if needed.” These are the organisations that already have relationships with those who are often most marginalised, and who may not even hear about the opening of the submission period.

“Critically, the select committee must be intentional about the types of organisations that it engages with.” Some of the more well-resourced disability sector organisations have already heard about this bill and the need to submit and have the capacity to participate in parliamentary processes, and will do so and should do so. But they don’t always represent the most marginalised.

“The committee needs to also seek out organisations who work at the crisis end:”—and this is a good point—“those dealing with family harm, emergency housing, food poverty, acute mental health, and child protection.”, because those are the organisations who see what happens when support falls away entirely, and those are the voices that will not show up unless they’re specifically invited and supported to do so. “The committee should also consider whether there is capacity to be able to fund or resource more supported submission-making”—and that’s the third point that she made—“because many people in this group”—and I would point particularly to those with intellectual disabilities—“may not be able to write a submission by themselves and potentially will need some sort of support to be able to do this.”, whether it’s through the likes of the Citizens Advice Bureau or other organisations that already support them, as well. However, all of these organisations are under the pump and will need additional support to be able to undertake this.

“The types of submissions that can be made.” I put this out there: I don’t know if this is possible, but I wonder if it’s possible for the select committee to accept other forms of submission other than written submissions, whether it’s through oral submissions via videos, for example, because not everyone can write. “Allowing voice recordings and video submissions of brief informal accounts, rather than long formal submissions should also be considered.”

The final point that she makes that I would like to share with the House—because this is one that we often overlook—is that many people are of the opinion that a written submission has to be followed by an appearance in person at select committees. It would be good for the select committee to point out that this is not necessarily the case and that, firstly, written submissions can be made by anybody from anywhere across Aotearoa New Zealand and they don’t have to attend in person if they don’t choose to do so. Also Zoom and teleconferencing options are an option with our Parliament, and they can also provide accessibility through New Zealand Sign Language interpretation.

There should also be some hearings that are held at times and in formats that are accessible to carers, because this particular piece of legislation will likely have a significant impact on family carers and on carers more broadly. Those with caring responsibilities have struggled over the last 18 months to show up to the various consultations and engagement sessions that have been undertaken, and so there should be some consideration for how this can be made accessible to them, as well.

I will just end with the final point that she does make. I have also made it, and I will say it again: all of these organisations, all of these charitable support service provision organisations and disabled people’s organisations, disabled people, and carers have been put through huge amounts of consultation of late, and the organisations haven’t had additional funding to be able to lend their voice or their support to those who need to submit. So I will put it to the Government that there should be some additional support to do that.

It is, once again, disappointing that there’s a shortened period. Within that, please ensure that there is a full, six-week period for people to submit. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before I take the next call, I’m going to comment that that speech was an absolute benchmark for a shortened report-back referral debate, and I would expect the benchmark to be as high as that first speech was.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) (15:57): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do want to comment on this referral motion because I wanted to first acknowledge the comments from the Minister around the election date. Now, look, I don’t think one’s just wanting to rush a bill at the end of a parliamentary terms genuinely justifies, in my view, having a shortened report-back date process, and I think that if the Government was genuinely confident that they would win the election, we wouldn’t have an issue with having a process carrying on after the election.

But I think that particularly with this bill on disability support services, something that I want to acknowledge is that while the Minister may have said that some disabled people may have been consulted, disabled people are not monolithic, and what that means is that we need to acknowledge that within disabled people, there may be a range of political views and experiences. The initial canvassing of views that the Minister alluded to cannot replace the adequate submission processes that a proper duration of, say, four to six months would have allowed.

Another point that I wanted to make in relation to the referral motion—particularly with the amount of sitting weeks that we have left, and well knowing that this Government has had a tendency to use extended sitting hours and urgency more often than not—is that I am concerned about, at least during the sitting days, the fact that a lot of these submission days will likely be occurring over extremely limited time frames. For example, the Social Services and Community Committee sits on an extended sitting day from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., and from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. What that means is that, unlike, say, normal sitting hours, where you have a greater flexibility for people to submit, you’re pushing people to a very, very narrow time slot that they can actually be accommodated into.

Now, if we look at the demographics most impacted by this bill, which are carers and disabled people, what this means is that we’re putting in additional barriers for participation, and I am concerned that the voices of submitters and their variety of experiences would not be adequately canvassed and that the democratic process that we would expect from a proper select committee process would be, therefore, undermined. I would hope that no matter our views on this bill, we would want to come out of the select committee process, genuinely hand on heart, having said that we’d adequately heard from a big range of disabled people and carers. I just do not have confidence that this will happen. The previous speaker Priyanca Radhakrishnan noted that she hoped that we would have at least a six-week submission period, but that would already be a really long duration in the total amount that we have.

Now, a subsequent point I want to make and a concern I want to raise that has not yet been raised by the previous speaker is the fact that when you have a referral motion with a shortened report-back date, what you also prevent is the back and forth you have with Government officials. Often, in the select committee process, when we hear from submitters, questions may arise from Government or Opposition members to officials. Sometimes, these questions may be complex, and officials may not always have the ability to present answers to the fulsome degree that we deserve by the next meeting date. I think, sometimes, what I’m concerned about is that we’re creating a condition where we’re not getting the satisfactory and detailed answers to complex questions through a shortened process that I think our constituent submitters and our parliamentarians deserve. This is not through officials’ fault, but through the timeline that has been afforded to us.

The other concern that I have is that we already saw this week how the Government, for example, didn’t seek leave to pause the vote during a 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. period, which could, indeed, even further undermine the ability for submitters to be heard on bills. We already saw how submitters were affected by this just yesterday, for example—who were unable to present. That’s something that I am concerned about.

While the Minister may have, in her referral motion contributions, talked about the scope of when we can sit outside of sitting dates, etc., I think, let’s make it real: we’ve got Budget week, we’ve got scrutiny week, then we’ve got probably a bunch of extended sitting hours and urgency that will in and of itself limit the ability to actually canvass submitters adequately during those non-sitting days. On a bill like this one, where accessibility and participation is paramount, I would have expected that we would have had a longer period to, for example, explore actually going to where people are—because, yep, people are able to make oral submissions by phone or by Zoom or in person, if they’re lucky; I doubt that many carers or disabled people affected by this bill will have the means or the time to travel all the way to Wellington, so their ability to participate will be limited by, say, Zoom contributions or by phone.

I think the problem that I have with this referral motion is that it massively limits the ability for the select committee to explore travelling to areas to hear directly face to face with carers and disabled people from across the country in some of our main urban centres, or, for example, to explore going to a rural community where, perhaps, the experiences of carers and disabled people—for example, when it comes to transport needs, etc., or healthcare—may be different. I think that does a disservice to the attempt to genuinely canvass and hear disabled people’s views. So that’s the other component that I want to touch on.

Finally, one of the key issues that I also have with this referral motion is that it actually, in my view, undermines the ability for us to work in a cross-partisan manner to find points of agreement. For example, sometimes in the select committee process, submitters—organisations or otherwise—may bring forward recommended amendments. Sometimes it’s really hard to know whether there’s agreement amongst political parties on some of these proposed amendments, whether they come from submitters or from members of the Opposition, or Government backbenchers. The timelines that we often are working with is working in a cross-partisan way to, for example, suggest that these amendments get taken to their respective caucus meetings.

When a shortened report-back date is given to us, it limits the number of caucus meetings the political parties can have to actually seek agreement on the amendments that may be presented by other political parties. What this leads to in this process is one where collaboration is less likely to happen, and, instead, amendments may end up just being presented as an opportunity to make a point, as opposed to genuinely trying to find common ground. I have yet to see incidents in which, for example, an amendment—no matter how worthwhile—is presented on the floor that political parties that haven’t had a chance to actually have a full caucus meeting to discuss it are actually able to get behind those amendments. I think, in my view, that leads to a poorer democratic process.

Now, we’re talking about a bill that has received a huge amount of public attention. A great proportion of our population is disabled, and that means that we have to actually take the process of this bill extremely seriously. I am particularly concerned that—also with the shortage that we have across the country on interpretation services, for example—it may also be hard to genuinely accommodate the needs of deaf people and people who may need additional support to be genuinely accommodated in this bill.

Now, in other bills that we have had in select committees prior that predominantly affect disabled people, sometimes we afford a little bit more than the usual five minutes for individuals to submit to recognise that people may just need a bit of additional time. Now, that is easy to do when you do have a full six months to actually, for example, have a report-back date, because then you’re able to have longer hearing sessions where individuals are able to be heard for, say, six minutes, seven minutes, as opposed to the usual five. That additional minute may be the difference between someone being able to articulate exactly what they need to say, if their disability may just require them to take a little bit more time, and someone feeling like their dignity and their contributions weren’t fully taken on board.

I think the referral motion as we have it right now does not leave me with the confidence that that level of flexibility will genuinely be afforded to submitters, because with they really tight time frames that we have, with the use of urgency and extended hours that I’ve already mentioned, I just simply do not see how we could arrive to this. It would be good if the Minister could, for example, give us some assurances, or, perhaps, if the chair of the committee was able to give us some assurances that that was the intent, it would give us a bit more confidence on the genuine intent of hearing disabled people as part of this process.

All in all, the Green Party is lacking confidence on this referral motion. I know my colleagues will be hoping to present some constructive alternatives to this, but I’ll leave it there for now. Thank you.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (16:06): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to speak to this referral motion. The Minister gave two reasons in her speech as to why a shortened report-back time was appropriate with the select committee. The first was around certainty and, in particular, certainty before the general election; the second was around the need for this work to be done so that she, her team, and her officials could do some work on the carer support package. I want to speak, mostly, to the first reason, around the certainty, but I do note there is that other aspect to discuss, as well.

I have just one brief note to add on the select committee process. With a three-month, short report-back period, which is what we’ve got, typically submissions will be open for three weeks. It’s a very short time for submissions to be made and to come into this House. It’s even more problematic in this case because, as my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan has pointed out, the disability community was not aware that this particular measure was coming. This caught them by surprise. It was not what they were working on with the Minister—or so we’ve been told.

That does mean, for people in the disability community, if people are listening, it’s three weeks to get your submission in—or it’s likely to be; the chair of the committee, or the select committee will determine that date, but I would anticipate it would be a maximum of three weeks. Please get those submissions written now, start writing them now, and make sure they get in. For those of you who feel able to do so, do ask to speak to the committee, as well; though that is not necessary—but if you do feel able to do it, that would be a good thing to do.

I want to move on from that because people have canvassed the shortened report-back period quite well. I want to talk, in particular, about the certainty reason and the reason the Minister gave for it, which was with respect to needing certainty around the general election. Now, that’s puzzling. Let me take the House through why that is puzzling. As my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March pointed out, it does rather imply that the Minister doesn’t think she’s going to be in office after the election; I don’t think that’s what she was really thinking of in that respect.

The difficulty is that when it comes to allocating funding—and this bill is about allocating funding—the way that we allocate funding in our parliamentary system is through the annual Budget. That’s the primary vehicle for allocating funding. Sometimes, things can be done outside of that through various measures, but we would anticipate that the funding that is to be allocated to Disability Support Services would be allocated in this year’s Budget, which is due on 28 May, or it would be allocated in next year’s Budget, which is not due until May 2027. Those are two quite different dates, but they are substantially different from the election date—the election is currently forecast to happen on 7 November. When the Minister says that certainty is needed before the general election, that is, at least, puzzling, given the way we allocate funding in our system of Government.

I think the Minister needs to explain why it is that the general election creates uncertainty. The uncertainty, I don’t think, is created by the general election; I think it is created by the fact that funding is allocated in the Budgets, and this piece of legislation, as it tracks through the House, if it is thought to be needed to be in place before the election, well, that just doesn’t seem to create a reason. But perhaps there’s something that we’re going to see in the Budget itself around this—who knows?—but that’s the uncertainty point, not the general election. If the Minister—and the Minister has given the uncertainty created by the general election as a reason for having a shortened report-back date, but, actually, that reason doesn’t really stack up. It’s not a particularly good reason. I think it’s a reason we should be setting aside because it simply doesn’t work. Although, perhaps the Minister might like to clarify that because she did talk in terms of that uncertainty.

There’s another thing that could happen with this bill, as we lead into the general election—the bill is due to be reported back to this House by 13 August, the general election is on 7 November, my guess is—I don’t think we have a date for the House to rise yet—

Hon James Meager: 24 September.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —24 September, thank you colleagues. I hadn’t taken as much notice as you; I’m not as concerned about my job as you might be. What it does mean is there’s limited time available in the House for sitting days, so even if the bill is reported back from the select committee on 13 August, from there it still needs a second reading, a committee stage—and we’ve had a bit of experience as to just how long committee stages can go—and a third reading before it becomes law. The interesting bit about this—sitting in here—is that this law enables quite a lot of ministerial discretion. That’s sort of sitting in clauses 10 and 11 of this bill, and some of the factors around that.

The thing is, again, in the lead up to the election, the Government is still the Government, and it still governs, but the convention is that serious policy decisions are not really taken in the lead-up to the election itself. Those are the sorts of things that should be the matter of political parties’ campaign promises, and so on, but, in actual fact, from a month or two, a couple of months before the election, we move into a “steady as she goes” sort of state, rather than trying to make significant policy decisions. Again, if the Minister was giving the general election as a reason to get this bill through the House early, that reason doesn’t stack up either because Ministers should not be making major decisions in the month or so, a couple of months before, the election, especially once the House has risen, ahead of the election.

Now, as I said, the Government gets to continue governing. We would expect, you know, our foreign affairs Minister to keep on making foreign affairs statements; we would expect the Prime Minister to continue to be prime ministerial and so on, but not those major decisions. I’m pointing out, again, that the Minister’s reasoning for citing the general election date actually doesn’t stack up. I think we need a better explanation from the Minister about that. Moving on—

Rima Nakhle: Really clutching on straws here.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Take a call, Rima.

Moving on from that, I think, in terms of something else that the Minister mentioned, she said that we needed to have this in place in order to get her overall framework—to get to one of the building blocks in place, I think, for the carer support package that she was working on. Now, again, I don’t think that quite stacks up either. When is that carer support package going to be announced? Now, if it is going to be pre the election, there’s precious little time for that to happen between this bill being, presumably, passed through the process, and the election. I’ve already talked about the difficulties with those major decisions around the election date. There is no reason, actually, not to have a longer select committee process.

Now, perhaps it could have been a select committee process that left this bill. It might have popped out of select committee—so maybe a four- or five-month process might have done the trick—before the general election, so that it was available for its second reading and committee stage and third reading after the election. That would have fitted in quite nicely with Budget processes. Then, it seems that that overall carer support package might have been part of Budget 2027. So these are all just not quite adding up as to what is going on here.

I want to point out—and as Ricardo Menéndez March said—one of the important parts of a select committee process is the opportunity for members of the committee to have a real back and forth with officials. Well, there’s an issue that the members of that select committee are going to want to dig into. Why does the Minister think that this is critical to have it in place before the carer support package can be out? What’s going on in that carer support package? We need to know that before we can talk sensible about that bill in the select committee.

For those reasons, I do not think that this truncated select committee process is appropriate. The Minister hasn’t given adequate reasons for it and there really is no reason not to have a six-month process.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert) (16:16): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I lead this committee for Labour, and we have a National Party chair who does a very good job in his role. But I think this is going to be really hard for us, because we had an earlier referral that is a shortened time frame, too, earlier this week, and that was already a concern to me because of the workload that we’ve got and the fact that we do have scrutiny week and it is a little bit unusual in our committee because we have a lot more Ministers in front of us than most committees, because of the nature of that committee. It’s going to be really tough to do a good job on this, and I am concerned about whether we will get to hear from the people we need to hear from.

I wanted to talk about an aspect of this bill, which is actually the cost of it. It’s going to be really important that we dig down into the costs associated with this and to look at that in terms of the costs that would be faced anyway. If we’re going to talk about contributions for caregivers in the home who are family members, if those people were not doing that role, then, actually, the State picks up costs in an entirely different way and they’re likely to be more expensive. That kind of analysis, that’s real and it’s going to take a bit of time, and truncating that could be actually really dodgy. We could come up with a completely unintended consequence if we get that wrong. I take my job in that committee absolutely seriously. It’s a very important job.

I’d also like to dig down into the logic of this, that there is a philosophical and moral aspect to this, and I’d like to hear from people about that. It is a time of great change. This work I see as fundamental. It’s caregiving. It’s so important in our society. I’d like to hear from those people. I would like to talk about those international obligations, and there needs to be time to do that, because they are serious international obligations.

I think that one of the things that I heard the Minister talk about was that the election was coming up. It reminded me of some of the work I did before I got here, where we had redundancy processes that just suddenly turned up before the end of the year. People psychologically have this issue where they want to tidy things up, change things, restructure just before the New Year. It’s not necessarily the best idea. It’s not logical. It’s not the way that we should be making decisions about what gets rushed here.

Christmas Day is only a day, New Year is only a day, and election day is only a day. We should be making decisions which allow people to be involved in this process, and we should not rush just because it’s a date that might be important to us in here, because it doesn’t stop the process of things going through legislation, and it’s often good for them to take time. I am concerned that the rush is actually based on something irrational, rather than substantively important, because it isn’t going anywhere—this is a problem that has been around for a while.

I take the point made by Dr Deborah Russell that the care package isn’t something that needs to be held up. I’d quite like to know what that looks like when I’m looking at this piece of legislation. There is no reason why it needs to not happen until this has gone through. In fact, I think I’ll be flying a bit blind in that circumstance if I don’t see that work and what is going on. I am keen to see that work and look at that care package of support, alongside this, because ultimately, we are making pretty important decisions.

I just wanted to talk about a couple of other unintended consequences I am worried about, and I’ll definitely be asking questions about these. Time would be my friend on this. One is the impact on women of something like this, because we have already had the attack on pay equity and now we’ve got a situation where women—women often do the care-giving and are economically disadvantaged because of their care-giving role. That is one of the things I’d like to look at, because we’re talking about people who we’ve had the traditional issue over children, but this is not children; this is disabled family members, and yet I suspect there are applications of this that actually disadvantage women financially, and I’d really like to look at that aspect of it.

There are issues around savings. We already know women’s savings are much lower because of the care-giving roles they have, and this is one of them. I appreciate that that is not data that is easily available or extractable, and I’ve already had experience on this committee of a rushed process where we simply couldn’t have the discussion that we needed to have before we came back to this House. In fact, we then had one of the critical discussions straight after the matter had come to the House, because we talked to people after because we just simply didn’t have time in the time frame.

So please be realistic about the work we can do. Yes, we can meet in the times when the House is not sitting, etc., but there is only so much you can fit into the day. I also know that we have two members’ bills going through at the moment. We’re trying to expedite them. We’ve got the Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill coming to our committee. I’d love to see that one progress right through before we are finished. Again, it’s quite important to me because an election is coming up. It’ll be nice to do it—same thing—and I’m not going to get any sympathy for wanting that through because of that, but these are all important bills that are in train and pushing this date to 13 August is asking something that actually might do harm to the result we end up with, so that is my concern.

I know that my friend Rachel Boyack had something she very much wants to add, which is quite unique and different, and I don’t want to steal her thunder, so I’ll end my call in the hope that she’ll get the next.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m going to take one more call on this, from Rachel Boyack, just because I want to see what is interesting and different that she is about to say. However, I do now feel like the conversation has been well traversed, so this really needs to be different.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson) (16:24): Madam Speaker, what I can certainly say is that what is not different from this Government is this tendency to introduce bills and only put them through a truncated select committee process. It is becoming a pattern of behaviour from this Government, and it seems to be a pattern of behaviour from a Government that knows it’s about to get turfed out of office, the first time that a National Government will—

Dan Bidois: Stick to the narrow bill.

RACHEL BOYACK: Madam Speaker, it’s interesting that we’ve got heckling. It was the Minister’s referral motion itself that actually raised the matter of the election, so the Minister who introduced the referral motion brought that into the debate and so it is appropriate to respond to that.

What I did want to point out—two points I wish to make. I don’t need to use the full 10 minutes to make these two points, although I’ll see how I go.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you don’t need to, you shouldn’t.

RACHEL BOYACK: The first is around the Minister’s comments around certainty, and I’m going to comment on that, and the second is some elements around the process that actually my colleagues haven’t traversed yet. The first is that the Minister talked about the need for this community to have certainty. We agree with that; however, this is not the approach to take. This community has also asked for consultation. Now, a truncated select committee process of three months, instead of the usual six, does not meet a threshold for consultation for this community. If, as my colleague pointed out, it is a shortened time frame for submissions—three weeks for people with disabilities to put submissions in—it is not enough time for genuine consultation for this community.

This community—and the reason I make this point—is some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable people, and the people who support some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable people. Having heard from members of this community, they are exhausted. We have exhausted people with disabilities, we have exhausted members of their families supporting them, and now we are going to ask these people who are literally exhausted from caring for their family members under this Government to only have three weeks in order to be a submission in. That is not robust, thorough, appropriate consultation from this Minister. So that is my point in relation to her point around certainty.

The next point I want to make is around the select committee process. My colleagues all sit on select committees, we all know how these processes work, but there are a couple of specific elements I wanted to raise. One was around the nature of how people put submissions into this Parliament We are all hearing as MPs that the Parliament website is difficult to navigate for people to be able to put submissions in. It is difficult to navigate. There are a lot of fields that you have to complete. You have to get it right otherwise the submission does not go through.

Parliament does not accept email submissions. I don’t believe Parliament accepts an email with a voice-type submission. There are a whole series of barriers for people to actually submit to our Parliament. Our Office of the Clerk are under-resourced. They don’t have the tools to develop the website further to enable for that to happen. We are talking about a particular community with particular needs, so the select committee, in my view, needs to work with their clerk to come up with alternative methods. They should accept an email submission from a disabled person or a member of their family. They should accept, perhaps, a video submission from someone with a disability, because for people who have disabilities, submitting through a parliamentary website is not an easy feat.

The second part I wanted to specifically talk about is the process which my colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell touched on. Actually, Helen White did also, but I want to take it just a little bit further. Today, in a select committee I sat on, we talked about the importance of—what the members of the public might not understand in this process is that you receive what’s called a departmental report, which is the analysis that comes through from the officials on all the submissions and all of the analysis that has been heard by the committee. Then those officials will go and produce what’s called an “RT”, a revision-tracked version of the bill, so it’s the changes that the committee is recommending to the bill. They need at least two weeks to do that, and if it’s more complex legislation, they need even more.

How do we fit all these time frames for what will actually be quite a complex piece of legislation into a three-month period? I do want to finish, so I’ll only use half of the time allocated, but, as I said, this Government has a pattern of behaviour. They are repeatedly putting these types of truncated processes in place, and then what happens is the committee goes, “Oh look, we don’t have enough time to do this.” Funny that! Maybe they should have listened to the Opposition when we had these debates. Then the request is made to the Business Committee to extend the time, and those requests keep coming and coming, because this Government keeps putting legislation through far too fast and trying to undermine what is the democratic process of this House. That six-month process is a fundamental element of the democratic process of this House. This is the people’s House; it is not our House, and a significant part of the process that is followed is that consultation phase through the select committee process. This Government does not want to hear properly from the voices of the people who are affected by this bill. We will not be supporting the referral motion from this Government.

SUZE REDMAYNE (Junior Whip—National) (16:30): I move, That debate on this question now close.

A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

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

Motion agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Disability Support Services Bill be reported to the House by 13 August 2026 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

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

Motion agreed to.

Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) (16:32): I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill.

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

First Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) (16:32): I move, That the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 3 September 2026 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there’s been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Our Government’s committed to fixing the basics in law and order and building a future where everyone feels safe to visit, work in, and live in our central cities. Our streets and our town centres have enjoyed unprecedented levels of disruption in recent years. Many people no longer want to be there. Businesses, residents, and visitors are paying the price. You’d be hard pressed to find anybody who lives in, works in, or visits our city centres who hasn’t witnessed disorderly behaviour, and that’s why so many people in the central city businesses support move-on orders as an option for police. Many are trying to just make a living. They have to face disruptive people camped outside their store day in and day out.

We currently have many tools to help those who are in need, including access to one of the most generous welfare systems in the world.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Oh my goodness!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Among this—well, it is. Under this Government alone, we’ve also funded 300 additional Housing First homes targeted on rough sleepers. We’ve released private market homes to enable immediate placements. We’re provided $10 million in additional funding for proven front-line services. We’ve expanded outreach and wraparound support in major urban centres. We’ve deployed a Ministry of Social Development tactical team to directly engage and house rough sleepers. All of those things we have done, so we’ve got many tools available to help those fellow New Zealanders who are genuinely in need.

What we don’t have is many tools to deal with disorderly behaviour in our town squares, and it means that many disruptive, distressing, and potentially harmful acts can occur before police officers have any means of intervention. This legislation changes that. It’s often said, “Oh, well, what about your empathy for those who are in genuine need?”, and I’d just say this: my empathy lies particularly with those New Zealanders who have put their life savings into a small business, who get up every day to do their business to provide for their family and for their community and for their customers, and that they find a number of people lined up outside their businesses abusing those who come and go and making it difficult for them to succeed and to live and to provide for their families. That’s where my empathy lies.

There’s much said about this legislation. Let me set the record straight. The Government has no policy to criminalise homelessness. What we do have is a policy to give the police the power to issue move-on orders to people displaying disorderly behaviour in public places, and only people who refuse to follow those orders will face prosecution. The bill amends the Summary Offences Act to create a power for police to issue move-on orders to manage low-level disorderly behaviour taking place in public places and prevent escalation. It enables front-line officers—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me, we’re not going to have people shouting at each other across the House.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —to issue move-on orders for a range of behaviours including being disorderly, intimidating, threatening, or disruptive; obstructing entry to a trade or business; breaching the peace; begging; rough sleeping; or activities that indicate an intent to inhabit a public place. Importantly, move-on orders apply to a behaviour that’s below the criminal threshold or to low-level criminal behaviour that relates to public disorder. Move-on orders provide an immediate and effective tool for police to de-escalate situations and to disrupt concerning behaviour as it’s happening.

The bill provides that move-on orders can be issued to people aged 14 years or older, people engaging in the stated behaviours, who will be required to leave the area and not return for up to 24 hours. The people that receive a move-on order will be required to move a reasonable distance away from the area as specified by the constable. Naturally, every situation will be different. Some people may require support services; some may not. Police have the expertise to determine what support is required, if any; they do this every day.

People are also free to use public spaces in a range of ways, and I recognise the need for some activities to be exempt from this. The bill specifies that move-on orders do not apply to people who are lawfully protesting or conducting charitable or not-for-profit fundraising.

New Zealanders are fair-minded people, and our culture is one that seeks to help those who are in need, but that does not mean that we should accept that our city centres, our town squares, particularly our showcase tourist spots, become places of intimidation and dysfunction.

Since day one, we’ve worked tirelessly to restore real consequences for crime and to place victims back at the heart of the justice system. Just briefly, I’ll just remind you: we’ve reformed the sentencing regime so that those who cause most harm are given stronger consequences. We’ve given the police effective tools to deal with gangs. We’ve stopped taxpayer funding for the proliferation of cultural reports. We’ve given victims of sexual assaults the power to determine if offenders are granted permanent name suppression. We’ve restored three strikes, and we’ve criminalised stalking, which is actually taking effect next week.

The good news is that we’re making progress. Our focus is on reducing the number of victims of crime, and the number of victims of serious violent crime is now 49,000 fewer than when we came into Government. But the work is far from over, and this is one area that still requires attention—urgent attention—and that is disorderly behaviour on our town squares and in our streets. So our focus is ensuring that we reclaim those streets and those town centres for the enjoyment of people who live there, who work there, and who visit there. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

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

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (16:39): We will not be supporting this bill, and I’m going to go into great detail as to why. It’s very difficult to listen to the Minister speak to this bill and promote this bill, particularly given we have had the Ministry of Justice saying that there was no evidence that move-on orders would reduce crime, we have had the Police come out opposed to criminalising rough sleeping, and we have had Treasury state very clearly that the costs of this would outweigh the benefits. Why would the Government, when presented with all of this advice and evidence against what they are doing, still move ahead with their move-on orders? It is purely ideological, and it is sad that this is the state of the Government that we have at the moment leading the country.

Today, we had Paul Goldsmith stand up and talk about the fact that we have the most generous welfare system, as if all the poor people who are living on welfare are wealthy or doing well and they should be grateful. Earlier today, I saw that Nicola Willis was talking about those being in social housing having won Lotto, as if being poor and having to rely on social welfare or social housing is a Lotto win.

What is this Government up to? It is crazy. It’s crazy that Paul Goldsmith would stand here today and talk about how these move-on orders are about addressing disorderly behaviour when two of the categories that people can be moved on for are simply being homeless and begging. Homelessness and begging, according to the definition of that Minister, is disorderly behaviour and requires the attention of the justice system. The only injustice to those people being homeless is the fact that they are homeless and they are living in poverty. They are not causing any injustice against Minister Paul Goldsmith and general members of the public. Is it nice for us and our whānau to be walking in public places and to see homelessness in real life at our shopping malls and in our CBD? No. It’s not nice, and it’s hard when you have to explain it to your kids, but it’s even worse for the people that are actually living as homeless people because they have nowhere to lie down and no roof over their heads at night-time.

What really saddens me and frustrates me is how we have got here. The social services in Auckland have been very clear with the Government. They have seen increased homelessness as a result of that Government’s policies. The Government decided to restrict the number of people who could get access to emergency accommodation, and, now, we have the City Mission and other social services saying that is why there’s more people on the street. That Government decided to cut the public housing build that was under way from the previous Government when we were in charge. Then we wonder why we don’t have the social housing for those people that need it. They sing their own praises by standing there and saying that they’ve invested in 207 additional Housing First places, when they’ve been told really clearly that there are 940 people that are homeless.

Then, what do they do when their policies fail New Zealanders for housing? They go and they criminalise those that are homeless. Do not talk to us about this being disorderly behaviour, and, yes, in here, it says that anyone that poses a threat is going to be asked to move on. But you have made the conscious decision to include in this legislation people who are homeless or are begging, and then you stand up in this House and you say you’re not criminalising, despite the fact that if they don’t move on, they can be fined or they can be sentenced. Please don’t try and tell us on the side of the House that we are wrong. We know exactly what we’re reading. It is wrong. The Government is wrong to do it, and we will not be supporting this bill.

TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central) (16:44): How dare the Minister of Justice get up and tell the House, not just today but yesterday as well, that this is not criminalising homelessness and that if they comply and go home, they’re not going to be charged. The Minister realises they don’t have a home, right? Where exactly are they supposed to move on to? Should they go to your house? Don’t mislead the public by saying that this isn’t exactly what it is. The New Zealand public is smart enough to understand exactly what it is, and the Minister knows exactly what it is too. When he was an Auckland city councillor 10 years ago—or whenever it was—he was trying to pass a by-law that made homelessness criminal, and when that didn’t work, he moved up to Government and is trying it again, but, this time, it affects people as young as 14. Where exactly are these kids meant to go? Would you like them to go sleep in a bush? Would you like them to go and sleep under a bridge? They have nowhere to go. They have no parents, they have no responsible adults, and, now, they will be caught up in the justice system for the rest of their life. How dare the Minister get up and say that they care about victims, that they care about intimidation, and that they care about safety in the very same week they cut funding to front-line sexual violence prevention organisations, who work with people who have been raped and sexually assaulted. They don’t care about safety, and they don’t care about victims.

What exactly is intimidation anyway? Is that going to be a little brown kid wearing a hoodie who someone walking into town sees and feels intimidated by because they’re not supposed to be there? When, in our justice system, could you punish someone before they’ve even broken the law because someone looks at them and makes an assessment that they are probably going to cause harm? You can’t do that. That’s exactly why there is a report that’s come out from the Attorney-General, saying that this bill contradicts people’s human rights. I don’t see the ACT Party, the party of freedom over there, standing up for all New Zealanders’ freedom of movement, expression, or speech, when that is exactly what this bill contravenes. I bet they’re going to stand up and support this bill as well.

This gallery, right now, is filled with people who know more about homelessness and how to actually deal with it than the Government does. These are people who are actually on the front line, who do the outreach, and who build up the trust of people who are rough sleeping and actually house them. I don’t know if the Minister ever listens to what these organisations say, but it is far cheaper and more humane to house people. It costs $200,000 to put someone in prison for a year. The Minister knows that. It is far cheaper to house them and to give them the mental health and drug addiction support that they desperately need. These are people who have fallen through the cracks of every single system, and the organisations that are there, ready to help them, are not getting the financial assistance that they need to do so. They’re not asking the Government to end homelessness overnight; they’re asking the Government to financially support the people who know how to end homelessness.

This bill, move-on orders, will not end homelessness. It is more expensive, and it is more cruel. Even the Police do not support what you’re trying to do. The Police do not support criminalising homelessness. There were other options put in front of the Minister that didn’t involve locking up and giving a $2,000 fine to people who have got nothing. Even the Police, the people who are expected to enforce these move-on orders, don’t support what the Government is doing.

Let’s remember that homeless people are in fact the most unsafe people on the street. They are the most at risk. Let’s not forget that, and let’s not forget why homelessness has increased in the first place. Homelessness has shot up because the Government decided to restrict access to emergency housing. Homelessness has gone up because the Government has used all of their power and resources to reinstate no-cause evictions and to cancel the building of hundreds, if not thousands, of public homes. That is why there is homelessness. It’s a cruel injustice to arrest and move on people, but especially with those 14- to 18-year-olds, it’s disgusting. Then, today, announcing that you’ll be making it more expensive to live in public housing and easier to kick people out of public housing. This gallery in here right now is ashamed of what this Government is doing.

SIMON COURT (ACT) (16:50): Madam Speaker—[Applause from gallery]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I just remind the gallery that the gallery members are here to listen, and so we are now disrupting the speeches by that noise. Just please respect the process that we are going through. I’ve called Simon Court. We will start again.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. What you’ve heard from Labour and the Greens is an exercise in the most disgusting act of political gaslighting that I’ve heard in my six years in Parliament. This bill is intended to ensure that police are adequately equipped to address public disorder—

Tamatha Paul: And what did they say?

SIMON COURT: —increase the public’s sense of safety, Tamatha Paul, and support urban centres and economies. They’re acting—Labour and the Greens—like the experiences of small shop owners and the experiences of commuters and people who live in our urban centres and who experience some of the most appalling behaviours, disruptive behaviours, which this bill seeks to address, are not real. You are denying the lived reality of young people who I’ve worked with in the central city in K Road and other businesses who told me they were afraid to come to work until it was light because of the intimidation and fear they felt from people who they could identify as being regularly occupying public spaces. You’re denying the lived reality of people who live—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The Speaker is not.

SIMON COURT: Madam Speaker, the Greens and Labour are denying the reality of people who choose to live in our urban centres, where, with all the enormous investments in infrastructure like the City Rail Link in Auckland, we want people to come and live. So to be able to make those places and spaces feel safe and welcoming and encouraging for those who we want to enjoy our cities is part of what we’re doing here today. It is—

Tamatha Paul: All good. Just house them.

SIMON COURT: Look, let’s recognise that many of the people who are on our streets and who are regulars on our streets can be housed but sometimes with great difficulty because of their incredibly complex needs. We should never, ever resile from that. We know that this requires a great deal of effort from Government, local government, social agencies, and NGOs, and we should always be prepared to support these people to find safe places to live, to get help for mental health and addiction issues—

Steve Abel: Why aren’t you?

SIMON COURT: —and to help them. For Steve Abel to ask why we aren’t assumes nothing’s been done, and that is not the case. There are many agencies involved in engaging with people who have tough lives and who may, for no fault of their own or for some poor decisions, have ended up on the streets.

We need to be able to help them, but we should not pretend in any way that providing police with the power to say, “Hey, look, you can’t sleep in the shopkeeper’s doorway, because they can’t get into their premises with you out here.”, to individuals who are hanging outside a public transport facility calling out to passers-by or, what I’ve seen, walking in the side streets of K Road—where my construction project officers were starting early in the morning—people half-clothed who had defecated in doorways, and those are the actual lived experiences for people I work with, particularly for young staff, graduates, and interns coming into construction businesses. It puts them off—it doesn’t just put them off; it makes them doubt whether Government, councils, and police actually care about their safety. I can tell all of those people who are in the gallery here tonight and who might be watching or listening at home that Governments and councils and police do care, but they do need these additional powers in order to be able to move these people on, direct them to get help, and not to tolerate—tolerate—the kind of behaviours that these people are showing now.

Now, ACT also recognises that there are issues that the Attorney-General has raised about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and that is why it is important that this bill is referred to the Justice Committee. The Justice Committee has a great deal of experience in exploring these New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues and resolving them. I look forward to this bill going to the Justice Committee and for that committee to report back to the House on how to resolve some of these critical issues, particularly when it comes to freedom of speech and association. They are important ACT values, and they’re important to this coalition Government. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Police) (16:55): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill. Unlike some across the other side of this House, New Zealand First knows what quality police officers patrol our streets and the great decision makers they are in enforcing law. I am not going to be performative and decry that this is a homeless bill. That is not what this bill is about. This bill is about providing powers to intervene to prevent a certain type of conduct and behaviour.

I’m the Minister for Seniors. I understand how important it is for older people to feel connected and engaged in their communities and how important it is that they can feel like they’re part of the cities they live in. They have the right, just as everyone does, to be able to enjoy those inner-city spaces. That is exactly what this bill is doing. It is returning our streets to the communities that own them, not allowing us to be intimidated and to be frightened just for being in our own cities. This is not a homelessness attack; this is an attack on certain types of conduct that intimidate and refuse to allow our cities to be free and open spaces for those who belong to those towns to enjoy, for those that work in the cities, for those that commute, and for those that just want to be in the cities and enjoy those spaces.

New Zealand First knows the quality of our police force. They know that this is not uncontrolled powers. This is about having a conversation with people and telling them to move on and that their conduct is not appropriate. If they refuse to move on, if they refuse to provide their details, and if they refuse to comply, then it is their choice to have the situation escalated by the powers that this bill presents.

Tamatha Paul: They’ve got no home.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO: This is not about telling you to go home, as the member from the Green Party suggests; this is about not being in a place that is causing intimidation to the public. That is exactly what it is. Those who like to live in this fantasy world and think we don’t know what it’s like out there; I live in South Auckland. I know exactly the situations we’re trying to deal with. I know the need to ensure that our communities are connected, engaged, and supported.

I am the Minister for Seniors, and I speak to the older people who feel that they can no longer use their inner-city centres and who feel intimidated, so this is about a power that allows the police to intervene, allows the police to do something, rather than wait for criminal offences to occur, and to pre-emptively take action to de-escalate. That is exactly what this bill is producing, and that is why we fully commend this bill to the House.

ORIINI KAIPARA (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) (16:58): I give rise to the voices of those silenced across my rohe of Tāmaki Makaurau, in particular the 940 people that we know of who are without warm, dry, safe, and stable homes. I stand to speak to a bill that Minister Goldsmith himself said just a couple of hours ago during question time, in this very House, criminalises a refusal to move on. That’s exactly what makes this legislation absolutely flawed. It doesn’t address homelessness; it criminalises it.

I’m not debating this bill as if it concerns people I’ve not met. I know the faces of those it targets. I’ve sat with them on Queen Street. I’ve shared kai with them at Mood Cafe on Karangahape Road. I’ve listened to their stories alongside the Māori Wardens of Matarora by the downtown car park. I keep connected with our rangatahi who were once homeless but are now thriving under the manaakitanga of organisations like Manaaki Rangatahi and Mā Te Huruhuru. I know these people because they are my electorate, my community, my whānau. The truth is this: most of the people sleeping rough in Tāmaki Makaurau are Māori—they are Māori.

This bill is mean spirited. It’s short sighted. It treats homelessness as a matter of compliance rather than a matter of survival. It assumes that if you threaten people with $2,000 fines and the rest—ha!—they’ll simply disappear. But people don’t disappear because Parliament tells them to; they move because they have somewhere safe to go. Right now, too many of our people do not.

The cost of living is pushing more whānau into crisis. Rents are rising. Food prices are crazy. Power bills are rising. Everything is rising, except for incomes. When people can’t afford to live, they lose their homes; when they lose their homes, they end up in the street, or they end up in overcrowded situations, which impacts a lot of Pasifika and Māori families right across this motu. That is the reality.

When this Government cuts emergency housing funding, it doesn’t reduce homelessness; it reduces support, it reduces the safety that it craves so much and it reduces the chance for people to get back on their feet. Homelessness is not only about the absence of housing; it’s also about the absence of investment needed to turn houses into homes. It’s about the lack of wraparound support, mental health care, addiction services, and culturally grounded pathways that restore stability and dignity. Homelessness is complex and it requires more than a roof.

We also cannot fix what we cannot measure. Aotearoa still doesn’t have actual comprehensive data on homelessness. We don’t know the true scale of this crisis. We rely on partial counts and overstretched front-line providers. How can we legislate effectively when we don’t even know how many people really are affected?

Te Pāti Māori, our movement, believes in real solutions that last for generations and not just for three years. We believe that everyone—everyone—in Aotearoa should be fed, should be housed, and should have enough income to live meaningful lives. That’s why we support making the minimum wage a living wage, that is why we support removing GST from kai so that whānau can afford to eat, and that is why we believe the 112,000 empty homes across this country should be made available to those who need the homes right now. We will never end homelessness, or even poverty, by punishing people. Our movement is about being hard on healing, rather than being hard on crime.

There is a real solution sitting right here in this Parliament, it is called the Youth Homelessness Prevention Bill. That is the bill I introduced in the first 70 days of my term here as an MP, a bill that this Government has ignored, a bill that focuses on early intervention, on enacting the duty to assist across all agencies, and on coordinated support that puts our people first. The system is continuing to fail us and our people. It is not a symbolic gesture, this bill; it’s a practical, evidence-based pathway to ending homelessness, not just managing it, not just shifting it out of sight, but ending it once and for all. It’s a long-term solution grounded in dignity, community, and the lived realities of our rangatahi.

Our rangatahi need better rangatira than what we have in this Whare right now. I look you straight in the eye and I tell you that our people need to register to vote this year. That is the only way we can make a great impact right now. Vote this Government out.

CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (17:03): I say to the Opposition, read my lips: the Government is not criminalising homelessness. You see, the problem that the Opposition has is that they can’t do basic arithmetic: one plus one doesn’t equal four.

Tamatha Paul: You have 25 homes—25 homes.

CARL BATES: You know what? Tomorrow morning, you come down to the City Mission with me and actually do some mahi and help raise the money from the people who pay the taxes to make this country work and provide the support that we need to be able to deliver the social services we need to deliver in this country. You come down, 7.30 tomorrow morning, City Mission in Whanganui, and let’s raise the funds—not you, but them, Madam Speaker—and let’s actually do the work that helps, and not create unnecessary scaremongering about what this bill does. I commend it to the House.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (17:04): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a terrible bill. It goes much too far in addressing what everyone would acknowledge is sometimes a problem, which is, obviously, something that is very difficult within our cities, which is when we see antisocial behaviour. That is the problem that the Government says that they are trying to address.

Unfortunately, this bill doesn’t address antisocial behaviour; it goes further than that and it criminalises—and I can point members to the exact clause, which is new section 8F(2), inserted by clause 5 of the bill, which says that if you breach a move-on order, you can go to prison. How you breach a move-on order is simply by being homeless and staying in one place—being homeless, begging, asking for food: these are reasons for people to be issued a move-on order under this bill, and this bill is a terrible reflection on our society.

There are so many people who oppose this bill—not just members of the Opposition. We have the Government’s own Attorney-General stating that this bill is inconsistent with two important rights under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act: the freedom of expression and the freedom of movement. I have to say, it is very disappointing to hear from what was once a libertarian party standing up and saying that your freedom of movement can only be where we say it can be in public places. It is shameful.

We had the Ministry of Justice saying there is no evidence that move-on orders would reduce crime. We had the Treasury saying the costs of implementing move-on orders would outweigh the benefits. We had the Ministry of Urban Development stating the bill has the potential to cause further harm to people experiencing homelessness. We have Hāpai te Hauora stating that this bill will not reduce homelessness, but it will shift the problem without addressing why people are there in the first place. We have the New Zealand Criminal Bar Association stating that it is shocked that the Government would attack what little dignity the homeless community has left at a time when emergency housing is cut and State housing is at its least accessible. We have Lifewise saying that we have more than 900 individuals currently sleeping rough, and these measures fail to address the underlying causes of homelessness.

Rather than offering meaningful solutions, this bill simply moves vulnerable people from one area to another. And, yes, it criminalises homelessness. This bill is an absolute shame on this society. I ask those opposite: how do we justify our response as a society to seeing a homeless 14-year-old on the street and knowing that they are homeless, issuing them with a move-on order? A 14-year-old is a child. They are children. We cannot have our first response to seeing a homeless child be to hand them a piece of paper, potentially detain them—they’re also allowed to be detained under this bill—and then issuing them with a move-on order, with a fine, and potentially imprisonment under this Act, if they don’t comply.

This goes much further than dealing with the antisocial behaviour that those on the other side of the House have identified. It goes much further than that because it does put in summary offences which can turn into imprisonment for begging and for rough sleeping. The definition of “begging” is really important. The definition of “begging” in this bill is asking for food. Our response to someone asking for food, to being hungry, under this Government, is to issue them with a move-on order.

It is often said that society should be judged by the way we treat our most vulnerable, and this is a shameful way to treat our most vulnerable. One of my proudest moments of being an Aucklander was when I went to the opening of Homeground. Those types of solutions that actually provide a community response to homelessness are what the Government should be investing in. They shouldn’t be criminalising people who are homeless. They shouldn’t be issuing move-on orders to 14-year-olds. They shouldn’t be issuing move-on orders to people who are simply hungry.

RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (17:09): We’ve spoken about what causes homelessness. I’ve worked in our family business that deals with people that are either homeless or borderline homeless, an emergency and transitional housing facility, so I’ve seen over the years what causes homelessness: unaddressed mental health issues. I’m proud of the fact that we’ve got Minister Matt Doocey, the first mental health Minister ever to address mental health issues. Drug and alcohol addictions cause homelessness. Being sucked into the vortex of a miserable, awful life because of being sexually or violently assaulted—that causes homelessness. Becoming disenfranchised with whānau—and, yes, your iwi as well—causes homelessness. Someone on the other side of the House said that this bill is not going to solve homelessness. It’s not intended to solve homelessness, but I’ll tell you what will solve homelessness: addressing mental health issues in our country; addressing a lack of proper education, which we are doing; going after gangs for the brokenness that they cause amongst families; and, yes, growing our country so that we can give people a hand up, not a hand down.

We are not criminalising children. I’ll never ever forget when two police officers told me about two young children they had to pick up. These children begged, “Please don’t take me home.” because they were scared of being bashed by their parents. We are simply saying we need to help people to get to the proper care they need to get to. I commend this bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) (17:11): Absolutely shameful. I stand not just as a Labour MP but as a Kiwi who is disgusted—disgusted—by this terrible law, disgusted by this other lot on the other side of the House. This Parliament—and I’m glad all our communities are here—has an obligation to look after the weak, to look after the vulnerable. But you get this lot over here. This one should be ashamed to listen to this type of kōrero coming today. Look after our people. Look after our community, the vulnerable. This Government has breached that obligation—they have breached that obligation. It is shameful, disgusting stuff we’re getting from this Government.

But we should probably congratulate Minister Goldsmith over here for finally getting his chance to finally kick the homeless. Back in 2008, the Minister was an Auckland city councillor and on Radio New Zealand, he publicly pushed for stronger powers to remove the homeless and vagrants from central Auckland. In fact, Radio New Zealand reported at the time that the former Minister wanted officials to investigate how homeless people could be removed from the central city area and did not rule out arrests.

Well, he got his wish. Almost 20 years later, Minister Goldsmith finally gets something done, and it’s bashing the vulnerable. Congratulations, Minister Goldsmith; well done. What a political achievement. Hold on to anger towards the poor long enough and you too can be a National Cabinet Minister—no doubt about it.

Every single organisation that works with the homeless has warned this Government that their policy would create homelessness, but what do they do? They carry on with this law. They don’t accept that it’s their emergency stinking housing policy that has created the mess. We all know, except them. They don’t want to know. Every single organisation is saying that all they want to do is hide the social damage. Why is this Government doing this? What drives these people? That’s what we are saying today. Why move it along and hide their shameful harvest of poverty from our streets because the homeless embarrass them in front of their cruise ships? That’s the reality. Only this Government could look at people sleeping on the streets and decide that the real problem is their visibility, not the poverty that put them there.

Simon Court: Absolute nonsense.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: You don’t solve homelessness, “Mr ACT person”, by criminalising it. Why can’t they get it through their thick heads? It’s beyond me. You solve the problem, Government, by building homes. You’ve built no homes. You’ve built nothing—built nothing. Kicking people off the streets without giving them somewhere to go isn’t leadership; it’s just moving misery out of your sight. That’s all you’re doing.

Look, we’re sympathetic to the long-suffering business owners just trying to earn a living. We get that and we are empathetic. We understand what’s happening there. We’ve made statements. We support them. We want our small-business owners to succeed, but moving-on powers merely address the symptom of poverty, not its cause. Unless there’s significant investment and outreach, food banks, and social housing, for every homeless person the police move along, two more—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Order! We don’t need that across-the-House argument going on. There is one speaker speaking. Thank you, Mr Jackson.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. You don’t solve homelessness by criminalising it. Our small-business owners deserve policies that will solve the problem rather than gloss over it.

That side of the House talked tough on the homeless because it’s easier than admitting they are a failure in terms of housing, they’re a failure in terms of their community. You should be ashamed of yourselves. That’s why you’re all squealing and howling, particularly this woman who says she comes from Takanini.

Rima Nakhle: I do come from “Tak-aah-nini”, actually—“Tak-aah-nini”.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yeah, you’re a disgrace to Takanini. You’re using the power of the House to bash homeless, vulnerable people. Our people in South Auckland should disown people like that MP over there. You should hang your collective heads in shame. Labour will never support this filthy bill.

RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (17:16): It’s a pleasure to have played a small part in this bill through a member’s bill, which was actually worked up by the area commander of Waikato, Andrea McBeth. I pay tribute to the work she did in making sure that this was an example of a halfway house that police could use all over the country. It’s used in every state of Australia as a proactive tool of de-escalating behaviour. There’s been a lot of weaponisation from the Opposition, saying it’s about homelessness. Homelessness is not even in the bill, so I don’t know how many of the members opposite have read it. The Opposition harp on. The worst thing they could do for homelessness and begging is nothing. It’s the most mana-reducing, soul-destroying thing. The move-on orders actually give our police the tool to plug them in with NGOs, local government, central government agencies and make a difference to their life, because, unlike the Opposition, we’ve actually got aspiration for the most vulnerable people in this country. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 55

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

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Referral to Select Committee

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh) (17:18): The question is, That the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to Select Committee

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) (17:19): I move, That the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 3 September 2026 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The reason for this slightly faster turn-around of 3½ months rather than the usual period is that this Government wants to get on with this legislation and have it enforced quickly, and because we believe that 3½ months does provide plenty of time for full consideration of the issues.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (17:20): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the motion be amended to replace the word “3 September 2026” with “22 September 2026”.

Again, I want to first address the broader concerns with this bill in relation to the referral motion. Just for those who are watching, essentially, when we do debates such as this, it’s because when a select committee process that a Government has recommended is significantly shorter than the standard period of even the minimum period of four months, we are undermining the democratic process of the ability for the public to be able to submit on a bill such as this.

Now, the reason I want to move that particular motion, which I will speak to, I think I’ll start with the fact that, despite what the Minister of Justice has said, 2½ months absolutely is not enough when we’re looking at a bill of this significance. Now, the reason also is the fact that this is one of the bills we have seen in this term, and potentially the first bill we have seen this year, that has a Section 7 report by the Attorney-General. What that means is that this is a bill that fundamentally undermines the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act here in Aotearoa New Zealand. It fundamentally undermines the right of every person here in Aotearoa, and that must not be taken lightly. If there is a Section 7 report, this is something that the Attorney-General himself must highlight to this House, and for us to have a shortened select committee period is unconscionable when it comes to anything that affects our human rights. I think it is important for us to first and foremost put that on the table

In terms of the timing, I also would like to address the fact that there is absolutely no reason for this Government to shorten the select committee process, because bear in mind, if you’re looking at the regulatory impact statement, the date that the regulatory impact statement was finalised was 27 November 2025. This Government could absolutely give the people of New Zealand more than enough time to submit on this bill. If they introduce something like this early on in the year, they could in fact allow for a full six-month select committee without having to have a truncated process. But instead, the Government has chosen to introduce bills of a lesser significance, despite potentially knowing something like this would have the impact and would undermine our bill of rights.

It is also important to note that when we are looking at a particular timing, as far as the select committee it is going to, the Justice Committee is one of the select committees that has the highest workload, and I do want to acknowledge every single person in the Justice Committee. It also means that we are going to be looking at timings and also a submission period that does not work for people. As my previous speakers, as speakers who spoke on this bill—particularly, I want to acknowledge our housing spokesperson as well as our MP for Wellington Central, Tamatha Paul, as well as our MP for Auckland Central, Chlöe Swarbrick, as well as our MP for Rongotai, Julie Anne Genter—these sort of things, the impact this will have on the community, cannot be understated. For us to shorten that select committee process is, again, basically disallowing people’s ability to participate democratically in our system.

What 2½ months of a select committee process means is that what we’ll be looking at is a submission period—if we’re looking at any form of proportionality—of 2½ weeks. That is all it’s going to allow for people to make submissions. I want to challenge the Government, as well as the select committee, that if this is something they are going to be doing—and I note that the Minister in his motion has exempted Standing Order 195, which allows meeting outside of Wellington during sitting weeks—to use the full ability to travel across the country and meet our homeless whānau and our transient whānau on their own terms at those locations. I am urging, then, the select committee to go to Auckland Central and talk to the homeless whānau in Auckland Central. I am urging the select committee to go to Wellington Central, as well as the Rongotai, and talk to the constituents and talk to those people and our homeless whānau there. I think, if we’re going to have a truncated period, that is the right thing to do. That is the appropriate thing to do. It is also the democratic thing to do.

There are also other considerations when we’re looking at this, and, again, when we are looking at a whole combination of different bills that the Government has introduced just this week, one of the things that is of concern for all of these bills is also the impact they will have on disabled communities. Again, like what you have seen with the previous bill, the disabilities bill, we’re also urging the select committee, if they are going to be looking at the truncated process, to allow full accessibility and the ability for people to be able to make submissions.

I want to draw attention to the House of previous things that the Justice Committee has done and how they choose to use social media to be able to engage with the public on submissions. I think if we are going to have a truncated process, that is an important and effective thing to do. I also note that while there is a truncated process, this bill doesn’t come into effect until one month after Royal assent. That’s also an important consideration that things could have been done and things could have changed in a way that allowed for a longer select committee period in exchange for, potentially, commencement the day after Royal assent. That, again, allows for more democracy and more of a democratic and transparent and participatory process for the public to be able to submit on this bill.

While it has been said that this is something that has been signalled a long time ago, this bill itself wasn’t introduced until quite recently. Therefore, while it has been signalled, no one has been able to be consulted, and no one has been able to see the full details of this bill. And indeed, if I’m drawing to the limitations of this bill—as indicated in the regulatory impact statement pertaining to the length that we’re looking at in terms of the select committee process—we’re saying that this scope of the bill was constrained by ministerial decisions, and that there has been an inability to consult with a wide-ranging sector as well as the community around this. Again, the signalling is different from genuine engagement and consultation with the public, and therefore, once again, I stress our disappointment with a shortened select committee process.

Now, on to my motion and on to my amendment that amends it from 3 September to 22 September. Noting that the dissolution of Parliament is on 1 October, I want to be balanced to say that even if we see a report-back date on 22 September, which grants an additional 2½ weeks on top of that, which means that we’re going to be seeing an extra few days that the submission is able to be opened, it still gives the current Government full ability to read this bill through all stages before the dissolution of Parliament. So I do want to urge members of this House to speak—and I want to hear your feedback as well as the Ministers now that we are resetting the clock—on the possibility of supporting my amendment.

Once again, I think it is important that we allow people to submit. I think it’s important for us to allow for that extra couple of weeks. But if my amendment is not supported, I urge the Justice Committee to travel the country under the exemption of Standing Order 195 to be able to hear from the people themselves in those locations.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Before I take the next call, members, the question before the House for debate is that the amendment be agreed to. The amendment is now debatable together with the motion.

CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (17:30): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to support the motion. We’ve heard from the Minister to support the amended motion. We heard from the Minister very, very brief reasons as to why this bill needed to have a shortened report back of less than four months. I’m not sure if they really stacked up. He seemed to say that the reason we need a shortened report back is because he wanted the bill to be reported back more quickly, which doesn’t really seem to be a reason; it just seems to be a desire that he has.

I don’t agree that there are good reasons for this to be a shortened report back and there are a few reasons for that. One of the reasons is that the bill has attracted a lot of opposition and public interest, and I think anyone viewing the first reading today will be aware of that. Any MP in Parliament would have received a lot of correspondence around this. I know, for our biggest city, Auckland, where probably most of the move-on orders would be issued, that it is something that requires consideration. I don’t think passing it before the election is really a reason to not have proper parliamentary process.

This is something that would be referred to the Justice Committee. I sit on the Justice Committee and I just asked my colleague Glen Bennett to tally up the number of bills in front of the Justice Committee—I think there’s something like 13 bills, at least, coming up on the parliamentary website on the tool. That is a lot of legislation to consider. It would be unfortunate if, because this particular Government and because a lot of the members’ bills have been referred to the Justice Committee, that this was not given due hearing or due consideration because of the number of bills that are before it.

We have more bills, I understand, on the Justice Committee than any other committee in Parliament, and the Minister wants us to take what is a very controversial subject and report back in a shortened period of time. I don’t agree with that, and I do think it would be better to have at least four months. Usually, with bills, we look at six months; that’s until this Government came into place where four months seems to be the norm, and, of course, we don’t debate it if it’s four months, but because this is less than four months, we’re able to have a perspective on it. The reason that Parliament gave us that right is because it is such an unusual departure from parliamentary process.

Now, I want to acknowledge the staff in the select committees that we have in Parliament. They do an amazing job, and I think they actually try and make sure that people are heard, and they try and make sure that we have enough time to consider all of the legislation that we have before us. But this has been increasingly harder for those staff members to actually enable that. That has been, partly, because we’ve had so many shortened report-back times, but it’s also been because we’ve had so many extended settings in this Parliament as well. That means, for those who are not aware of the parliamentary terminology, essentially, that a day that we would normally be at select committee, we are not at select committee, and we are in the House passing laws and debating things. That has meant that we haven’t had as much time to debate bills despite the fact we have, and to look at bills and to hear submissions on bills to fight, despite the fact we also have more bills.

Another important aspect of this is that there are important human rights considerations that the committee will need to receive advice on. The Attorney-General’s report on section 7 outlines two breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Now, that is quite unusual to have two breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act actually acknowledged by the Attorney-General, although, I’ve only read two of his opinions so far, and they seem to have found breaches in both of them. If that’s the way that the new Attorney-General will continue, then maybe we have more of these section 7 reports. But it does mean that the committee will have to get advice specifically on if there a way of remedying the bill that does not contradict with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And this is about people being in public spaces. It’s a very important fundamental right— basically the freedom to exist and the freedom of movement. That’s why it was kind of surprising to hear some parties that had previously stood up for those types of rights, happy to curtail this right in this instance. So we’ll need to get advice on that.

Another thing which indicates to me that a less than four-month—3½ month—report-back time will not be sufficient is we haven’t yet opened for submissions. Many people may not be aware of this, but when we have bills introduced to the House, our very, very helpful parliamentary library put together a debate pack and it, essentially, puts all of the media articles and all of the press releases and all of the commentary on bills before parliamentarians. I don’t know if they’re available publicly, but they’re a collation of all of the relevant material. Now, most often, they are a few pages long and it might be because the bill hasn’t been to select committee, there hasn’t been a lot of media commentary on it, but in this case, we have a significant debate pack of, I think, around 26 pages of organisations and individuals who have commented on the fact that the Government is introducing these move-on orders, and have either put out a media release or written an article or in some way commented publicly on that fact. That indicates—26 pages of this material prior to even the introduction of this bill and the first reading—indicates a level of interest which is likely to be substantial.

I think, on the Justice Committee, we do always try and make sure that we hear from everyone who asked for an oral submission, who has written a relevant submission. I understand it hasn’t been possible for all of the Justice Committee bills, and colleagues who have been on the Justice Committee prior to the time that I joined, have indicated frustration that on things like the Treaty principles bill, they weren’t able to hear all of the submissions. We don’t want move-on orders to be a situation where we have so many submissions and such a short space of time that we cannot listen to New Zealanders. The people who have already commented on this are wide-ranging. We have a comment on the record from a number of different Government agencies, through the process of getting this bill to the House, and a lot of that commentary has been negative. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Justice Committee decided to ask those agencies, who have publicly said that there are issues with this bill, either to appear or for advice. I think that would be a perfectly reasonable thing for the Justice Committee to do in order to satisfy ourselves that we understand the issues before it.

Also, a number of non-governmental organisations, who work with homeless young people in particular, I know have a big interest in this. I know that the organisation Kick Back in Auckland, for example, has been very active in advocating for the rights of homeless young people in Auckland, and I’m sure that they will want to have a period of time that is sufficient. I do think the suggestion—we do sometimes travel outside of Wellington to hear submissions, and because this bill mainly affects Auckland, I think that that would be a relevant consideration for the Justice Committee to consider as to whether it would be appropriate to go to Auckland and actually give those people, who we’re talking about in the bill, an opportunity to provide their advocacy to us. I think it would be unrealistic to expect them to travel to Wellington. Obviously, these days we have a lot of submissions by Zoom, but, in this instance, it may be more appropriate for the Justice Committee to head hearings in Auckland. I know a number of members already reside there, so that wouldn’t be too much of an issue.

But those things take time because it means the secretariat has to travel there. It means that you have to have all of the organisation around having in-person hearings in Auckland. We did do this recently on the Governance and Administration Committee, where we had a really full day of submissions in Auckland and it was really good. I think that that would be an act of good faith to listen to Aucklanders and have those submissions there. But of course, with a shortened report-back time, we are limited and we haven’t heard, as I said, from the Minister any substantive reasons as to why there can be the place.

I mean, we can proffer that there might be a reason, which is that the Government is unsure of its re-election and therefore wants to put something—this bill—that they obviously state that they feel strongly about, in place before the next general election. If that is the reason, I have to be clear, that isn’t what has been stated. But if that was the reason, I don’t think that there is a reason that the House should support because, of course, Governments are elected for a three-year term—

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: We know it.

CAMILLA BELICH: Yeah, we should know it. Governments are elected for a three-year term. They have that period of time to enact the legislation and curtailing normal parliamentary procedure that allows for the input from the public on something that is important, and there is a lot of passionate debate, as you would have seen on this bill, means that we should have at least four months, if not longer. An option for another amendment that we’re possibly thinking about, although it would be after the election, would be six months, which is the usual time period. Up to other members whether they want to consider whether that is an amendment that might need to be moved.

But I do support the amendment of Xu-Nan. I do not support the shortened report-back time for the reasons that I’ve outlined. I think, really, the Minister owed us some additional reasons if he did want to curtail public engagement on such an important bill before the House.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) (17:40): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have tabled an amendment to the motion because it troubles me that when these shortened report-back motions are put to the House, they always throw in a few extras to further liberalise the powers of the committee to meet. My motion is, and I move that all of the words after the words—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Is the member moving a motion?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I just said, “I move.”

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Thank you.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I move, That all of the words after the words “3 September 2026” be struck out.

Those words that appear after that motion are the words which allow the committee to meet during the evening of a day on which the House has sat and to meet on a Saturday and to meet whilst the House is sitting and to meet outside of Wellington.

Now, take “outside of Wellington”. My friend Camilla Belich has just observed that that might be useful, but it’s not a power that is necessary. It’s interesting, I note that none of the Government members from the Justice Committee are in the House for this debate, which goes to show—

Rima Nakhle: What are you talking about?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Oh, no, you’re right, sorry. They’ve appeared. But the point is this—the point is this—

Suze Redmayne: You should have crossed that line out.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No, I’ve corrected it; they’ve appeared. I’ve corrected it. Don’t get alarmed. But the point is this: when the House is sitting, I would like to be in the House doing the work of this House in these debates. This is the premier institution of Parliament. It is the House of Representatives, and I take my role of representing my constituents in this House, in this seat, very seriously. The Justice Committee now has the power to sit whilst the House is sitting and to drag me away from anything other than question time, and we know there are important bills going through this House, important debates, including general debates that I want to contribute to, that I want to represent the interests of my constituency in this House.

By that motion that Minister Paul Goldsmith has put forward, he can deny me my right, because I have a conflicting duty to go and represent on the select committee at the same time, and that’s not right. The real point is this: it’s entirely unnecessary. As the good members of the Justice Committee who are in the House know, the committee can meet in recesses, and it frequently does. It is an extraordinarily busy committee and it does meet in recesses, quite often for whole days. We might grumble about it and we might have discussions in the committee about how and when we meet, but we do it—but we do it. That’s the appropriate thing to do, not to take away one of the most important functions of a member of Parliament, which is to stand up in this House.

I guess the other thing is this. I mean, here we are on a Thursday afternoon approaching the adjournment for the week. Well, next Thursday afternoon, we’ll probably be in Budget urgency, but the next Thursday afternoon that the House is sitting, the select committee meeting can be called. So we won’t be going home at 6 p.m. to our constituencies; we may well be sitting into the night on a day that the House has sat. Of course, we can roll into Friday as well.

One of the things that’s not well appreciated is that there is no particular limit, other than Sunday, on when a select committee can sit and this will encroach, again, on important work that MPs have to do, including work in constituencies, so we may well be sitting on a Saturday through to a Friday of a sitting week and on to a Saturday, because we saw in this House the degree of interest in this bill. We have seen quite a few bills go through this House and many, many first readings. It’s very rare that you see the gallery full for a first reading speech, but here we have it today. That is an indication of the interest that is in this bill, and yet we’re going to be shuffling through this bill including on Fridays and Saturdays, if necessary.

Hon James Meager: Oh no!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Look, I know that my colleagues across the House constantly tell me how important and busy they are in their electorates. I imagine Carl Bates will be at City Mission Whanganui on Saturday helping at the food bank. But those things—

Carl Bates: Friday morning.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No, you won’t; not if the select committee is sitting, because that constituency work is important as well. I’m out on the streets doing some street collection tomorrow—not if the select committee’s meeting. I’m meeting Presbyterian Support tomorrow; not if the select committee is meeting.

Hon Cameron Brewer: You’re a legislator, mate; do your job.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: That’s the problem; there is a place for the work of legislation, but it is regulated by Standing Orders for a reason. This is my real point, I suppose. It may well be that none of those powers are exercised, because I’ve seen these powers being put in motions before and they’re just a belt and braces: “Just in case you want it. Here you go. Have these extra powers to sit.” But they’re never exercised, because, actually, once we get in the room, despite the harping from across the House, we generally sit down and work out what’s the best way to get through these things, so to give unnecessary extraordinary powers really cuts across what should be done here.

Look, I was disappointed that the Minister didn’t give a reason as to why this piece of legislation should have a shortened period, other than to say, essentially, a circular argument: “I would like this piece of legislation to proceed through the House quickly because I want to get it done quickly.” That’s all he said.

He didn’t say, for example, the issue is at crisis point and we need these powers as soon as possible, which would have been false, or “It’s a simple piece of legislation. It won’t take long.” He didn’t say that there’s no interest in this legislation, and there won’t be many people wanting to submit. He didn’t give a single substantive reason, and so here we are wondering why he wants to rush it. In fact, it would be much more appropriate—I know that Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendment pushed it out to I think a bit over four months, but it’s much more appropriate for this to be pushed out for the full period, which would be over the election period, so that we can deliberate this properly, because it does deserve careful consideration.

For example, one of the things that really deserves full consideration of the committee is the issue of begging, right? Now, in their speeches, the members on the other side sort of avoided the fact that begging can precipitate a move-on order, which can precipitate a fine, which can then precipitate imprisonment. What exactly is begging? I will be on the streets I think it’s tomorrow afternoon for Aviva asking for money from passers-by. That sounds a bit like begging to me. Apparently there’s some carve-out for legitimate begging or legitimate requests for money. Well, let’s talk about what that is. If I ask for money for Lawrence, and Lawrence asks for money for me, does that mean that it’s legitimate because I’m not asking for myself? I don’t know. They’re the kind of questions that the select committee needs to be delving into.

We need to hear from people who are directly affected, the people who might be asked to move on. We need their views, and they’re not views that are got quickly or easily; in fact, they might not even be in writing. One of the things, of course, the select committee has trouble with is hearing enough oral submissions. Sometimes we get one-line submissions with a request to be heard. I hope, in this case, we’ll have enough time to hear them, even though they say, “I oppose this bill. Please hear me.”, perhaps not even spelt correctly. They may well be the people who are affected by this bill, who don’t have good literacy skills, who may be able to come and tell their story in person, but if we don’t have enough time to do it, then we’re in real trouble.

Look, I know the select committee by and large works well and hard at the work it does, and relatively cooperatively, but, in this case, that’s going to be very hard to do because it’s a very tricky problem, both legally in terms of how the law’s going to work, but also kind of socially and personally. These are complex people we’re dealing with and so we need as much time as we can to do that, and we certainly don’t need the list of other constraints on the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The question before the House for debate is that the amendment be agreed to. The amendment is now debatable together with the motion.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green) (17:50): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Knowing the rules, I want to speak specifically to the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment around the strike-out for anything that’s after 3 September. I actually would support the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment, because my amendment simply makes a rational push out to what is before the dissolution of Parliament. I think that if we’re able to give the opportunity to have the full six months by striking out that date completely, that does allow us more time to consider. My understanding—and this is something that I personally haven’t experienced before—is that when the previous Parliament dissolves and then a new Parliament commences, once the new Parliament commences, the process is that there will be a reinstatement motion that allows the continuation of any previous Parliament’s activities.

My amendment, in some ways, was quite cynical in the sense that it makes the assumption that the Government wants to push this through, noting that it will neither be picked up or it will be repealed by the next Government. I think that if we are able to take on board the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment, it actually is also a sign, I guess, in some ways, of confidence and reassurance by the current Government that no matter what happens in the election and what happens next term, this bill will continue to be considered by the select committee. I think that if they really think that this is something that is supposed to be effective and long and enduring, they wouldn’t mind accepting what the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has proposed and having a full-on six-month select committee process as opposed to what I proposed, which is just, essentially, four months and a day.

I also think that when we are looking at what the Hon Dr Duncan Webb and my colleague Camilla Belich have said, we simply don’t know as a select committee the sheer interest for this bill—how many submissions we’re going to get. Again, if we are able to get something that’s substantial like the Treaty principles bill, then it actually would mean that there is potentially no possible way that we would be able to even consider this bill as well as everything else in the Justice Committee without having that six-month period like the honourable member’s amendment.

It also means that as a select committee, what you then need to do is try to push everything and start to have to think about the priority of the bills that we have in front of us and what that would mean. Obviously, we want to be able to work to our current deadline for some of the bills. Potentially, again, for consideration—this is something I haven’t mentioned before—it wouldn’t be necessary, if we take on board the Hon Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment, to write to the Business Committee to ask for those kinds of extensions.

I also think the other consideration to make, if we are allowed to have a full-on six-month select committee by striking out 3 September 2026, is that when we are looking at the submission process and also the hearings during the select committee, we make certain assumptions. I want to really pick up on something that Camilla Belich mentioned, which is that we are now used to doing things on Zoom or on video or using audiovisual technology. However, what we often fail to consider is that our submission portal, our selection process, my colleague Tamatha Paul can confirm, requires people to have access to a device to the internet, and to be able to operate technology, and that may not be the case when we are looking at the requirements or the constituents we’re trying to reach with this particular bill.

Again, if we are going to have a full six months, we may be able to tease that out, but I don’t know if the select committee at this stage is prepared to have to accept submissions via writing. If we have submissions via writing and the submission period is only 2½ weeks as opposed to six weeks for a six-month bill, does that mean that we can accept late submissions if they’re done in writing but the date stamp of that writing, whatever happens to our New Zealand Post service, is on a day that is within that period? Potentially, that means that our hearings will need to be pushed out. It’s the same thing when we’re looking at being able to travel the country and having discussions, because sometimes, for the people and the communities that we want to hear from, they may not be able to have access to Zoom and audiovisual technology.

This is why I’m taking this particular call—just to really support and tautoko what the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has suggested in his amendment. I think, with that, that is sufficient from me, and I’m sure other people may have further considerations.

TODD STEPHENSON (Whip—ACT) (17:56): I move, That debate on this question now close.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 26 May 2026.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.